She didn’t remember much about the great war, only that there was a war, a flurry of forces that wracked her world, buffeting her back and forth until she settled in a strange land. She didn’t remember much about her life before, only that last moment her love kissed her goodbye and left to fight. She promised she would wait.

And, so, she waited.

She sat on the furred grass that grew on the plain, tucked into herself to stay warm and keep her heart dry. Her love had promised to return, and if there was one thing she understood, it was that promises must be kept. She did not cry, did not despair, although she expected to wait a while. What she didn’t know was how long that wait would be.

She waited while the rains beat down, watching the ground dip and fill with water, smelling earth and plant and microbes and the scent of her own skin. Glossy, dark green leaves grew all around her, sheltering her from sun and storm, concealing her from claw and tooth and hungry eyes.

She waited while the air cooled and moisture hardened, and the no-longer-furry plain grew powdery beneath her. She waited as the big frost came, rocking only once to stay comfortable as she huffed white puffs over desperate animals that dared to venture close.

Sometimes she slept, sometimes restful, other times fitful. Sometimes her stomach gnarled with hunger, but most of the time she was content to gaze at the horizon, dreaming both asleep and awake about the passing of the days.

Eventually the ice before her turned to water, and birdsong immersed her senses. Four-limbed creatures ambled by, upright, some carrying long branches with stones tied to one end, then later sharpened shapes that smelled the way their blood did. They would look at her but not disturb, often whispering stories and pointing out thin lines along the ground that shifted almost preternaturally around her feet. They called her “bardan”, then “boya”, then “anthill”, then “silicon dioxide”. Such curious sounds these creatures made.

Later, they would come carrying small slabs of sand shaped by volcanic fire, and stare longingly into the smooth world reflected on their glassy surfaces the way she stared into the distance and wondered when she’d see her love again.

As the weather sweltered, the creatures stopped coming. The lake became a swamp and then a plain once more, then finally a desert. Only tiny critters visited now, bearing news from afar in the form of clicks and strange smells. Soon, they stopped coming too.

The sun reddened and enlarged, and still she waited, now alone, anticipating no insect nor bird nor water nor footfall from upright beasts. The wind was a gale, whipping sand across her back. It turned mountain to molehill, volcano to crevice, and patience to fatigued longing.

A promise may have been a promise, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t doubt. There’d been many times, actually, where she wondered about the point of it all. What would happen when her love returned? Did that mean there’d never again be a great war, that she’d never again have to wait? She didn’t fancy that, having to do this all over from the start. She ached from sitting tucked for so long, and it’d be nice if someone brought her a drink.

And then there were those moments after nights of restless sleep, of nightmares that her love had simply vanished, and all this waiting was for nothing. She’d wake too numb to cry, verging on despair, while indifferent time moved on from day to night to day. It was on one such occasion, in an insomniac daze, that she realised she’d waited the world away. Even if she meant to break her promise now, there’d be nowhere for her to go. When the red sun at last filled the daytime sky, her heart cracked, wondering what state of her would remain if her love eventually did return.

The air incensed. The ground beneath her feet turned glassy, like the slabs carried by some upright, four-limbed creature she might have encountered in a dream. When the glass began to bubble, she thought about that final kiss which happened so long ago now she might as well have imagined it. As the giant sun devoured the world, solar winds buffeted her hair in a flurry of forces that wracked her mind and warped her thoughts. But a promise was a promise was a promise, she told herself. And, really, it was all she had now, when there was nothing left to do but wait.

One day, after a surprisingly restful sleep, she heard a voice on the particle breeze—faint at first, just a hint of intention carried in the flow of crackling electrons. A finger of plasma touched her cheek and brushed past her lips in memory of that kiss.

“You waited,” said the wind.

“You came back,” she replied, a tear emerging and evaporating.

“Come with me,” urged the wind. “Let’s go home.”

She rolled her shoulders, stretched her legs, and reached upward for her love’s embrace. Disintegrating into the atoms that came from stars, she remembered that mass can neither be created nor destroyed, only rearranged in this universe. A love that leaves would always come back, in some way, in some form, if you just waited long enough.