Note: Inspired by a conversation with Adri in Denver. Leather braids and the ten-second camera!

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

The blue-haired girl doodled along the margin of her playbook, head cocked as though listening to something else entirely. In fact she was, but Kali knew she could hear what was being said even over the sound of music organizing itself in her mind. Her ability to do the two things simultaneously drove her parents to distraction.

"I believe that our existence doesn't end with death," Amareigh answered at last. She expanded her sketch, though whether she was correcting or adding to the music only she could hear was a mystery.

Kali blew her bangs up off of her forehead with an amused sigh. "Why can't you ever just answer yes or no?" she demanded.

"Because yes or no doesn't answer the question," her friend replied promptly. "And how do I know that what you mean by 'reincarnation' is what I mean? We could be talking about totally different things."

"Okay," Kali agreed, frowning a little. "Then what are you talking about?"

Amareigh shrugged, sapphire wisps of hair curling over her earpiece as she studied her stylus intently. "You're the one using the word. What are you talking about?"

She sighed again, but it was a fair enough question. Amareigh never bent her sometimes eccentric thought processes to a task without making her partner work at least as hard as she was. Her offbeat wisdom didn't come cheaply, but it did come.

"I'm talking about living again," Kali said at last. "Me--the person I am now--being reborn into a different body and leading a different life somewhere in the future. With the people I loved before, in this life."

"Won't happen." Her friend dismissed the notion without even looking up.

A little hurt, Kali could only stare at her. "What do you mean it won't happen? Don't you want us to be together again--after we die?"

"Love." Bright eyes caught hers through the curtain of hair, and Amareigh's gaze was as intent as it had ever been when she was staring at her playbook. "I'll always be a part of you. If you're sure of nothing else, you can be sure of that, because it's the truest thing I know."

The musician's mouth was on hers before she knew what was happening, and she gave herself up to the kiss eagerly. New and dizzy and exciting, there was still something just the slightest bit familiar about it. The feeling had been there even the first time, and the sense of comfort and recognition in something so spontaneous had prompted her question about living again.

"Do you feel that?" Amareigh whispered, letting the words breathe across her cheek as she drew back a little. "That's us; that's the more that transcends our thoughts and our bodies and even our lives. That's some fundamental part of us that just is, whether we're aware of it or not."

"But--" She turned her head a little, feeling the sky-colored strands brush against her lips. "If there's a fundamental piece of both of us that goes beyond the lives we're living now, then don't you believe that it will come back someday?"

"I believe that our existence continues after death," her friend reminded her. "Death isn't an end; it's just a change, like anything else. I believe that we continue," she added, forestalling Kali's objection. "I just don't believe that the people we are now continue.

"Who we are is so ephemeral," she murmured, glancing back at her playbook while Kali tried to think of the right thing to say. "I'm not the same person I was before I met you, and I won't be the same person after you're gone. But I'll find you again, or you'll find me, and we'll have another one of these silly conversations when we could be kissing or writing music. Is that enough of an answer for you?"

"No," Kali protested. "Why do we have to find each other at all? Why can't we just stay together forever?"

"Because things change, love." Amareigh had switched her stylus to her other hand in order to keep her face close to Kali's while she drew. "What seems good to you now won't seem so good to who you are tomorrow, and we'll have to adapt."

"You're all I want," Kali insisted stubbornly. "You'll always seem good to me."

"I know," her friend answered with an odd smile. "You'll always be good to me too. But not always in the same way. Not for either of us. We'll love again, but Amareigh and Kali don't exist outside of these days we have right now. Nothing we have or do lasts forever."

Kali wondered what the dreamy heart that Amareigh was drawing in her playbook sounded like. "How can you always be a part of me if nothing lasts forever?" she asked crossly. This was obviously not going to be one of their more enlightening conversations.

"Nothing that we do," her friend corrected. "What we are is always true, no matter how much we change or who we become. I think it's funny how some people try to become immortal doing something that they think other people will remember. The only way to live forever is to become yourself, because that's the only thing that lasts."

She seemed to contradict herself with every other sentence. Kali had long ago decided that words just didn't have the scope to show what her friend--recently her lover--was trying to express. Whether that implied preternatural intelligence or a total lack of rationality... well, some days she leaned more toward one than the other.

"So you think we last even though we become different people?" Even now Kali didn't know whether she was trying to catch her out or looking for reassurance that her answers were more thought out than they seemed. Maybe both.

Amareigh tilted her head again, stylus frozen as she listened to the silent melody translate from book to ear. "That's why we go on," she remarked absently. "If we didn't change, we'd stop existing--don't you see? You can't exist as the same person for more than an instant, or time would freeze."

She didn't seem to notice the bemused look Kali was giving her, but she smiled when her friend pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. "If you say so," Kali murmured, brushing the blue curls back with two fingers. "I'll try to become myself quickly so I can stay with you forever."

Amareigh gave her a secretive smile. "I bet you said that last time, too."

She couldn't help laughing at the coy look on her friend's face. "Do you kiss as well as you confuse?" she teased, moving even closer.

The other girl tugged her earpiece free and hung it gently over Kali's ear. "Listen and find out," she suggested. The playbook reverted to the beginning, and just as the music began Kali found herself on the receiving end of a very real, completely non-mystical kiss.