Husband likes to not say things. It is not that he wants to keep secrets from me (I think), and it is not that he is shy with me (I think). What he told me when I once made him tell me was that he does not want to affect reality. He is afraid that saying something is impossible or does not exist or cannot be done or does not work here as it did in Eorzea might make that true, partly because of what he thinks is possible, and partly because of what I think is possible. He does not want me to think of anything as impossible...he wants me to simply do things, and show him they are possible, and then he knows he can do them too.

I partly understand this. I have met Sharlayans who have talked about how aether can be changed by will, and will is based on belief. But I also understand how to use google and wikipedia and ck12.org, which means him not telling me something only slows me down. And sometimes annoys me.

Last night we were camping at the edge of an area called the Ozarks. We were sitting by our small fire. We had had some cider. We could simply have leaned against one another until one or both of us fell asleep, but I found myself thinking of Earth, and then of Hydaelyn, and then of the Mothercrystal.

"Does Earth have a mother goddess, Husband?"

"Some say yes, and her name is Gaia. Some would direct you to God. Most people would lump it under religion...I am not aware of people with actual practical experience in the matter, though there's lots of people who might claim they do." He toyed with my hair. "What brought this up?"

"I sometimes think about the struggle between light and darkness in Eorzea, and wonder if it exists here."

"Again, most people would call that religion, or think of it metaphorically. I myself am not aware of an actual active war, no."

"So there is no reason to think the world could be destroyed, correct?"

His fingers stopped. He fell silent.

"Husband?"

"...I mean, maybe not in the sense that you mean, but..."

"What?"

"...You know how there's things I'm not sure I want to tell you because it might color your thinking?"

"Yes. Do you know how much I dislike being kept in a box?"

"...Yeah. Okay." I gave him a moment to find the words he wanted to use. Then he said, "Scientists say the sun is like a really big campfire."

I did not expect this. I looked at the fire in front of us. "Campfire?"

"Yeah. A small campfire, contained properly, not a lot of fuel, will just run out of fuel and burn out after a while. Make a campfire too big, though, and it can grow, get past the place you put it, catch other things on fire, and consume everything around it."

"And the sun is a...very big campfire?"

"Last estimate I heard was that in about five billion years the sun will get bigger, consume the planets around it, and then start to burn out."

"The planets around it include Earth?"

"Yeah."

"So it is not that the world can be destroyed...it is that it will be destroyed?"

"Right."

"Five...billion years is a long time. I cannot even think of how long that is. Surely in all that time people will find a way to...perhaps move to another star?"

"Probably, yeah. Though the other stars are campfires too. Some burn faster, some burn slower, some explode...but they all eventually burn out."

I lifted my head from his shoulder to look at him. "What will be left if all the stars burn out?"

"I don't think anyone knows."

"Do scientists think anything lasts forever?"

"I'm not aware of anyone who's been around long enough to answer that."

I thought about this. I looked at our campfire. I looked at the other campfires in the sky. None of them seemed to be exploding or burning out right then.

"Why did you not want to tell me this?"

He sighed and let his gaze fall to the ground. "This'll sound stupid..."

"Entertain me, please."

"...I heard about all this when I was a kid. Lecture at a planetarium. Great visual effect of the sun getting all big and red. It was the first time I really thought about impermanence and stuff. The sun could die, the planet could die, all the people could die..." His eyes closed. "...I could die."

I watched his face.

"The people there tried to make me feel better, saying stuff like, 'Oh, it's okay, it's way far in the future, we'll be long gone before it happens.'" A strange smile appeared on his face. "Somehow that didn't help."

I tried to fit this into his usual pattern. I tried to understand what he did not want me to think was impossible. "Did you think not telling me the world will end would mean I might think I would live forever?"

"We never died in Eorzea."

"We died many times in Eorzea. We simply never went to the aetherial sea."

I returned my head to his shoulder and slowly stroked his back. "Five billion years...so we are probably fine tonight?"

He snorted softly. "Yeah, probably."

"Perhaps even tomorrow night."

"We'll see how tomorrow goes."