The floor vanished beneath his feet, and Cygnus didn’t even feel it when he collapsed to his knees, clutching his head as the vison tore through him.

Always unpredictable, and worse, uncontrollable, his precognition was either fully active, or completely dormant.

Times like these, when it woke completely, he had to fight or lose himself in the visions. More than one precog had lost their mind to a powerful vision, and his were overwhelming on a good day.

Ships.

Thousand upon thousand of sleek ships, bigger than the ones they had been fighting, surrounded by their favored destroyers and backed by hollowed-out asteroids that were covered in half-natural plating that looked both built and organic at the same time.

Al this time, the great war that humanity was fighting, and barely surviving, and it was against the slightest vanguard. Against scout ships, sent in to clear the way for the true power of their invasion.

Cygnus fought to hold himself against the vision as the black vastness of space opened around him, and his mind slipped free of his control, one snapping threat at a time.

It was too much. It was too much, and he couldn’t hold on as the vision tore at him, icy cold with melting steel burning at his nose.

Just as the last threads of his control snapped, a silver chain snapped through his mind, glimmering with olden will, and deep, glowing red that left him warm and shaken at the same time.

(Reach for me,) Andra told him, all her power channeled into holding him steady against the void that threatened to destroy his sanity. Her control, hard-won, shattered, and forged again, shone with determination. (Cyg, I’m not gonna let you go. I have you.)

(They’re coming,) Cygnus told her, a green whisper against her silver chain as she slowly reeled him safely back into his own body, even as the vision raged around him. (They’re coming and the queens we’ve been fighting, they’re nothing compared to the ones who are coming for us.)

(I know,) Andra said grimly, and pulled on their connected minds once more until Cygnus felt the cool, processed air of the ship against his skin, and opened his eyes. It took a moment for him to figure out what he was looking at, and then he realized it was the table, as viewed form the floor. His head was in Andra’s lap, and her fingers carded through his hair, soothing and gentle. (I saw.)

“Get me to Ursa,” he said, and winced at the pain in his throat. He had seen recordings of himself during a vision, and Dus told him once, as they shared a drink long ago, that he screamed until his voice went out. That, it seemed, had not changed. “I have to tell the generals what’s coming.”

Andra hesitated, still pale and a little fragile from her long captivity, but he trusted her, needed her there. His own mind felt cored-out and bruised, and every thought sent a spike of agony through his head.

The visions were destructive. In his younger days, his telekinesis tended to wake at the same time, and only his long years of training kept him from destroying the ship, now.

That, or, as he noticed a broken glass, shattered on the floor as if it had been flung against the wall and fallen, Andra contained the worst of his damage.

“I got to you before you did worse than throw a glass,” she said, following his thoughts as she often did, and got his arm over her shoulders. “I can’t lift you like this. Can you get your legs under you?”

“Maybe?” he hedged, but when she put her strength into getting him upright, he managed to rise unsteadily. (My throat is going to give out.)

“I’ll speak for you,” Andra promised. “Or use telepathy.”

(Ursa is spooked by telepathy.)

“That’s dumb. I’ll speak for you. I saw it too.”

A fact that he was ridiculously grateful for, since he was still staggering under the aftereffects of the vision alone. (You saved me. I was- I couldn’t hold it.)

“You scared me,” Andra said, and paused when they reached the door so he could catch his breath. “I felt you going, felt the vision take you. Remember how we met?”

He did, and squeezed her shoulders, blessing his strange precognition for waking the moment his syzygy was there, close enough to anchor him that first time, and many times after. (Yes.)

She was glad too. He could see the red-cored pink that was her love for him, wrapped through a tightly-woven mesh of metallic memories. The thread sprang from her memory of his teasing comment about her choice of mental occupation, and wove through the layers of days spent fixing her sad little ship and learning how to share the space between their minds.

He tugged lightly on the red-lined thread where it rooted in his first words to her, in the intricacy of her thoughts and her easy good humor about his power.

“Flirt with me later,” Andra told him, and smiled at the touch on their bond. Her silver chain was still woven through his mind and he leaned into it ever so slightly, relieved to have the strength of their bond to hold himself together. She felt it, and sent something like warmth that suffused through the chain like glimmers of sunlight on water. “Ready?”

(As long as we’re together,) Cygnus told her, and bent when she leaned up to kiss his cheek, right at the corner of his mouth, and he leaned his forehead against hers. (We can face anything.)