Great piece of work here. Always interested to learn more about Simon's frame of mind when under duress. I'm very glad to see Nia make an appearance, even if only in Simon's dreams. Seeing how Simon draws upon her even in his darkest hour is inspiring. Thanks for sharing this with us.

MJE

This is a lovely little piece. I'm quite taken by how you convey the many emotions Simon must be feeling at this point, especially towards the middle when you linger on his continued feelings for Nia. Nice shoutout to Viral at the end.

That was Nia's caress and breath he felt at the end, wasn't it?

And the fading particles of light were the telltale of her teleporting away just before he woke up.

I should begin, I think, by saying that this is really a marvelous story both stylistically and in terms of remaining true to the series. I don't know if you're intentionally aiming for any kind of asceticism in the way you narrate, but if you are, you should know that it's working beautifully. I don't think there was ever, to begin with, any particular danger that you would not do a good job of characterizing Simon, but you deserve commendation for that good job all the same.

I should also begin by cautioning that there is some... oh, let's call it "divergence," between what I think is good writing and what everyone else seems to think is good writing, and so my comments and suggestions may be of very limited utility to you.

But now I've begun twice, and that really makes no sense. So I shall begin the beginning with a random and poorly disguised Cole Porter reference and include, substantively, everything I have already said below this.

[Insert the substantive points I have made thus far here]

My complaints are all pretty minor (so minor, in fact, that I can briefly summarize them in bullet points):

-"It's not quite a lullaby, but Simon decides that he likes it, feeling nostalgic somehow." is a bit unclear (I'd like to also say convoluted, but that seems too strong a word.) Do you mean that the song has a nostalgic feel to it, or that Simon is now feeling nostalgic because of it? Consider rephrasing.

-"But this is different from when he lost Aniki. [...] Nia is not dead. She still lives, and she is changed. There is no closure. He's not even sure if he should be grieving." I really can't quite explain this one (at least not as clearly as I'd like). But, somehow, "there is no closure" feels cut-off from the rest of the paragraph. The rest of the paragraph reads like an actual complaint that someone might say to express that they are bothered by the absence of closure. "There is no closure" itself simply reads like a bullet point summary of that complaint. There's nothing wrong with that, but having the summary in the middle is kind of odd placing. You might want to move it about and either want to start or end the paragraph with "there is no closure." (I, personally, would go for ending it that way.)

-Lastly, and this is an unbelievably tiny quibble, when reading the "Jab, jab, jab, jab...SNAP" the pacing of jabs felt a bit too slow and regular. I'm sure this sounds strange as strange can be, but when reading it I heard a slow (no more than once ever thirty seconds) water-dripping sound that made it very difficult to imagine a spoon snapping against a wall. This is so tiny that it may well not be worth fixing, but consider varying where you place the commas next time.

On the whole, though, this was just an incredible read (though I'm sure you already knew that).

Regards,

A-D