"I miss them," Skarloey breathed to Rheneas, under the cover of night, tucked away where nobody, not even the stars, would hear. "I miss them. The crowds, the regulars, the good people... even the bad ones, the loud ones, the raucous ones. The quiet scares me, Rheneas. The only sound I can hear is the footsteps of the end."
Rheneas was silent for a long moment, his mind fighting through the haze of sleep, before his lips finally formed a reply. "Are you scared, Skarloey?"
Answering a question with another question wasn't proper, of course, but given that it still served as an answer, Rheneas decided to let it pass. He sighed. "Of course I am. But what is there to be done? Shall I worry myself with what could be, what might be? There is no use in doing such things."
The two engines lapsed into silence, both of them now fully awake against their wishes, before Skarloey once more began to speak, his eyes turned upwards, gazing at the stars. "I once heard a priest say that humans are the only ones to go to heaven. Animals cannot go. But what about us? Do we have souls? Do we have a means of reaching heaven?"
Rheneas' brow furrowed as he fixed Skarloey with a look containing some mix of consternation and affection, unsure of where he should even begin. "I don't know. And I'm quite sure that the humans barely know, so there's really very little point in wondering."
"...I wish I knew whether there was a heaven for engines."
"Because it would make me feel better."
Rheneas hummed thoughtfully, conceding the point. Certainty did make an engine feel better, that much was true. Humans could often find it in themselves to allow some room for doubt, but as far as engines were concerned, certainty was high on the list of necessities, just after the physical ones.
"Oh, I don't care about going," Skarloey laughed. "I just want to know if it exists. If it does, then that would certainly be good news. And if it doesn't, then I don't need to waste my time hoping for something I won't get. But I don't like the idea of the end approaching and not knowing what comes next."
Rheneas heaved a sigh, understanding that yet again, his brother had a slightly different outlook—dare he say more "human"—on this issue than he did. "Does it really matter, though? We will serve our railway until our wheels fall off, and what happens to us after our flame burns out is not for us to know."
Skarloey's face scrunched up in a pout as his eyes flicked back towards Rheneas, although his good humor hadn't quite been snuffed out. "I know! I just can't help thinking about it, is all. After all, once it's over... I'll be alone."
Ah, there it was. Murmured in a trembling, glassy voice, Skarloey's true feelings sat like stones upon the wind, weighty in their honesty. Rheneas closed his eyes and licked his lips, arranging his words carefully in his mind. "Skarloey. I don't know what will happen a month from now, or a year from now, or ten years from now. But what I do know is that right now, we are together, and despite everything and everyone that we have lost, we have also gained much. New friends. New passengers. I too would prefer to know, but since we can't, there's not much to be done about it. I shall simply be grateful that every morning, I wake up alongside you in this shed, and every night, I fall asleep, preparing myself for tomorrow. We ought to be grateful for the certainty we do have."
Skarloey took a deep breath, then another, before giving Rheneas a grateful smile. "Yes, you're right, Rheneas. I'm just being silly, worrying over nothing again."
"It's not silly," Rheneas admonished lightly. "You pointed it out yourself; I still fear uncertainty, even as I try to ground myself away from it. It's only natural. All we can do is what we can."
"Yes, you're right," Skarloey agreed, a yawn escaping him moments later. "Hm... it's funny. I still have all of this uncertainty, but now it doesn't feel quite so frightening."
"That's good," Rheneas murmured softly, a fond smile on his lips. "Get some sleep. Few things are more certain than the sun coming up earlier than one would like."
And with that, the two little old engines closed their eyes, and this time, the quiet didn't seem quite so eerie.
