So, this is my first impression of Scorpio Capricorn relationships: heavy. I’m showing my fire sign bias here. Fire likes to reach up. Water and earth like to sink.

The reason why Scorpio and Capricorn get heavy together is because they both like to go deep. Weight helps you go under. If you’re heavy, then you don’t float. That’s necessary if you are trying to submerge.

Things that Scorpio and Capricorn find to be fun afternoon chat topics: intergenerational family dynamics, the role that history plays in collective trauma, and the poetics of survival. I have to say—as an Aries myself I’m not always there when Scorpio and Capricorn go underwater. I prefer to think about the future.

Have you ever thought about the ocean floor? You’ve probably never seen it because it’s just so well hidden. Sometimes, you can find photos of sections but what is under there is left to our imagination. We simply don’t know. That’s the feeling that you get when you come across a Scorpio’s dynamic with a Capricorn too. Scorpio is the deep ocean and Capricorn is the mountain on the sea bed floor.

Capricorns are just as mysterious as Scorpios. We tend to think of water when we think of mystery but a mountain holds just as much. Mountains appear reliable and obvious. A Capricorn will speak very clearly and resolutely. But a mountain has layers. You don’t see most of it.

You know what? A Capricorn falls in love with a Scorpio’s mystery because that mystery mirrors their own.

A Capricorn is investigative. They like to seek things out and lay them bare. That’s a type of domination in a way—research. You want to know someone so that you know them, not to catalogue them but to figure out how they fit into the life that you have found yourself living. I’ll call it the art of narration just to be a bit fancy about it. You narrate your own life to make sense of it. When you do that, you also narrate other people into it.

Both Scorpio and Capricorn are a bit in love with pain. Capricorn is represented by chains. Chains can cut into you when they bind you even if you’ve chosen those chains for pleasure. Scorpio is that pain that an athlete feels when they push themselves harsh as a mule.

How wretched you are, sleeping there while the whole world steps around you. I must be wretched too because I love you.

I’m being tongue in cheek because I want to mirror Scorpio and Capricorn’s sense of quiet melodrama. These are two of the most dramatic signs in the whole zodiac but not in the fire or air sign way. They don’t tell tall tales or stage big performances. Scorpio and Capricorn prefer to give a dimension of seriousness and depth to their lives. Just plowing through—that’s what you tell yourself when you are melancholic. Life is endurance.

Capricorn has a better work ethic than Scorpio. Scorpio doesn’t really give a shit. You know when Scorpio just kind of disappears for a few months and, when they come back, they’ll say that they were doing some kind of long form art or research project? If you really take the time to think about the effort that a Scorpio in hiding’s project might entail, you’ll probably find that it doesn’t take that much habitual work. What Scorpio’s version of work takes is laborious attention and very little grind. They prefer to sit in the dark and think. They don’t actually do that much.

Not Capricorn—Capricorn doesn’t work in the dark. They like to be seen doing it. For Capricorn, work is a negotiation. They have a schedule and they are extremely precious with time. They don’t like to waste it.

Scorpio is one of the only signs that has the ability to impress a Capricorn without functioning on their schedule. Remember that Scorpios aren’t lazy (unless you define laziness as the tendency for efficiency). Scorpios don’t like to be busy but they like to think really hard. Capricorns only push you when they think you need it and they don’t think that Scorpios need to be pushed at all. A Scorpio can work in an almost self punishing manner. It’s just that it’s all mental for them, all internal.

I think that Scorpio likes Capricorn’s rigor. Capricorn is a sign that is emo enough to “get” Scorpio’s references, jokes, and all that jazz. Capricorn also likes to provide. Scorpio likes to share.

Both Scorpio and Capricorn are enthralled by the idea of destiny. That’s why they investigate their own psyches so thoroughly, because they understand that psychology is a form of destiny and they feel bound to fate. Both are obsessed by the idea of giving up control by seizing it. That’s why they study. They don’t believe in the shallow notion that one can make your own destiny through action alone. They know that half of their habits are unanswered riddles.

Maybe they prefer each other to be riddles at least a little. These are not signs that profess and confess like Cancer or Virgo. Scorpio and Capricorn like to withhold information. They think that, by withholding, they’re actually giving more away. They are telling you what they prefer to not share. That’s a form of honesty.

So, they don’t talk about everything but they allude to everything. They want to be understood without too much explanation.

Both Scorpio and Capricorn are fiercely ambitious. Maybe they can envy each other as most people in relationships do—I don’t know. If they do, they use the envy to drive themselves not forwards but deeper. They share everything in intimacy, even silence.

Life is a riddle. That’s why you struggle through it. Neither Scorpio or Capricorn want to solve the riddle fully. A Capricorn might set out to do it but a Capricorn enjoys being foiled by their own plans too much to be fully rigid about it. Scorpio is the creator of mysteries. Capricorn wants what it doesn’t fully understand. Because life is a riddle and because Scorpio and Capricorn are always trying to understand themselves and each other, they create these long lasting and almost permanent relationships that seem larger than life even though it’s not true that any relationship can last longer than your lifespan.

Scorpio can trust Capricorn. Scorpio doesn’t trust that much but they can trust Capricorn. Why? Because they know that Capricorn will do the work of grieving them for a whole lifetime after they are gone. Most people don’t walk through life thinking perpetually about death but Scorpio does. They think about endings. They don’t plan for them but they think about them. Capricorn does plan and that eases Scorpio. The deep sea wraps itself around the submerged mountain.

Til death do we part—Scorpio and Capricorn won’t end their relationship there. They know that grief is half of love. And they honor that fact together while they are still alive.