FIC: pheres dysseu, birds & lions [part one]

[xihe]

BIRDS AND LIONS [PHERES POV] - 10k

“I..” He hates when you stall like this, so you clear your throat, bounce over to the other side of the table like it was intentional. “Right,” you say, going up on your toes so that you can peer at the plate, and you’re watching him through your eyelashes. His face is soft again, his eyes half-lidded as he focuses on the food, and that’s a relief: he’s a little scary when he’s mad.

(You’re being silly. No one’s scared of their moirail!)

“It’s alright. You’re a pupa. You’ll learn.” He looks at you and smiles, exasperated and thin but still fond. The ball of tension in your thoracic cage unwinds, just a little. “We just have to make sure it’s the right things, that’s all.“
 

4.15 SWEEPS | 9 YEARS OLD

  materialPossessions is now trolling regretfulSalinity!

      MP: ( hellO! )

      MP: ( are YOU perhaps ((pheres dYsseU?)) )

      RS: ummm

      RS: y=s sir

      RS: ???

      RS: who is this =:o

      MP: ( excellent! )

      MP: ( - am rmerOs cUckOO)

      MP: ( Of the l-ne ((hamal)) )

      RS: oh!

      MP: ( - th-nk )

      MP: ( we may have a ((few things)) to talk abOUt! =:) )

Here’s the thing: you didn’t know how dumb you were until you met Rmeros.

You always thought you were one of the smarter kids in your hivestem complex, on account of the fact you’ve read so much. The basement of your hivestem community is huge: it stretches all the way from the start of the stables to the very edge of the fence’s borders, and it’s three floors deep, full of tunnels and rooms dug out by generations of kids. And every single one of those is filled with books.

They fill up the halls in stacks and piles, and they’re all over the walls, on shelves or hooks or on rickety bookshelves that Whydah says are older than any of you. They’re mostly hand-written, old journals and diaries and logs that kids wrote over the sweeps, but some of them are real books, on all sorts of topics, and you’ve read almost all of them.

Well. Not almost all of them! But you’ve read your way through all the books in the west wing, even the really boring ones about things like laws, and you’ve been working through the big stacks out in the hallways. They talk about all sorts of stuff, and even if you don’t understand most of it, it’s the fact you can repeat it that counts, isn’t it?

But it turns out none of the books you read ever talked about signmates, and Rmeros has to tell you all about them. You’re not sure you understood all the walls and walls of numbers he gives you very well, but the gist of it is: every one in every ten thousand trolls has a signmate hatched during linked conscription cycles, which means they’ll hatch close enough to meet planet-side, instead of on the Fleet. For the higherbloods, the greens and the blues and the purples especially, it almost never happens. There just aren’t enough.

But there’s hundreds and hundreds of maroons on the planet for every highblood, and millions hatched for each conscription cycle. Ten thousand isn’t such an awfully big number, then, and so signmates for your caste aren’t terribly rare at all.

You didn’t know anything about signmates before you met him, not even the fact they existed, and it’s been making you wonder what else you don’t know about. But that’s alright, because Rmeros’s been telling you all about everything. You talk to him every night when you wake up, and every morning when you go to bed. He’s online more often than not: when you ask, he tells you it’s a part of his job. You like reading books, but it turns out that Rmeros actually writes them, copying things down and printing them off for highbloods.

The highest troll you’ve ever met is Simoom, who’s just barely yellow. You’ve never actually talked to any of the real yellowbloods in your hivestem complex, on account on the fact they like staying separate from the rusties, but Rmeros says all of his customers are highbloods.

He says a lot of them are even fish. That’s so cool.

But everything about Rmeros is cool! He knows so much, and if you ask, he’s willing to explain almost anything, no matter how stupid your questions get. Or how many you ask: Sipara’s always telling you to shut up, and even Alsike starts sighing when you go off. But Rmeros never seems to mind. He says he’s not that smart, either, just well-read.

You’re pretty sure he’s just being modest, though, because you read all the time, and you’re not nearly as smart as him. And Sipa’s always got her nose stuck in her dumb bug books, and she’s just dumb.

You know, because she isn’t impressed by Rmeros at all.

“He’s not smart, Dys,” she moans, bashing her head against the handle of her digging utensil. You’re out working in your field allotment, trying to get the barley in before the rains start. It’s tiring work, but someone has to do it! “He just knows how to use Troogle!”

You shouldn’t respond! She’s obviously just jealous. “Then how come you don’t?” you say anyway, and then you duck, ‘cause she’s taking a swing at you.

Sipa’s barely four sweeps, but she’s still got her lusus bringing in food for her: she’s already nearly a head bigger than you, and more than a handswidth wider. When her big paw hits your horn, you can feel the impact all the way down to your walkstubs, ringing your poor bones like you’re the warning bell.

Normally a hit to your horns wouldn’t hurt this much! But they’ve been getting obnoxiously long lately, and it’s ruining everything: your balance, your perception, your ability to scuffle with Sipara, because now she just swats you in the horns until you give up.

You’re not giving up quite yet, though! You yowl, your arms pinwheeling desperately, and you just barely manage not to topple, mostly because Sipara’s too busy laughing to hit you again. She has the worst laugh in the world: high-pitched and shrieky, like a witch from the films, and you hate it. You hate her! She’s still laughing when you turn and headbutt her right in the stomach.

The way she chokes mid-laugh is beautiful. She hits the ground with a thud, dirt poofing up all around her, and you scramble over, planting your foot right in the center of her torso. "Get off of me!” she spits, her soundchutes pinned back, and she’s twisting and flailing like a snake.

But she can’t get up with you standing on her, so beaming, you bend your knee so that you can lean in. “Not until you take it back,” you tell her, and you’re going to say more, but then she snatches hold of your hair and yanks you down to the ground.

By the time her lusus comes to separate the two of you, she’s managed to rip out a braid, and you’ve knocked out one of her teeth. She spends the rest of the night spitting blood while you try to fix the rows of seeds you’ve crushed, and neither of you has time to argue about Rmeros at all.

---

4.62 SWEEPS | 10 YEARS OLD

Here’s the thing: if you’re honest about it, you hadn’t really meant to invite Rmeros.

When the first chimes of the husktop had gone off, you were horn-deep in your recuperacoon and fast asleep. The sun was streaming in through the broken glass of your viewing pane, and the air was hot and muggy in the heavy way that made it hard to do anything but drowse. It wouldn’t have woken you up, except that no matter how much you tossed and turned, the chiming of your shared husktop wouldn’t go away.

And it wasn’t the high-pitched birdsong of Sipara’s alerts, but the windchimes you’d picked for yours. Rmeros was the only person who really messaged you at this time of the day, and normally you ignored him. He never seemed to remember that no one but him stayed up all day!

Normally, he’d stop after a few minutes. But it kept going and going, no matter how long you waited, and finally you crawled out of your coon, because.. well, what if it was an emergency?

It wasn’t an emergency. Rmeros was so excited that when you replied, he didn’t even apologise: he just told you he was traveling along the great canal, and hadn’t you mentioned your hivestem community was near there? Somewhere along there? He’d thought he might stop by, and pay you a visit.

The two of you were moirails, after all! Wasn’t it around time that you met in person?

You’d sent him the coords, crawled back into your coon, and nearly had your soundsponges ripped out when Sipara had found out the next evening.

She’d given you such a lecture about strangers and safety, and you’d thought it was silly then, and you still think it’s silly now. Rmeros isn’t a stranger! He’s your signmate. He shares your blood, and your face, and your teeth, and your horns, and - and he’s your moirail to boot.

That’s the opposite of being a stranger! He’s practically you.

But now that the night’s come, you’re starting to feel a little worried.

“I’m gonna put this through his viewing pane,” Sipara says, snatching her rock out of the air. She’s been playing with it all evening, and the soft pap of the stone hitting skin is as familiar by now as the rumble of the cart in the distance.

“Don’t you dare!”

You like going down to the river when the sky is still bright, when no one’s awake and the chill of the water feels better than sopor, but right now, i’s too early even for your tastes: the sun is only just past the horizon, and the sky is still highblood blue, barely streaked with the vibrant purples and reds you associate with safety. You’ve got your suncloak drawn as high as it’ll go, but you can still feel the heat of the day against your horns, a pressure that almost feels physical.

Sipa left her cloak inside, and her face is already going rusty, dark streaks barely visible against her husk. You’d offer her yours, but - her lusus is hiding in her headfluff, and he’s already mantling his feathers as you approach, beak opened in a silent hiss. Sipara’s bird-dad is barely the size of your fist, but he’s got a mean bite, and he hates you almost as much as Sipara.

At least he won’t attack you when she’s standing right there. The last time he tried, she’d threatened to pull out his feathers, one by one, and he’s been wary ever since! You’ve been leery too. You don’t like him, but you don’t want Sipara hurting him, not on your account, and so you just pull your cloak tighter, and peer off into the distance.

You can’t see the rumblecart, but you can hear it, off in the distance. What started off as a distant roar has turned into an entire cacophony of noise: almost indistinguishable chugs and clanks and moans of metal, and above it all, the persistent chug of what must be the engine itself. It started at the beginning of evening, driving you from your coon, and now that it’s nearly dusk, you’ve almost adjusted to the noise.

Your neighbours certainly have. You had a few curious stares out the viewing panes of the town’s communal hivestem, but for the most part, they’ve returned to sleep. They’re all smart enough to stay inside, until the heat of the days died down, and the nights chill has had time to set in.

You don’t have that option. You invited Rmeros up here, and you figure you should at least be out to watch him arrive. There’s no reason Sipara should be out, though, but no matter how much you tell her that, she’s refused to go back inside.

And to be honest, you’re grateful. Or at least, you were until she started talking about ruining his cart.

“Why not?” She cocks her head to the side, careless of the way it sends her lusus sliding.

“'cause I said! And because I’m not fighting with you right now,” you tell her sternly, “so stop it! If you put a rock through his pane, I’ll… I’ll…”

You falter. You’re not sure what to say: there’s nothing you can really threaten her with! Fighting with her will just play into her stupid fronds, and it’s not like you have anything else. Everything she owns, you use, too. What can you threaten: that you’ll tip over her recuperacoon?

Sipara knows it, too. Her bulbs are wide and bright with interest, and she leans in, peering down at you. (She’s taller than you by over a handspan despite being younger, and that’s not fair.) You almost never stand up to her, not when it’s easier to let her get her way. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll never fight with you again,” you say, the words slipping out before you can think them through, and you’re not sure who’s more surprised: you or her. It makes her shut up, at least, that stupid, smug grin fading, and you barrel on, eager to keep the advantage. “I’ll never fight with you again, and I’ll never talk to you, either!”

“Ever,” you add. “Even if you’re dying.”

She scowls at you, and drops the rock.

The two of you wait in silence, except for the occasional squawk of her lusus. All wrapped up in your cloak, you’re toasty and sweating after only a few minutes, and Sipara doesn’t look much better: she’ll probably be as brown as a deathstalker by the time the cart arrives, but she’s not complaining. When you offer her part of your cloak, despite the threatening glare of her dad, she shrugs it off.

She doesn’t want to talk, and there’s nothing but the sound of the town starting to wake around you, and the cart lurching ever closer to distract you from your thoughts.

(What if he’s mean?)

(What if you don’t like him?)

(Worse yet: what if he doesn’t like you?)

After what feels like hours, the combustion cart finally rolls in through the gate.

The cart is over twice your height, and is at least three times your length, and as it squeals to a stop in front of you, it seems almost like a living creature: one ready to run you over and eat you alive. The metal skin shines under the streaks of dust, and the croak and creak of the engine in the night air sounds like the hitch of a monster’s breath.

You’ve seen mechanical buggies before, and carts: they come by every harvest, bristling with adolescents ready to buy produce they can sell out in the cities. Sipara’s lusus has never let her go down to watch the bargaining, and in turn, she’s never let you, even though her dad couldn’t give a fig about what you do. Subadults are dangerous! But you’ve seen the carts from your viewing pane window and listened to the roar of their exits. Rmeros’s cart is larger then any of the buggies you’ve seen, and for all of its sunbright exterior, it’s louder.

It’s bigger, it’s louder, and to be honest, it’s kind of scary.

When Rmeros emerges from the cart, he’s terrifying.

He’s of a girth to match his van: bigger than Sipara, bigger then Whydah, and with a set of top horns that brush the doorframe as he steps out. He’s tall, too, taller than anyone in your town, even the yellowbloods, and most of them are built like beanpoles: tall and stringy, all jutting bones and lean muscle.

On Rmeros, there’s no bones, no flat expenses of husk. His skin is soft and flushed and swollen like one of Sipara’s pet bloodworms, bright with colour and health, and he even has jowls. He doesn’t look like he’s ever missed a meal in his life, or worked for one.

He has to see you and Sipara waiting, half-huddled in the shadow of the cart, but he doesn’t say a word as he steps onto the ground. He doesn’t even look at you, just over and past like you’re not even there, and then there’s a flash of white as he slides the door shut behind him. A lusus, probably - but you don’t look. It’s hard to take your eyes off of Rmeros’s face.

(There’s glistening bands on his horns, shining blue under the moon’s green light. He looks like a highblood.)

(He looks like an older, better version of you.)

You clear your throat, and your breath comes out all at once, a big whoosh of air that you didn’t know you were holding. “Um,” you say, voice squeaking, your wordwaddler heavy as meat in your mouth: “Ah-“

“Hello!” Sipara chirps over you, her words lifting to a trill at the end. You feel more then see the way that her lusus shifts uneasily in her hair, and you can sympathise with the feeling: that’s the sound of a petulant wriggler, demanding attention. Inappropriate for kids your age, and certainly inappropriate towards a stranger.

(But he’s not a stranger, is he? That’s what you’ve been telling her for the past perigee.)

The sound works, though, in catching his attention. Rmeros turns, his head tilting down like he just noticed you for the first time. The tinted sightlenses on his face make his expression hard to read, but you can still see the way his head turns, drifting from Sipara to you and stopping.

You’d known he was older. You hadn’t quite anticipated how much older! Now that he’s looking at you, you feel like a gross, freshly pupated grub and you can’t bring yourself to let go of Sipa’s hand.

(Did you grab it, or did she grab yours? It doesn’t really matter: her fronds are digging furrows into your husk, and her skin is going gray-white between yours.)

“Hello there,” Rmeros says, kneeling down. His voice is nothing like you imagined, too deep, too nasal, but there’s a warmth there that you never thought to expect. “Are you Pheres?”

No one calls you Pheres, and the way he says it is all wrong: fair-is,not fear-ease, like Simoom or sometimes even Whydah barks out when you’ve made them mad.

You nod anyway. Sipara’s breath is going low, pitching like she’s about to start rattling, so you add: “This is Sipa. Ah, Sipara.”

He takes this in solemnly, and then reaches up, and removes his lenses. Your first impulse is surprise - and, oh, then there’s a flood of relief, stealing away the tension with each wave. His eyes aren’t an adult’s maroon, although they ought to be. They’re a bonebleached white that’s faintly glowing even in the dusks bright light.

He has your eyes. He’s practically you.

“My name is Rmeros.” His voice is fond like the two of you really are moirails, and he puts out a hand without hesitation. It’s soft and uncalloused, with buffed claws and rings, but his grip is surprisingly firm when you take it with your free hand.

“And this,” he says, and something moves behind him: the thing that you glimpsed before, a huge, slinking pile of white fur and muscle and fang that growls as it slips out from his shadow, “is my mother.”

---

5.00 SWEEPS / 10 YEARS OLD

“Why do they keep laughing?” Rmeros demands.

Today, it’s just you and Rmeros in his combustioncart: his mom is out hunting, and Rmeros is standing at the nutritionblock, preparing food. You can’t see his face, but that’s fine. You’ve learned to read his voice by now!

He’s not happy.

You start to answer, but Rmeros is still talking, and he continues right over you. “Every time she comes into town, people start snickering. Like she’s some kind of a joke.” The metallic clink of the cutting device on the plate is ringing through the block, and you close your mouth. “She’s not funny.”

“Um.” It comes out hesitant: Rmeros’s gone quiet, but you’re not sure if he’s just drawing in a breath. But then he stops, looks back at you. His eyebrows are up, and his ganderbulbs are narrow. “Do you know?” he asks, and oh, he sounds so suspicious.

“Mhm!” You nod hard enough that your braids go tossing forward, splaying all over your shoulders in a clank of beads. “It’s ‘cause she’s a lamwa.”

He frowns at you. “What?”

Oh. You’ve slipped into Common again! It’s so easy to look at Rmeros and forget that he’s not you: he doesn’t know a lick of Common, and he’s had no interest in learning, no matter how many times you’ve tried to offer. ('No one speaks it outside of the south,’ he says each time, like that’s a reason. He’s in the south right now, isn’t he?)

(But you guess it doesn’t matter. It’s not like he deals with anyone but you.)

“Lamwa,” he repeats now, nose wrinkling like the word’s gone all sour on his tastestrand. “What does that mean?”

You don’t have the words for what you’re trying to say: they’re floating at the top of your pan, like fish in the water, but they slip away each time you reach for them. “Um,” you say instead, and Rmeros is waiting, his lips going thinner with each passing moment. It’s not that you’re nervous: it’s just that Standard’s hard sometimes. “Ah. It’s just – it’s –”

“Just say it, Pheres,” he demands, and it all comes out in a rush. “It means your mom is, um, shady!”

“.. she’s what?”

You wish you hadn’t said anything at all.

“Not shady! Um. Like, ah.. not good?” If you keep talking, maybe you’ll figure out a way to make him stop frowning at you. “Lions aren’t trustworthy. They.. cheat on their quadrants, and – um. They eat people,” you end, your voice faltering, because Rmeros is staring at you like your horns have fallen off.

There’s a moment of silence. You never really minded quiet before Rmeros came: it never lasted long, not with Sipara there to fill it up with chatter and noise. But she’s not here, and the words are lead on your tastestrand, heavy and sour as curdled cream, and he’s not talking.

It drags on and on, until you feel like you’re ready to burst, and then -

“Stop that,” is what finally breaks the silence, and you realise you’ve got your braid in your loadgaper again.

Rmeros watches, disapproving, as you drop it. It hangs lopsided: you’ve chewed almost halfway through the strands, and oh, Alsike spends hours on your hair. She doesn’t care when you do this, but you do. It’s not fair that you keep ruining it!

“If you can’t stop chewing on them, you should really cut them off,” he says, and you flush, because he sounds so patient. “Just shave it all off, like me. It’s much more practical.” Rmeros doesn’t have hair, not really: all he has is a scarce inch of stubble, coarse and cut low.

“And that’s a dreadful reason to laugh about it. And it’s rude.” He rubs at the bridge of his snout, like the very thought is hurting his pan. “I don’t - where did they even get that sort of idea?” 

It’s not a question, and he doesn’t give you time to respond. “Lions are noble,” he informs you. “That’s why we say lion-hearted in Standard.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.” You’re full of a nervous sort of energy, which is silly, because Rmeros isn’t mad at you. Or maybe not even at anyone: you can barely hear the tip-tap of the cutting utensil on the plate at all now, and that’s good, isn’t it?

“Of course you didn’t,” he says, and his voice is mild as milk. “You don’t know anything yet.”

“I..” He hates when you stall like this, so you clear your throat, bounce over to the other side of the table like it was intentional. “Right,” you say, going up on your toes so that you can peer at the plate, and you’re watching him through your eyelashes. His face is soft again, his eyes half-lidded as he focuses on the food, and that’s a relief: he’s a little scary when he’s mad.

(You’re being silly. No one’s scared of their moirail!)

“It’s alright. You’re a pupa. You’ll learn.” He looks at you and smiles, exasperated and thin but still fond. The ball of tension in your thoracic cage unwinds, just a little. “We just have to make sure it’s the right things, that’s all.“

---

5.08 SWEEPS / 11 YEARS OLD

Ever since you met Rmeros, hanging out with Sipara has been so much better.

She’s always had every advantage on you: bigger size, taller height, a lusus that gets shirty with you if you so much as raise your voice at her and the sort of boisterous personality that draws people in. Before you met Rmeros, you didn’t have anything, except for her and what she decided to share.

But now you have an education, on far better and more varied topics than anything offered by the old technicians manuals she hoards by her recuperacoon. Rmeros lets you read any of his books that you want, and he likes when you sit by him while he works so he can tell you all the things you need to know to survive.

Like the best way to handle other trolls.

"She’s a lion, Sipara,” you say, leaning on your hoe. “Not a meowbeast. We should use the proper terms, because Rmeros said -”

“What is with you?” She scowls at you, and her voice is nasty as anything: “Ever since that jerk arrived, you’ve been acting like you hatched blue. I dunno what he’s been feeding you, but you’re just as rusty as me.”

She steps forward, her lips curling back to show her fangs. The corners are curled up, her eyes all crinkled, but there’s nothing friendly about it - or in the cant of her soundchutes. (No, no - the cant of her ears. That’s the proper word!) You scuttle back, your hands going up, the hoe dropping to the ground.

And then you put them back down. Rmeros doesn’t like you fighting, even though the only person you ever get into it with is Sipara. He’s never said anything, but you’re not daft: you can tell from the way his lips thin whenever he sees you with scratched knees, or a split seedflap. You’re not sure why he’s so against it! You’ve seen him use his knives before on hopbeasts - rabbits! - and other beasts, but you guess he’s just trying to make you better.

The least you can do is help.

“Rmeros says,” you sniff, folding your arms defensively because she’s staring at you, “that rusty is a derogatory term.”

You don’t frown at her, because that’s another thing Rmeros told you. Frowning is just another way of starting a fight, bringing offense when there doesn’t need to be any, and Sipara doesn’t need to be any more offended. She’s already looking like she’s ready to haul off and hit you, and with that thought, you take another step back.

Rmeros always says it’s better to smile, even when you don’t want to, and so you force one, thin-lipped and mean. You shouldn’t say anything! It’s not your place to educate people, he keeps telling you, but when it comes to Sipa, you can’t seem to help it. You just always kind of want to talk to her, even when she’s being mean, and so you blab: “- and besides, you know what happens to rust?”

“It gets sanded off. And if you’re calling yourself that, that means you’ll deserve it –”

Her ears go flat on her skull and she snarls at you, the sound loud enough it sets her entire body to shaking, and oh no, oh no – you don’t have time to do much more than spark before she’s slamming into you, and you’re hitting the ground with a shriek.

(Rmeros is going to be so mad.)

---

5.1 SWEEPS / 11 YEARS OLD

The spark hangs in the air like a tiny sun, and it’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen.

You’re crowded in the hull of Rmeros’s cart, perched on the edge of his desk. There’s stacks of books all around you, piled taller than even your rostal set of horns, and usually he makes you sit on the floor, but this is a special occasion. Rmeros is always teaching you things, but tonight, he’s schoolfeeding you about your psionics.

And the first thing he said he was going to show you was control. He’s got a piece of aura burning at the tip of his graspfrond, bright as any candle, but better: there’s no flicker or lull, just the steady ember of the light, still as the air around you. Almost all of the kids at your hivestem are psionics, but you’ve never seen any of them do something like this. Everyone’s got aura, of course, but it’s just a thing that pops up whenever people start getting sparky.

It’s not something anyone controls!

So the way he’s making his just hang there, when he’s not doing anything, is a little intimidating. And it’s not helped by the fact that when you slant your eyes up, Rmeros’s face is lit in a way you’ve never seen: everything about him is sharp and craggy and old, all angles and curves cut out by the harsh light. Alsike said he was a big kid, but right now, he looks like an adult.

He’s been staring at the light, his eyebrows knit, but maybe he feels you looking at him, because he shifts, opens his hand, and the light fades out.

A moment later, the cart’s lights flicker back on, and oh, that’s a relief. Rmeros doesn’t look like an adult anymore: he looks like another kid, like your moirail, and all at once, you find your voice. “That was so cool!” You rock forward, palms flat on your knees, and your words are tumbling out over each other. “Can I do that?”

The smile that he gives you is thin. He seemed so much friendlier when you first met him, but you think that must’ve just been because you didn’t know him: you used to think he was awfully nice once, too, but now you’ve realised he’s mostly just dry.

That’s okay! You can be nice enough for the both of you. Isn’t that a moirail’s job?

“Thank you,” he says, “and.. maybe. If you try. I was doing it at your age, so you ought to be able to.” Rmeros says things like that a lot. He’s always comparing the two of you, and you sort of like it: it’s nice to know all the ways you’re the same! But sometimes you think he gets silly about it. He’s always after you to cut your hair, and dress properly, and eat more, and going on about how he did this at some age and so should you, like the two of you are the same person, and not just sign-mates. “But it requires a great deal of concentration.”

"I can concentrate!” He’s giving you that look, so you take a breath, and when you speak, you’re using your indoor voice again, just as polite and mild as his. “Um. And I’m really good at jumping. Everyone says so.”

“Even Simoom,” you add, because even though he’s terrible, you know Rmeros thinks he’s just so great. “Um. I can show you!”

He doesn’t object as you hop down from the table, and spin in a quick circle, trying to figure out where you should go. Small jumps are easy! You do it all the time: it’s the only way you can keep Sipara from thumping you when she’s in one of her moods, by popping around in circles 'til she gets tired or too dizzy to keep up. But Rmeros isn’t going to be impressed by something as silly as a little jump like that: he sees you do those all the time.

From one end of the van is a little farther than you’re used to, but that’s alright. You can do it! It doesn’t even take much effort. You think about it, let your psionics coil, and squeeze your eyes shut just as your aura starts to build.

But when you’ve blinked the last of the spots out of your eyes, you might be all the way across the van, but Rmeros isn’t smiling.

”That’s all very good,” he says, polite, “but is that the best you can do? Surely you can go farther.”

”Um.” You’ve never actually tried to go farther: why would you, when you can just chain your jumps, easy as skipping? This was already a big jump for you! But Rmeros is waiting, the twist of his mouth impatient, and you don’t want to disappoint him. “.. how far?”

”Mm. How about the driver’s hub to…” He casts a critical eye over the van. It’s all bookshelves, with his recuperacoon tucked away in the corner like an afterthought, and you’re not sure why it takes him so long to decide. “Over here,” he says finally, striding all the way back over to the far wall, close enough to the viewing pane that the curtain rustles.

It isn’t that far. You brighten. “I can do that,“ you say, but, oh, he wasn’t done talking. He raises his voice over yours, and your stomach drops as he pulls open the curtain: "To the wall.”

The wall around the hivestem colony is big, and it’s far, farther than you’ve ever gone in one jump. “Um.” Your hands go up towards your braids, but you drop them at the last moment, and you worry your lip instead. “In one jump?”

The silence hangs for just a moment too long, and then you titter, just to break it. “Um. Just joking! I can do that,” you assure him, tilting your head up. 

Trepedition makes you hurry. Usually, you let your psionics build slow, to keep the lights from blinding you, but tonight, you yank on them, force them to build in one big bunch. The wall’s far enough that you can’t even sense it, so you stretch your pan out instead, pushing at the edges of your range. There’s a weird feeling in your horns as you reach for it, your psionics pulsing like the beat in your wrists, and it feels like your pan’s stretching out like one of Sipara’s hair bands.

But you can feel the edge of the wall, just barely, and so you push past it –

– and the rubber band snaps.

Your psionics rip out of your control all at once, the teleport aborting mid-stride, and it feels like it throws your entire pan in a loop: your horns are ringing, the land a jumble around you, and the only thing you can pull out of that mess is that you’re definitely not at the wall.

The landing hurts.

It’s like when you jumped out of a tree once and hit the ground wrong, but the sensation’s all in reverse: the pain’s lancing all the way from the root of your horn straight into your pan, sharp and brittle enough that you want to cry. By the time you’ve got the spots out of your eyes enough to see, it’s faded to something almost okay, and when you reach up to your horns…

Oh, good. They’re still there, and you can breathe. The wall’s looming ahead of you, and you’re close enough that you’re standing firmly in its shadow. You’re not quite at it, but… you made it pretty far, didn’t you? He’s got to be pleased, and that’s worth the way your digestion sack is churning.

In the meanwhile, there’s something damp on your face. You run your tongue over your lips, and… bluh, it’s blood, iron-y and hot and gross in your mouth. Your snout doesn’t ache, not precisely, but it must be leaking like a faucet.

You’ve seen it happen to other kids before, when they tried lifting something too heavy, but it’s never happened to you.

There’s a pulse of light behind you, and a soft whoomph of someone landing behind you. You don’t need to look to know who it is: the light spackling the sand in front of you is white, and that’s tell enough. Aura hue’s as unique as blood to each line, and there’s only one other Hamal in the area. You need to clean off your face before Rmeros sees you, because you don’t want him to worry, and you start scrubbing at your snout with the back of your hand.

“You didn’t make it to the wall,” is the first thing he says, and oh. He’s not pleased at all.

Or worried about the way you’re not looking at him. Well, fine. You don’t care! He’s never pleased with you anymore, no matter what you do, so you just hunch your shoulders, focus on mopping at your snout. (The back of your hand is all rosy now! How can one spot leak so much blood?)

“If this is as far as you can go, we’ll need to work on your psionics.” He doesn’t seem to care that you’re ignoring him. “If you don’t start pushing them, then they’ll never grow. And then you might as well be a flatscan, like your little friend.”

Rmeros is never very nice, but since when has he been so mean?

Maybe he has noticed you’re ignoring him, because he’s in front of you now, frowning like you’re being rude. “Pheres,” he snaps, warning, and you exhale, but you don’t look up.

He rummages in his pocket, pulling out a handkerchief, and it doesn’t matter that you duck your head: he yanks up your chin, his grip firm as a lusus, and holds it tight while he gets the rest of the blood off your snout. “I just want what’s best for you,” he says, his mouth thin, and he’s rubbing hard enough to hurt. “I don’t know why you’re being such a child.”

---

5.2 SWEEPS / 11 YEARS OLD

"He’s too old for you, sugargrub,” Alsike tells you. “What’s a big kid like him need advice from a pupa for?”

Tradition dictates that all the kids without bird lusii have gotta keep their headfluff shorn short or braided, on account of all the bugs. You don’t remember much about when your dad died, but Whydah tells you that Simoom said that your hair had to be cut, and offered to do it himself.

But Alsike spoke up instead, offered to take care of your hair for you, and she’s been braiding it ever since, even though you’re old enough to do it yourself. That’s because she’s so nice! Not just for braiding, but intervening with her moirail in the first place - Simoom hates you, and it’s not like with Sipara. If he’d been in charge of you, he’d have taken off a lot more than just your hair.

Like your entire head.

Braiding takes the whole night, but you’ve only gotta do it once a perigee, and Alsike claims she doesn’t mind. You don’t mind, either! She’s funny and smart and you love any excuse you have to be around her, because she’s got to be the best troll you’ve ever met.

At least, she usually is.

“I give great advice,” you protest. She laughs, and the sound makes you squirm, pulling up your shoulders defensively. She’s always teasing, but usually it isn’t mean. This feels mean. "It’s true!”

“'course you do.“ She tugs the strands she’s braiding, and you can’t see her face, but you know her tone: she’s smiling. (She’s laughing at you.) "But he’s got big kid stuff to worry about. Like, quadrants.”

"You can’t give him any advice on that, can you?” She pauses thoughtfully. “‘less.. do you have any secret quads hiding around here?” She lifts the section of your hair she’s working on, making a show of peering under it. “No, not here… oh! Maybe over here –”

She tosses your hair over your face, and you squawk with outrage, pushing it back in place. “Stop!”

“Nope, no quadrants,” she says, laughing. “Unless you and Nzinga are getting all pitchy on me?” You can practically hear her waggling her eyebrows, and your face goes hot, all the way from your soundchutes to your shoulders. When you look down, even your chest is going all bricky, and –

“Stop it!“ You jerk away from her with a hiss, and the pain of your hair ripping loose from her grip isn’t enough to make you hold still. Your face is hot, your foodstem is tight and there’s a building tension in your horns, like a spring coiling tight. All you want to do is leave.

No, all you want to do is make her stop laughing, because it’s awful. Alsike likes to joke, but when she laughs, she’s doing it with you, making herself as much of a target as you.

She’s never laughed *at* you before.

Is the idea that you could have quadrants that funny?

"Stop making fun of me!” you hiss at her.

When you spin to face her, Alsike’s eyes are big and round as the moons above, and she’s got her paws up in front of her, the fronds spread wide. There’s light flickering across her face like reflections in the water, and it takes you a moment to realise it’s coming from you: your horns are sparking, and from the way she’s squinting, your eyes are too. “Hey,” she says, coaxing. Her face is still all flushed with amusement, and her voice is kind of raspy, but there’s no laughter. “I’m not making fun of you, pupa.”

“And I’m not a pupa!” You want to shout. You want to stomp your feet, and throw a fit, and act like Sipara - but Rmeros doesn’t like that sort of behaviour, so you puff out your cheeks and dig your claws into the fat of your palms instead. The pain doesn’t help your temper. “I’m five! I can have quadrants, and - and - I can give advice to my moirail! About anything! I’m old enough!”

(Rmeros said that it’s better to have respect than pity, and you’d laughed right in his face, told him he was silly. But now you think you see what he meant.)

(Alsike doesn’t respect you. No one here really does.)

“Pupa!” Alsike sounds so alarmed, like she doesn’t know what she did wrong, but you refuse to feel bad. She’s being awful. Everyone’s awful to Rmeros, but you thought you could at least trust her to be nice to you. “I’m sorry. Come here, Dys, you’ve got to let me finish your hair,” she says, reaching out, and you skitter back. You don’t want her touching you!

Right now, you don’t even want her talking to you.

“I’ll do it myself. Rmeros says I gotta - I have to be in before dawn,” you snap, and you loosen your grip on your psionics, letting them spring into action. Rmeros’s cart isn’t so far, only fifty feet: that’s five jumps, and you can make that sort of chain in your sleep. The last thing you see is Alsike’s face, pale as moonlight, and then it disappears in a cascade of white.

---

5.1 SWEEPS / 11 YEARS OLD

“What are you reading?” you ask, peering over Rmeros’s shoulder. The book must be older than the rest of his stock because for once, it actually looks old, with yellowed pages that’re curling at the edges and ink that’s been smeared to illegibility in places. There’s a thumb print in the corner of the page, smudged and faded with the barest outline of a claw along the top, and it’s bigger than yours. It’s bigger than Rmeros’s.

He starts like he’s forgotten you were dozing in his van, and you have to pull back so that he doesn’t clunk you with one of his horns. (You’ve already decided that if yours ever get that big, you’ll cut them, ugly or not: it’s just *impractical*, otherwise.) “Just a book,” your moirail says, evasive, and then when you don’t move, he sighs and shifts so that you can see it better. “It’s my ancestor’s journal.”

“Oh.” You’ve heard of ancestors: trolls who lived ages and ages ago, far back enough that even the highblood ones must be dead. You’ve never thought much of it, but now you try and picture an older Rmeros. They’d have to awfully tall to leave a print like that, not a weed like you.

Except if they’re Rmeros’s ancestor…

“Oh,” you say again, your eyes widening. Maybe they could look like you. “We’re signmates - does that mean she’s mine, too?”

“No,” Rmeros says, giving you one of his looks that means you’ve said something stupid. He’s been doing that a lot, lately. When you first met him, you thought the two of you were like mirrors, reflecting each other in face and mind and sign. But now you can spot the differences in the tired lines of his face, the tilt of his horns and the shape of his nose, which is all straight where yours hooks. The way he speaks his words.

The way he’s started treating you, like you’re clay to be molded, and every time you slip into Common, or use lowblood slang, or say something, you’re doing it just to be difficult.

The silence hangs, and you let it, until he finally says: “I suppose you’ve got a different one, somewhere farther back.”

He doesn’t want to answer your questions past that, and he doesn’t want you reading over his shoulder, either. Still, you manage to skim the page and catch a name - Medeia - before Rmeros hustles you out of his cart, locking the door with a definite click behind you.

---

5.4 SWEEPS / 11 YEARS OLD

“I don’t like it,” you declare.

Sipara pouts at you, pinning her hear-ducts down and back so they disappear into the wild fluff of her hair. Her expression is almost a perfect match for her lusus’s, her big eyes all small and squinty and her seedflap puckered like a beak, and normally that’s the sort of thing you’d tease her about for hours.

But right now you’re too sour to even muster up a mean comment: discontent is making your poor digestion sack clench like you just drank bad milk. ”Why not?” she demands, oblivious, leaning forward until her stomach is brushing her knees. Her graspfronds hit the ground on either side of her for emphasis, hard enough that it sends little plumes of dirt spiraling up from the field. “It’s, like, totally the coolest name!”

All you want to do is hide until you feel better. But you can’t hide, because the two of you are supposed to be working your allotments. At least, that’s why you left the hive: once you actually got outside, though, Sipara started trying to get you to help name her lusus, because it turns out Simoom’s started calling his mom Auliya, and it’s no fair that his mom gets to have a name and Sipara’s dad doesn’t.

You can’t argue the point! Simoom is dreadful, and he doesn’t deserve to have anything special, no matter how pretty his lusus is. And you’d love to find a name that could one-up him, but it’s not nearly as fun to spend all evening talking about Sipara’s lusus when yours is dead.

It never bothered you before, when it was just Sipara and her dad. There aren’t many orphans in the hiveblock, and most of the older trolls seem to like you the better for it: most of them think it makes you cute and pathetic, and you’ve learned to avoid the ones that disagree. But Rmeros has been schoolfeeding you on dignity, and respectability, and it turns out that you’d much rather be respected than pitied.

So you’ve taken to hauling your lusus around in a bag that Sipara found you: it fits neatly over your hip, and when the tops folded down, only his pearly white beak is visible, so no one can see the stitches and tell he isn’t alive. Rmeros doesn’t like it, but that’s not new: he never likes any of your ideas. And he and Sipara always have their lusii with them, riding on their heads or tailing them like vast white shadows, so why shouldn’t you have yours?

Even if he is dead.

“Pherry-pher-fear-eaaaaaase.” Sipara blows out her cheeks. “Like, stop zonin’ and pay attention!”

“Right. Um.” You tug on one of your braids, and admit: “Bennue isvery cool.” You can’t lie. That’d be dumb! But that doesn’t mean you have to be nice. “But it’s far too cool for him. Why don’t we just name him Doofus and get it over with?”

Sipara’s cheeks go white, and then the same red-brown as the field beneath you as she hisses at you. But lately, winding her up hasn’t been any fun at all, and now the way her voice goes shrill just makes your digestion sack aches worse. “Shut up!” Normally, her dad would intervene at this point with a hiss and a crackle of flame, but although Bennue is nestled tight in her hair, his feathers fluffed up like he’s ready to attack, for once he’s not watching you.

It’s easy to forget that Rmeros is here until you look up and follow the direction of Bennue’s gaze. Lately, your moirail’s been spending less time sequestered in his van and more time out in the fields with you and Sipara. You don’t know why! All he ever does is sit on the chair he’s dragged out and type away at his portable husktop, until the click-klack of his husktops keys is just another noise like the babble of the river in the distance.

"Besides, if your dad gets to be Bennue, my lusus should get a name, too,” you continue. “A better name. He’s older, and bigger, and prettier, and —”

"— he’s dead,” Rmeros intervenes, and you jump. He never joins into your conversations, but he’s talking like this is perfectly normal. “You don’t name dead things, Pheres.”

When you look up at him, he’s watching the two of you over the top of his glasses, his lookbulbs squinty with bemusement.

“Dude,” Sipara snaps, once she’s over her surprise. She might’ve been at your throat a minute ago, but she always sides with you when it comes to everyone else. “Shut up!”

”Dead things need names, too.” You draw your knees up, resting your chin on them. There’s dust on your legs and dust on your face now, too, but Sipara’s practically been rolling in it: if she doesn’t care, why should you?

“No, they don’t. And naming your lusus is stupid,” Rmeros continues, like he didn’t even hear her, and now Sipara’s whole face is brown and blotchy under the dust on her skin. You reach out, and you’re not quite sure why: to pat her hand, maybe, so she’ll stop looking so murderous- 

“Pheres.” Rmeros’s voice is sharp. “Don’t be rude. Look at people when they’re talking to you.”

You drop your hand, turning your attention back to him, and he shakes his head, picking up where he left off. “And only highbloods do that sort of thing. My lusus doesn’t have a name, does she?” His lionmom is dowsing the bottom of the chair, curled around the legs like a blanket, and he tugs on an ear, fond. “That’s because we don’t need them —”

"I don’t care,” you say, and you didn’t mean to say it, but it’s true.

Rmeros’s hand on his mother’s head stills. He blinks at you, his eyebrows tilting up and furrowing like you’ve slipped back into Southern Common without noticing. (He only speaks Standard, and you thought that was so interesting when he first came.) “Excuse me?”

“I don’t care if you think it’s dumb.” The skin at the back of your neck is pricking from the way he’s staring at you, so you slip a hand into your bag, stroke the stiff feathers of your dad. (It’s not much of a comfort. It never is.) “You’re the one being rude! No one asked you,” you say in a rush, your face heating. “So - so —”

He’s staring at you, his expression strange, and your words falter.

A moment later, there’s unexpected warmth against your leg, and you go still: if it’s a deathstalker or a skitterbeast, you don’t want to scare it into biting. But when you look down, it’s just Sipara, scooting forward until her walkstub is resting against yours. She’s getting dirt all over you, and you should push her off. But she’s glaring at Rmeros, her fists clenched like she’s ready to scrap, and when you lean back against her, she doesn’t move.

The knot in your digestion sack unwinds, just a little.

"So you should just butt out,” you manage to finish, your words entirely too loud, and Rmeros frowns.

---

5.5 SWEEPS / 11 YEARS OLD

Lately, everything’s been awful.

Every time you’ve seen Rmeros, your skin goes prickly with all sorts of things you can’t find the words for: it’s like the unpleasant warmth you get when Simoom says something nasty, or when one of the older kids plucks a book or a cloth or food from your hands, but worse, because it’s not going away. It’s just lingering like a weight in your chest, making it hard to breath whenever you see his stupid, horrible face.

(It’s not hate. You’ve read enough books, and seen enough of the older kids scrabbling to know that. How could you hate someone with your own face? But that just makes it worse, because that, you could understand. You could read up on hate!)

(You’ve read up on moirallegience, but nothing’s explained this muddy, suffocating ennui.)

You’ve been sleeping in you and Sipara’s hiveblock again lately, and it’s strange to sleep through the day instead of spending it curled up in the corner of Rmeros’s cart, drinking the coffee he leaves out and reading books. Different, and not especially nice, because if you’re avoiding Rmeros, you’ve spent the night avoiding Sipa, too.

It used to be that whenever you felt bad, because someone was being mean or else you were just tired, you’d go and shadow Sipara. She’d tease and nettle you for it, but she’s always been willing to take care of you, when push comes to shove: make sure you’ve got food to eat, get back whatever things the other kids have taken, keep people away from you when you don’t want to talk, and stay near you when you do. All you’ve ever had to do in exchange is keep her company.

And at first, it was easy to fall back into that - and it was nice, too. You hadn’t thought about it, but you’ve missed Sipara, even when she’s trying to get you to fight her. The first day you slept back in your own ‘coon was awkward and a little strange, but after that, you were fighting over the husktop and the sink and Bennue trying to nest on your books just like you used to.

But the other day she kissed you on the cheek, and even if you’re not talking to him –

You have a moirail.

The river’s the only place that no one ever goes: everything in it’s dead, the fish to the weeds to the ruins deep underneath, and everyone knows you avoid dead things. Sometimes the crafters risk the shore if they’re running low on clay, but it’s too risky this late in the rainy season. The water’s blood red and swollen, lapping against the banks like a great, vast tongue, and sitting on the edge like this is dangerous. All it’d take is a big wave or a strong wind, and you’d go tumbling in.

You’re a good swimmer, but probably not that good.

Right now, you don’t care. If you fall in, you’ll just figure out a way to teleport out. Rmeros’s been having you try doing longer and longer distances, to stretch out your psionics, and if you can jump from the wall to the hivestem… well. You can make it to the surface.

Probably.

Rmeros finds you cooling your feet in the water.

He settles down on the ground next to you, farther from the shoreline than you, and he doesn’t say a word. The two of you just look at the river, and for once, you’re okay with the way the silence hangs.

"You know,” he says, slanting a glance towards you, “I think I’ve been unfair.”

You don’t want to talk to him. Hunching your shoulders, you lean forward, wiggling your toes in the silt. But he wants to talk to you, apparently, and that’s all that matters. “I thought.. well. Never mind.” He’s got his face back pointed towards the river, but his eyes are fixed on you all the same, the pinprick black of his pupil locked in your direction. “I didn’t anticipate –”

"Loxias was always telling me I might regret it.”

That finally draws you out of your shell. Rmeros never talks about his other quadrants, or people he knows: he’s never gone as far as to say it’s none of your business, but the conversation’s always carefully derailed whenever you started to ask. He’s never even said if he had any.

He’s certainly never dropped any names.

“Loxias?” you ask, and he smiles at you, triumphant.

“Mm. My matesprit.”

“She always said I was going to be bad at diamonds. But I suppose I’ve been awful to you.” His voice is so dry, so wry. If it was anyone else, you might’ve thought the strangeness to his voice was amusement… but Rmeros doesn’t know how to joke.

“I’ll be leaving soon,” he says, amiable, and his tone doesn’t fit the way your stomach drops. (He’s leaving? Why?) “But before I do, I wanted to know.. could you do me a favor?”

“It won’t take long,” he adds, and your pan is still turning over the idea that Rmeros is going to be gone. You might have been avoiding him for a perigee, but that doesn’t mean… “Pheres?”

“Um.” You finally turn to face him, shifting on the sand. “.. yes? I can.”

“Thank you.” This is the first time he’s ever said that, you think, and when he holds out his hand and gestures, you place yours in them, because you have no idea what else to do. He’s about to be gone, forever, and.. if he wants to hold your hands, then.

That’s fine.

His fingers dig into your wrists, and you hiss, pulling back.

“This’ll only take a moment,“ he says, assuring, and he reaches out with his free hand, takes a hold of your chin. He’s being gentler than he has been for the past few perigees, almost as nice as he was when you first met him, but his grip is firm, and when you try to pull back again, he doesn’t notice.

The sound you make is closer to a snarl, but he doesn’t even notice. He’s forcing your chin up, eyebrows furrowed as he stares into your eyes, and your horns hurt like you’re using your psionics. But you’re not! And he can’t be, either, not when the two of you are holding still, but his eyes are burning bright, bright as a spark –

– and the world goes white.

---

(Your name is Pheres Dysseu. You are two and a half sweeps old. You live in the south-eastern central desert in a hivestem colony sixty miles off of the Great Southern River, and your lusus is dead, and if the children in your hivestem don’t cull you, then hunger will –

Your name is Pheres Dysseu. You are five sweeps old, and you have a moirail, and you have a pitchfriend, and between the two of them, you’re going to the best troll in your hivestem –

Your name is Pheres Dysseu. You are five sweeps old, and everything –

everything –

everything hurts.)

---

Your name is Rmeros Cuckoo, and when you were five sweeps old, you met a girl named Loxias, who took your hand and read you your future.

(This isn’t right.)

"You’re meant to die young,” she said, slicing rivers into the lines of your flesh. The blood is pooling in the cuts as thick and slow as the city’s gutters after a rain, and you should be repulsed. But there’s something hypnotic in the way her nail is slicing through the mehndi on your skin, as easy and painless as any knife.

(This isn’t your hand.)

“And you’ll do it alone. But you’re a lucky one.” She looks up at you, her lips thin, her eyes questioning. “You can change that, if you’d like.” You’re sitting in the doorway of her hive, the rising sun casting dark shadows all around you, and her voice is the only thing breaking the still air:

“Do you want to know how?”

Loxias is nearly a head taller than you, and with shoulders barely as wide as your hornswidth. She has curly hair and black-gray eyes, and when she laughs, it sounds like the shattering of glass, like she’s one of the witches she impersonates. When she looks at you, your bloodpusher flips, and when she kisses you –

(– but you’ve never kissed anyone at all.)

Loxias owns a book with your symbol, and your colour, and your hatchname Cuckoo emblazoned in beautiful, curling script as soothing and familiar as your lusus’s face. The book teaches you many things about your line.

Few of them are nice. All of them are important.

But the most important of them all is:

Your name is Rmeros Cuckoo.

But it doesn’t have to be.

---

Your name is –

(everything hurts)

Your name is –

(everything hurts and there’s someone in your pan and you just)

(you don’t want to die.)

---

Your name is –

“PHERES,” someone says, and then there’s the hard crack of a hand across your face. The world comes back into focus, and Sipara is staring at you, her red-gray eyes big and… scared?

… when did you stand up?

And why does your mouth taste so strange?

When you touch your thumb to your lips, it comes back damp, and the light reflects pink-red off of the blood.

You don’t want to remember, but it’s coming back, as inevitable as the creep of the water beside you. Rmeros came, and did something, and then Sipara came, and threw something, and it hurt you –

- no, it hurt him – both of you -

- and – and –

The roar of the river is filling your ears, but you don’t look at it. You can’t.

(”He was in my brain,” was the first thing you said, when your pan cleared and your tongue could move, and then you’d helped push him in.)

When you look down, there’s caked mud on your legs and rose on your hands, and you can’t look at that, either.

“Pheres,” Sipara says, careful, and she reaches out to touch your arm. There’s a scratch on her face where Rmeros struck her, but although her blood is orange, in the dawn’s light, her fingers are swollen and flushed red.

The sound that you make as you flinch away is awful, something between a strangled growl and a hiss.

(The sky is brightening all around you, but it’s not day time, and you’re not in the shadows, and when you look down, your hands aren’t covered in Loxias’s ivory rings. It’s fine.)

(It was just a memory. You’re fine.)

Sipara’s got her hands up in front of her, palms exposed. Her eyes are big and her ears are pinned back, and she’s not saying anything: she’s just watching you, her big teeth digging into her lip like she’s scared.

“Um. Dude. Are – are you okay?”

(Your hands are covered in your moirail’s blood.)

“I’m fine,” you snap, and then you burst into tears.

---

5.4 SWEEPS / 11 YEARS OLD

Your nose is leaking like a faucet, and your eyes are rheumy and red. There’s blood all over your face, and no matter how much you blot them, the streaky rivulets won’t stop. And your pan aches.

There’s blood on your hands too, the same streaky rosewood, but that’s not your blood, it’s Rmeros’s - and the thought makes you start crying again, wet, loud sobs that leave you aching from your horns to your toes.

Sipara was trying to figure out the cart controls, but she looks up at the sound that rips from your chest. The noises you’re making are horrible, but your ganderbulbs and your snout and your pan all hurt, and you can’t seem to make yourself stop.

"I killed my moirail,” you wail, stumbling over the words. Each breath feels like it’s being ripped from your lungs, and no matter how hard you gasp for air, it’s not enough. “I killed him and he’s dead and it’s all my fault-”

“Shh,” she says, frantic, “sh sh shoosh!” She grabs your face with her hands, nearly jabbing you in the eye with a claw, and then she stops, like she doesn’t know what to do. There’s snot on your face now in addition to the blood and tears, and you are just a complete and utter mess, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Sipara stares at you, her eyes wide with fear and worry and determined concentration, like you’re one of her broken tools and she’s figuring out how to fix you -

And then she plants a kiss on your forehead and the shock of it makes you stop mid-sob. Sipara is all fangs and elbows and claws that scrape even when she’s playing nice, but right now, she’s holding your face like she holds her lusus. “We didn’t kill your moirail,” she says, as matter as fact as if she’s telling you the moon was green, “because I’m your moirail now, okay? So shoosh.”

Sipara watches as you wash your face, scrubbing it with the rag until the skin is flushed ruddy and the water in the sink is pink with tears and blood and bile. When you peek into the mirror, you almost look presentable: the squinch of your eyes and the wrinkles around your mouth make it look you’re mad, even, instead of sad.

Maybe you are mad. This isn’t fair. You did what you were supposed to, and didn’t Rmeros always tell you everything would be fine, if you just did what he said? Followed the rules he set?

(Maybe you weren’t following the right set of rules, and that’s why he -)

“Okay,” you say briskly, pushing the thought away.

There’s a weight in the back of your throat and a pressure behind your eyes, but you can ignore those. Hasn’t this all proven that you’re good at sticking your head in the sand? Everyone said it was strange that someone like him would ever want to be your moirail, but you ignored it, and –

And you can ignore this. You don’t have to pay attention to anything you don’t want to, and right now, the only thing you care about is getting the cart started before your neighbors come to investigate the blood.

Alsike isn’t going to intervene anymore. Everyone at your hivestem loves a good scavenger hunt, and right now, you and Sipara are easy prey.

“Here -” You’re proud of the way your voice is only a little raspy. “Pass me the ignition sticks, 'kay, and let me try -”