Listener

Listener is the story of a girl and her people overthrowing a thousand-year-old tyrant through the power of found-family, unification, and organization of the masses. Magic may also be involved. Thank you to the Knott Family and the 2019 Knott Fellowship for launching this site! Please check the About page for more information.

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might mess around and...restructure and rewrite all of chapter 2

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I re-did these paintings of Uakea and Wyn and posted them to my main but never to this blog.  I think this is a pretty clear sign of how my art has improved, because you can scroll down about an inch and see the old profiles.

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Added a reflections page for...reflective thoughts re: the project.  You can check it out if you’d like!

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This is Uakea! She’s the kind of person you immediately notice upon walking into a room. She’s a teacher and a nurse. She’s also 7 ft tall.  She’s Sori’s mom.

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This is Wyn! She’s a doctor and caretaker, among other things.  Sori considers her to be a mother figure.

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Should I make this blog my art blog in general? I could post a lot more if I did

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mama

just killed a man

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Dancing Shadows 4 [PREVIOUS] support me

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Dancing Shadows 4

TW: Mentions of blood.

More intense and somber chapter today.  Thanks for reading, as always!  I’ll take a break to write the next chapter and do some restructuring of things.  My school’s been moved to online classes for the time being, and I don’t know what that means in the perspective of everything else I’m doing at the moment.  Special thanks to @vulpera-hoggs​ and @emeraldbroam​ for their help with editing the entire chapter, also as always!

Blood. On her hands, under her nails, pounding in her ears. The knife’s grip slipping in her shaking, red-slicked fingers. Her heart, frantically drumming. Thud, thud, thud.

She runs. Walls close in around her. Corridors she cannot escape. She turns, this way and that, the sounds of her sin washing the world behind her. It sounds like the cry of a crowd that rises up around her, above her, their voices beating against her. But this isn't that place. She slips on the wooden floor and falls. Her grip on the knife; tight, white knuckled. White through the blood. Bone through the skin.

The blade goes down.

She’s in that room again.

Amara startles awake.

She feels a small hand on her shoulder and she jerks away.  The weight of a blanket falls from her and onto the ground, and the faint crunch of dirt against leather crackles as the hand moves. Its owner retreats.  She blinks rapidly, tears and settled dust blurring her vision, before she turns towards the sound.  When her head ceases to spin, she sees Sori, bandaged hand still hanging in the air, kneeling out of arm's reach and watching her.  Her eyes, like the hair that covers much of her face, are dark enough that she almost blends into the shadows completely.

It is deep into the night, now.  There is no bright fire to warm the cave.  Instead, bodies sleep, covered by furs and blankets and sheltered from winter’s bone chill.

Sori's hand drops.  She crouches close to the wall near the head of the cave––the only source of illumination in the night.  She stands protectively over one of the men that lie in the dark, peering at Amara as though waiting for her to make a move.  Then, she turns and hops soundlessly to the front, stopping beneath the dim light from above and perched on some narrow, negligible ledge.  Wordlessly, she gestures for Amara to come to her, her hand flicking back and out in Amara’s direction and waving her over.

Amara gets up on shaky legs and steadies herself against the wall before stepping over, and over, and over the sleeping forms of various residents.  Sori keeps her hand stretched out to Amara, an offer for her to take it if she wishes.  Amara, in turn, steps to the side of it, and crouches down at the foot of Sori’s perch.  Sori retracts her hand and watches Amara for a moment.  Quietly, she climbs off her perch on the wall and crouches down to just beneath Amara’s level.  She sits beside her, but not close, then reaches into her cloak and takes out a waterskin.  She holds it and offers it to Amara in her bandaged hands.  In the dim light, her hands shake.  

“Nightmare.”  A statement, not a question. Her face is drawn and tired, dark circles resting beneath her darker eyes, but she looks calm. Clear.  Understanding.  “Water. You can drink it.”

Amara takes it and drinks.  It is cool.  It helps.  She sighs.

“I bother anyone?” Amara asks.

“No,” Sori says, very quietly.  She rubs her face.  “You looked upset,” Sori continues, her words enunciated with great deliberation as she tries to hide her accent.  “I woke you.”

“Well, thanks.” A pause.  “Weren’t you gonna wake me up earlier?”

“Couldn’t,” Sori shrugs.  “Amma said you needed the rest.”  She cocks her head to the side, then looks up and out of the cave.  “The mists did, too.”

Amara accepts this after a second of consideration, then gives Sori a strange look, her mouth pulling back as her brows furrow.  She glances upwards as well, out of the cave.  The mists, a constant presence in the night for as long as she’s understood the difference between it and day, ghost over the tunnel mouth.  Strands almost seem to dip down to meet them, but never quite reach the ground past Sori.

“The mists?” Amara looks the girl beside her over, once; noting again the way she is dressed in a combination of rags and clothing too big for her, and the way she keeps herself low and compact even when she reaches out.  “They say anything else?”  

Sori’s brows raise at the question.  She almost smiles, then tilts her head to the right, lifting her left ear up, and closes her eyes.  She sits there for a moment, then opens her eyes and starts pushing the dirt beneath their feet around.

“You’re like me,” Sori says after a moment of pause.  “But you also aren’t.”

She reaches back up the ledge and pulls down a wooden bowl.  She presents Amara with a serving of stew, long since cooled, a pair of thin sticks resting together over the top.  Amara takes the bowl and takes the sticks in a fist, trying in vain to pick anything up.  Sori watches her struggle, her brow furrowing as she reaches out, then retracts her hands several times.

“Yeah?” she grunts as she takes a seat against the wall and stabs something in the bowl.

“Nightmares,” Sori replies, and pauses again, watching her struggle.  “And our hands.”

Amara’s arms are wrapped in tattered pieces of cloth, and so are Sori’s.  Amara pauses her violent wrestling to look at Sori, then at their arms. She holds out one arm to compare wraps, the sticks still clutched in her hand mournfully devoid of anything except a few droplets of broth.

Amara’s arm is thicker than Sori’s is, and a little longer, but only because Sori is smaller than she is.  But when they open their hands, she realizes that Sori’s hand is small compared to Amara’s, and glows a faint, pale blue from beneath her bandages.

“What’s that?”

“Mmh?”

“The...the glow, in your hands.”  Amara points with the sticks.

“Mmh.”  Sori unravels her bandages and flexes her fingers.  Her palms are smoother than Amara’s are, though she can see scars from cuts and calluses from gripping her sword along her tan skin.  Her nails are bitten short and close to her fingertips.  In the center of her hand, tracing the lines drawn into her palm, a gentle light pulses.  It fades after a second, and Sori looks at her with quiet eyes.

“When I use the power I have...” She enunciates slowly, then looks past Amara to the rest of the people in the cave. She looks back.  “The power we have,” she corrects, “important parts of us glow.”

Amara rubs her eye with the heel of her palm and squints at their hands.

“Glad my powers don’t come with that kind of thing,” she mutters.  “It could have gotten me killed.”

Sori looks at her for a while.  “It can get us killed too.” She closes her fist and stares at it thoughtfully.  “But it hasn’t.  Not in a while.”  Sori wraps her hand back up.  “‘S why I have this, though.  Makes it less obvious.”  She looks at Amara.  “Give me your hand. And the...mm. The jjūro.”

“The what?”

Sori makes a face, her brows furrowing.  Her hand is open.  “The...the sticks.” She points to the pair in Amara’s hand.  “You’re not...using them right.”

Amara looks at her hand, and the sticks, and cautiously holds out her fist.

“Turn over.”

She turns over her hand.

“Open.”

She opens it.  Sori reaches down with two fingers and lays the sticks down in a certain way in Amara’s hand.  She gently positions her fingers around them, then pulls her own hand away.

“Grip now.”

Amara does.  One stick sits between her pointer and middle finger, the other rests against her ring finger and the crook of her hand.  She taps the ends of the sticks together.  Sori does the same with her pointer and thumb.

“Is like…” she pauses, then cocks her head.  “Is like with these...fingers.  You pick up food.”

Amara nods slowly.  “You don’t use spoons?”

“Spoons?”  Sori cocks her head, her brow furrowing.  Realization flashes over her face.  “Oh!  Hrm.  We do, but...” She gestures around the room.  “Forgot to pack those,” she says.  She shrugs, then folds her legs up close to her chin and sets her head down on her knees.  She looks up through the tunnel again and stifles a yawn.  She shakes her head and rubs her eyes, squinting upwards.

Amara, after flexing her fingers and hands to stir and turn the ingredients in the stew, plunges the tips in and fishes out a piece of meat.  She eyes it carefully, and moves deliberately––controlled.  Her stomach, like a whistleblower betraying an ambush, growls loudly.  She blushes. 

Sori smiles at her.  "Eat, eat. I saved that for you."  Her hand flicks outward, as though to encourage Amara gently.  "Umma insisted we make it for you. So eat."

And eat, Amara does.

It tastes of garlic, meat, and some winter root she knows not how to place.  It may well taste like heaven, for the way she tucks into it.  She pauses once, to cough and swallow a few times.  Sori passes her a waterskin silently.  Amara takes it gratefully, downing a swig before digging back in.

"I know...maybe, could use more salt," Sori says after a while.  Amara pauses, lowering the bowl.  She swallows, covers her mouth and looks at Sori with a raised brow.

"You kiddin' me?" she manages.  "This is sh--stuff’s tasty."

Sori smiles at her again, her eyes squinting shut. Her smile fades after a moment, and she looks away again, this time staring into the cave.  Amara scrapes the last of her stew into her mouth before sighing quietly.  She closes her eyes and leans back against the wall behind her, then follows Sori’s gaze.  Sleeping forms of men lie before her in a row.  Uakea and Wyn sleep, wrapped up in each other, and form a barrier between the men and a great group of children, all piled atop Bii at the very back of the cave.

“What did you dream about?”

Amara’s eyes snap to Sori, who watches her quietly.  Those dark eyes are softer than before, but unreadable.  Amara suddenly feels how young Sori is, and feels something inside her tug.  After a beat, then two, Sori looks down and away.

“You don’t, ah, you don’t need to say.”  Sori’s voice is soft.  She scratches the back of her neck and sighs.  “I, um.  I don’t want to, ah, pry.”

Amara heaves a sigh, then looks up the tunnel and out at the sky.  Sori has moved the cover just enough to see out of it.  Vivid, colorful lights dance across the expanse of the night through the trees.  She glances back at Sori.

“You know, I...it’s kind of hard to talk about.”

Sori hums softly.  “Hmm. Mmhmm.”

“It’s not like...I just...I’m not trying to hide anything, okay?” Amara rubs her neck, massaging a tense bunch of muscles near her shoulder, and she grimaces.  “I just...it’s hard.”

“That’s okay.”  Sori pushes more dirt here and there.  She’s quiet a long time.  Amara opens her mouth to apologize, but Sori speaks first.

“You said...things, you know.”  Her fingers stop in the dirt.  Symbols Amara does not recognize sit in the dirt.  Sori wipes them away.  She looks at Amara.

Amara watches her.  She sits very still, knuckles white.

“I’m sorry, Amara.”

Sori looks back down and writes something new in the dirt, stops, and looks away.  She pulls her knees up to her chest and stares into the cave, watching the others rest. 

Amara takes a breath.  Blinks.  She looks at Sori, her hand lifting off her neck, and tries to make sense of her.  But she gives little away, between the tired way her eyes squint, the way her breathing rattles, now that Amara’s heart has stopped pounding, the way her hands shake when they stop moving.  Amara’s eyes go from her face to the others.  They breathe together, sighing in their sleep, or snoring so lightly they seem to buzz.  Amara looks back to Sori, but Sori watches her family, not blinking.

“You...Sori.  You look kinda tired.  I think.  Maybe we should...get someone else to keep watch.”

“Don’t want to.”  Her voice is not sharp, but it is firm.  Sori blinks at Amara with hard, dark eyes––defensive, almost.  She looks away again.  Amara reaches out but stops when Sori backs away from her.  A sigh falls from Amara’s lips.

“Listen, I’m sorry, I don’t mean you any trouble, but if you want me to leave, I’ll--”

“I know.”  Sori sighs quietly, not looking at Amara directly.  She closes her eyes and breathes, and Amara watches her, waiting.  Her skin prickles, and she can count her anxious seconds in the number of breaths she hears pass from the cave’s sleepers.  Then Uakea sighs in the dark, and Sori’s eyes open again.  Her eyes flick to Amara.  Amara watches her closely, rubbing at the muscles in her tense neck and back.  “I know what happened.”

Amara sighs through her nose, mouth tightening into a line as she thinks, and thinks, and grimaces.  Finally, she speaks.  “I don’t know what you heard.”

“Can’t judge what you do not tell me,” Sori replies.  “It’s why I asked you.”

A long silence passes between them.

“There are no Patricians here,” Sori tells her. “And I will not give you away.”  She looks back into the cave.  “Umma will not.”  Her fingers trace lines into the dirt once more.  “So the others will not either.”

Amara shakes her head.  “Maybe I should go.  Save you the trouble.”

Now, Sori reaches out to her.  She presses her mouth closed and her brow furrows as she holds out her empty hand in the air.  It wavers and shakes, stuttering, almost, as she flexes her fingers.  Finally, she turns over her hand and shows Amara her palm.  That curious glow sits there, nestled at the center.  Gingerly, she takes the wraps off from around her hand.  Amara can see lines of light trace their way through the creases in her skin.  Sori turns her hand down to the ground and takes a fistful of dirt.  She holds it for a while.

Sori makes a gesture with her free hand, then pauses, shaking her head.  She lets the dirt in her hand fall back down to the ground, revealing red soil.  Her palm is brushed scarlet, dark in the dim light of the cave.  She holds her hand out to Amara, her fingers spread so she can peer at her between the gaps.

“This,” she says.  “This is how we are the same.”

Amara is quiet.  Sori’s hand falls down, becomes a cup to request Amara’s hand in her own, and Amara slowly obliges the silent request.  She places her hand in Sori’s, the palm up.  Sori tugs the wraps off from her free hand with her teeth, then presents Amara her own palm.

Calluses and scars on a wide palm contrast with smooth skin with small, still-healing cuts pressed into smaller hands.  Sori closes her hand, and releases Amara’s, shrinking back into herself and leaning back against the cave wall.  She looks up into the light, then closes her eyes.

She breathes.

“Not alike,” she says.  “Our hands aren’t. We aren’t. But we are.”  She huffs a quiet cough and pulls her leg up to hold.  “Somewhere, we are.”  She opens one eye and looks at Amara quietly, nebulously.  “Get it?”

Amara follows her gaze skyward and does not reply for a long time.  Finally, she looks down at her palms––clean, now, and warm––and flexes her fingers.  She makes a fist and opens it, clenching and releasing the way the heart does pumping blood.  And she breathes, too.

“Yeah,” she says.

And nothing else passes between them.  Not for hours that they do not count.  Not until the dancing lights fade into the dawn’s paler hue, and the men stir and wake alongside sleepy children, whose whispers and murmurs chase what remains of those slow-turning mind-shadows back into the abyss to wait for another night.  And even then, what passes between them is little more than a look between near-black and warm brown. Something dark, and solid, and understanding, and perhaps, a little regretful.

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Dancing Shadows 3

Footsteps, the familiar clink and shift of flint snapping against flint. Across the cave, Amara can see sparks flickering, lighting up the space between the tall shadows inhabiting the cave. After a moment, a fire ignites, and the cave lights up again. She holds her breath for a second but finds no smoke clinging to the air—only heat. She blinks, then exhales.  Her shoulders release tension she did not know she held. 

They move away from the entrance of the cave, stepping closer to a floor covered with various blankets and furs.  If she turns her head, Amara can see packs and baskets, a set of traveler’s cookware, and some water in a pot resting in the far corner of the cave.  The blankets and furs make up a makeshift flooring, but also constitute bedding from the way they’re scattered.  A small cooking and drying area is set up by the fire at the far end of the cave, alongside a mat set, perhaps for dining.  It could almost be a home, she thinks.  

A few men glance over at them, some regarding Amara warily.  Most, however, bow their heads once or wave, then continue working.  Many hold children or entertain them, while others work on preserving meat and preparing food for the night.

Bii steps further into the cave and sits down on one of the furs far away from the men with a quiet sigh.  She keeps her eyes trained on the children, nonetheless, eyes moving from head to head.  Taro squirms out of her arms and pads over to Sori, who still stands closer to the entrance.  He teeters this way and that as he moves.

“Soriiiiiiii,” he says lazily, small eyes squinting as he smiles.  Amara turns as he passes and watches as Sori catches his floppy body in her arms. She smiles down at him and they rub noses in greeting.  “Keihei,” Taro smiles, “I wanna go up. Holdjooooo.”

“Want me to hold you?”  It sounds much more like “hol’ju,” with her accent.

“Holdjooo!” He makes a lazy sign with his hand, floppy and half-exaggerated, from what Amara can guess.

Sori smiles at him. She picks him up, then turns him upside down in her arms and takes a few steps closer to Bii, swinging him from side to side. He laughs and waves at his mother. “Like this?”

Taro is lost in a fit of giggles. He reaches out for Bii and she grabs him with a smile. Sori gently hands him over and greets her the same way she did Taro—with a touch of their noses. She takes a step back and her hands move quickly in front of her, flashing signs and shapes in the air. Bii looks to Amara once, then back to Sori. She shifts Taro closer to her chest to free up her hands, then sits back and crosses her legs. 

“The kids were okay,” Bii says, her hands moving as she speaks. “We might be running low on food, though. Amma said she doesn’t want to use the dry rations right now.”

Sori nods and signs again, her face neutral. Bii nods.

“Maybe tomorrow, the boys can go with you to look for fresh food.” She smiles at Sori, and beckons her to come closer. She rests her hand, much larger than Sori’s, on top of her little sister’s head and pats her. “You should rest up, though, if you want to go hunting with the others.”

Sori makes a face and signs to Bii again.  Bii clicks her tongue and gives Sori a meaningful look.

"You need to rest because you've been out all day."

Sori signs again, a little more insistently.

"We actually haven't quite been working as hard as you have," Bii replies evenly.  Her hand gestures are just as firm.  Amara can see that Sori isn't looking so much at Bii's eyes or face, but rather more at her hands as they gesture. "You've been outside all day.  We've been in here, taking care of the kids and preserving what's left of the last thing you found."

Sori starts to sign again.  Bii holds up a hand.

"I'm going to tell Amma if you keep arguing with me."

Sori pales.  Her brow furrows and she almost pouts before relenting.  Then, she stops.  She smiles at Bii and signs more excitedly this time, then taps her head twice and smiles.  Bii looks at her in surprise, then looks to Amara.

"Yeah," Bii says slowly, "if you...hit your head against Amara's, I do think that Amma's going to want to take a look at that."

Another woman, taller than Sori but shorter than Bii, walks over with an air of serene grace and authority. She pauses just beside Bii and smiles at her––a tired but affectionate thing.

“Planning on calling me over?”

Bii smiles at her, just a little.  “Your daughter is trying to argue with me about whether she should rest or not.”

The woman raises an eyebrow and looks to Sori, who looks betrayed.  Her long, near-black hair is tied back, though a few locks of it slip out and find their way to rest over her shoulder. Her dark eyes, a warm brown similar to rich earth after a summer rain, squint as she smiles at Sori. She reaches out and cups Sori’s cheek. 

“Getting into trouble again, I see.” She makes gestures as she talks as well, though only with her left hand.  Sori shrugs sheepishly and looks to the side.  The woman’s gaze drifts to Amara and offers her a calm, placid smile––different and more distant from the one she gave Bii. “I’ve heard of you from my wife,” she says. “Amara, I believe? My name is Wyn. Would you mind if I checked both yours and Sori’s heads for injury?”

Amara blinks at her owlishly. Wife?

“Oh, uh, sure,” she stutters. “Yeah, I mean, I’ve hit my head before so it’s not like this is a big deal.”

“Well,” Wyn says, ushering her further into the cave, “that’s not the most reassuring thing you could tell me.  But thank you for telling me, nonetheless. I’ll take that into account.”  She offers Sori her hand, and Sori takes it easily.  They walk together for a moment, Amara trailing behind them. Two men, taller than her, though one not as much, step into the space beneath the entrance and stand watch. She shifts her gaze back to the woman ahead of her, and grunts. Wyn leads them to a blanket spread out on the floor.  She brushes it off and gestures for Amara and Sori to sit down.

Amara plops herself down on the blanket, then blinks up at Wyn.  The blanket beneath her is softer than ones she remembers from home, and thicker.  A luxury, she thinks, though the word does not exist on her tongue.  It's something she almost sinks into as Wyn moves over to Sori and kneels down in front of her, inspecting her face.  She takes a step back, then signs, as well as speaks.

"Palms up."  Sori flips her hands up as instructed.  "No drawing on anything for the exam, yes?"  Sori nods.  Wyn nods approvingly.  "Good.  Now, then, the basic questions."  Wyn clears her throat, then signs and speaks.

"Dizziness? Nausea?"

Sori signs in response.  Wyn nods.  "Nothing past normal, mm?"  Sori shakes her head.  "And you can hear me, yes?"  She tugs her right ear, to indicate Sori’s.  Sori reaches up and touches her earlobe before nodding.  Wyn checks Sori's palms, then nods.  "That's good.  You can go back to collecting again.  I just wanted to check that much."

The rest of the exam is conducted in relative silence, with Wyn taking steps back to sign for Sori and Sori signs back in response.  After a while, Wyn nods again and pats her on the head.  She bends forward to brush noses with her and smiles, ruffling her hair, before standing and shifting to the side to look at Amara.

"Now then," she says.  "Same thing with you.  Can you answer my questions?"

Amara blinks.  She holds out her hands, palms up.  They shake, just a little.  "What, about the, uh, the nausea and whatever?"

Wyn nods.  She eyes Amara’s hands, but doesn’t take them.  "I'll try not to touch you unless I need to, or you want me to."

Amara nods slowly, lowering her hands. Wyn gives her a small, reassuring smile.

“Right. Tell me, any nausea, dizziness, things like that?”

“Uh,” Amara looks at her flatly. “I guess?” She rubs a tender spot on her head, then shrugs. “I get that a lot, though, not ‘cause I smashed heads with her.” She juts her chin out at Sori and winces.

Wyn nods slowly. “Right. How are your reflexes? Having a hard time hearing, seeing, smelling...tasting?”

Amara looks to the side. “Uh...” She balances her hand in the air. “Kinda?”

“Would you mind elaborating?”

“I mean, yeah, but that’s what the dust is for.”

Wyn folds her hands and leans forward a bit, brow furrowed. “Dust?”

“Yeah, you know, like, metals and trees and shi—stuff. You know, stareaters?”

Wyn’s brow furrows further, then realization dawns on her face. “Right, astropathy. You’re an astropath? Or, a stareater, as you say.”

“Yeah. I can just spark ‘n’ fume some and I’m fine.”

Wyn nods slowly, then rubs her eyes. She puts her hands together, fingers touching her lips as she thinks. “So...any other recent head trauma?”

“I...don’t see why that’s relevant.”

“Well, I need to know if you have a history with head trauma.”

“I mean, the last four years have been head trauma.”  Amara grimaces. “My whole life, even. I mean, I’m Ohrak, we work the fields all day, and if we don’t, well. You don’t wanna know.” She rubs at a scar running down her face.  

Wyn looks at her quietly. It isn’t pity in her eyes, but her gaze is not devoid of sympathy. There’s something warm there, but Amara cannot place it. It only seems to speak of some distant passion she cannot yet name. Wyn speaks slowly.

“So, if that’s true, you’ve had quite a history with physical impact and injury.”

“That’s a way to put it.”

“We have children here.”

Amara glances around. She spots Taro, but others mill about. A couple men hold toddlers close, talking quietly amongst each other. Others play with older children. She looks back at Wyn, and says nothing.

“I’m not in the business of prying more than I need to,” Wyn tells her.  “So unless you want to tell me more about yourself now, so I can treat you better, the most I can ask you to do is ask you to...rest now. For your sake.”  Her voice is soft, and so are her eyes.

“I don’t even know who you people are.”

“You can take the time to ask before you rest, then.” Wyn does not speak unkindly. “And I’ll tell them to greet you as well. We have food here, and a few furs that can service as beds.”

Amara looks at her, bewildered. “Why? What’s wrong with you people?”  She covers her mouth and grimaces as she realizes what she said.  “Er, uh, I mean--“

Wyn raises an eyebrow. “Nothing yet, so far as I can tell. Can’t say the same about you…”

“That’s what I mean!” Amara says, a little louder than intended. Eyes shift to her direction, and she shrinks. “I mean...you don’t know me. Know what I do or what I’ve done. What if I’m--”

“If you’re bad,” Wyn says, “then we’ll deal with you. But you’re no Patrician.” She gives her a once over. “You’re no guard.” She takes in Amara’s oversized, shabby apparel. “And you’re starving.” Amara looks away.  Wyn leans forward. “The way I see it, Uakea saw that, and decided you could at least merit a chance. We’re willing to give you one.”

“How do you have the trust to spare?” She looks back out. The others have returned to taking care of the children. A man, willowy with messy hair, cradles a small child in his arms and sings softly. “You don’t look like you have anything to spare. Or, you shouldn’t.”

Wyn follows her gaze and bites her lip, thinking, for a second. She looks back at Amara. “Perhaps not,” she says. “But we can’t afford to kill unnecessarily. Can’t afford to get injured in a fight that doesn’t need to happen.” She gestures to Amara. “And neither can you.”

Wyn stands.  At once, Amara feels Sori’s eyes on her, dark and intense as they are, and she spares the girl a short glance. Sori does not waver. Amara looks away first. Wyn sighs, and pats Sori on her head.

“My prescription for you both is rest,” she declares. “The rest of us will take care of food. Uakea mentioned you brought a squirrel in, which should round out our fresh supplies for the evening.”

Amara scrambles. “You really don’t need to feed——“

“As I said, Amara, you are starving.” She turns. “I think it’d be wise to take the food we offer.” She takes a few steps away, then pauses. “If it should please you, I would like to schedule a check up with you later.  That is, if you decide to remain with us.” She gives Amara a small smile, bows, then turns away.

Amara leans back on her hands. Her right goes up and brushes her hair back.

“Sheez,” she huffs. “Musta died out there. This is all a dream or something.”

“Dreams aren’t this nice.”

Amara looks to her side and lifts an eyebrow in Sori’s direction. Sori does not so much look at Amara so much as she looks at her face or a point near to her, and Amara does not force her to make clearer eye contact, despite how intense she looked before. Instead, she leans further back and rests her back against the cave wall. 

“Guess I’m just dead, then.”

“Why?”

Amara glances towards her again, then looks back at the rest of the cave. “Well,” she says, lifting a hand and gesturing, “If I’m not dead, why’s everyone look so nice? Act so nice?”

“Because they are.”

Amara looks at her, watches her fold herself up and put her chin on her knees.  Sori’s hands still glow with that soft light, even as she appears to be resting.  Amara’s eyes trail away from her, and instead settle on Wyn.

Wyn glides, it seems, over the dirt floor to the place Uakea stands.  As though sensing Wyn as she approaches, Uakea turns and catches her.  Amara watches as Uakea sweeps Wyn up into her arms and nuzzles her nose, just the way Sori had with Bii and Taro.  But then, their foreheads touch, and it almost feels too intimate to watch.

But Amara can’t look away.  Not yet.

It’s as though she searches for a confirmation she isn’t aware of.  And as Uakea gentle dips Wyn, she gets the answer she’s looking for.

Uakea kisses her wife gently and passionately at once.  It’s something the men in the room turn away from, but the children haven’t learned to be embarrassed by yet.  

Amara, for her part, sits stunned.  Her hands come together and play with each other, until she realizes she’s staring and looks away again.  Right back to Sori, whose iron gaze returns to staring into her.

“Problem?” Sori prompts.  It is not unkind or unfriendly, but nothing she says sounds particularly different from each other.

“What?” Amara blinks.  “Oh, uh, no, no. Not…no. It’s nothing.”  She tries not to point, instead opting to lift a hand and gesture vaguely.  “It’s…well, you don’t see that a lot back home.”

“Yeah?”  Sori looks at her intently.  Amara almost bristles.

“Well, no.  Marriage’s s’posed to be between a man and woman, you know?”

“No.”  Sori’s word is simple, concise, and utterly decimating.  Amara almost blushes at the firmness of it.

“That’s what...well, it’s what I learned.”

“The people that taught you are allowed to be wrong,” Sori says. The barest of smiles sits upon her lips. “But they better smarten up quick.”

Amara looks at her. “Is that a joke?”

“Maybe.” Sori’s little smile takes on a sort of dangerous quality, but it’s like a puppy playing with another—no seriousness, really.

 Amara smiles back at her, then settles in her spot and leans back against the cave wall, brushing her hair back. She sighs. A dull pain throbs in her head, and she closes her eyes. 

Sori taps her shoulder. Slowly, Amara turns her head. She opens one eye and quirks a brow.

“Wake you when food’s ready,” Sori says, speaking with her hands as she does. “‘Kay?”

Amara turns and closes her eyes again and nods. She gives Sori a thumbs up.

Sori reaches out and takes the thumb between her forefinger and thumb, pinching it. Amara looks at her again, and finds her staring at her inquisitively.

“This means...’okay’?” Sori quirks an eyebrow.

“Oh,” Amara says. “Yeah. I forgot you don’t...” She trails off. “Yeah it does,” she says instead. “Thumbs up.” She grins.

Sori looks at her a moment, then smiles genuinely, her eyes squinting shut. “Thumbs up,” she replies, voice quiet and happy. She puts up her thumbs in the air, then turns and gets up. 

Amara watches her trot back to Bii and show her what she learned. “Thumbs up!” Bii looks over to Amara and waves.

She returns the wave, then lets her hand fall back on her stomach as she drifts off.

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Dancing Shadows 2

Shorter chapter part today because next week is...long.

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Amara slides down the tunnel and lands on the balls of her feet, almost pitching forward as the world tilts even as she finds solid ground. A large hand comes down and she flinches. No blow comes. She looks up. 

Uakea looks at her, offering her a small smile, one eyebrow quirked in concern. Her hand hangs in the air—an offer, not a threat.

“Need a hand?”

Amara's gaze slides away from Uakea as she realizes just how big the cave they're in is.

The ceiling is tall enough to accommodate Uakea, and though she does not stand at her full height, it is clear that there would be at least a foot of room over her head if she did.  People mull about in the dim light of the cave, and it is warm with their presence.  Their voices, which had paused when Amara slid down the tunnel, start up again, a soft buzz of many voices, most of which are gentle and low.

A child scampers up to Amara and looks at her with eyes so wide and brown and dark she could almost swear she was looking into a mine shaft.  Their hair is long and kept in a small braid over their shoulder, and they smile at her sleepily as they wave to her.  They crouch down so they can look up to see her face.

"Hey, hey," they say, their syllables pronounced in a lazy, happy drawl, "who're you?  Where's Sori?"

Amara blinks, then looks back up the shaft and points upwards.  "Oh, she's--"

"Taro," a gentle, fluid voice calls from the back, "come back here, flowerbud.  Give that woman some space."

Another tall woman wades out of the small crowd to take the child up in her arms.  They flop and laugh and wave at Amara again.  She can't help but smile and wave back, her previous tension dissipating completely as she watches them go up and flop back over into the woman's arms.

Amara’s hand lowers, and her gaze goes up to see who had called the child away.

Her jaw goes slack, just a little, as she is met with the most beautiful woman she's ever seen.

“I--“

“Sorry,” the woman says, a small, apologetic smile on her face.  “He’s friendly.  Likes new people.”  Though as she speaks, she holds Taro closer, protective and loving and wary all at once. Amara feels herself soften involuntarily.

“No, no,” she says, her voice quieter than she intended. She clears her throat. “No, I...it’s okay. I know how kids are, I...”  She tucks some of her shorn-short acorn-colored hair behind her ear and smiles. “I’ve been taking care of kids all my life. Siblings, you know?”

The woman’s eyes, dark and warm as they are, cool, just a bit, but she smiles again after a second. Amara feels her heart skip a beat, though this time out of anxiety.

“I...can honestly say I wish I did.”  The woman looks back up to Uakea, then to Amara. “I’m Yunbii, by the way. Bii.”

“Oh, sh—uh, shoot, yeah, sorry.” Amara tries to smile again. It comes out lopsided but genuine, her eyes squinting as she grins. “Name’s Amara.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

Amara feels the color on her neck creep to her cheeks, and she rubs her nose to hide it and her grin. 

“Yeah, well...uh...” She glances to the side, at the dirt floor. “Thanks. Bii’s a cute one, too.”  She glances up at Bii for a second, then clears her throat and takes Uakea’s still-hanging hand. “Sorry.” She stands.  The back of her neck burns, and she can feel herself blushing.

“Was wondering if you’d stay sitting there much longer.”  Uakea pulls her out of the way of the tunnel, towards Bii, and sticks her head up the tunnel. “Clear!”

The sound of shuffling and leaves rustling drifts down from overhead. The dimming light from above cuts to darkness, and Sori slides down.  Her hands glow a pale blue-indigo as she signs to her mother.  Uakea nods.

“Molwen,” Uakea calls into the dark, “light ‘er up.”

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Dancing Shadows 1

A cold wind howls over the peaks of the Northern Mountains, their jagged crowns reaching into the falling dusk like hands extending out from dark waters.  Yet the air, dry as bone but colder than silence, sits almost still within the forest at the mountains' base.  It feels as though the entire world sleeps beneath the blanket of frozen water that drifts down from the heavens.

Amara uncorks a small bottle of silver-copper alloy in her fingers––a substance called capionam––and drinks it.  Once she feels it settle, she sparks it.

Warmth spreads out from her stomach to her fingers, banishing the heaviness of cold and frost from her extremities and bringing the color back into her face.  At the same time, the world becomes sharper, more focused.  Her ears train in on a distant sound––one familiar and hopeful.

The short, light crunches of small, furred paws in the snow.

She can smell it, too, and the scent of dirt and water and decaying and frozen plants, as well.  She focuses on the heavier, closer scent of fur and flesh.  Amara crouches low in the snow and approaches, staying hidden behind a low row of brush ahead of her.  As she peers through the leaves, she can see a squirrel sniffing and pawing at the ground.  It deposits some nuts and looks around again.

Amara ducks back down.  She can hear it chittering as it investigates the area around it, but it does not wander far.  Amara braces herself, then, in an exhale, turns and pounces.

And collides with a much larger creature.

A crack resounds through the clearing, followed by two cries of pain.  Amara falls back into the snow, holding her head in her hand as the squirrel darts away.  She opens one eye to see a small, cloaked form barrel after it, yelling syllables she cannot understand.

“Hey, what the hell!” she calls out.  

She struggles to get to her feet as a wave of vertigo slams her, and the world tilts.  She slips in the ice and watches, hazily, as the tiny cloaked figure tackles the squirrel into the snow and captures it in their hands.  They turn and grin, holding the squirrel out as it struggles and curses at them both.

The figure looks more like a large pile of laundry than a person.  Their face, arms, and hands are covered in strips of cloth.  Even as the squirrel bites their hands, the figure does not flinch.  Their dark, thick eyebrows are furrowed as they approach Amara and bend down, pointing to the squirrel.  What little she can see of their face is tanned––more than hers––and a long scar crosses over the bridge of their nose.

“Caught this,” the figure says, their voice higher, softer, younger than Amara’s, and their words accented in a way she cannot place.  “You want it too, though, yeah?”

Amara blinks at the squirrel, and it blinks back.  She grimaces.  “Well, yeah, I found the fool thing!”  The squirrel jumps at her, and she flinches, despite herself.

“You find the nut stash, too?”

Amara looks at the person standing in front of her.  “What, you want both?”

They nod.  “Need both.”

“Yeah, well, I need food too, you little thief.”

The figure snorts and glares at her. Amara glares back, and as the figure turns and reaches back, she catches a glint of metal in the light.

On their back, a sword as long as the length of their body sits strapped in a makeshift leather holster.  Curving, claw-like patterns the likes of which are wholly unfamiliar to her eyes stretch down the span of the leather, but the blade’s shape and make are familiar to her.

“Where’d you get a Patrician sword?” she grunts, her eyes narrowing in suspicion as she nods to the blade.

The figure’s hand instinctively reaches back to grasp at the hilt, and the squirrel flies out of their hand, cackling at its fortune.

“Shit, piss, damn it!”  Amara lurches forward as her companion turns as well.  They launch themselves at the squirrel and collide once more, landing in a tangle of limbs and curses.

A much, much taller figure steps out from behind a tree and catches the squirrel in a bag.

“Sori, I’m not sure I recall teaching you those words.”

The figure named Sori stops, face down in the snow, and struggles out from Amara’s grip.  They scamper away, towards the taller figure.

“Umma.” Sori tugs at their sleeve.  “This one wants the squirrel.”  Her hands move quickly as she speaks.

This new stranger stands much taller than Amara, looming so high above her that she blocks the dimming light of the sunset.  Their nose is broad, their skin is dark, and a wry smile sits upon their lips as their eyes––black as obsidian glass––watch her with intensity and interest that shakes Amara to her core.

They turn to face Amara and take a step towards her.  Instinctively, Amara pulls out a shiv made of splintered bone out from her belt and backs up, hand over foot in the snow.  They pause, then crouch down to speak.  Even despite this, they tower.

“No need for that,” they say, softly.  “I’m not going to hurt you.  Neither will my daughter.”

Soft though this voice is, it has a sort of low, rumbling quality that is reminiscent of distant thunder, but with none of the threat held within the storm clouds that follow.  It carries a slight accent, the tone gentle, almost kind.  Amara finds herself lowering her shiv, but stops and pulls it up again as the figure approaches.  The figure glances at it.  The shiv, though sharp and sturdy, is perhaps the length of their palm––more likely, less.  It is not very threatening, even as Amara, still sitting in the snow, bears her teeth in a snarl.  The figure watches Amara steadily and meets her eyes easily, theirs as dark as the space between stars.

“Would you cut down a mother and her daughter in the snow?”  The woman shows Amara her open hands.  “I’m unarmed.”  Her eyes slip to Sori, then back to Amara.  “And my daughter won’t attack unless you do.”

Amara glares.

“We have food where we are,” the woman continues.  “We aren’t Patricians.  You aren’t either.”  She doesn’t look Amara over.  She doesn’t need to.  “And we aren’t bounty hunters.”  She offers her the bag with the squirrel in it.  “Just hunters.”

Amara reaches out to take the bag, then pauses.  “Your daughter said you needed that,” she says, slowly.  “For who?”

The woman pauses.  Sori’s hand goes back up to touch her sword’s handle, and the figure puts out an arm to tell her to stand down.  She does so.

“I’ll show you, if you come with us,” Sori’s mother says.  “Put your shiv away first.”

Amara hesitates.  A trail of mist leaves her mouth as she breathes for half a second, so slow in her tension that it’s more of a wisp.  Slowly, she puts her hand down.  Her shiv slides into her belt.

“My name is Uakea,” Uakea says, extending her hand.  “Need a hand up?”

Amara looks at the hand, then back at Uakea.  She stands up on her own and brushes off her wet back.  “Nah,” she says, clumsily, and almost winces.  “I--no.  Thanks, but, I’m okay.”

Uakea nods.  “Alright then.  Let’s head back.”  Sori nods to her.  Her hand drifts down from her sword’s handle and disappears into the folds of her cloak.  She looks away from Amara and stares into the forest around them, her pointed ears twitching as she appears to listen.

“All clear, Umma.”

Uakea nods, then turns away from Amara and starts walking.  It’s a presumptive sort of walk––one that implies that Uakea assumes she’ll simply follow without question.  Amara might call it over-confident, but Sori steps up behind her, just within her field of vision.

“Go on,” she says.  “‘M behind you.”

Amara’s feet shift in the snow and she sighs.  Another thin trail of mist drifts from between her lips and up into the air, and she sinks a little deeper into the wet snow beneath her.  She feels her stores of capionum draining as she walks.

“Your feet,” Sori says, voice monotonous.

Amara glances back at her.  “Yeah?”

“Wet.”

“...Yeah?”

“We have, ah...it’s…” Sori stumbles along the sentence.  Suddenly, she seems much less intimidating.  “We have something you can uh, use to dry off.”  She gestures with her hands, brow furrowing.  “Shoes,” she says after a moment.  “You can have shoes too, maybe.”

Amara watches her for a moment, then almost walks into a tree.  She barely dodges it as they pass, and she catches Sori smile, just a little.

“I don’t need your shoes,” Amara lies, then looks down at her scarred, blistering feet.  She sniffs and shrugs, and takes a few long steps.  Sori easily matches her, shadowing her silently.

Amara huffs, her brow furrowing as her hands flex.  She looks at Uakea, then looks back at Sori, then leans to the side and tries to see past Uakea.  A broad expanse of trees and snow lies ahead, dotted with frozen brush and the occasional large rock.  The sun sinks lower beneath the horizon.  Uakea takes a breath, then one long step forward.

“Best lengthen your stride, hm?” she calls back.  “I’d rather get home before dark falls.”

Uakea moves swiftly but not carelessly, somehow managing to leave shallow footprints despite her height.  It is as though she weighs nothing compared to Amara, who sinks into the snow and grunts with the effort of moving.  Sori moves behind her, playing tag with her heels.  Their shadows grow and fade into the trees as they move.  Amara feels a familiar ache in her bones and muscles and mind––something like fatigue that feels so deep it must be stitched into the fabric of her soul.

Uakea pauses and moves to run closer to her side.  “Can you make it?”

“How much farther?”

“Not much,” Sori replies for her.  “Just ahead.”

And there appears, almost, to be nothing ahead, except for fallen branches in the snow.  Uakea smiles at Sori nonetheless and reaches out to pat her on the head.  Amara pauses and blinks, stopping just before Uakea does.  Sori, in turn, stops just behind her and peers at her, dark eyes inquisitive.  Uakea turns half-way and glances at Amara.

“We’re underground,” Uakea says.  “Literally.  Here.”  She lifts the branches covering the ground and reveals a carefully woven cover made to keep the snow out and disguise the hole.  Amara steps up to the hole and peers down into the earth.  A curious, enticing warmth wafts up from beneath, and though Amara feels her heart jump to her throat at the prospect of going down into the tunnel, she finds herself almost thaw standing at the precipice.

“I’ll go down first.”  Uakea smiles at her gently, then climbs down into the tunnel.  “Listen close, you’ll not hear any ambush waiting.”

Her words, like her daughter’s, are accented and carry a strange rhythm Amara can’t quite place.  Amara watches Uakea go down, then steps to the edge and looks down into the dark.  She sees the vague shapes of people below, and Uakea gestures for her to follow her down before walking out of view, presumably into a cave of some sort.

Sori stands behind her, looking around them and checking their surroundings for movement.  She glances at Amara.  “I’ll go down after you,” she says.  “Gotta make sure the cover is on.”  She nods to her.  “I won’t hit you.”  Sori gives her a small, tired smile.  “But you’re in the way.  So go down.”

Amara gives her one last look.  Her brow is furrowed, her mouth in a line.  “What’s in it for you?” she asks.  “Helping me.  Keeping me at all.”

Sori looks at her with a quiet, steady gaze, and Amara feels something within her lurch, just slightly.  It feels as though she’s been tugged to the edge of a cliff beside a deep ocean.  Sori blinks at her.

“Don’t know yet.”  She gives her a light push.  “Maybe nothing.”  She looks down the hole.  “My family is down there.  So go.”

Amara blinks at her once more, then takes a breath.  She lowers herself down through the mouth of the tunnel, then lets go.

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I haven’t updated in forever and I take responsibility for that! I’ve just been mad busy, stuff’s been piling up in my life, and I’ve been overwhelmed by it.  But I’m going to get back on this!!  I probably will only update on Thursdays, though.  This is the chapter page for the next chapter.

We skip ahead a bit in time and meet someone new.

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Interlude 1: Saeri

Immediately after the escape, the group pulls over in the snow.  Saeri, one of Bii’s children, makes some observations.

Sori is sick.

It's the kind of sick that comes up in spurts and spreads out in waves, sends dizziness from her pit and makes everything in her shake.  That’s what it looks like to those who can see.  Her mother, her umma, stands behind her and rubs her back.  She stands behind her to shield her, too, and shield the children behind them both from the scene she’s making.

Sori is sick.

They cannot hear her.  Or, Saeri cannot, but Saeri supposes she must be very far away anyway.  Bii, her own umma, has a hand on her shoulder.  It is large, and warm, and present, and the weight of it makes for a comfort as deep or deeper than anything she’s ever felt.  But when Bii smiles at her to, Saeri thinks, reassure her, Saeri feels like her umma isn’t quite looking at her.

“Why’s Sori sick?”

Saeri asks without thinking much of it.  She doesn’t think much past her worry, because she doesn’t want Sori to be sick.  She’s been told that Sori got them out of the Program, along with her siblings and her umma.

She can see Sori shaking from where she is, hiding behind a tree.  She sees Sori’s hand, darkened with a lot of dried something clutching the tree in front of her as she leans over again and heaves soundlessly.

They are amidst a great many trees, her family, Sori’s family, and her.  The city that she never knew to be her home is a great many paces away from them.  She isn’t sure how to measure exactly how far they are, but she’s heard the term “miles” before, and she wants to believe, because a mile sounds quite large, that they are at least a mile away from the town.

Bii looks down at her daughter and runs her hand through Saeri’s curls.  She smiles at her kindly, though it’s one of those things that’s too small to take away all of Saeri’s worries.  She steps closer to Bii instead and grips the edge of her gown.

“Sori had to work hard to get us out,” Bii said.  “She had to do scary things.”

“Did the things make her sick?”

A fair question.  Bii looks at her with quiet eyes.  Her mouth opens before she speaks as she reaches around for a way to make Saeri understand things she herself does not know.

“You know,” Bii says softly, getting down to look Saeri in the eyes, “how, when you do something that you don’t like, it hurts here?”  She puts a hand, large and gentle, over Saeri’s heart.  Maybe a little to the side and lower, closer to her stomach.  Saeri nods.  Bii’s smile gets wider for a half second as she nods.  “It’s like that, but it hurts Sori enough to make her feel that bad.”

Sori drops into the snow, slipping away from the tree and out of Uakea’s grasp.  Her shoulders shake before Uakea moves down to pick her up again and hold her.  Uakea takes a skin of water off her belt and gives it to Sori to drink.  Sori drinks, chokes.  Her shoulders shake as she coughs into the snow and, it feels, sobs.  Saeri can see her scream.

But the exchange is silent.  Saeri understands this to be something some Kohumae can do––exist in silence and do things without being heard.  Not all of them, though.  Not her, for instance, and not her umma.

“We need to move on,” says Daesun, a tall man with a close-trimmed black-brown beard.  His brows sit furrowed deep in his face, his mouth drawn into a thin, hard line.  He could be silent too, if he wanted to be, but he doesn’t want to be, now.  He wants to be heard. 

He crosses and uncrosses his arms as he looks around the forest.  “Can’t she...do that when we’re farther out?”  His eyes are on Sori now.  The air around him feels as solid with tension as a tree’s trunk, but he doesn’t shift or move.  Saeri can’t understand how he does it––that standing so still.  She doesn’t try to, though.

“Sori’s sick!” she exclaims, then immediately covers her mouth as her older sister, Giin, turns towards her with wide eyes and holds a finger to her lips.  Saeri gives her an apologetic look and puts a finger to her own lips.  She looks back to Daesun.  “Sori’s sick,” she whispers.  “You gotta wait.”

Daesun’s jaw works as he looks at her.  His eyes move to the side before his head does, and he looks to Wolzen instead.

Wolzen shakes his head before Daesun can even start.  “Better to get it out now, don’t you think? Gives Taizen the time to get the supplies moving ahead of us anyway.”

“And time for us to cover tracks,” Molwen, Wolzen’s twin brother, chimes in.

Daesun sighs.  He doesn’t argue more.  Saeri looks up at her umma, whose hand on her shoulder is heavy and warm, but stiff and still, too.

Bii’s jaw is set.  It’s clear that her face is a little square beneath its present softness.  Her brown eyes watch Daesun as he settles against the tree behind him, and Saeri tugs on her sleeve to pull her attention away from him.

“Umma I wanna go to Sori.”

Bii’s brows go up before she looks to Saeri.  A smile returns to her face.  She rests a hand on Saeri’s curls again and says, “Wait a little longer, love. They went far away because they needed a moment to themselves.”

Sori is pressed tight into her own umma’s chest.  If Saeri squints against the dark, she can make out Uakea’s lips moving.  She doesn’t have to squint much to see Uakea rock Sori back and forth, though.  Sori, who is seventeen, still needs her umma sometimes.

Saeri holds onto Bii’s dress again.  In response, Bii offers her her large, warm hand.  Saeri takes it.  “I’m sure Sori would like to see you when she’s done,” Bii says, then squeezes Saeri’s hand just a little.  “Just wait a little longer.”

They wait for the rocking to stop, and for Sori and her umma to stand up again in the snow.  They take a step towards the rest of the group.  Snow crunches beneath their feet.  Sori’s eyes are red and her face is puffy.  She looks miserable, Saeri thinks, and she goes right up to her to check, releasing her umma’s hand to reach for Sori’s.

But Sori stops her at arm’s length before Saeri can get close to her body proper.  Saeri looks up at Sori and opens her mouth as though to ask why, even though she had no intention of saying much at all.  Sori gives her the smallest, weakest smile.  She’s chewing on something, it seems.  The center of her palms glow faintly.

“I smell kind of bad, you know,” Sori says, patting Saeri on the head.  “I’m still dirty.  But when I’m clean, I promise to hold you if you want.”

Saeri isn’t sure that’s what she wants, actually.  Her mouth stays open as she tries to figure out what to say.  More, she’s cold and she can smell Sori, but there’s something more important at hand.

“I want you to be okay!” she says, a little loud again.  Saeri can imagine Giin behind her, with her finger to her lips.  But Saeri decides it doesn’t matter, because Sori smiles at her then.  It’s something that comes with a quiet huff, half like a chuckle, and it makes Sori’s eyes squint.  That’s what Saeri wants, too.  She reaches up to hold Sori’s wrist, and Sori pats her head again.

“I’m okay,” says Sori.  “I’m just smelly.”  Her hand drops.  Sori looks past Saeri, and when Saeri turns, she sees she’s looking at Bii.  “Let’s go.”

Saeri sees Sori sign an apology to everyone, very quick.  She signs more, too quick for Seari to catch, and the group starts back out into the snow.  Uakea brings up the rear, covering their tracks as they move deeper into the night.

No sound follows them as they leave.

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