by Dreagen
Rex broke out in a sweat. He could feel his body trembling uncontrollably as his blood felt like it was coming to a boil. So gripped was he by this sudden rush of emotion that he did not hear VayRonx calling his name until he finally let out a throaty bark.
“Are you all right, Rex?” he asked, peering down with a massive eye.
Rex shook his head, driving the feeling away before nodding. “Yes. I mean…I’m sorry, what were you just saying?”
“Hmm, best get you back to bed.”
With that, Rex climbed back on to the alpha’s head and the two descended the steps of the pyramid. Traveling back the way they had come, they traversed the lake, trudged back through the forest, and crossed the valley towards town. VayRonx brought his head over to the window, allowing Rex to climb back into his room.
“VayRonx,” he said as he turned to face him. “Why can’t DiNiya ignite her flame?”
“That, my boy, is a story that you will no doubt come to know in time. However, it is not for me to tell.”
“It’s like she has this part of her that’s missing but she still puts on a face for everyone else. I don’t understand why she does that, or how.”
“She does it because she knows she is part of something much grander than her own pain. True, it is a burden of sorts for her, but sometimes when we lose something precious it strengthens everything else that makes us who and what we are.”
Rex was unsure what to say, for he knew VayRonx was right. DiNiya had been dealt a harsh hand from an early age but she refused to let it decide who she was. He envied her for that, for no matter how hard he had always tried, he could not break free of the anger that he was bound to his entire life—an anger that had kept him from truly being happy, or able to make emotional connections with those around him.
He was about to close the shutters when he heard VayRonx call out to him from the edge of the incline. “Rex, we cannot choose what we are, only who we are. You have always walked your path alone, and thus have been fighting your battles as such, but you do not have to forever. Do not just pass those you meet along the way. They just may turn out to be the ones who give you a reason to keep fighting when you can no longer provide one for yourself. Goodnight.” With that, he turned and disappeared beyond the hill.
Rex stared out the window for several minutes before returning to bed, where he lay down and stared up at the ceiling. It seemed at last he had learned where he came from, and why he had always been so different. However, instead of illuminating a mystery that had plagued him his whole life, it just gave him more questions. “So after all that,” he said quietly to himself, “I’m still lost in the dark.”
7
STOKING THE FIRES
Rex awoke the next morning to the sound of VayRonx calling out to the morning sun, signaling the start of the day. He found himself not as tired as he had been the previous mornings and eager to get out of bed—something that was a bit surprising considering he had been out so late. In truth, he had not even remembered his twilight visit to the Relic Island until that exact moment, which caused him to slump back down on his bed.
What was all that, really? he wondered as he allowed for the night’s excursion to drift back into memory. He did not like secrets, but worse over, he hated knowing there were any, especially ones involving him. His mind was fluttering with anxiety once again, and he felt a strong pull in his stomach, making him lurch slightly. “No,” he said angrily to himself. He was having a panic attack. He hated them with a passion. They struck out of nowhere and vanished just as quickly. He got them from time to time, but never grew used to them. Leaning forward, he breathed heavily. He could feel the anger welling up inside him, for he found this to always be such an interruption of his state of mind that he could not help but treat it like it was something to be offended by. Breathing more harshly now, he closed his eyes and waited for it to pass.
It was then that he heard a soft voice say, Breathe deeply and be calm. You are the master of all things within you, including your fear.
Rex felt his anxiety began to slip away, and he soon found himself breathing normally once again, the pull in his stomach gone. “What was that all about?” he asked aloud. He looked around the room but saw no one else. “Get a grip, man,” he said, slapping the sides of his face and standing up. He was pulling on his shoes just as he heard a light knock at the door.
“Rex, are you up?” DiNiya asked from the other side.
Rex nearly lost his balance as he tried to respond and put his other shoe on while balancing himself on one foot.
“Uhh, yeah,” he stammered as he managed to pull the shoe on. “Coming right now.” He opened the door and saw DiNiya standing there with her usual broad smile.
“Well, good morning,” she said with a snigger.
“What?” Rex asked before he looked down and saw that he had somehow managed to put his shirt and pants on backwards. Turning, he went back into the room to fix it while DiNiya leaned against the doorframe and watched with amusement. “Hey, aren’t you going to turn around?” he asked when he noticed her watching.
“Why?” DiNiya asked in a tone that implied she did not understand his meaning. “Are you hiding something?” she added as she stepped forward and looked him over excitedly.
“No, that’s not it,” he replied, recoiling slightly.
“Then what’s wrong?” she asked, staring so deeply into his eyes that he could actually feel himself turning red. He looked away quickly. Why do I get this way around her? he wondered. She’s just a girl. This sort of thing never bothered me with any of the ones I knew back home. He looked back up to see her still giving him an unwavering stare, expecting an answer from him. “Well, it’s…I’m a man…and you’re a girl…sooo…”
“Oh, don’t be so modest, Rex. I’ve already seen you naked, remember?” she teased as she gave him a playful punch on the shoulder before walking back to the open door. “Hurry up or we’re going to be late.”
Rex, now completely embarrassed, put his shirt and pants back on as quickly as he could and followed after her, unable to look her in the eye.
DiNiya smiled and shook her head as she led him downstairs. They ate breakfast together while she told him all about how they would be helping someone called TemBol gather wheat in the fields today, and then go put some time in at her father’s shop. This helped alleviate Rex’s embarrassment from earlier, but it also piqued his curiosity. “Shop?” he asked with a look of intrigue in his eyes.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Rex,” DiNiya said, slapping her forehead. “I keep forgetting you don’t know anything.”
“Thanks,” he replied dryly.
“Don’t know anything about our lives here,” she corrected herself with an abashed smile. “I’m not doing a good job of teaching you about our world, am I?”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said as he tore off a piece of bread from the loaf between them and dipped it into something that tasted like olive oil. “I’ve always been a little slow when it comes to academics. It’s why I hate school.”
“What’s ‘school’?” DiNiya asked, cocking her head slightly to the side.
“School…you know, where you go to learn.”
“Learn what?” she pressed.
“Well…everything, I suppose.”
“What makes this…‘school’ so special that you can only learn what you need to there?” she asked, now clearly confused. “Do the tribes of Earth not believe in teaching their young?”
“Well, no, that’s not it,” he replied more by reflex than by conscious thought. “I mean they teach us things, but…well, they, I mean our parents, are just busy with everyday life, I guess.”
“So they send you away to a place where…who teaches you, exactly?”
“Teachers. People that get paid to teach.”
“Paid? What does that mean?”
“You know. Paid. Like with money.”
“Money?” she repeated curiously as she searched for the
elusive meaning of the word.
“The stuff you use to buy things you need and want,” he explained as the reality that she had no idea what he was talking about dawned on him.
“So…in exchange for teaching you…things,” she tried to reason, “your tribe gives them…money, was it?”
“Yes, but it’s not our tribe that gives them money. It’s the government.”
“Wait, you keep adding things,” she said, frustrated. “What’s a govern…mont?”
“It’s ‘government,’” Rex corrected with a laugh, but he quickly stopped when he saw that she was expecting a genuine answer. “Think of it as a sort of big tribe that controls all the smaller ones.”
“Well, if this government—did I say it right this time?” Rex nodded. “If this government is your tribe, then that would make all the smaller ones, as you called them, clans.”
“What?”
“A tribe is made up of many different family lineages called clans,” she explained. “So if the government is your tribe, then the ones who send you to school are your clans.”
“Okay, sure, why not?” Rex said with mild sarcasm, impressed that she had given the whole thing this much thought.
“But what I cannot understand is why the clans of these tribes feel that they have to send you away to this ‘school’ to learn all that you need,” she said, leaning back in her seat and staring up at the ceiling.
“Well, it’s like I said, they’re busy with work. Basic everyday life stuff.”
“They do not consider raising their children as part of their everyday life?” she asked, mortified. “What in the world is wrong with them?”
Rex laughed. Never before had he ever had a conversation like this with anyone. The way she viewed what he had considered normal as odd and unnatural was in a strange way refreshing, and it gave him a newfound sense of vigor. “Trust me, I’ve been asking myself that question for a long time.”
DiNiya leaned forward and rested her head in her hands as she grappled with notions that seemed too ridiculous to grasp. “I simply do not understand. All the older members of your clan refuse to teach you the ways of life so they can do what you call ‘everyday life stuff,’ which doesn’t include their own children? So they send them off to a place where random people from other clans have to teach them in exchange for something called ‘money,’ which they use to ‘buy’ things with?”
“Pretty much,” Rex replied, the whole thing starting to sound ridiculous even to him.
“And what is it that they need to buy with this money?” she asked, clearly only a step away from no longer being able to hold back all of her contempt for the system he was raised in.
“The basic necessities,” he replied. “Food, and things to entertain themselves with.”
“Oh, you have got to be joking,” DiNiya exclaimed, slamming her fists down on the table so hard that Rex jumped. “Your tribe forces your elders to pursue meaningless tasks which do not include teaching all of you what you need to know, so they make them send you away to a place where other people of different clans have to teach you but only in return for something called money, given to them by the tribe, which they then have to turn and give right back for the basic things they need to survive and be happy?”
“Basically,” Rex replied simply, realizing how sad the whole thing was.
She sighed heavily and spoke with empathy. “You’ve come from a strange place, Rex, where everyone seems to be insane.”
“Yeah,” he replied somberly. “I’m starting to see that.”
DiNiya looked at him and saw that this was taking its own toll on him. “I’m sorry,” she said in a calm voice. “I didn’t stop to think how all this was affecting you. To suddenly find yourself in a place where everything you have been taught is strange and unnatural. Our ways must seem as offsetting to you as yours do to us.”
“That’s not it. All my life I’ve felt stupid because I could never keep up with everyone else. Of course, every normal kid hates school, but I really hated it, so much so that I felt like just a number that people would forget about if I stopped showing up. That’s actually the way I felt about everything. People always kept me at a distance, and after a while, I began to do the same thing with them. Keep them out of arm’s reach but close enough to keep an eye on.”
“How can anyone live like that?” she asked, shaking her head in dismay.
“Not much choice, I suppose. You take what life gives you and run with it. That’s just the way it is.”
“No, Rex,” she said as she reached out and took his hand in hers. “That’s only the way the people of that world you came from allowed it to be. My father has always said that life is a series of choices, choices that we make, and that those choices lead us down paths of our choosing, and ultimately our destinies.”
“So what are you saying?” asked Rex as he looked into her eyes. “That I can choose to be whoever I want here and live the life I want?”
“Yes,” she replied, smiling. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Rex laughed and rubbed the back of his head. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“From the beginning,” DiNiya said as she stood up, not letting go of his hand.
Gazing up at her, he could not help but see her looking radiant as the morning glow shined behind her from the open widow. “The beginning it is then,” he said as he stood up.
DiNiya smiled and led him to the front door, then turned around to face him, taking his other hand. “Oh, and just so you know. Back there, in that world, you weren’t stupid. You were just too smart for any of that nonsense to make any sense.”
Rex blushed slightly but could not help but feel some degree of pride from hearing such words of validation come from another. The two walked outside into the bright morning sunlight, where they made their way down to the massive fields where both DyVorians and SaVarians were working side by side. Ceratopsians and ankylosaurids were pulling heavy plows while smaller two-legged DyVorians were busy handpicking crops.
“What are they growing down there?” asked Rex.
“Mostly wheat and barley,” explained DiNiya, “but also some seasonal vegetables.”
They walked through the field, DiNiya saying good morning to everyone they passed with Rex nodding respectfully to all of them. He was not sure where she was leading them, but then he saw her call out to one of the massive ceratopsians that looked like a giant Triceratops he had seen before. “Good morning, TemBol,” she called out as she waved.
The large DyVorian cocked his head back in their direction before turning around to face them.
“Ahh, DiNiya, good morning,” TemBol said. “Come to help us gather the harvest this morning?”
“I have,” she replied happily. “And I brought some extra muscle with me,” she said, giving Rex a playful wink.
“I see that,” TemBol said as he swiveled his massive frilled head over to Rex. “You must be Rex. It would seem that your reputation precedes you, for I have already heard much about you.”
“Oh,” replied Rex, surprised that he was known by so many considering he had barely left his room since he arrived. “Yeah…didn’t mean to stir things up around here. Sorry for any trouble I’ve caused.”
“Sorry?” TemBol replied in surprise. “Whatever for? You must be an impressive warrior to be able to hold your own against an OroGon on two occasions, even one as young as TyRoas. I congratulate you on two bouts well fought, Rex.”
“Thank you,” Rex said, smiling and feeling somewhat vindicated.
“Well, then let me take you to SilKar, who will show you what you two will be doing. Follow me.”
DiNiya and Rex followed TemBol through the golden fields until they came upon a Hypsilophodon, who immediately looked up when he noticed the three of them approaching.
“And who have you brought me this morning?” SilKar asked in a boisterous voice.
“A couple of beasts of burden,” replied TemBol.
&nb
sp; “Excellent!”
Rex found it ironic that in a world where the decedents of humanity were the minority, they were considered beasts themselves. Yet Rex did not take any offense to this notion; rather, he found it liberating, for humans always seemed to remove themselves from the natural world, thus living disconnected and apart from it—something that always created a personal longing in his heart. Now here he was, just another beast of the land and making himself feel for the first time almost connected to something.
“Are we helping you pick the KenTopo?” DiNiya asked gingerly.
“That you are, my dear,” SilKar replied, pulling a wagon five times as large as either of them. “You can show Rex the ropes.”
“Sounds good,” she replied cheerfully as she turned to him. “Basically, all we’re doing is pulling the KenTopo from the ground and loading it into the wagon.”
She bent down, grabbed it by the thick leathery green leaves protruding up from the ground, and with a strong tug, pulled what looked like a maroon barbed potato the size of a pumpkin out of the ground. Rex was surprised by how easily she had pulled the large root free. Throwing it over her shoulder and into the cart, she immediately reached down for another. “You try, Rex,” she said, glancing up.
Bending down, Rex grabbed hold of the tri-leaved plant at his feet and effortlessly pulled it free, but lost his balance and fell hard on his rear.
“Are you all right?” she laughed as she took his hand and helped him to his feet.
“Yeah,” he replied, disgruntled, as he brushed the dirt away from his backside.
“If you use that much strength for each of those, you’ll tire yourself out before we’re done,” said SilKar. “Though I appreciate your enthusiasm.” With that, he went back to work while DiNiya gave Rex a playful nudge before getting back to work. Rex shrugged his shoulders and cracked his neck before joining suit.
They worked throughout the morning, stopping for lunch around midday before returning to the field to continue picking more of the large root crops. Rex was continuously surprised by how effortlessly DiNiya pulled the now almost full wagon. They had already unloaded it and refilled it four times without her so much as showing any hint of physical strain or fatigue. During all that time, she and SilKar told Rex all about the harvest season and the various trips to the Northern Capital to barter portions of the various crops for those from all over EeNara. They both seemed particularly enthusiastic about one called elix, which—if he understood their explanation—sounded like something that could be made into cake.