Strength

by Angela B. Macala-Guajardo

  Fond memories of hanging out with her childhood friend and pretending to be aliens exploring an alien planet added to her sadness. Learning how to cook and clean and do gardening with Grandma. Rare trips to the beach. Roxie did her best to push her melancholy aside though. She knew, deep down, that she was lucky to have such loving memories of home, even if she never saw it again. The vision of Baku’s memory of Roxie’s conception flashed through her mind.

  Roxie began to rub herself down with the stone. It worked just like a bar of soap, minus the suds, and she was soon free of the grime from her less graceful actions of the day. She was on a mission to keep her home and family safe. She couldn’t afford to get distracted by homesickness.

  Once clean, she propped her head against the rim of the tub and closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth and tranquility. The water was beginning to smell therapeutic.

  “Rox!” Aerigo yelled from somewhere in the house, startling Roxie upright. “Don’t take all morning!”

  “Morning?”

  “It’s going to get real hot. I suggest you don’t waste any more time.”

  “That’s Sconda for ya,” Yayu added with a friendly shout.

  “But we just—” Phailon and her world were experiencing evening. “And here it’s—” Time doesn’t match? “What about…sleep?”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  Heaving a sigh, Roxie got out of the tub and grabbed a towel, dripping water all over the wood floor and rug. She crept closer to the bead-and-cloth door when she heard Yayu say, “Aren’t you bein’ a little hard on her?”

  “Both of us need to adjust to this new time zone as soon as possible.”

  “Why such a hurry?”

  There was a pause before Aerigo said, “Do you know about the prophesied war?”

  “Din came and told all the Clan leaders he was goin’ to be away for a while, but not why.”

  When both men stayed quiet long enough for Roxie to realize they were done talking, she crept over to her backpack, finished toweling off, and put on her second set of Versaton clothes.

  War. That’s right. She’d pushed the news aside back on the cruise ship and never given it a second thought, instead focusing on learning about what filled up the rest of the universe. Her motions were slow and mechanical, having been numbed by the war reminder, and the sheer number of people she had to defend on one world alone. Once her hair and teeth were brushed, she headed for the door but stopped with an arm reaching for the beads.

  “It’s been ages. It’s a blessin’ to have you here again,” Yayu was saying.

  “Not this time,” Aerigo said.

  “An omen then?”

  Roxie didn’t want to hear more war stuff. She left the bathroom and stood just outside the doorway, causing both men to turn.

  “It’s amazing how different you look when you’re clean,” Yayu said a little quicker than Roxie thought he should have. “You’re very beautiful, you know.”

  Roxie gazed at her feet. They’re treating me like a child, like I can’t handle grown-up matters. Thanks, guys.

  “Don’t be afraid to enjoy and share your goodness. Never let a good thing go to waste.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Roxie said, masking her disappointment with a smile. She crossed to one of the sprawling couches and sat next to Yayu.

  “I won’t be long,” Aerigo said, then grabbed his pack and headed into the bathroom.

  Roxie reclined against plush red pillows, her pride feeling not quite as injured after she saw Aerigo’s face right before he disappeared. It was almost his usual neutral expression, but that time there was something along the lines of sadness or worry in it. Yayu looked similarly distressed but he popped a smile when he noticed Roxie looking at him.

  “Would you like some herbal tea?” Yayu asked, standing up. “It’ll help wake you up and it tastes quite good.”

  “Sure,” Roxie said, eager to give Aerigo, Yayu, and everyone else less reason to worry. The thought of war still frightened her but she wanted to be able to protect Sconda and Phaedra, along with her home world. There were so many wonderful and beautiful places in the universe.

  Yayu jogged to his kitchen, and returned with fresh mugs for both of them. He set hers on the table between the couches and retreated with his to the opposite couch.

  Roxie picked up her own plain mug and examined its steaming contents. It looked like normal tea without milk and she could smell a hint of lemon and a touch of sweetness. She took a tentative sip and the tea caressed her throat all the way down, and its lemony scent filled her nose, sending an all-alert signal to her lagging brain. The drink tasted delicious and its warmth filled Roxie with renewed energy. “Thank you!”

  “Don’t mention it,” Yayu said with a wave of his hand. “You just sit there and finish it, a’right?” He got up and whisked over to another section of his home.

  Roxie sat drinking her tea as she watched Yayu prepare some food in his kitchen. He chopped away on a cutting board, very fast, and her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten in hours. She smiled at the prospect of food. Without meaning to, she drank her tea rather quickly.

  Roxie heard the beads clicking in the bathroom doorway and turned to see Aerigo reemerge, wearing his black pants, but no shirt, socks or boots. She couldn’t help but stare with frank admiration at his chest and abs and biceps and shoulders and arms and—just the whole picture. What a difference without the shirt. His muscular physique had a magnetic hold over her eyes and her mouth fell ajar. Then she realized that she was checking out someone who was probably twice her age. She averted her eyes, clamped her mouth shut and felt her face blushing.

  Aerigo didn’t seem to notice. He strode over to the empty couch and sat down, facing her, his arms stretched along the couch-top.

  She clasped her mug for dear life and stared at the shadowed reflection of her wide-eyed face in her remaining tea. Wait a minute! Aerigo’s pants were perfectly clean and dry, though he’d only been gone for fifteen minutes.

  “How’d your pants get dry so fast?” Roxie said, hoping her latest question would cover up her ogle-fest.

  “The stones under the tub and a quick Ambura incantation.” He shrugged, which emphasized his broad shoulders and made Roxie’s chest flutter.

  She looked away and blushed again. She tried to think of their age gap, but that didn’t work. “Yayu, could I have some more tea, please?” She held the mug out to him, trying with all her might not to look at Aerigo, though she paid most attention to her peripheral vision.

  “Certainly, miss,” Yayu paused in his food preparation and took her cup.

  “Thank you,” she said unsteadily, the blood pounding in her face.

  “We’ll eat first,” Aerigo said. “Then I’ll teach you how to find people with your mind.”

  “Sounds great,” she said unenthusiastically to the table between her and Aerigo.

  Yayu brought back more tea, along with a tray of food, and set it before them. “A’right, a late breakfast it is. There’s all sorts of good stuff, so help yerselves.” He sat down and they ate without speaking, munching on buttered biscuits, assorted fruit, strips of meat, boiled eggs and cheese cubes until there wasn’t much left.

  Once breakfast was done, the two Aigis thanked Yayu for everything and filed back outside. The grass felt exceptionally cool under Roxie’s feet, and the air still refreshing. She snuck a furtive peek at Aerigo’s long, strong back, then scolded herself. He was just so amazingly fit. But she had to resist developing a crush. It would be too embarrassing if he noticed—and distracting from their task. Then she noticed some deep scars etched into his back. There were two that reached from his right shoulder to the base of his back, another vertical scar along his right shoulder blade and four puncture marks on his left side that went from underarm to elbow, making a backwards ‘c.’ Jeeze, how the heck did he get those? She recalled Rooke describing him as a warrior, yet Roxie couldn’t gear up the courage to ask. It felt like she didn’t kn
ow him well enough to ask such things.

  Aerigo stopped faced her. “Hold still,” he said, and lifted a piece of black material—one of his shirts—and tied it over Roxie’s eyes, blindfolding her.

  “What’re you doing?” she asked and breathed in Aerigo’s scent. She heard him say something but her attention was more focused on the spiced soap emanating from the Versaton material. “Huh?”

  “Can you see anything?” Aerigo repeated.

  “Not unless you can teach me x-ray vision, too.” You smell nice though.

  “No, so forget about using your eyes. Just feel with your mind, like you’re lost in the dark and have to feel around with your hands. But do it with your mind.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now find me.”

  You’re standing right in front of me. Duh! Roxie reached with her arms and found only air. What the—? “Where are you?”

  No response.

  How am I supposed to forget about using my eyes? She took a deep breath and closed her eyes under the blindfold. Even though she could see nothing, it was more comforting to keep them open. She stood still, having to reassert her balance, and began to visualize hands searching in the dark. They probed in front of her, finding nothing. She turned her head to the left and sensed the edges of a house. A house! When her mind brushed up against it, she could visualize its outline. Her surroundings were black but the objects she encountered were outlined in whites and greys. The images vanished as her eyes opened. Roxie closed her eyes again so she could focus. She probed further into the house. Roxie discovered a man and a woman, both in their twenties. Their twenties? It wasn’t so surprising that she could discern gender, but why did she feel sure of their age? Another interesting discovery, but she had to find Aerigo and ask him about it.

  Turning her concentration and her whole body to her right, past the edge of the house, she found another person—Aerigo! There you are, she thought and began forming as solid a picture of Aerigo as she could. His white and grey outline stood several yards away, his feet spread, face staring right at her and arms folded. Along with her mental image came his age. What? She checked again and got the same answer. No one gets that old! Roxie walked towards him and tried to poke his arm, but his outline backed away. She lunged to catch him and end the game, yet his outline dodged with ease, his arms still folded. Then his form slipped out of her arc of vision.

  Roxie was starting to like this game.

  Knowing that thinking in a straight line would take forever to search her surroundings, she tried visualizing her arms sweeping out in all directions. This worked. It still took a while to form everything there was to see, but she soon discovered that Aerigo was standing some distance behind her. His age still confused her. She did an about-face and moved towards him again.

  “Don’t concentrate so hard,” Aerigo said. “Just brush by all the unnecessary details and people, and concentrate on finding me.” He unfolded his arms and sprinted away.

  Ah! She took a step forward, an arm outstretched in longing, her mouth open to protest, but he was gone again. Roxie sighed. Back to square one, apparently. She concentrated again and realized how much easier it was to move around when she didn’t pay much attention to everything she encountered. She focused solely on Aerigo and shrugged off anything that didn’t feel like him. The hardest part was ignoring other people. There was something about sentient life that drew her attention no matter how hard she tried to ignore them.

  Mind vision took a little getting used to. Standing and concentrating was one thing. Moving and sustaining the images was harder. Aerigo hopped around the vicinity from one place to the next, and Roxie determinedly walked after him.

  Roxie almost missed Aerigo before finding him for the fifth time. The edge of her mental circle brushed his body hiding behind a group of Scondish people gathered at a food stand. She wended past the people as she saw him stand up and maneuver around the crowd.

  “You’re doing very well. Keep it up because now it gets harder. My only hint is to jog instead of walk.”

  “But it’s hard to keep on seeing while moving!”

  “That’s why we’re starting at a jog. I know you can do it.” He ran out of her mental vision again.

  Roxie lifted her blindfold and looked around. The group of Scondish people she and Aerigo had been standing next to were giving her perplexed stares. Roxie pulled Aerigo’s shirt back over her eyes and moved out onto the grassy space between homes.

  She concentrated harder, expanding her mental circle. She found Aerigo waiting a hundred yards ahead of her, and at that moment Roxie noticed another detail to her mind vision; objects closer to her were outlined in brighter shades of white, but as the images sat further away, their outlines became greyer and darker. Aerigo’s outline was still fairly visible, but he wasn’t as easy to see. I wonder what the range to our mental vision is.

  Roxie jogged towards Aerigo and her mental image blurred but didn’t disappear. Suddenly her breath started coming in ragged gasps as the strain on her brain increased tenfold. She stopped, her mental vision sharpening again, and bent over to catch her breath. She wiped gathering sweat on her forehead as Aerigo jogged over.

  “Don’t pull your mental vision with you,” he said. “As you can see you’re tire yourself in an instant. Let your vision lead you and follow it as you move. When you get comfortable with how it feels, move faster. Understand?”

  “Follow my mind and don’t make my mind follow me?”

  “Exactly.” Aerigo ran off.

  Roxie took a deep breath and steadied herself. Jeeze, could this be any more complicated? She spread her mind vision again, wondering where Aerigo went. As if in answer, Roxie felt her body lean forward, so forward she walked, and this time her vision didn’t falter, nor become difficult to sustain. Feeling confident, Roxie began jogging and found it only as taxing as concentrating on a puzzle to sustain the images, and her mind led her to Aerigo’s hiding spot in under a minute. The outline of his mouth curved into a smile, and then he sprint away. Roxie gave chase, determined to catch him.

  The day grew more humid as the sun rose higher. The two Aigis were glistening with sweat long before the sun began its trek from its peak to its western resting place. Their instructive game of hide-and-seek turned into a one-way game of tag. Aerigo ran and Roxie gave chase, thoroughly enjoying every moment.

  ***

  Roxie closed in on Aerigo for what was probably the hundredth time. Knowing that he was about to dodge her advance again, she did a full-body lunge and catapulted into his side, knocking both of them to the ground. She felt like she’d just bowled into a fleshy rock. She sat up and pulled off her blindfold, and Aerigo sat cross-legged, wearing a smile. She rubbed at the slight throb in her forehead. “Are we done?”

  Aerigo stood, his entire body coated in sweat. “For today.”

  Roxie flopped onto the cool grass and sensed where he stood, this time with her eyes open, and was drawn to ask the question that’d been nagging at her all day. “How old are you?”

  “How old do I feel?” He held a hand out to her.

  Roxie took his hand and he helped her up. “You feel a lot older than what’s feasibly possible. Just tell me. Please.”

  “I look like I’m in my thirties,” he said as they started walking, “but I’m not. I’m over thirty-four hundred years old.”

  Roxie gaped at him. “You’re what?”

  “Thirty four, thirty nine to be exact,” he said casually.

  “How’s that even possible?” She knew he couldn’t be lying. She’d sensed the truth. She caught up with Aerigo walked at his side.

  “We have a ten thousand year life span.”

  “Why?” The thought of living that long scared her.

  “That’s the way we’ve been designed. It takes a long time for us to learn everything the gods need us to. A hundred years would never suffice. A thousand might, but ten thousand is what was decided upon. After we reach physical maturity, we age about
one year for every hundred years that pass.Years tick by like seconds to gods. Our extensive life span makes things simpler in the long run.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Let’s just get some food. I’m starving.”

  Aerigo smiled at her, and Roxie felt like her heart turned into a balloon with a butterfly inside.

  Chapter 15

  The living room table had a bowl full of what smelled and looked like sweet fruits. Roxie reached for a purple berry, then stopped herself. Yayu was working in the kitchen. “Want any help?”

  “Certainly, my dear. Why doncha grab some plates out of this cupboard and put them on that tray?” He pointed with his chin to a large tray on the counter next to him. The countertop was made of flattened planks of a dark wood glued together with some sort of grey clay or tar—something that looked like crack filler. “Grab three mugs from the bottom cupboard and a jug of water from the cold-box to your right.”

  “This thing?” Roxie asked, pointing to a wooden box with a liftable lid. Nothing here was made of metal and Scondish people hadn’t discovered electricity. Out of habit she still looked for something that plugged in before remembering she was in a very different world. She kneeled before the box and lifted its lid wide. A puff of fog billowed out, obscuring her vision, and a wave of cold air bit at her exposed skin. “It’s cold!” she said.

  “Did ya expect it to be hot?” Yayu teased.

  Roxie opened her mouth to retort but settled for sticking her tongue out at him, then plucked a chilled jug from the cooler and set it on the counter. “There.”

  “I betcha been wonderin’ how he and I got to know each other,” he said, inclining his head towards the window. Aerigo was outside doing minor repairs to Yayu’s home. A nasty thunderstorm had blow through a couple of days ago.

  “Among other things,” Roxie said. She wanted to know more about being an Aigis, more about what she was going to be learning, and how Aerigo got all those scars on his back. And maybe if she’d ever see home again. She’d accepted being both human and Aigis, since she still looked and acted the same as before drinking what’d been in that glass bottle.