Sunborn Rising

by Aaron Safronoff

  She’d come back from the dream with the feeling—no, she thought, the knowing—that the sacrifices hadn’t been enough. Despairingly, Barra dropped her head down to her mother’s back, and let her body hang limply. Her dangling limbs were lazy, swaying to the rhythm of the walk.

  Barra passed in and out of sleep. Her dreams blurred with memories into an incoherent mess of destiny. There was a need, something she knew she must do, something desperate she couldn’t quite identify, consuming her thoughts. She was rushing toward fate—or fate was rushing toward her—and she felt powerless to do anything about it.

  Barra shook the confusion from her head vigorously enough to call the attention of her mother. “You awake back there, baby?” she asked her daughter.

  “Umph. Yeah. Sorta…” Barra’s throat was raw, and her lungs heavy. She didn’t feel ill anymore, but she didn’t feel good either. Also, there was an inexplicable change in her vision. The Root seemed sharper and clearer. She thought the seeping radiant scars were emitting more light.

  “Where’s Red?” she asked, but right then, she found the Nebule coiled around her arm. Red wasn’t very red anymore. She was muddy brown with dirty green streaks staining her from the inside out. Barra stroked her and Red loosened some. She stretched, and pushed her bell-shaped body into Barra’s hand.

  “She’s been with you the whole time. Didn’t leave your side even when we all stopped to rest,” Brace spoke over her shoulder in a low voice. “Do you remember Tory and Plicks stopping to check on you?”

  “Nah.” Barra tried to think back, but everything was a blur. She remembered something about… “Jerrun!” She reached for her throat and touched it gingerly, testing it to see what was only a dream and what was real. She found pain and bruising.

  “Jerrun? What about him?” Barra’s mother was suspicious. “We haven’t seen him since before the attack.”

  It was difficult for Barra to piece the memories together into a coherent picture. Jerrun, the head of the Council of Elders, had tried to kill her. She was positive. But what had happened next, she couldn’t say with any certainty. There was Jerrun strangling her, a haunting image—she could still smell his rank breath—and then he was gone. Someone familiar took his place. It didn’t make any sense. And there was something Jerrun had said, something about her father, something cruel. She couldn’t remember. Barra clenched her jaw and snarled. She didn’t know how she would do it, but she wanted to hurt Jerrun.

  “What is it, dear? What about Jerrun?” Brace asked. She heard the snarling and was ready to hurt the scheming Elder if he’d done anything to harm her daughter.

  Barra seethed. Pushing her words through gritted teeth, she said, “I hate him.”

  Brace stumbled a bit, startled by her daughter’s tone. So much hatred. So absolute. It was no secret that Brace disliked Jerrun intensely, and no one trusted him anymore, but what had he done to her daughter? “Barra, sweetheart, what’s going on?” Beneath her compassionate tone beat a war drum. Plicks swooped down, startling them. Brace reflexively prepared to strike, revved up to kill anything that threatened her daughter.

  “A little warning next time?” Brace said as she shook her head at Plicks.

  “Sorry, Venress Swiftspur.” Plicks rushed past the apology, “My dad sent me. There’s a problem up ahead. We’re going to have to take another route.”

  Tory loped in, Char close at his side, a constant, elastic extension of Tory’s movements. Char seemed innocuous enough, but after the attack the Arboreals of the expedition knew better. Brace felt better with them watching over Barra, Plicks and Blue too.

  Brace stopped the caravan with a brief, rapid, percussion of her tail against the Root. She said to Plicks, “I guess I needed a break anyway.” She released Barra from the straps and swung her around. Gently, she set her down.

  After testing her limbs, Barra decided she was indeed feeling better. A few Arboreals arrived, jumping to Barra’s mother with reports about the path ahead. Fast words and gestures indicated that the obstacles were serious. Barra tried to excuse herself without disrupting them, but her mother stopped her.

  “How’s the arm?” Brace asked, kneeling beside her daughter.

  Red uncoiled to expose the wound. “It’s okay, I guess,” Barra said. She stared at it, more disappointment than in pain, and added, “I feel bad for what it’s doing to Red.”

  Brace acknowledged the Nebule with a tentative pat, and then held Barra’s hand. Barra’s arm was bald from the wrist to the elbow. Some thinning had started above the elbow too. Her skin was scarred with ropey, viny, green lines that radiated from the open cut. It looked awful. Brace did her best to hide the thought. “It doesn’t hurt?” she asked.

  “Not really,” Barra said, shrugging.

  Brace said, “Well, whatever Red is doing, she wants to do it for you. I wish I could hug myself around you to make you feel better.” She added as positively as she could, “I think it’s helping. We just have to get you home.” Indicating the other adults, she said, “We’re going to be a little while. Will you be okay with your friends? Promise me you won’t wander off.”

  Barra nodded. She seemed to have aged unnaturally. A terrible sense of loss tugged at Brace’s heart; she hadn’t been able to rescue her bup after all. She was gone. Brace had always known her daughter would grow up someday, even wanted her to grow up, but this was too soon, too fast.

  Barra said, “We’ll stay close. Don’t worry. We know how dangerous it is.”

  Brace believed her. She nodded, stood up, and stepped away. But she didn’t resume the meeting until she found Jaeden and asked for her to watch the bups.

  Sitting with her friends, Barra said, “I’m so happy to see you! I don’t remember everything from the fight, but I know you came to save us. Thank you.” They passed hugs around, and she asked, “So, what’s going on? I mean, why are we stopped?”

  “The Root is grown together with thorny bushes and tangles of vine,” Plicks said. “Some Creeper, some not. The scouts are trying to find a way around, or up and over.”

  Tory leaned in. “Your arm’s getting worse,” he said somberly.

  “Yeah,” Barra admitted. “But I feel better, thanks to Red.”

  Blue and Char inspected the sickly-looking Nebule. They cozied up to her, caressed her, and tried to cheer her up with little bobbing playful motions. It seemed to help.

  Plicks looked down at his feet. “What’re we gonna do?”

  “What can we do?” Barra’s hopelessness broke her words. The hiccup in her voice might have been mistaken for adolescence, but Tory knew better.

  “Well, look at that. The hopelessly hopeful is admitting defeat. Giving in pretty easily, don’t you think?” Tory said.

  Barra shot Tory a look that she hoped would melt him. And then he clicked his tongue and added, “If I’d known it was this easy, I would have done it myself.”

  “Tory Mafic, when I get better I’m going to seriously hurt you,” Barra said, trying to sound angry. But as she mimicked her mother—invoking Tory’s whole name as though that somehow gave her power over him—she only sounded ridiculous. She felt embarrassed and in her stubborn way, she became petulant and cuffed Tory on the back of the head with her tail.

  Tory yelped, acting hurt. He saw deep emotions behind Barra’s emerald eyes. He hadn’t annoyed her into being herself again on purpose; he’d just sort of stumbled into it, the way friends sometimes do. He flashed her a patronizing smile, one that said, Gotcha! And that was on purpose. Barra pounced on him—claws mostly retracted—and he soon regretted teasing her.

  Then, the beating turned from playful to sincere. Barra let go of her frustration and gave into the moment. She roped the Rugosic to the ground with her tail around his throat, and unleashed a flurry of punches. Tory tried to call her off, “Okay, okay! Okay, already! I’m sorry!” The beating continued, and he growled at her
.

  Plicks had seen them fight before. He was waiting it out, patient until the growling started. He jumped up. He took a cautious step toward them, meaning to intervene if they kept going.

  Barra held her punches for a moment, looking bewildered, and Tory took advantage of the lull. He yanked her tail from his throat and threw her off. He stood up and pushed her, a touch harder than he intended, and they squared off.

  Barra’s tail snapped in the air over her head. Bitter, she said, “I didn’t give up.”

  “Good,” Tory said. He checked his panoply for cracks. She’d done some damage, but nothing too severe.

  “I’m not giving up.” Her tail warnings became half-hearted, and her face turned grim. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  Plicks told her, “You don’t have to know what to do. This isn’t your fault.” The Nebules, who had cleared to the side when the fight started, were hovering close again.

  Barra slumped down and said, “It’s at least my fault that we’re all stuck down here. If you hadn’t followed—”

  “Followed?” Tory interrupted. “We went with you to be with you, because we like you. Not because we think you’re a good leader, and definitely not because you make the best decisions.” He smiled.

  A weight lifted from Barra’s shoulders. She loved Plicks and Tory like brothers, but sometimes she treated them like subordinates. It had never occurred to her that each decision she’d made, they made with her, not because of her. They were in this together. Suggesting otherwise was an insult to them. She laughed at herself, and sighed.

  Almost in unison, the three friends stepped closer to each other. Plicks asked, “So, what are we going to do?”

  They exchanged whispers for a while, and Barra kept thinking about her arm. She knew the infection was spreading. It didn’t seem like they were travelling fast enough to get her the help she needed. They thought about flying her up to the Loft with the Nebules, the way Lootrinea suggested, but convincing the adults to let them go it alone seemed impossible. Sneaking away could work, but none of them wanted to put their families through that again.

  Barra became distracted as they talked. There was something she was forgetting, something she was missing. Her dreams kept swimming through her head, nagging at her to pay attention, but she couldn’t make sense of the images. Red glided down beside her, obviously tired, and snuggled into her chest.

  She stopped the boys, and asked, “Why did we visit the Boil? What was down there for us?”

  They looked at her, confused. Tory said, “There was supposed to be something down there for us? I thought it was just part of the route? Lootrinea said it was the only way.”

  “Every time I close my eyes I see it. I dream about it. Something is supposed to happen there. We’re supposed to be there.”

  The boys didn’t know what to say.

  “You’ve seen what the Nebules can do to the Creepervine, you know? The way they explode it. What if we could bring all of them up here?” Barra suggested.

  It wasn’t a terrible idea, Plicks thought, but still a look of consternation dragged over his face. He asked, “You’re not even thinking about a cure, are you?”

  Barra said, “My father wouldn’t have given up. I know he tried everything to heal that wound. We have to assume the cure wasn’t in the Loft.” She was confident. “There might not be a cure to this infection, but there might be a cure to the Creepervine.”

  Plicks decided not to think about what that meant for Barra’s future. He had to hold onto the hope that she was going to be okay.

  Hanging his head low, Tory digested her statement. She was getting worse. She might not ever get better. How long did she have? There was no indication from her father’s journal. Worse, they didn’t even know for sure that the cut was what killed her father. Who could help them? Lootrinea, the Nebules, Fizzit? Tory would strangle the answers from that amber-eyed, three-tailed enigma if he saw him again.

  Tory eventually nodded his head, and then slowly raised it. “What’s the plan?” Char spun around once and cast out his spheres in a bright array.

  Plicks stroked Blue. “It’s okay, fella. We’re going back to the Boil.”

  All they had to do was tell their parents.

  32. Diver Down

  Barra crept up to her mother who was still in conversation with the other adults. Tory and Plicks were close beside Barra. She interrupted, “Mom?” Her voice startled everyone a bit. “We have an idea.”

  The idea was met with open minds. The adults had heard of the Nebules destroying the Creepervine even if they didn’t understand it. How many Nebules would it take to defeat all of the Creeper? No one could guess. Nevertheless, the bups’ idea soon became a serious option.

  None of the adults wanted to allow the bups to go on their own. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any other suggestions. Barra wasn’t sure how they were going to return to the Boil, but she kept that to herself. In fact, she carefully steered the group away from questions about how they were going to travel, and how they were going to convince the Nebules to join them. Barra was working on the assumption that the system of whirlpools would get them down to the Boil, and that Red would help them recruit.

  Brace noticed that there was no discussion about Barra’s wound, but said nothing about it until the talks quieted. Stealing the opportunity, she reached for Barra and held her close. She stroked her daughter’s fur and whispered in her ear, “You’re strong. So much stronger than I ever was… stronger than I am.”

  Tears filled Barra’s eyes and she let them fall silently. She allowed herself to be held. She allowed herself to be home.

  Brace thought she would never let her daughter go again, loathed the idea. At least her daughter wouldn’t be up against Argus again, even if she couldn’t say the same for the rest of expedition. The pathwood ahead was treacherous and their odds were slim. Knowing her daughter was safe would give her the strength to carry on.

  Red hovered nearby, a curled and blackened stub of a tentacle reminding Brace of how much the creature had done to protect her daughter. Brace reached out and stroked the Nebule; Red had not only gained her trust, but her affection. She realized she didn’t know how Red had been injured, and felt sick for how little she knew about the creature.

  “My little bup.” Brace wiped away the wetness from the fur of Barra’s cheeks, “Travelling to the Sun... your father would be so proud.” She added, “Well, proud, but probably a little jealous, too.”

  Barra believed it. They laughed through their tears.

  What remained of the expedition made their way together to a large fissure in the Root where the bups could begin their journey down again. There were hugs and kisses. They cast words like spells to keep their loved ones free from harm, to grant luck and speed and strength, and to ensure that they would all meet again.

  While the bups were busy with the Nebules, Brace began unravelling her Thread, releasing the clasp that served as the point of both closure and growth.

  Vallor quickly pulled her aside. “Brace? What’re you doing?”

  “I want to give this to my daughter.” Brace was using every bit of composure she could muster to remain calm. “I want her to carry on my story. I want her to have me with her always… especially if…”

  “You can’t do that.” Vallor’s eyes shimmered brightly, welling up with tears of her own. “She’ll never leave if you try to pass her your Thread. You know it’s true.”

  The Battidashes were nearby and overheard. Luke was close too, and he was already following Brace’s lead. Hearing Vallor’s words though, they all agreed. No Threads could be passed. Their stories could not be their bups’ burden, at least, not like this. Brace wrapped the loosened portion of the Thread doubly tight and nodded her gratitude to Vallor.

  Threads secure, the mothers and fathers gathered strength from one another, and moved in close to
their bups. They hugged the hugs of long goodbyes hoping their arms would never forget the shape of their loved ones. Then, they let go.

  Red, Char, and Blue harnessed themselves to their charges and flew into the air. They hovered for a few more goodbyes, and then they broke the tension and descended into the water.

  As the bups sank, Brace thought they looked frighteningly similar to something else she’d seen recently. The thought strangled her, robbed the strength from her legs, and crushed her heart as she remembered; they looked exactly like the fallen.

  33. Tides

  The duration of that moment cannot be measured. The tension that held it, that it held, was so great that it stretched and distorted the flow of time until it became unrecognizable. It can be argued that that particular moment has not ended even yet, and will never end, for those who were there are still there in many ways.