by TJ Muir
Jay got up to get some wine and offered it around. His real reason was to have the excuse to get up, so he could sit closer to Cham.
He asked, under his breath, barely above a whisper, “How long do the effects last, from the H’katta?”
“About as long as it takes the Nibbin to cycle across the sky, sometimes a full pass for most of the effects to wear off,” he answered, considering. “It can depend on upon the dosing, and if anything else is combined into it.”
“And was the dose, the other night, a strong dose?”
“By the gods, no. This was fairly light stuff, nothing added. A party game.”
“So, the effects, should be wearing off, and be gone by now?”
“Most certainly. Why?”
“Because the colors. They haven’t faded. It’s giving me headaches,” he explained.
Cham paused, considering. “So, you’ve never been able to see colors before?”
Jay shook his head, eyes closed.
“And now?”
Jay groaned, dropped his head into his hands, holding his temples, and nodded. “All the time. Everywhere. At first, I thought it was really cool. But now? By the gods, make it stop!”
Cham rose to his feet, and with a hand under Jay’s arm, lifted him up.
“Headache,” he said over his shoulder to the group, as he led Jay away from the others.
He headed over to a quieter section of the garden- where they could talk without being overheard or interrupted. They sat down, and Cham waited for the intensity of Jay’s distress to ease up.
“I know this isn’t what you want to hear. But I don’t think it’s going to stop.”
“Never?! “ He asked, pitch rising in his voice.
“Probably not,” Cham said, comforting hand on Jay’s shoulder, a grounding presence amidst his psychic chaos. “It seems the H’katta has awoken dormant Faenyr abilities. It seems you are more Faenyr than you might have thought. Faenmyr…”
Jay looked up. “This is how you see the world? All of the time? Every day? Non-stop?” Jay asked, the hint of panic and desperation rising in his voice, the thought bringing him to the verge of tears. His senses and emotions were both on overload.
“It’s probably a lot harder for you. I can’t imagine how it must be, for the entire world to split wide open, or perhaps for your head to split open, and the whole world begin pouring into it,” Cham said, considering what Jay must be experiencing. “Most of us, even the half-breeds like me, are born with it. Or maybe we are just raised in a way from the time we are very young. Anyway, it develops naturally, and so we learn how to use it, how to ignore it, and how to turn it down: to muffle our own essences. So we’re less ‘noisy.’ Colors flaring uncontrolled? It’s considered impolite, like yelling at a dinner table would be, or throwing things about.”
Jay nodded. “Yes, that’s it. It’s like everyone is yelling. But with colors, instead of words.”
Cham rubbed Jay’s back- supportive and calming.
“All these colors. It’s like they are exploding in my head. I don’t know what it all means.”
“Your brain doesn’t understand what all these new colors mean. It doesn’t know what to do with all this information your eyes are giving it.”
Jay nodded, understanding but still feeling miserable.
“We can do something about that,” Cham assured, resting his hand on Jay's shoulder.
Jay looked at Cham with hope and gratitude. “Please. What can we do? Tell me.”
“Come. Let’s start with something simple,” he said.
“Like what?”
Cham took a breath, thinking. “How about grass. That’s pretty simple.”
“Grass? You’re kidding, right?”
“Not even slightly,” Cham said. “What can you tell me about this grass, right here?”
Jay scoffed. “It’s green.”
“Do you want help with this?”
Jay sighed, resigned to what felt like silly games. He looked down at the grass, and let his awareness settle.
“I think the grass needs water,” he said, after staring at it for a while. “So does the grass over there, along that whole line…” He began to relax a little bit, picking up and sensing the grass.
“Now let’s try some flowers,” Cham said, looking satisfied.
Jay nodded, looking around the garden. He set his attention on a patch of foxglove, took a breath and stretched his senses. “Some of the roots, no, bulbs, feel deeper than others. some of them, the ones that are about to bloom, feel more vibrant, but condensed, and The colors of some of them reach out further. Those are the ones that draw in the bees and insects.”
Cham smiled, nodding. “Yes, those insects will pollinate the flowers.”
Jay began to watch the trees and plants. The two of them spent several days practicing. Jay slowly learned to tell if a plant needed water, or was about the bloom if it was healthy, stressed or even dying. His brain relaxed a little bit, as all of this new input began to organize into information it could understand.
Finally, Jay cried, relief that he felt both in his brain and his emotions. He lay down in the grass, and let his tears soak into the grass and the ground.
“Let’s take a break,” Cham suggested, and laid back near him, eyes closed. Jay could still sense things around him, but only very dimly. His normal senses were no longer on danger-alert and over-sensing every sight, sound, and smell. The world was again becoming bearable.
The following week, Cham led them over to a corner of the park where two children were playing. The flow of colors seemed less chaotic, less intense, and flowed smoother.
One boy was bright green with violet and lemon yellow. The other boy was a darker green with bright turquoise and magenta. Jay watched them, focusing on their colors. It didn’t hurt him to watch. After a while, he found it soothing, like watching waves lap along the shore, surge, and recede.
“This hurts less. Is it because my brain isn’t exploding anymore?” he asked.
“It’s because children still flow more naturally. What you’re seeing, actually is less chaotic than what you see in older people, and in your friends, especially.”
Jay was puzzled by that. “Why especially, with my friends? I know them better, so shouldn't that feel familiar? What’s different about them?” Jay felt a twinge of guilt for a moment, surge up out of nowhere when he said the word friends. He wondered how much Cham could tell, and then tried to push it aside.
“Your friends? That is a complicated bag of fish,” Cham noted. “Makes them very interesting to watch.”
“A bag of fish?” Jay asked, interrupting.
“A Faenyr saying, but it doesn’t translate well,” Cham said.
“Oh,” Jay said. “So, what do you mean?”
“Consider who most of your friends are. Any group is always establishing itself, alliances, jealousies, rivalries. This would be true with any group of young adults, but more so among your friends. Just like a herd of animals, sorting itself out.”
“Animals?” Jay asked. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“All animals create a pecking order. Who is on top, and who isn’t.”
“I don’t know anything about that. Just the occasional dog or cat. Nothing about herds.”
“Well, even dogs and cats have pecking orders. Even birds. Just watch the birds when you throw out a bunch of food. Some dive right in, others get chased to the edges.”
Jay nodded, listening.
“There will almost always be one or two, the strongest or biggest or quickest. Those birds or any animal, are the dominant ones.”
Hearing Cham talk about birds gave Jay a reference point to grasp what he was explaining.
“Your friends. There is one level, like the herd, trying to establish who has the stronger bonds of trust, affinity, friendship, and even sexual attractions. But there is another level, that interferes with, or complicates it all. Your friends, all come from families with power. The fri
ends you have, all come from within circles that have alliances. Mostly. On that level, between the So’Har and Da’Har, and the few wealthy families- those relationships can shift, but they don’t tend to break. What binds those connections can change, with events and circumstances. Often, the two levels are at odds with each other. Does that make sense?”
Jay chewed on his lip, thinking about it. He considered Trey, and how there were times when he sided with Jomar when it seemed like he actually disagreed. Or how there were times when he thought there was something going on romantically, between Jomar and Findal, even though there was no indication. In fact, now he began to reassess things deeply. Jay realized he had gotten to know each of the group almost intimately, but only as individuals. He had never considered the group as a whole before.
“You ok?” Cham asked, stirring Jay from his thoughts.
“Hmm? Yes,” he said, tucking this new concept aside, but mentally marking it so that he would think about it further.
The two of them talked for a while, about what Jay saw and thought, regarding the interplay between the two children: flares, swirls, color flows. After a while, Jay could almost predict and guess what was going on with the two children playing. Based on what their colors were showing.
“It’s strange,” Jay noted. “We can’t hear what they are saying. Can’t really guess what’s going on. But it almost doesn’t matter. I can tell what’s going on for each of them, and between them, sort of.” Jay said, a crooked half-smile, feeling a miniature triumph, and sanity restored.
Cham nodded, looking relieved as Jay returned to a state of greater ease. “Better?”
“Yes. But tired. And the edge of a headache. But bearable.“ He nodded again.
“It will get easier,” Cham assured, patting him on the shoulder, smiling at Jay’s success. “But generally, places like Tatak Rhe? They’re ‘noisy.’“
“That’s right! I remember you saying that, a while back. I didn’t know what you meant then. I thought you were just talking about regular noise, in a city. But you didn’t. Not really, you meant ‘this.’ Didn’t you?”
Cham nodded, agreeing and confirming. “Yes. Noisy. Very, in comparison.”
“Compared to what?” Jay asked. He considered that all places were like Tatak Rhe, that Tatak Rhe represented the whole of the world.
“Other places,” Cham said. “They’re all different from each other. Treyu, for example, very pleasant. It’s like music well played. A small, hybrid city,” Cham smiled, recalling it. “Happy memories there. And the western regions, provinces. They still teach their children how to read, and thank all the gods, how to muffle their colors. Much easier to navigate there. I think the northern plateaus, also. But I haven’t been there. Nor have I been south, to White Coast. So I can’t really say. But from what I do know, Tatak Rhe is the noisiest. It’s interesting, a fun visit, but as you may be seeing, a bit tiring,” he said, laughing at his own unintended joke.
“Is that why there are so few of us? Or Faenyr and half… half-breeds, in the city?” Jay’s voice caught on the word half-breed. “I didn’t think there were that many. I didn’t think there were many at all. But you said, a whole city!? So there must be more than just me? Just us?”
“Oh, by the stars!” Cham laughed, feeling both the humor and the pain in the question. “There are as many Faenyr, as Chanmyr. Probably. Not as many Faenmyr, like us, mixed children. But still plenty around.”
Jay looked at Cham in complete disbelief.
“So…” he trailed off, not even able to form a complete thought. He had spent the first part of his life trying to hide, to be invisible. And the second part, these last few years, trying to blend in, to be like the others around him. He thought he had felt different because of being poor, and homeless. Now, he was working through these new insights, new truths. He was different because he was different. Not human. Or at least not fully human. And from what Cham was teaching him now, it was a good thing. Nothing to be ashamed about.
A burning curiosity awoke in him, what it meant to be Faenyr. Who and what they were. As a conduit for information, and someone who also was like him, on a racial level, sharing the same blood and abilities, Cham became his new best friend, and sometimes lover, as Jay sorted out this new understanding of the world, and his possible place in it.
Jay started spending more time by himself. Even with the tutoring and mentoring to help manage his new senses, he still did better with his friends in small doses, and he did better with them when it was only one or sometimes two together. More than that and his brain began to get overwhelmed, and the headaches set in. Often, with more than two or three, he found himself closing his eyes, trying to shut out the noise. That began to draw attention to him, as others started asking if he was okay. He laughed inwardly at that, as he assured his friends he just had a bit of a headache. Alternatively, he often found himself staring at the ground, a rock, or the grass, or staring off at a tree—anything simple, uncomplicated, to focus on, as a way to minimize the noise around him.
He slipped off a few times to go help Turner, whose roof needed mending. He found that simple work without the chatter calmed him. And when he looked at Turner, all he saw was what he had always known- a simple man, quiet and uncomplicated. But he knew he couldn't stay there, his friendship and his obligations drew him back into his circle of friends.
Several days later, Jay sat there playing with his breakfast. He had eaten more than enough, but he knew he needed to do something afterward. He couldn’t just sit and stare at his plate all day. As he poked at his sausage, Kirrin came into the room holding a message.
“This arrived for you,” he said, holding out a neatly folded linen card.
Jay took it, glanced down at the message. An invitation to a picnic. He was trying to think of an excuse to tell Kirrin.
“If you are not inclined to attend,” Kirrin said, “we could continue working on your reading skills.”
Jay shoved the plate away with a sigh. “No, that’s okay. I’ll go.”
He walked up to the group that was having a picnic overlooking the harbor. It was a near perfect spot, the heaviest heat of the sun was blocked by some tall trees, and a light breeze blew off of the water. The terraces were places for lingering, they invited life to slow down, flowers blooming, fruit trees lining the lanes- cherries and plums free for the taking when they were ripe. Benches and fountains and wishing wells dotted the landscapes as well. It eased Jay's senses to be there, where most people felt quieter.
Trey brightened as he jumped up to say hi, clapping him on the back, and drawing him over with an arm wrapped around Jay's shoulders. Jomar's colors looked as indifferent as Jomar was, with a hint of annoyance. Jay felt a little uncomfortable, in the way his senses blatantly invaded their privacy. Hypocritical, he knew, to think that. He’d been invading their privacy for years.
But now, he could read when they were lying or insincere. He could read their desires, as plainly as if they had been spoken out loud. And this was sometimes worse because their colors reflected truths and desires for which they were completely unaware. That had been yet another layer of insight. At first, Jay thought the colors just reflected their secret thoughts. Now he began to understand that the colors also reflected things that they might not even know, themselves.
He saw that Trey was attracted to Findal, even though Trey was still unaware of this. He wondered if there was a future clash between Joram and Trey over her. His colors flared when she approached, even before he actually knew she was there. That might pose a problem, Jay thought, or it might be nothing more than young-sexual attraction and curiosity. Jay still had very little to go on- he was grasping the basics of what he ‘saw,’ but not the complexities. And he also didn’t have the benefit of the ‘back-story.’ Jay was jumping into the middle of things. His tracing of this color-saga was beginning in the middle of a long and ongoing epic.
Their respective houses probably already had alliances planned for each
of them. Jay never asked too closely into those kinds of secrets. It seemed everyone within the group knew all of those details. Occasionally information came out in jokes and jests. But since Jay assumed Hak’Kar already knew those things, he had never pursued it. Who would marry or ally with whom hadn’t been of interest to Jay. Until now. What happened when the heart wanted one thing, and alliances dictated another?
Chapter Ten
Jay found his new abilities both blessing and curse. He found his sense of discretion to be much greater. He chose his outings, chose his company and his activities much more carefully. He knew that he was being forced, by his own body and senses, into making better decisions and choices.
He found it also helped him in other ways. Now that he had access into the homes of his friends, he also had access to offices and private areas and Hak’kar had Jay take advantage of his ability to move about now. He didn't like it, but he'd been doing this work for Hak'kar for so long, that it was easy to push aside any misgivings. And now, he found being able to read colors gave him an added level of information. He could eavesdrop on a conversation and combine the information with what he saw visually.
He didn’t tell Kirrin about the colors. Seeing colors was new and personal to him and he felt a strong instinct to keep it to himself. A bit of guilt crept in regarding his lack of complete honesty with the people who were responsible for his good fortune. When he chatted with Kirrin, he would add his new insights, passing it off as a gut feeling, or intuition. It didn’t take long for Kirrin and Hak’kar to realize that Jay’s intuition was almost always dead-center in its uncanny accuracy.
He told Kirrin about a meeting between Trey’s father and another So’Har, noting that he had doubt about the integrity of the agreement. Jay was a bit caught here. He genuinely liked Trey, and he wasn’t sure precisely what Hak’kar might do with some information. With some houses, Hak’kar’s predisposition was clear- at least to Jay, with the inside perspectives that others didn’t get. But Trey’s House and Hak’kar, that relationship was a bit of a mystery.