by Ivana Skye
“Hey!”
I’d light-heartedly slap you on the back if I could, just so you know, Zel said.
“Anyway … uh … yeah … I don’t know exactly what’s an essential and what I might need to get some coins for,” I admitted. But then I remembered that I wasn’t, in fact, totally useless. “But! If I want coins, I’m sure I can just volunteer at a farm!” I stood up and pumped my hand in triumph. I hadn’t actually done that since a field trip three or so years ago, but I didn’t care. It sounded vaguely fun, and like it might distract me from all the things I didn’t want to think about.
I nodded again to myself, in excitement. Volunteering for various things in the community that almost always needed hands—farms chief among them—was an easy way to earn a few coins, and coins could be used to buy non-essentials, like crafted decorations or time spent learning from a master of an art. Or sleeping bags. Maybe. I still wasn’t sure on that one, but I figured something I’d need would maybe, probably cost coins, so…
I bolted off toward the south, knowing that some farms were closer to the sea than the mountain. I’d volunteer for the first I ran into that looked interesting, I decided.
I was very good at planning.
On the other side of Sifir, across the mountains, I still traveled the desert with Sedge, adjusting to the knowledge I’d so recently gained: that I, apparently, was magical, and could create fire with the correct thought. This added a few bounces to my steps, I admit; and also a few hastily-muttered curses, both positive and negative. Curses were ultimately just a manner of displaying intensely felt emotion or opinions, and I certainly had more than a few of those about the way I seemed to break the functionality of reality as I knew it.
I rubbed my eyes, sitting up one morning two days after I’d learned this new and terrifying thing about me. I barely had time to take in the pinkness of the after-dawn sky before I noticed Sedge smiling at me.
“Practicing magic late last night?” they asked.
“How ever might you have guessed,” I said, smiling back. “It’s still a challenge, of course. Setting things on fire is innately interesting, but I can only do it if I’m bored…”
Sedge shrugged. “Such is fate.” They pushed a bowl toward me, letting it slide across the sand. “I already made soup.”
“You’re getting better at this.”
“Save that for when you’ve tasted it.”
I took a sip, and indeed it was not actually very good soup—but it wasn’t bad either. I smiled and nodded, but didn’t say any more on the subject of the food; I let Sedge interpret that as they would.
And I couldn’t help but think, as the morning sun hit my hair, shining on the ice-blue of it, thatI was special now. I was the only one with a strange power I barely even understood.
And, fuck, that was boring. I’d been this before: I’d been the strongest and most artful and so on of my age. I’d lived a life of being special and singular, and I wasn’t so sure how this was meant to be much different.
But of course, that boredom when directed lit a line of fire right above my arm, floating in the air for a second before dissipating. I smiled; I was getting better at control.
“So the soup’s boring,” Sedge said with a twitch in their eye.
“No, I am,” I said. “But, well, I’m sure I know of something that isn’t boring—you. Any chance I could actually get you to open up, one of these days?”
Sedge only laughed and shook their head slightly. “Good luck.”
A few days after my farm adventure—which had turned out to mostly be weeding, which was actually very cathartic—I found myself dramatically slamming some coins down on the counter of a supply store.
“Uh,” the dude—I knew he was a dude, because he had a pronoun tag and everything—said. “What are you … giving me these coins for? Like, what are you actually buying?”
Oh.
“…Sleeping bag?” I said sheepishly.
“That’s an essential,” the dude said, and I was almost entirely positive that I heard patience in his voice. In other words, he found me amusing or annoying, and was trying his very best to pretend he wasn’t.
“Oh,” I said.
“Also you might want to actually pick one out. We have different sizes and colors. A few even have a bit of embroidery, and I mean, you’re encouraged to put some money down if you’re getting something you find particularly well made—but that’s really not required for basic versions of things—honestly, it’s not required for anything—”
I squinted. This shopping thing was complicated.
“Uh,” I said. “I’ll be back? At this counter, I mean. Like, I’m staying in the store.”
“Got it,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Good.”
“Yes,” I said, and turned around to go look at the aisles.
“Um,” he said. “Excuse me, but you might want to … take your money with you…”
“Oh,” I said, turning back to him. “But I figured, I’d probably be giving it to you when I got stuff anyway, so why not leave it there for now?”
“There is the possible issue of theft.”
“But most people are way more polite than that!” I protested. “Who would look at a bunch of coins and grab them?”
“A few people,” he said, eyebrows going up almost disbelievingly. “Besides, you might not end up deciding to tip anything, so you should really have your own money on hand. Please.”
“Okay, fine,” I said, and grabbed my coins.
Away from the counter, it turned out there were lots of aisles. Most of the shelves were a gentle brownish color, and there was carpet on the floor that for whatever reason was a dark green. I wasn’t sure if I liked it.
But the carpet wasn’t what I was here for. I looked up, and there were items absolutely everywhere on these shelves, water bottles and weird packaged things and … gloves? I looked around for a while, squinting, and it turned out that on further inspection, there was a sign above the aisle saying what was in it. I didn’t think I needed any of those things, so I walked over to the next aisle, which thankfully said it had sleeping bags, but then it hit me that water bottles actually were very useful for travel—
I don’t need to regale every detail here, but the fact was, shopping was hard, and I was overwhelmed. “Zel,” I squeaked. “Help?”
Cijaya, Zel responded. You’re … shopping. Oh no, I think I see what the problem is.
“What?” I asked, hoping Zel had an easy solution to my difficulties.
The problem is that you’re shopping for supplies, and you’ve never done that before.
“Oh. So you don’t have a solution?”
Hmm, Zel said. Actually, I might. You know you need a sleeping bag for definitely, right?
“Yeah…?”
Maybe just get that. Or that and two or three other things. This shop really isn’t that far away from your house and you’ve got a few weeks, you can always come back later.
“Oh, that makes sense,” I said. “You’re good at this, Zel. Despite being a lake.”
’S what I’m here for.
I ended up following Zel’s advice, buying only a sleeping bag and a backpack, after much consideration regarding the details of each. The backpack was orange, fitting my nickname, and the sleeping bag was red, and indeed did have a nicely embroidered white pattern on it. I tipped one coin for them, although I at first tried to tip three—the shopkeeper talked me out of that, though.
I stumbled out of the store, haul in hand; I probably could have worn the backpack on my back, but I didn’t. It was a little awkward to walk holding these things the way I did though, to the point that just by trying, I could already feel my energy draining.
And the shop was atop a hill. Overlooking a relatively open part of the forest.
I had problems.
I closed my eyes tight, suddenly nearly hearing a voice from somewhere in my memory: isn’t it good that you have people to ta
ke care of you, Orange?
The implication was, I couldn’t function on my own. And I couldn’t. Sā was right. Entirely right. I could feel tears forming in my eyes, even with them closed; I pretended as hard as I could that Sā had never known me, and I clutched my new backpack hard as I could.
Cija- Zel started.
“Why do you know my name?” I said, but it came out in more of a scream, and once I heard my words in the air, I realized that Zel was talking to me, not Sā. “Fuck,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Flashback?
“Uh, yeah,” I muttered. “Obviously.”
Shit.
I hesitantly opened my eyes, letting a few tears out as I did so. But all below me was forest, and all Vitalities fuck it, it felt like I was sixteen. Even the wind blowing on my skin made me feel like I was that age.
I remembered—I remembered—oh, Vitalities, we had actually come here, to this part of the forest.
I’d ignored it when I walked up to the store. Of course I had. I’d been determined to get my supplies, and determination was strong enough to block out memories. But the satisfaction of a newly acquired sleeping bag, apparently, wasn’t.
“Fuck,” I said. “Fuck!”
But that didn’t dispel the apparition of her in my head. It didn’t dispel the way we’d been here, we’d been here, and I could feel it, all of it, I could feel the way I looked onto her face like it was a blessing, the way she was so beautiful to me, the sound of my footsteps following hers—
My eyes were going wide, my eyes were going wide, but here I was in a forest and I could no longer stand forests, so I’d close my eyes, I’d close my eyes and find peace from it all—
But in the black behind my eyelids, there was only her, and there was only what she’d said. It had been after class one day. I’d said—I’d said—in class I had contributed to a discussion. In class that day—the teacher’s hair was in a bun, Sā was wearing white, why did I remember her wearing white—we were talking history and we were talking cults of personality, and I’d said something like, “I think it’s actually alright to um, to try to be a big deal, I mean not to control other people, but to act really big and I mean probably weird, because if you’re acting a lot like yourself that probably means weird, right? Isn’t everyone weird? Anyway, if you’re doing that, if you’re being charismatic … I actually don’t think that’s a problem, as long as you aren’t being evil with it…”
I’d said that, and Sā and I had taken a walk in the forest, and she’d sounded so hesitant and scared when she said, “I have something I really want to say to you, but I’m not sure it’s safe for me.”
“What do you mean?” I’d asked.
“I mean I really want you to react well to this. Please don’t hurt me,” she said.
Of course I didn’t want to hurt her—but then, I so often did, she said I did—and I bit back something, I wasn’t sure what, and said, “okay.”
“Um,” she said, “I just, honestly, it’s about that thing you said in class … honestly, I think that’s a really harmful way of looking at the world.”
My heart sank, but I knew that the very sinking of my heart, that horrible ripping-at-my-chest feeling, was exactly the kind of overreaction that would hurt her. I had to not let it show. I had to not even frown, I tried so hard to not even frown.
“Orange, it’s not very respectful for you to not listen to me,” she said.
“I’m listening!” I said.
“Don’t snap at me.”
“Sorry!” I said, just as loud as my last sentence. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m listening”—I was crying—
“And now you’re making it all about you,” she said, hard and sharp and cold, but her face was so beautiful, she’d taught me things about functioning in the world when no one else had. “I need you to listen to me, because viewing the world like that really could harm someone.”
“It could…?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, her intonation sounding very much like she was trying to explain something simple to a child. “Trying to make yourself a big deal is exactly what a cult of personality is. That’s how army generals lead people to their deaths. That’s how people die, Orange.”
And of course—of course—when I said it in class, I’d been thinking, deep in me, that maybe it would be fun to be—to be a big deal, but I guess that meant killing people. Well, that didn’t matter, did it? I didn’t really want that. And if I did, that would be evil.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”
“I’m glad you understand,” Sā said, under the leaves.
“Um,” I said. “H-how’d I do?” She’d been talking to me a lot about overreacting lately, and I wanted to see if I was getting better at not doing that. I wanted to be a good person. I really wanted to be…
“Could have been better,” Sā said.
My heart sank again, but that was an overreaction, I couldn’t act disappointed, I couldn’t be disappointed—“Okay,” I said, trying to take it as graciously as possible. I had to be gracious. It was the only way. I wanted to be good. I wanted to be good.
Cijaya, Zel was saying, but it was hard to focus on their voice.
And back then, I think Sā moved the conversation forward to some story she’d been writing and wanted to tell me about. I was gracious, I was gracious…
Cijaya!
I blinked my eyes open then shut again, and uncurled myself. Uncurled? I was on the ground, apparently, sitting, my arms coiled around my legs. There were tears in my eyes.
“Zel,” I said. “Am I— am I a good person, Zel?”
Yeah, they said. For definitely.
“Are you s-sure?”
Yup.
“I don’t have to prove anything?”
Nope.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.” My breaths were coming really uneven; fuck, Sā’d done that to me too. “She was wrong, wasn’t she?” I asked Zel. “About that whole thing with um, the acting big and the cult of personality thing? Being, um, being noticeable and dramatic doesn’t make you an evil warlord … does it?” I really wasn’t certain.
Yes, she was wrong, and no, it doesn’t, Zel said.
“Okay,” I said, and I was crying, but I’d already been crying. “Okay.” And something else flashed through me, something that wasn’t pain or guilt or any kind of half-made conviction that I was evil—anger, pure anger. “Fuck her.”
Fuck her indeed.
“Fuck her so hard she uh…” I was very quickly losing control of this metaphor. “Falls into lava?”
Sounds good.
“Fuck her like, a lot.”
But not literally.
“Yeah. Just, uh, um, I don’t know, punch her I guess. Fuck in this case means punch a lot until she falls into lava.”
As is only appropriate.
My hand clenched, but the anger felt good. It crashed against me, against my skin, relentless and powerful and yet somehow life-sustaining. At the very least, it sustained me. If I was angry at her, I could remember that she was wrong and that I was wronged, that I wasn’t a bad person, no really. “I wanna throw things at something,” I said.
Time for a trip to the ocean again?
I smiled, thinking of my recent tradition of throwing rocks at the ocean and screaming. “Sounds great. Now, if I can just drop this stuff off at my house without another flashback…”
I’m with you, Zel said. I’m here.
I made it. I made it through all the walk through the forest back home, and I even made it through dinner, misplaced guilt still firing up inside me.
And then, finally, as the sun began setting, I reached the ocean.
“Fuck her,” I repeated to Zel, who I had a connection open with again.
Indeed.
“Oh, uh,” I realized. “I can cut this off, so you don’t hear me scream…”
Do you want to? Or do you want me here?
“I don’t want to impose, but…”
&
nbsp; It’s fine. I’ve heard screaming before.
Despite myself, I smiled. “Alright then.”
I picked up a rock that had washed up from the sea—no, not a rock, I realized, a piece of smoothed coral. Well, it probably wouldn’t splash quite as hard as I’d like, but it would do. And I thought about how she hurt something, she hurt something that really mattered. And the thing that mattered was me.
Fuck her, I thought again and wound my arm back and all at once threw the piece of coral into the sea. I failed even to scream, I was too busy gritting my teeth instead, but it felt right to watch the splash rising from the sea.
I picked up another rock, this one black and actually a rock and therefore properly heavy. I smiled—no, I grinned. She had hurt me, but the anger was beating in me and reminding me that she should not have, reminding me that I had not deserved it.
And the waves came in from the ocean. And the waves came out. They did this nearly in time with the beating of my own anger.
Again not quite screaming or shouting—this time mostly in respect for Zel, even though they’d said it was okay—I threw this rock, and the power of the throw was the power of my anger and the power with which I honestly kind of wanted to punch her.
Because I hadn’t deserved any of what she put me through.
Oh, the anger in me was harsh, it was abrasive, it was like the salt of the water that in one sudden large wave brushed against my feet. With a movement that felt like power, I leaned down and grabbed a rock, felt the sand scrape against my hand. I felt real, I felt alive.
Fuck her. Fuck her!
I threw this rock too, and it hit the sea with a splash, and I cheered.
Vitalities, this felt good, this anger inside me felt good, it was sustaining me. And I, really, was me, I was Cijaya, I was a somewhat-silly somewhat-dysfunctional but yet also very bright and sharp and visually-minded empyrean who was fucking real and fucking a good person and also fucking hated her.
I smiled again, and grabbed another rock, the ocean pulsing, pulsing, my anger beating, beating. They fit together, the two of them: my anger and the ocean. They pulsed and they beat and they were abrasive and they were harsh and they were powerful and yet they were sustaining, they allowed for life.