by Ivana Skye
“Well,” Nena said. “That answer of yours is kind of boring, as answers go, and silence is even more boring, so I’m gonna see if I can shape fire into a ring.”
“‘Kay,” I said, the worry in me rising now that she was bored of me, but as I was the doormat prince no longer, I tamped it down.
And no sooner than I did, in front of Nena a ring of fire appeared as if it was meant to be there in the air, and when it vanished I clapped. “Impressive,” I said.
“Well,” Nena said. “I don’t know for sure about that.”
12
Cijaya
ribbons tied into the wrong knots
I told myself I shouldn’t feel so nauseous.
But I did: the sun was bright and everything smelled like flowers and there were ribbons wrapped around my short twists of hair, draping down onto my neck, and I’d dreamed of this day time and time before, and yet, and yet—
I hated it. There was grass under my feet, there were trees not so far away, and I walked with the others of my class to a dais, and we were graduating, all of us, and that very fact more than anything else I’d experienced in a year made me feel tied to my school, and of course, being tied to that school, at this point, so very much meant being tied to her, to my past at this school, to that terrible year where she led me under dappled light.
I pressed my fingernails into my thigh through the thin traditional dress. I tried to focus on the moment, on the fact that this was actually untying me from my school, the fact that this meant I could leave, not just the school but all of Lirwor, all of the Southern Scythe—
But of course, all that could make me think of was that I still did not yet have all or even any of my supplies together and prepared, and so I almost gagged. No, despite the sun and blue skies and gentle May wind, this was not going to be a good day, no matter what thoughts I attempted to think.
I refused to contact Zel either, not during the hour of my graduation. It wouldn’t be quite right to see me muttering to some lake under my breath, I thought. Plus, I wanted to look strong. I wanted to look like I could get through my own fucking graduation on my own.
Whether that was actually true remained to be seen.
We walked pass all the younger members of the school, many of the teachers as well—only the two we’d voted on as a class would be there on the dais with us, reading speeches and announcing us. That whole thing was something of a competition among the teachers for who would be chosen; I, though, had not actually voted, as when it came down to it, all of them had failed me. Every single one.
I was toward the end of the pack, which seemed ironically appropriate to me, so I was one of the last to step up the three stairs to the dais. There we had to stand, before the school, all lined up—though parents and family wouldn’t see us here, they wouldn’t see us until the pressed-flower necklaces that signaled that we had indeed graduated were finally on our necks. Vitalities, I wanted that moment to come quickly. I didn’t want to be standing here above this grass field and above feast tables and beside so many who had not noticed what Sā had put me through when I most needed them to.
I hated everyone here. I hated everything about this place. I hated the school colors of white and green, the colors of the ribbons in my hair. I hated the school flower of dogwood, which would soon be in a pendant around my neck. But more than hateful, I was angry, angry at what Sā had done to me, angry at what all those around me had failed to prevent.
But I did not intend to show it. Not now. No, for two terrible hours, I would pretend the very best smile I could.
The speeches started as I clenched my teeth behind closed but smiling lips. They spoke of us, the class of the year 12581, they said how great of students we’d been, they called each of our names and said a few things about us.
They were not so long, these speeches, but they felt long. My mind wandered in boredom, and the only places it could wander to, in a setting like this, were where I least wanted it to go.
I tried not to close my eyes, because that would make it worse, but still all I could feel was the growing sense of shame that she’d instilled in me. I felt like at any moment one of the younger students watching us would move and reveal her standing behind them. No part of me felt safe, and still I had to stand there, had to make one last display of strength and maybe, maybe, defeat the hold this place had over me.
Thankfully, there was one benefit to the way my mind and concentration and emotions all seemed to break under the pressure of being so near the specter of her: time started passing oddly, such that although the first ten minutes of the speeches could have been ten hours, the next fifty minutes might as well have only been five minutes.
All so gratefully soon, one of our selected teachers, Hindalra, began walking behind us, one by one saying our names again and putting the dogwood necklace over our neck. Meliar, ae said, and I remembered how he’d ignored me when I asked to talk, and in so doing, reinforced the idea Sā’d given me that only she could really care about me. Amni, who had agreed with Sā when I spoke in tones that were ‘too high pitched’, and therefore told me to avoid being excited. Alje, who had once been my friend, but grew distant from me when I grew close to Sā, yet never implied that li’d noticed anything at all. I wanted to grimace. Maybe I did grimace. And then—
Orange.
Me, but not me. They meant me, but didn’t know my name, because I hadn’t told them, I hadn’t told anyone but Zel. I nodded my head, even though I wasn’t actually supposed to, and Hindalra’s hands passed over my head, close to my neck—and I did not like the way that felt, I did not want it, but I retained composure, I was fine, I was fine—and the dogwood was around my neck, and I was graduated, but I was not done, because this ceremony would last through the feast, and there was no way for me to duck out earlier.
And ae passed to the next person, and the next—Fasty, whose nickname had been a matter of much teasing once, but who had reclaimed it from insults all the same, who knew all about being targeted and yet never seemed to notice anything about me. Galrad, who was distant, and had neither done anything to harm nor hurt. Erlin, who had been noticeably upset when Sā left the school, who I’m fairly certain never believed what I later said somewhat publicly she had done to me.
I hated them. I hated them all.
I did my best to tune it out, but I couldn’t. Nanwar, who in conversation with me always talked much longer about their interests than listened to mine. Kinsha, who never did seem to like me, even from the beginning, always avoiding ending up in groups with me. Yanā, who had once been my friend but bonded over Sā when they found out they both loved writing poetry, and who once, when Sā skipped school for a day because I’d ‘hurt her’ so much, well, once, when that happened—when—
My mind was trying to blank—
Yanā had asked me why I’d hurt Sā so much, why I’d say something so vitriolic that she had to leave school to avoid me. And I didn’t remember the exact wording, but I think all I’d said was, “why don’t you pursue being a poet as a career, then?” And that offended her for some reason, I think she thought that doing that meant leaving the city, which she hadn’t wanted to do…
I took a tight breath and shook my head, trying to force myself to stop remembering this, and I found that the last two students of my class had been given necklaces and the audience was clapping. Oh, okay, I thought, and gave my very best forced smile.
I felt sick. And I absolutely didn’t want to eat.
And yet I stepped down from the dais with the rest of the class and made my way to a table that already was seeming to mostly contain very young students—this was on purpose, those students had not been here when Sā happened, and for the most part I had few reasons to hate them. I sat among them, I tried to breathe, I drank a deep sip of my water, I pretended that the food that was already arrayed at the center of the table looked appetizing at all.
Despite my misgivings—and oh, I had many, my entire opinion of this entire day was
one big misgiving—I quickly found myself getting asked by one of the many younger students, she went by Blackberry, “So what’s being an older student like?”
And obligingly, I smiled and said, “Well, it’s a little like being younger, except you have longer discussions. And you might cook more at home.”
“I already love cooking!” She exclaimed.
“Then you’re ahead of the game,” I said.
And the conversation continued from there, much like that, other of the younger kids getting involved as well, asking me about the upper-level classes and about how I decided what to do after—“impulsively,” I answered mostly-truthfully—and I poked at my food, only putting a few small bites in my mouth, and probably did successfully manage to look functional from a distance.
Eventually, most of the food was eaten, and once I counted three entire people already filtering out, I got up from the table, said something about meeting my family, and almost ran out of there.
Who cared if they saw my haste? I didn’t have to ever see any of these people again.
Good fucking riddance.
I was already entirely exhausted by the time I made it to the park that my dads had decided to meet me at. It was lakeside, and they’d chosen it because they knew that I liked exploring this lake, covered in climbable logs as it was, surrounded more by granite than by trees.
They did not know that the lake was Zel. They could have; the information that the lake was a Vitality and had a name was public—but Zel wasn’t very well known as Vitalities of the area went, and they definitely didn’t really know I’d been talking to them nigh-constantly.
I wasn’t going to tell them right now, either, so I made sure to before I entered earshot, mutter “Zel, hi.” Because, uh, I kind of had to. They were right there, after all.
Cijaya, Zel said back. Hi yourself. Did you survive graduation?
I shook my head, and left it at that. I had to focus on the dads right now, who I very much enjoyed being around, and yet … fuck, I was tired. I was very tired. I stumbled across the grass to them, and announced both my presence and what I’d thought of graduation with an epic sigh.
“That bad?” my father asked.
“Pretty much,” I said. “After everything that happened…” I groaned, and dramatically sat down on a bench. “I hate everything!”
My dad and my father gave each other a look, and nodded to each other.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
My dad revealed a box that had been hiding behind his back.
“Cake,” my father said with another nod. “It means cake.”
I attempted to smile, but it turned into a weary sigh. “Thanks, but … I’m really not hungry right now. Maybe I can eat it later?”
They acquiesced to this, both saying “okay,” and ended up sitting next to me.
As the first phase of my post-graduation—I’d have a full dinner later with a larger contingent of my family—this was pretty subdued. And boring. I was actually bored, even though I was too exhausted to do anything.
“So…” my father started.
“So,” I echoed back.
“Maybe we could take a walk around?” He said.
Despite the fact that I was so tired that falling entirely over, possibly even onto my face, seemed very likely, I couldn’t help but say “Sure.” I liked walks, at least sometimes. Especially when they were around Zel.
And—I almost winced as I stood up. I’d been thinking in the back of my mind for a little while now that since I’d be meeting my dads separately after graduation, and since I trusted them the most out of my family, that maybe—maybe—I could actually tell them my name.
“Um,” I said, in something resembling follow-through of that plan.
“What is it?” My dad asked.
Fear rose in my chest, outcompeting my exhaustion by far and making me feel sick again. I thought about forming the words, I considered it, but I couldn’t decide which ones, actually I have a name or some other sentence, and it seemed that the world was spinning and frozen and all once, so instead I just walked a step forward and asked, “So, what path?”
I nodded at the answer, though I barely processed what it was, and mentally I cursed myself. I could have told them! But I didn’t. But, I thought, I’d have an entire walk when I could do it, I could think of the words, I could build up the courage—Vitalities, though, I still felt sick.
And so, me feeling pretty awful, we started down the path itself.
It was a nice walk, as walks around Zel always were. But despite any attempt I might make to build up the courage I wanted, and actually tell my dads my real fucking actual name, I just couldn’t.
I couldn’t.
And I was going to leave as soon as physically possible, once I’d managed to make myself get just a few more supplies—which I was going to force myself to do the next day, I was absolutely sure of it.
13
Sedge & Nena
mirrors for the moon
All our travels from where Nena met me to where the city of Mangtena began took in total three weeks, two of them in desert. Much of the terrain we crossed was flat, although there were some hills—and once, just as Nena had suggested, we did climb down into a canyon for a day, just because she wanted to show me.
It turned out that I preferred the open sky.
So we walked onwards, and a week from when I’d told her of the ‘doormat prince,’ I woke up in the morning to her grinning at me over the breakfast of pancakes that she’d just made. “Go back to sleep after we eat,” she suggested.
I blinked, unsure I’d heard her right. “What?”
“We’re a day from Mangtena,” she said, a glint in her eye, and I’m not sure how I hadn’t known that—was she keeping secrets from me, was there a reason she was keeping secrets from me, was she planning to trick me?—but I understood what she meant.
All travelers made their approaches to Mangtena at night.
The city was nocturnal, due to how hot the desert could be in daytime—and though the southern parts of the desert had often gotten chilly at night, over the past few days I indeed had been noting to myself that daylight was hot enough that it actually didn’t seem like the best time to travel anymore.
So, if we were to acclimate ourselves to the schedule of Mangtena, it would make sense to arrive at night—but even better, the city was filled with reflective panels that multiplied the light of the moons onto its streets, and supposedly it was beautiful to behold at night. Midnight was their noon, a time many would be out and about getting lunch, and so of course it was also the most classic time to arrive in the city.
“Well then,” I eventually said. “More sleep it is. I now understand why you didn’t make coffee.”
Nena just grinned.
Changing one’s schedule is neither easy nor simple. I knew that in theory, but now I learned it in practice. I slept in a few extra hours, but then I found myself wide awake, the sun arcing across the sky. It was not yet noon, and I was utterly convinced I should awaken, walk around, do something—this was the productive time of the day, and no matter how much I understood the implications of where Nena and I were going, some part of me was still convinced that not doing things at this exact moment was the pinnacle of laziness.
I rolled over and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the anxiety and get back to sleep. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. I found that my heartrate was only increasing, my instincts becoming more and more convinced that I was wasting time.
So I found myself unzipping my sleeping bag, standing up and putting my shoes on, and—wishing that I could think of anything to do that would look cooler—jogging around the campsite in circles.
I heard Nena shift in her bag before I heard her voice calling out to me, and I realized only then that jogging really was the kind of ruckus that would wake someone up. “Seeedge,” she whined. “What are you doing?”
I tried not to adopt the most sheepish expression known to ma
n, instead forcing myself to walk up to her confidently and say, without a single waver in my voice, “Jogging. I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d do something to burn off energy.”
She squinted at me. “I can’t decide if that’s really smart or really stupid.”
I shrugged. “You can keep sleeping, don’t mind me.”
“I’m not sure that my ‘minding’ you was really my fault…” she muttered.
That little conviction that was always in the back of my head whispered: that’s it, that’s the proof, she does hate you. But I didn’t show it; I refused to. Instead I rolled my eyes at Nena and said, “I can move farther from the campsite, if you’d like.”
“Please,” she said.
And so I jogged forward. The lighter parts of the rocks around me reflected the light from the open noon sky and hurt my eyes, but they served as a good distraction from my concerns that my traveling partner did not really want me around. I didn’t know how to avoid convincing myself of things like that which very likely weren’t true; and Vitalities, I had tried very hard to learn. But I could at least pretend I didn’t feel and think the things I did.
In the end, I was sure, only action and choice really mattered. That, not my uncontrollable feelings, was the mark of who I really was.
We left the campsite at sunset, and I felt strange. I was refreshed in a way, as I had gotten more sleep, but also groggy, as there was no light to wake me. My body and my instinct both were entirely convinced that this was not the time of day to begin a hike.
But we were doing just that, and I was simply going to have to live with it.
“So how well do you think you’ll adapt to Mangtena’s schedule?” I asked her, in an attempt to comfort myself that I wasn’t really sure was veiled enough.