Anais Eternal

by Paige Graffunder

  "Yes," Etachs said, scooting as close to the wall as their body would allow.

  "I don't know your name. All this time and I never asked..." The voice trailed off. Etachs told the other their name. After a moment of silent contemplation, they said, "Marx. I'm Marx." The two lapsed into silence again.

  Neither Etachs nor Marx could know, but they leaned into the wall facing each other, only inches apart. Their hands pressed to the same place. Etachs’ marred by newly grown scales and Marx missing two fingers. If the wall hadn't been there, they would have looked like lovers curled around one another, holding wounded hands, as though in that simple act they could heal each other.

  ◆◆◆

  Tatiana pulled a bundle wrapped in cloth out of her pack, holding it close to her chest. "You have to understand," she said quietly, "there is only some of this I have access to. There is a whole book in here I can't open. It's not like anyone explained this shit to me."

  I stared at her perplexed and incredulous as she began to unwrap the cloth. Inside was some sort of fabric wrapped up into a tight ball with twine; two books, one large, one small; and five folded up pieces of paper, worn with age and use. In addition, was a small, square object I couldn't immediately identify. She took the first of the papers and unfolded it, passing it to me.

  "The night of the Devastation," she shot a look at Etachs who flinched a little under its weight, before returning her eyes to me, "Mother handed me a bag separate from the packs she had made already. The stuff in this bundle here is what was inside it. I eventually had to do away with the satchel because it was just too much to carry, especially since you were so little, I did a lot of carrying your pack too."

  I looked down at the note in my hand. It was ordinary paper, with a long, elegant scrawl printed on it. The characters were looping and beautiful. This was printed in our language, not in the tongues of the humans, or the boxy aggressive print of the Himlani. This was undeniably Fae, and my heart both sang and shattered at the sight of it.

  "This was the note on top of everything else. As I said, I don't understand everything, and this note doesn't really explain much, if anything, but it was written by our mother, so I couldn't bring myself to throw it away..." Tatiana lowered her head. I reached out to take her hand as I read the note, tears welling up despite myself. I had been very young when the Devastation had occurred and, as such, I had very few memories of my mother, but to hold this paper in my hands, to see her writing, the words she chose, was like walking into a room and not recognizing the layout of the furniture but having it smell devastatingly familiar all the same.

  My Dearest Tatiana,

  I don't have long to write this, as I have thought for some time now that our interplanetary guests are not all they seem to be. I know you are young, and this is a terrible burden for me to place upon you, but I must. I am known to the Himlani, and because you are only recently not a youngling, you are less so. If I disappear, it will not go unnoticed, if you and your sister go missing, I hope it will be negligible to them. The things I must tell you are numerous and difficult, so I hope that this note and the other things enclosed in this bag will be enough. There is no way that it could explain everything, but hopefully, it will help you to understand.

  First, I need you to understand if it comes down to you or Anais, you must choose Anais' life over your own. This is not because I love her more, or because I think she is worth more, please, believe me, my precious Tati, it pains me to have to write this at all, but it must be done. Anais is different from the rest of us. When she was very small, we took her to see The Oracle, at the behest of your grandmother. Your father and I were very against it. However, in hindsight, I am glad that we did it. If we had not, we might not know what we do now, and all might have been lost. I shudder to think of all the ways I could have lost you both.

  Tati, there are things you must do. You must teach her our language, and teach her to use her magic, but only a little bit at a time. I don't know what kinds of technology the Himlani have cooked up, but they are aware of our magic, they have seen it, and I have seen their envy of it. I think that they may turn it against us if things go the way that I think they are going. In this bag, I have included a cloth. It is magic, but of an ancient type. This item is precious and not to be used lightly or lost. If you spread this cloth over the entrance of a shelter, it will create a sort of pocket in space and time and allow you to teach her without being detected. At least I hope so. Use it sparingly and well, it is vitally important that Anais knows our language and can communicate with her magic.

  There are books in here as well; one is the written account of the last person who was born like Anais, the second is something more personal. I have sealed the book magically. Anais will be able to open it when the time is right. Tati, you must believe me, that your father and I love you and want you to be safe, but Anais could save us all, and so you must put her first in all things.

  If you are reading this, then we are both likely dead, and you are fleeing. Remember us. We love you.

  Your mother,

  Annalisa

  I stared down at the paper and then read it again. I handed it to Etachs without thinking. They passed it back almost immediately.

  "I can't read it," they said quietly. I nodded, numbly, and read it aloud for them. They furrowed their brow through as they listened but made no comment.

  I looked up at my sister when I was done, tears spilling down my face. "Tati, I am so sorry." Tatiana looked taken aback.

  "What for?" she asked.

  "This is a terrible thing to have to read. Even though you were over 100 when The Devastation occurred, you were barely that. And to have your mother tell you that you must die if it means saving your sister, saving me. I can't imagine what that must have been like." I met her eyes with sorrow, but hers held none.

  "Anais, I have always been a dutiful person. Living my life to protect you has not been a sacrifice to me, and I am not wounded by our mother's words. Perhaps at first, but as I discovered more about you and the things you might be able to do, I realized how right she was, how right they were. I can't be anything but grateful they got any information out with us." Etachs looked between the two of us as we stared at each other, me weepy and clutching my sister's hand and my sister, calm and resolute, staring impassively back at me. They wisely remained silent.

  I looked at my sister and was filled with deep and profound gratitude for her. I was always thankful for her, but this was beyond anything I had ever felt. As the emotion swelled inside me, my magic began whispering in the back of my mind, asking me a question that I didn't quite understand, but I understood its impact. I asked my magic if it was sure and it purred against my mind that it was. I hesitated for just another moment and then gave my magic an answer. Yes.

  My magic swirled within my chest and filled my body with a sense of warmth. I felt it rush through my veins, my bones, my muscles, filling me with a sense of love, and gentle heat. I felt it flow from me into Tatiana through our linked hands. Her eyes, still locked on mine, widened for a moment, but not in fear. Her grip tightened around my fingers and, for the first time in a very long time, I saw tears well in the corners of her eyes. My magic flowed through us and I could see into her soul for just a moment, into her core of magic that lay mostly unused. To the depth of her power, her love, her pragmatism, and her pain. I could tell that she could see the same in me, and tears spilled anew from our locked eyes.

  After a few moments, my magic retreated, and we stared at each other with a fresh understanding of what the other one was at their fundamental core. Tatiana took a shuddering breath and pulled her hand from mine, looking down at it.

  "What was that Ana?" she asked in a small voice I barely recognized as belonging to my fierce and unwavering sister. My magic again rose up and whispered inside my mind, a word I didn't understand, but repeated anyway.

  "Communion," I whispered. Tatiana, Etachs, and I all jumped as Ayesha squawked from her perch and
fluttered down to my shoulder, rubbing her feathered head against my wet cheek. I understood, at that moment, it was this magic that had allowed me to bond with Ayesha, to empathize with all the creatures around me, sentient or otherwise. And now it had a name. Communion.

  Sisters

  The cold bit into Elena's skin like the kiss of a whip, sharp, cruel, expected, and inexcusable. She pulled the warm, heavy coat closer around herself as she trudged up the side of the mountain. She brought Annalisa to this mountain when she was a girl, just as she herself had been brought here when she was a youngling. Elena had borne 17 younglings into this world and of them, only one had warranted the trip, her last one. And now Annalisa had grown into herself and was bringing her own daughter here. Elena didn't like this mountain any more than she had the last time, but while she had taken the trip out of a vague suspicion last time, this time was different. This time she was all but sure that the trip was necessary.

  Nysthrani had been old when the world was new. The Oracle was terrifying in her ancientness. It had been over a thousand years since the last time Elena had walked this path, with Annalisa clutched to her chest, and in that thousand years, Elena had learned much and changed much. She wondered how The Oracle would appear to her now. Elena twisted her head around and looked back down at her daughter, clutching her own child to her now, the way Elena had held her and felt her heartbeat pound away in her chest. This child, her grandchild, Anais, was different. Elena already knew what Nysthrani would tell them. What Elena had a touch of, the touch diluted to nothing more than a hit in Annalisa, Anais had in droves. There had been a name for this magic once, but it had been stricken from the vernacular out of fear. Elena thought grimly that she and Nysthrani might be the only souls alive who still knew what to call it. Nysthrani. The Oracle in her cave atop this accursed mountain. Nysthrani, with her baubles and fragrant smoke, Nysthrani with her shifting appearance, and her voice like cracking bones, and rivers of blood. Elena shuddered inside her coat, sweat sliding down her spine. She kept walking, knowing this was right, but regretting it all the same.

  ◆◆◆

  "I want to see the rest of the papers," I said quietly. It had been a few hours since I had named the magic that allowed me to bond. We had all been busy preparing to move, packing up our things, and replenishing what stock we could. I had found a bag for Etachs and given them the standard things— a bedroll, mess kit, canteen, jacket, and some food for emergencies. Usually, Tatiana, Ayesha, and I foraged on our way, but with Etachs having a trickier digestion system than ours, it seemed like the right thing to do. I also found them a long tree branch that they could use as a walking stick that would assist them on the long trek ahead. It was hefty enough they could use it as a weapon if it came down to it.

  “I will show them to you, but after we find another group to hide with," Tatiana said as she rechecked the straps on her bag, "we need to get out of here. We have lingered too long already, and we have wasted much of the daylight." I wanted to argue with her, but I knew she was right.

  "Umm," came the hesitant voice of Etachs, "I don't mean to be rude, but..." they trailed off. Tatiana and I both looked at them with raised eyebrows. Etachs told me later that it was the first time they saw us as sisters. While Tatiana and I had similar features without our glamours in place, her face had a hardness to it, that even the angular features of our race could not lend to mine. Her hair was a light chestnut brown color, while my own was a darker, deep brown and red of mahogany. Her eyes were blue with little specks of green, while my own eyes were a dark and deep grey of storm clouds. We stood about the same height, both of us dwarfed by Etachs, and we had similar light frames, though Tatiana was built of sinew and raw strength, while I was made from soft light things that were easily hidden. We were sisters but cut from different ends of the same cloth. Etachs gestured to their body. "I don't think any group is going to take you in with me tagging along."

  I mentally slapped myself. Of course, any group we attempted to join would flee instantly at the sight of a Himlani approaching. They wouldn't stop to ask questions as we had. Well, as I had anyway. Tatiana was looking at me with a hard expression to read. Somewhere between fear and love.

  "Do we mean to bring the Beasty along?" she asked, her tone flat. I knew she meant not to sway my decision with her tone, but she was my sister, and I knew her well enough to know that she did not want Etachs to come with us. I held her gaze for a long moment, feeling through the bond of sharing communion with her, her anxiety about it. Her long-held prejudices. Prejudices that had kept us alive, kept me alive. But something was different about Etachs. We both knew it. And while I could see the hesitation in Tatiana, I could also see the deep parts of her, the parts she kept secret, and in that small, locked corner of herself, she wanted to extend this kindness.

  "We do," I said decisively, and extended a hand toward Etachs, letting my magic trickle out from my core, down my arm and through the tip of my finger. A thread of silver, of song made physical, an inextinguishable light in infinite darkness, my magic flowed through and out of me and wrapped Etachs. Their eyes were wide, and they looked at my face searching for a hint of betrayal. Finding none, they visibly relaxed and let my magic flow over and through them. In a few short moments, a tall, pale girl with wide purple eyes and raven hair stood before us. Though the Himlani rarely wore clothing, for the sake of blending in, I had clothed this glamour for Etachs in simple trousers, a faded shirt, and practical boots.

  Etachs looked down at themselves and then back at me, a note of panic curling around the edges of their voice. "I don't know how to move this body," they said, their Himlani tongue sounding strange coming from this human mouth.

  Tatiana laughed, but not unkindly. "Move as you usually do, it is only what we see that has changed, you are still you." Etachs took a tentative step forward, and upon realizing Tatiana was not trying to fool them, they smiled up at me, the Human face illuminating with a pretty awestruck wonder with that grin.

  Tatiana frowned, "Do you speak the common Human tongue?" Etachs shifted their gaze from me to my sister and shook their head. That would be a problem. I hadn't even thought of that. Tatiana chewed her lip in thought for a moment, then her face lit in wry humor. "That's OK, Beasty, we will teach you on the way, but in the meantime, you must be silent. We will make up a story about you being unable to speak, but you can't just walk around speaking Himlani; it will scare the others."

  Etachs mulled this over for a few and then nodded. Tatiana looked around the room one last time, then turned to Etachs, “Your guest rights are over as of now, but as long as you don’t pose a threat to my sister,” she nodded to me. “Then you can stay with us, without fear from me.” I stroked Ayesha's feathers on her perch on my shoulder, letting Tatiana say her piece. Ayesha took flight, up and out of our hiding place to make sure that the coast was clear. After she swooped around for a few minutes she sent the all clear through our bond, and we ascended out of our hiding place among the oak and willow and into the daylight, without any further comment from Etachs about guest rights. Ayesha circled above us squawking her impatience to get underway.

  We struck out going west, following the sun through the trees. We hiked along game trails and small creeks until we began to see the signs of a group. Footprints and sounds, light from cook fires twinkling in the declining light of dusk. We would not join them yet, not tonight. Tonight, we would watch them to see if we could spot any of our own, or if the group were all Human. Tonight, we would make camp, close but far enough away as to not be found by scouts. Tatiana and I stood side by side, peering through the growing darkness, watching the group from a distance.

  Etachs took a step and stood to my other side. I couldn't have said why, but my magic burbled up into my brain, whispering of the rightness of this, of the oneness of it. I didn't care to argue with my magic. It suddenly felt like a friend I had known forever, but who’s name I could not remember. Like finding out Tatiana was actually a Human and not my sister
at all. Instead, I gave in to the feeling of rightness and slid my fingers into Etachs'. Through the glamour, I could feel the differentness of their hand shape to mine, I could feel the coolness of their claws as they circled my hand with their own, and when I looked up into their face, they were smiling, but the smile was sad, and I wasn't sure why.

  We three stood there for a moment until the encroaching darkness devoured the last of the daylight, then we retreated and found a suitable place to make camp. Concealed under the thick branches of a bush I had forgotten the name for, we unrolled our bedrolls and stripped Etachs and myself of our glamours, Tatiana dropped hers as well. We laid down next to each other, Ayesha perched above to keep watch, and though very few words were spoken, I felt later that night was our night of perfect communication. The memory of that night is one I have cherished the most.

  The next day came and went, and still we watched the other group. We had seen a few Fae among the Humans, but nothing could be done in haste, lest we stumble into a trap. On the night of the third day of watching, Etachs asked me why we didn't just introduce ourselves and ask to join. Tatiana scoffed and rolled her eyes. I made a face at her, then turned back to Etachs.

  "We are under constant threat, both Humans and the Fae folk, we can't just trust anyone. In the years following the Devastation, the Himlani tricked mostly Humans, but some Fae folk as well, into turning their cloaks. Promising them wealth and safety for them and their families if they lured others to them. So many were lost."

  "I have never seen a Human or a Fae that wasn't food or fodder," said Etachs, "at least not until recently." A violet flush rose to their glamoured cheeks and they looked away.

  "That's almost the whole point actually," I said. "They promised them all those things and then, once the rest of us caught on, they disposed of them just like the rest of us." I shrugged. "So ever since then, we have been much less trusting and much more careful." Etachs kept their gaze pointed at the ground, their hands balled into fists. When they did look up at me, I was surprised to see their color high and their eyes glassy with tears.