There are of course more than fourteen rivers in the “Desert of Fourteen Rivers,” but the name has stuck now for millennia past the time of Noah, descendant of Eve and master waterman. In fact it is in those rivers not part of the major fourteen that it is said that he, also a prodigious Theurgist, may have left other manifested boats that have not yet been found, for any who find them to inherit…
—Ulin Harend, A Brief History of the Fourteen Rivers
Yenatru opens his eyes to the sunlight. He’s under that tarp Lucifer set up, on a thick blanket she brought. He turns over and stretches; Tamar’s at the far edge of the blanket, still asleep.
Elīya’s nowhere to be seen.
Yenatru turns again, craning his head to look outside the edge of the tarp. It’s bright out there; he’s not sure what time it is, but it’s definitely not early morning anymore. It looks nice, though, with patches of silver sagebrush and faded grass.
Before he gets a chance to get out there, a bright red dragonfly hovers its way under the tarp, curious. Yenatru’s eyes widen; this little guy is just so cute. And when it unsurprisingly gets bored of the shade under the tarp and darts back outside, Yenatru stretches and decides to actually get up.
He winces the second the sunlight hits his face, covering his closed eyes with a hand to make the pain stop.
And on his hand, swirling down his arm, is a sweet wind.
His soul, right there, on his arms. God, it feels so nice.
When his eyes are adjusted enough to the light for him to draw his hand away, the first thing he notices is Lucifer in spiky-haired form, making pancakes over a small battery-powered stove. He wonders if it’s a good idea to cook at all up here, since probably all the plants are flammable. But, well, she hasn’t set anything on fire yet, so that’s good.
And next to her, Elīya, bags visible under her eyes, wavering even as she sits.
“They’re almost ready,” Lucifer’s saying to her.
“Thank flames,” she says. Did she sleep at all last night?
Tamar emerges from the tent before he gets a chance to ask. She’s stretching, yawning—and only barely not tripping over the rocks on the ground.
“That smells good,” she says.
“Pancakes,” Lucifer offers.
Tamar grins and sits down. “Some days, you just have to wake up and wait for the first angel to fall to make you pancakes.”
Lucifer sighs and shakes her head. Yenatru’s got an idea what she’s thinking: that Tamar’s caring way too much about her reputation, treating her as too different.
But instead of complaining, what she says is, “The pancakes are done.”
Elīya extends her hands, as if hoping for pancakes to be placed right in them.
“I do have plates—” Lucifer starts.
Elīya just stares at Lucifer, her eyes hard and unwavering. This isn’t just any stare, it’s the stare. Yenatru knows well that few escape it unscathed.
“Fine, do what you will,” Lucifer says, putting pancakes into Elīya’s hands—
Before Elīya immediately walks off toward the tarp, snarfing pancakes into her mouth along the way.
Yenatru blinks. “Guess she really was pretty tired.”
“And a shame too, since I have yoghurt to go with these,” Lucifer says.
Yenatru’s eyes widen; Tamar just smiles, the usual white firelight pouring out of her eyes.
They start eating pancakes, the three of them, with yoghurt that really does complement them well.
And no one says anything.
At least the food is good, he thinks.
Unfortunately, the pancakes are gone before anyone’s said anything at all.
Yenatru opens his mouth, trying to think of a conversation starter. Um, nice day isn’t it? Or maybe, did you sleep well, Tamar? No, neither of those will do; he shoves another bite in his mouth instead.
It’s finally Lucifer who speaks up. “Well, unfortunately, the person we have to blame for all of us being here is sleeping.”
Tamar laughs, shaking her head. “Though we did all agree to this.”
“True,” Lucifer says, her face harsh-angled as she faces Tamar.
Flames, it really is disorienting to watch her entire body and voice change every time she looks to another person. But it’s also her to do so.
“Is… Elīya okay?”
“She probably will be,” Tamar says, shrugging. “I did say some things to her, and I get that they had an impact. Don’t regret it, though.”
Yenatru raises his eyebrows, wanting to refute her—but then again, he doesn’t know what she said to Elīya. He looks over to Lucifer, who gives him a look, but he’s not sure what that look means. So instead he just looks down at the ground.
“Anyway,” Tamar says. “It’s pretty nice out here.”
That may have actually been one of the worst subject changes Yenatru’s ever heard. Again he looks to Lucifer as if she can help or do something; she just shrugs at him.
He rubs at his face. This is unbelievably awkward. But maybe responding to Tamar would help…?
“Yeah, it is,” he says.
“I’m kind of surprised we never ended up going here, back in the day.”
“You were always more interested in getting to the high places, though.”
“True. But still, I ended up a whole lot of places, and not all of them were peaks.”
Yenatru nods, smiling weakly; he remembers that. One time, they found a cave in the Sarhim mountains that they swore they might’ve been the first to find. They probably weren’t, but it was still a nice thought. “I kind of miss that.”
“Not surprised that you would.” Tamar shrugs. “We did some pretty cool stuff.”
And yet seeing all of the things they found together was less important to her than getting her eyes to become a manifestation of God. Again he can’t help but wonder why.
“Still not saying,” Tamar says.
Lucifer raises an eyebrow, before shaking her head. Yenatru wonders if she’s being reminded that Tamar can read minds.
“Sorry, man,” Tamar says to Lucifer.
“I don’t think you are,” she responds, each syllable clearly pronounced.
“You’re right. I’m not.”
Yenatru’s eyes widen; he stares to the side, at the edge of one of those mountains, yes, that makes a nice line against the sky, doesn’t it? Yes, everything’s fine. Lucifer’s wonderful and doesn’t deserve to be uncomfortable here, but it’s not wrong for Tamar to be Tamar either, and wow, yes, he sure can make out some nice colors at the base of that mountain, and the sky’s also very blue. Yes.
“You know,” Tamar says, “God is a part of me wherever I go, and I can’t exactly make that stop being a thing, you should know, considering—”
“Tamar maybe don’t,” Yenatru says, his hand clenched.
And, amazingly, she completely stops the sentence she was starting, her posture freezing. “…Holy fuck.”
Yenatru blinks, not quite sure what she’s referring to; maybe he hurt her? But his hand’s still clenched, and he glances to Lucifer, and she’s smiling at him, and maybe he doesn’t regret what he said.
“That is the most confrontational thing I have ever seen you do,” Tamar says, almost breathless. “By far. Ever.”
And she says nothing more on the topic, even leans farther back from Lucifer, completely backing off.
Some strange sort of hope seeps into Yenatru’s eyes, he can feel it. A hope that something matters. Because he just did something to protect Lucifer. His friend.
“Well,” Tamar says, her pancakes long finished. “I might see if there’s anything I can climb around here.”
Yenatru sighs; climbing alone was dangerous enough when she could still see. “So I guess I have to come with you.”
“If you want.” She shrugs.
“I’ll be right here,” Lucifer says, back to her normal light tone.
Some part of Yenatru wants to stay with her, but then again, it’s been years since he properly explored somewhere for no good reason with Tamar.
But for some reason, he’s sure to smile at Lucifer before he leaves, and nod, meaning maybe: I’ll be back.
“So you care about him,” Tamar says, leaning back against a rock and standing on some of the least-sloped ground Yenatru’s seen since they started climbing this mountain, which is really halfway to a cliff. She sips from a water bottle, one of the four that Yenatru actually remembered to bring, and Tamar undeniably would not have brought on her own. They seem to be stopping briefly out of an unspoken agreement that they need rest, Yenatru especially, as it’s a little exhausting to watch Tamar and make sure she doesn’t die as he’s also climbing. It’s still strangely fun, though.
He doesn’t catch what she means at first, maybe because he’s distracted by the throbbing that’s starting in his legs—climbing’s an interesting challenge, yes, but he doesn’t enjoy the pain itself of it the way Tamar seems to—or maybe because the pronoun’s odd to him.
“Lucifer,” she clarifies.
Oh. He can’t help but turn away, looking down onto the valley and the desert beyond. God, it’s beautiful, and exactly why he was always ultimately okay with coming along with Tamar on all of her many dangerous adventures.
He takes a deep breath. “Yes,” he manages to answer.
“Do you love him?” It’s a pure, matter-of-fact, curious question.
“She’s not even—” he starts, and then remembers that yes, she is male sometimes, or maybe all the time, but also a bunch of other things and anyway, that just isn’t what he’s been feeling. “No. Not romantically, which I think is what you’re asking.”
She nods. “I’m almost disappointed to hear that, seeing as that’s what you’ve always wanted.”
He closes his eyes tight, which he thinks maybe somehow helps prevent him from blushing, not that Tamar can see. “Yeah, but she’s not that.” His tone is soft, and it’s true: she really isn’t. But he isn’t disappointed, and doesn’t regret it.
There’s a slight wind up here, this high; the windless season may actually be ending now. And when the wind really arrives, school will go on break for a few months, the best months of the year, where the nights are warm and the wind comes but not quite bitingly cold, not yet. Yenatru’s ready for this time of the year, he really is.
And he’s so glad he met Lucifer: he almost says this, but isn’t sure how to say it without so much emotion that his voice completely fades into a whisper. But he smiles, remembering it, thinking of it.
Oh, but, given that Tamar’s here, and given that she asked. “Um,” he says, “I’m… I’m sorry that I. This is weird to say, but I think I should say it. I’m sorry that I, I think I don’t care about you or Elīya as much as I care about Lucifer, which is probably wrong, but—”
“Oh, shush.”
But Yenatru’s mind is racing and he’s hoping she’s not hurt, so he keeps talking. “I really don’t understand it and I can’t explain it.”
“That’s how it works, though,” Tamar says with a grin. “Come on, there’s nothing in all the fires of God that could help me explain to Elīya why I wanted to become Holy so much, so suddenly. But it happened. And it’s okay if Lucifer matters to you, more than I do or did, more than Elīya does or did. Flames, I’m not even surprised.”
This is the second time she’s said something like that, now; this, and about Theurgy. Yenatru’s eyes widen. “Why?”
“We weren’t that close in secondary, you know. The three of us. That promise meant fuck-all to the two of us—”
“I wanted to keep it,” Yenatru says, quiet. “I just… didn’t.”
“That’s because you’re a sweet one. But… do you ever wonder why we hung out?”
“Because it was convenient? Because—”
“You were good enough, I thought, she thought, we all thought. And then I got a taste of the rest of the world, and then I didn’t think that anymore.”
“Oh.”
“You seemed like you’ve turned into a pretty good version of yourself, though,” she says, shrugging and leaning back against a cliff face like it’s nothing. “Enjoying college?”
The whiplash of the subject change has Yenatru worried for a second that he might fall off the trail. “I’m… going into law.”
“Oh. Cool. Protecting people?”
“I… think so. Or at least knowing how to. But…” he looks at Tamar. “What are you doing, out there in Eden?”
“Oh, you know.” She shrugs. “Hanging out, laughing when people think weird things about me, charging their batteries by shoving them into my eyes—”
“Into what now.”
“Into God.”
“…Got it,” Yenatru says, even though that’s probably the weirdest thing he’s heard of a Holy doing.
“So, yeah. Life’s pretty nice.”
“Even though I might not care as much about you as you probably deserve? Compared to Lucifer?”
“Oh, come on, you’re still worried about that? You’re enjoying climbing out here with me, right? I mean, actually I can tell you are, but you can go ahead and answer.”
“Yeah,” he says. And it’s true.
“See? It’s fine.” She tosses her head back, her hair re-tousling itself into a new shape. “Ready to continue up?”
Yenatru looks up; the mountain, nice and silhouetted against the sky as it may be, only gets sheerer from here. “Maybe sometime you should try doing fewer things that might result in you dying…”
Tamar snorts. “Do you really think that’s going to happen?”
Yenatru sighs. “No,” he admits.
“Well then, let’s head up to the top of this thing.”
Yenatru finds himself smiling a little, feeling ready to do just that. Even if not quite everything makes sense. Even if the way he cares isn’t quite what he expected at all—
And Tamar slips, some pebbles giving out from under her—
And Yenatru’s by her side in moments, wrapping his arms around her, stabilizing her.
His arms.
His arms, with a sweet wind running up and down them…
“I thought you said you only had one manifestation, on your lips,” Tamar says with a smile.
“That- that changed. But you, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. But thanks for catching me.” She steadies herself against him then, and stands back up, looking for all the world as if nothing had just happened.
But Yenatru looks down, and though Tamar can’t see that, she can see something else. His emotions. “But are you okay?”
“That’s… not how I expected anyone to. Um. Touch that manifestation.”
“Ohh. Disappointed it was me?”
Yenatru thinks about that for a moment—he would have thought so, but then, it didn’t actually feel so bad. And she is a friend, or she was a friend, and maybe she will be again—
“I don’t know,” he says. “It… didn’t feel too bad for you?”
“Bad?” Tamar tilts her head. “It’s a part of you, I wouldn’t call it bad. But I guess if you wanted to press me on it, it’s not something I’d want around me all the time. It’s too soothing, for me. I prefer… well. You know.”
Almost falling off mountains. God in her eyes. Maybe her liking of those two things is actually one and the same—and maybe that means Yenatru understands some of why she made the choice she did. Just a little bit.
Even though he wishes she hadn’t run away like that.
“…Right,” he says, not sure what else to say, though maybe that doesn’t matter so much when she can read his emotions. It’s harder to misinterpret someone that way, after all.
“So, about getting up to the top…” Tamar starts.
Yenatru sighs. “Don’t get too far away from me,” he says, knowing flaming well that he can’t actually stop her. “Just in case.”
Tamar grins. “Sounds like a deal.”