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Theocratic-Monarchy: SunSide
20th Day of Month 6, Year 1628 DG
It’s the most comfortable sleep Naina has had in some time. She wakes to find Salessa neatly folding the soft blankets Syma provided the night before, and placing them onto a wooden table nearby.
The light of the first two suns drips in through windows carved into the tree shelter’s walls.
“Get dressed,” Salessa instructs Naina gently. “We have a long journey ahead of us today.”
Naina gets to her feet and registers an irregular flutter in her sister’s mind. The wolf places a hand on Salessa’s shoulder. “I’m nervous, too, Lessi.”
Salessa smiles and covers Naina’s hand with her own. “Everything will be alright. We have Symin and Ray-Mi.”
Naina shakes her head disapprovingly. “We have each other.”
The Mega of Nivyan Hollow fill the clearing around the fire. They eat, drink, and laugh while passing around fresh bread and vegetables roasted over the flames.
The twins find Symin with his family, who offer breakfast. Naina reaches for a hunk of warm bread before Salessa pulls her wrist back and asks where they can wash their hands and rinse their mouths first.
I’m hungry, not dirty. Naina forces her voice into Salessa’s mind.
You have wolfmouth.
If you said that to any other wolf, they’d tear you apart, feather by feather.
Your breath is tearing me apart.
Symin leads them through a section of the clearing that opens to a hill. They descend slowly and arrive at a riverbed occupied by hundreds and hundreds of Mega—bathing, washing clothes, swimming, and spending time together. Naina’s eyes widen as the magnitude of the communities that reside within the forest dawns upon her.
“All of these Mega live in Nivyan Hollow?”
Symin nods. “Oh, yes. Our cluster is just a small sample.” He smiles and gestures widely at the population of bathers and swimmers. “This is our community. Our family. We all protect each other and care for one another as we’re able to.”
Naina’s heart splinters in her chest as something triggers deep within her that she hasn’t felt in a very long time. Other than Salessa, she’s forgotten what it feels like to be cared for.
To be part of a family.
They return soon after to Syma’s clearing and enjoy a warm meal with their Mega companions.
“Be safe. May the Four keep you in their light,” Syma says to the twins after breakfast. She kisses their cheeks and sends them off through the forest with Symin and Ray-Mi.
When they emerge past the tree line, they face a row of wooden docks, tied to one of which is an old sailboat. The hull’s shine has faded into a dismal dullness, the warped wood of the upper deck bends irregularly, the rickety masts tremble in the breeze, and the sails have been patched with incongruent fabrics.
“I was a Legion Director in the Braver fleet,” Ray-Mi says, standing next to Naina and staring out at the sailboat with a smile. “I spent so much time at sea that my feet started to feel unsteady on dry land. After I defected, I needed a way to get back out onto the water.” He waves to the vessel as if he expects it to wave back. “She’s as beautiful as she is functional.”
Don’t do it, Nai—
“If that’s the case, we’ll never make it past the docks, let alone to Panaerth.”
Ray-Mi’s smile drops. Naina feels Salessa’s muscles tense up next to her. There’s a long pause as Ray-Mi registers what Naina said, then explodes into laughter and pats Naina on the back.
“That was a great one, wolfie,” he commends her, then turns and joins Symin in readying the ship.
Naina turns to Salessa with a smile. You have to lighten up.
You have to be more respectful. Her expression goes momentarily rigid, but her lips quickly slip into a smile. But that was funny.
They turn back to the ship, yet neither steps toward it. Despite the ages of hiding, the idea of crossing oceans carries more weight than any prior journey.
Naina feels her sister’s fingers interlock with hers, and Salessa’s voice softly reminds her, Change champions, Naina. Right?
Naina exhales and nods. Change champions.
An hour later, the journey affects Naina far more than she anticipated.
She leans over the wooden rails bordering the hull and tries to focus on the glittering sunlight on the ocean’s surface. Ray-Mi keeps the vessel as steady as possible from the helm, but the occasional turns and sways stimulate a sickness that threatens to launch Naina’s breakfast into the water below.
“How much”—she burps—“longer?”
Salessa, holding Naina’s hair away from her face and rubbing her back, looks up at the sky. “We’ve been on the water for about an hour, so.” She hesitates. “Maybe two more.”
“Three,” Symin corrects her, rising from the hold, grasping a flask. He offers it to Naina. “Close your nostrils and drink this as quickly as you can.”
Naina shakes her head and turns away from the flask. I don’t accept flasks from anything with ears that pointy.
Salessa takes the flask from Symin and offers him a grateful smile, then forces it into her sister’s hands and whispers, “Please. Don’t be stubborn.”
Fine, Naina growls. “Thank you, Symin.”
She opens the cap, covers her nose, and dumps the warm liquid into her throat. The unexpectedly warm temperature nearly makes her gag, but after the initial surprise, she continues to drink. Her nausea dissolves almost instantly.
Naina removes the flask from her lips and looks down at it, her eyes wide with disbelief. “What was that?”
Symin smiles and takes the flask back from her. “A family recipe. Made from a rare batch of flowers grown in Nivyan Hollow.”
“How did you figure out they settle seasickness?” Salessa asks.
Symin runs his fingers fondly over the flask. He takes longer to respond than Naina expects. “My daughter, Zynima, spent some time out on the ocean for work. She discovered the flowers and this special use during one of her voyages.”
Naina notices the lines on Symin’s forehead, the wounded scrunch of his nose, and the struggling quiver in his tone, as Ray-Mi’s words from the night before echo through her mind.
You never really get over losing a child.
With Naina’s seasickness addressed, Salessa finds a cot, similar to the ones on which they slept back in Evic, to rest. Within another hour, saliva is leaking out of the corner of her mouth, her chest heaving with every grunty snore. Naina lies next to her, eyes closed, trying and failing to sleep under sweltering rays.
She can’t see any vivid images, but their telepathy allows her brief glimpses into Salessa’s nightmare: a deep shade of green, a broken hut, a river of blood.
Two young girls holding hands and running off into the woods.
“Naina!” comes Symin’s voice from the railing toward the front of the ship. Her eyes pop open and she sits up. Symin gestures for her to join him. Ray-Mi stands at the helm still, staring out ahead and squinting, while Salessa remains lost in a deep sleep.
Excellent work having my back, Drooly. What if he throws me overboard while you’re snoring?
As she stalks toward the bow of the vessel, Naina’s hands become paws with claws behind her back.
“I want to show you something,” Symin tells her, pointing over the ship’s side.
Naina hesitates and takes a step back, out of his arm’s reach, before she looks over the railing.
When she sees them, Naina’s claws retract back into human hands. Her eyes widen and all of her focus invests in the stunning sight below. The rays of the late morning suns strike the deep, blue ocean water and scatter specks of light across the backs and fins of a dolphin pod.
“Wow,” she says quietly, an almost juvenile excitement rising in her chest. She turns to Symin, who matches her excitement. Only four or five are visible, at first. Then a few calves show up alongside their mothers. Then some appear behind the boat and on the other side.
“Come with me,” Symin offers, walking past her toward the captain’s deck. Naina follows closely behind him, rising up the stairs to where Ray-Mi stands.
“If you’ve never seen a dolphin before, wolfie, you’re gonna love this,” the former Braver teases.
At the stern, elevated above the rest of the ship, Naina spins and takes in the vision around her. Hundreds of dolphins swarm around them, swirling in a maelstrom of excited clicks, joyous whistles, and powerful breach displays. She’s never seen anything like it.
“Are they Doruh?” Symin asks her. She hadn’t even considered whether they were true dolphins or not. She holds the railing tightly in her grip and waits for another breach. One launches its body into the air, high above the water, and Naina focuses, holding eye contact for as long as she can.
And then she sees it. The dolphin’s essence. It’s curious and intelligent. Natural and whole.
“They’re true dolphins,” she informs Symin. “They have one essence. Not two incomplete ones, like we do. A whole, pure essence, as nature intended.”
“Nothing exists without nature’s intention,” Symin responds.
Naina turns to him, surprised.
The nymph continues. “They are whole, certainly. But their purity has no influence on that of the Doruh.” He turns to her, and she finds a brightness in his expression. “Wouldn’t you agree, Naina?”
Naina hadn’t ever given it much thought. All Doruh live under the assumption that their half-human, half-animal essences deem them unnatural, an abomination. A thought that, surely, a Mega drove into the Doruh psyche long ago, only to be passed down through the generations.
Naina nods. “We are pure. And intelligent and loving, and”—her gaze drops down to her hands, and she balls them into fists—“we are strong.”
Symin shakes his head. “Your fists are not what make you strong. They’ve helped you survive the Pit, but strength thrives in change, not in muscle.”
Naina’s ears stiffen as the words enter them. Her body tenses and her breath catches in her throat. He says it so fluidly, so effortlessly, so obviously. The way someone else said it long ago.
“Change champions, when fists fail,” Naina whispers, almost inaudibly. A decade of submerged emotions claw their way up her chest and into her throat. Her father’s voice, speaking the words, is torn violently from her memories and slammed against her eardrums. Her cheeks burn red.
Symin’s smile fades. “Are you alright?”
“Repeat that. What you said about change.”
Symin’s mouth hangs agape in confusion. “Strength thrives in change, not muscle.”
“Where did you hear that?”
Symin seals his lips and turns to look out at the pod. Naina waits, her impatience demanding a response, but Symin seems focused on something below them. Naina almost repeats the question more forcefully, but something in his sudden silence begs her to investigate what’s grasped his attention.
She turns and looks out at the water, at the still breaching dolphins. She follows Symin’s gaze until she finds two dolphins in his line of sight, an adult...and a juvenile.
“My daughter,” Symin finally responds. “It was something she said often, and lived by. The idea that physical strength is inferior to one’s willingness to adapt and learn and grow.”
He sighs and Naina watches the muscles in his throat tighten around his grieved voice. “She’s returned to the Radiance, but her legacy lives on. In our memories, and our devotion to keeping her values alive. This is how I keep her close to me.”
Naina and Symin turn to each other, and something powerful surges between them. It occurs to Naina that she’s subconsciously been keeping her parents alive in the same way: by filling her every breath with their legacy. She hadn’t realized it until a Mega, a broken nymph, reflected her ache and broke the Mega-Doruh barrier between them.
Naina looks deep into Symin’s pupil-less eyes and sees through his windows.