Chapter Eleven: Working as One
Written by Jeff
Laureena’s eyes burned but she held back the tears, even as the lump grew larger and larger in her throat. She sat hunched, arms wrapped around her knees, exhaling heavy, angry breaths. The other kids were looking at her, she knew it, sitting by herself under the tree, wallowing. How could they have picked her last to play Raiders? She was the reigning champ at her old school! Fourteen wins in a row, and a streak of nearly twenty before that, until Chrissy cheated and took the flag illegally on that rainy Tuesday. Laureena was a legend on that playground. But this wasn’t her old school. She didn’t live on that side of Delvorn anymore. This was her new school. And she hated it.
As her classmates giggled and screamed and ran through the grass, Laureena noticed the only other kid in her grade not participating in the game. He was sitting alone under the spider bars, but he wasn’t pouting like she was. He was just reading a book, minding his own business, not seeming to care at all that everyone else was enjoying recess without him. She’d noticed him in class earlier that day too; how could she not? No one wanted to sit by him, until the teacher had forced the last kids to show up to take the seats on either side of him at the big circular table. Laureena had also chosen to sit away from the boy, but not because she didn’t like him, or was afraid of him. She simply had never seen an Aquine before, and wasn’t quite sure what to think.
Now it seemed that she and this boy had something in common, so Laureena decided to leave her spot under the wallow tree and go introduce herself. He was reading a book in his free time after all - that alone meant he was likely smarter and more interesting than the majority of boys in her class. She approached with no sense of caution or subtlety, squeezing her slender body between the spider bars and plopping herself next to the boy on the sawdust.
“How come you’re not playing Raiders?”
He stared at her flatly, eyes looking her over almost imperceptibly, up and down, before answering.
“They don’t want to play with me, and that’s fine. I’m not really interested in making people do things they don’t want to.” He placed a marker into his book and closed it, giving the girl his full attention. “Why aren’t you? I saw Mitchell pick you for his team.”
Laureena rolled her eyes and made a raspberry with her tongue. “He picked me last, and only because he had to, so I guess I’m not interested in making people do things they don’t want to either.” Her eyes narrowed as she stared contemptibly at the game in progress. “I’m better at Raiders than all those kids. They have no idea.”
“Of course they don’t,” said the boy. “It’s your first day here, right? So how could they?”
Laureena’s nose bristled as she contemplated the boy’s logic. He was obviously right, but that didn’t make her any less irritated. “They still didn’t have to pick me last. That one boy over there has a sprained ankle! He can barely run!”
“The kids here are only comfortable with things they already know and understand. To them, you’re a wildcard. They’d rather take their chances with Abner and his sprained ankle. You could fall over every other step, for all they know.”
“Is that why you’re reading a book over here instead of playing with them?” asked Laureena. “Because they won’t give you a chance, since they don’t...understand you?”
The boy smiled, his thin, green lips spreading almost ear to ear. “Something like that.”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Kiluu. You’re Laureena, right? And you just moved here from the other side of the island?”
Laureena smirked. “That’s me. Although I moved here over a month ago - they just made me start going to school this week. They found out I’d been hanging out at the docks all day and said I had to start coming here.”
“Why’d you move?” asked the boy. “Your parents get new jobs or something?”
Laureena looked back over to the game on the playground. “My mom died. I had to move in with my grandpa.”
“Oh jeez, I’m sorry, Laureena.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it, if that’s okay. Tell me more about you, Kiluu. I’ve never met an Aquine before, and unlike those other kids, I’d rather learn more about you than ignore you.”
The boy was so shocked by this request that he just stared at her for several long moments without speaking. Then, right as Kiluu finally made a sound to respond, the school bell echoed throughout the playground, letting everyone know it was time to come back inside to class. Kiluu looked clearly dejected that this rare opportunity to talk to one of his classmates about himself had ended before it actually began.
“Well crud,” said Laureena. “I guess we’ll have to talk later.” This time she looked the boy up and down, nowhere near as inconspicuously as he had done to her, and she knew that she already liked him. “Tell you what, how about you come over to my place for dinner, and we can talk then. Are your parents ok with that kind of stuff?”
“They don’t really care where I go,” said Kiluu. “I’m usually in charge of my own dinner anyway. They work late, so I’d love to have someone else cook for me for a change. The stuff I make never tastes very good. Are you sure it’s okay if you bring some kid home for dinner after your first day at school?”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Laureena scoffed, waving a hand dismissively in the air. “I’m sure my grandpa’s weird friend will be there too. Papa met him in a bar a few weeks ago and he’s been over for dinner almost every night since. I don’t think he has any other friends.”
“I don’t have any other friends,” said Kiluu sheepishly. “Maybe we’ll get along.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Laureena hesitated. “Do you…eat fish?”
“Of course I eat fish!” Kiluu laughed. “Did you think they were my distant cousins or something?”
Laureena blushed. “I don’t know! That’s why you need to come over and tell me about yourself! Anyway, it’s good that you do eat fish, because that’s all my grandfather ever cooks.”
***
Danvers peered around the kitchen table, not with suspicion but surprise, taking in the strange crew that had assembled where he had dined alone for so many years until just last month. Kiluu tried to sit up straight and be polite, but he couldn’t help brazenly staring at Morwell. Eventually, the man glacially turned his head and started to stare back.
“What’s your deal, kid?”
“I’m sorry,” stuttered Kiluu, looking away. “You’re just the biggest person I’ve ever seen.”
“You should meet my ma,” chuckled Morwell. “Next to her, I still look like a baby boy. She’d be a whale to you, little guppy.” Morwell clacked his teeth together loudly, causing Kiluu to flinch back into his seat. The man laughed, then loaded up another grilled fish onto the boy’s plate. “Here kiddo, eat up. It’ll help you get big and strong like me.” He gave Kiluu a wink, and the boy’s apprehension warmed into a smile.
“So Laureena, how was your first day at school?” asked Danvers. “Sorry they swooped you up and made you start going to class. If it were up to me, I’d have you learning down at the docks still. Anything you need to make a living on this island is gonna come from that kind of schooling, not sitting in a chair all day.”
Laureena looked down into her food, mashing white fish between her fork and plate.
“It’s not like my other school, that’s for sure. And it’s definitely not like the last few weeks down at the pier. I really liked learning from those dockhands. That guy Struggler was full of good stories, though I think most of ‘em were a bit inappropriate for someone my age.”
Morwell smirked at Danvers. “You had Struggler looking after her? What exactly were you hoping for her to learn? How to run away from home and start a band?”
“Chuck’s a good guy,” said Danvers softly, staring off into the distance. “He’s just a free spirit. Anyway, Chuck’s not looking after her anymore while we’re on the boat, the school is. So now that you’re getting a proper education, young lady, what’d you learn today?”
“I learned that there’s five kids who basically run the whole class,” she said decisively. “There’s Ansel, he’s the leader, the most popular. He doesn’t seem particularly smart, or athletic, or handsome, or charming, but he’s a little bit of all those things, and he’s confident, so all the kids seem to look up to him. His best friend is Mitchell, and he’s kind of a brute. He’s like a kid version of you, Morwell, if you had a bad attitude.”
Morwell stopped shoveling food to say, “I do have a bad attitude,” letting fish and potatoes fall out of his mouth onto the plate below.
“The most popular girl is named Lily,” Laureena continued. “She’s the prettiest, but she’s also smart and nice, which is kind of weird. I think her and Ansel are a thing.”
“Aww, no one’s prettier than you,” said Danvers, but Laureena just rolled her eyes at him.
“Then there’s Ilian. He’s foreign, and he wears cool clothes and talks with an accent. I think most of the girls have crushes on him. I also think he’s probably an idiot, but it doesn’t matter because he’s cute and popular. And the last one of the cool kids is Talia. She was doing backflips on the field at recess today, and she can bend over backwards and walk on her hands and feet at the same time. She should have won the game of Raiders, but she let Ansel get the flag instead. I think she’s jealous of Lily, but pretends to be her best friend.”
Danvers didn’t know quite how to respond to this school report.
“Well, those are indeed things you learned today, but that wasn’t exactly what I meant.”
“That’s good intel, Laureena,” interjected Morwell. “You said yourself that you wanted her to learn real world skills instead of whatever crap they force-feed her in those classrooms, right Danvers? It sounds to me like your granddaughter already has a full grasp of the social hierarchy of her peers. You can’t subvert a system until you understand how it operates.” Morwell turned to the boy at his side. “What do you think, gup? You’ve been at that school for a while. She get the tall and short of it?”
“Actually, yeah,” said Kiluu. “I can’t believe she picked all that up in one day.” Laureena gave him a thankful smile.
“Okay, I’m sure that’s all important stuff,” said Danvers. “But what did they try and teach you in school today?”
“Oh, we learned about how the islands began,” said Laureena. “We already went over all that stuff at my old school, so it wasn’t very interesting.”
“I’m interested in it,” said Danvers. “What’s their version of the story these days? I’m curious if it’s the same as it was when I was your age.”
Laureena sighed with annoyance. “Basically, they said that everyone used to live on one island together, a long, long time ago. That was the original Central Island. But over thousands and thousands of years, it broke apart into lots and lots of little islands, and floated farther and farther apart into the ocean. The first ones to break off became the Outer Rings, and since they’ve been separated the longest, they’re the wildest and most dangerous. But since we all came from the same place - the same original island - we’re all technically the same people.”
“Easy for them to say,” snorted Morwell. “The Capital likes to pretend it has any semblance of control or jurisdiction over the Outer Rings, but they just leave the people out there to rot. Although in some cases, that’s probably for the best. Some of the people out there are so far-gone they might as well be another species.” After saying it, Morwell realized his faux pas and turned to Kiluu. “No offense, kid.”
“I’m not another species,” said the boy, half under his breath.
“No?” asked Morwell in surprise. “I’m sorry then, I guess I don’t quite know how the Aquine consider themselves in regards to us Callans.”
“Well, our creation story isn’t at all like the one that they teach in school,” said Kiluu. “But some elements of it are the same. We consider ourselves all one people as well, but the Aquine sort of…branched off, a long time ago.”
“People all around the world have different stories about how the world began,” said Morwell. “And lots of them share similarities, but none of them are exactly the same. I heard plenty of versions in the Rings when I was in the corps. I’d love to hear yours.”
“Me too,” said Laureena.
“Oh, okay,” the boy said bashfully. “Sure. I can tell you what I was told. The story says that in the beginning, there was chaos. As life took form and grew, there was a constant struggle for power. There were terrible creatures, looking to control any other living things that they could. Our ancestors - the ones we all share - were nothing but slaves and food for the most powerful. But unlike the other animals, our ancestors were intelligent, and thoughtful, and they knew that the world they lived in was unfair. There came a point where they were willing to fight and die as an entire people instead of suffering any longer, but before they sacrificed themselves for what was right, they were lifted out of their suffering by a higher power.
“Those who were saved were given a new world as a reward for what they had endured. I suppose this might be similar to what the school teaches, about all the people together on one island. According to the Aquine, this was a time of utopia. Now that they were free from the terrible creatures that had tortured and enslaved them, the people were able to live how they had always dreamed. They worked together and began to form society. The beings that had saved them - we call them the Settlers - taught the people about writing and agriculture and medicine, and all of the things we think are normal now.
“But obviously the utopia didn’t last forever. Eventually, the people who had been saved also began to want power. They wanted control over others, just like the creatures that had once controlled their ancestors. As more and more people started to covet power, the ancient beasts began to reappear in the world. The Settlers gave some of our ancestors the power to fight back against the monsters, but many of the creatures were simply too strong. They couldn’t be defeated. Instead, they had to be imprisoned. In the fight against them, much of the new world was destroyed. What they had grown into a beautiful paradise was smashed and burned until it looked like the desolate world they had already needed to be rescued from once before.”
“That’s something I’ve heard in several stories,” said Morwell. “The world burned away; seas of barren black ash and sand.”
“That’s supposedly how it looked where the monsters were fought, and eventually imprisoned,” said Kiluu. “And to keep them safely locked away, the Settlers rained down incredible amounts of water, creating new oceans to keep the prisons submerged, and they moved the surviving people up to higher ground. But it was feared that even this might not be enough to keep the monsters from escaping, so a group of people decided to be in charge of keeping the new, new world safe from anything escaping below the sea. They were transformed by the Settlers and given the ability to live underwater. These were the first Aquine.”
“That’s definitely a much more interesting story than the one the Capital tells,” said Danvers. “So when did Aquine like you start living above water again?”
“Oh, centuries ago,” said Kiluu. “My family has lived on land for generations, and so we’re not like the original Aquine. I have gills, but I can’t breathe underwater or anything. I can just hold my breath for a really long time and swim faster than Callans can.”
“Do your stories ever talk about the Sea Mothers?” asked Danvers. “Powerful beings who still live underwater?”
“We don’t have anything called that,” thought the boy. “But there’s still supposed to be ancient Aquine living under the sea, we just don’t communicate with them anymore. Of course, lots of land Aquine - like my parents - think that the underwater Aquine are still living in a utopia, since there aren’t any Callans down there.” He paused and looked at Morwell. “No offense.”
“None taken. Callans are terrible. An underwater Aquine city probably is a utopia. Assuming those monsters they’re guarding don’t get out.”
“Yeah, assuming there even are any monsters,” said Kiluu. “That’s the reason why so many Aquine supposedly decided to come live on land: There was no reason to stay underwater for their whole lives if the prisoners they were guarding could never escape. They wanted to return to land again, to the utopia their ancestors were originally given by the Settlers. But who knows what’s real? I’ve never seen Aquine who live under the water, and there’s definitely no utopia up here now. For all I know, all the stuff I’ve been told is just stories.”
“That’s the healthiest way to think about stuff like that,” said Danvers. “Anything you can’t know for sure by lived experience is just helpful information that you can learn from and use to make smarter decisions down the line.”
“That’s some sage advice, old man,” Morwell said with a nod. “What you choose to believe is up to you, kiddos, but it’s always good to hear as many sides of a story as possible. Things are rarely as black and white as they seem.”
For the next several days, Laureena and Kiluu sat together under the spider bars during recess, and though they laughed and had pleasant conversations, Kiluu could see Laureena always watching the game from the corner of her eye. On one sunny afternoon he was talking about an assignment and Laureena became so completely absorbed in the game that she stopped paying attention to him altogether, so Kiluu suggested that the following day she just go and play with them since she obviously wanted to. Laureena scoffed at the idea and pretended otherwise, but it didn’t take much persistence from Kiluu to get her to admit how badly she wanted to show all of the other kids how good she was. He insisted that it wasn’t going to hurt his feelings if she left him to go and play, but she knew that it would. So, Laureena agreed to go join the game Raiders the next day, but only if Kiluu played too, and only if they played together on the same team.
They thought that last part might be a bit of a challenge, as since they were all but guaranteed to be the last two picked, they would have to be on separate sides. Laureena was ready to put up a fight about it, but she didn’t end up needing to. Surely enough, she was picked second-to-last and Kiluu directly after, and when she demanded that they both be on a team together, Mitchell just laughed and told Ansel to take them both, like it was a burden. Ansel and Mitchell were always the captains, and the competition between them was strong. Ansel just sort of shrugged and welcomed them to the team, not particularly interested in being rude even though Mitchell was clearly trying to make them feel bad.
Laureena went to explain the rules to Kiluu, but he assured her that he knew them well; he’d also studied their games from the sidelines, until he got bored with it and started to read books instead. The first game lasted only a few minutes. Everyone on the other team paid attention to Ansel and Talia, thinking they were the threats, and so Laureena and Kiluu just took a wide flank and entered the enemy territory from the other side of the swings. Only one kid on the other team - Siebert with the runny nose - noticed what was happening. Though he screamed out to his teammates for help, Mitchell and the others just ignored him, as Siebert was the last one picked on that side, and in their minds, he clearly didn’t know what he was doing. Without needing direction, Kiluu played blocker for Laureena and kept Siebert from ever getting close, and Laureena was able to grab the flag and leisurely jog back across the line before her opponents even knew she had untied it from the base of the water fountain. Mitchell stormed over, screaming at Siebert for failing to stop her, and the snot-nosed boy just cowered away, refusing to stand up for himself. Laureena tossed the flag in Mitchell’s face and taunted: “You try and stop me.”
Mitchell was strong, but he wasn’t particularly fast, and if Laureena got a step on him there was no way he was ever going to catch up. Once she burned past him, the other kids on the team tried to slow her down - two hands on the shirt and you have to go back behind the line - but no one was able to get close. Kiluu circled Laureena like an electron, perfectly running interference and knocking defenders off balance before expertly swinging around and careening into another opponent at a different angle. It was like he knew exactly where he needed to be at all times, showing up to block at the same moment Laureena realized that’s where she wanted him to be. On any given day, there was usually only enough time for one or two games of Raiders after lunch, but on her first day playing, Laureena won three games in a row.
The next day, Ansel picked Laureena first. Mitchell picked Lily first for his team, like he always did, because he was in love with her even though she was with Ansel. Lily didn’t really care for Mitchell, even as a friend, but was too nice to act the way she felt. Ansel was about to pick Talia, but Laureena nudged him in the ribs and told him to pick Kiluu instead. He raised an eyebrow and ignored her, picking Talia as he had intended, and Mitchell followed up by picking Ilian. Now Laureena glared at Ansel, and he was genuinely afraid of the way she was looking at him, so he picked Kiluu to appease her. The opposing team did a better job of keeping Laureena cornered this time around, swarming so many kids that Kiluu couldn’t possibly get to everyone, but she still won two games.
When they re-picked teams the following recess, Ansel picked Laureena and Mitchell picked Kiluu, knowing that the Aquine boy’s support was instrumental to her success. Mitchell spent most of that game screaming at Kiluu to block for him, which the Aquine just ignored as he milled around with Abner, neither really participating but choosing instead to talk about boats. Mitchell was especially miffed at the fact that Ansel and Talia were now acting as blockers for Laureena, not even trying to score for themselves but instead just doing what Kiluu used to. They won even more handily that afternoon, with Laureena taking the flag in the first two games. In the third, Laureena let Talia take the lead and blocked for her instead. When Mitchell tried to come after her, Laureena went low and stuck her shoulder into his midsection, sending the boy careening off into the dirt as Talia crossed the center line.
After her first month at the school, Laureena knew that the power dynamics had changed in her class. But it wasn’t like she had usurped anyone else’s popularity; she and Kiluu had just carved a new place for themselves. Ansel was still the most popular, Mitchell was still his best friend, and Lily, Talia, and Ilian were always going to be their favorites. But Laureena and Kiluu had everyone’s respect, and there was no room in their clique for anyone besides the two of them. They were inseparable. And though it was clear that Laureena was the alpha, it wasn’t as if Kiluu acted like her subordinate, or that she treated him like one. The boy was dear to her like a sibling. Their relationship was close this way too, the way that brothers and sisters can anticipate each other’s actions and finish each other’s sentences. Kiluu was like a natural extension of Laureena: A second set of limbs, another mind that knew what decision she wanted to make at the same time the question even popped into her mind. Plenty of kids in their class found this bond kind of weird. And so Laureena and Kiluu weren’t exactly popular, but they were revered. Laureena knew this was even better. It was much harder to earn.
***
One time, back before her mom died, Papa Danvers had accidentally given Laureena his glass of rum, thinking it was her juice. The taste was awful, but she didn’t spit it out, even though she was only five years old. In fact, she took three sips before handing the glass back to her grandfather. Three sips just to be sure she didn’t like it, since Papa seemed to like it so much. Laureena had never been drunk. The Shift happened before she’d ever even gotten the chance to purposefully drink Papa Danvers’ liquor. So, Laureena had never experienced a hangover either. But she’d seen her grandfather get them, plenty of times, and if she had to guess, the way she felt now was probably something similar.
Everything seemed to worsen her headache, the pains in her muscles, the fatigue that just made her want to crumple over onto her side. There wasn’t much light beneath the floorboards, and that was probably for the best. A little bit more seeped in now and then when the storm died down, but it was still always just bright enough to see. The sun never seemed to actually set this far up north, it only dimmed for a few hours. Because of this, it was impossible to tell how many days she’d been down here, hiding from those creatures. She’d had every intention of using a piece of coal to mark the days on the wall, but after what had felt like several days waiting for night to come and it never arriving, she realized that it wasn’t a reliable means for measuring time.
How long had she been down there? Weeks, it would seem. It was a good thing the Irapa had so much food stored below the house - she could use it to outlast those monsters, at least until she had enough of her energy back to finish off that shaman, wherever he was. She didn’t want to fight those disgusting creatures, not if she didn’t have to, but they kept coming after her and Morwell, so what choice did she have? If only she had been able to teleport directly to the island. She sensed that there was an orb here, but it wouldn’t let her through. Something was blocking her, so she had to teleport to the nearest island with an orb instead and travel the rest of the way by boat, using Morwell to shoot flame into the water like a motor. If only she would have conserved that energy, she could have just ended that wretched shaman when she discovered he was one of the Touched. She had wanted to meet with him so badly. She remembered the excitement of finding the tribe with the help of that man Yura. Then she remembered how badly she wanted to kill him, how terribly they had fought. The two memories of the man clashed in her head, causing her to wince. Why had she wanted both of these things so powerfully, and how had it all changed so quickly?
They were both her memories. She had felt all of these emotions. But the longer she stayed down here, beneath the shaman’s hut, the more her mind seemed to feel fractured. The more she began to wonder why she had been doing, well, everything she had been doing since the Shift began. And in addition to this feeling of her memories splintering, it was also as if a part of her was drifting in and out, a drive that had been fueling her growing dim and occasionally seeming to disappear completely for long stretches. This was one of those times. The fire inside Laureena was nothing more than smoldering embers. She was calm - aching and exhausted - but docile. She thought about how angry she had become when she saw the shaman, how much she had wanted to incinerate him for what the Touched had done to her friends. That fire she had felt was still inside of her, somewhere, but it wasn’t engulfing her anymore like it had for so long. No, at this moment, Laureena just wanted to be home, on Delvorn. It was the first time she’d thought of home for as long as she could remember, as if a fog was slowly lifting over the part of her mind where the memory had been kept. Like she hadn’t forgotten to think of the place, she just couldn’t even see that the memory of it was there.
Her mind slowly filled with thoughts of home, and with them came a mixture of nostalgia and grief. Papa Danvers and Morwell sitting on the front stoop, laughing. Her and Kiluu, dominating games of Raiders together on the playground, moving together as one, leaving all the other kids in the dust. The time Ilian and her listened to synthesizer music after school, and he had told her that none of his other friends were interested in the stuff he was, and that she was “cool.” That time Ansel got all the kids together to stop that real estate company from demolishing their secret beachside hangout to turn it into a posh country club. Laureena had stood in front of the bulldozer, and after that Ansel always had her back. And not long before the Shift, when Kiluu’s parents told him they had to move, and she and him had cried together, hugging for so long before Kiluu had to get on the boat and leave the island.
The memories didn’t so much flood Laureena’s mind as seep into it, and as they absorbed in, they filled a hole in her that until then she hadn’t known was empty. These memories were hers, but they seemed forgotten. Abandoned. As they were reclaimed, there was something about them that felt strangely genuine. As soon as she recognized this, a new memory took over the picture in her mind, jammed in and hard cut. In it, she stood above a Touched man on the island of Dolor, laughing down at him as he squirmed before she stepped away and brought down her arm, brought down Morwell’s arm, cutting the man in two and eviscerating him. Oh, the memory of it brought her a sickly satisfaction, and a different, shallower hole inside of Laureena was temporarily filled and sated. But as this memory replayed, for some reason it felt different than the ones of Delvorn that had gracefully materialized. This one felt...forced.
She looked over at Morwell, slouched on the other side of the cellar. Of course, he looked at her exactly as she looked at him. And of course, he knew exactly what she was thinking without her even having to say it. That was just the way they worked. It was just like the way she and Kiluu used to play Raiders together, with Kiluu doing everything she needed without him ever needing to be told what to do. Kiluu and Morwell were a lot alike.
The thought of this made Laureena gasp out loud. It was so obvious. How had she never made that comparison before? Her head ached and she put her hands to her temples. Had she really never thought of Kiluu in the entire time she’d been with Morwell? How was that possible? He was her best friend! Laureena didn’t know exactly how long she and Morwell had been hunting down the Touched together, but she knew that it was several years at this point. There was no possible way that she wouldn’t have thought of Kiluu for that long without some kind of reason. The revelation caused her to jolt up straight, but the shock of realization was almost instantly matched by feelings of anger and fear, each caused by the same disturbing question: Was something controlling her mind?
Morwell grunted and his eyes flared. He knew the answer. He almost never said anything back to Laureena. He didn’t have to; he just knew what she was thinking and acted accordingly. It always seemed to take all of Morwell’s will and mental faculties to put any words into Laureena’s mind, but when he did, his voice was unmistakable. Morwell sounded like a million seagulls shrieking in unison from all the way down the beach, so far you almost couldn’t see them at all. The voice said: “Whisper man.”
She understood immediately.
What does the voice inside your mind sound like? Is it the sound of your own voice? Or just the way you think you sound to others, but actually don’t, like on a recording? Laureena had never really contemplated the sound of her inner voice, but simply hearing the phrase “whisper man” made her instantly cognizant of a voice in her mind - the voice of her mind - which didn’t at all sound like the way she imagined herself sounding. Was it not her own? The voice was so full of rage; she was so full of rage. That anger was hers! She knew it! But that voice...the voice that stoked the anger. Was that? She looked over to Morwell, and his look answered her wordlessly. It was not. Whoever this whisper man was, he was inside Morwell’s mind too, and for some reason, Morwell seemed to be having the same moment of clarity that Laureena was.
She thought again of why she had come to the Northern Plateaus. Seeing the Irapa was definitely her idea. This power she had now, her relationship with Morwell, she wanted to understand it better. But fighting with the Irapa when it turned out the Shaman was Touched? That was also her idea. God, she hated the Touched so much! She just wanted to burn every one of them into ash! They killed Uncle Morwy and Calix. They ruined everything! Laureena’s eyes flashed yellow and her body began to retreat to the fire realm. She felt herself become one with the flame that still lingered endlessly in the wreckage above, and as she flickered and hissed, she saw through the flame that a man was standing there, using her warmth.
Laureena felt her form pulling and molding into flame. She warned the man not to meddle, warned him not to interfere. It was her saying the words. Wasn’t it? She was so exhausted, so confused. Now she was doubting even her own speech? She felt herself flickering, struggling to stay in one plane or the other. This man was a nuisance. He was monologuing now. God this man was annoying. But she was still too exhausted to try and take him on. The best option here was to melt the frozen creatures that the Irapa’s ice behemoth had frozen the last time they tried to come back to their village but were attacked. The excitement of unleashing those monsters on the man was so intense that Laureena’s projection exploded in front of the snow bank instead of quickly and evenly thawing it out. Hopefully she hadn’t just shattered the monsters she wanted to use as weapons into pieces.
Gunshots rang out as the irritating man fought the creatures in the storm above, and Laureena smiled. As her consciousness shot back into her mortal body, Laureena’s mind felt like a sharp edge of paper had just sliced down the center of her brain. The black orb sat dormant on the ground, emitting no light. What was it she had just been thinking about that had gotten her so riled up? She couldn’t remember. She had definitely been upset about something, and not just that man showing up. The orb pulsed black light on the ground, and images of the Touched came into her mind, and her chest began to heave angrily. She looked at Morwell, temporarily invigorated, ready to go up and smash that man and the monsters along with him, but strangely, Morwell didn’t share her rage like he usually did. Again, he shot the words into her mind: “Whisper man.”
And again Laureena’s rage seemed to slip away, replaced with confusion, and the orb fell dormant. Who was whisper man? Was it not just the sound of her own mind? None of it made any sense. Nothing told her what to do! All the decisions she made were her own. Laureena was too strong to let anything take control of her. She looked at Morwell again, and he looked away from her, as if disappointed.
The fighting above stopped. Laureena desperately hoped the creatures had killed the annoying man, but once the stomping and banging began on the boards above her, she knew that wasn’t the case. How did he figure out she was down here? It didn’t matter - he was close to getting through now, so she’d have to take care of him herself. Laureena got to her feet and Morwell slithered in front of her, the black orb rising and floating to her side. She felt the energy it sent to Morwell radiating through the air, causing her companion to grow and grow, his blue light casing ripping as he enlarged. One of Morwell’s tentacles rose to the spot where the man was stomping, sending him flying back as the wood broke, then another tentacle lifted Laureena above ground.
She approached the man, furious with him. She wanted him dead. Wait, did she really want to kill this man? He wasn’t Touched. A voice roared inside her mind: HE IS IN THE WAY. Laureena tried to be rational. Was this how she felt?
Undoubtedly.
She hated this man and could not wait to incinerate him.
But before she even got the chance, a swarm of Vist appeared, and she barely had time to slip realms completely before they were on top of her. It felt so good to smash the beasts with Morwell, and as the orb sucked up their essence, she felt better than she had in weeks. More and more of the beasts flew at her from the storm, phasing through her body and getting demolished by Morwell’s massive appendages. Killing these things was so satisfying, so simple. But killing that annoying man? That would be really satisfying. Where did he go?
Laureena looked up and scanned the area for the man, ready to send a flaming fist into the side of his head. He’d started to run away, but he’d been stopped...by her. There was a flaming projection of herself standing next to the man, and Laureena wasn’t creating it. The man and her flaming body were taking, but she wasn’t saying anything. It pressed a flaming hand into the man’s chest, causing him to scream in pain, but even that didn’t give her a sense of satisfaction. What in the hell was that thing if it wasn’t her?
The confusion caused Laureena to stop flailing her arms for a moment, to stop controlling Morwell, allowing a dozen of the creatures to leap on him and sink their venomous claws into his molten skin. Morwell started to crust over, his body a purple scab, and Laureena felt sick in her stomach. Morwell let out an audible screech and it brought her attention back to him, and the sight of all those wretched things on top of her friend filled a new reservoir of rage inside of her. Laureena clenched her teeth and squeezed her fists and Morwell’s core ignited like a bomb, shattering the purple stone that had begun to overtake him, instantly incinerating every Vist in the area. But more were coming. She could see them flashing in the storm.
Laureena dropped to her knees, exhausted. She looked back over to where the irritating man had been, and that...thing, that was her, but wasn’t. There was nothing standing there now, just snow whipping in the wind. Had she really seen a fiery version of herself over there? How could that be? She was so tired. She must be imagining things.
But as soon as she resigned herself to the idea that it was just a trick of the mind, Laureena heard Morwell’s voice echo and shriek:
“Whisper man.”
Fate Index:
1. Antagonist gains great power
2. Protagonist’s hangover leads to some incredibly fortuitous turn of events
3. Protagonist has/develops some incurable urge they must sate daily
4. Someone gets refueled
5. Protagonist’s identity is thrown into question
6. Flashback episode
7. A utopian world is described or created by an adolescent
8. A character begins to doubt reality
9. A great artifact of the past is found, calling to a new owner
10. Something consequential turns out to be an illusion
11. Shrek and Donkey cameo
12. Betrayal
13. Protagonist finds powerful item or treasure
14. Magic finger traps, but for the brain or heart
15. Millions of insects start their march to devour everything in their path
16. Goonie squad
17. Protagonist takes up cause of beleaguered
18. Razor clams
19. Protagonist becomes famous
20. Improbable infant survival
Outcomes Used:
7. A utopian world is described or created by an adolescent
16. Goonie squad
Added outcomes:
Protagonist gets overzealous and makes a major mistake
(thanks to @agirlherflatandcat on Instagram)
After a long string of losses, a character begins to succeed only to jeopardize someone else's success
(thanks to Skull)
