by Greg Hanks
She jogged down the stairs to the ring. Balien followed and pushed through his peers to stand at the ring’s edge.
The boy named Melq jogged down from the other changing room. Squinty eyes and neon green pupils. Black shirt and shorts. Arms and legs unnaturally stretched. He pushed off the balls of his feet when he walked, enough to be noticeably odd.
Naon was slack as she watched her opponent, arms over the rope, bending her toes back and forth.
Melq ducked under the rope and faced Naon. She let him linger in the ring before joining him.
“I do not want to break that,” he sneered, pointing to her head.
“Careful,” Naon said, “I could use it.”
“Melq and Naon,” their teacher said with a lazy, uninterested voice, leaning over the ring. “You know the rules. Do not disappoint me.”
The fighters nodded.
“Go, then.”
The whooping around the circle began. People grabbed the ring’s ropes and shook. Jeers and hisses. The teacher folded his arms and tilted his chin.
Balien hushed his voice and goaded Naon.
Melq rounded Naon, skipping with adrenaline as he sidled, fists up in a guarding position. Naon stood still, watching every movement, her breaths increasing, her muscles tensing. She felt the fabric of the athletic tape between her fingers. Why did she have to choose this plan? The plan that hurt the most?
Melq lunged mid-sidestep, throwing a right hook with the weight of his body. Naon deflected and threw her own. He dodged.
They rounded each other again, the crowd sparking with hollers. She had to make it look authentic.
They met again in the center, fast jabs and reversals. There was a dull slap as Naon connected a fist with Melq’s jaw. He used the moment to charge Naon at the waist. She saved herself from being tackled with an outstretched foot. They stood in an awkward grapple, Melq trying to force his weight upon her. Her neck and head were up against his chest, under his flexing arm. She gave a short breath only she could hear and released.
Melq’s weight crashed upon Naon as if she had lost her bones. Onto the ground, where Melq delivered a hard punch to her face.
She erupted upward, grabbing his neck and twisting them both to a rolling ball of flesh. He had left his guard down to strike, where a different fighter would have gone for a leg lock. They spun on the floor, starting and stopping like a game of tug of war.
Balien scrunched his brow. There was something different to Naon’s usual agility. She continued this routine of fast dodges and slow concessions. He looked around at his peers, but no one seemed to care. Balien gasped when Naon put her face in the way of Melq’s incoming fist. Right in the eye. The crowds reacted in big jeers, but Balien was silent. He had seen enough of Naon’s form to know that was intentional, made to look like a misplaced dodge.
His anxiety caused him to call out mid-match, a tone of accusation. “Naon!”
Her vision was blurry, her head heavy. Had that been enough of a show?
“Focus!” cried Balien.
Melq swung into Naon’s face again. Her nose stung red hot, ripples reverberating through her head. She let her legs give out, and she fell to the mat.
Using a reed, their teacher struck a board attached to the one of the cave’s supporting pillars; the match was over. The viewers exploded in exclamations. A few of Melq’s followers surrounded him in a big group hug, slapping his shoulders, screaming. Melq was moving his tongue around the inside of his lips, a smug smile across his face.
Balien ducked underneath the ring and rushed to Naon’s side. She propped herself up.
“What happened?” Balien asked. “Why—”
She pinched his side.
“I want to see the sunset,” she said. Blood was coming from her nose and starting to pool underneath the skin around her eye.
Balien was about to retaliate, but angrily held his tongue as he helped her stand.
“Naon,” their teacher called. “Come see me once you have changed.”
She sighed. “ Yes, sir.”
Arm under arm, Balien and Naon walked back to the changing room.
Balien wondered what Naon was planning this time.
——————
Balien’s lips slid across Naon’s on a shield of saliva. She sucked his upper lip. They let go. It lasted two seconds. Naon’s vibrant yellow pupils surrounded by atramentous, glistening sclera. Balien’s fiery red and attentive. Their laughter burst free.
“Well,” Naon said, standing. “That was not how I expected it.”
“Wow,” Balien murmured.
He looked up at her slender fourteen-year-old body in her billowy yellow shirt, trim shorts, and canvas sneakers. Growing purebred fin catching the light of Mengsha’ron’s sunset. Pale skin, an image of regality, someone who didn’t really belong in Mengsha’ron. Purple and brown bruises ringed her eyes. Soon to be a woman, Balien thought. Features he hadn’t noticed before were beginning to consume him. But when they did, he reverted to the thing he regarded above all else: Naon’s friendship. Was this overarching feeling what Khor’Zon called “love?”
Balien let his legs dangle from the edge of the Yor’sha plateau. The waterfall spilled into the pool at the bottom.
“I think I see Oro’nath,” Naon said.
“Stop lying.” He lay back, hands behind his head. Stars began to pollute the milky lavender sky.
“I can,” she reaffirmed. “You can see the very top of the tallest building. And one day, I am going to stand there and look to this plateau. I better not find you up here when I do.”
Balien enjoyed the breeze. Mist against his legs. Dazed warmth of a setting sun. It wasn’t enough to block out his brother, probably well-integrated into Oro’nath by now.
“Is this so bad?” he asked her, sitting up. “What is it you hate so much?”
“I have told you a hundred times why I have to go,” she said. Lithe body gleaming with sunset crescents. “I do not hate Mengsha’ron.”
“What if you do not like the answers Oro’nath has?”
“Better than not knowing.”
“What about Ardvos?” Balien asked. Naon’s caretaker, Ardvos, had been Naon’s father figure for the last twelve years since Naon was brought to Mengsha’ron.
Naon slumped. A tired argument.
“I do not care,” she said, facing the sun.
“Do you feel that way about everyone here?”
She gave annoyed eyes. “You idiot. Come on. You can eat dinner with us tonight. Ard is making soup.”
Balien glanced at the stars again. Another sunset closer to the day she would leave. She was his anchor to this place. And if the anchor uprooted, would he? Every now and then, he heard his mother’s voice against the shower of waterfall. A reminder that Naon had every right to try and find her parents. What was better: dead parents, or those whom abandon their children? He scrambled down the summit lookout and joined her side.
“So,” he said. “Are you going to tell me why you lost to Melq?”
Naon stopped to make sure no one was on the trail ahead or behind.
“You will see. Just promise you will do something for me.”
He exhaled forcefully. “I wish I did not know you . . .”
“Oh, stop. When the time comes, say that you know my father is a special advisor or something to Quar’on. Say he got your brother into Oro’nath.”
“What?”
“Please, Balien. Will you promise me?”
“When what time comes? You do not know anything about your father.”
“That is the point. I need you, Bay.”
“Okay . . . I promise, I guess. This better be worth those bruises.”
“It will be. Are you coming?”
They spiraled down the Yor’sha Plateau, charting through short tunnels and railed bends. When they reached the base of the waterfall, the sun had set, leaving the sky completely violet. Naon and Balien raced each other across the tall fields to Naon’s ho
me, which was situated at the base of the Plateau where the wheat fields began. Her home like two overturned teacups, vines and gardens covering its half-sphere walls, its door painted bright red. Antennae poked from the back building, and cables snaked around the exterior until burrowing in the earth toward the village’s main generators.
“Hey, pore,” came a snide whisper from the ledge above Naon’s home. Melq crouched in the tall grass.
Balien bit his cheek when he heard the derogatory slang for “purebred.” Naon didn’t seem to mind.
“Hi, Melq,” she said.
Melq swaggered out of the brush. Smug smile. Shifty eyes.
“I felt bad about giving you that black eye,” he said. His tone suggested no apology.
“You won,” she said curtly, an unusually sweet pitch to her voice.
Balien cringed. He could tell she was holding back her fists.
Melq’s squinty eyes became so thin they were virtually closed. “Did you let me beat you?”
“Are you trying to make me feel bad?” she answered.
“You have not lost to many people before, Naon.”
“So? I am not perfect. Do you wish to hear me praise you every day? Let me live.”
Balien watched Naon perform facetiously like he had never seen before. Though she stumbled through some of her preemptive lines, and though the pitch may have betrayed her true intentions at times, Naon was succeeding. Melq’s face was confidant.
“All right, pore, you can stop jabbering now. I have thought about your offer from the other day.”
Balien looked quizzically at Naon.
“And?” said Naon.
“I do not believe I am convinced yet.”
“Balien can vouch for me. Go on, tell Melq how Seen’ai got into Oro’nath.”
Melq and Naon turned to Balien. Like spotlights upon him. He cleared his throat.
“Uh,” he began, “yes.”
“Yes what?” Melq said harshly.
“Yes she—her mother—I mean Naon’s father. That . . .” He closed his eyes and started over. “Naon’s father is a leader in Oro’nath. Special Advisor to Quar’on. Why do you think Naon lives with Ardvos? He is not her father. Naon’s real father helped my brother get into Oro’nath. I swear it.”
Naon bit her lip at Balien’s jarring presentation.
Melq looked out over the ledge, to Naon’s home. “Always wondered what that stupid man-lover’s deal was. Why does he have a chopped skull-bone? He do something unpardonable?”
Now it was Balien’s turn to clench his fists in patience.
“My father can get us into the city, I promise,” Naon continued. “But we will need that yixa from the cave to get there.”
“Why were you abandoned here?” Melq asked, more eager to bully than genuinely curious.
“She was not abandoned,” Balien said boldly. “And—”
“That is all you need to know,” Naon finished. “Now how much yixa is down there?”
“Enough to take us across the planet,” he said.
“Good,” Naon said. “We need to go soon. Tonight.”
Melq chuckled, slightly offended. “What? Why so soon?”
“Do you really want to stay in this place any longer?” she asked. “All we do is read history books we have all read a thousand times, and punch other Khor’Zon at the sparring cavern. We are stagnant here. We are hopeless in Mengsha’ron. But in Oro’nath we can become something. We would have a purpose. Do you want to die here, having accomplished nothing but knowing how to bait a hook and tan gloer hide?”
Balien realized Naon was not really speaking to Melq anymore.
“Fine, fine,” Melq said. “I do not care when we leave. My parents are idiots and worthless—I will leave whenever I want. Be at the graveyard tonight—in one hour. I need to tell Oura. She knows too.”
He waited for Naon and Balien to descend back to her home before slinking back into the tall grass.
“Thank you,” Naon whispered to Balien as she opened the door.
“Wait—” A rush of salt, butter, and humid onion flowed through him. A wall to his questions, to his throat.
“Dinner is not ready yet,” Ardvos said, looking over his shoulder from the sink. “Get cleaned up. Hello, Balien.”
“Hi, Ardvos,” Balien said.
Naon’s caretaker towered over the countertop. The only Khor’Zon Balien had ever seen with a severed purebred crownbone. Snapped off at the middle, the skin like an amputee’s stump. Kind eyes and a face lined with too many laugh lines. Unusual sparkling white teeth, almost eerie. Always wearing a silken blanket with a neck hole, micro tassels hanging from its edges. When he walked, he swayed.
His eyes flourished. “Your face, Nay-pop!” He rushed to Naon’s side.
Naon fought his hands. “I am fine, Ardvos! I am fine!”
“I do not care how tough our kind is,” said Ardvos, “you will take the miffron.”
He rummaged through the kitchen cupboards and found a jar of crushed black flower petals.
“It does not help,” she groaned. “This does not even hurt.”
“Nay-pop,” Ardvos threatened, waiting.
Naon reluctantly snatched the jar and took it with her to the other section of the home. A partition to two rooms.
“Make sure she takes it, Balien,” Ardvos called.
Naon closed the door behind them. A cramped square, a few feet to move. Oval bed pressed against the back wall; its sheets strewn halfway across the room. Nightstand made of a gnarled yor’sha stump. Chest of drawers burping contents onto the floor. Closet overflowing with defunct technology, clothes, and highly detailed wooden figurines. An old drone dismantled in one corner, parts and plates of metal in orbit. The messiness did not phase Balien. Naon set the jar of miffron on her dresser and started gathering clothes to put them in a flimsy plastic case.
“You have been thinking about this for a long time,” Balien said.
Naon’s back remained hunched. She couldn’t fit everything she wanted and was trying to force the case shut.
“And you should have known for a long time,” she said.
“Are you . . . leaving tonight?” he asked. Too much emotion could make him vulnerable.
Naon stopped slamming the case and sighed. “I cannot be here any longer. I do not know if I will leave tonight. Maybe.”
The room had never felt so endless and cold.
“Oh,” Balien mumbled.
“I have told you so many times that I intend to leave. Please come with me.”
“What happens when Melq finds out you are lying?”
Naon shrugged. “We need that yixa, Balien.”
“How are you getting into Oro’nath?”
No answer.
He walked to her closet and snatched one of her figurines from the floor. It was a Khor’Zon boy. Wooden limbs attached via tiny, flexible metal rods. They had not played with the toys for a few years now.
“How would . . . we get there?” he asked.
Naon looked at him with shocked eyes. A jubilant smile began to materialize.
“I am just thinking,” he corrected, slowly reaching her eyes with a look of reluctant concession.
Naon was beaming. She eagerly approached him on the edge of the bed. “How did Seen’ai do it?”
“I wish I knew. He did not tell me he was leaving. He just left.”
Naon searched the room with her eyes. “I should have gone with him.”
“That was four years ago,” Balien said. “No way.”
“I could have done it.”
“We do not even know if he made it.”
Naon stared at the floor. When her mind found the courage to try this new thought on Balien, she looked up sheepishly.
“What do you think they are like?” Naon asked. “Really, I mean.”
“Your parents?”
“Ardvos will not tell me why they left me here. They did it ‘to protect me’ he says. I do not know what to think.”
>
“Ardvos cares about you,” Balien said. “I do not think he would lie to you. Why else would your parents put you here?”
“To get away from me?” Naon said sardonically. “They are important leaders, Ardvos says; I was probably too much of a burden.”
“Maybe they could not take care of you like they wanted. Maybe this was the best option for them?”
Naon puffed some air. “When I find out why . . . there better be a good reason.”
“At least you still have parents.”
Naon met his eyes with sobriety, but no regret. “Which is why I must leave. There are no answers for me here.”
Ardvos called them to dinner. Before Naon opened the door, Balien reached for her hand.
“Wait,” he said, crouching to pick up a girl figurine. He gave her the boy figure. “Here. We should take these with us.”
“We will not be playing with toys when we get there, Balien.”
“They are not toys any longer,” he said. A serious look, full of all the weight he could convey. “When we reach Oro’nath, if we find your parents, if we find Seen’ai—things might change. I want to keep a piece of Mengsha’ron. I want to remember you.”
Naon’s cheeks flushed. “Balien . . . I will not disappear once we get there.” She took the figurine.
The teenagers emerged from Naon’s room to a kitchen full of steam. Smells of salted uppas, wild boinch, and buttered, bright yellow pasta from the wheat fields of Mengsha’ron. Balien took his seat next to Naon and investigated his bowl of soup. Flat, wide noodles floated on the top, laced with sphere-shaped vegetables and sprigs of tal, an edible flower used to season just about every meal on Khorsha. He dipped his spoon into the broth and met the uppas that were resting at the bottom, steeped and plush.
Ardvos poured the kids cloudy pink juice from a pitcher, freshly squeezed from his hanging fruit gardens outside. The juice tasted like wheat-flavored milk with a hint of tart vinegar. Naon began slurping the soup and gulping down her juice.
“How are you getting along, Balien?” Ardvos asked, pouring a small helping of soup for himself. He had a peculiar compulsion to reset everything in its right place after it had moved; he adjusted his fork several times before dipping his spoon gingerly into the soup. Balien felt a surge of sympathy for some reason.
