by Avi Silver
“Plenty of creatures fall off the mountains,” they said shakily, sitting down beside her and leaning against the wall they had been scratching at. “Careless baby lemurs, for example—”
“You know, when I said talk to me, I wasn’t asking for the world’s saddest story,” Sohmeng said, resting her head on their shoulder.
“It’s not sad, it’s just nature.”
“Well, it seems to me that nature can be pretty sad sometimes.”
Hei trilled softly at that, running their fingers along a sãoni claw sewn into their sleeve. The claws were pretty intimidating when Hei was running at someone, Sohmeng mused. But sitting here like this, all they did was emphasize how small their hands were in comparison. Sohmeng wondered what sãoni the claws had been cut from, how many tries it had taken Hei to get their needle through.
“There is . . .” Hei began, tilting their head back, eyes straight up the side of Sodão Dangde. Sohmeng reached to touch the claw they were fidgeting with, waiting. “There are many things I want to say to you. That I have wanted to say to you for a long time. And last night, I—” Their eyes flashed with pain. “I should have. I didn’t. I was scared, and I hurt you, and I’m sorry.” That was when Sohmeng realized there had been a grave misunderstanding between them.
“Were you scared of me . . . ?” she asked, working around the words with embarrassing caution.
“No,” they insisted, gripping her hand in theirs. “Never. Well, maybe sometimes when you first wake up.” Sohmeng laughed, and Hei’s eyes wrinkled at the corners. Their hand was tense in hers as they strained against the effort of speaking. “Last night, I was only scared of myself. And what you might think of me, for what I am.”
“What, a sãoni?” Sohmeng shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to that. I like it about you.”
“I—” Hei paused, stunned into silence, and Sohmeng realized they’d probably never heard those words before. After all, human company wasn’t easy to come by in exile. She shrugged again, nuzzling them gently. In typical Hei fashion, they chirped softly. And though it was in no human language, Sohmeng understood. Eventually, they found their words again. “When I first found you, I thought I would get you in one piece, bring you to a nearby hmun in the network, drop you off, and return to my life with my family. But I . . . I marked you, and I got to know you, and I didn’t want to take that back. And then it felt like you had marked me, too. And like you didn’t want to take it back, either.”
“I don’t,” Sohmeng said, her heart squeezing as she admitted it. She still wasn’t so sure what love actually meant—sãoni matehood was a mystery to her, but honestly, so were the complex rituals of Ateng courtship. Neither of them fit her experience exactly; divinely-approved promises of everlasting devotion sounded about as unreasonable to her as biting someone to save their life.
Sharing these feelings didn’t have to change their relationship. It was enough to know they wanted to be near each other, and respect each other, and see each other like they had not been seen before. They could work out the nuance as they went.
Hei let go of a breath they must have been holding for a very long time, nodding and allowing their back to uncurve itself. When they spoke, they sounded more confident than Sohmeng had ever heard them. “You showed me yourself last night. And I want to show you me, too. I want to be brave. And I want you to stay with me, and be my mate, and talk to me while I’m busy doing other things, and nearly set me on fire in my sleep. I want to kiss you, and press my face into yours. I want to walk all of Eiji with you, the whole migration route, and bring you to waterfalls. I want to find a single fruit that you’ll eat without making faces at me first, and then I want to bring it to you every day, and see that you’re happy. I want to be something that makes you happy.” They stared off the side of the mountain as though they were building this future before their eyes, laying the foundations of their new reality. “And I . . . I can’t do that without being honest. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Then be honest,” Sohmeng said, as gently as she could muster.
“I’m so afraid.” The words came out barely a whisper, the skin beneath the scales. Sohmeng had no comfort for that, no reassurance. Speaking hard truths aloud was painful; their fear was perfectly reasonable. They sighed, running their hand through their hair with a scowl. “And I can’t find the, the entrance. It’s been so long since I was up here, and I’m scared I don’t remember anymore.”
“The entrance?” Sohmeng tilted her head up. “I thought it was higher than this.”
“No, not that one. There’s, there’s another. A different way in.”
“Okay, so how do we find it? I take it there’s not a great big sign on the front door?”
“It’s hidden,” said Hei, resting their chin on their knees. “It’s through a slot in the rock face behind a cluster of vines, these flowering vines. I used to shred them to make thread, they’re the strongest thing I have besides sinew. I think they were used for building the Sky Bridge.”
“Wait.” Sohmeng perked up. “What colour were the flowers? Sort of orange-ish? Pink tipped? Look either like a snack or an easy way to die mid-squat?”
“Yes! That—first, no, they aren’t edible—but that sounds like them. When did you see them?”
“A while back. You had your whole head stuffed in a fern.”
“Really?” Hei stood up, brushing off their legs and looking back the way they had come with an expression that would have been wistful if it weren’t for the anxiety drawn up in it. “I thought it was so much further up.”
Time moved slowly as they went back down the mountain. The urgency in the air gave way to something smaller, nearly shy. When they reached the vines, Hei let out a tender hum, and Sohmeng knew it was the right place. They exhaled, nodding to themself, and pushed back the thick curtain of greenery to reveal a thin slot in the sandstone, just as they had said.
“This way,” they murmured, and though Sohmeng could see the way their body was tense with fear, the way their face was drawn with resignation, she could also see the determination in their eyes. They stepped through the slot, and she followed.
As the two of them shuffled sideways through the entrance, Sohmeng found herself in greater darkness than she had seen in a while. The feeling was at once serene and claustrophobic, and she was about to ask Hei if they should have brought fire when the walkway widened, and the gentle glow of wovenstone fell upon them. Sohmeng blinked rapidly, trying to adjust her eyes to the change in light. Familiar, but distant now. It was hard to believe that it hadn’t even been a full cycle since she’d begun her life below.
“This was one of the exits for the traders,” Hei said, gesturing toward a set of stairs carved into the mountain. Sohmeng felt a pang of strange nostalgia. Her parents probably walked those stairs a dozen times in their life. “It was the lowest point to the ground they could get before climbing the outer mountain.”
Sohmeng was about to approach the stairs when she noticed Hei turn, following a thick vein of wovenstone with their fingers. She had assumed they would appear out of place inside Sodão Dangde, given they were so at home in the jungle, but she saw now that it was quite the opposite. When they turned to face her, her breath caught. Their eyes were as much the colour of the canopy as they were the deepest slices of wovenstone. For a moment, it was like seeing Sodão Dangde itself, meeting its solemn, holy gaze.
“This cavern connects to many cave systems. Some of them were used by the hmun, but many were deemed too narrow, too unstable. Easy to get lost in.” They stepped around a great slab of stone, peering into some darkness beyond. “It’s where I grew up, after she hid me away.”
Sohmeng went cold.
“What?”
“My grandmother,” Hei said, their voice impossibly tender. They were unwavering as they turned to Sohmeng, as though their doubt had sensed the judgement of the mountain and found itself undeserving. All that remained was Hei, open and honest and afraid,
brave only by choice. “Heipua Minhal. It was the name the Grand Ones spoke upon my exile. It was the name she called to me in the dark.”
Not even the wind dared to brush past the vines and disturb the truth that Hei had spoken. They offered a hand to Sohmeng, who could think of nothing to do but take it. Together, they crossed over the threshold: two dark moons, liberated from the gaze of all uncompromising gods.
“Eighteen years ago, I was born at the height of First Minhal. ‘Under stars many as my wrinkles and night moonless as my left pupil.’ My grandmother’s words.” Hei ran their fingers along the veins of wovenstone, following their intricate patterns by touch alone. It was an act of familiarity, of homecoming. Just watching it made Sohmeng feel like she was imposing, and yet she did not avert her gaze. “I was a loud crier. Still am. My parents never could have hidden me until Par. They weren’t traders like yours, they had never been to Eiji. They had no chance of surviving their exile, and they knew it. So when the day came for them to walk from the hmun with me in their arms, they carried a blanket full of fruit and called it Heipua Minhal. My grandmother said they were very graceful.”
Nausea prickled Sohmeng’s chest. She remembered the stories her own grandmother had told about the last Minhal child Ateng had seen, stories told to scare her into following her role as Sohmeng Par—it was Hei. It had always been Hei. How long their lives had been intertwined.
“How . . . how did you survive?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Grandmother harvested mushrooms all her life, deep in the caves. People were used to her absence. And after her family was exiled, no one asked questions when she wandered, or disappeared for some time. No one suggested she sleep alone in her house, and her singing didn’t bother anyone when it was low in the ground. They were patient, assuming she had lost something of herself.” Hei peered around a corner, half a smile flickering on their face. “But they were wrong. She had found me.” They tilted their head as though they were listening for something, and then slipped into the dark, their little finger hooked around Sohmeng’s. “Do you know her? Esteona Nor.”
Of course she did. Esteona Nor had been a sad and strange fixture in the hmun for years. Kind but confused, prone to misidentifying every brown-eyed, female-shaped person as her daughter, patting their bellies and making people avert their eyes in discomfort. Dead for five years, now. Numbly, Sohmeng nodded.
“She raised me in the parts of the mountains most were too afraid to walk. And even then, she encouraged me to go further, to make a home for myself in Fochão and Sodão both. I would bring her the biggest mushrooms I could find, and she would imitate how the villagers reacted when she brought them to the communal meals. It made me proud, to know I had been helpful.” They ducked around a block in their path, then slipped down a narrow passage, navigating confidently even when they passed through a part of the cavern with no wovenstone for light. “Maybe you ate one of my mushrooms.” Their voice rose hopefully at the thought, and for the first time, Sohmeng recognized that very specific lilt as a longing for approval, all-pervasive and thick with a need to survive.
“Maybe I did,” she said.
“There is so much food in the caves, you know. If you’re small enough to crawl, and you know where to look. I would catch armour bugs the size of my fist.” Hei sensed Sohmeng’s reluctance as they entered another patch of darkness, and gave her pinky a little tug, bringing her closer. The walls had become tight around them, suited for a child’s slight frame. Sohmeng had to walk sideways, and even then it was a tight squeeze. “I couldn’t understand why the hmun had to cross mountains when there was so much bounty in each one. Grandmother Nor said there were just too many people, but it made no sense to me. I had never seen them, not everyone. A couple times I got close to the main hall, but I always had to find somewhere dark and quiet to go after, just to get all of the noise they made out of my head. I don’t know how they all bore it every day.”
“I won’t lie, it gets grating,” Sohmeng said, and then immediately winced at her petty complaint. But Hei only smiled, squeezing her hand again with a hum. “Were you . . . were you ever lonely?”
“Yes. Sometimes I missed my grandmother. Or I would hear a conversation between two harvesters, and wish I could join. Or even just listen, maybe while one of them patted my arm.” They chewed their lip as they slowly let out an admission: “I snuck in close to watch the people sometimes. No one was looking for me, so it was easy to blend in, and I was good at hiding. But seeing everyone together made me feel lonelier than being alone did. Is that strange?”
“I don’t think so,” Sohmeng said, considering her own experiences of feeling outcast. It was not the isolation that hurt as much as the knowledge that others were allowed to be together. “It’s harder to enjoy yourself when you know you’re missing something, I guess.”
The passage broadened then, allowing the two of them to walk single file. Sohmeng kept close behind Hei, who led her to a stack of boulders that could have been described as stairs. They pressed at the stones cautiously with their foot, seeking the safest path possible for Sohmeng to follow.
“When I asked my grandmother why I couldn’t join the rest of the hmun, she told me the truth. She warned me that they would throw me out like they had my parents, and then I would never see her or the mountain again. I would be hãokar. And I loved the mountain, and I loved her, so I stayed in the caves, and I loved them too. The only time I left them was for the crossings.”
“Wait, you made the crossing?”
“My grandmother and I did it together. I climbed into the bag on her back and made my body very small, and she carried me across the Bridge. She moved slowly, but everyone assumed it was because she was frail. She wasn’t. She was never frail.” Their voice positively trembled with pride, and Sohmeng felt, perhaps for the first time, the depths of their inherited strength.
“Crossing the Bridge was terrifying, and wonderful. I would peer through the seams in the fabric and see colours so bright it hurt my eyes. Even through her bag I could, I could feel the sun. But I never got the full view the rest of the hmun did. Not until I found the exits.” Hei glanced over their shoulder at Sohmeng, and the cloud of some old worry cleared from their face, yielding to their own brightness. Their speech picked up like the feet of a child, nearly stumbling with eagerness. “Fochão and Sodão Dangde both have them, you know. Not just the mouths of the trade routes, but small pockets at the end of some of the cave systems. The mountain goes porous in places, and you can sit at the edge and reach your hand into the whole world.”
Hei’s fingers flexed in Sohmeng’s hand. She thought of the view from the cliffside, the way her teeth had chattered so hard with involuntary laughter that she’d barely heard Jinho speak. It was strange, how easy it was to imagine Hei facing that view with fearless serenity.
“Sometimes I sat there for hours. I would miss meetings with my grandmother, and she would worry, and I felt bad. But when I was up there, I saw—I saw everything.” Their voice was breathless, their footsteps echoing through the elevated halls of the cave. Sohmeng could hear a roost of bats chittering with annoyance from above, but Hei paid it no mind. “Grandmother said the mountain range was the hand of a very old god. And I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, then Eiji is its body, all connected in a perfect system. Life touching life touching life. And death, too. All of it, all together, perfect.” They turned with sudden speed, so close to Sohmeng that she nearly jumped back. Their eyes searched hers, darting back and forth, full of the same sort of hunger she saw when they kissed. “Do you see it? The system?”
“I . . .” Sohmeng struggled to respond, wanting to give them what they needed, unsure if she could do it honestly. “I don’t know, Hei.”
“It’s alright,” they said insistently, taking both her hands in theirs, “if you don’t see. The hmun’s systems would be clearer to you, they’re all you’re raised to understand. But when you walk away from the,
the structure and the lunar law—when you see the moons without the eyes, the phases without the superstition, when you look at the crossing and stop thinking about the entry into Par long enough to notice all that has grown in your absence—”
Sohmeng thought of the eggs, nearly overflowing from the nests on Sodão Dangde. She inhaled the soft, sweet decay of the mushrooms that had grown all throughout the caves. Slowly, she nodded. “The perfect system.”
Hei’s face broke into a smile, nearly silly in its wideness, its wildness. “The perfect system,” they repeated. With a last squeeze of her hands, they turned to resume their climb up a particularly steep ledge. “Humans have their place in it, of course. We’re animals, we belong. But no human-powered system can ever overrule the one we were born into. That’s where we make mistakes. It’s where we cause harm to everything around us, force things out of balance so the system has to fight back. And then we bemoan its brutality. It isn’t right.”
The hushed intensity of Hei’s voice pierced into Sohmeng, opened her to a new image of the two of them: the exiled, the outcast, the too-much children. Cut out like cancers from the hmun, and yet still alive and thriving. If they could flourish under a godless sky, who was to say they were inauspicious?
It seemed to her that strength was a hallmark of Minhal, its survivors made sturdy from necessary ingenuity, made caring by a careless community. She reached for a handhold to pull herself up the side of the cave, feeling only the faintest ache in her healed wrist. Fractured, but not broken.
