Origins of Hope

by Anastasia Drapievsky

  Ayzize stood up abruptly, not wanting to think on it further. He had several meetings to attend after this, and he didn’t need to show up as an emotional mess. Celes probably needed some time alone to cool off, and he could formulate how to explain things better... if he shouldn't let someone with more experience help her. With hardly a look back at the room, he headed out the door, and thankfully not seeing Celes crying out in the hallway, he headed for the exit to meet the other mentors, making a note to stress the importance of minding one’s own business to Meiri.

  Fifteen

  After a few days and no Hsa-Banes swooping down and snatching him up, Zander breathed easier that Xenith kept his secret of scrying Celes. Even Nentok didn’t treat him any differently, and if Xenith would tell a secret to anyone, it would be Nentok.

  While a relief, and scrying coming easier, he still couldn’t hold visions for longer than a minute, nor could keep the visions clear. Last time he had scried her, Celes sat under a weird looking dark tree with glowing leaves, so she seemed to be safe.

  Since Zander’s class started learning mental barriers, he had kept his mental barriers shielded up in paranoia, and it was exhausting. Xenith told him not to worry about someone breeching through a barrier, since most people respected each other’s privacy. Projecting thoughts versus having one’s mind read was different, since Xenith said it was like speaking versus thinking.

  As for the matter of Efrik, Zander wondered if Xenith knew something he didn’t. Efrik had apologized for being mean to Quath after a teacher caught Efrik berating him, and they happily played again. Efrik acted nice most of the time and even offered to sneak in some extra sweets to them during lunchtime the day before. Quath didn’t mind extra sweets, but Zander had declined.

  “What if they run out before everyone gets some?” Zander had pointed out when Efrik pocketed some extra candy pieces when no one looked.

  Quath had scratched his furry head thoughtfully while Efrik had frowned. “So?” he had asked, his hands still in his pockets.

  “That wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.”

  Efrik’s frown had deepened with some of his teeth showing, but he said nothing other than, “Well, they should’ve been first in line like us. C’mon.”

  With a resigned glance to each other, Quath and Zander had followed him with no extra candy.

  During their lessons, Efrik had developed a knack for taking down mental barriers. More than once, a kid would cry while paired with Efrik, who always wore a grin that sent shivers down Zander’s spine. Zander never had his own barrier breached, but the teachers said it wasn’t supposed to hurt or feel bad, and yet kids would be afraid of Efrik after he took down their barrier. Teachers punished Efrik when they caught him, but he didn’t really seem to care getting caught sometimes.

  Now during recess, Zander’s class merged with a few other classes in the atrium to play. Efrik led their usual group with two extra kids, a purple-eyed Osăw that had a wide face and body like an owl, and a stocky Guanghial with smooth leathery skin, towards a grassy area away from the teachers. They did their usual re-enactment of Rangers in Space, with Zander and Ximn the Guanghial as the bad guys and the rest as the good guys.

  “Why are we always the bad guys?” Ximn complained to Efrik.

  “Dad always said the Guanghial were sneaky, and since bad guys are sneaky, you get to play the bad guy,” Efrik said plainly as they stretched their muscles to get ready to ‘fight’. “And humans are stupid, so Zander gets to be your side-kick.”

  Ximn growled in confusion, his head angled to listen to Zander’s reaction, who made a dismissive grunt. The less angry Efrik got, the better. “What? Guanghial are not sneaky! I don’t even know how to be sneaky! And Zander knows just as much as us—”

  Efrik stomped over to Ximn. Ximn drew back at the noise as Efrik glared at him. “You calling my dad a liar?” Efrik hissed, teeth barred.

  Ximn paused. He couldn’t see the aggression, but he could hear it. “N-no; maybe he met some sneaky Guanghial, but we’re all not like that.”

  Apprehensively, Zander nodded. “Ximn isn’t really sneaky. I can be stupid, yeah,” he added quickly at Efrik swiveling his gaze over to him, “but Ximn doesn’t have to be the bad guy.”

  Efrik still bared his teeth, while Quath and the Osăw girl named Benca hung back, looking between Efrik and the other two with suspicious eyes. “I’m in charge, not you.”

  >>What are you doing, Efrik?<< Krian Delka interrupted. The five kids looked over by the set of benches where the three teachers sat, with Krian Delka the only one standing and looking directly at them, his pale blue arms folded against his chest.

  >>Playing Rangers in Space,<< Efrik told Krian Delka, changing his expression with his eye ridges raised in a friendly gesture. >>I’m like Detective Senti, who gets all up in people’s faces and stuff. We’re just playing,<< he added, shooting Ximn and Zander a glare.

  >>Uhm, yeah,<< Ximn said after a pause. >>I’m being the... sneaky bad guy.<< That earned a bright-eyed look from Efrik, though Ximn being blind could not see it, and patted Ximn on the shoulder.

  Krian Delka paused, then said, >>I’m watching you, Efrik,<< and sat back on the bench, eyeing the five of them.

  The teachers watched them for another five minutes as they played, pretend fighting and jumping around hollering, before their gazes turned to the other kids playing. Even after their eyes left, Efrik behaved, carefully being nice, and Zander didn’t like it.

  “I’m going to go get some water,” Zander called, getting up from the grass after being ‘dead’ for three minutes while Efrik battled Ximn alone. Quath and Benca lay on the grass, lifting their heads at his announcement.

  Efrik let slip a hint of teeth before he closed his lips. “Sure!” he said in a fake winning voice, and Zander turned away so Efrik couldn’t see him sigh as he headed across the courtyard to the water station.

  At the fountain that bordered a dais, he tapped the side. A spout formed over the opening, and he took a long drink from it, the cool water splashing the side of his lips. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he turned back to the grassy playground when he saw a female Rym his age sitting on a bench alone, her head down. He had seen her several times before; she was in another class, but he didn’t see her often during playtime. She probably liked to stay away from the other kids.

  He almost walked past her to get back to his friends, when he stopped and looked at her in curiosity. Is she sad? He wondered as he stared at the top of her head, her skin a light turquoise with violet markings weaving across her bare skull. He couldn’t read Rym emotions and facial expressions, even though they looked a little like humans. Maybe I should leave her alone, then...

  He turned to keep walking but hesitated. Xenith found him in the same position, when Zander felt so alone and scared. Was she in the same ‘dark’ place he had been just a month or two ago? She had only arrived to Aorírdal less than a month ago, so she could be.

  Putting on a determined face, though not sure that he would get the same result as Xenith did, Zander marched up to the girl. She didn’t look up at his approach. “Hi,” Zander said as he got to her, smiling without showing teeth.

  The girl didn’t move her head, still looking down.

  Maybe her translator isn’t working? He crouched down, low enough to see some of her face. He couldn’t see her eyes well but could tell that she didn’t look at him and that she had a Tristat on her temple. “Hey, can you hear me?” He asked, wondering if she had hearing problems. Rym couldn’t hear as well as humans, though they made up for it with better psychic ability.

  She still didn’t budge, staring at the ground.

  Mm, well, I tried. Zander felt a little disappointed. Wait, I haven’t tried telepathy. Maybe she is blind, too or maybe deaf—

  “Hey, what’s taking so long?” Efrik’s voice cut through Zander’s thoughts, and he looked to see Efrik leading the group over to Zander and the girl. Zander immediately stood up and
moved away from her.

  “Saw some dirt on my shoes,” Zander lied, shrugging as Efrik and the others reached him. Efrik looked suspiciously at the girl while the others gazed between the two, but the girl didn’t react. “But anyway, let’s go back and play some more. I gotta play the stupid bad guy, right?”

  “Hey, isn’t this the weirdo from class three?” Efrik asked. Inwardly groaning, Zander shrugged. “One that doesn’t talk or anything? Hey!” Efrik waved a hand in front of her face, and she stayed motionless. Quath and the others laughed nervously, but Zander had a bad feeling about this.

  “I dunno? I mean, she might not feel well since she just got here a month ago. Let’s go back to playing.”

  “You don’t get to say when we do stuff. I do,” Efrik snapped at Zander, and the others looked between Efrik and Zander while Ximn rumbled nervously. “So back off. Hey, weirdo,” Efrik waved his hand in her face again.

  “I heard she goes really deep in visions,” Benca warned, ignoring Efrik’s scowl. “We don’t want to yank her out of it since it could be bad.”

  “I don’t care. Actually, I want to see what happens.” Efrik roughly nudged the other Rym’s shoulder. “Hey! Wake up!” His eyes glinted, and Zander recognized the look; it was the same expression Efrik had when he would breech unsuspecting kids’ minds.

  Zander immediately stood in front of the Rym girl, Quath following suit. Efrik’s eyes narrowed into a sneer at them. “Move,” he said, not noticing that Benca pushed Ximn to grab a teacher behind him.

  “This isn’t funny,” Zander snarled, his voice holding more anger than he meant. “You shouldn’t hurt—AH!” A sear of white hot pain stabbed into his mind, and Efrik’s’ face swam out of view as Zander bent down, clutching his head.

  Shouts erupted around him, sounds of shoving and hitting hammering into his head. He heard a dull thud, and he raised his aching head to see Quath fly across the grass, landing hard on his back. Benca leaped onto Efrik’s back, shrieking and scratching at his face with her talons before Efrik yelled, his eyes lighting up again. Clutching her head, Benca dropped to the grass with loud shrieks. Where are the teachers?! Zander thought frantically.

  Efrik rounded to Zander, snarling, and Zander stared at him, his vision suddenly dull. Efrik’s body wiggled like everyone’s did in the Purpose. The area around Efrik’s head vibrated, and the surrounding space didn’t seem there. Zander had never seen something like this before, and it scared him.

  “I can hear the thoughts in your head,” Efrik grinned. “Those idiot teachers won’t—”

  Efrik stopped mid-sentence, his eyes wide and mouth growing slack. Zander watched Efrik in confusion, and the Rym’s eyes now shone with terror as he looked at something beyond Zander. Efrik stumbled backward, sputtering in short gasps. Behind him, Benca and Quath stared at Efrik with equally bewildered faces. Zander glanced to the Rym girl to see if she had noticed the fight before his own jaw dropped.

  The girl had moved only her head, and her large blue eyes with gold specks glowed, fixating on Efrik. Efrik tripped back, landing on his rear and scooting back, regaining the use of his mouth while uttering, “No, no, no, no, no...”

  >>Vafri,<< A voice interjected gently, and most of the kids whipped their heads to Krian Glenu approaching them with Ximn. Whereas Efrik still crab-walked backwards, the girl moved her eyes to Krian Glenu. A female Jareshi, Krian Glenu’s multifaceted eyes flicked between the Rym girl, Efrik, and the befuddled kids. >>Please stop the illusion.<<

  Vafri didn’t respond, but looked down. Instantly Efrik froze, his head swiveling around on his neck. “Where’d it go? What was that thing? Is it hiding? It’s going to kill us!”

  “There was nothing,” Krian Glenu interjected, her hands on her narrow waist. Zander had spent enough time with Nentok to know that it was an angry posture. “Though if I were you, I would be more worried about your punishment than whatever illusion you saw.”

  “Illusion?” Blinking and calming down, Efrik looked to the Rym girl, who met his eyes dispassionately. “You did this to me?! How dare you, you freak of—!”

  “Come along, Efrik, now.” Krian Glenu’s voice flattened considerably, sounding like an angry hiss as she snatched Efrik’s arm when he moved to run away. “Your little provocation did not go unnoticed. You five,” she looked to the other kids, gripping Efrik’s arm as he tried to swat her away, shrieking ‘Get off me, you bug!’, “we’ll be talking with all of you about this one’s behavior. I suggest you get in line.” She nodded to Krian Delka, who rounded up the other kids who had all stopped to watch the fight.

  Zander hid a shaky smile as Krian Glenu dragged away a screaming Efrik, while Ximn hurried over. “Is everyone OK? What did he do?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Zander said, massaging his head while the others besides the Rym girl all agreed. Benca cawed angrily in Efrik’s direction. The Rym girl stayed silent on her bench, watching them all chatter.

  “Threw me several meters,” Quath rubbed his back, “and I think he made Zander and Benca’s heads hurt.”

  “Yeah, he did, the little rodent.” Benca glared after Efrik with wide, round eyes. “Went through my barrier, and it hurt.”

  “You think he’ll come after us?” Ximn asked nervously, his ears turned to Efrik's distant shrieks.

  “It’ll be four against one, and this time we know about it,” Benca clicked her small beak-like mouth. “I don’t care if he is the best in the class, but he isn’t kicking our butts again. If we use telekinesis—or an illusion like this kid here—we’re bound to make him regret getting us mad.”

  Zander moved his eyes to the ground as the rest but the Rym girl chipped in their abilities in the fight against Efrik. He couldn’t use anything like telekinesis or gravitokinesis, and once they get to Cryo and Pyrokinesis later on, he’d probably wouldn’t get the hang of that either. All of what I can do is stupid and useless. Celes would’ve slammed Efrik on the ground either by physical force or telekinesis, and Xenith? Probably could’ve done the same with a small crater, or spill all of Efrik’s secrets. I’m not like any of them.

  >>Hey,<< a small voice entered his mind. Confused, he caught the eye of the Rym girl, Vafri. He pointed to her, and she nodded. >>Thank you.<<

  >>Uh,<< Zander looked around, and saw that none of the other kids had stopped their ‘Operation: Make-Efrik-Cry’ plan. Vafri only spoke to him. >>You’re welcome, but I didn’t really do anything. You’re the one who saved us—thank you.<<

  >>You tried to talk to me and you told Efrik to leave me alone. You thought he could have hurt me.<< She stared at him, and her large eyes were both pretty and strange to look at. >>You were the first person to stick up for me since I got here.<<

  His face flushed, and he looked back down at the grass. >>Well, uh, he was being a jerk. Are you hurt?<<

  She shook her head. >>No. All he did was stop a nice daydream. What is your name, brave human?<<

  >>Oh, uh, Zander!<< His face reddened further. >>I’m not a brave human! Just didn’t want people to get hurt, and I was getting tired of him being a jerk. Your name is Vafri, right?<<

  “Yes,” she said, this time aloud. The other kids stopped and looked at her.

  “She talks?” Ximn whispered.

  “Of course she talks, she just doesn’t usually,” Benca scowled.

  Quath turned to her, his large brown eyes looking down at her in concern. “You’re not hurt, right?”

  “No. Thank you, kind Kath’laka,” she said, but she didn’t have any malice in her voice or snootiness that most Rym had towards Kath’laka. “You wanted to protect your friends, as did you, good Guanghial and ferocious Osaŵ.”

  “Well, yeah...” Quath said, looking down in embarrassment, but Zander, Ximn, and Benca all patted his arm and back. Benca clucked proudly at being called ‘ferocious’. “He can be mean to me, but not to everyone else.”

  “He shouldn’t be mean to you at all,” Benca said, her large round irises growing into small dots. “Just
because he has more abilities than us doesn’t mean he can push us around.”

  “I know, but it was easier than telling him to stop...”

  “You and Ximn could sit on him and he’d be done. I don’t mean that to sound mean, but both of you can throw him across the room if you wanted.”

  “But that’s mean...”

  “Oh man,” Ximn held his head in his hands, chuckling. “He’s lucky that you’re so nice.”

  The other kids continued to talk, shifting to pull Vafri in the circle. Zander watched them, the smiles everyone held and the playful ribbing like Xenith’s, Nentok’s, and Qianii’s talks and arguments. Vafri, whose face had been neutral, the glow of her bioluminescent patterns on her face fading, looked at Zander and smiled. He grinned back at making a new friend, hastily covering his mouth. She continued to smile, not seeming to mind that he accidentally showed teeth.

  As the teacher’s interviewed them during the rest of recess—with the kids trying to figure what horrible punishment Efrik would get—Zander wondered why he saw Efrik’s body wavering like it did. Efrik felt different from everyone else’s, like there was something wrong with him. The more Zander thought about it, the more he wanted Efrik off the station. He couldn’t help but feel that one of these days, Efrik might do something worse than break into their heads.

  Sixteen

  Xenith stood in front of the mirror in his room, huffing when his cowlick refused to stay put. Flattening a hand on it, hoping the gel he received working in Supply & Requisitions yesterday would help, he wondered if today would be different. The past two weeks of trying out different jobs was discouraging. He was the last graduating Krian to stay on the rotational path, and despite Mato assuring him not to worry, Xenith still felt humiliated.

  Shaking his head when his hair sprang back into a cowlick, he sighed then waved away the mirror from the wall, heading out of his room for his next assignment.