by Kody Boye
After all this time, after all this progress, why did people still say such things?
Because they can.
“Because they will.”
“Are you all right?” Nova asked, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “Odin?”
“Huh?”
“You were talking to yourself.”
“Oh. Don’t worry—I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
Adjusting his position, Odin nodded and settled back against the monstrous mound of dirt and clay. He didn’t bother to look up when he heard the lumbering sound of foosteps approaching.
“Odin,” Nova whispered. “Get up.”
“What?”
“I said get up.”
With nearly no time to react, Odin was forced to his feet by Nova’s heavy hand before he even had the chance to stand.
A moment later, he realized Nova’s haste.
Bafran stood no more than a few feet away. Face lit in a scowl, the Ogre leaned forward and bared his teeth at the two of them. “Humans,” he growled, his deep voice reverberating in Odin’s chest and ears. “I thought I told you to stay away from my family.”
“We haven’t been anywhere near them,” Nova growled back.
“Test me, human. Your bones are no more than twigs to me.”
“We didn’t do anything,” Odin said, taking hold of Nova’s shirt and pulling him back a step. “We’re sorry. We won’t bother you anymore.”
“Your simple presence here bothers me, Nafran child. Both you and your impudent friend are no more than insects in my eyes. Had we our way, your entire race would be enslaved and forced to toil in the filth and shit that is humanity.”
“We didn’t do this to you. Don’t blame us for something someone else did.”
“You are human. You are the cuase.”
“That’s enough, Bafran.”
Odin grimaced as the female Ogre set her hand on his shoulder. Dwarfed by at least five feet, Sunskin’s prescence did little to demean the bigger Ogre’s size.
“I want them gone,” the saltwater Ogre said. “Now.”
“I don’t care what you want, Bafran Cacknea of the Ocean’s Blue Moon. These are my humans, as this is my son. They are as much my family as your children are yours.”
“They are a danger to our livelihood!” Bafran growled. “I won’t stand for this, Black Talon. Every day they are here further exposes us to the damned on the beaches. What will you say when your son and these humans he brings with them bring about the destruction of our tribe? What will you say, Shaman? What will you tell your people when they are all but dead and homeless?”
“As long as I am here,” Sunskin began, “nothing is going to happen. I have assured you this before, Bafran. If it is truly of your utmost concern that these humans are a threat to you, then by all means, leave. There are caves not far from here that are perfectly hospitable to you and your family.”
“Why should I leave when I have been here longer than they?”
“Because you are the only one complaining.”
Not a word passed from Bafran’s lips following Sunskin’s accusation.
For a moment, it looked as though the larger Ogre might lash out in retaliation. His deep-pitted eyes darkened, his lip curled over his front teeth, and the muscles in his forearm bulged as his fist curled into a massive lump.
Just as Odin knew—and expected, despite the ever-present danger—Bafran remained stoic, if somewhat-angry “Fine,” the Ogre said. “So be it, Black Talon. Our bond wears thin.”
With that, the Ogre turned and stalked into the village.
A pit formed in Odin’s chest.
Slowly, it began to deepen.
“Mother,” Miko sighed. “You shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t question my morals, Maeko. I am the one who leads this tribe, not the other way around.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that he’s larger than you.”
“Bafran would seem fit to an untimely and painful death should he inflict harm upon any of us.”
“I… Mother…” Miko stopped. Brushing his hair out of his eyes, he cast a glance out at the paling midafternoon light and sighed. It took no more than a moment for him to return his gaze to the Ogre. “I just don’t want to see you hurt. You know what I’d do.”
“His heart would be in your hands would he ever hurt me, my son. I know. I understand.”
His heart would be in your hands.
Odin swallowed a lump in his throat. While he didn’t doubt Miko could, or would, do such a thing should someone hurt his mother, the act of imaging the feat alone forced a long, cold shvier down his spine.
No one hurts his friends.
“Unless they want to die.”
“Hmm?” Nova said. “You say something?”
“No,” Odin said, shaking his head. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I think we should stay inside for the rest of the day,” Miko said, lacing his arms around Odin and Nova’s shoulders. “Mother?”
“Yes, Maeko.”
“Would you like help with something.”
“Have you taught the boy to knit?”
A faint smile crested Miko’s lips. “The perfect thing to teach,” the Elf said. “Knitting without magic.”
With his head bowed, Odin guided the yarn around his thumb and through the knitting needles, repeating the process each time with equal precision. At his side, Miko watched with intense fascination, never once allowing his gaze to slide from the long wooden needles Odin balanced in both his hands.
“I never knew you were left handed,” Nova mumbled, leaning back against his bedroll and watching as Odin readjusted his hold on the one needle.
“You didn’t?” Odin frowned.
“No.”
“I’ve been using my left hand since I was six. I kinda had to after I broke my arm.”
“Oh.”
“How come you mentioned it?”
“You’d think it’d be harder to use your left hand than your right,” the older man shrugged, reaching up to scratch his tangle of fiery chinbeard. “Then again, I’ve only ever had to use my right.”
“Which is surprising,” the Elf mumbled, eyes still set on the knitting needles. “It’s not often you hear of a farmer’s son coming out of the fields after years of work without injury.”
“No,” Nova laughed. “It isn’t.”
Sunskin snorted. Odin couldn’t help but chuckle. “You humans amuse me,” the Ogre said, shifting her massive bulk. “It’s not often you hear such trivial banter among Ogrekind.”
“What do you expect?” Nova grined. “It’s not like we’ve ever been around Ogres before. Here I was, a humble farmboy out in the hills of Bohren, thinking all you Ogres did was run around and terrorize villages. Guess you proved me wrong.”
“The false modesty used against us by your human storytellers has done much damage to our kind over the generations. It is they that forced us from the mainland with their lies and deceit.”
“How did you end up on the island?” Odin frowned. “You couldn’t have made ships, could you?”
“Dear child, we Ogres can do anything you humans can—we just choose not to. Why do you think we build our homes from clay and dirt or choose to live in tribal groups rather than cities?”
“Because it’s simpler that way.”
“Which is why our kind did not come to the islands by boats.”
“Old lore has it that there used to be a landbridge connecting the islands to the mainland,” Miko said, turning his eyes up to his mother. “That is—”
“Until the ground shook and quaked,” the Ogre finished, harmonizing her tale with her son’s in an almost-perfect display. “It was the God or Gods you humans speak of so that broke the islands away from their mother. I will not lie though, my friends—we Ogres and Leatherskins are much better off because of it.”
“As is the fate of those races who fell to to the judgement of the human race.”
> Ogres, Kerma, Dwarves, Goblins, Elves, Drow, Centaurs, Giants—the list could go on and on, almost to no end, but each and every race that had come into contact with humanity had, in one way or another, been affected by them. While Ogres and other Leatherskins were forced to live on islands, and while the Dwarves buried themselves away in their Hornblaris Mountains, what would become of the diseased Kerma in the coming years? Would they truly, somehow recover, or would they simply fade away, a testament to humankind’s long, hard exploration?
Will their bones by all that exists? Odin thought. Will we look back someday and realize what all we’ve done?
He looked his yarn around his needles.
At that moment, he realized they should be bonding chains, not breaking them.
“Odin, Nova—we need to talk about something.”
Frowning, Odin turned his head up to find Miko standing in the entryway. Eyes set most likely on the village, he waited a moment before turning his attention back to them.
“What is it?” Nova asked.
“What’s wrong?” Odin added.
“I think it’s time we leave the village,” the Elf sighed.
“What?”
Startled, Odin glanced at Nova. He wasn’t the least bit surprised when he saw scarlet crawling up from beneath the man’s beard and onto his cheeks.
“Our presence here is troubling,” Miko said, reaching up to touch his temple. “Not only is it pressing on both ourselves and the other Ogres, it’s also taxing my mother.”
“She didn’t seem—”
“Her weakness is shown not in words, but actions, Odin.”
“It doesn’t matter how her actions are shown,” Nova growled, standing. “What the hell do you expect us to do? Leave? Uh, last I recall, Miko, we can’t—the fucking boat’s gone.”
“There are options—”
“What? The beach, the woods, the monks? Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me you want to stay with a bunch of lunatics who, for all we know, might be doing more than walking down the beach waving their stupid pathetic fucking—”
“Nova,” Odin said.
“Don’t Nova me, kid—I’m being realistic. Besides—even if the monks did let us come back, do you really want to sit around and listen to some nut preach all day? I sure as hell don’t.”
“I’m guessing you weren’t one to practice in your younger days,” Miko smirked.
“Hey—I’m all for believing in God as long as someone isn’t shoving His word down my throat. I just know better than to believe that just because someone says He said something doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“True.” Pausing, Miko reached up and messaged his temples. His hands gradually spread to the sides of his face, where he rubbed the twin nodules of bone just above his ears. “I can understand your sentiments.”
“Which is why I don’t want to leave.”
“Which doesn’t mean we aren’t going to.”
Odin grimaced. He didn’t think they’d be getting out of that one.
“So what are you suggesting then?” Odin frowned. “What’re we doing if we’re not staying here?”
“Before we continue any further, I want to make something clear: this was my decision, not my mother’s.”
“We know,” Odin nodded.
“I just wanted to make you aware that my mother doesn’t want us to leave. If anything, she’s willing to push her tribe away in order to let us remain here, but that isn’t in her best interest, as she’s getting much too old and would be far too easy a target if she was left to her own devices. As to your question, Nova, there are caves that would provide substantial shelter through the rainy months.”
“What caves?” Odin frowned.
“The cave near the hills.”
He managed to swallow the lump in his throat. “Suh-Sir?”
“Though my mother hasn’t forewarned me of what dwells near the hills, I promise that whatever it is, no harm will befall either of you, just as I’ve promised in the past.”
“We know,” Nova sighed. “We trust you.”
“I’m sure you do, Nova.” Again, the Elf paused. This time, it seemed he couldn’t help but let a breath of air pass from his lips. “I’m sorry. Had I known this would arise, I would have never brought you here.”
No, Odin thought. You wouldn’t’ve.
Regardless, he knew the true nature in the Elf’s words.
Behind Miko’s dark, purple eyes, he could see the real message—the one that beckoned for understanding.
Only once in a thousand years is a child like he able to see his mother.
When that chance comes, it can’t be easily pushed aside.
They were ready to leave by the time Sunskin returned from her anonymous location. Packs over their shoulders, weapons at their sides, both Odin and Nova stood in the entryway watching Miko converse with the very reason they had journeyed all the way to the Tentalin Isles. Graceful head high, neck taut with tension, the Elf kept his eyes on the ancient, seemingly-ageless being before him. Not once did he alter in voice, turn his gaze away from the Ogre’s deep eyes or allow his lips to tremble for the act he commited, nor did his voice seem fractured and bent as though young and brimming with youth. It seemed, despite the remourseful, emotional tension that tinged the air, that Miko was able to hold steady, only nodding or speaking when required.
How hard is it, Odin thought, to leave your mother?
The question, though deeply-rooted in his conscience, could not be answered. With his mother having died during childbirth and Mother Karma resembling nothing like a motherly figure, the question would probably go unanswered for the rest of his life, a dull flame silently burning without ever casting light.
“Maeko,” the Ogre said, strong voice lower than usual. “Why—”
“It’s too dangerous for us to stay here, Mother. Someone’s going to end up hurt.”
“This is my village, Maeko. I care not what Bafran or any other Ogre think. As long as I lead these people, I am the one who decides who stays and goes, not the other way around.”
“Which is why I’m not asking you to choose,” Miko sighed. “I know how much this means to you, because it means just as much to me, but I can’t risk having you hurt just because we’re staying in your village.”
“Son—”
“I’ve already decided, Mother. We’re leaving.”
The deathly silence that followed raised the hairs on Odin’s neck, his arms, on his eyebrows and even the very tips of his eyelashes. Nothing could be heard. Not the wind, not the trees, not an Ogre lumbering in the distance or the birds shifting in the leaves—nothing. Like a God clamping his fist around a trumpeting angel, all sound had ceased to exist.
What… why didn’t she…
He cast a glance at Nova. The man said, nor did anything. He simply stared at the two behemoths before them.
“Mother,” the Elf whispered. A low growl followed Miko’s silent plea. “I… I’m sorry. If I could do something, then I—”
A blur of movement instinctively forced Odin backward.
The pot and pan arrangement above the fireplace exploded as the Ogre’s fist came down upon it.
No more than a foot away from where his mother’s fist had impacted, Miko stood, grimacing.
In one fell, swift motion, the Ogre turned and trampled out of the hut, leaving both her fireplace and, most likely, her son’s emotions in pieces.
“Sir… you can’t—”
“There is nothing I could’ve done to temper the severity of her reaction. We are lucky she controlled herself the way she did, otherwise one of you might’ve been hurt.”
“Are you hurt?” Nova asked, trudging up alongside them.
“Physically,” the Elf said, “No. Emotionally…”
Nothing more need be said.
Keeping his silence, Odin briefly turned his attention to Nova, who only shrugged in response.
She could’ve killed him, he thought.
W
ould Miko have moved had his mother tried to deal a fatal blow, or would he have stood there and taken the punishment he felt he likely deserved? Like hell hath no fury like a mother scorned, the fact that she’d come so close to hitting him was evidence enough that her anger ran deep—bloodbourne, it seemed, like a disease slowly coursing through a dying thing’s veins.
“Miko?” Odin whispered.
“Yes, Odin?”
“How long will it take us to get to the hills?”
“Nightfall,” the Elf said. “We’ll be there just as the sun’s setting.”
“And what if whatever’s out there finds us?” Nova asked.
