by Marc Mulero
“Not going to tell me your name?” Eres looked over the ledge, admiring the trees getting smaller underfoot, not at all worried that his back was exposed to the annoyed Dawn.
“What’s the point?” Ve sniffed in annoyance.
“Is that the question you sleepwalkers ask yourselves before doing anything?”
“Sleepwalkers? You’ll recall your place in this campus. We Dawns are not to act out as those with unbalanced hormones do. Elesion is a blessing, you foolish thing.”
“Oh boy,” Eres replied, not even turning around to face his escort.
“I am no boy!”
Eres blew air from his lips like a horse. “It’s a sayin-, oh never mind.”
The rest of the escalator ride was taken in silence. Petty scoffs and undecipherable one-sided mumbles were whispered periodically at his back, until finally, the two reached flat ground. The wind at this high altitude without the cover of Elesion’s spears was intense. Air was being stuffed up his nose like a sneeze in reverse, and his eyes immediately dried out, causing him to squint. But once he got his bearings, he was happy to be reminded of the ramp he walked down five years ago, when he was cast into this slow-moving nest. It gave him hope that one day the trip up would mean his time to depart.
Little did he realize that day may have come sooner than he expected. He stopped frozen at a particular sight of a cat-eyed man with a thin ceremonial wreath strapped around his arm. Hair in a low pony-tail, a strong tri-feathered hat that was tested by the gales - it was him… the pilot that brought him here in the first place, Ilfrid Noct.
A gigantic missile-shaped shider stood tall behind him like an oversized trophy. It was old, shabby, and around its midsection hung feathers ten times the size of the ones on his hat.
Ilfrid smirked at Eres’ disbelief, and then turned his attention to the twitchy Obrun who was summoned to escort the teenager.
“Am I done here, with this backward thinking Dawn? May I resume my studies?” ve said sarcastically.
“You may, Amasis. May the spires of Elesion hold you comfortably forever.”
Amasis scoffed, took one last look at Eres, scoffed again, and stomped away in annoyance.
Ilfrid’s smirk was now let loose into a wide smile. “My favorite Dawn! Please tell me that this terribly grey place didn’t suck the life out of you. I can feel my balls shriveling into grapes just standing here.”
Eres unfroze at the ridiculous comment and looked at Ilfrid as if to say, “Seriously?”
“Oh yes, sorry. Sorry. Tasteless.” But his remaining ear-to-ear grin gave off anything but an apology.
Ilfrid opened his arms as they embraced in a strong hug.
“Is it already time?”
Ilfrid couldn’t believe it. “My boy, I could’ve sworn the reaction would’ve been ‘Mustae, by the forests of Dolseir, by the Skrols of the underworld, get me out of here! Not ‘is it time…’” His body slumped to mimic Eres.
Eres pursed his lips.
“No,” Ilfrid’s eyes bulged, “you like it here?”
“Well…”
“Wait, wait. That can’t be it… you had too much drive, have too much drive.” He tapped a finger to his chin. “Another Dawn?”
Eres sighed.
“But what about Windel!? You were on your knees begging me to go get her and bring her to you.”
The guilt surged back, then the reminder of his epiphany, that they had obviously given up on him… “Well now there’s someone else I’m going to beg you to take with us.”
Just as he said the words, a Dawn with similar measurements and the same length of silky locks walked past them, stealing Eres’ attention.
“Who the…”
“Oh, that’s your replacement. Pretty good, right? Took forever to find a lookalike. Lots and lots of Dagos masking on that one… took forever.”
“All that to get me out?” Eres’ eyes still lingered on his doppelgänger.
“In truth, I would’ve pulled you sooner, but Agden and Lorfa’s directions were very specific. Our side of the Silent War could’ve used you, a ghost, in many of our missions.”
Eres’ face scrunched in thought.
Ooma wanted me to get acquainted with my esper… learn of Gushda in a place where I wouldn’t be distracted or disturbed… she knew that Agden had been leaving me breadcrumbs, messages, lessons, all over this window into the Eternal.
Eres glanced at his esper hidden under the Dagos guise, then shook away the disbelief that this moment was actually happening.
“So, did you run and join Kovella’s Quittance after you dropped me off?”
A hearty laugh bellowed from Ilfrid’s potbelly. “Little bastard!”
“Not nice to call an orphan a bastard.” Eres smirked.
“Good show!” Ilfrid slid an arm around Eres’ shoulder to guide him forward. “Shall we get the hell out of here and catch up on my ship?”
Eres folded his arms. “I’m not making the same mistake twice. You’re going to take Ohndee or you can leave without me,” he bluffed.
“I’m trying not to disrupt the Faction’s governance here, kid. The late Agden’s orders.”
“Well, I’ll leave it to you to decide the weight of his commands, then. Either take me to fulfill my role in this war and piss off a few Dawns, or let the ancient history of the Skrols and their secret die. It’s up to you.”
Ilfrid whistled. “And here I was worried that I’d get a softer kid than who I left here. You’ve grown into a fine young man. Well, you look like one anyway. A little delicate here and here,” he framed Eres’ face and chest with his hands, “but your father was right to consider you a boy.”
Eres pushed the pilot. “And you look like a Soira in the forest, prancing around with your feathers to attract some attention.”
“Hah! This will be a fun ride. Yes, yes it will.”
Eres cleared his throat.
“Fine! I hoped you would forget, but I see that you’re too sly.” Ilfrid pulled out a communication device that Eres had never seen before. “Amasis, one more favor my good… err, Dawn.”
A voice came through the device. “Just as I settle into my seat? We are done with favors for the day, I think. Dragging that mangy thing up to you was enough.”
Ilfrid tried not to laugh as Eres lunged for the device. Being a foot taller helped the pilot keep it out of reach. “Just one more and we are done. I needn’t remind you of the exotic meats I brought… you know, the ones you pretend to detest on your day-to-day?”
The device was silent for a few seconds, which Ilfrid took as a sign that the grumpy Dawn was waiting for instructions.
Ilfrid motioned for Eres to describe her.
“Her name is Ohndee. She looks very much like a female… short hair, Swul-ish, petite, good muscle tone.”
“Good god, kid, we aren’t selling live-stock.”
Eres sighed before a better thought popped in. “That jerk saw us together, before ve took me.”
“That’ll do.” Ilfrid nodded and clicked the device. “The one who was with Eres.”
“That one is highborn. Under close watch… plucking vim could get me ousted from Elesion, or worse.”
Ilfrid swallowed hard before glancing at Eres, as if he was already causing him too much trouble, and pressed the button again. “Just get ‘er. My next trip will yield an extra portion.”
“Two,” Amasis shot back.
“Two,” Ilfrid agreed.
Eres looked up to his feathered pilot and asked, “Will ve keep quiet?”
“Ve has so far.” Ilfrid shrugged.
“You’re really building my confidence, here.”
Ilfrid winked and motioned for Eres to climb onto the shider.
Eres trekked the length of the ramp with his head down, a smile plastered onto his face along the way. They hadn’t forgotten about him and they hadn’t been found out, which meant that Agden’s Alliance was still in order, and the Silent War was not lost. While all of this cycled through his head, he
made it to the top of the ramp with one foot inside the huge ship before something tugged him back. Nostalgia perhaps? Five years in a harmless, albeit aimless place did evoke some feelings, if not only from the passage of time. He was compelled to turn for one last look at the aerial view of his temporary home, where most of his time was spent futilely trying to gain Reach, and successfully navigating Gushda.
All of these memories raced through him like a movie in fast forward, before a strong gust of wind told him to say his goodbye and move on. His gaze lingered, however, because in poetic timing, came Ohndee… the only one who made Rudo bearable in Elesion, the only one who helped him let go of his past and those who allowed him to devolve into a memory. There she was, shrugging off of an impatient Amasis as ve tried to push her along. The sight proved that Eres had learned from his past mistakes, to hold on to what mattered.
The two locked eyes with the ramp in between them, both trying to contain their glee, before Eres broke contact and traced over to Amasis.
“Filthy, both of you.” Amasis held a determined frown. “Elesion shouldn’t have such dirt on its grounds anyway.”
“Not too loud,” Eres scolded. “What if the Ambassador has eyes up here? Then where would you get your precious delicacies?”
Amasis only sneered, turned, and backhanded the air as if glad to be rid of them, leaving the two to have a moment.
“Is this what you want?” Eres held out his hand to help her up.
She swatted it away playfully.
“Ugh, the Swul in you,” he teased.
After a giggle, she kissed him. “My parents won’t rest until I’m free from here… but I think they’d be even more proud if I got out on my own.”
Eres’ expression fell flat. “Dee, you know there’s no communication… and where we’re going won’t be safe.”
Dee slapped Eres in the belly. “You think I want safe, after years of boredom here? Mustae, stab me if it will be more of the same.”
They lingered for a moment, their faces an inch apart.
“But you have to let me in, Eres, if I’m to take this trip with you. I hated flying blind as a child throughout my training, and I won’t do it now. You’ll tell me why you spend most of your time in the library, and why you, of all Dawns, have a shider coming to set you free.”
“I will.” Eres nodded in confirmation.
A hand suddenly grabbed Eres’ collar and yanked him inside the ship.
“Are you begging to get caught or something? Aye, sheesh, I thought you were supposed to sit here for five years to get smarter or something. Here I am talking to myself for three minutes before I realized you weren’t behind me. Oh… Amasis came quickly, huh? Hi, I’m Ilfrid.” He held out a hand, and when she grabbed it, he pulled her inside too before slamming his fist on the button so the shider door would zoom shut.
“Coming? Good,” he said comically fast and then spun away.
The inside of the shider was just as amazing as Eres had remembered. Gears were exposed beneath long, scraped up panels, trinkets sat along its circumference beside low hanging ribbons, and multicolored floating orbs implied Eplon technology true to Ilfrid’s heritage. All of this spoke to his wide range of travels and eccentric taste… and it was magnificent.
“Gravitas beads… good. I was scared for a minute that this thing was built before Mustae molded our spheres.” Dee kicked a button she was familiar with and hopped forward into the vastness of the vertical ship.
Ilfrid and Eres stood there with their mouths agape as the beads shifted in strange harmony to follow her. How was she able to use this tech so fluidly, like she’d been on the shider a thousand times before? They both watched as the gravitas beads did their job by shifting her gravity mid-air, allowing her to land gracefully not on the floor, but the wall of the shider, which now became her floor.
Dee looked up at them smugly. “I thought we had to get out of here. Shall we?”
She smirked and walked upward, hearing two footsteps shortly after at her back.
Ilfrid suddenly noticed the outlandish braid in Dee’s hair, her defined muscle tone, and distinct demeanor. “Yuck! A Swul!” He turned to Eres. “I thought you had better taste!”
Dee looked back, disturbed. “Umm… racist much?”
“Don’t mind him, his ex was a Swul, so he thinks he has the right to say whatever he wants.” Eres rolled his eyes.
Dee shrugged. “I don’t get you Eplons. Why won’t you just mate with your own? Your women are beautiful, well, some of them are at least, and they jump through hoops to get you!”
Ilfrid spat. “Hairy elbows, overwhelming scents, can’t keep it in their pants… so aggressive that they may as well be animals. Not interested. I prefer to chase, not to be smothered.”
“Eplons are built weird,” Eres blurted.
“You said it,” Dee agreed.
Ilfrid threw his hands up, “Says the two of you?!”
They both giggled and walked ahead of Ilfrid, who was left behind shaking his head.
The gravitas beads followed them as they ascended, disturbing the surrounding decorations like there were gusts of visible wind inside the cylinder. Ornamental metal plates harmlessly clapped into one another as they passed, and a little furry owin who was stuck at the bottom of the shider clumsily sauntered up the wall to find its friend.
Eventually, the trio made it to the cockpit resting at the crown of the vehicle. Eres unlatched the hatch at the top and peeked his head inside. Wow, I forgot how cool it was in here. He marveled at the omnidirectional masterpiece that the beads did not enter: gadgets and levers ready to be toyed with, a semicircle window allowing blades of three suns to spear his eyes, and a ground plastered on movable tracks. The cockpit was different than the body of the shider. A sense of inertia immediately shifted in his belly as he climbed in, making the floor feel like ground again, and a wall… a wall. He slid backward on his bottom when he was done admiring and pulled Dee up through the same person-size hole he climbed into.
Both couldn’t contain their excitement… they were about to blast off out of the purgatory of Elesion. Whether their next chapter was better or worse didn’t matter, because it would be elsewhere. There would be adventure again, not just talk about someone else’s journey. The scornful faces and concerned expressions of a brainwashed society of Dawns could finally be left behind. And everything either of them would’ve missed about the place was right there with them.
“Got everything you need?” Eres asked.
Dee patted the tiny messenger bag hanging over her shoulder. “Yep, you?”
Eres flicked Vasa’s blade hanging at his belt and tapped his own messenger bag. “Ready.”
Dee swiftly lunged forward and hugged Eres tightly, causing him to fall back and make the sliding floor a little more unstable than it already was.
Ilfrid shot up through the hole likely using some gravitas bead trick and landed, not giving either of the teenagers a second thought. Instead, he was tickling the owin’s chin with his finger, which made the wide-eyed creature come in and out of sleep like a kid hitting the snooze alarm for Kor. It eventually pawed Ilfrid’s face to politely ask him to stop, curled up in his arm and passed out cold.
Ohndee squealed at the sight, convincing Eres that this girl was not a normal Swul.
The feathered pilot clicked a few buttons with his free hand, causing the hole they climbed through to spiral shut and two swivel chairs to roll on their tracks to offer the two guests’ seats.
“You’re boundless now, Eres, like your father before you,” Ilfrid said. “I trust that Agden has since shown you how to exist as one?”
Dee peered into his eyes. “You said your father was dead, Eres. That he died when you were young.”
“That wasn’t a lie…”
“Then how could…” A thought stopped Dee from speaking. “Is that his octor in there? Did he leave you recordings?”
“No, not exactly.” He held up his finger and flashed into Gushda
for less than a second, creating a pulse of amber light to show Dee what was concealed on his finger.
She gasped. “An esper. A Skrol? You are a Skrol?”
“No.”
“Well, are you going to stop making me guess what in Mustae is going on here?”
Eres looked up at Ilfrid, who just shrugged and turned away before saying, “Not helping you with this one, buddy. You wanted to compromise our entire network – this is on you, brat.”
“Says the one who trusts an Elesion born Dawn!”
Ilfrid bounced the owin in his arm awake so they were both looking over his shoulder at Eres. “Silly boy, that one is, isn’t he?”
The owin licked Ilfrid’s face in agreement and headbutted his shoulder to knock itself out once more.
“My father was a Skrol, who bequeathed me his esper. I haven’t gone through the proper training to be considered one myself… yet. That’s why I’m always in the library. I’m trying to piece things together… about what I have to do, about what my responsibilities are.”
“And here I thought you were just like me: family conceals child to become a normal citizen. For me that meant being a highborn Swul strategist. For you, I thought maybe a proctor at Kor, or a ranger, a Carrier, anything but this. An esper wielder… a Herald who seeks to be a Skrol…”
“And what’s so bad about that?” Eres began to get defensive.
“Skrols are stupid, Eres!”
“Oh boy,” Ilfrid said as he prepped the shider for flight.
“If you’re going to shit on my family’s legacy, you better explain why!”
“Your family has no legacy!” Dee shouted.
Ilfrid bit his lip and turned quietly to watch the show.
“Maybe you do belong in Elesion, Ohndee, if that’s what you believe.”
“It’s fact!”
“Are you an Eplon or a Swul, Ohndee? Where’s your pride?”
“Hey!” Ilfrid butted in, but they both turned to him and shouted, “Shut up!”
“There is no legacy with Dawns, Eres. That’s something that you have to accept, sooner rather than later, if you’re ever going to grow. And Skrols are stupid for the same reason that you’re showing me right now… stubbornness. Spending generations separated, decentralized, uninformed, unable to protect one another, is the opposite nature of any of our races. Umboro, Eplon, Swul, Dagos, and even the Kujins, may they rest in peace, all of us prospered by working together. Skrols exist apart. That’s how one man is tearing you up so easily. Embarrassing.”
