by Vi Voxley
“Yes, they do,” he said and Faren believed him. “You just need to turn off the safety.”
Safety. So he’d been fighting a machine with the safety on. That’s why Diego had scars and he did not.
“Fighting mechs with the safety on is what children do,” Diego was saying, although he barely reached his father’s waistline himself. “You can’t…”
“Really experience a fight like that, yes,” Faren finished for him. “I understand. I didn’t know it turned off.”
Alright, better. The look in Diego’s eyes was no longer one of pity, but curiosity. It was one of Faren’s gifts. Without experiencing many feelings himself, he knew what they looked like in others with an almost eerie precision. And he knew how to replace them with the ones he wanted. Right now he’d wanted there to be respect.
“Good,” Diego said. “Then you can turn it off when you get home and maybe catch up to me.”
No, emotions didn’t come easily to Faren, but right then, he found his mouth smiling, just a bit.
“I will,” he said. “I want to fight for real.”
Diego was smiling too, then.
“You should come over sometimes,” he offered. “We could fight. You look like you could be a challenge for a while.”
Faren had never met anyone like him before. All the children he and Gawen had ever met had thought them too odd to be around. The Brions didn’t fear but just kept away. All the fights they’d ever had with them had been disappointingly one-sided. The only match Faren had ever known was his brother.
“I would win,” he said, or rather stated. “So would my brother. We’re bigger than you.”
“Is that your brother?” Diego asked, pointing to Gawen, who had restlessly paced a little further from them.
When he saw the boy pointing, Gawen thumped over, teeth already bared in a snarl. It wasn’t the first time they’d gotten into a fight with other children, not even close.
Faren stopped his twin before he could punch Diego. That was the one thing that he could be certain of, that Gawen would listen to him. He knew his brother was always on the edge of anger and it was difficult to see clearly when you were that unhinged. Gawen trusted him, because for all that most people thought, his fiery temper didn’t make him stupid. Faren knew that, as he knew everything about his twin.
Gawen stopped, Faren’s arm barring his way to Diego. He took a breath only Faren noticed and simply glared then.
“Who’s this?” he demanded.
“Diego,” Faren introduced. “He invited us to fight. He will be a warrior too.”
Gawen’s laugh was dark and humorless.
“We can fight right here.”
“No,” Faren said. “He thinks he can match us. If we ruin the evaluation by fighting, we won’t get to see if he does.”
Gawen measured Diego up slowly. To his credit, Faren noticed, Diego didn’t seem concerned. He appreciated that. Moment by moment, he was beginning to respect this boy who was honest. Not only in his words, but in his opinions. Faren liked that.
“Maybe,” his twin allowed. “We’d still win.”
“Yes,” Faren agreed, just as Diego said,
“No.”
Gawen laughed, but Faren was interested. Diego didn’t seem to be a fool to him.
“Why?” he asked.
“I’m faster,” Diego said, shrugging. “And while you may be bigger than me, my mechs don’t have the safety on. As I said, you need to catch up.”
“Safety?” Gawen asked.
Faren explained, dryly and quickly to the point as always. Then they exchanged a long look. Gawen looked even more furious than usual, but underneath there was the odd calmness he only ever had around Faren. The calm of knowing he was being understood.
Faren knew they were thinking the same. Their father who was so proud of them didn’t believe in them at the same time. He wanted to keep them safe until they could be warriors, but what kind of warriors could they be if they never experienced danger? He was supposed to know better. Diego was the same age they were, and he knew better. Neither Faren and Gawen were mad at him for taunting them with that. They were grateful to him for telling them. Now they could be better, now they knew they were being cradled.
They were Brions and they were, for the first time in their lives, terribly hurt. Their pride was wounded.
Faren, who never liked to talk much, knew that Gawen agreed with him without having to explain himself in any words. They returned to their father quietly, without raising the question of the mechs. Instead, Faren told him they’d made a friend like he’d always told them they should.
When he pointed Diego out in the crowd, his father’s eyes lit up, and for a moment, Faren dared to let himself hope he wasn’t lost to them.
“Good, good,” his father said. “I know him. His father was a great warrior too, I always expected his son to be like him.”
And then he added, “Be careful with him, though. With a father like that, he’s bound to be strong and cunning.”
An ugly knot twisted itself for a moment in Faren’s stomach. He looked over to Gawen and saw his feelings reflected. Their look said everything.
Be careful, they both thought, always one of mind.
“We are strong too,” was all Faren said.
They were evaluated and nothing surprising happened. Their father took them to the Elders, and they didn’t waste even a minute on them. Leaving, they noticed Diego in the crowd, giving them a nod, which they returned.
Just like that, Faren replaced one of the two people he ever felt any emotion towards. Neither he nor Gawen went to their father for stories again. Instead, they went to the arena to practice, to make up for lost time, and turned the safety off. Instead of his father, Faren now only cared about one other person besides Gawen, and that was their new friend who didn’t take them for weaklings.
When their father left to become an Elder, neither of his twins were sad to see him go. They’d been waiting for it for a while.
And Faren was left alone with the only person he didn’t differ from. One mind in two bodies, they were called.
CHAPTER TWO
Leiya
She knew she was different.
They told little Leiya that in very many words and often. It would have been perfectly natural for her to feel upset about that, but she never did. Somewhere deep inside her, Leiya never found anything wrong with that. Being different. Even that was considered weird, so she kept it to herself. It didn't mean she didn't notice it, however.
Depending on whether the speakers loved or envied her, being told she wasn't like the others was either a compliment or a thinly veiled insult. Depending on how far the critics were from her very strict senator father, it was also either their lucky day or the last words they ever spoke.
Senator Tawren loved his baby girl more than anything in the world and got furious when he heard that particular comment. He wasn’t a warrior to settle revenges in blood, but he made damn sure one of his warrior friends defended Leiya’s honor – in a very conclusive manner whenever needed, as she quickly found out.
A more vicious person might have used that blind love to their advantage, but it never occurred to Leiya to do that. They were Brions, a species not known for their nurturing approach to life, but that gene just felt missing in her. She caught on to her father’s approach very fast, yes. But then it just warmed her heart. The love, not the killing people. The killing troubled her.
“Must you hurt them, father?” she’d asked.
It happened after a particularly interesting overheard conversation in which the word “weird” was used in the same sentence as her name. The Brions had a complicated attitude towards difference within their species, Leiya had been told that when she was just a young girl. They liked excellence but not originality that much. It was fine to be different, as long as you looked and acted like everybody else.
Senator Tawren stared at her with the kind of expression reserved for her alone.
It was a peculiar mix of mind-numbing love and utter confusion at her confounded questions. Leiya always felt like her father didn't know how to deal with her, but she appreciated him trying.
“Yes,” he said at last, a weird expression on his face. “We’re Brions. We do not forgive slights. At best, we forget them until a more opportune moment arises.”
“But I don’t like hurting people,” Leiya protested. “They bleed.”
Her father rubbed his temples as he was often wont to do when discussing things with her, Leiya had noticed.
“Of course they bleed,” the senator said, sighing. “As they should. And I don’t ask you to hurt anyone, do I? The Gods know you will not be a warrior, little spark. That’s why I hurt them for you.”
“But can’t you – talk to them instead?” Leiya asked, pressing on. It seemed she’d crossed another of those lines the Brions had, but of course she had to be told that too. Because, after all, she was weird. Her father had a migraine that lasted four days after that conversation.
For all the love his father bore towards her, Leiya knew he agreed, in a way. It was kind of clear when he asked the healers if there was something wrong with his daughter.
“She doesn’t have any moods or emotions under the level of the most passive sort of joy,” he told the healer. "Is that normal for a girl... her age?"
All the while Leiya was doing her damn best trying to stand on her tiptoes on the med bay table.
“And she climbs everywhere,” he father went on in a suffering voice.
The healer sent Leiya an amused look, which she responded to, her mouth curling into a smile as easily as she breathed. It was simply her natural look. She'd had the healer all her life and they knew each other well.
“Do you think there’s something wrong with you?” the healer asked her.
Leiya had to think on that. No one had really asked her opinion on that particular matter before.
“Father says there is,” she said at last.
She’d been way too young to properly understand the reaction, but Senator Tawren tensed almost immediately, his lips pressing together into a thin line.
“With all due respect, Senator,” the healer said, giving Leiya a piece of candy.
He caught her before she could topple off the table trying to reach for it without accounting for the distance between them. A sense of restraint was another thing she happily lacked.
“If her being happy and not liking killing is as bad as it gets with her, maybe she’s not the problem.”
It was the tone of voice that had gotten plenty of people killed. Leiya nearly choked on her candy, trying to scream and wave with her hands all at once.
“Don’t hurt him, father!” she squeaked. “I don’t want him to bleed!”
“Oh good gods, child,” was all Senator Tawren said, sighing.
"And Senator," the healer added with the same kind of odd look people sometimes got around her. "There is nothing wrong with her, so to speak. She is what she is, you can't change that. You're only making her feel bad for it."
There was a sharpness in his tone that surprised Leiya. No one spoke to her father like that, but to her surprise Senator Tawren nodded solemnly and that was it. No killing, no blood.
Then he lifted little Leiya into his arms and walked away, leaving a completely non-bleeding healer behind. Smiling a bit, as much as Leiya could see before the med bay door shut behind them. Mumbling, “…She climbs everywhere,” under his breath.
--
It got better after that. Leiya grew with each day, at least that part of her like normal Brions, and started to catch on to things she hadn’t been able to before. Like how her father made a valiant effort not to take revenge on anyone who sent a weird look in her direction.
And also how people liked to listen to her, more and more each day.
Every Brion child grew into what they were destined to be, she'd been taught. Leiya’s mother was overjoyed when her future became obvious. Her father had to go and lie down for a while.
It happened at a party in her parents’ house. The song just bubbled up from inside her and made its way to her lips. At first, Leiya just mumbled it to herself under her breath, but it wasn’t that kind of a song. She’d just made it up, so she knew better. It wasn’t the kind of tune you hummed under your breath, it wanted to climb, and go up, and show itself. Leiya was no longer a little girl, she should have been long out of her climbing-everywhere phase. Only there still seemed to be some part of her that longed for heights and tall places, longed to be seen. The edge of the balcony fit that end perfectly. Up, up, and up she went, and up went the song.
Everyone was listening now, but Leiya already knew they would. She’d been worried what her job would be, since she didn’t seem to be developing in any way that made sense. Only her voice had been getting stronger and more nuanced. And there it was – her future, laid out in front of her, reflected on the faces of each awestruck listener.
The air around her seemed to bend towards her, like she was literally drawing her audience’s breath away from them. Bright, big eyes were staring up to her. Mouths dropped open and every set of eyes was following her movements. Leiya found herself suddenly hyper-aware of everything and especially herself. She could see and feel all that was going on around her.
All those people down on the grass, looking up at her. Mostly her parents’ friends, but there were hers too. The look on Miren’s face, who was one of her closest friends, was priceless. She definitely had to describe that to him later.
He looks like he swallowed a bug and is holding his mouth open for it, waiting for it to climb back up.
Her best friends Aya and Iloya were pretty amazed too, if judged by the fact they seemed to have stopped breathing. Even people from other houses were outside or in their windows and balconies, listening in, because her voice was as powerful as it was beautiful. It carried her first song everywhere and they were all entranced.
And her, her in the middle of it all, twirling and smiling like always. So that’s what it had been. Leiya had always wondered why moving to some tune came so naturally to her. She had simply been pushing herself on, like her hands spreading wide were helping her voice take flight.
Oh, the last note is going to be a high one, Leiya realized. I must go higher.
Only there was nowhere to go, because she was already at the end of her vocal capabilities. So she simply pushed her voice over the last note until she heard the familiar sound of breaking glass and realized it had been her. Leiya’s mother was very upset with her later; she’d broken her favorite set. She’d also broken her own voice, it seemed. Only wheezing seemed to come out of her as she climbed down from the edge to accept the congratulations and praise everyone was pouring on her suddenly.
Worth it, she thought, smiling widely to her adoring audience. Totally worth it. I want to do it again.
“That was quite something,” someone said behind her.
Oh, damn. The new High Senator. Father said I have to be nice. Yes. I am nice. But I can’t talk – help!
“Mhmh,” was all Leiya could manage, desperately trying to smile at least.
Senator Primen didn’t seem offended though. He was the youngest senator to sit in the chair of the High Senator – a position that rotated every year – and was a rarity of sorts by that feat alone. They said he was going to bring forth a bright future for the Brions. She didn’t know what most of it meant, but Leiya was relieved. She realized he must be an important man, and that her father wanted her to put on a great impression for him.
“You have a bright future ahead of you,” he said. “Rest your voice now, little one.”
At least someone realized how badly her throat was aching, Leiya thought. The rest of the party didn’t seem to catch on to that and kept asking her for another song.
Afterward, she heard from her father that the new High Senator had been very impressed with her talent. It made Leiya glad to have done well.
She s
till didn’t understand why her father was so upset, though. It was clear everyone thought she was going to be a great singer. Aya explained to her when she finally escaped all the guests torturing her wrecked voice.
“It’s not you, it’s all of us,” Aya said.
“How so?” Leiya tried to say, but it came out more like a croak.
Luckily, with her friends, they could understand her broken voice quite well.
“We have to have singers, right?” Aya asked. “We like listening to them, and it’s all good, but parents still want to have warriors, and healers, and senators for children. I don’t know why. But I know your father doesn’t have anything against singers. He just didn’t want one for a daughter, I think.”
Leiya had to contemplate that. It sounded about right. That much she’d gathered herself.
When she was leaving for her studies at a distant school like all Brion children, she tried to comfort her father.
“Don’t worry,” she said, beaming. “I’ll make you proud.”
Senator Tawren smiled at his baby girl whom he loved more than anything in the world.
“I am,” he said.
But Leiya could already see big audiences before her eyes and songs that just kept going.
“I’ll climb higher than you ever thought I could.”
Her father seemed to age years with that promise-threat alone. As she skipped away, Leiya heard him call to her, “I hope you meant that as a metaphor, little spark. Don’t climb high places, please!”
Leiya smiled and waved back, bringing a smile to the senator’s lips as well. Just like that, she always seemed to make people around her happy.
And then she went to singing school and was told it was perfectly fine if she voiced everything she thought.
Leiya beamed. Oh, this is the best, she thought. It amused her later when her teachers confessed they’d meant singing, not saying everything that popped into her head. By then, of course, it was too late.
--
While she may not have been the most normal Brion, Leiya still seemed to walk the path all Brions did.
