An Elegy of Fate

by S. R. Laubrea

  Mokallai got right in Fylus's face. He gripped the console, trapping Fylus between his arms. The blood that made his head hardened and parted, forming something like scab-lips. "To savor this moment." He grinned, as an arm formed from his back, and something like a human hand plopped on Fylus's head. Fylus swallowed, as Mokallai started to gradually turn him towards the video feeds.

  Rollond and the beast were just outside.

  "And to know that I,~" Mokallai crooned, "will be back for you, Fffylussss.~"

  The doors slid open.

  They charged in. Rollond's fists were ready to punch Fylus apart — and — well… no.

  There was no one in the room. Ashenzsi lowered his head, sniffed, snorted, and nosed Rollond's side, grumbling at him. Rollond patted his head, a thoughtlessly automatic human gesture, and started in. His steps were quiet, as he suspected that Fylus lurked around the corner of something, waiting, to jump Rollond.

  As he came to the far end of the console, there, in the corner of the room, was a pile of chairs. Rollond knelt down and took a good, close look:

  Fylus was in the fetal position, clutching his head, shuddering. He whimpered, sniffed, then whined and muttered something in a shrill squeak.

  And Rollond couldn't make sense of it. He scratched his head. Where was the fight he expected? All that animosity before, and but now… He grunted and picked through the chairs. He put his hand on Fylus's shoulder.

  Fylus jolted and shrieked. Then with wide eyes, and wild tremors, he focused on Rollond's rugged chin. "Y-you… You!" He clenched Rollond's arm. "Y-you have to help me, you must help me, you must! Please! Make him go away from me!"

  Rollond quirked his brow. He glanced around, certain that no one was here except for he, Fylus, and Ashenzsi by the exit. Maybe he meant Ashenzsi? "Who?" Rollond asked.

  "Th-the — he…" Fylus couldn't find the words to explain it. What was Mokallai anyway? A hallucination that took on the form of blood, with grand, golden irises that instilled awe and terror and greed with selfishness in all who regarded them for too long? Or was Mokallai more than that?

  Fylus pointed; Rollond looked but he didn't see anything. No, he didn't see anything — not the looming figure with the burning eyes of gold, like a hot, virgin sun, flaring high in the sky. Mokallai, with that wretched, infernal grin, and low, malignant chuckle, what resounded in Fylus's mind again and again.

  Rollond shook his head. He grabbed Fylus and dragged him, kicking and screaming, out from the chairs. He stripped off some metal from the console and bent it around Fylus's wrists. Then he loaded the babbling, twitchy man onto Ashenzsi's back, and settled behind him, to make sure Fylus didn't fall off.

  It wasn't long before they were back on the surface of the lonely, forsaken island. Ashenzsi slipped into the water, and they started south. Sometime later, Fylus stopped mumbling. He slumped forward, exhausted.

  From the island, it was a whole day's drift down the coast. They weren't expecting much, since Hydarkua was furnished with simplistic mud-mortar and sand-walled homes. But the waves of the sea broke into this village, this sea-side Commune. Its piers were made to float on the waves and rise with the tides, and they floated between the pointed peaks of shells; gigantic, gnarly, shells.

  There were also huts on the coast; calcified structures that bared no resemblance to the shells. Literally, they were bubble-like mounds, with no obvious way in or out.

  "Tsche au!" A kyusoa waved to them. A koja, since his head was sticking out. "Anapiakoa welcomes you." He bowed at the waist as Rollond hopped down from Ashenzsi. "This one is Sihka, and you must be Rollond, tsche. Tschorra has said many good things about you; there is no Uunan whom Hydarkua speaks of with worth. You must be different."

  Rollond shrugged. "Just doing my thing." He watched Tschorra pass him and stride over to Ashenzsi. He pulled Fylus down, and studied his face.

  Fylus's eyes were distant. He looked at Tschorra, but didn't 'see' him. He huffed, puffed, and passed out.

  Tschorra scratched his chest. "He has seen something," he pronounced. "He still is seeing this 'something'." He turned to Rollond. "You Uunani have a sense of justice, do you? Would it be worth punishing him if he is unable to keep his mind?"

  "Look, cognizant or no, there's a price to pay. If one of your kind was out of their wits, and they came after your Tsamiiq, would you let them go?"

  Tschorra hesitated to answer.

  "No, you wouldn't," Rollond answered for him. "I need a place to hold him until I leave homeward."

  Sihka bobbed his head. "We can cage him. This way."

  They stripped Fylus to his bare skin, and barred him off in a cave of bamboo. He didn't try to escape. He merely stared wistfully at the world beyond the poles; no one could tell what was passing through his seemingly absent mind.

  Sometimes Rollond wondered what happened to his enemy. There were nights he sat outside Fylus's cage, and looked on perplexed at how, when they gave him charred fish and brought him fresh water, he ate, then a number of hours later, he would disappear to do 'business', only to reemerge as wanton and wasted as before.

  Rollond had no time for pity. His human build made him near useless in a society where everything is given on an individual level according to one's productivity. There wasn't much he could do. He spent most of his daylight hours on the coast, watching as, when the tides were lowest, the kojas darted along the coastal cliff and the reef walls. They anchored themselves with their feet, and snatched fat, hearty polyps stuffed with juicy, half digested remains. When the baskets were full, the koja cinched it and hurled it upwards, where, with a deft and precise tether, another male would catch it and hurl it onwards.

  It was a disorienting thing to watch, how the Kyusoakin males would snatch a one hundred fifty pound basket out of the air with only their penis, among other things they used their sex organ for — besides sex.

  They didn't just work from dawn to dusk. When the one fishing in the deep had enough, he went to the shore, where the children played, and the singers, dancers, musicians, and performers of the Commune rehearsed. He'd find his mate, snatch and roll around with her, having a quick tether or two, depart for a meal, and finally watch over and teach his children.

  To Rollond, it was such a free-flowing life. They didn't have wages or complex politics. They did their function when they decided it was good for them to do that day, and once they were done, it was nothing but playfulness.

  Rollond settled in his hearts that he didn't want to go home. He slid a bracer off, glove and all. And he despised his ghostly fingers.

  "Why do you hate yourself?" So'yi asked.

  He nearly jumped out of his skin. "You're some kind of getting-around little thing, aren't you?"

  She grinned toothily.

  "I don't… hate myself," he said, as he slid his hand back into his bracer.

  "That's not what your rou'u says." She waved a finger at him.

  He furrowed his brows and gradually popped his knuckles. Always with this 'Rou'u' thing. "It's what I say —"

  "Is it?" So'yi stared into his face.

  Rollond sighed.

  "It's because you don't know. Isn't it what Asaliael told you? For the last time, you are not —"

  "Silly little Xei's, new to their own voices, not knowing when to shut their mouths." A smooth, up-beat voice belonged to an olive-skinned man, with stringy, auburn hair, and a pair of violet-burgundy eyes. As he picked So'yi from the sand, he gently pinched her lips shut and shushed her.

  He had four fingers.

  "And you are?" Rollond asked, ready to punch the man's head off for touching So'yi.

  "Vandlorael — Vandlorr, you see. There are two of us, but only one of me." He chuckled, especially when he saw Rollond's brows arch because it went clear over his head. "It's an inside joke. You must not know Yonathael, do you? Yonaithes? He's my brother, you know." He frowned, and seemed to want to rescind that statement. "My twin brother. Ah, but sadness is a logician's game. He was always a bit
of a downer. Rarely smiled, even rarer to crack a laugh — but lovable enough, apparently. Until Tytnakea got pregnant. All went to pot after that."

  Rollond shook his head. "I don't know who or what you're talking about!"

  Vandlorr nodded. It was a sagely expression, like wisdom dribbled off the tip of his nose and by nodding he could spread it. "Perhaps I'm not the one to explain all that, then. Or, maybe it's not at all important; I'm sure you must wonder, though, exactly who, if not what you are. Mmmbut! Some people just don't care; you sure seem of that sort, too — in fact, what sort are you?"

  Rollond furrowed his brows. He couldn't help this odd twinge in his arm, the impulse to punch Vandlorr; what an odd man. He shook his head. "I don't know what you're asking."

  "Maybe you're still too young," Vandlorr said, as Tschorra loped over and with a nod of his head, motioned for Rollond to come.

  Rollond didn't offer any sort of parting gesture. He stood and followed Tschorra, although Vandlorr's gaze made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He imagined that impeccable, soft grin, like a stain on a white blouse that couldn't be bleached off.

  "Before you are appraised," Tschorra stopped and said, "you must be tested."

  Rollond rolled his shoulders. "What kind of test?" He expected something he could handle with his bare hands. A man of strength, he didn't seem to comprehend much outside of his confidence. But as Tschorra lead him into the privacy of a particular hut, there were two Uutaijens and Ouraihanns waiting for him.

  He sat where they motioned for him to. "Tschorra? Tschorra?" Uncertainty resounded throughout the room as he spoke. "Tell me what's going to happen —"

  Before he could finish, one of the Ouraihann's nearly shoved her tongue down his throat. Rolland grimaced, as she rolled her rough, narrow lingua in his mouth. He gagged several times, and snatched her mane, tearing her off of him.

  "It is a purity test," Tschorra finally answered.

  Rollond wiped spittle from his lips. "That involves me gulping down her tongue?" he hissed.

  "Tsche," Tschorra said. "The cheek and the inside of the foreskin bear the same taste. If the latter is different, so we know what you have been up to. Now lower your pants, that we may be finished here."

  He gave Tschorra a furrow-browed grimace. They seemed to have no concept of male violation. Rollond tardily pulled at the waistline of his pants, constantly, almost bitterly reminding himself that this is what he wanted. He braced as the fattened stub of himself jerked past the hem.

  The same one that put her tongue in his mouth grabbed him. He fidgeted where he sat, and twitched in her grip, all the while imagining that her tongue would snake forth once more and envelop him — to see if he tasted a virgin, of course. But the mere thought, as much as he didn't like the idea of sexual trespass, made him want to grab her head and get to it.

  She dabbed a satin cloth in water, wrung it in her spare hand, and with part of it folded over the tip of her talon, fingered around the rim of his foreskin. After a short while, she stuck it in her mouth, and sucked on it. Finally, she removed the cloth, and spat. "This one may be marked," she announced.

  "W-wond — great," Rollond stammered, his face brighter than a midnight stoplight. He was still twitching, thickening, his cock gradually stretching onward as if the object of its sole existence was just a little farther; just ahead, a teensy bit out of reach. He pulled his pants up.

  The night air wasn't filled with the beat of drums, like the appraisal ceremony before. Neither was there a great fire, but an unrelenting silence and persistent dark, as the only light came from a torch in Sikha's hand, and from the reflective eyes of the kyusoakin. They parted as Rollond stepped forth. Some bowed their heads in gratitude as he passed by, others kept reaching out to touch him, only to leap back and chitter.

  As he came to the center of the crowd, where they formed a clearing for Tschorra and Sikha, Tschoka cried out: "How time has passed since you first came to us; filthy, wretched Uunaninjyn urchin — this one," she wailed, as she thrust her hand towards Rollond, "that none of us wanted!… to believe in. Perhaps you are the first of many, Rollond, and none should be more deserving than you."

  She took the brush from the bowl in Tschorra's hands. How it dribbled with a very special ink, and how his stomach tensed as she drew the first mark, a broad circle a few inches out from his navel. The rest extended from this one, glyphs in Tswaa'ii denoting what, he didn't exactly know, but he was proud to have them. When she finished, he was marked from the front of his hips to mid-chest.

  Tschoka put her hands on his cheek, and Rollond bowed. She kissed him on his forehead, the same as if he had been born one of them. "Go with Heart," she whispered.

  When she stepped back from him a chorus of voices burst into the air. The Kyusoa that had gathered howled into the night, and great fires roared to life. Whatever was good for eating was skewered and thrown in, and they danced, twirling and in rings.

  Rollond ate what he could, until the rich, fatty meats settled like lead in his stomach and the sweet fermented fruits made him dizzy. He got up to find a private place to sleep, but fell over, and sprawled listlessly in the sand. He stared wearily at the sky. There were strange lines of color writhing about, and he wanted to say something to Her.

  He went right to sleep.

  From Anapiakoa, the trip to Alekzandrya was a long one. He didn't think it wise to ride Ashenzsi there, because Nexus would have Ashenzsi obliterated should they find him in his beast-y form.

  So'yi perched on Ashenzsi's shoulders and together, dragging Fylus along, they and Rollond started for the southern end of the mountains on foot.

  Destiny.

  Alekzandrya city, the capitol of Alekzandrya, the nation of the desert of Khaz;

  Luorvas, the 8th day in the month of Istafh;

  In the 453rd year into the Seeventh Epoch of the great biosphere, Dyjian;

  These events that occurred shortly after the Prince, that is, Rollond, returned home.

  Reminiscence, just as much as it was sour, and embittered his stomach, was also sweet and sought after. How did he come to be? Since his first memory down to this moment, Yonathael was unable to recall his mother who brought him forth, or his father who caused her to be pregnant with he and Vandlorr. He ached for his brother's company, now like then; when fear crippled him, Vandlorr slumped over his trembling sibling to keep him warm.

  From that instance, shivering, mewling, underneath a protective parallel, the two were adopted by a She-creature who needed no physical manifestation to embrace them as if in arms of radiant warmth. And whatever it was that they needed, Dyiij saw that they received. And if there was anything their hearts yearned for, Dyiij saw to their desires.

  The only thing she ever asked of them was that they not be silent:

  — Sing to me, Dyiij had said, because the melody and harmony of my Precious Ones is a deep joy to the core of my heart.

  Yonathael tried to swallow the lump in his throat. His mind ran against the wind, racing through the wastes, knowing that Vandlorr purposely let him get ahead. In those days, Dyjian was but a Xei's playground; in those days before Men, before the 'Felled Star'.

  But then, the Men-village Aylokazus — the unnatural, frigid, electric wind that seemed to set his insides ablaze. As his vision faded, and the world around him spun, then, there, with a shrill, desperate utterance, a pair of eyes: two rings of solid gold flashed briefly in the blackening of his vision.

  The rest of Yonathael's memories were not what they were supposed to be. He sighed, returning to the present, where he was, in Alekzandrya's prison.

  The cell door seemed like another reinforced wall. They were all brushed steel inside; everything was brushed steel, from the toilet, to the sink, to the light-fixture and the cot's frame. He sat down at the small desk, the sole other piece of furniture apart from the cot and the chair he sat in.

  "Iiji," he crooned, in his natural voice; Savuung, that is, his birth language. "If this keeps up, I
fear I'll die by boredom. Please come and speak with me, I am sad and alone."

  — Lamentation, an outcry with passion, can be heard by some as a beautiful song. She need not give him a sign for him to know that she was present. Yonathael knew. Although she had become distant in light of his condition. Still, when he cried out, she was really not far away from him.

  "Are you pleased by my sorrows?" he asked.

  — Yes, and no.

  He furrowed his brows and focused on his feet.

  — Yes, because you are still the same Yonaithes, the one you have always been since I named you.

  He allowed himself a faint smile.

  — And no, because when my Precious Ones suffer, I get quite pissed. And already, Mokallai has taken the life of someone dear to me, leaving his family in my custody. And Einariel, that pretentious Iisae, has toyed enough with minds and hearts.