Two Moons of Sera

by Tyler, Pavarti K.

  On the wall was a painting of a girl with long brown hair, silver eyes and a tail instead of legs. Her iridescent eyes shone in the firelight, twinkling from within. Instead of using paint, some ancient artisan had set opalescent gemstones into the eyes, creating a perfect recreation of my irises. In her arms this woman held a child with fire in its eyes.

  The woman’s face looked exactly like mine.

  “What is this?” I breathed, mesmerized by the image before me.

  “We have been waiting for you for so very long,” Velka spoke reverently, staring at the wall before us.

  “This doesn’t make any sense. Who did this? When did this—what does it mean?”

  “Sev brought you to me. She remembered the stories from initiation. She was to be a priestess but found her calling with the Qutha’ia.”

  “What is that?”

  “Those of the Fire, those who rule us all, they are the Qutha’ia. They are cruel. They’ve forgotten what it means to be alive and instead exist in the flames of lust and ego.”

  “But you were one of them.”

  “And did many things I regret,” Velka confessed. “I left, denouncing their ways.” She held out her right arm, showing me the triangles spanning from her neck to her shoulder. “These”—she traced along her neckline—”show I am part of the Qutha’ia, like Sev. The markings running down farther show I lived Within. Sev does not have these because she cannot go inside the Fire. These...” She dropped her arm and presented me the left one. Tattooed black bands spread along her upper arm. “These show that I left the Qutha’ia, either by choice or by force. Because of this, I’m never again allowed to set foot Within.”

  I looked from her arm to my new companions. “So, Keene left but Sev didn’t?”

  “Yes.” Keene stepped forward and held out his tattooed arms for inspection.

  “What about this?” I reached out and traced the black band on his right bicep, which both Keene and Sev displayed.

  He withdrew from my touch without responding.

  “That is the mark of first blood,” Velka explained. “Keene and Sev were born from the Queen.”

  “So you’re a prince?”

  “And princess,” Keene answered, smiling at his sister.

  Sev spoke to him in A’aihea, earning a frown from Keene.

  “She says she is more prince than I.”

  “The first bloods are the line from the beginning,” Velka continued. “The family can be traced back to those who painted these images. Keene and Sev’s mother, she who leads them, has no name, for she was born into the Fire. A babe straight to the flame.”

  “The woman who took Tor,” I said.

  “She took not,” Sev replied, her eyes tight. “He did follow.”

  “So why are you here? If she’s your mother, why did you bring me here?”

  “The way is....” Sev struggled with the words. “We—we are wrong.”

  Sev’s simplicity made sense. Some things in this world were just wrong. I’d seen more than my fair share of those things. My life, for one. Her strength reminded me of my mother. She’d also refused to accept the way things were just because everyone else did, and she went against the ways of her own people to protect someone she loved.

  Velka motioned farther into the dank cave, and the hovering fire moved to illuminate another image. Four pictures came into view. A woman stood in the middle of three figures circling around her. The picture in the center looked Erdlander, but her body stretched taller like the A’aihea. She stared out at me with the same silver, gemstone eyes as the previous image. Around her were portraits of a fish with a man’s hairless head, a naked woman with hands of fire, and a small, ruddy-skinned version of the person in the center.

  “Once, there was a time when Erdlanders, A’aihea, and Sualwet were one. This was so long ago that few remember the happenings of that time, and most have already forgotten the stories told when they were young. The priestesses saw the separation of races and noted it here. These... humans, as they were called, sought to conquer the Earth by separating parts of themselves into those who would dwell beneath, those who would dwell above, and those who would dwell Within. But, like is drawn to like, and new races emerged. Soon, we were all that remained, and now, we have lost what we are. The Sualwet have no kindness left—”

  “That’s not true. My mother—”

  Velka shook her head. “Your mother must have been special to bring to the world a child as you, but was she kind? Were her people kind to her?”

  “I guess not.” The admission pained me, but if the Sualwet had been kind, my mother would never have suffered the way she did, and I’d probably have died when the Domed City collapsed.

  “The Qutha’ia have no sense of time or civility. We live like beasts, while those who rule us revel in the flames. Any who incites their passion is punished, discarded like Keene.”

  “Discarded?”

  “I question,” Keene lamented. “I cannot live as they do.”

  “You were banished?”

  He nodded, shame filling his usually proud features.

  “Erdlanders inbred until they lost their souls,” Velka continued. “They lash out at all who live, because they know their end is near. What they fail to see is we will all be gone soon: none of us can survive this way much longer. We A’aihea see it in our children. Their flame is dim.”

  She paused, her words filling the dark cave, oppressing me with meaning. “The end comes as the new begins.”

  The flames drifted back to the image of the girl with my face, and we all stood silent before the mural. In the darkness, Sev placed her hand on my shoulder.

  “You must remain safe,” Velka said.

  42

  I sat on the mat in Keene’s hut. We’d returned to the scraggy village where he lived since his banishment. His only crime as far as I could understand had been defending the A’aihea who couldn’t go inside the Fire. On the floor next to me lay an orange cloak, identical to the one Velka and the other priestesses wore. Wearing it meant I would be able to walk around unnoticed, and it was long enough to hide my Sualwet feet.

  Exhaustion set in, and even though the sun still shone brightly, I wanted to lie down and close my eyes. But I didn’t dare. If I fell asleep, I might wake to an even worse nightmare than this one. How that was be possible, I wasn’t sure, but the fear lingered. Instead, I sat in a mud-and-thatch hut, surrounded by half-naked people who believed I was some kind of savior.

  I longed for Tor’s silent comfort, a hand on my back or a twitch in his eyebrow when he tried not to laugh at my irrational thoughts. I wished for my mother’s distant affection. Though strange and detached, she’d never given me cause to doubt her love for me. Instead, I was stuck with Keene’s strange kindness and Sev’s melting cruelty. I never thought I would miss living with the Erdlanders so much. How long had it been since I’d sat at the dinner table in Pod Thirty-four? It felt like another life, one of the many I’d lived in so short a time.

  Outside the hut I heard a familiar thrumming sound, followed by shouts. Rushing out, I saw A’aihea scattering down the dusty path. Most rushed back to their homes, dirty children in tow, others—including Keene and Sev—ran to the edge of the forest, weapons in hand.

  And from the distance came an unmistakable call: “Thhhhhhruuuuuup!”

  Panic spread throughout the village as an oversized, excited mountain hound rushed from the forest at full speed toward the huts and pounced me. I fell to the ground, tumbling under his massive bulk, laughing.

  ~Elgon! Calm down!~

  The monster licked my face with glee and wiggled in delight as I chuckled and scratched his muzzle. Above me, Keene and Sev screamed. Sev raised her staff and pointed it at Elgon’s head, ready to strike.

  “Stop!” I rolled Elgon off me. “He’s not dangerous.”

  As I sat up, the mountain hound curled around my back, laying his head on my leg.

  “Worst of the forest, kill for fun!” Sev coun
tered, still holding her spear at the ready.

  “Maybe the others do, but Elgon is my friend.” I scratched his ears, and he looked up at them with his tongue dangling out the side of his mouth. How anyone could think him something other than ridiculous was beyond me, but only a few days ago, I had been terrified of him as well.

  Keene stood a pace behind his sister, eying Elgon and I.

  Sev stood at the ready, hands ignited around her staff. Behind her, the villagers took cover in their huts. A few other brave A’aihea stood a safe distance from us, screaming for the mountain hound’s death.

  I laid my hand on Elgon’s nose and let him lick my hand. “It’s all right. He won’t hurt you.”

  When Keene saw Elgon hadn’t gnawed off my entire arm, he placed a hand on Sev’s shoulder to stay her hand.

  “I promise. Please, trust me. I’m trusting you. Elgon won’t hurt anyone.”

  Sev’s eyes never left Elgon as she lowered the staff’s blade, but she appeared no less deadly. “He must leave.” Her demand left little room for disagreement.

  “I can’t make him,” I replied, scratching the monster’s ears and hoping he would stay calm. “He does what he wants.”

  Elgon’s body tensed in reaction to my terror. I couldn’t bear another death, another loss, not his or anyone else’s.

  He was the only tie I had left to Tor.

  “Please.”

  “Too much fear with him here,” Keene explained, his face still flat with shock from the scene laid out before him. “He must leave or be killed. We listen, but others would not.”

  “But what am I supposed to do?”

  “Come.” He walked past me and held open the flap to his hut, ushering us within. Behind Sev, the gathered crowd gasped. “Come. We talk away from eyes.”

  “No.” Sev stood with hands on her hips.

  “Fine, stay here.” I turned my back on her and received a growl in response.

  She must have made a move toward me, because Elgon’s hackles rose and he turned to bare his teeth at her.

  ~No Elgon,~ I cooed in Sualwet, ~come with me.~ I smoothed his raised fur until he calmed and turned away from Sev.

  Her eyebrows rose in shock as he relaxed and looked up at me. Then I led Elgon past Keene, and the hound snorted and pressed against me, pushing me farther from the A’aihea prince.

  Inside the hut the air hung stale, and I could still smell the lingering scent of vomit. Elgon explored the room, sniffing around the perimeter. Keene remained perfectly still when the mountain hound inspected his legs.

  “You can pet him,” I offered. If Keene touched him, it would be easier to convince him of Elgon’s gentle nature.

  “Not to be,” he replied with narrowed eyes.

  I knelt next to Elgon, who licked my cheek. With a laugh I batted his snout away roughly, earning me a devilish grin and snort.

  “He does play?”

  “Yes.” I blew on Elgon’s nose, which made him sneeze and bump me in the arm with his forehead. “See? He’s my friend.”

  He knelt next to me and reached a tentative hand toward Elgon. His offer of friendship was rewarded with a wet tongue running up his palm. Keene laughed.

  At the deep sound, Sev thrust her head inside the hut in a panic.

  “All is fine,” Keene assured her, but her dark eyes focused on me.

  She stepped inside, still holding her staff. Elgon growled. At the menacing sound, Keene fell back and hurried to get away.

  ~Elgon, no,~ I chided. ~We have to show them you’re nice so they don’t turn you into dinner or clothes. Please, no more growling, okay?~

  “Stay here,” Keen instructed. “He leaves, he would die.” Then he joined his sister outside, leaving me alone in the darkness.

  ~Elgon, whatever are we going to do?~ I sat on the mat and he lay next to me.

  Crusted mud matted his hair, and a healing scratch ran along one side of his nose. For the most part, he was the same as before. What kind of adventure had he been on, I wondered?

  ~You had to’ve had more fun than me,~ I muttered before lying next to him and wrapping my arm around his body. Elgon wasn’t Tor, but this creature was familiar and comforting. He loved me, in his own monstrous way, and he protected me. He had found me even though we’d been separated.

  When Elgon’s breath evened out into contented slumber, I slipped away and stepped outside. Sev sat on the dusty ground, watching her brother cook over a small fire pit in the dimming sunlight. The scent of meat and spices filling the air ignited my hunger.

  “Hi,” I said and sat next to the fire.

  Sev glared at me before darting her eyes back to the hut flap.

  “Elgon’s asleep,” I assured her. “He’ll stay in there, so you don’t have to be afraid.”

  “Scared? No.” Sev’s eyebrows shot up. “Not scared.”

  Keene laughed at his sister’s response.

  “A’ai thouah....” Sev stretched the word out into a warning.

  “A’ai thew-ahh,” I repeated, “what does that mean?”

  Sev folded her legs under her and poured me a glass of water from a nearby pitcher before replying. “Brother. No. More than...? Uh, Keene?”

  He didn’t look up as he shifted coals in the fire with a stick. “She means something... more than family. Brother of the soul. A word of love, not only relation.”

  “That sounds familiar,” I said. “The Sualwet, they don’t use short names. Even family uses someone’s full name. I’m Serafay. All Sualwets, even my mother, would use my whole name. To call me just ‘Sera’ is like that word—a’ai thouah. It’s a way of saying ‘you love me, you hold me close.’”

  “Yes, yes!” Keene’s eyes shone in the fire.

  A chill had crept over the village as the sun began setting, so I moved closer to the fire and Sev.

  “We do call you Sera,” she observed.

  Keene nodded. “Serafay, then?”

  I shook my head. “None of my friends call me that. They’re Erdlanders, so they do things differently. Sera is fine.”

  “Only short names for A’aihea,” Sev offered, her posture elegant even sitting cross-legged on the ground. No slump dared lie on her shoulders, but her face remained relaxed. She was pretty in an intimidating way. The lack of hair and eyebrows gave her a familiar appearance, though, and despite her dark coloring, she reminded me of my mother.

  “You don’t have a family name? My mother was Nilafay. I’m Sera, and my family name is Fay—Serafay.”

  “Named for mother?”

  “For family. I guess if I had a father, I would be named after him, but I don’t.”

  Sev raised an eyebrow in question.

  “The Erdlanders—they made me.” I shrugged, but Sev’s confused tilt of her head prompted me to continue. “My mother was kidnapped when she was about my age. The Erdlanders did that... do that. They took her and experimented on her, trying to get her pregnant. She didn’t like to talk about it. They kept her for a long time, and she escaped eventually, but she was already pregnant with me. When I was living with the Erdlanders, I found a Sualwet boy they kept in a cage, and I heard about others—”

  “A’aihea?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw any. Didn’t even know you existed until right before we left, but I’m sure they would have done the same thing to your people if they could.”

  Keene took the meat from the fire with his bare hands, pulled it into chunks, and added it to a small pot next to him. My mouth salivated with the promising aromas as he stirred the pot with a spoon before setting it in the fire. Keene prepared food so differently from how I had back at the cove. I always had to suspend the pot from something so I could retrieve it without burning myself. Not being flammable had its advantages.

  I sipped my water and watched the fire blaze around the pot. The ruby moon rose over the cliff wall beyond the village, spilling an ominous red cast on the night. A halo glowed around it, making the moon appear larger than ever, filling the nigh
t sky.

  Keene disappeared into the hut to retrieve plates and then served us from the pot.

  “Thank you.” Instead of waiting for the food to cool, I burned my tongue on the first bite. The flavor was so full, it bloomed in my mouth and filled all of my senses. “What do you do to make this so good?”

  “Keene does do.” Sev eyed her brother over her glass.

  “But what do you do?”

  Keene shrugged, not looking up at me. He seemed embarrassed by the attention.

  “I’ve never tasted anything like this. Is all A’aihea food this flavorful?”

  “Yes, much more than Erdlander chalk.” Keene wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue.

  I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight. Even Sev smiled.

  We finished our meal in relative silence. The food tasted too good for me to want to spend time conversing. Instead, I relished the flavors and tried to empty my mind of all the pain and confusion filling me.

  The sky drifted to black. At the mountain’s altitude, the stars shone with brilliance, battling the moon for dominance. The smaller moon finally rose and chased the dominating ruby satellite through the night.

  “Nothing makes sense anymore,” I mused into the darkness. I huddled close to what remained of the fire, as the A’aihea clothing didn’t cover enough to keep me warm.

  “What mean you?” Keene asked, also gazing up into the sky.

  “While I was growing up, my mother told me stories about the Erdlanders, but most of those people aren’t like the ones who hurt her or the A’aihea children. Most of them are just people, and I’d never even heard of the A’aihea—only bedtime fairy tales warning against coming to the mountains.”

  “Tales of what?”

  “Sualwet mothers would tell children stories about the Devil’s Daughters, cautionary fairy tales about the dangers of straying too far from the group. I never believed it—when I was a kid, it all seemed silly—but I never believed a lot of things until recently. One of the stories was about women who sang to Sualwet men, drawing them into the mountains to lay with them and then throw them off cliffs.”

  The siblings laughed.

  “Sualwet men? Ha! Skinny Fish boys!” Sev said.