Accepting
~xx~
The Sceptile leapt and spun in midair, smacking an airborne Swellow with his spiked tail and sending it crashing to the ground. Before it could struggle up and get away, he landed on top of it, its piercing squawks barely registering with him as he lit one of his lethal blades and ended its life.
As Zathern stepped off the Swellow, watching his prey twitch one final time and then stop moving, he could still feel a hint of that glazed, distant sensation that the inner predator gave him. He shook his head firmly, forcing it to the back of his mind. He’d never struggled to let the predator out before, but if anything it had become even easier since he’d run away onto this side – which made sense, he supposed, since hiding behind his inner predator was just another form of escape. He just hoped the predator wasn’t going to make a habit of sticking around longer than it was welcome. He didn’t want to lose himself entirely.
Feeling a little uneasy, Zathern looked away from his fallen prey to gaze over the nearby cliffs towards the ocean.
“Nice kill,” came a voice. “Mind if I share?”
Something about it was familiar to Zathern; with sudden excitement, he turned to see the one Sceptile he’d been looking for all this time. “Tharann!” he exclaimed, grinning. “Yeah, sure, go ahead.”
The older Sceptile crouched down beside the Swellow and began to help Zathern in the laborious task of pulling all the feathers off. “You’re the one I met once before when you were a Grovyle, aren’t you?” he said between mouthfuls of plumage. “Zathern, right?”
The fact that Tharann had remembered him gave Zathern a glowing feeling of pride. He nodded eagerly.
They’d finally got through to the flesh, and Tharann tore off a strip and swallowed. “I was watching your hunt,” he said. “Good skills. You’re a natural.”
Zathern’s grin grew wider at the compliment. He’d always felt he was particularly good at hunting, and although he’d never really brought it up in front of his former friends on the sunset side, something about Tharann made Zathern want to impress him. “I got the hang of it on my first try,” he said, his mouth full of Swellow.
At this, Tharann grinned as well. “Nice one,” he said. “Azma taught you?”
Of course. Zathern remembered Tharann being interested in his mother when they’d met before. He swallowed his mouthful and nodded.
Tharann snorted. It sounded like he’d only just stopped himself from laughing. Zathern frowned at him. “What’s funny about that?” he asked.
“Oh, uh,” Tharann began, “difference in upbringing on the two sides of the island, probably. Over here, we just figure out how to do it ourselves – we don’t get our parents to teach us.” He grinned apologetically. “Shouldn’t have laughed. Sorry.”
Zathern forced down the spark of indignation. Tharann might still have seen him as different, as an outsider, but at least he was apologising and trying to look past that. It was more of an effort than any of the other Sceptile had bothered to make.
They continued eating in silence for a while, uncomfortable thoughts swirling around Zathern’s head. Tharann bringing up his mother had made him think about her again, reminded him that she was still there, on the sunset side, still going to be killed someday. His jaws clenched harder on the Swellow meat as he tore more forcefully at its carcass. He wished he could just stop feeling like this every time he remembered her.
“She lied to me, you know,” he told Tharann suddenly as he finished a mouthful, still staring down at the Swellow. “My mother.”
Tharann stopped eating and looked at him, interested.
“She never told me that my father was a Sceptile,” Zathern went on, trying to make himself feel angry, but the closest thing he could hear in his voice was merely disappointment. “She told me that I’d evolve into one – it’s not like she could have hidden that – but she never properly explained why that was. And… I mean, if she really did care about me, why would she hide who my father is? Why would she lie to her son?” He sighed and shook his head. “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing she’s going to be killed eventually.”
Tharann nodded. “That’s the trouble with that lot, with the Archopy,” he said, tearing off another piece of flesh and swallowing it before he continued. “Hypocrites. They were all right when there was more of them, looking down on us because we looked different and we couldn’t fly. But now that we’re winning, can they take it as well as dish it out? Doesn’t look like it.”
Zathern stopped in the middle of taking another bite; this was news to him. “There used to be more Archopy than Sceptile?”
“Oh, yeah,” Tharann said. “Long time ago. Before living memory, but talk gets passed down. But then, well – with the way the breeding works, it’s not hard to see how we’d overtake them, back when the two species were apparently mixed together all over the island.” He paused. “Then more recently there’s been… something else cutting down their numbers.”
Zathern nodded; Tharann must have meant Them. But if the numbers of Archopy had been falling anyway, didn’t that make what They were doing slightly less wrong? Just slightly? Zathern almost shuddered to think that he might be beginning to agree with Them, but then again… since one lone Sceptile could hardly stop Them, did it really matter what he made himself think in order to keep the inevitable deaths of his old friends from hurting? It wasn’t as if he was going to hurt anyone else just by thinking that way.
Zathern shook himself, trying to get those thoughts out of his mind. It was better to simply not dwell on things at all – and he’d hopefully find that easier now that he’d met someone on this side who actually wanted to know him. And if he could just find his father as well…
“Finding him is harder than I thought, you know,” he said to Tharann. “My father, I mean.” Zathern didn’t quite know why he was telling him; he guessed it was just that Tharann felt like the only person on this side he could actually talk to. “I’ve tried, but… it’s not as if I can just go up to every male and ask, ‘Hey, I don’t suppose you happen to have mated with an Archopy named Azma at some point, have you?’” He shook his head. “It just… wouldn’t work.”
Tharann chuckled. “I doubt you’ll ever find him,” he said. “Admitting to mating with an Archopy? No-one’s going to do that, even if it’s true. You’re probably best off just giving up.”
Zathern had been starting to think that himself, but that would never change the fact that he still wanted to know who his father was.
“What’s so bad about having mated with an Archopy, anyway?” he asked.
Tharann gave a snort of laughter. “Oh, come off it!” he said incredulously. “They’re just… they’re so different. And their wings, and… they’re not like us at all. Added to which they’re all going to die, of course, so that just makes it kind of creepy, don’t you think? Whoever screwed your mother was probably kicking himself the moment he’d done it.”
Zathern stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded, but then he made himself nod. He didn’t want to start a disagreement with Tharann when he’d only just met him again, when this was his once chance of getting a proper friend over here. The other Sceptile’s opinion on mating with an Archopy may have seemed odd to him, but in the end, it didn’t matter, so long as he’d found someone to talk to.
Tharann looked down at the Swellow again; they’d just about finished it by now. He stood up.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you to meet some friends of mine.”
- - -
~xxi~
Tharann had a lot more friends than Zathern had anticipated. The older Sceptile had taken him to a part of the sunrise side he’d never really been to before and introduced him to Sceptile after Sceptile, so many that Zathern didn’t think he’d be able to remember all their names. Nonetheless, they’d each been welcoming and accepting in their own way, clearly used to seeing new faces. It made Zathern glad to have run into Tharann again – perhaps he’d finally found a new start on this side of the island.
“So,” said a large, authoritative male whom Tharann had introduced as Skorrhen. “Zathern, is it? Good to see you at last. Tharann’s told me a lot about you.”
“He has?” Zathern asked, grinning; did Tharann really think that much of him? “What sort of things?”
“Oh, about your mother, you know,” Skorrhen said casually. “Good for you, getting away from those unfortunate origins and moving over here where you belong.”
Zathern’s grin froze in place a little. What was it with Tharann and his friends having some kind of problem with his mother being an Archopy?
But it didn’t matter anymore, he told himself, not now that he had a fresh start and could move on from her – he couldn’t let that slip away because he was dwelling on the past. He nodded at Skorrhen. “Yeah. It feels good to be away from it all.”
“I’m sure it does,” the larger Sceptile agreed. “Can’t imagine what it must have been like living over there.”
“Mmm,” said Zathern vaguely. He didn’t want to imagine what it would have been like if he’d stayed there, either.
“Don’t worry,” Skorrhen said, patting him on the back and smiling. “You’re one of us now.”
One of us. Zathern felt a warm glow spread through him. It felt good to be part of something again.
Skorrhen had already moved away to talk in hushed tones with Tharann, so Zathern looked around the group of gathered Sceptile to find someone else to get to know. Most of the others looked quite a bit older than him too – he didn’t know if he’d be able to find much to talk about with any of them. But off to the side, looking a little awkward and out of place, was a female who seemed around his age. She was one of only a few females there.
As she caught him looking in her direction, she grinned and walked over to him. “Hey,” she said. “So you’re the new new guy.”
“New… new?” Zathern asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I used to be the new guy before you turned up. So now it’s you.”
“I guess,” Zathern muttered. He tried to recall what Tharann had introduced her as; being one of the few female names, hers wasn’t lost among the horde of new names to remember. “Karsa, wasn’t it?”
She nodded.
Zathern looked around at the rest of the group, realising that they must take in ‘new guys’ fairly often – maybe this was the place where all Sceptile who had nowhere else to go ended up. “How did you get here then?” he asked Karsa. “Did Tharann bring you too?”
“Skorrhen, actually,” she said. “He’s very persuasive. I couldn’t resist.”
Zathern glanced over to the big Sceptile, still in conversation with Tharann. He couldn’t deny that Skorrhen had managed to make him feel at home very quickly.
“I have to admit,” Zathern said, turning back to Karsa, “I’ve never been part of a group this big before.” Of course he hadn’t; most people on the sunset side didn’t forge a lot of friendships because they didn’t want a lot of broken hearts. It’d been foolish of him to get to know practically everyone his age over there when every single one of them was going to be killed.
He shook those thoughts out of his mind. After all, he had the chance to find out what such large groups of friends were like now, without any downsides. “What do you lot spend your time doing, anyway?” he asked.
Karsa hesitated briefly before answering. “Well, we battle a lot,” she said. “Against each other, to train and get stronger. And we…” She paused again, her gaze flickering across to Tharann for the tiniest moment before looking back at him. “We hunt. It’s easier in larger groups, and it…” She glanced at her feet awkwardly. “Well, it makes me feel like a
part of something, you know? Important.”
Zathern nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. He’d always liked feeling like he was worth something.
“I felt like that once before,” he said, not sure why he was telling Karsa this. “I had a friend, back when I lived on the sunset side. She’d lost her parents, and I… I think I made her life worth living again. It felt really good to be there for her.” He sighed in frustration, trying to force down that ache of loss that was creeping back to him. “But she’s going to die, obviously, so… I couldn’t…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “And she practically hated me as soon as I evolved into a Sceptile, anyway, so I had to leave.”
That wasn’t technically true, he knew. But pretending it was made it easier.
Karsa nodded sympathetically. “That’s the trouble with the… with the winged lot,” she said. “Always looking down on us because they think we look strange and we can’t fly. They have no right to do that.” Her face was drawn into anger, something about the way she said the words sounding like she’d heard and said them many times before. “Still,” she muttered, her mouth curling into a grin. “We show them.”
Zathern sensed that the “we” was more specific than just the species of Sceptile in general. A slight feeling of unease slid over him. “Show them how?”
Karsa suddenly looked up, eyes wide as if she’d just realised he was there. “Oh, just in the hunts,” she said quickly. Her gaze flickered ever so fleetingly towards Tharann again. “We sometimes hunt on the sunset side, you know, steal some of their prey and such. The hunting’s much better on that side of the island – why should they get it all?”
Zathern was a little sceptical, but then he remembered Verdan and some of the other Sceptile who’d occasionally been known to wander harmlessly around over on the sunset side – they’d said the hunting was better there too, hadn’t they?
Something still didn’t quite feel right, but Zathern knew it would be easier if he didn’t think too hard about it, so he didn’t.
“These hunts of yours,” he said. “I don’t suppose I could come on one sometime?”
“Oh, pretty soon, I expect. Tharann’s probably deciding exactly when with Skorrhen right now,” she said, glancing over to the two older Sceptile. “He’s really fond of you, you know.” Her eyes met Zathern’s again, and she gave him a small smile.
He nodded vaguely. “Yeah, I know,” he said, still proud that Tharann thought so much of him. “I think I’ll go ask him about it now. It was nice talking to you, Karsa.”
“See you, Zath,” she said, grinning and watching him go as he moved away to talk to Tharann.
- - -
~xxii~
Gliding above the canopies with the sun warming the backs of her wings, Forsira had her sights fixed on one particular Archopy she could see in the distance. Among all the other Archopy visible in the skies right now, this one was unique, flying around in mad, twisting, looping paths that defied all logic; he looked by rights like he should have fallen out of the sky at least three times by now. He was clearly having a whale of a time. Even though he was far too far away for her to make out his face, there was only one Archopy this could have been.
Forsira had been searching all over the sunset side in everywhere that she could think of as a hiding place for days on end with no sign of him until now. Tefiren was without a doubt the most elusive Archopy on the island.
That had only made Forsira all the more determined to find him.
As Tefiren folded his wings and dropped like a stone through the canopy, Forsira put on a burst of speed to head towards where he’d been, keeping her sights locked on the gap in the trees that he’d vanished through. Her heart rose in anticipation as she approached, pushing aside the doubts she had and reminding her that, no matter what might go wrong, this was the one real chance she had of a life worth living again.
At last she reached where she’d been headed, gliding down through the gap in the trees and flapping her wings carefully to slow her descent. She landed, looking around at the trees: Tefiren was nowhere to be seen. Of course he wasn’t. Forsira couldn’t imagine that he’d stay put for long while out in the open. Finding him was still going to be a challenge, but at least this gave her somewhere to start from.
Glancing around the forest again, she felt a little less sure of herself. Tefiren could have gone off almost anywhere in the time it had taken her to reach here.
Forsira was distracted from further doubts as the long, stripy shape of a Linoone shot past her through the undergrowth. Two facts about Linoone occurred to her as she watched it zoom away into the distance: they always ran in straight lines, and they lived in burrows.
Smiling to herself, she turned in the direction the Linoone had come from. It was as good a direction to start searching in as any.
It wasn’t too long before she came upon what did indeed look like a burrow – but this one had a much wider, messier entrance than most, almost as if something larger than a Linoone had scratched away at it to make space for itself. This had to be it.
Forsira paused for a moment in front of the burrow. She could barely believe that she’d found him, that this uncatchable Archopy was right there, in a hole merely a wingspan away from her, and as far as she could tell, he hadn’t even noticed her approach.
It fleetingly crossed her mind that it could just as easily have been one of Them standing here instead of her, but she shook the thought away before it could lodge anywhere and crawled forward into the hole.
Tefiren looked at her from the depths of the burrow as she entered, a mixture of curiosity and alarm in his eyes that was quickly replaced by sudden glee.
“Them again?” he asked, his voice filled with that enthusiasm she remembered so well from last time they’d met.
Forsira frowned and shook her head slowly. Tefiren’s excitement fell away almost as abruptly as it had arrived.
“Oh.” He regarded her in the dim light that made its way in from the outside, looking thoroughly puzzled. “Then what are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Forsira said, already beginning to feel a little uneasy.
“You were looking…” Something seemed to occur to Tefiren. “And you
found me. That’s not supposed to happen. How did you find me?”
“I…” Forsira almost trailed off, but in the dim light Tefiren’s gaze looked oddly urgent, as if the answer was incredibly important. “I saw you flying, then I followed a Linoone.” She tilted her head in an unspoken question of why it mattered so much.
Tefiren ignored it, nodding to himself. “Flying. Linoone. Right.” Eventually he looked back up at her, something like appreciation in his eyes. “You’re good. It
is you from before, isn’t it?”
Forsira nodded.
He gave a mystified chuckle, as if she were more of a fascinating puzzle than he was. “So why
did you go looking for me?”
“Because I want to live like you,” she told him. “Like I said before. I still do.”
“And I said no.”
“But that hasn’t changed how I feel!” Forsira insisted, getting more riled up and passionate. “I can’t just go back to living like the rest of the Archopy do, just sitting around waiting to be killed. Not now I’ve seen how you do it.”
“Well, then, don’t!” Tefiren said as if it was that simple. “Go off and live like this on your own! But you can’t stay with me.”
“Why not?”
“I told you before!” He was beginning to sound exasperated. “Isn’t it obvious? It’s too risky. Two Archopy together are twice as likely to be caught as one.”
“Two Archopy are twice as likely to see Them coming, too,” Forsira countered, refusing to let herself give up so easily.
Tefiren gave a laugh. “I’m good enough at that on my own,” he said, grinning a wide grin.
Forsira found herself agreeing almost automatically; of course Tefiren would be the best at seeing Them coming in time – but then…
She lowered her voice. “What if I were one of Them, in here right now?” she asked. “You didn’t see me coming. How would you have escaped?”
Tefiren stared at her with something implacable in his gaze for a moment, then the grin was suddenly back in full force, his eyes gleaming in the dim light as he laughed again. “Maybe you’re not as good as I thought. You think I’d hide in a dead end and not have a backup plan?” Wriggling around to face the wall behind him, he slashed away at it, his claws moving surprisingly fast. Within moments, he’d excavated a hollow in the wall as large as himself, which he slunk back into, putting some distance between himself and Forsira before he looked back at her.
“Digging’s not that hard to figure out how to do,” he said slyly. “But I bet They’re not as practiced at it as I am.”
Forsira stared, wondering why she’d ever underestimated him. Of course he had a backup plan.
“Bet you’re not as good at it, either,” Tefiren added.
His tone was mischievous, but there was an unspoken implication in his words. “So why don’t you just dig away from me right now?” she asked quietly.
Tefiren frowned for a moment. “Because you’re not trying to kill me,” he said.
Forsira shook her head, brushing aside his joking. “Really, though?”
They held each other’s steadfast gazes across the gloom for a moment. Then Tefiren blinked and glanced away.
“Look… whoever you are,” he said. “I’m flattered that you think my life is so great, but I don’t get what your problem is. If you like what I do, you can go off and live like this on your own, surely?” He looked back at her. “It’s not that hard.”
Something in that last comment made Forsira crack, a burst of humourless laughter exploding out of her before she could stop herself. “You have no idea!” she managed to splutter, staring at him with wide eyes. “‘Not that hard’? Have you
seen yourself?”
In the gloom, she caught a flash of something in his expression, like he’d just been stung. She calmed herself down and fixed him with an imploring gaze.
“Really, Tefiren. You’re amazing. No other Archopy on the island could live like you do. I wouldn’t last a day out there without your help. Please. I can’t just go back to my old life. I need you.”
Whatever had been in Tefiren’s eyes before had faded entirely; he was staring at her now with something close to wonder, yet at the same time shaking his head before she’d even finished. “No,” he said fervently. “No, if I hang around with someone too many times, sooner or later They’ll find a way to exploit that against me. There’s a reason I never do the same thing twice. It’s too
risky.”
“But it’s not!” Forsira insisted, her heart sinking as she felt her chance slipping away from her. “Not for you, it wouldn’t be. You like being unpredictable; you must adapt to new things all the time – like, there aren’t any more thunderstorms to hide in, are there?” She kept up the urgent, almost desperate stare. “I know you’d be able to adapt to having me around, too. It wouldn’t be a problem. If there’s any Archopy least likely to be killed by Them, it’s you – with or without someone else there. Please, Tefiren.”
There was a long, long moment in which Tefiren wouldn’t quite meet her eye, looking almost uncomfortable, unsure of himself. Then it passed, as all at once he filled with energy, flashing her a grin that seemed to light up the whole burrow. “Fine, then, if you insist. You’re in.” His eyes twinkled. “Catch me if you can.”
Before Forsira could react, he’d shoved her playfully against the side wall, giving himself enough space to scramble past her and into the open light. With an indignant yelp, Forsira fumbled to get her feet beneath her and follow him out, part of her irrationally worried he was just trying to run away from her again. But she knew that wouldn’t have been the case. The way he’d smiled at her just now – he meant it, he must have done.
Her heart rose in her chest as she re-emerged into the forest and saw Tefiren already running ahead of her, spreading his wings for a takeoff. She ran faster, beating her own wings, rising into the air only moments after him, and as the usual euphoria of flight swept through her, some simple joy in the fact that she was not just flying but flying with Tefiren amplified it into an unrestrained whoop of glee.
Tefiren faltered in his flight and shot a glance at her behind him. As they rose through the canopies, he circled around to give her a pointed look.
“Really?” he said, almost admonishingly. “I know flying’s fun and all, but you don’t just make that much noise whenever you like. You just told every one of Them within earshot exactly where you are. If you want to get yourself killed before we’ve even got started, be my guest, but…”
Forsira knew that any of Them being nearby was unlikely – They didn’t kill
that often – but she still felt sheepish. “Sorry.”
Up in the open sky now, Tefiren wheeled around again, this time grinning at her. “Besides,” he added. “Taking off’s always most fun when you’re leaving Them on the ground behind you. Save the whooping for then, okay?”
She couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Okay.”
“So,” he said as they circled each other. The two of them weren’t heading anywhere in particular; apparently he’d just wanted her in the air. “If you’re really going to be sticking around, you need to be able to –”
“Wait,” she interjected. “If I’m going to be sticking around, don’t
you need to know my name?”
Tefiren’s eyes widened for a moment, before he chuckled. “Well, I
could just go on thinking of you as ‘her’ for the rest of time, but you have a point. Your name first, then?”
“Forsira.”
He grinned. “Right then, Forse…”
She felt her insides do a sudden, painful jerk. “Don’t call me that,” she murmured. “Please.”
Tefiren frowned at her briefly but didn’t ask. “Fine then,” he said. “Sira.”
She gave him a look.
“What?” he said, mock-baffled. “‘Forsira’s such a mouthful – I have to shorten it to
something.”
Zathern had said the same about her name when they’d first met. Now that she thought about it, Tefiren wasn’t all too unlike her old friend. She wasn’t sure whether she felt right about finding a new Zathern for herself – but then she shook those doubts away. Tefiren was his own person, not a replacement for Zathern. She hadn’t let him call her Forse.
“My name’s not
that long,” she muttered indignantly. “Yours isn’t any shorter.” She leaned over and poked him playfully with the tip of her outermost wing leaf. “Tefi.”
He stared at her for a moment, but then shook his head, making his long crest leaves rustle. “Anyway, Sira,” he said. “If you’re going to be sticking around, you’ll need to know my favourite trick. You saw me do it on Them last time.”
Had she? She couldn’t think which particular trick he was talking about. Nearly
everything he’d done last time had amazed her.
Tefiren grinned at her and made a rapid swiping motion with his wings in front of him. Forsira remembered seeing that before, but she still had no idea what he’d actually
done – apart from the topmost leaves of a tree below him rustling slightly, nothing seemed to have happened.
“What?” she said vaguely.
His grin grew wider as he circled around to come nearer. “Look again,” he said. “More closely.” This time, as Forsira peered carefully at the swiping of his wings, she thought she saw the air shimmer as something barely visible shot away from him – like a gust of air, only more concentrated. Sharper.
“See?” he asked, and she nodded. “I call them air blades. Works a treat on Them – hits from a distance and seems to be especially painful for a Sceptile.”
Forsira smiled to herself. “Have you ever tried them on anything else?”
“No,” he said, like the thought of him doing so was absurd. “But they work well on Them. That’s what counts.”
“But how did you learn to do it?” Forsira asked. Most new abilities she learnt just came on their own eventually, but she’d never known herself to be able to do anything like that.
“How? I knew I wanted something ranged that worked against Them, so I just… figured it out.” He sounded like he’d found that an odd question. “But I bet any Archopy can learn to do it. I mean, all Archopy have sharp leaves and can fly, can’t they?” He banked to curve around in front of her, grinning at her sideways. “Go on. Give it a go.”
Forsira looked at her wing leaves. She hadn’t a clue how she was supposed to just suddenly produce sharpened air out of them. “What? But…”
“Just try it!” Tefiren insisted.
Feeling incredibly foolish, Forsira raised her wings up a little and then flailed them in front of her. Nothing happened apart from her completely messing up her flight balance, and she tumbled clumsily through the air for a panicked moment before she managed to straighten herself out.
Tefiren was above her, chuckling. She glared up at him.
“You did that so you could laugh at me, didn’t you?”
“Maybe I did,” he admitted, descending to her level. “You’re probably best getting the hang of it on the ground first before you try it in flight.” He grinned infuriatingly at her. “Should have worked that out earlier, shouldn’t I?”
Smiling at his cheek, Forsira followed her new friend as he dropped down to land among the forest below.
- - -
~xxiii~
They spent the day practicing Forsira’s air blades safely on solid ground. It took a while for her to get it – part of it was due to Tefiren’s tendency to freeze and glance around the forest at the slightest noise, which, while she understood his insistence that it was necessary if he wanted to be sure of avoiding Them, kept throwing off her concentration. Apart from that, though, Tefiren just wasn’t the best of teachers, seemingly struggling to put himself in her skin in order to explain exactly what she needed to do; it almost felt like she was figuring it out on her own. But in the end, she began to get the hang of it. By the time the sun was setting far away through the trees, she could consistently produce a decent blade of air by swiping her wings just right.
Tefiren had insisted on choosing the best tree to sleep in, one which gave them as much cover as possible, since they hadn’t had time to find another proper hiding place like the Linoone burrow. Perched next to Tefiren in one of the densest boughs she’d ever seen, Forsira watched the last of the light fade away beneath the horizon through the mass of branches. As she began to drift off to sleep, she wondered how many Archopy had been watching the sunset back in Azma’s clearing, whether any of them would never see it rise again the next day.
The next thing she knew, she was suddenly awake in the darkness, something having jolted her out of her sleep – some kind of rustling noise, close by. Instantly alert, she glanced around the rest of the tree and saw that Tefiren wasn’t there.
Forsira’s heart lurched as she looked around frantically for him. Had he been taken by one of Them? But no – if he’d spotted Them coming, surely he’d have woken her, otherwise she’d be dead by now as he fled. Calming herself with the conviction that if anyone was least likely to have been suddenly killed by Them, it was Tefiren, she dropped out of the tree to get a better look around where there weren’t dense branches obscuring her view.
Through the darkness she could just about make out an Archopy off in the distance, gliding away from the tree, close enough to the ground that he’d probably only just taken off.
The sight of it stabbed painfully inside Forsira. Tefiren was running away. He hadn’t really meant it about letting her stay with him; he’d just been waiting for his opportunity to up and leave when she wouldn’t notice. Of course he didn’t care about being with her.
But she couldn’t just let him go like that. He was too far away by now for her to have any hope of catching up with him, but if she could just…
She focused, remembering all her practice from earlier, trying to imagine sharpness in her front-most wing leaves. Aiming carefully, she slashed at the space in front of her, feeling that satisfying swish of a blade of air shooting its way out of her wings.
The fleeing Archopy up ahead jerked and cried out in pain before faltering in his still-low flight and crashing to the ground.
Forsira suddenly felt incredibly guilty. She hadn’t meant to hurt Tefiren; she’d just been in too much of a hurry to stop him leaving to think…
Tefiren was gritting his teeth and pushing himself up off the ground as she rushed across to him. He glanced at her over his shoulder.
“Looks like it works well on Archopy too,” he said, managing a smile.
“Are you okay?” Forsira asked worriedly as he stood up. “I didn’t mean to…”
“I’m fine,” Tefiren said, shaking his leaves down and grinning. “Takes more than one air blade to stop Them in their tracks; it’s not going to stop me, either.”
There was silence as the two of them glanced awkwardly at each other, the unspoken implication of what exactly she’d tried to stop him doing hanging in the air.
“You were running away,” Forsira said at last.
“Of course I wasn’t,” came the immediate reply.
“Even after you said I could stay with you,” she went on.
“No, really!” Tefiren insisted, a hint of franticness in his eyes. “I wasn’t running away! I was testing you.”
“What?”
“To see if you could hear me leaving even in your sleep, to see if you could hit me with an air blade from that distance.” His face lit up. “Congrats, Sira! You did well.”
“You really weren’t running away?” Forsira asked.
“Nope. ‘Course not. I just wanted to see if you were a light sleeper.” They began to creep back towards the tree they’d been sleeping in, Tefiren’s eyes darting constantly around the darkened forest as he kept low. “Second most important thing after the air blades – actually, probably the first, but I couldn’t exactly teach it during the day – is to be a light sleeper.”
“Of course I’m a light sleeper,” she said. “Every Archopy needs to be a light sleeper if they want to live.”
“Well, exactly! And you’re definitely a very light one, so be proud, Sira.”
Forsira couldn’t help but chuckle.
“I bet I’m lighter than you, though,” Tefiren added cheekily.
She grinned and nudged him. “No chance, Tefi.”
Of course Tefiren hadn’t been running away from her. What reason would he have had?
They came to a stop at the bottom of the tree. Tefiren was peering up into its branches thoughtfully.
“You know, I don’t actually feel like going back to sleep,” he said after a pause. “I’m not all that tired. What about you?”
Forsira had been feeling surprisingly alert despite it being night time, but she could tell it was beginning to wear off. “A little bit,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind going back to…”
She stopped as Tefiren suddenly froze, tense, staring off into the distance with a mixture of anxiety and excitement in his eyes. She assumed it was just another one of his false alarms, but then he shot upwards and vanished into the tree without a word.
Her heart suddenly beating uncomfortably quickly, Forsira dashed up there after him.
She knew better than to ask him what he’d sensed; she knew better than to so much as move, crouched among the branches, her leaves spread out as much as she could in the hope she’d blend in with the tree around her in the darkness. Tefiren was right next to her, not even breathing, his eyes fixed intensely on something that was approaching across the forest floor.
The night was suddenly lit up a blazing green as four Sceptile shot past directly below the tree, filled with deadly speed and purpose, making Forsira’s heart lurch in terror. In the corner of her eye, Tefiren’s gaze never left Them as They rushed by. The edges of his mouth almost seemed to be curling up into a smile. How did he
do that? She wished she could be smiling at a time like this.
As soon as the Sceptile were well and truly out of sight and earshot, Tefiren suddenly burst out in loud, barking laughter.
“They didn’t even
see us!” he chortled, looking at Forsira and grinning all over his face. “Did you see that? Whoosh, right past the tree, not even
noticing!” He managed to breathe a bit as his laughter died down. “Oh, I thought I might have to step up my game, what with you finding me and all, but perhaps I shouldn’t be worrying so much.” He giggled again. “They make me laugh sometimes.”
A tiny part of Forsira wanted to point out that it really was rather difficult to see them in the tree while rushing past at blinding speeds, and that They would probably have preferred an oblivious, sleeping target, even if They
had noticed the two of them leap up there. But the rest of her didn’t think it mattered – what mattered was that they were still alive, and above it all she couldn’t help but marvel at Tefiren’s carefree attitude, wishing she could treat everything that lightly too. He was unbelievable.
“So, then,” he said, still grinning at her. “Still feeling a little bit tired?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“Right then. Let’s go and do something.” Tefiren glanced around and up at the night sky. “Uh, I’ve got nothing, so… whatever you want to do? Not talking, though,” he added quickly. “Talking’s boring. Something fun.”
Apart from battling, which would be tricky at night time and risk gaining Their attention, there was one other thing Forsira could think of that was fun. “Flying?”
Tefiren nodded enthusiastically. “Flying sounds good to me.” He made to leap out of the tree into a glide, but then stopped and looked back at her. “And take off quietly this time, okay?”
She smiled sheepishly and nodded. Satisfied, Tefiren threw himself from the tree, spreading his wings and beating them powerfully to send him upwards straight away. Forsira followed his lead, flying higher with him, and the two of them rose blindly through the branches until they broke the canopy, soaring out into the endless night sky.
Forsira had never been flying at night before. It was a surreal experience, as though she was in the middle of nothing – nothing below her, nothing around her and only the stars above her as she wheeled through the air, freer than ever, following Tefiren’s lead as he flew in twisted, wild paths underneath the starlight.
Despite the fun she was having, beneath it all Forsira felt a pang of guilt for the unknown Archopy whose life she knew was ending tonight.
- - -
~xxiv~
The night sky overhead was dark enough that Zathern was having a hard time seeing the three Sceptile in front of him as he followed them up towards the ridge. It had only been a few days since he’d met Tharann and his group of friends, but here he was, already coming on one of their hunts. He felt privileged – apparently it usually took a new guy a lot longer to get to join one for the first time.
Skorrhen, Tharann, Karsa and himself came to a stop as they reached the ridge, pausing to survey what little of the sunset side they could see through the night. Zathern caught Karsa’s eye next to him; beneath the excitement and confidence she exuded, something about her almost looked nervous.
“Why are we doing this at night?” he asked in a whispered voice. “We’re day predators. We’re not made for darkness.”
“Neither are our prey,” Karsa whispered back, eyeing the older two Sceptile warily, but they didn’t seem to be paying any notice. “It works better this way. Besides, it’s Skorrhen’s decision.”
“Come on,” came Skorrhen’s voice as the big Sceptile glanced back at the rest of them. “This way.”
It was hard to tell in the dim light from the stars, but it didn’t really seem like he and Tharann were excited about this hunt at all. In the darkness, they merely looked intimidating.
Zathern shook those thoughts out of his mind and hurried to stay level with Karsa as she followed the two larger Sceptile through the forest. She wasn’t looking at him, staring straight ahead in a fixed, intent sort of way as she ran. After a moment, she blinked, shook her head and turned to him. “Hey,” she hissed. “It’s easier if you let out the monster inside now rather than later.”
“What?” Her words unnerved him for a moment before he realised that she must have meant the inner predator. “Oh, that. But… there aren’t any prey yet.”
“I know!” Karsa glanced at Skorrhen and Tharann up ahead, both darting around, scanning the trees, their eyes utterly cold and emotionless even though they clearly didn’t have a target. “It’s better this way. Trust me.” With that, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and when they opened again it wasn’t really Karsa anymore. The female Sceptile stared at him for a moment before jumping ahead to join the two others.
Despite his growing unease about this whole thing, Zathern trusted Karsa – at least, he wanted to trust her. So he did as she said and reached for the predator inside. It didn’t take him long. While he imagined most people would have struggled to do it without prey around, Zathern had never had much trouble pushing his real self into a corner at the back of his mind, and recently it had been easier than ever to let the predator take over.
He raced up to join the others. They’d set off after something, travelling swiftly through the forest, clearly having sensed prey somewhere ahead. The only thing he himself could sense from being here was memories of his childhood and people he’d once known – but he didn’t care about that any more. That was over, and he had other things to do right now. The only thing he was here for was the prey.
He caught a flashed glimpse of something darting into a tree up ahead – it was hard to make it out in the darkness – but whatever it was, they paid it no attention, shooting straight past as they lit their blades, the weapons extending into deadly sharpness. It felt good, hunting as part of a group, all four of them moving as one, feeling the adrenaline and focus together.
Silently, they raced up to the base of another tree, and there they paused for an infinitely long moment as three of the Sceptile gazed up into the branches at their sleeping, oblivious prey above.
The fourth Sceptile recoiled, the inner predator forced to the back of his mind as the real Zathern clawed his way forward in horror.
Archopy.
Their prey was an Archopy.
Before Zathern could say or do anything, Skorrhen had already leapt up, blades still lit, slashing at his target in the branches. With a spray of blood and a screech of pain and terror, the Archopy leapt blindly out of the tree, colliding with Zathern in its desperation to get away.
He just stood there numbly, frozen, letting it scramble past him – but in a flash of bright green, Tharann darted around him frighteningly fast, leaping onto the Archopy and digging his claws into its back to bring it down. The female Sceptile that should have been Karsa joined him in subduing the Archopy’s wild struggles and pinning it to the ground, a hiss of satisfaction escaping beneath her cold predator’s air.
As Zathern watched, still unable to get himself to do anything, Skorrhen walked calmly around to the front of the wretched person they held trapped.
“Please,” she begged – her voice, broken and sobbing, was clearly female. Zathern felt a horrible pang as thoughts of his mother and Forsira sprung up unbidden, and he desperately shoved them further to the back of his mind than he’d ever managed to do before. This Archopy sounded different. She wasn’t either of them. And so… and so she didn’t matter?
“Please, let me go…”
She sounded terrified. She was going to die. Why wasn’t he doing anything?
Zathern could see some kind of gleam in Tharann’s eyes as he held his victim down. It must have been the reflection from the light of Skorrhen’s blades – it had to be – because it almost seemed that Tharann’s inner predator was not in control at all right now, and yet that he was somehow enjoying this.
Shuddering, Zathern closed his eyes and looked away as Skorrhen delivered the killing blow and another Archopy’s life was ended.
- - -
~xxv~
“We’re leaving now? After only one?”
“Yes, Tharann, we are. Your little, ah,
new recruit has seen enough. One more tonight and we might not be able to keep him. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
There was a grumble from Tharann.
“I don’t know why you were so insistent to bring him on a hunt so early,” Skorrhen went on. “It was too risky. We might have lost him already.”
“We won’t,” Tharann snarled. “I’ll make sure of it.”
The words made their way to Zathern’s ears, but his mind wasn’t in any state to process what they meant. Nothing really registered at all. He was vaguely aware of Karsa, herself again, glancing worriedly at him every now and then in the edge of his vision, but he didn’t react. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to have seen what he’d just seen. He didn’t want to be a part of any of it.
Yet still he followed the three murderers through the darkness towards the sunrise side and what was meant to be his home. He didn’t have anywhere else to go.
As soon as they were well and truly over the ridge, with everything that he’d just witnessed far behind him, Zathern stopped running and sat heavily on the ground. He was shaking. The beginnings of dawn were starting to show through the trees; it always got lighter over here earlier than it had on the sunset side.
After a brief whispered exchange with Skorrhen, Tharann walked up to him awkwardly.
Zathern didn’t even look at him. “You’re Them,” he said hollowly. “All of you.”
“Well, if you want to put it the way the winged freaks do…” Tharann began.
“It doesn’t matter how I put it,” Zathern spat, suddenly gripped by the anger and disgust that had been searching for a way out ever since he’d witnessed the Archopy’s murder. He rose up from the ground, his glare burning into Tharann. “It doesn’t change the fact that you spend your time murdering Archopy. That’s what your ‘hunts’ are, isn’t it? That’s what you do.”
Tharann sighed, looking little more than bored by the whole thing. “Well, yes. And it’s also what you came along and joined in with, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t join in,” Zathern said shakily, staring back down at the ground. “If I’d known, I’d never have come.”
“You almost joined in though, didn’t you, Zathern? That, ah, ‘inner predator’ of yours was doing a great job up until the last moment.” Tharann smiled thinly. “I did say you were a natural.”
Zathern recoiled from him, suddenly realising. “That’s why you brought me here? Because you thought I’d be a
good hunter?”
“You
are a good hunter, believe me,” Tharann said. “You just need to get over the jitters. And the way you talked about your mother, and the fact that you left the sunset side and came over here… you clearly don’t give a damn about the winged freaks. I don’t know what your problem was, really.”
Zathern shook his head in appalled disbelief. “I don’t… you can’t… you just
recruited me?” He steeled himself and said more firmly, “You’re wrong. I
do care about the Archopy.”
Tharann snorted. “Really? Then why aren’t you still over that side of the island, trying to help them? Why were you over here looking for your father when your mother’s still there if you wanted her?” He took a step closer. “Why didn’t you stop us killing that one just now? Face it, Zathern. You’re just like the rest of us.”
Zathern backed away, lost for words. He hadn’t tried to do anything for the Archopy at all. They were dying; someone should be helping them – and yet there he was, fleeing over to the other side of the island and trying to convince himself it wasn’t his problem. And he knew that if he was given the choice again, he’d still choose to run away. What if Tharann was right about him?
No. Even if he didn’t care – and he
did, he told himself fervently – it didn’t suddenly make him into one of Them.
“You’re wrong,” Zathern said again, putting as much confidence as he could into his voice. It came out shaking. “I don’t want this. I never did. Why didn’t you tell me about this beforehand?” He suddenly looked over to Karsa, who’d been standing awkwardly on the outskirts, listening to the whole thing. “Karsa, you told me about the hunts. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
Karsa’s gaze flickered towards Tharann for a moment before she stared guiltily down at her feet. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “Tharann really wanted to recruit you, and he said we shouldn’t make it obvious what we did straight away or you’d never want to stay.”
“I’m glad he got something about me right,” Zathern hissed resentfully. “Guess what, Tharann? I still don’t want to stay.” He turned to leave.
“Really?” came Tharann’s voice, silky and smug, stopping him in his tracks. “I noticed something else about you, Zathern. You’ve got nowhere else to go. Sure, you could go back to live with a bunch of winged freaks who are going to die – would you like that? Or you could hang around on your own on this side where no-one else cares about you. We’re the only people you’ve got.”
The words hit Zathern hard. As much as he hated to admit it, Tharann and the others really were the only people who seemed to remotely care about him anymore. This was the only semblance of a new start he’d been able to find – and he
needed a new start. There wasn’t anywhere else.
Unless…
“No,” he said. “You’re not. Not if I can find my father.”
Tharann snorted. It sounded like he was trying to hold in a huge gale of laughter. Zathern turned back to him in confusion; he was shaking all over with repressed mirth.
“I really, really wouldn’t bother if I were you,” he said eventually between breaths, his voice sounding unnervingly amused. “Your father’s standing right where I am.”
Zathern’s eyes widened. It took him a moment to realise what Tharann meant.
“You?”
It seemed bizarre at first, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. That was why Tharann had been so friendly to him, why he’d been so eager to recruit him. His father. He’d been right there all along.
And that automatically fixed everything?
“So on top of everything else,” Zathern growled under his breath, “you lied to me about that?”
“Nope,” Tharann said. “I never said I wasn’t your father. For that matter, I never said we didn’t kill winged freaks in our spare time. I never
lied, as such – I just didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
“No.” Zathern shook his head slowly. “No. When we talked about my father, you said whoever it was would be too ashamed to mention it. You didn’t…”
“Of
course I was ashamed about what I did with your mother!” Tharann said, sounding exasperated. “Seriously, look at me. Do you really think I
wouldn’t be? I was young, I was foolish; I was wandering around over on the sunset side and it just sort of
happened before I realised what I was doing.”
Zathern stared. “What, so instead of killing her, you just…”
Tharann seemed to double take for a moment. “No, no, this was before I met Skorrhen and got into this. Probably helped me along the way to it, though.”
Zathern stood there for a moment, shaking his head, at a loss for what to make of everything. “So you just wanted me to… to follow in your footsteps?”
His father shrugged. “Something like that.”
Zathern began to back away again. There was a tiny voice in the back of his mind that wanted to make his father proud, no matter what a monster he was, and it frightened him. “No,” he said. “No, this doesn’t change anything. I won’t help you murder the Archopy. I can’t do what you want me to, even if you are my father.”
“But that’s just the thing, Zathern,” came another smooth voice. It took him a moment to realise it was Skorrhen, who’d been standing quietly behind Tharann this whole time and had only now begun to slink around towards him. “You can. Tharann’s told me what a hunter you are. You’re one of the best at letting out the monster inside, aren’t you? You must get it from him. And when the monster’s in control, killing doesn’t hurt, does it? You wouldn’t have to feel a thing.”
Skorrhen had come so close now that he was barely a leaf’s width away from Zathern’s face. Zathern shuddered. He remembered his mother telling him that the inner predator existed so that the guilt of ending other sentient creatures’ lives wouldn’t destroy them every time they hunted. He
knew that first hand – that was why he’d never had a problem with hunting as soon as he’d done it for the first time. Because it
didn’t hurt that way, no matter what the prey was.
Zathern was beginning to realise with a sick dread that joining Them wasn’t something far beneath him that he was incapable of. He could do it, all right.
“No,” he whispered, his voice wavering. “I don’t want to. You shouldn’t be killing them at all.”
“Shouldn’t we?” Skorrhen replied evenly, his voice level and calm. “Nature’s already decided. The way we breed – one Archopy, one Sceptile, and the child is always a Sceptile. You’re living proof of that. We’re the winning species. We were already wiping them out just by breeding with them. If we hadn’t started speeding things up, they’d still be living among us – and soon there’d be none left anyway. They’ve already lost. We’re simply finishing Nature’s job for her.”
He remembered how Tharann had told him that Archopy numbers had already been dwindling, how it’d made him think, just for a moment, that maybe what They were doing wasn’t such a bad thing. And it had helped ease the pain of his old friends’ inevitable deaths, just a little, to think that the species of Archopy had been doomed to die anyway. It made things ever so slightly easier. Thinking that way didn’t hurt anyone. But…
“No,” Zathern repeated, louder, in the hope that he could shut out the doubts in his mind. He forced himself to look up into Skorrhen’s eyes and realised that he’d started shaking again. “I don’t want to.”
Skorrhen smiled. It was the most unsettling thing Zathern had ever seen. “Well, you specifically don’t want to kill anyone. I can see that. But staying with us? That you
do want, Zathern. There’s no reason you’d have come here with Tharann in the first place if you didn’t. You want to escape all the fear and the pain and the injustice of what’s happening to your friends on the sunset side, don’t you? But you don’t need to forget that it’s happening; you just need to forget how much it hurts. If you join us, we can give you that, more than anyone else ever could.”
Zathern was shaking his head frantically. Skorrhen was far too frighteningly right.
Something desperate inside him snapped, and with a cry of “No!”, he shoved the larger Sceptile away from him and ran.
“We both know you’ll be back, Zathern!” Skorrhen called after him. “This is exactly what you’ve been looking for!”
Zathern tried to shut out his voice as he fled, not caring where he was running to so long as it was somewhere he wouldn’t be able to listen to Skorrhen. The other Sceptile wasn’t trying to follow him. Somewhere in the depths of Zathern’s mind lay the miserable knowledge that he probably wouldn’t need to.
- - -
~xxvi~
He didn’t stop running until he reached the cliffs at the very edge of the sunrise side. With no more land to flee across, Zathern sighed and slumped to the ground, breathing hard, gazing out over the sea. The sun had just begun to emerge from beneath the waves, tinting the sky behind it a golden yellow. It seemed a world away from the darkness and the killing that had been only last night.
Zathern sat miserably, watching the sunrise from atop the cliff. He’d seen it a lot of times before on this side, but never like this, with such a wide, open view of the steadily brightening sky. It reminded him of the time Forsira had watched her first sunset back when they were Treecko.
Forsira. He snorted mirthlessly, wondering if he’d left for her sake rather than his, in the end. She was probably better off without him.
The sun had almost cleared the waves when he heard movement behind him. He turned to see Karsa walking towards him, looking concerned. She sat herself next to him without a word.
Zathern wished he could have seen her as the murderous female Sceptile who’d hissed in satisfaction as she held down their victim last night. Anything to remind him of the savagery of it all, to convince him to stay as far away from Them as possible. But he couldn’t. All he saw was the only proper friend he had any more.
This was all wrong. Members of Them were supposed to be creatures that slunk in the shadows, monsters from horror stories of the worst kind. They weren’t supposed to be ordinary people, like Tharann had been when they’d met, like Karsa was right now – like
him. Life was meant to be more black and white than this; it should have been easy to choose.
Zathern sighed. “I see what you mean about Skorrhen,” he said ruefully.
Karsa gave a slow nod. “He is very persuasive.”
“He’s terrifying.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “That too.”
Zathern sighed again, almost angrily. “I hate what they’re doing. I hate that they feel they have to kill all the Archopy. I really do. But… I can’t
stop them, can I? There isn’t a thing I could do to change their minds. And I could just go and leave and live among the rest of the Sceptile here, but that wouldn’t be any better. I’d still be trying so hard every day not to think about what the Archopy are going through. And that –” it sounded stupid, but it was also most likely true – “that would be
easier if I stayed here.” He shook his head. “It’s not just that. It’s what you said, about feeling like you’re a part of something. I…” Zathern turned to Karsa tentatively. “I really want to feel like that again. I know I shouldn’t, but…”
“Feeling like part of something isn’t a bad thing to want,” Karsa said quietly. “I was nothing before I joined. People know who I am now. The hunts let me be in control of things, for once. It’s not hard to forget what they’re really about.”
“That’s exactly the thing,” Zathern said, his voice pained. “It wouldn’t be hard for me. I know I could do it.” He looked intently at her. “All those things you said before, about Archopy. Do you really believe any of it?”
Karsa’s eyes widened, a hint of insecurity flickering behind her usually-confident gaze. “I don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes. It’s better when I do. It makes it easier.” She frowned at his accusing glare. “Look, Zath, what I’m doing is beside the point. They’re all going to die sooner or later anyway. My contribution isn’t going to make a difference one way or another. Neither would yours.”
“I know that!” Zathern exclaimed in frustration. “That’s exactly it! I know that it wouldn’t matter! I keep telling myself it’s wrong, but I could so easily shut that voice up like you have. I could be like you, Karsa. It would be so easy.” He broke off and shuddered, wishing he hadn’t just said that out loud, allowed himself to think about how easy it would be – but he couldn’t deny it.
“Then why don’t you?” Karsa asked softly.
Zathern shut his eyes and looked away from her. “I shouldn’t,” he said. “I want to be part of something, I want to be with you, I want to be with my father.” And it was true; there was a small voice inside him to which the fact that Tharann was a murderer was completely irrelevant next to the fact that he was his father. It simply overrode everything else about him. “But I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t.”
“Why shouldn’t you? It’s not going to –”
“Stop it!” Zathern jumped to his feet, turning his back on Karsa. “You’re trying to bring me back, I know you are. Did Tharann ask you to do this, too? Or Skorrhen?”
He heard her stand up and approach him from behind. He took a step away, shaking.
“What if I’m not here because anyone told me to?” she said. “What if I just wanted to help you, Zath?”
“No.” Zathern shook his head, still not looking at her. He took another step away. This one was smaller.
“You’re so confused,” Karsa said. Her voice sounded genuinely concerned for him. He really wished it didn’t; he wished he could tell himself she was trying to trick him. “If you go and live among the rest of the Sceptile, things will just get worse. They did for me. Everything made sense once I joined; everything got easier. You’ll forget all those worries.” She was close to him now, her arms comfortingly on his shoulders from behind.
“I don’t want to forget…” he tried to insist, but his voice came out small and feeble.
What was he saying? Hadn’t he been trying desperately to forget ever since he’d come here?
“You do, Zath,” said Karsa simply. “You’d never have left the sunset side if you didn’t want to forget. Stop struggling and let go. It’ll be so much easier.”
Zathern remained tense and defiant for a moment longer, but then he just let the fight drain out of him. It would have been so hard to keep resisting forever.
With a miserable sigh, he turned around to face Karsa. “Where’s my father, then?”
Smiling sadly at him, Karsa turned and began to lead him away through the forest.
) I'm guessing at the moment that Azma has some kind of personal connection to Them. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to make anything of the grovyle predicting that Forsira is close to evolution. It does seem odd that she'd evolve before Zanthern, since she only started battling when she met him. But if evolution is tied to maturity in some way, her evolving first does make sense, since her life experiences have left her more grown-up than Zanthern. I wonder if Germane's repression of his evolution will have any consequences for him, physically or mentally. It's interesting how Forsira isn't tempted by that option--she's so eager to evolve into an archopy. I guess for her it's a way to carry on her parent's memory. To not forget, and make her own living body their memorial. Evolution as reclamation.
