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Wern, Fir of Marla: 29 Xiven

He looked too much like someone else, Kayin decided as he stared at himself in the mirror. The servants set out a simple set of brown trousers and a shirt that draped all the way down to his knees and tied together on the side. They tried to keep adding to it, a white jacket, a crown, but for some reason they accepted his clear, stubborn “No, I’m not wearing that.” He wasn’t entirely too sure why they didn’t press the matter. Maybe they were getting used to him rejecting everything.

But right when he could hear the door to his bedroom open without someone announcing their presence, Kayin understood immediately. The servants didn’t argue with him because they had someone far more demanding to contend with.

“Ew, you’re wearing that? Where’s your jacket?” Sepik called out from his doorway. “Or your crown?” Kayin watched himself scowl in the mirror, and didn’t bother turning around to address her like the servants did. Her dress, which was so long it almost touched the floor, was made of some sort of light, puffy fabric. With the white and the shiny gems stitched into it, she looked like a cloud. A mean, annoying cloud with her hair stacked on her head and encircled with a sparkly diadem.

“I don’t like it,” he muttered in response to her. In the reflection, he watched Sepik smirk.

“You should wear it. It’ll cover up some of your ugly.”

“Didn’t seem to work for you.” At Kayin’s words, Sepik gaped like a fish. He couldn’t help it, he smiled and added, “Oh, mark the calendar! Sepik learned how to shut up today!” The satisfaction in his stomach only grew when he saw a servant hide a laugh behind a fake cough. He couldn’t tell if she saw, but Sepik’s face turned a dark red.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you learned t-to shut up!” she said.

“Good one. I bet it’ll be in the History of Yatora later.”

Kayin could sense the air shift before Tidesa fully stepped into the room with her hands on her hips.

“Children!” she shouted. Sepik flinched, but Kayin was used to it.

“He started—”

“Such bickering is not becoming of the Court of Yatora. Today of all days, behave.” She pointed directly at Kayin this time as she added, “And if you do not, Nycaid help me, there will be consequences beyond your imagination!” She pointed to Sepik, now. “Is that understood?”

Kayin watched Sepik’s eyes widen, the way she shrunk in on herself and nodded obediently. Kayin just crossed his arms.

Tidesa returned to staring at Kayin, her eyes like daggers. “I said is that understood!”

Certainly, this was meant to strike some sort of fear from him, but her words fell flat. Sepik was terrified, so that was enough for him to nod. But this unforeseen consequence Tidesa spoke about didn’t really feel any different from all the other times she yelled.

“Are we ready?” Tidesa asked into the silence. The servants bowed their heads, and the Namuh of the Future spun around to lead the way out of the doors.

“A parade is when important people walk around a city to their adoring crowd,” the King had said. Kayin wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t…this.

Sepik sat with Tidesa upon the top of a wagon pulled by two thin horses, with half a dozen metal-clad guards walking on either side. Behind another half-dozen soldiers, Kayin had a pitiful entourage of three guards in leather, as if to emphasize that he was just the backup plan. A backup plan that would never be. With how he refused any embellishment to his ensemble, he almost blended in with the servants. Which, of course, was what he was hoping for—to blend in, to not look like the Prince of Anything. That was when he thought a parade was supposed to be a big deal, a village-wide activity; but the roads weren’t full of cheering villagers like he was told to expect.

It wasn’t deserted or anything, but people paid them little mind as they walked along the very edge of the cluster of huts. People stared as they went by, some whispered, and even pointed as they quietly marched by before returning to whittling tools or mending clothes. No cheers, not like the very last moment he spent out here before he was stolen away.

Living in the castle for a year, learning everything he did, eating so often and having a bedroom bigger than most peoples’ entire homes made it even harder to look at the people he used to live amongst. Some children he used to collect firewood with wore literally the same over-sized shirt and trousers that Kayin last saw them in last year. While he’d grown taller and fuller, the faces he knew changed very little.

He didn’t anticipate old anger from last year to return. Anger at the cheers while Aunt Aayin died in front of them. Even through the resentment, it bothered him how much the village looked the same. No Golden Age here….

Kayin’s stomach hurt. Maybe it was a physical memory his body had, where he was used to it hurting when he was in this village before. Each step he took on the trodden dirt drove the throbbing pangs deeper.

“Can I go somewhere else?” he asked one of the guards in front of him. The guard hardly even looked at him when he shook his head. Kayin tried a different tactic: “My feet hurt, can I have a break?” More silence.

Things got a little livelier when they fell into the heart of the village, near the central fire and where everyone participated in their trade. More people stared, were less quiet with their whispering. The more Kayin tried to look through the people to try and find his friends, the more people seemed to notice him.

“Oh, look at his face….”

“Ugly scars on that Prince Kayin…. What a bad start to his rule that was. An omen?” How very comforting. If only they knew. Kayin shrank in on himself, crossed his arms and tried to hide his cheek with his hand. This seemed to do the trick; people maybe thought he was a servant if he didn’t have any defining features. Now the people that turned to look at them only reacted to seeing Sepik for the first time since last year.

“Wow, look at Princess Sepik. She looks so—so royal!” said one woman holding a basket with her daughter.

“Mommy, does this mean the Golden Age will start soon?” her daughter asked.

“I don’t know, love. Maybe it’s only a Golden Age for some and not for people like us. Hand me that rope.” Something about the way this woman said this made Kayin’s stomachache worse. He couldn’t see Dania or Sithie or Tailer, let alone their parents.

“Can I buy things?” Kayin heard Sepik ask from her wagon.

“Of course, Princess,” answered Tidesa.

“Oh! I want to buy stuff!” Great. Now they were going to be here all day.

“Can I go?” Kayin asked the guards again. But now, everyone focused on how Sepik stood from the wagon and climbed down to go look at whatever people bartered for. Well, if no one would notice if he left….

Kayin broke away from his entourage, took a few steps back to see what they would do. No one noticed him. Carefully moving his feet in a deliberate way so as to not crunch on the dead grass and leaves too loudly, Kayin stepped away from the castle fleet and made a direct path toward one place in particular.

Without the guards, Kayin just looked like one of the better-off villagers that maybe had the ability to make clothes or had a trade the castle bought into. People didn’t really look at him, now. He almost smiled when he saw the familiar hut just ahead.

He didn’t go to his old hut; he was certain someone else lived there, now, and dwelling in the misery that brought up wasn't exactly the goal he had in mind. Instead, he found Dania’s, hoping to see her and Tailer and Sithie playing Catch the Arrow or something.

“Kayin?” Just out of view from behind a tree stood Dania, a little taller than last year but just as grimy and skinny, carrying a dead edia by its tail. The thing was rather large and fat, almost as big as her forearm—a pretty great catch, actually. Maybe he would have said something about it, but even more surprising than finding her carrying a dead edia was the scrapes and cuts that covered her wrists and feet. Was she playing in the traps and happened to find one? Kayin corrected his thoughts. No one but Aunt Aayin built traps. There wouldn’t be any more now. Unless Dania…?

“Kayin!” Dania threw the edia toward the cloth door of her family’s hut, then burst into a run toward him. He dashed forward to meet her part way, his arms wrapping so tightly around her that he could still grasp his own elbows. She was so bony, with a sour scent that wafted off of her bushy brown hair—a scent he used to have, that he didn’t notice before.

Almost as fast as the stomachache appeared, it began to dissipate.

“Blessing of Nycaid, you’re so clean!” Laughing, Dania pulled away. “What are you doing here?”

“I snuck away from the parade!” As he said this, he glanced over his shoulder to see the group of guards still fawning over Sepik and everything she wanted. “Can I come inside?” Not that they would probably think to come search for him, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Yeah!” Dania waved for him to follow, and picked up her edia carcass before leading him inside her hut.

It was mostly the same as when he was last in here. Cots of cloth-covered hay against the walls, barrel of water—but the excitement that fueled him this far started to fizzle into something a little more melancholy. There used to be three beds in here, but now there were only two. Kayin’s smile faded as Dania walked beside him, leaving the cloth curtain open for the outside air to seep in.

“Dania…?” he started, uncertain. She didn’t look at him, just picked at the scabs on her fingers.

“Um, my dad didn’t end up getting better,” she explained quickly, almost dismissive. Her words brought his heart into his stomach.

“I’m sorry….” Worse still, he could remember being doubtful that her dad would make it in the first place. He remembered asking Aunt Aayin about it.

“We both lost someone,” was Dania’s answer. “But—you!” Now she finally looked at him again, gesturing to him. “And—and then right after, you….” Without looking at her, he could tell she stared at the scars on his cheek. “What happened? I heard that you were attacked by a peka!” Dania waved for him to take a seat on the rug in the center of the dirt, which he happily obliged. She sat across from him with the edia in her lap and began to pluck at its fur without looking.

“I…wanted to explore,” he settled with saying when he crossed his legs. “Or come back. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Behind the wall, there’s this acre that’s completely ashen. Tidesa said they burned it to stop peka attacks.” He watched his friend pile the tufts of fur beside her foot. Was she saving it? Kayin continued, “And when I went down there, I got—you know.”

“How did you get away?”

“I almost didn’t.” At the mention of the memory, he scooted forward a little bit, dropped his voice just above a whisper. “There was this girl that saved me.” Dania’s brows furrowed in confusion. “And there was this man, too—but I don’t know who they were. They weren’t…from here.” He didn’t know that for sure. He couldn’t even get Tidesa to admit they existed.

“Huh?”

“They killed the peka and got me help. But—Tidesa is claiming that she’s the one that saved me. But Tidesa is tall and…not a warrior.”

“She’s lying to you? Why?” Could he tell her? Even the bits he did know? Kayin’s mouth ran dry.

“I’m not really sure yet,” he decided to say. “She lies about a lot of things.”

“Oh. That’s…strange.” It was meant to prompt him to say more, but all Kayin said in response was a simple, “Yeah.”

Dania continued, “And everything else? Are people…oh!” As if slapped by the realization, she sat up a little straighter. “Should I have bowed to you and stuff? Wait, is it okay for us to be talking? Shouldn’t you have guards?”

“No, it’s fine. I hate all that stuff. But you—why are you doing that?” He gestured to the pile of edia fur. Normally, people didn’t bother with that, since it all got charred anyway.

“The hairs? Um, my—well, my mom says she hasn’t slept since…well, since my dad…. Anyway, and she’s so tired all the time that she won’t hunt anymore, so I’ve been using Aayin’s traps—or trying to, anyway—and I collect the fur so I can plump up our cots more to make them softer.” She added another tuft to her pile.

“Oh!” Kayin looked over her shoulder to her and her mom’s cots. Now he noticed bits of edia fur sticking out with the hay near the bottom. “That’s—that’s really smart! Your mom doesn’t…hunt anymore?” How did they eat?

“No. It’s like…like part of her died, too.” Kayin remained silent at that. Maybe he could understand that. But there was something wrong about Dania taking care of her own mother this way. Dania continued, “But, um, I figured out how to use Aayin’s traps, so until they let me learn how to hunt, I’ll use those.” As if embarrassed, her plucking slowed, her gaze on the floor.

Kayin shrugged. “You know springing traps is a valid hunting strategy.”

“I just thought Aayin did it because she was too old to hunt.”

“Maybe,” came his quiet answer. He never even considered her mortality until last year. But if she didn’t die by a blade, would she have died of age soon after anyway? Would Kayin have ended up alone no matter what?

“You miss her?” Dania asked after a few moments of silence.

Kayin nodded. “Yeah…I just—I feel really sad a lot when I think about her. It feels really stupid. You know.” He gestured to nothing in particular. “It’s…stupid to feel sad even right now.” It was stupid that even after all this time, his eyes still burned when he thought of her.

“Mhm.” Dania’s fur-plucking picked up speed again. “But you know it’s okay.”

“What is?”

“It’s okay to feel sad sometimes.”

Kayin’s surprise took away the heaviness in his throat. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Being sad is like being happy or angry, you just have to feel it sometimes.” She said it so easily, like it was something everyone knew and believed. It took several moments of him staring at her for Dania to look up. “I mean—if you don’t let yourself feel it, it only gets worse.” Like with her mom, he thought.

A shadow darkened the light in the doorway. Kayin didn’t have to turn around to know it was Tidesa; even if Dania didn’t gasp or rise to her feet in a panic, he would’ve been able to tell the Namuh of the Future was there.

“It’s time to go, Kayin. Princess Sepik wants to return to the castle.” He was slow to rise to his feet, with every limb heavier by the second. But in the time it took him to rise, Tidesa started to approach. “You must be Dania.” Now he picked up speed. He stepped in front of Dania, shielding her from Tidesa’s outstretched hand.

“Kayin!” Dania sounded behind him. Tidesa only raised a brow.

“Hm.” Tidesa didn’t seem offended. Rather, more amused, with the slightest smirk playing on the side of her lips as she retracted her greeting. “Well, nice to meet you, Dania. I hope we see each other again soon. Come along, Kayin.” But she didn’t move to leave, not until Kayin sighed and turned around.

“Bye, Dania.” He didn’t reach out to hug her; he doubted he could get away with that much now. He was probably already in trouble.

Dania seemed to understand, and just stared at him with a sad smile. “Bye, Kayin….”