6.5 - Remara and the Twixt

And that was the end of it, for a time. The new name sat in his mind as the temperature rose and life burst from every burrow, nest, and branch. The new name settled like a blanket of snow over the old one, and he came to be grateful for the replacement that covered over his old life.

As the leaves began to color themselves red and orange, Yettle resumed her thought from a season and a half before. She paused next to a short waterfall, its strength spent with the passing of summer, and stretched up a hand to cup some water. Nearby, Naeed sat on the edge of the basin that collected the waterfall, kicking his feet in the pool.

“Naeed. Why have you come to us?” she asked.

His legs froze, one dipped into the water and the other hovering above it, dripping. “The network knows,” he responded carefully.

“The network also knew your name. It knows everything, but it is like a dream—too much knowledge all at once and it rarely focuses on anything that makes up a pattern. Good for sending messages, but not for seeking stored information. If I try to extract an answer from it, I will instead find myself studying a single leaf from its budding through its fall until its decay. It is a good dream, but I am awake.”

She retracted her arm and crouched by him, tilting her head to stare sideways. “So. As one who left the dream to walk as you do, I ask. Why do you try to join our dream?”

He pulled his knees up to his chest and tucked his chin on top of them. He sat there, unmoving, as the sun and the moon chased each other, day after night after day after night.

Finally, Yettle heaved a long sigh. “It is strange to encounter unseen places inside another, but this is part of being an ‘I’ alone and not an ‘us.’ If you will not speak it, will you show me your thoughts?”

He buried his face in his knees, making himself as small as he could. “I don’t want to,” he growled. “Leave it alone. I haven’t done anything wrong, have I? Have I been bad?”

Her head tilted even further. “I do not understand the question.”

“If I haven’t done anything bad, if I haven’t hurt anyone by not talking about it, then it isn’t bothering anyone. So, you don’t have to know.”

She watched him through the changing of the hours. A bird landed in her branches and flitted around, inspecting the crooks in them for good nesting places, then flew off.

“I think that you are wrong,” she responded slowly. “I think the thing you will not talk about is to you like hungry mold on a weakened tree.”

He answered, vicious in his speed, “Then let it take me. Let me fall down and rot. You don’t get upset when that happens to trees, and then the network will have something new to talk about.”

“No. We do not get upset. But sometimes the mold is not as strong as it thought, and that is good. The tree fights back, and that is good. Or a skyte comes, sometimes, to scrape it off. This is also good.”

His body tightened up. The words flowed hot and fast, and there was no stopping them. “I’d rather fall over and die than let them touch me.”

Her hollows widened, the green lights within swelling larger. The rumble of her voice carried something like amazement. “You are angry at the little ones?”

No, said a small part of his heart that had never stopped crying. “Yes,” he said with every ounce of venom he had. “They killed my parents.”

Her answer came within the hour. “I do not understand. The little ones do not cause harm. Their work only ever brings goodness.”

She extended her hand to him, as if it somehow held all the proof he would need. “Look at what they have done. Their Tenders spent lifespans teaching me my new shape. This is the work of hundreds of seasons, that I might rise from my place in the forest and move. They visit to see if there is disease in me and strengthen me against it, for it now matters to me if I fall.”

She murmurs, “Naeed, my strange sapling, I have not known you for very long at all, but the ‘I’ that I am cares for the ‘you’. If it does not matter to the network if you fall to rot, it matters to me.”

“You’re wrong about skytes! I know all about them!” he shouted. “My parents died and it’s the skytes’ fault!”

A squirrel scolded him from a nearby tree and two birds startled to flight from the edge of the pool.

He sat there for a while, not daring to look Yettle in the eyes. He said to the pool of water, “I don’t want to talk about this. And I don’t want to see them. If you have to go to them because you’re sick, then leave me alone. Tell the network when you’re done getting treated and I’ll find you.”

The first snowflakes fell between them before Yettle heaved a gusty sigh, then gathered Naeed up in her hands and placed him on her shoulder. Her fear for the sickness in him that she could not see or understand flowed up against the wall of fury he erected. He cut himself off from her offer of a small network between them.

Silent, she carried him away from the still pool and the string of lengthening icicles dangling over the edge of the falls.

“Hey! Hey! Pinecones for brains gots to wake! Hey! Hey hey hey hey hey!”

Naeed rolls over, sending Na’Stra tumbling, and inhales his first breath of the day. Everything in his body hums with energy and life.

He won’t need to rest again for a few days. That’s a relief. This train of memories is one he isn’t keen to revisit.

There’s a little gasp from behind him and a quick, sharp pinch at the top of his head.

“Hey!” he reaches up, swatting, but Na’Stra is already gone. She lunges out of the shadows cast by his legs, clutching a small flower shaped like a bell. It’s mostly white, with pale blue markings along the edges, and it—like everything else down here—casts a small halo of light.

“Ohhhhh is pretty little thing,” Na’Stra croons, stroking it with one claw. “Never had one what glows. Oh is best. Might be best in whole hoard! No… not best, that’s that gold-purple one. Second best. Oh. Stays glowy if pressed?” She looks up, her eyes pathetically wide, nostrils quivering.

He rubs his face, muttering, “Don’t know, but the mushrooms glow after stewing or roasting, so. Maybe.”

She squeals softly and pulls her book out of the pouch tied to her stomach. Flipping through, she lays the flower at the far corner of a page already crowded with other small blossoms and carefully closes the book on it.

Slipping it back into her pouch, she sighs, her tail sweeping back and forth across the table. “Never seen you give glowies before. It because of plants and foods here. Should keep you here long time. Make me lots.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do with lots. You never want more than four or five of the same kind.”

“Ya. True.” She tilts her head. “Make me four more.”

“You know it doesn’t work that way. Whatever grows there grows there.”

“But gives glowies when down here with glowies. Might be more.” She gasps, sitting up straight and folding her claws like a burrower. “Might be different kinds glowy flowers. That’s it. We living here now.”

“Great. That’ll last until I starve for sun.”

She flicks a wrist dismissively. “Taking you up once a week, not problem.”

“I’m not your pet! I’m not having this conversation. What did you wake me for, the flowers?”

“No, it bloom after waking you. Oh!” Her claws flail at the air and Naeed stifles a laugh. He’s never seen her this worked up. “Remembering! Remembering! Found a ‘Mara!”

That stops his laughter cold. The next moment, a smile splits his face. “You did?! So it is her! Where?”

Na’Stra bounces on her hind legs, her wings snapping open and shut. “I show! I show! But you get shoes. Is over poison ground what makes weak logchild. Weak logchild no make good flowers.”

“Awful early for this fuss,” says a mild, sleepy voice.

Naeed’s shoulders hunch and he turns to see Alleyu leaning in the doorway. “Alleyu, I’m sorry. Did we wake you? What time is it?”

“Too early for my taste, but I can take the spade once or twice.”

Na’Stra tucks her wings and earfins back, dipping her head. “Sorry leaderman. Got new hoardpiece, excited. Found old friend, also excited. Too much, I get waking the everyone, not just densewood here.”

“Understandable. Heard something about shoes?”

Naeed nods. “She says I’ll need some to go meet my friend. Apparently, we’re off in the same direction you took me earlier.”

“All that’s out there’s the forge, Overheader’s Patch, and the mines.”

“Ya! Ya!” Na’Stra chimes in. “Place with fires and metals banging, up high. Real hot. Forgeplace. Saw the ‘Mara be sit on edge. She watch pretty pretty large glowy animal what swims in air.”

“Moon,” says Alleyu and Naeed together.

“You saw Moon?” Naeed groans. “I wanted to show you!”

“Ah. Yes. Um.” Na’Stra curls her tail around her legs, not looking at anybody. “I know. Have seen. Mhmm. Was, um.” She tilts her head, then crouches down even smaller. “Was why I. Um. Get distract. And take so long. You know. When you get lost in mushrooms.”

Naeed immediately pulls the ball of her onto his lap, massaging behind the earfins until she uncurls. “Hey. I’m okay. You found me. And I saw her, too, last night. She’s beautiful. I’d have been distracted, too. Did you fly with her?”

Na’Stra looks at him, and her lips stretch far back in a dragon’s approximation of a dazzling smile. “Oh ya. Been flyin’ with glowy—with Moon. On way back from sunfeeding, each time. Will remember whole lifelong, these flights.”

“In the meantime,” Alleyu ducks out of the doorway and returns a moment later, a pair of shoes in hand. “Take these. I’d offer to guide, but sounds like your friend knows the way, and I got business today. If you need anything from the shops, tell ‘em Alleyu pays.”

Naeed can’t scramble to ground level fast enough. Na’Stra glides overhead, yelling down all kinds of helpful encouragement, like, “Hurry up, you rooted already?” and “Seen snails gone backwards be faster than you, deadwood!”

He doesn’t mind. Not this time. As he jogs down the bank, he calls up, “You think she’s new, or one we know?”

“How’m I s’posed t’know? Didn’t ask, just get over fast to you. Am not caring, is your weird friend.”

“Sure, you don’t care. All those times I caught you napping in her lap for the extra heat, and you don’t care.”

“Shut facehole, carved childtoy. Just liking extra warms. Is helping old bones.”

Naeed laughs. At the edge of Underscoop, he snaps off a mushroom cap the size of his head for its light. Cap in hand, he charges past the edge of Underscoop, out into the powdery wastes. Puffs of dust rise in his wake, clinging to his calves.

“Think she’ll come with us? It sounds like she’s been here a long time. Maybe she’s ready to move on?”

“Stop asking! Save up dumb questions for flowy heatchild what doesn’t breathe.”

Grinning, Naeed brings his focus back down to ground-level. The violet mushroom cap is already brighter, hailing a rising sun it has never felt and casting a large ring of murky visibility.

Up ahead, a weak stream of light marks the field he never reached, drawing closer by the minute. He considers stopping to see the plants for himself, but abandons the idea just as quickly. There will be more than enough time to see them on the way back. It has been many seasons since he parted ways with the last Remara. He wants to see her right away. He misses her, and he…

His smile fades a little, but he keeps an even pace. If she’s the same one, I should apologize.

Time enough for that, later. She might not even be the same one, in which case there’s no point apologizing for anything.

“Hey fungusfoot! Upstairs!”

Naeed lifts his gaze to see a steep ramp system zigzagging up the face of a nearly vertical cliff. He tilts his head back so far it touches his shoulder blades. There, at the top, close to the crack overhead, is a room lit in angry reds and oranges. He slows to a stop at the foot of the ramp.

Na’Stra swoops down on him, shouting, “Whatfor you stop now? Has icefeets?”

His fingers crawl up to his chest, probing the extra thick bark under his shirt. “How… much fire is in that room? How hot is it? Are there sparks?”

“What? What it matter… Oh. Oh.” She whistles, and he automatically holds out his arm. She glides down and runs up his arm to his shoulder where she perches, rustling her wings a little. “Hrm. You want I should go up and get ‘Mara come down?”

He lowers his face, embarrassed. “Yes.”

“Stop that sheepface look. Is first good questions of day you have. Only gots one treeboy pet, gots to take care.” She butts her snout up against the side of his face. “Sit. Stay. Be back soon.” She plunges off his shoulder and manages a corkscrew turn before vanishing into his shadow.

“Showoff,” he mutters. He nearly sits, but catches himself. No good sitting on this ground. Instead, he runs his fingers along the rubbery gills under the mushroom cap.

He begins counting the gills and gets a quarter of the way around before another whistle rings out overhead. Immediately he looks up to see a bright dot making its way down the cliff ramp.

It’s really her! He leaps up the ramp. At about the midpoint of the cliff-face, he looks up to see her standing only a few steps ahead.

Her size surprises him. She’s no larger than a child of five at about knee-height and wrapped head to toe in some sort of cloth, Thank the strings. She shines through the gaps in the wrappings and her face peeks out from a hood that is pulled up over her head. Her face is smooth as the surface of a pond, which gives him a moment’s pause.

He shakes it off, advancing. “Remara! I heard a rumor and thought you might be here. Do you know me?” He lifts the mushroom closer to his face. “Have you met me before?”

Slowly, Remara twists her head back and forth. No.

He fingers the neckline of his tunic, rubbing the rough edge of his scar. This already isn’t going the way he imagined. “Well, I know you. I have a lot of news for you and I… honestly I’m not even sure where to start. The last time I met you, we sorted this out together. This is the first time I’ve had to explain it to you from scratch.”

His smile turns nervous. “Ah, I’m not making any sense… this is the third time I’ve met you. I’m Naeed.”

She stands still as a stone. He’s halved the distance between them.

“The first time, you were tiny. About this big,” he indicates, holding his hands apart a little. “You hit my chest and woke me up. I wasn’t very welcoming.”

At this, the first ripple crosses her face and her whole form slouches smaller.

“No, no!” he waves his free hand frantically. “I’m alright, I healed. I never met that one again. I wish I could. I’d apologize and answer all her questions. I didn’t understand, so I sent her away.”

She nods her head, her shoulders still slumped.

Something deep in his stomach curdles. Why hasn’t she said anything?

“Later, I left the forest—ah! That’s where I met the first you. I’m making a mess of this. I met the tiny you in a forest, and later I decided to leave. When I did, I found you traveling a main road, and you were my size!” He holds his free hand flat at forehead height to demonstrate.

“And you were wearing wraps like you are now. And you gave me really good advice when I needed it, and we traveled together for a while. A long time, actually. But she didn’t remember meeting me either, and we wondered—now it’s for sure! There’s a lot of you. Either that or you just forget me over and over and change sizes, but I don’t think that’s how it works. You’re sure you don’t remember me?”

Her head tilts in a nod.

“Then you’re the third Remara I’ve met. You’re not alone! The last one I was with asked me to try explaining this to you if I found any more Remaras, but it’s been seasons and seasons since anyone even heard of someone like you, and now I find you underground! How long have you been here? What have you been doing? Where did you first land? Do you remember anything before landing? I have all kinds of questions, and usually you do, too.”

He's right in front of her. He kneels, bringing himself down to face-level. “It’s really good to see you again.”

Silence.

He swallows his pounding heart. Is she angry? She can’t be angry with me. She isn’t the same as the last Remara, she said so. It’s the patience game again, but usually Remara doesn’t play like that. She’d never wait to answer, not unless she had to think about what to say first. Why doesn’t she say anything?

Finally, as the weak beam of sunlight strengthens and the mushroom cap spreads its full and vibrant glow, Remara speaks. She answers in a discordant voice, a horrible sound like windchimes being mangled between rocks.

“Hello it is nice to meet you Naeed now please go away.”