Chapter 9
Restday was fast approaching, and after that Riley would start school. Despite how uncomfortable she’d been around Riley, Keila had repeated the offer to take them to the park. Aerlid had been pathetically grateful, truly expecting to be shunned by her.
The previous night Aerlid had explained to Riley that not only did she have to be gentle with the humans, she had to be careful in other ways too. She was different, and they knew it. They would treat her differently. They might not be honest with her, or kind or fair. They might even go so far as to try and hurt her. So she had to be wary around them. She had to be careful in more ways than one now.
She had accepted that as easily as she accepted that they were soft and easily hurt.
He looked at her hair with a critical eye. The reactions of the humans to her was unexpected. He never remembered humans reacting that way to his kind in the old days. Was it because of the gemengs, or was it because she wasn’t quite one of his people?
Either way, that beautiful, joyful hair was a problem. He wouldn’t cut it, he had a feeling Riley might strenuously object to that. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be hidden though.
‘Riley, come here.’ he called carefully. On the table was a cap, in his hand a hair tie.
Riley stopped her forms and came over.
‘On the chair.’ She sat, glancing at the cap and tie as she went.
Aerlid began gathering her hair to tie it up. Riley took this calmly until he actually started to wrap the ribbon around her hair.
‘What are you doing?!’ she cried in alarm, twisting away from him.
‘I am just tying you hair- Riley, Ow!’
She had bit his hand as he tried to grab hold of her.
She glared at him, a betrayed look in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to tie it up!’
‘Riley, it is not a big deal, just stay still!’
She wouldn’t stay still. She fought and bit and scratched and was entirely unreasonable. She didn’t draw blood, but she still bit hard.
‘No! I don’t want to!’ She cried, tears in her eyes as Aerlid finally got the ribbon in her hair. It was a very messy ponytail. Barely a ponytail at all in fact. As he watched the ribbon fell out of her hair.
‘Riley, you have to. It will help you fit in here.’
‘I don’t want to! I’m not like them.’
‘That is exactly why you need to hide your hair.’
She sniffed and glanced towards his hair, then away. But she didn’t say anything about it and he felt a rush of affection for her. ‘Riley, please. I want you to tie your hair up and put that hat on. It is really not that bad.’
She looked at him sadly.
‘Please.’
She bowed her head in defeat, putting up no more resistance as Aerlid tied her hair up and placed the hat on her head.
Riley brought her feet up on the chair and curled her arms around her knees. She wouldn’t look at him.
The next day was much the same. Riley wore the hat and tie, but she wouldn’t look at him or speak to him and she barely touched her food. He knew she was being entirely unreasonable. He was glad he didn’t have to tie his hair back- it was bad enough that he had to change it from moonlight to grey.
‘You know most humans tie their hair back to keep it out of their way.’ he told her.
‘My hair does not get in my way.’ she mumbled sullenly. ‘I am not like them.’
Both statements were true. Her hair was getting past shoulder length, and never did it get in her way while training or climbing or hunting. Neither did his. Sunlight was not meant to be contained and tied up, and neither was hair that had sunlight and summer in it. Or moonlight for that matter. What was even worse was that he could understand her sullenness. He had never tied his own hair back and he didn’t really want to. Of course if he had to he would. And with more grace than this as well.
‘We are going to the park tomorrow.’ He said, his voice desperate. ‘There are trees in the park.’
‘Can’t climb with a hat.’
A flash of anger, ‘of course you can climb with a hat! Riley, I am taking you to the park tomorrow and I expect you to climb trees and stop behaving like a baby!’
Riley straightened up instinctively at the tone of his voice, a little less sullen, though by no means happy.
That evening after Riley went to sleep Aerlid stood outside on the balcony, looking up at the moon. His Lady. He sighed and sang a bit under his breath. He stopped.
Riley would not make friends if she sulked. Who wanted to play with a sulky little girl? He hoped she would be happier once they got to the park, but what if she wasn’t?
There was one thing that would make her happy, though it was very short notice…if he’d had a dagger of his people’s making he would have given it to her, but he didn’t. All he had from them were his sword and hers and the one pair of clothes each.
On their way to Astar from the testing centre they had passed by Garrondin, the village of the gemengs. He didn’t remember much. He’d been more focussed on getting Riley somewhere he could heal her. Garrondin seemed to serve as the first line of defence for Astar. And there…there they fought with gemeng weapons, not human. Did that mean sword and shield rather than weapons that shot light and strange, thin armour?
How would he get there? He had an idea he would be looked upon with suspicion at best by the Astarians- visiting Garrondin for gemeng weapons after travelling in the world for so long, and with a gemeng no less. Best if they didn’t know. He could arrange that. He could arrange that very well indeed.
When Riley came out of the bedroom that morning she felt hollow and sad. She saw Aerlid standing in the main room looking tired, a package wrapped in furs in his hands. He beamed at her.
‘Riley.’ he said, his voice tired and happy at the same time.
She looked up at him, though she had not thought about the package and there was no change to her expression.
He grinned nevertheless. ‘I have something for you.’ He didn’t ask her to guess. Best not to ask Riley to guess things.
He handed the package to her. It was short and heavy. She placed it on the table and unwrapped it. Slowly her eyes widened. Then her face broke into a radiant smile.
‘A dagger!’
She picked it up and held it out. She took a few experimental thrusts. ‘A dagger!’ Considering how small she was it was not that different in size to her own sword, but when she grew taller (taller than Aerlid) it would be perfect with a single handed sword!
Aerlid smiled in relief. ‘Yes, it was not made especially for parrying, though it will serve. Just make sure you don’t tell anyone about your weapons or training.’ he said seriously. As usual, Riley nodded without comment. ‘Now what do you say about having breakfast in the park?’ he said cheerfully.
Riley rushed back into her room and came out with her sword. She took a few swings, the dagger held loosely by her side. Aerlid watched in increasing surprise as she started some rough movements with them. She parried an imaginary opponent with the dagger and sliced with the sword. She stopped and started again, making the sort of movements you might expect of someone who had had a few lessons in wielding two weapons- or at least seen it before.
‘Where did you learn that?’ he asked, his amazement clear in his voice.
She spared him a glance. ‘Nowhere.’
‘Nowhere? Then how do you know to do it?’ he asked in bewilderment.
‘I thought of it.’
‘You…?’ Aerlid closed his mouth. She thought of it. Well why not? She had decided these weapons were best suited for her.
‘Riley, why don’t we go to the park now? You can put them away and’ he was about to say play, ‘practice with them later?’ she nodded at him, her excitement somewhat dampened. She hid them back in the bedroom and when she came out she was wearing her hat and tie, her beautiful, strange, summery hair hidden from sight.
She looked up at him as if to ask, ‘is this right?’ She still wasn’t h
appy with it, but a new dagger made up for a lot of things.
He smiled in relief. ‘Come, I think you will like the park.’
The park was a long walk from their part of the city but they left early and they enjoyed walking. The roads of Astar were in the most part paved with smooth stones, though in some places they were merely hard-packed dirt. Aerlid explained to Riley that if she saw large, bulky, wheeled things moving down the roads she was to stay far from them. In fact, she was to stay on the sidewalk. Despite the varying quality of the roads Aerlid saw that the drainage was consistently good.
The park was set on a block by itself and surrounded by dirt roads. There was no fence around it, trees, grass and bushes just sprung up from the ground on the other side of the road. It looked vast and open, the buildings surrounding it were no more than five stories high. Aerlid spared a glance at the skyline of Astar. The buildings rose smoothly from single story abodes at the edge of the city to towering sky scrapers in the middle. The progression was uniform- planned even.
Riley was very excited and Aerlid had to hold on to her to keep her from running across the road. The fact that the automobiles were so rare made it even more important for Riley to be careful. It would be too easy for her to forget that these roads were wide for a reason.
So Aerlid took her hand and led her across the road into the park. It was cooler under the trees than in the city. Dirt paths led deeper into the park. There were no benches that he could see, but the grass would be lovely to sit on after the chairs in their apartment.
Aerlid thought there was no one else around, then he heard the sound of feet pounding on the ground. He turned and saw a man in a dark green suit jogging along the path. He narrowed his eyes at the colour. A military man? He told Riley she could play, though only in one tree, which he sat beneath.
As the sun rose higher in the air Aerlid summoned her down and made her eat. ‘They should be arriving soon. Do you remember Keila?’ he asked.
Riley looked at him blankly.
Aerlid pushed her no further, though he made her stay with him while they waited. He continued her education to make the time pass quicker. He had been thinking of teaching her to write or read, but it was hard without any material to write on or read from. Further, he had to think of which language he would teach her. When he had learnt Seiaan it had been a purely spoken language. Any writing they did was done in Akran. Was that still the same? He remembered the pamphlets he’d received when arriving in Astar (which had been returned now), but he’d been so weak when he read them he couldn’t remember much about the writing style. It had been partly Akran he thought, at least a bit. Still, he didn’t know enough about it to start teaching it to Riley.
About half an hour later a cheerful voice hailed them. ‘Arntar!’
Aerlid stood up, bringing Riley with him. Keila was walking down the path with a little boy in tow.
Aerlid walked to greet her, tugging Riley along with him. ‘Keila, how are you, fei?’
They made their pleasantries before Keila introduced her son. ‘This is Beili.’ she said and pulled the little brown haired boy forward. ‘He’ll be starting his second year tomorrow.’ she said proudly. ‘Beili, say hello.’
Beili stuck out his hand and eyed Riley suspiciously. ‘‘ello.’ he mumbled.
‘Hello. My name is Riley, fa.’ Riley shook his hand solemnly, then she turned her face to Aerlid, who nodded at her, yes that’s right, that’s how you say hello.
‘Well, why don’t we go sit down, hmm?’
They bundled the children off further into the park and Keila chose a likely spot to sit. ‘So Riley, what do you think of Astar?’ she asked Riley pleasantly once they sat down.
Riley looked at her blankly, then her eyes slid to Aerlid. Aerlid dearly hoped she would answer. That sort of question wasn’t likely to elicit a response from her; she likely hadn’t thought of it at all, just noted things.
Her eyes slid back to Keila. A nervous look stole over her. ‘It hasn’t many trees, fena.’ she said finally.
‘Oh, well there are trees here, do you like to climb them?’
Keila had taken that as negative, Aerlid saw, but it wasn’t. It was merely a statement.
‘Yes. I like to climb.’ then after a pause she added, ‘I climb very well. Better than the cats.’
‘Cats?’ Keila asked.
‘Where are the cats?’ Riley asked Aerlid expectantly, her hands resting on her knees. ‘I have not heard any cats.’
‘There are no cats.’ he said soothingly, once again hoping she would leave it at that. Riley and those damned cats. There’d been many varieties of cats in the lands they travelled. Riley had for some reason gotten it into her head that she was to duel them. Not hunt; duel. You did not hunt with a sword, you did not announce your presence when you hunted. But that’s what she did. She went up to those cats, more than triple her size and twice as fast and took out her sword, not attacking until they noticed her. He’d only seen the aftermath of it once, when Riley scampered up a tree seconds before being gutted.
‘No cats.’ he said again, his voice faint as the memories receded.
Riley frowned.
‘No large animals.’ he said firmly when he noticed that look. Quickly he turned the conversation to something else, ‘do you come here often, fei?’
‘Why do you talk funny?’ Beili demanded.
‘Beili!’ Keila scolded. ‘We come here sometimes.’ She said, turning her attention back to Aerlid. ‘Beili likes to climb trees too.’ And she winked at Riley, who returned her gaze blankly. ‘Would you two like to go play?’
Riley looked at Beili. Small, human Beili. A frown crinkled her forehead. She had to take care of Beili.
While she was thinking this Beili got to his feet in relief, gave a cursory glance to Riley, and ran off to the nearest tree. He stopped and proclaimed, ‘can’t climb this!’ and went to the next. Riley, followed at a slower pace. She thought she could climb that tree, but best if Beili didn’t. He was human after all.
Keila watched all this fondly. ‘Aren’t they cute?’
‘Aye.’ Aerlid replied, a bit more worried than Keila.
As she watched Keila’s smile faded. ‘She’s very graceful.’ she said, her voice trailing off. ‘I’ve never seen a child like that…My, she has healed nicely.’
‘Y-yes.’
Aerlid watched Riley carefully, choosing to focus on Keila’s first comment. He hadn’t noticed much, as she was no different than the rest of his kind in that regard. His people were at one with all aspects of their bodies, every hair, muscle, bone, cell… He didn’t think she had ever stumbled over her own feet, and she never would. How could you get tangled up with your own body? How could parts of your body get in the way of other parts? Were they not all the same? The fact that humans managed it had been of great interest to his people. They had at first assumed it was some sort of debilitating neurological condition. Their offers to try and fix it had been met with responses varying from laughter to offense.
‘Well that’s good.’ she said, gathering herself. ‘You must show Jania and I what you did. Most of the time there’s little we can do.’
Show her what he did? No human had ever managed to learn even the tiniest part of what he and his kind did. ‘I think we were just lucky, fei.’ he responded.
As Aerlid watched Riley climb in the trees with the human child he frowned. She was going slowly, more watching over the other child as a shepherd might his flock than playing herself. Watching to make sure Beili didn’t stumble or hurt himself.
He would check her shoulder soon. He thought he was up to it.
‘It must be nice for you to come home.’ Keila was saying.
‘Oh, yes, yes it is.’ he responded quickly. ‘Tell me,’ he said quickly before Keila could ask any more questions in that vein, ‘how is the space exploration going?’ this was something that had interested him greatly. Why would such a frugal and practical society attempt such a thing?
r /> Keila’s eyes brightened. ‘Oh, well. I don’t expect Beili or his children to live on the moon, but perhaps their children’s children…’
‘Live…?’
‘You know there are no gemengs on the moon.’
He looked at her glittering eyes.
‘Imagine a world where we don’t have to fear the gemengs. One day, that’s what our children will have.’