Awakening into Dreams: Part II of the Fabula Fereganae Cycle
Copyright 2015 Will Davidson
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Chapter I: Time to Love, Time to Mourn
Stefi tore the bandana from her face and let it flutter lifelessly to the deck.
Cédes approached, perturbed by the silence radiating from Stefi. Did it mean she was recovering? Too upset to talk? Wanting to talk? Only one way to find out.
“They’re really gone, aren’t they?” Stefi said as a warm hand found her back.
Cédes didn’t reply, but she slipped her arms about Stefi and rested her head on her human friend’s shoulder. An honest answer would only provoke grief, a false answer empty hope. All she could do was listen.
“I’ve been searching, listening,” Stefi continued, her hollow voice speaking as if to the night stars, “but there’s nothing. Nothing. I’ve tried everywhere, but how can they be gone? It just doesn’t feel possible, you know…”
After several moments had passed in silence, Cédes felt it was finally time to speak. “They may be gone, but they will always be in our memories. The ferrets chose to save us, knowing the price of their actions. The best way to honor them is to give them the mourning they are due and carry on.”
“Not just them,” Stefi said, “Sansonis and Ifaut too. It’s not fair.” She began to sob again and broke free from Cédes’s embrace. “It’s just not fair!” she screamed to the stars. They remained silent, uncaring, deaf to her protests. “Gemmie and Maya, I can almost accept. But those two? They had no choice!”
“They knew the risks, and still they fought,” Cédes said. She found no comfort in her own words.
“It still isn’t fair,” Stefi said as her voice returned to normal. “They were finally being honest with each other. Ifaut, she was so nervous about her feelings when we were with the Blue Tail kids, and to see her finally be true to her own heart and Sansonis was…” A fragment of a smile showed on her face. “…cute.”
“Yes,” Cédes said with a smile of her own. “I have known Miss Ifaut for most of her life. Something most unfortunate happened to her when she was rather young, an incident that caused her to lock away her feelings for fear of the same thing happening. Only now, with a Kalkic human of all people, has she begun to feel love once again.”
“What happened?”
“That is not for me to say. Even in death she still has her privacy. Just allow me to say that it is the reason for her overprotecting attitude towards Sansonis.”
“You’re talking like they’re still here,” Stefi said, noticing Cédes’s odd choice of tenses.
“Indeed they are. They are not truly gone. The imprints they have left on our souls are still there. Perhaps the tides of time may erode them so that they become less vivid, but they will always be there if we let them.”
Cédes’s words relaxed Stefi’s weary eyes. She closed them, picturing for a moment Ifaut laughing while Sansonis looked on curiously, not quite understanding the joke but appreciating her smile.
“I can still hear them, and I won’t forget. I couldn’t forget Ifaut even if I wanted to, especially the way she treated Sansonis like a pet. Not that he seemed to mind.”
“That is how we should remember them,” Cédes said, “forever young and happy.”
“You’re right. Ifaut would have been dragged kicking and screaming into old age.”
Sansonis awoke to the sound of lapping waves, a ceaseless roar both comforting and unnerving. For someone who had spent his whole life with the airy whispers of the trees, it was unusual indeed. Both similar voices, yet speaking in very different tongues. He opened his eyes only to be blinded by the dying fire of the setting sun, and at that moment sensation and light flooded into his body in equal measure. His body burned and suddenly he was acutely aware of soothing sea-spray on his bare skin. Yet still he felt hot, as if he’d been in the sun for a long time. There was another sensation, something soft and warm in his right hand. Struggling, he squeezed and it squeezed back.
“You’re awake,” a tired, familiar voice said. He recognized it, but something was different. Its usual happiness lay dormant, sleeping.
“I thought you were dead,” it continued. “It’s been, as Stefi might say, a hell of a crap trip. I almost thought we wouldn’t make it, but then I realized I still owed you two. Or just one now.” The voice let out an exhausted giggle.
“Ifaut?” he asked as his vision came into focus and the world seemed less bright. A big-eared outline came into view, silhouetted against the sky.
“Who else?” it said and hoisted Sansonis into a sitting position. The world about him reeled for a few seconds, tilting on an unseen axis as the horizon struggled to find its footing.
“Where are we?” he asked as the sparkling sea came into sharp focus on one side and a dense forest on the other. He was sitting on a rocky beach, he saw, far different from the sandy beaches of Valraines and Sol-Acrima.
“I don’t know. Whatever’s left of Minhera, we think.”
“We?”
“Me and Shizai. She got us here, after the airship and everything.”
Suddenly the memories of what had happened came rushing back so fast, jostling for attention, that his head hurt: the escape from Sol-Acrima, Shizai and Raphanos fighting high above the sea. And the endless falling. “What about the others?”
“I really don’t know.”
“And why am I burnt?” He looked down to see most of his already tanned skin reddened by sunburn, and that he was wearing only his undershorts. “W-w-wait,” he stammered, “where are my clothes? And where... where are yours?” He blushed and tore his eyes away from Ifaut, who was wearing only her underwear.
“They were wet and salty so I thought I should do the laundry to pass the time.”
“You mean you undressed me?” he asked, fighting a losing battle to keep his eyes upon the ground rather than Ifaut.
“Yup. And myself. Then I left you out to dry too. But it looks like I left you out too long,” she said and ran a cool hand over his sunburn. Then she noticed his awkward gaze. “What’s wrong? Are you afraid to look at me?”
“No,” he admitted. “It’s just… it doesn’t feel right to.”
“Why not? I’m told I have a nice body,” she said frankly. “Don’t I?”
“Probably,” Sansonis choked out in a weak voice.
“Are you sure? Look, you’re a guy. I’m curious!” she pressed. He buried his face deep in his hands. “I saw you looking at Shizai,” she said. “C’mon!”
Sansonis, so consumed by an embarrassment fueled by Ifaut’s truths, couldn’t answer.
“You don’t like it?” she asked and cocked her head with a frown. “I suppose Kalkic girls’ bodies are different. They must seem nicer to you.”
“I… I wouldn’t know,” Sansonis admitted. “I assume they look very similar. But…” he felt more awkward than he ever had before, even more so than when she had gotten tipsy on chocolate. “Yours is probably much nicer,” he blurted and glanced at her for just a second before averting his eyes.
“Thank you!” She laughed, a clear, pleasant sound that lifted his spirits… and her chest. “Hey, what happened there, anyway?” she asked and traced a finger across a broad scar that traversed his chest like a dark band beneath the wound sustained in Sol-Acrima.
“I never really got on with people that well…” he said and stole ano
ther glance at Ifaut.
“So they did that to you?”
He nodded. “Growing up after Shangara was tough.”
“I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for you. But how come you’ve never told me about the younger you?” She moved her face close to his, her blue eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“I’ve never told anyone. It’s like having a wound and picking at it, and I’d rather leave it alone to heal.”
“It doesn’t look like it has though, does it?” she said. “Maybe it’s just festering away, waiting for someone else to heal it.”
“Perhaps…” he said, knowing all too well that she was speaking the truth. “Just not now.”
“I have just the thing!” she squeaked and lurched forward, catching a surprised Sansonis and hugging him tight. She pressed herself against him, ignoring the strangled cry that escaped his throat. She pecked his cheek.
“Thanks,” came a flustered reply. Some things, he thought, he’d never understand. And for a moment he was glad Ifaut was one of them.
Sometime a little after midnight the remaining engine of Djidou’s airship shuddered and died, plunging everyone into an eerie, almost tangible, silence.
“Now what?” Stefi asked Adnamis as everyone else slept. The two stood together at the bow, where they’d been reminiscing about their shared childhood (“You’re still as strange as ever!” Adnamis had laughed).
“I don’t know,” the Kalkic said and adjusted her glasses. “We have no control anymore. Not that we’ve had any for a wee while now.”
Stefi would have gasped. She was too tired to bother. “Can you fix it?”
“No. It’s only a matter of time before the flightstone dies altogether. We’ve probably got…” she trailed off and performed a quick calculation on her fingers, “…one day? Give or take a few minutes.”
Stefi reached into her pocket and removed the stone of Fairun. It glowed brightly in the still air. “Can we use this?” she asked. “Well, I suppose not without that machine we destroyed.”
“You’d be right there.”
Stefi shrugged. “It’s a bit healthier looking.” She thought for a moment. “Maybe when the other ships went down their stone energy escaped and came back.”
“That’s what happened during testing. We lost a few ships back then. Handy really, when you’re worried about the main stone running out of juice.”
“So what happens to us now, and just where are we?”
“Pass.” Adnamis wandered to the side and peered over the railing. The rippling sea below stood out in the moonlight like an alien, shifting landscape. “I only hope we’re going towards land. These things don’t exactly float. As for where exactly we’re heading… that’s what bothers me. Our compasses have been going buggy, spinning like mad. Either they’re all broke, or we’re no longer on the map.”
Hours later the sky erupted into a display the likes of which Stefi had never seen before. Pinks bloomed among blossoming clouds, seeming to set the very sky ablaze. The sea’s glassy surface reflected the celestial fires, echoing them into a depthless green eternity.
“Maya would’ve enjoyed this,” she mused to herself as the gentle light of dawn washed over her. “He loved sunrises.”
“That is most strange for a ferret,” a gruff voice said from behind.
“Rhaka?” Stefi spun around. “I almost forgot about you! Where have you been?”
“Sleeping. The motion of this vessel makes me quite ill,” he said, “as does the loss of four of our number.”
“I understand.” She knelt beside the Otsukuné and stroked his fur. “Losing Sansonis again can’t be easy.”
He grunted. “The stars never said anything of this sort would happen. They have never lied before. Perhaps our world is changing, the old ways becoming unreliable. I do not know what to believe in anymore.”
“Times are changing,” Stefi said, barely breathing. “What we did back there changed everything, I think. We had an idea that the humans were getting ready for war, but at least we managed to get rid of some airships. Although…” she trailed off before resuming her train of thought, “what we did may make them more likely to attack the Furosans sooner.”
“Correct. Before we digress too much, I came to show you something. Please, steel your already fragile heart and follow me.” He got up and, shrugging off Stefi’s hand, padded towards the stern of the silently drifting airship.
As they walked Stefi spied red droplets upon the deck, like an otherworldly rain had burst forth from the glowing clouds. She knew it was no rain.
“Cédes!” She broke into a run, following the spattered trail that lay as a grim indicator of some pain yet unseen.
At the stern, behind an overturned and damaged crate, crouched Cédes in a pool of blood.
“Wh… what happened?” Stefi gasped as a whooshing and grayness encroached upon her world and she felt faint. Somehow she managed to suppress them, and the urge to vomit on an empty stomach.
“Penance,” a ghastly voice replied, sounding neither human nor Furosan. The pale Furosan, her face even whiter than normal, sat upon the balls of her feet, rocking rhythmically back and forth as she nursed a bloody white object in both hands. Amongst the blood lay another one, somewhat smaller, with only a kitchen knife for company.
Stefi’s right hand flew to her belt and found it empty. “Why?” she said, her voice stretched to breaking point. “Why do this to yourself?” She knelt next to Cédes, ignoring the blood, and surveyed her mangled tail with a mixture of despair and disbelief.
“Penance,” Cédes repeated. “Four of us are now gone due to my failures. Sansonis and Ifaut through my inability to control Raphanos. Gemmie and Maya through my inability to protect us. This… is my punishment.”
Warm tears pricked at Stefi’s eyes. Cédes, always so strong and dependable, knowing more than anyone else and usually level headed, reduced to this? It was as if everything she had ever known, ever believed in, had been turned upon its head. Now she knew how Rhaka felt.
“So you hack off part of your tail?”
“It is the most prized part of our bodies, that which separates us from the humans and connects us to the ferrets. This punishment is what I most deserve.”
“No, you deserve to smile.”
“Do I?” she shouted, then her voice rose sharply into a terrible screech. “Do I? After all the lives I’ve taken? After damning others to no more smiles themselves? After, through my own failings, I have killed my princess, an offense punishable by both death and damnation from memory?”
With a speed that Stefi barely registered, Cédes’s hand swept across the slippery deck and scooped up the knife. In less than a second it was at her own throat.
“How I would dearly love to kill myself,” she continued hysterically and laughed, a distorted, shattered tune that grated against Stefi’s sanity. “But already I am imprisoned in the black, unseeing of the deeds I have carried out; my childhood blindness a punishment for what I would commit later in life.”
Then, much to Stefi and Rhaka’s surprise, she sighed and tossed the knife over her shoulder. Its matted blade glinted in the sunlight and it tumbled, flashing, to the deep green below.
“It… it is a far greater penance to carry on in suffering than to gain release through sweet death.”
“You told me earlier that they all chose this, Cédes. You aren’t to blame.”
“Through my inactions, their actions led to the place to which all roads lead.” She grinned. “Even yours.”
Finally, Stefi could take it no longer. Her friend punishing herself for events beyond her control was bad enough. But the sudden morbidity and change of stance regarding the recent deaths became too much to bear. Before she knew what was happening, a red fog descended over her eyes. She lurched to her feet and grasped the Furosan’s bloody robes in her fists. The next moment she hurled Cédes to the deck and pinned her down, kneeling on her stomach. Rhaka watched, not so much as twitc
hing.
“You think you’re the only one suffering?” Stefi hissed through gritted teeth. “I lost my ferrets and two friends, all right? The last thing I need is for you to lose yourself. Would you be so selfish as to do that to me, after all this?”
“No, but I deserve-”
“Forgiveness,” Stefi cut in. “We all make mistakes. Terrible mistakes. If I beat myself up, literally, every time I screwed up, I’d be dead ten times over. And that would hurt others more than myself. My parents, for instance. How can you do this… this…” she grabbed Cédes’s shortened tail and shook it for emphasis, letting loose a spray of blood, “to yourself and me? It pains me to see this, it really does, you stupid white bitch. Do you know why?”
“Because…” Cédes swallowed hard. “Because you care about me.”
“Now you’re talking sense. Listen,” Stefi said and her voice softened, “I see this and it’s like you cut a part of me. Believe me, I’m bleeding inside. You just can’t see it. Not that you can see your own damn wound, anyway.”
To Stefi Cédes found no response. Everything Stefi had just said was true. Every word. Even she with no sight could see that, and no amount of glimpses of the future would be enough to change it. Inside her prison of eternal darkness the light of reason began to shine; only a little, but its meager rays were enough to illuminate the shaded truths she hid even from herself.
“I am sorry.”
“To me, yourself, everyone else?”
“Not myself, but everybody.”
Stefi smiled, and Cédes, her self-inflicted burden lightening, did too.
“Good.” Stefi removed herself from Cédes’s stomach and took her hand. She hauled her friend to her feet. “You know, you feel lighter now.”
“That’s strange. I feel it too, relieved of the burden that wasn’t mine to bear and that bred more trouble for everyone else.”
“Or perhaps,” Stefi said, giggling despite the rather horrific site of blood and Cédes’s mutilated tail, “it’s because you’re missing nearly a third of your tail!” She took the bloody stump in her hand. Cédes cringed. The living bone, an unpleasant off-white, peered out from amongst the clotting blood.
Then, as Stefi concentrated on it, something strange began to happen. The flesh seemed to move, writhing and growing as it stretched to cover the wound, and dissolving the congealing blood in its wake. Within seconds the wound was gone, replaced by skin, and hair of the purest white sprouted like grass. Soon all traces of injury were gone, bar the missing piece of tail.
“You just healed my wound, didn’t you?” Cédes asked.
“I don’t know…” Stefi said truthfully. “I just saw it and… wanted it to be better.” In fact, she had thought Cédes had brought it about somehow.
“At least one good thing has arisen from my… outburst…” Cédes said, her depression parting to reveal embarrassment. “Your Furosa abilities have begun to develop in a trial by fire, as it were.”
Looking at the fiery sky and remembering the day before, Stefi couldn’t help but laugh as the Furosan’s face lit up in a weak grin. “Cédes, that was a terrible joke!”