Rana, Age 9, Five Years Ago
Leanan’s instructions were clear.
She was to ‘Take it easy,’ so she wasn’t using her Camouflage. That made little difference in evading the predictable, undisciplined, and poorly executed attacks of children. She could run all day without being touched. Yet, the activity energized her—she didn’t want it to end.
:Rana!: Lea sent in a private message, :What are you doing?:
:You told me to avoid being caught,: she replied.
Lea sighed as if in frustration but smiled wide. :If you don’t let anyone Tag you, it’s like you’re not even playing. Here, slow down a bit.: Rana stopped immediately. Lea rolled her eyes and giggled. “You could at least make it look like I caught you… Rana, you need to work on your acting.” Lea hopped from her Carambole and reached for the frog girl.
Rana suppressed a flinch and her deeply ingrained need to evade, face expressionless. Lea poked her shoulder, “Tag, you’re It.” At the same time, the Chiropteran—whose name she’d memorized was Cassandra—turned to look their way with keen interest.
“Booo!” the Kaminoke shouted through a megaphone of hair.
“Cheater!” his younger sister screamed, mimicking him.
“I’m explaining the rules, Kenta, Harumi! Don’t have a fit!” Lea shouted back.
Rana couldn’t spare the focus to decipher the meaning of that interaction with the next moment so critically important. In the instructions she’d been given, Lea told her the one entitled ‘It’ must pass the designation to another player as quickly as possible through physical contact.
“Remember, Rana, just a light touch.” What was a light touch? She couldn’t simply ask and show herself even more ignorant than she already appeared in this situation.
Ignorance was weak.
What should she do? Use her index finger? Her palm? Back of the hand? Where should she touch? Not the face. The back? The arm? What part of the arm? Lea’s instructions had been so vague! The Chiropteran watched unblinkingly, and it unnerved her. Most of all, Rana didn’t want to disappoint Lea.
She bravely touched her index and middle fingers to Lea’s shoulder as the safest bet, remembering at the eleventh hour to say the keywords, “Tag, you’re It.” The contact was brief, as close to instant as Rana could manage.
Lea shook her head, terrifying Rana for a moment before she realized the girl wasn’t upset. “No Tag-Backs, Rana. It’s in the rules.” Rana knew for certain Lea hadn’t previously mentioned this rule. Following Lea’s implication, she chased the others, targeting the one who’d yelled at her and Lea.
As much as she wanted to hurt the yelling boy in reprisal for the way he’d challenged her, she had promised Elder Brother not to attack any members of the Traveling Orphanage. They were here to make allies, and she couldn’t let her anger ruin that goal. She would have to content herself with merely ‘Tagging’ him.
Kenta grimaced as he dodged and evaded but didn’t seem angry when she caught him. Harumi screamed and ran but was not afraid. Leanan, the Pathfinder Paul, the Caprid Wendigo, the Papyrid Nesyamun, and the Chiropteran laughed, but Rana sensed no malice or ill intent. Trying to understand these children was an impossible task.
Yet, Rana felt a tightness in her chest when the adult, a Susurrus named Calephor, called them in for dinner. She hadn’t wanted it to stop, though she didn’t understand why.
She ate with efficiency, not bothering to taste the food—except to evaluate it as nutritious and filling. Rana secluded herself after dinner to lay in the grass and stare at the sky, exhausted by the endeavor of learning Lea’s games. She didn’t Camouflage herself; brother had warned her not to overindulge in the ability.
To sleep in Camouflage might start Hibernation.
It was too late to hide when she sensed the Chiropteran’s approach. Rana stood, schooling her face and body language to appear calm despite the disturbance to her reverie. The bat girl landed nearby. Cassandra gazed at her with those pulsing silver-ringed dark eyes, expression curious. Rana tried not to merit such an inspection.
“You’re weird,” the Chiropteran stated as a fact. “The littlest things make you completely freak out.” This assessment shocked Rana. The Chiropteran had seen through everything—how? The ears, she realized. Her heartbeat.
The bat girl continued, “It happens when you talk to people or touch them, even if I look at you wrong. You’re hiding it—you’re faking calm right now—which means I know your secret.” Exposed. Her weakness was exposed. “What would happen if I told everyone about you?”
If Lea thought her weak… would she be banished from the games?
Blackmail! Her skills and abilities were useless in this situation. She’d fail her brother if she used violence. She must submit to this new tormentor and endure.
The Chiropteran closed the distance, and Rana braced herself for a kick. No, the bat girl was too close. Rana remembered their kin fed on blood for energy and prepared for a bite on the neck as dark wings closed around her.
She waited for pain that never came. Confused, Rana investigated her senses. The Chiropteran’s wings enveloped her. The bat girl’s head pressed against her neck but didn’t bite. Rana smelled Cassandra’s hair and its pleasant scent. Cassandra was warm, and Rana felt warmer for the prolonged contact—inside and out. It was all very strange, and she had no idea how to react.
If not for her resolve to endure anything, she’d have made a desperate retreat in the face of this terrible unknown beyond the scope of her imagination.
Cassandra lingered for another tight squeeze before letting go—and somehow, that was what hurt. As she’d feared, it hurt in a way she couldn’t comprehend. And, worse, she wanted more.
“You’re weird,” Cassandra said, then smiled, conspiratorial. “But I like weird things. Don’t worry; I won’t tell anyone about you. I like secrets, too. My secret is that I’m actually blind. Hey!—If we keep each other’s secret, that makes us friends!”
“It does?” Rana asked.
“Definitely,” the bat girl asserted with confidence.
“Is that like an ally?” Rana hoped.
The question seemed to confuse Cassandra, “Well, mostly we’ll hang out and have fun—but I guess friends are allies too.”
This struck Rana as very important; she would learn more about the subject to please her brother. “Though you may be better equipped to ‘hang out,’ I am well prepared. Also, I am well versed in the having of fun.” Lea had repeatedly explained the concept to her in rigorous detail.
“I doubt that,” Cassandra said, “In fact, I think I’m going to need some help.”
Before she could do much of anything to resist, Rana found herself in a strange situation.
She sat on the carpeted floor of a spacious tent leaning against the side of a feather bed. Cassandra, atop the bed, was leg-hands deep in Rana’s hair, twisting and pulling. Though uncomfortable, the pain registered less than a ‘one’ out of ‘ten.’ A pitiful attempt at torture.
“Why go through all this trouble?” Wendigo asked. “It’s just hair—let it fall where it may.” Rana was surprised to find someone here to agree with. The red Caprid sat behind Cassandra on the bed, huge fingers in the bat girl’s hair. While the large hands’ dexterity amazed the frog girl, Cassandra’s courage to trust such dangerous implements impressed Rana far more.
“Don’t you like doing mine?” Cassandra asked.
“Sure,” Wendigo smiled, “but—”
“—Eyes in front,” the bat girl caught Rana looking as the two of them talked. Cassandra grabbed Rana’s head with her leg-hands and gently straightened the frog girl’s neck so she could work properly. “Your hair is such a mess, Rana,” she reached for the brush and tugged on a nest of knots. “It’s like you’ve never combed your hair in your whole life.” That intuition was spot-on. “The reason Wendi gets away with it is that her weird powers keep her hair from tangling.”
Wendigo hummed her agreement. “Exactly. I don’t understand why I have to get mine done.”
The blue Caprid, Ziege, responded, “I just like playing with you, is all.” The elder sister teased her sibling while tying another braid.
The bulk of Rana’s attention stayed on her hands in Lea’s hair as the Libra gave instructions. Two caramboles, one on the back of each hand, aided Rana by pulling her into the correct motions. Lea could have done this alone, so why allow Rana to touch something so vulnerable?
To Rana, hair was little more than a leash to be pulled. The shame of a form too human, too weak. She’d cut it close to the scalp with sharp rocks until she and her brother left the Green Swamp. It was a weakness she allowed herself precisely because of the trouble it’d cost her. Its length measured the distance between her old self and now.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Yet Lea’s hair was neither a weakness nor a badge. So soft and smooth in Rana’s hands, the color of honey. Beautiful.
“At least try to hold still, Harumi,” Lea laughed as she wrestled with the Kaminoke’s hair by pinning the bulk with bowling ball sized caramboles.
The girl in Lea’s lap writhed, as full of energy as her roiling hair. “This is pointless; I’m constantly doing my own hair! Besides, why can’t I just do all of yours?”
Cassandra explained, “If you did our hair, we’d be untying knots for a hundred years.”
Harumi giggled with glee at the thought, bouncing against Lea and pushing the Libra girl into Rana while surrounding them all with her black coils.
The sensation of being trapped in a press of bodies with no escape should’ve made her feel claustrophobic, yet Rana didn’t mind at all. In fact, she enjoyed this. She’d liked it when Cassandra held her, and she liked playing Tag. This is what Lea told her about—this was fun, and she wanted more.
Rana felt something warm in her chest and a burst of lemon on her brainstem. The fleeting feeling was there and gone like a flicker of light in the corner of her eye. That familiar sour but enthralling flavor meant one thing.
She had to go. “I need to use the latrine.”
“Not now,” Cassandra said, “We’re finished. It’s mirror time.” They stood and bustled over to inspect their work.
Wendigo’s braids exploded into an unraveling riot of curls. The girl looked at her reflection and stated with pride, “I’m untamable.” Ziege laughed and ruffled her little sister’s hair.
Lea considered herself and the waist-length braid as she turned in place. “I look uptight.” She continued as she untied it, “Too confining. I wonder what it’d be like cut short?”
“Good,” Cassandra said as she glanced in the mirror’s direction, though she must have seen nothing. “You always look good. You could pull off bald.”
Wendigo studied the bat girl as she spoke, “Cassie, you look great with your hair back! It highlights your eyes and ears.”
“Huh,” was all Cassandra said in reply.
Lea pushed Rana in front of the mirror and then burst out laughing. Then the others laughed too. Rana felt ill at ease, the situation too familiar. She was a half-second from Camouflaging to hop away when Cassandra, giggling, grabbed her in a hug, “Wait, Rana—they’re not laughing at you; they’re laughing at me. I literally learned how to do this yesterday. I’m sorry, I got a little excited and made you my first victim.”
As Cassandra sat to undo her braid, Rana inspected her reflection. It was indeed a sorry example of a braid with hair jutting in odd directions. She could see how they might think it funny.
Lea undid her braid with caramboles as she did the same for Rana with her hands, brushing the frog girl’s hair straight. “I think you’d look best with your hair trimmed a bit shorter,” she said. “Show off your colorful complexion.”
Cassandra scrambled her hair into a frazzled mess and stood.
Following the example, Lea destroyed any semblance of order on her own head. The two looked at each other and erupted with laughter. The others were quick to crack. Rana didn’t laugh, but she no longer felt like hiding.
When they finally let her leave, Rana called for Elder Brother Bufo. They met in a remote area. She’d been waiting mere seconds when the cat-sized toad landed on her head with a plop. He still got the drop on her after all their training, and he didn’t have Camouflage.
:What’s the matter?: he asked.
:You said it happened while you were hopping through the mountains. You were wrong!: Rana accused him as she paced.
:Whoa, slow down,: he sent. :Are you telling me you learned to make slime?:
She nodded, almost dislodging him, :Yes! You said it came from the way you felt flinging yourself through the air and seeing the distant mountain range, but it was nothing like that! How am I supposed to be ready if you tell me to expect one thing and I’m surprised by another? I could’ve sprayed slime everywhere! It was almost a complete disaster!:
Bufo absorbed her story and tried to calm her when she finished. :That’s what happened to me. I told you my story to give you a hint to help you find it for yourself—and you did. It’s different for everyone. What’s important is you knew enough not to lose control, and now you have a source to draw on.:
:A source?: That sounded dangerous to Rana. :But we left the swamp.:
The toad rumbled with thought and replied, :That was a stagnant well. This is your fresh spring. You don’t have to tell anyone about it if you don’t want to, not even me. It can be your special place. No one can judge you there. No one can pollute those waters. Try it now.:
She obeyed, closing her eyes to concentrate. After a frustrating minute of struggle and failures, she sent, :I can’t hold it; it’s too slippery.:
:Don’t grasp too hard; you’ll crush it. You don’t ‘catch’ the feeling. Be calm, focus on the memory, and let it come to you.:
It would’ve been impossible if she hadn’t come to trust Elder Brother through years of harsh and often painful training. These instructions went against the natural order. To receive something without paying? To gain something without first catching it? A favor without incurring debt? A contradiction—but she’d follow his advice.
Rana stilled herself as he’d taught her and recalled the moment. Instead of searching for the elusive feeling, she stood with her hands out and palms cupped. She thought about how Lea had invited her to play Tag and patiently taught her the rules.
How Cassandra had thrown away her power over Rana without a second thought and given away her own secret.
How the others accepted Rana into their group.
How Lea and Cassandra would rather humiliate themselves than risk hurting her.
She thought about those strange, incomprehensible people, and the warm feeling returned. Instead of forcing it, she relaxed. As she did, the warmth spread from the core of her being to the tips of her tingling fingers. She wanted more of this, to feel this always.
For a moment, she thought she felt something small and fragile wriggle onto her open palms. A tadpole. Then it was gone as if she’d imagined it.
When she opened her eyes, her hands overflowed with a thin, pale green liquid.
:You did it!: The pride she heard in brother’s mental voice strengthened the warmth in her core. :A Batrachian’s slime is her most versatile and challenging ability to master and the largest tool in your utility belt.
:First, you’ll learn how to turn slime slippery and incorporate it into your movement. You’ll learn how to spray your enemies with it to make them lose traction and coat your body in it to slip from their grasp.
:Then you’ll learn how to make slime sticky, trap your opponents, coat your tongue with it, and use it to climb on ceilings.
:You’ll turn the slime into a foam and learn to Camouflage objects and areas. In time, you’ll learn to convert slime to biomass for shapeshifting and conjuring. You will eat, breathe, and sleep slime until you’ve memorized every possible application!:
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After a grueling night of training, Rana dragged herself to breakfast. She gulped her portion as the adults packed camp. Cale spoke with Lumière outside the caves, “You’re sure this has an exit and is the safest path?”
“Certainly,” the candle man replied.
“And we won’t slip into the Underworld on accident?”
“I know the way.”
Cassandra had given the underground network her seal of approval. In fact, she giggled with content while Nyctea the owl harpy nuzzled her hair. Watching them embrace, Rana felt a tightness in her chest she didn’t understand.
Pretended then to catch sight of Rana, the bat girl rubbed her face against the harpy’s feathers and waved goodbye before flapping on over. “Morning, Rana!” she said, chipper.
The previous day’s events complicated her usual greeting, but she felt it best to be safe, “Hello, Cassandra.”
The bat girl frowned, and Rana’s unease escalated to panic. Had she upset her ally? How could she repair the situation?
:Really, Rana?: Cassandra sent. :Everybody calls me Cassie, except Kenta and Harumi—who call me Cass. My friends call me Cassie. Are you my friend?: Rana froze like she’d been hit with a pop quiz. Cassandra exaggerated her exasperation, shaking her head. :Rana, you’re my friend, so I’m yours. Call me Cassie.:
Rana took a gulp and a breath, “Hello, Cassie.”
:Okay, good,: she sent, pleased, and Rana relaxed a fraction. Then Cassie added, :Can you show me?:
:What?: Rana asked.
:You were up all night working on it,: Cassie sent as if to remind her, :Show me?:
Rana had made a total fool of herself tripping and falling all over the place. Knowing Cassie heard everything made her uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem the bat girl would set a trap for her to embarrass herself.
Actually, right before she collapsed from exhaustion, Rana thought she’d been improving. There were a lot of witnesses, but she could do something small.
It’d taken forever for Rana to learn to balance on a frictionless surface but, now she had the basics, it was easy. Rana leaned backward and lubricated the soles of her feet. She slid a couple of paces and stopped without failing; not far at all, but the results were tremendous.
“Awesome!” Cassie exclaimed and mimed applause with her wings. “It’s like you’re figure skating!” Rana felt hugely pleased with herself, though she didn’t know what that was. “Hey, can I hitch a ride?—Can’t walk far on these, you know,” she wiggled the fingers on a leg hand.
Rana gave her a blank stare, unsure what to make of the request, “You usually ride on Wendigo,” who was playing with her sister, “Or Nyctea,” who shifted into a burrowing owl for the underground expedition.
Shrugging, Cassie replied, “They’re fine—you look bored. How about it?” Rana nodded with some misgivings. “Turn around and crouch a little bit,” she sent, and Rana obeyed.
Rana had never done anything like this, so she relied on Cassie for directions. Dark wings closed around her chest as Cassie hopped on her back and locked leg-hands around her waist. Cassie was light, no heavier than a backpack, and warm. Carrying Cassie felt like receiving an extended hug but came with a persistent anxiety.
Cassie had chosen Rana’s company, and though she wasn’t sure what the bat girl expected, she didn’t want to disappoint. The group trekked into the caves, and the two of them kept pace. Everyone with a free hand, Rana included, held a light gem. While the overlap wasn’t cumulative, multiple sources minimized the gems’ perfect shadows.
The caves were extensive and winding, large enough for several to walk abreast but too narrow for even Clairaudient flyers. Cassie’s lips brushed Rana’s neck, which twitched in animal fear of a bite, to whisper fiendish words, “Ditch them.”
Rana did just that. She sprang forward quick enough to elude the adults’ reach. “Be careful,” Cale said with the resigned air of a parent tired of protesting. Cassie had known when the group would relax their guard as the fear of danger faded and timed their getaway accordingly.
“We will!” Cassie’s voice echoed as they rounded a corner, then whispered to Rana, “Slide.”
She did, troubled at first by the rocky terrain, but gradually smoothed their course with reflexes and coordination. “Faster,” Cassie said as Rana gained confidence. While no stranger to pushing herself, these rocks were treacherous. The line between doable and disaster was a fine one, easily crossed.
Despite her better judgment, Rana took the corners with aggression—and Cassie repeated, “Faster.”
She was scared but didn’t want to stop. They reached the point where Rana reacted on pure instinct, where thought ceased. Peace.
Rana smiled. She skated on silver, and the wind sang to her.
A rock wall appeared out of nowhere, and Rana’s brain crashed to a standstill, anticipating the inevitable collision. Instead, Cassie’s wings opened like a parachute. Given the opportunity, Rana sprang into action—swerving to turn their momentum and skid to a halt.
Exhausted, Rana collapsed to the floor, basking in relief as Cassie laughed and laughed.
Rana considered the experience, and the conclusion she came to surprised her.
She couldn’t have gone that fast on her own. Cassie’s movements, which had seemed random, now struck her as subtle adjustments precisely intended. Her passenger anticipated and corrected every bump, poor choice, and mistake Rana made. The perfect training for her new ability.
Her new friend seemed to agree, “Ready to try again?” Cassie said with a smile.
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She would not leave her friend’s side because she could never repay this debt.