Several worlds away Erraf’s ears were hurting and they had been for about two hours already.

The reddish sunlight of his world was usually not much of an issue, but the ears of all Yurokis—which stood straight up from their heads and made up about twelve inches of their roughly four-foot-tall height—were notoriously delicate.

Forgot the wizzin balm, he thought. The soothing salve was made of crushed grimleaf and taroo powder, and Erraf usually remembered it on the days he worked out in the fields. By the time he had left his mudhouse this morning, he was already running late and at the time he didn’t think it was worth going back for. It was supposed to be cloudy, but that had all changed and now it definitely felt like it would have been worth it to go back.

He resisted the urge to scratch them, that always made it worse. He didn’t know for what possible reason the Yuroki evolutionary tree would have gifted them thin white—relatively sunproof—hair all over their bodies but then two thin, delicate ears that burned so easily.

A long, long time ago Yurokis used those ears to avoid predators, but nowadays all of those predators could only be found as specimens in museums. They were long dead and extinct, yet the ridiculous ears remained. Their only modern use seemed to be to burn in the sunlit fields the Yurokis had moved into since they became agriculturists a couple of thousand years before.

Of course, Erraf only knew all this because his sister Oyi was studying archeology at the local academy. He had never been as interested in history as she was growing up, but he had unwittingly gained a lot of information through osmosis. They were twins after all—as virtually all Yuroki are—and the last few years of her studies were actually the first time they had been apart for any significant period.

It was a little harder on him than Erraf was willing to admit. Oyi had always been the one who was good at remembering, and it was she who usually made sure he never left without the wizzin balm. She had helped him with a lot of things like that. She was older after all—by a whole twelve-and-a-half seconds.

Erraf stopped a moment to catch his breath and wipe the sweat forming on his brow. As he did, another memory hit him. This one was of Oyi explaining that the small ridge of white hairs that made up his eyebrows actually evolved to keep the sweat from getting in his eyes—it was evolutionary too. The moisture that didn’t evaporate on his large ears flowed down in two rivulets and then parted at the brow ridge. From there it was all meant to evaporate to keep him cool.

Doesn’t make a lot of sense does it? He thought to himself. Evolution got the eyebrows right but they couldn’t fix the ears? He shook his head. No, history wasn’t for him—he was a machine kind of person and that was that.

Gears, levers, pulleys—those made sense. In fact, he couldn’t remember a time in which he wasn’t fascinated with them. As a child, he had always been taking things apart to see how they worked and then trying to put them back together in a way that worked even better. Oyi had never really understood that part of him, but it was ok for each to have a thing they understood that the other had absolutely no interest in. It made it so they never really fought over anything, and their parent always knew what to get them for gifts. They were both equally curious about their respective obsessions, and the curiosity was what they had in common. Neither minded the other explaining all the boring details, and when Oyi had moved out that had hit Erraf maybe hardest of all—realizing he missed her explanations.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

It took a moment for the memory to pass. After a sigh, Erraf retrieved his bag of tools and moved on toward the next hydrauliscind.

It was a relatively simple machine that the farmers used to cut through the thick mossy turf a couple of weeks before planting season, but though it was simple, it wasn’t the kind of thing just anyone could fix. Erraf had started work as a hyrdaugineer about the same time Oyi had left for school, and he quite enjoyed his job. He was good at it too, so much so that he rose through the ranks relatively quickly and they moved him to work on specialty machines like these. Hyrdauliscinds were some of the most particular to maintain and he was quite proud of himself for progressing so rapidly.

And there was the fresh air, and the ability to walk along outside all day without anyone telling him what to do.

That was also good.

Except for when I forget the balm, he thought as he reached the machine. He was glad to be in its shadow and away from the sunlight though. It didn’t take away the pain, but at least it didn’t make it worse.

He unclipped and popped off the service panel and started inspecting. There were no grimoil leaks—which was good. It was always difficult to restore the pressurization in the system after a repair was made that breached the grimoil reserves. Not having to deal with that meant Erraf would probably have it figured out before sundown, and that was good news because the fields were already empty and he hated walking home alone.

Not that he was scared, it was just… lonelier without Oyi. Even just the idea that she wasn’t always at his side—rambling on about some sort of archaic cultural tradition or the emergence of different types of tools—it made him feel like he was missing something really important. Even after a few months in his new job, that feeling hadn’t gone away.

But he pushed it away. It wouldn’t help to always be thinking of her, and besides, they had been prepared for this. Yuroki siblings often went different ways in life and usually settled as individual parents far away from one another. Families existed in small groups and children rarely visited each other or their parent after establishing lives of their own.

No, it was time to grow up and that meant becoming someone who didn’t need his sister anymore. He just sometimes wondered if she missed him as often as he did her.

As the Erraf traced the mechanical problem the sun slowly moved across the sky. The beams of light shifted to fall on his ears once again, and he tried to hug himself closer to the hydaruliscind to stay out of the light.

Wouldn’t want to work inside though, he thought. His parent had done that every single day of their lives. Those giant multi-storied buildings carved into the sides of the enormously high mudwalls that surrounded the valley made him cringe. That wasn’t the place for him at all, working in a cramped, moldy office. No, it was going to be good, honest labor in the fresh air, even if that meant burned ears. That was how it would be for a long time—the rest of his life probably, and if it was lonely then it would just have to be that way because he was never going to give in and move to the city. It just wasn’t for him and wouldn’t ever be. Sure, he would love to see Oyi, but she would probably live there for a long time—years. She might even stay there after finishing school.

Though, if she really was set on becoming an archeologist she would probably spend a lot of time outside too. It would still be far away, of course, outside the valley or even all the way across Riversea, but for some reason to Erraf it felt good to think that they would have that in common. They both would be getting their ears burnt if they forgot their balm.

If Erraf’s ears hadn’t been so badly burned, they probably would have been able to do what they had evolved to do, what Oyi had taught him they had evolved to do—pick up the subtle sounds of predators.

Which is why, while he was on his way back home in the dark after fixing the hydrauliscind he never heard the Shifter coming.