Yotun.

Date [standardised human time]: November 24th, 2123.

(12 years, 9 months before the invasion of the radji Cradle).

Yotun sat on the white wooden bench, sketching in his notebook. It had been some time since he had last drawn anything, but ‘now’ felt right. The day had been overcast but unoppressive, and now the first touch of sundown was pushing through the clouds, thinly veiled curtains of light peeking through here and there and roving across the expansive countryside. The retan seedlings he and his father had planted were now just reaching up to his knees, sprouting soft, rounded leaves. They had both decided it was time to pull out their guideposts and let them grow free. Their slender, pale teal stalks were pulled this way and that by the slightest breeze, bending double in a hard wind. It was a mildly terrifying prospect, Yotun had to admit, after tending to them for so many years now. But it was necessary; they had to learn to take root.

The backdoor swung open with a distant creak, his father leaning one paw on the veranda. His father, Arrut, took a moment to look about, before setting after him down the vineyards. It was a good spot that they’d picked for the grove, affording one a good view of where their crop adjoined their multistorey off-white home, along with the prairie and valley beyond. Up on the high hills over his shoulder, the supple greens of summer were giving way to yellows and orange. The wind had turned, a fairer breeze in the air. The longer spring had graced them with mild rains amid summer, and it seemed like it should be a tempered winter too. That all meant the vineyards had been bearing fruit sooner, and in greater numbers, and the joy of nature’s harvest was shared by the grocers who collected their wares with cheerful expressions and paid handsomely for the quality goods.

Mum had been eating better, the long days in the field had given her a strange sense of purpose. She looked younger in the face, happier too. Dad had also found the budget to hire a pair of farm hands—two local kids called Redly and Alto—to take up some of the more mundane work freeing us of some of the labour.

It was a good time. A strange time, but good. One could spend so long waiting for change, he supposed, it could pass them by without notice. He liked the thought and jotted it down.

Dry leaves—rich and fragrant—crunched beneath Dad’s feet as he approached. Where Yotun was thin and wiry, his father was broad of frame and face; a heavyset man cresting his middle years.

“Almost supper time,” he half-grinned as he approached.

“Oh,” Yotun shook his head, closing his notebook, and collecting his pens. “I meant to help out, sorry. Lost track of time.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dad murmured, sitting on the bench beside him. “A lot on your mind?”

Yotun sighed, the air cool but refreshing. “Guess so.”

“I remember when I was your age,” the man guffawed. “Leaving school’s a funny old business. Feeling a little aimless, huh?” Yotun nodded, letting him smile at his old man. Arrut clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, we’ll sure appreciate the extra pair of paws around here,” he said, a warm smile spreading across his face. The weight of the paw was heavy on his shoulder. “Actually Dad,” Yotun mumbled. “I was hoping to travel. Study abroad.”

Arrut put up his brow and blinked at him. “Well,” he murmured, “that’d be a serious commitment. What do you want to do? Agriculture?”

The young man curled one leg up in front of him. “I don’t really know. But… I don’t really think farming is for me.”

The bench groaned beneath them as his father pulled back a little. “Oh, well…” Arrut huffed. “I always thought…”

“Dad I–” Yotun took a breath; he’d been dreading this conversation. “Look, I’ve always appreciated how much time and care and… everything you’ve put into this place. And… and I get that…” He listened to the wind for a moment and remembered where they sat. “You’ve sacrificed a lot to get here, and I’m not knocking that—”

“No, no, I get that,” Dad murmured, shifting on the bench a finger toward him. “You want to start making something of yourself, sure. I just… don’t want you to feel like we’re…” He still looked out at the orchard. “…that we’re chasing you away either.” Dad cleared his throat. “Have you got anywhere in mind?”

“Well… I enjoyed our time in Caiyu, and Oryn said that it has the best academies, it’s where all the best students go.”

“It’s a fair way…” he murmured. ”Well, what do they offer? You could do business or finance? Can’t go wrong with that.”

“Didn’t you get into farming to get out of the city?”

His father chuckled, scratching at the dirt with his foot. “True enough. Well, what about this ecology stuff Braq and Turin did then? I doubt there’s much money in it, but you clearly love these woods, right?”

“I do,” Yotun murmured, looking wistfully up at the hill again. “But I don’t think so. Not… not after everything.” He rubbed at the scar beneath the fur of his forearm.

His father took a deep breath. “Whatever it is, you’d have to leave everything behind. Start over. We’d give you some money, but you’d better get some work somewhere.” He shook a paw passively at him. “I-I’m not saying no, just… it’ll be difficult, is all.”

“It’s not like things’ll be easy if I stay here,” Yotun huffed. “I’m always that kid… the one at the school, or out in the woods. At least that might go away someplace else.”

Dad rubbed the back of his paw across his lips, an old habit from the farm—the back of one’s paw is usually cleaner than the palm. “Better to have a fresh start…” he said through the paw, the moment drawing out. Yotun turned to the vineyards they had spent so long fostering. The spindle-thin drone constructs moved with uniform precision as they walked themselves across the vines, scanning and sterilising as they went. The sunlight was fading to a soft orange.

“I… It’s just… are you sure it’s what you want, son?” Arrut asked. A sincere question, heartfelt and earnest.

Yotun nodded, he had made up his mind. “I can’t stay here.”

Arrut finally met his eye. When he put a big paw on Yotun’s shoulder, neither of them flinched. “Alright then,” he said, nodding slowly.

Supper was ready by the time they made it back indoors—an easy meal of numerik spread and ground anuana over a sliced hoan platter, with a slice of fruit pie as a treat. Yotun apologised for losing track of time, but Mum said it was nothing. She smiled easily as they sat and ate.

The day’s local news cycled from the monitor at a low volume.

“…consequences of civil unrest in Deansbrook and the Fayrun, following a reduction in subsidised assets.” Yotun found the noise irksome but tried to put it out of his mind. They were all sitting together, comfortably—he didn’t want to ruin that. The weeks following his stay at the CSC had been… trying, for all of them. Mum had always found something to keep her busy rather than join them, saying she preferred to be on her feet, but Yotun saw the way she quietly eyed the front door. She no longer potted evermind in the windowsill, replacing the pale flower with something new each week. This week it was mollycons with their curious yellow bulbs speckled with violet stamens; before that it was pygrets—soft, fuzzy petals whose mild colour was surpassed by their bright odour.

Dad glanced between them all for a long moment, taking in the quiet. “Yotun’s got something he wants to tell you,” the man said, prodding a slice of his platter.

Yotun had just taken a large bite of pie, coughing at being caught off-guard. He cleared his throat.

“The… uh, foof is ver’ good Mum,” he said through his mouthful. The two gave him that knowing look that parents save to mollify their mischievous children. Yotun swallowed. “I, uh, think it’d be good to… study abroad.”

“Abroad?” She frowned as she chewed. “What’d be wrong with Riverbank College?”

“Well, nothing, but–”

“It’d be closer, and you’d save on rent.”

“I probably would–”

“The food’ll cost more as well in the city, plus having to work won’t leave you with much time for studies.” She still won’t listen. Yotun swallowed his rising anger, pushed it back down.

“Mum,” he said, firmly enough to cut through, not so sharp as to be insolent. “It’ll be okay. I want this.“

She glanced at Dad. He just sat there, politely watching the exchange whilst he enjoyed his meal.

Laenar sniffed, turning her tine in her fingers. “Well…” she said, offering a smile. “If it’s what you want. D’you know what you’d study?”

Yotun shrugged. “I don’t really know yet, but I’ll figure that out too.” She smiled softly at him, the wheels spinning behind her eyes. Yotun pushed his pie around for a moment. “How’re the new hands doing?” he asked, changing the topic.

Laenar glanced at him, pulled from her thoughts. “Oh, uh, well enough,” she murmured, sitting up a little. “Alto is a bit too lax with his picking, but they’re both eager to learn. I suppose they’ll have to pick up the slack.”

Yotun looked over at the screen instead. A picture of Roklin was plastered across it, the same picture that had been seen everywhere after he’d been identified as the arsonist. A sly photographer had captured a shot of him being ushered into the backseat of a CSC hovercar, the red lights of emergency services dancing off the soot-blacked fur and burned forearms, half-glancing over his shoulder with eyes bloodshot and pale.

“Open questions surrounding the continuation of Priest Oryn’s Champion charter, following an open confession of guilt for his failure to intervene in the Collewake School arson attack.”

Yotun’s attention was affixed to the screen, dread creeping over him all anew. A small carmet’s whiskers twitched as it squeaked into a microphone.

“The Champion made an open statement before the steps of the judiciary earlier today,” they reported, the footage cutting to the familiar brindle face of Oryn. The man looked thinner than he had, with deep purple bags beneath his eyes, but he stood tall and proud on the marble steps.

“The time has come for us to recognise that our system of governance and justice,” he said firmly, ”our very faith and our laws do not allow for weakness, for failure, for growth, or for hope. I did not report Roklin because I thought it in his best interest. That was my mistake. I failed this boy, but when our most vulnerable do not get the help they need, we are all complicit in these crimes.”

Mum rubbed the corner of her lip with the ball of her thumb. “Turn it off please,” she murmured.

“I’d like to listen,” Yotun murmured, watching intently.

“The response from leaders and the public has been mixed.”

A squarish, dark-coloured radji with a broad jaw filled the frame, Yotun recognising him as one of the Justiciars that was present at the trial. “The Judiciary cannot comment on an ongoing trial,” Speaker Bolaro growled in his resonant timbre. “But I invite every honest citizen to scrutinise the Champion’s words carefully. There you will find all the proof of guilt you’ll need.”

The footage cut to a very different figure, a small woman wearing a thin half-sash. She stood on one of the bridges crossing The Tears, vehicles crossing in the background.

“Yeah, well, I saw the smoke from home—I live just over from the school. So, when they said they’d caught the perpetrator I thought, ‘Oh, goody, off to the pan.’ But then when I saw, y’know, on the news… The kid’s no older than my niece, he shouldn’t be in chains, right? I don’t think that’s right.”

The tiny alien appeared on screen again. “First Champion Mirna has thus far declined to comment but will be travelling to Bendara in mid-winter to hold a summit on Oryn’s charter, and the role of the Faith in our public schools. The arsonist Roklin is scheduled to be tried before spring. Next, reports of a new mould in the lower districts; experts weigh in on the most effective hygiene…”

The reporter squeaked on, not that anyone was paying further attention. A mild silence hung between them, touched by every scrape of tine on plate. Yotun didn’t feel like eating anymore.

“I messaged the doctor,” he said quietly. “Tyra. I asked if I could see him.” His parents shared a quick glance.

“Oh?” Mum said slowly, taking a bite of her pie.

Dad shifted in his seat. “Why d’you want to do that? You said he seemed… out of it, right?“

“That’s what Imdi said.” Yotun shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. They said no.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” Mum simpered.

“Maybe,” Yotun murmured, although he didn’t quite believe it. The news reel chattered on in the background. He grew sick of it, standing up and marching over to the display.

“Members of the judicial sector gathered today to mourn the loss of one of their own, who, after a life of dedicated service, passed from natural causes–” He switched it off, then returned to his seat.

He picked up his tine again, turning it in his digits. “Could I go see Imdi tomorrow?”

~*~

It was a brighter, breezier day when Dad dropped him off at the lodge, about mid-morning. Yotun watched the car ascend with no small sense of longing. There had been… consequences of his little escapade to the harvest festival. For one he had been both literally and figuratively grounded, having a few extra seasons spent being supervised before he could get his piloting licence. There had also been words about the ‘stealing’ of the vehicle, something he adamantly denied; he was always bringing it back home after all. Still, had they known the full scale of what had been attempted, flying lessons would have been the least of his worries.

The front door swung open before he even turned toward it, little Imdi jumping out toward him. It had been a good while since the two had seen each other, and whilst Yotun was here to see his sister, he was happy to see him. At least… he thought it was him.

The boy in front of him was perhaps only a claws width taller, and had the same caramel coloured fur and broad, toothy grin. But the long fur he normally tucked behind his ears had been cut back, shaved closer in some patches than in others. There was also a cut, carefully patched over with tape, above one eye.

“Hi-ya!” the boy called out cheerfully, waving as he did so.

“Hey,” Yotun replied slowly, grinning at him. “Uh, what happened to your head?”

The lad pouted, his ears—now wholly visible—drooped just a little. “Mama cut my fur back,” he mumbled.

“Why?”

The door groaned as Braq pushed through, wearing a wry grin and a wet, dirty rag tossed over one shoulder. He chuckled, leaning against the frame.

“He ran into a table,” Braq said. “The hair was in his eyes.”

Imdi kicked at the dirt. “That’s not true! I could see! I just… wasn’t lookin’.”

Yotun sniggered. “Well, I think it looks good on you.”

“I look like a buzzed baby,” Imdi muttered.

Braq tousled Imdi’s shorn scalp, then looked down at his paw when it came away mucky.

“Goddess above,” he muttered, gesturing to the minor headwound. “What’d we tell you about keeping this clean? Hang on… has she been tackling you again?!”

Imdi’s impish eyes flickered with delight. “Would you prefer an honest answer?”

The father pinched the bridge of his snout. “Someday I’ll get what I bloody prefer…” He gestured pointedly at him. “Go find your sister, then it’s time for a bath.” Braq slapped a radio in the boy’s paw before he could protest, pointing in the direction of the woods. “One. Two…” Imdi rolled his eyes, before marching away into the trees.

Yotun chuckled to himself. “Much the same then?” he asked Braq.

The man grunted, leading him indoors. “Ain’t it always?”

Yotun blinked into the dim interior. The lodge was less tidy than he remembered. The tabletop had become a makeshift workbench—littered with scattered books, a pair of maps, protractors, and pencils—as the real workbench had been consumed by a partially disassembled radio station. Carpets had been picked up and half tossed out the backdoor, then rolled and left standing to better sweep the floors—although that task had yet to start. Braq meandered over to the sink, slipping the rag off his shoulder to continue drying dishes. He sighed wearily at the forest through the kitchen window.

“So,” Yotun murmured, taking a curious long look at the workbench. “Ki-yu’s not in?”

Braq glanced at him in the reflection, “Uh, no. She’s been ranging again. Seems to get antsy as it gets colder, needs to eat more.” He shook his paws in the basin. “She shouldn’t be far though, she knew you were coming.”

Yotun prodded at the radio station. “You’ve been keeping busy,” he murmured. “How’re the animals?”

Braq grunted to himself. “Hm, as well as can be. Turin’s out restocking before winter. We’re trying to see if the monitors have established themselves in the foothills, if they’re getting on by themselves now.”

“Making babies?”

“Aye,” Braq chuckled, wiping off the last of the dishes. “That’s the hope. They were doing well enough at the last survey, but they’ve lost a lot of land since the fire.”

Yotun nodded grimly. “Dad flew us over the burn site on the way here. It’s hard to imagine much survived.”

Braq crouched down, putting the plates in the cupboard. “There’s some patches. Give it time.”

“Will you plant new trees?”

Braq grunted as he stood, leaning against the countertop to give his leg a rest. “It’s not that simple,” he said, crossing his thick arms. “The wind’ll carry the ash away, sure, but the soil will be scarred deep. We’ve got to let the elements move as much of that as it can, let all the deadwood out there drop, and rebuild the topsoil.”

“But, like… won’t that take years?”

“Oh, it’ll take decades, and that’s just the first generation. The Brackwood is old growth, lad, and the Cradle beats to a different drum than we do.”

Yotun stroked his jaw for a long moment. “Couldn’t you hire some tilling drones? They’d clear the topsoil away, a-and then you could plant.”

The man smirked down at the floor, moving for his chair. “When you have surgery the doctor doesn’t keep poking the wound,” the ecologist said as he sat heavily. “No disrespect, but this isn’t farming lad.” Braq smiled wearily but warmly. “It’ll heal, but it won’t be as it was unless we leave it alone for a good long while. You and I probably won’t see it like that again, but somebody else will. Someday.”

There was a long moment of silence as Braq scrutinised him carefully. The big man put his fingertips together, the gesture looking awkward and unfamiliar to him.

“So, uh… Yotun. What’re your intentions with Ki-yu?”

There are moments when one becomes aware that they’ve stepped in something they shouldn’t, Yotun feeling like he’d trapped his ankle amidst deep roots. “My… intentions?” he repeated dumbly. “We don’t have any costumes this time, if, uh, that’s what you mean?”

Braq flashed a smile. “No, a-ha, no it isn’t.” The man rubbed at his paw. “You’ve, uh, finished school, right? You’re a young man now.”

“…right?” Yotun said slowly.

“It’s just… I’m not sure if you’re aware that… that Ki-yu isn’t…” Braq sighed, flustered. He pulled at his own ear. Yotun peered at him, not quite sure what was happening. “She’s, what, half your age?” the man said at last. “Sure, she’s growing up fast, but– but there’s things that she’s…” Braq sighed pointedly. Yotun was beginning to cringe in his seat. “You’ve been a real friend when she needed one most, and it’s clear that you care about her a great deal.”

Yotun’s eyes bulged as he could no longer avoid the man’s meaning. “I…” he wheezed.

Braq raised a paw, failing to recognise that the boy couldn’t get a word out anyway. “W-we’re not, you know, upset with you or anything, it’s perfectly normal to– I mean, there’s nothing about this that’s normal really! Ha ha!” His laugh was forced and stilted. Yotun found himself wishing the couch would swallow him whole. Braq meanwhile, having seen his expression, seemed to have settled for running at a hundred words a minute to get this over with.

“Look, crushes are normal. And we don’t want you to feel like we dislike you; you’re a great friend, which is exactly what she needs, but– but she’s, you know– while she’s a very capable hunter, and she’s very quick for her age, she’s also not– she hasn’t quite reached that–”

“I’m not interested in her!” he spat out desperately, pleading for this conversation to end.

Braq blinked at him. “You aren’t?”

“I-I’ve never ever thought–! That’s not even remotely–!”

The man latched onto his words giddily, gratefully. “You aren’t!”

“B-but she’s– she’s great, she’s just great, it’s just–”

“No!” Braq said hurriedly. ”No, no, no! We–”

“A-and you know, she’s a pyq, it– not that there’s anything wrong with that either I guess!”

“No, no, not at all!” They were both nodding emphatically with one another, the father on the edge of his seat. “And it’s something that maybe she’d want with someone someday; or maybe not, and that’d all be fine!” he gibbered, sprinting through the words. “B-but right now–”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“She’s just a kid!” Yotun gasped, feeling dizzy.

“Exactly!”

“And a friend! A good–”

“Wonderful!”

“–a great, bestest friend!”

“Terrific!”

The backdoor was flung open, Ki-yu trotting in merrily. Both of them stared at her in a moment of muted horror.

“There you are!” she chittered, standing up to skip over to them. “It’s been forever!” she exclaimed, hugging his neck over the back of the couch. The radji shared a glance, both thoroughly mortified. Yotun thought he saw Braq trying to free his own limb from the tangle of roots. A silent promise passed between them never to talk about this again.

“What’re you guys talking about?” Ki-yu asked bouncily, releasing him.

“Just catching up,” Braq said quickly, jumping out of his seat. “Say, where’s your brother?” He retreated to the back door quicker than his limp normally allowed. Yotun felt like his hide was trying to crawl off of him.

Ki-yu watched her father go, then turned to him. “Uh, what was that?”

“Nothing…” Yotun murmured, then repeated more convincingly, “Nothing.”

She tilted her head at him, watching with cunning black eyes.

Braq’s voice filtered in through the backdoor. “Oi, get back here!” Imdi came running past one of the windows, manic glee in his eyes; Yotun chuckled as Braq thundered after him a moment later, murderous intent in his.

Ki-yu chittered, then turned to him. “Wanna head out?”

~*~

Dad had been right: even after everything, Yotun still loved the forest. A middling light shone through the three-pronged leaves of the ripbark trees, dangling with slipping grip to their branches. Mottled tones of reds, oranges, and browns, all doomed to the forest floor. Amid winter the tree’s bark would harden and thicken into tough, fibrous wood—good kindling, hence the name. Come summer, they would shed it all, and green fronds shoot out anew. It always struck him as a very wasteful thing, to put so much energy into growing so many leaves, only to drop them soon thereafter. They’d even lose whole limbs if they felt unstable. At this time of year, fallen leaves cluttered the forest floor, adding a gentle swish and crunching as Yotun followed Ki-yu’s comparatively soundless step.

A small stream crossed their path, alive with water that licked at rounded stones and the belly of a perfectly toppled log.

“So, you can finish school?” Ki-yu asked sunnily, skipping across the moss-grown, sodden wood with ease. A touch of green was knocked off, the only sign of her passing. “Does that mean you know everything now?”

He laughed, opting to cross the stream using the stones instead. “Absolutely,” he said assertively. She flashed her teeth at him. Standing on the log, she loomed two or three heads over him; even on the ground he was starting to look up at her. While Yotun still had a few more years to grow a claw or so more, he suspected Ki-yu would grow much larger if the others of her race were any indication.

“You’re growing again,” he observed. “Your Dad said you hunt more at this time of year?”

She glanced at him sidelong, picking along the log. “A bit. It’s harder to find stuff in winter. Oh!” Ki-yu leapt down off the log, splashing him with cold water and pushing him back with ease. He sputtered at her, not that she noticed. Down, beside one of the rocks he’d stepped on was an open, palish mouth filled with teeth in the riverbed. Without a moment’s hesitation she plunged her paw in after it, struggling and diving to get a grip on the hissing creature. Tussling, she pulled out a spitting maw of eyestalks and teeth, chittering as she did so.

Yotun recoiled. “What the hell is that?!” he barked, shaking off the water he’d been splashed with. Ki-yu laughed happily as she held her catch by the base of the tail with one lean forearm, a brown amphibian with faint darkish splotches and a ragged outline.

“A tullipet!” she giggled. “Oh, I haven’t seen one in forever, and it’s such a big one too!” It was indeed: with the tail it would have been a little longer than Yotun’s arm. The creature thrashed about some more for good measure, its tiny little limbs dangling lamely.

Yotun risked a closer look. “Goddess, it’s got some nasty teeth.”

“Yup, it was the only predator left here when Mama and Baba arrived. They’re super good though, keep the rivers clean and healthy.”

“I nearly stepped on it.”

Ki-yu glanced about, snorting. “No, you trod on her house,” she murmured, holding the creature toward him. “Hold her.”

“Wha- hey!” was all he could bark as she handed him the disgruntled tullipet. Yotun gripped the animal beneath each stubby armpit, its long, powerful tail slapping about. “Ki-yu?!” he hissed, but the girl had turned around, and was carefully lifting the rock he’d stepped on.

Yotun struggled to make sense of the animal he was now holding. The tullipet had a gross, rubbery texture, like a balloon had been filled with anuana, and then rubbed with oil for good measure. But the blubbery sensation was somewhat deceptive, the core flexing with sudden burly firmness—Yotun had to fight to hold onto it. The mouth he could abide by, wide and filled with several rows of recurved teeth; the two pairs of eyeballs on stalks he could not. He instinctively moved to throw it away but was half afraid of getting bitten in the process, half of dropping it onto a rock. The creature gurgled at him, the stalks telescoping in and out, occasionally attempting to take a small bite of the air.

Ki-yu made a little cooing sound, crouching down in the riverbed. “Oh, yay! Hey, come have a look!” Yotun, still fighting with the tullipet, struggled over to her side. Adhered to the underside of the rock were a half-dozen little whitish packets, roughly rectangular in shape with a little ovoid centre.

“Eggs?” he surmised.

“Yup!” Ki-yu chittered. “We haven’t seen them over here before. This’s great, Mama and Baba’ll be so happy!”

“I didn’t crush any did I?”

“I don’t think so. Still, we shouldn’t bother them. Here…” She reached over and took the rubbery predator from him. It struggled vainly in her paw for a moment before Ki-yu set it down beside the little crevice. As she relinquished her grip it managed to swing around and latch around one of Ki-yu’s fingers. The girl winced, but otherwise didn’t cry out. She gave it a flick on the snout for good measure and the mother let her go, sinking down into the silt.

“You okay?” he asked her. She shrugged like she hadn’t just been bitten by a wild predator.

“It’ll be fine,” she murmured, stepping away from the quartet of eyestalks that watched them. “Can’t blame her for being grumpy.” She sat down a short way away in the water, washing off her paws. Glancing down, Yotun found his own paws coated in a waxy, rubbery film. He crouched beside her and did the same, the water feeling cool as it soaked into his joints. Ki-yu held her own paws up, inspecting them. She licked at the blood on her knuckle, sitting back sunnily.

“Wanna see something else?” she giggled. “C’mon!”

Deeper into the forest they pressed, the well-trodden path winding across mostly level ground. Ki-yu padded ahead on paw and foot, her snout low as she glanced and sniffed at every colour of leaf. Small things flittered between the branches high above but were gone too quickly for him to catch sight of them.

“Have you seen any kuru lately?” he asked as they walked.

“Not really,” Ki-yu murmured, shaking out her neck. “But they’re in good numbers. We recounted the nests in spring; a few dozen now, I think.”

“That’s good,” he said quietly, letting the fleeting flash of sunlight pass over him.

They walked for a long while, the woods gradually spreading out to permit browning shrubs, thorny brambles, and reddish thickets to grow in a dense understory. At about midday, there was a snapping sound, far off to their right. Ki-yu stopped suddenly, her head bobbing up. Following her gaze, Yotun just barely glimpsed a furred shape the size of a toddler dashing off into the undergrowth.

“What was that?” he hissed.

“Wait here,” she whispered, moving off the path.

“Hey! Where’re you going?” The girl didn’t respond, just putting her head down and slinking away between the trees. Within moments he lost sight of her, vanishing like just one of many shadows. He started a few steps after her but found that she had left little if any sign of her passing. He tutted, reminded of the voice that had called out to him so long ago.

Yotun sat back on the trail and drew in the dirt, poked about at the base of several trees until he got bored. Then he wandered back and forth, trying in vain to see where she had gone, until he started to worry. It was the realisation that he’d have a difficult time finding his way home without her that cracked his patience.

“Damnit,” Yotun muttered, pushing and shoving his way through the brambles after Ki-yu and the shape. For his trouble, he was rewarded with a thorn in the soft flesh between his toes. He grit his teeth as he plucked it out, tossed it away, and looked about.

Sitting in a bright patch of sunlight just a few steps away was a small creche of pale flowers. He recognised it at once: evermind. He felt himself bristle, taking a half-step back. His breathing picked up as he sensed he wasn’t alone. He glanced about, looking for the predator between the trees.

Something moved at the edge of sight. He spun in time to see Ki-yu trotting toward him.

“Are you alright?” she asked, cocking her head to one side.

He took a shaky breath. “I’m fine,” he muttered, forcing a smile.

“Did ya get lost?” she chittered.

Yotun forced some semblance of misplaced bravado. “I was out here before you were, remember?” he said. He bent down next to the mound, using the moment to take a deep breath. Carefully, he picked out a flower and pressed it in his notebook.

He gestured in the direction of the trees. “What was it?”

Ki-yu glanced from the book to him. “Vyrryn,” she said, turning tail and setting off along a game trail in the opposite direction from where they had been going. “C’mon, we should hurry.”

Surely I hadn’t gotten that turned around? he wondered. “You do know where we’re going, right?”

“Of course! I just hope we haven’t missed them…” she murmured. “They’re only here this time of year.”

“Missed what?”

Ki-yu paused for a moment, turning her snout up and sniffing this way and that. “The wind’s turning,” she murmured. “We’ll have to go around.”

“Around? Why?”

“If they smell me they’ll bolt,” she said matter-of-factly. ”We’ll cut through the ravine.”

Yotun was struck by the sudden realisation that that they were hunting something. The girl didn’t give him time to dwell on it however, putting her head down and picking up the pace. He had no choice but to follow her or lose his way.

They turned off the game trail at a gap between two immense trees, their bases meandering outward in tall sheets before plunging down into the earth. Ki-yu kept a moderate pace, although she paused here and there to catch her bearings. Yotun didn’t doubt it was a feint so that he might catch up—she knew where she was going. The huntress padded along some line visible only in her mind, her nose working at the air as she went.

As the ground tilted downward she led them into a mild gulley, as promised. The land looked like it had shifted and cracked open, exposing the ruddy loam beneath. It reminded Yotun of the way bread or pastry would split in the oven, and wondered if the pyq would see it that way.

The base of the ravine was littered with debris: pieces of wood, leaf litter, rocks, pebbles, and stones. This made the passing rather trying, Yotun watching his footing as he went. He was so focused that he almost walked into Ki-yu, who lingered over the shattered carcass of something small. She gave it a sniff, then glanced over her shoulder at him.

“Not one of mine,” she said mildly, carrying on her way.

Yotun looked down at the bleaching bones, then hastened after her.

“N-not one of yours?” he asked her, sparing a glance up at the crumbling ledges overhanging the gorge. “Then… aren’t you worried?”

“No,” she chirruped quietly, testing her footing on a log before gliding over it. “All the roht are gone.”

“They’re all gone?” Yotun clambered up and over the obstruction. “Then—hnk—what killed it? Your predators?”

“Don’t think so,” Ki-yu said, leading them on. “Sometimes when something gets old, the bones start to break down from within. Get weaker. Then they end up healing wonky. I think that one just got old.”

“Oh…” Yotun’s knees complained from the terrain and the talk of bones. “You, uh, see that a lot?”

“Sometimes. Mama says many creatures die from sickness or injury.”

“Really?”

Ki-yu made a deep rumbling sound, almost a chitter. “We don’t catch everything.”

They pass along then up out of the ravine, the ground tilting upward sharply. As the trees thinned, Ki-yu crept closer to the ground, slinking along with her legs tucked tight and slender tail trailing close behind her. Yotun himself instinctively crouched down lower, his relatively long arms reaching down to keep his balance. It all felt very… base? Primitive? Those words held an element of judgement he himself did not feel; if anything, it felt tense, respectful even. His people never had to run down their food, never debase themselves with violence just to stay alive. Oh, they had warred and quarrelled and killed one another all too easily, but it occurred to him then that no other radji in their long annuals may have felt quite what he had in that moment.

At last, they came unto a high rise in the terrain, beyond which the forest at last gave out. Beyond was still a scattering of smaller trees, with thin trunks and wide, browning canopies, but these, too, thinned out. Instead, the landscape was dominated by a sea of tall, lush grasses, waving and rolling in the breeze. And moving amongst them were brynn.

Yotun felt the breath leave him. The beasts were massive even at this distance, their high-humped backs standing taller than any radji, their shaggy hides growing out for the coming winter chill. The ears were soft and sagging, giving them a drooping, heavy-set appearance, a short tail swishing and flicking behind them as their broad snouts shovelled in fronds and grasses. They looked for all the world like a large hay bale, roving about on four thick, sturdy legs.

Ki-yu purred softly, curling up behind a granitic grey boulder speckled with dry moss.

“They’ll be gone in a week or so,” she said with a low but unmistakably giddy voice. “The herd has to keep moving, else they eat the land bare.” Yotun could easily imagine so; each animal would easily weigh as much as a dozen men, with plenty of change to spare.

“There… there’s so many…” Yotun murmured, still standing. A trio of foals ran about on longer, lanky legs, groaning and leaping around the slower adults. They looked so boyish and reckless, he feared they would trip easily. Ki-yu took his wrist and gently pulled him behind cover.

“There’ll be more. Mama says the young boys like to roam,” she chittered. “But this’s the main group. See that one?” She pointed to a massive old brute that stood two heads higher than any other. The fur, tattered and stringy, spread across its broad arching back. “That’s the grandmama, that’s the one in charge. She’ll tell the little ones where to go, what to eat, solves arguments. She keeps them safe.”

“I’d bet,” he whispered, eyeing the massive creature. “Have you ever caught one?”

Her smile faltered a little “No,” she said. “I try not to.”

“Right,” he murmured, looking toward the mammoth beasts. “They’re probably quite dangerous.”

“Actually, I think they’re pretty.”

“Pretty?” He almost laughed, considering the creatures chewing their cud. They all had features only a mother could love.

“Well, why not?” she chittered. “They’re all fluffy, and stinky… and kinda proud? I don’t know… They remind me of you guys.”

“Radji?!” That made Yotun laugh. “Wow. Thanks.” One animal bellowed a deep bugling call, perhaps hearing his outburst.

“Maybe ‘charming’ is a better word,” Ki-yu decided. “Besides, that one’s sick with something…” She pointed to one that looked identical to all the others. “Best to leave them be.”

“You can smell that?”

“No, no it all smells different.”

“But you can still tell them all apart?”

“Well… you can see that a tree is different from a flower, right? Which is different to a bush, or grass. But they’re all the same… kind of thing, like there’s little differences, but they all have the same shape. It’s kinda similar with smelling. Like, it’s all a different nose shape—” she rubbed her snout with both paws, “—the smell might be different, but the shape it makes in my head is familiar, so I can guess. Does that make sense?”

Yotun shrugged, not really getting it. “I suppose. The forest must look so different to you. I wish I could smell everything you could.”

Ki-yu coiled around herself, resting her chin on one knee. “I can’t smell everything. Sometimes the wind blows wrong, or I don’t know what it is. Sometimes it just—” she wiggled her fingers in the air, “—gets away from you.”

He glanced at her. “Like the roht?” She nodded, ever so slightly. Yotun licked his lips. “Ki-yu, how can you be sure there aren’t any more?”

“Teraka told Baba there were only four.” She raised a hand, crossing off fingers as she went. “One died as a cub, the second Mama shot, the third was… the one you saw, and the fourth we found and finished.”

“Finished…” He shuddered. “Must’ve been… hard.”

Ki-yu just looked away blankly, the only sign of her hearing him a slight sagging of the shoulders.

“I wouldn’t lose sleep over it,” he murmured. “Creatures like that… the woods are better off without them.” Yotun recognised what he’d said as he said it. He glanced at her, dark and strong and just a girl. She just gazed back at him, her long face telling nothing. “Sorry,” he muttered. “That’s… that wasn’t fair.”

Ki-yu’s tail coiled around herself, the end fidgeting back and forth. “It’s true,” she said.

“No, no it’s not,” Yotun insisted. “You know better.”

Ki-yu looked at him with her large dark eyes. She chittered quietly, a long snickering that made her look away. “S-sorry, a-hsst, oh, sorry.” Yotun just watched her, a little confused. She glanced back. “It’s just… what do you think I feel when I kill a buck?”

Yotun looked away, preferring to watch the herd. Roht used to hunt animals like these, he’d learned, stalking through the grass to catch them unaware.

Ki-yu watched him carefully. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

Yotun shuddered. “You’re not the same. Not at all.”

The pyq tossed her neck side-to-side. “You once asked me to tell you that I liked hurting. I couldn’t because I thought it a lie, and it would have been. But I’ll promise you the truth now.” She set back her shoulders, curving her long neck, and leant forward. “At first you’re nervous,” she whispered, like it was a secret. “Scared of the hurting, scared of being hurt. You think of all the ways it could go wrong, or if it’s worth it or not. A part of you always wants to go home. You feel sick with doubt and worry and… Goddess, I hate it. But at the lowest, in the pit of your stomach, you’re just hungry. Just that. Nothing more. There’s no anger, no hatred. Just hunger.”

“He was hungry,” she said, “so he hunted.”

“But you wouldn’t hurt us, hm? You can choose not to hurt, that makes you better than them.”

Ki-yu shook her head. “No. No you’ve got it the wrong way around. Choosing to hurt or not to hurt… the choosing doesn’t make us better than them; we do not hurt because we are the same. Or at least… we try not to hurt.”

He remembered that fight over that idyllic little stream more than he liked, with its fallen log and patch of flowers. The two predators wrought with desperate strength, the frenzy of their combat. Callio with fear in her eyes. The way Ki-yu had snarled, and drawn the predator in…

“But… you didn’t eat the roht, did you? You weren’t hunting it.” Ki-yu blinked and looked away. “You were angry then,” he went on. “Right?”

“Of course I was angry,” she rumbled, her snout crinkling ever so slightly. “He’d hurt you.”

Yotun was almost touched by the tightness of her voice. “Do you regret it?” he asked.

Ki-yu tilted her head at the herd, staring for a long moment. “No,” she decided. “No, never. He killed Callio… and would have killed you and Baba too.” She glanced down at her paws. “I… I wish I’d chosen sooner.”

Again, he reminded himself of what Braq had said, and wondered if he would have held together quite so well having killed, maimed, and hurt so many. Yotun sat back a little, listening to the calls of the fattening animals, watching the young at play.

“The first brynn I ever saw was this dead foal,” he said, letting go of a sigh. “I’d… I was a kid, I just went wandering off into the woods. Not far, I was still on our property, but… there it was. In this little clearing.” Hardly anything holds the head to the neck, a gaping bloody mouth shrieking without noise. The memory was too familiar to make him shudder, the edge of a wound long turned numb. “I always… I never got over it really. I’d see brynn in my dreams, avoid pictures of them.”

“But you’re right, they are pretty. I guess I’ll miss them…“

“They’ll come back next year,” the girl chittered.

Yotun took a deep breath. “Ki-yu,” he said. “I’m leaving.”

She tilted her head, confused. “Really? You just got here.”

“No,” he laughed weakly. “No, I mean Bendara.”

Ki-yu blinked at him for a moment, her snout working. “I… I don’t understand. Are you being sent back to– to that bad place?”

“No, no, I’m not.”

“Then why would you want to leave?” she whispered intently.

He let out a shaky, rueful laugh. “Because I don’t think I can stay. The people in the city… After Callio, the fires, my stay in the CSC… people know who I am here, or– or at least they think they know. I need to go someplace new.”

Ki-yu blinked a few times, processing. “Then, couldn’t you live out here, with us?!”

A real friend when she needed one most, Braq’s words rang about Yotun’s head for a long moment, making this all the more difficult.

“If only it were so simple,” he agreed, leaning forward. “I might’ve lied earlier; I don’t know everything. In fact, I feel like I know nothing at all. I have… questions, Ki-yu. And I can’t answer them here, but maybe I can in Caiyu.”

Ki-yu chewed on the claw of her thumb, a gesture he hadn’t seen before. “Will you still visit?” she asked.

“It’s a long way away. I don’t know.”

“How far?”

Yotun picked up a stick and cleared a section of dirt. He drew a rough bean-shape in the soil, with a bite or two taken out of the right-hand side. Midway up its right, ragged side Yotun drew two arching peninsulas that did not quite meet, encircling like finger and thumb a rounded inland sea.

“Bendara is here,” he said, circling the bottom left corner of the shape. “And Caiyu–,” he put a stick into the lower of the two peninsulas, “–is over here.”

“Where… where would the Brackwood be?”

“It’s too small to see on a map like this, but down here.” He tapped the first mark again.

Ki-yu traced the span across the rough outline. “So far away…” she whispered.

“I know. I… I’m sorry.” He sighed, mulling over his thoughts. The herd of brynn had slowly spread out, drifting away toward the northeast.

“Well…” Ki-yu murmured, looking down at her paws for a long moment and kneading at the leaf litter. Her eyes came back up. “…what’s it like?”

“Caiyu?”

“Uh-huh,” she chittered. “Is it pretty?”

Yotun chuckled, sitting against the rock. “Yeah, I guess it is. It’s very different from here.” He thought back on his time away before the fires. “The city is old, older than most of Bendara. It sits on this high hill, the Lillith, that overlooks the bay. There’s these great wheels along the outer walls that roll the water down to the pastures and carry grain and crops back up. And over the other side of Euwen’s Straight they build and launch starships, send people up into space.”

“Do you see aliens there?”

“Quite a few, yeah.”

“Hm,” she murmured, distracted. Yotun started drawing out the crude map further.

He pointed to the upper section, a deep trench running across its midline to signify the great mountains found there.

“These are the northern realms, where Urèd is from,” he said with a smirk. “Y’know, the guy you danced with?”

Ki-yu blinked at him, then chittered, sitting down to examine the map closer.

“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to the large stretch of land to the inland sea’s west.

“That’s the Bāhr-met wastes. You can’t live there.”

“Why not?”

“Well, there’s nothing to eat. It’s all sand instead of soil, so no trees grow; in fact, not much of anything grows. It’s almost perfectly flat so there’s constant winds. It’s baking hot during the day and freezing at night. And it’s like that for ages around.” He glanced up at her, only to find her staring off into the middle distance. Just a kid, he remembered.

Yotun sat down. “Hey,” he murmured, poking her with the stick. “You okay?”

She chittered at the prod, snatching the stick away from him. “Sorry,” she said, feeling the bend of the wood in her paws. “I-I’m fine.”

“You promised me the truth, hm?” Yotun said, flashing a grin. She smiled back thinly.

“It’s just… I guess…” She sighed. “These woods are massive. Every day I can find something different, go somewhere completely new. There are places on the far side of the lake I’ve never been. Beyond the merryling groves where the forest runs out, it turns to rolling fields of grass where I’d stand out ages away.” She gestured to the drawing in the dirt. “I could walk forever and never find you. Do… do you have to go?”

Yotun let his shoulders sag. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “In a perfect world we could both go.”

“In a perfect world…” She sat in the thought for a moment. “Could we not still talk? Like how Rylett and I do lessons?”

“I… I don’t know if that’s smart,” Yotun sighed. “I wouldn’t have my own device, and… it’d be a serious risk.”

“Oh…”

“I’ll look into it. Maybe I could write.”

Ki-yu shook her head, painfully resigned. “I understand.”

She looked so sullen sitting there behind her boulder, with her knees up before her. Yotun felt like he’d kicked her. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “This isn’t how I wanted today to go, but I… I needed to know you’d be okay, is all.”

Ki-yu stood, shaking out her ankle lazily before planting her foot down.

“I promised not to lie,” she said, walking past him. A cry went up in the field behind her, and the brynn began to scatter to the wind.

~*~

The night is still, the sky an empty veil devoid of starlight. No sound comes to Yotun’s ears, the ground beneath his feet crunching like warm snow. He is alone in this muted space, alone in the dark.

Then, a spark. A fleeting glimpse of light, far off and faint, but his eyes drink it up. Fingers of pale light pass in straight ribbons between blackened trunks, at odd angles through twisted, gnarled branches. The forest, of course. The light calls to him, the only real thing in the world. He rises in a crouch, pacing forward through the soot-stained space. His legs feel long and narrow and more fleet-footed than he ever had in the flesh. It feels right, chasing after the rapidly dwindling light.

Just as quickly as it comes, the light starts to ebb away. Yotun strains to catch up, but it fades, and he is returned to the darkness. He fumbles about where a tree limb was just a moment before, his paw now passing through empty air.

He turns his head this way and that, straining to see.

This time when the light finds him, a half-remembered shape presses into his mind.

A brynn. A foal. He follows a pale foal through the trees. No… stalks. He is so close to it, he need only…

He leaps for it, claws outstretched. In that last moment it turns and looks at him. It wears his face, seeming as wholly brilliant as the sun.

Yotun yelped as he woke, legs tangled and arms flailing. Pale moonlight filtered through his curtains, lighting his room in cool tones. He put his head back, panting hard. That one was… vivid. Footsteps in the hall were followed a moment later by a soft knock on the door.

A thick voice, half muted by the wood called through. “You alright?”

Yotun put a paw to his chest, shaking himself. “Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

The door creaked open, his father leaning in. “That was quite a yell,” he whispered. “You haven’t done that in a while.”

“Yeah, well…” Yotun sat up, untangling his blankets. “I’m fine, though. Thanks.”

“Sure.”

“Hey Dad–” he blurted, the man hovering with one paw on the handle. “I’m not running away from you, y’know? I-I mean with me going away.”

Arrut nodded. “I know.”

“Good,” Yotun said quietly, the two meeting each other’s eyes.

“Well… we’ll talk in the morning. Sleep well, lad.”

“Good night, Dad.”

The door creaked shut, but Yotun didn’t lay back on his pillow. Fetching his notebook, he pulled back his curtains and sat by the windowsill. He flicked through the pages of old sketches. The pressed stem of evermind fell into his lap. He picked it up, the smell soft and sweet.

Yotun held the flower out of the window, opened his paw, and let the lightest of breezes lift it off into the night. It felt right.

With a sigh, he looked up at the starry sky. Two pools of blackness blinked back at him.

“Aak–!” Yotun managed to cover his own bark of fright at the girl dangling upside-down over the edge of his roof. Ki-yu opened her mouth to chitter but he snatched up and held her long face shut. He hung onto his breath, straining to hear, but there was no sound of movement in the hall.

Yotun sighed a shaky breath. “Are you mental?!” he hissed at the shadow. “Goddess, how long have you been up there?!”

“You have a nice house,” Ki-yu chittered. “I’ve been watching the stars, c’mon.” She held out her paw.

Yotun looked at it blankly, then back to his door. “You can’t be serious? My paren– A-!”

In one fluid motion Ki-yu reached forward, snatched ahold of the scruff of his breast, and yanked him bodily out of the window. The breath left him as he dangled over empty space, two floors above the ground.

“Aa–!” he wheezed, snatching for the lip of the roof. His paw passed through empty air on his first reach, his stomach lurching with vertigo and déjà vu. The girl, strong as she was, was straining with just one arm to hold him as he swung over their kitchen bins. On the second pass he managed to grip onto the solid concrete of the flat roof’s edge and heaved himself close to it. Ki-yu, also breathless, grabbed his shoulder, and between them managed to get him onto the roof. They rolled onto their backs, winded.

Yotun blinked up at the night’s sky, cloudless and clear. Whilst the light from Yuret to the southeast and Bendara to the north overshone many, there were still countless stars above.

“Y… You are mental…” he wheezed. “I… mean… I’m the one they put away?”

Ki-yu snickered beside him. He also started to laugh under his breath. He doubted that his parents would hear them up there, but he couldn’t risk it. He sighed. “Ki-yu, you can’t do this sort of thing. We almost got caught at the school, remember?”

“I didn’t like how we said goodbye,” she whispered in a quiet, still voice.

“No,” he said, looking over at the dark shape. “I didn’t like it either.”

Ki-yu shuffled about for a moment before turning to him. “I, uh, made you this,” she said, holding a tiny, carved animal above his eyes. It had been whittled from white wood, its middle fattened by fine twine. “We lost a bough to rot,” she explained as he took it from her. “Seemed a shame to waste the wood.”

Yotun ran his thumb across the little figure, turning it over in his paw. She never failed to surprise him. “It’s lovely, thank you,” he told her. She nodded to herself, satisfied.

“Ki-yu?”

“Uh-huh?”

“What would you do if you could go anywhere? Do anything?”

The girl chirruped, tilting her head. “Anywhere…” she whispered. “I think I’d go dancing, up there.” She pointed to a yellow star, far away. “That one. What’s that one?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“I thought you knew everything now?”

“There might be some gaps,” he chuckled.

”Well…” she said. “I hope it’s somewhere nice.”

Yotun smiled, putting his head back. “I hope so too.”

They sat on the roof for a while and looked up at the stars.

---

I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December.

A magical thing

And sweet to remember.

‘We are nearer to Spring

Than we were in September,’

I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December.

– Oliver Herford, 1955.