In the years that passed between now and then, I find myself wandering figure-eights, for I see nothing ahead, and every path behind me.
– Gwenaiwen, The last elven emperor, announcing his abdication to the first mortal emperor
+++
Six years later
On the idyllic, subtropical Seagull Island, only a few kilometers off the Lavender Coast, Claire was worrying in the way only a human mother could. If someone back home had told her that one day she would feel the way a mother felt, like the world never stopped spinning, she would have called them a liar, an anti-monarchist, and therefore likely an insurgent. After all, it was the type of worrying reserved for royalty.
Among the Merfolk, one female member of the aristocracy would be chosen by the monarch each year, to be courted and cared for by a harem of men, to lay a thousand eggs over the course of months, and to then declare who had the honor and responsibility to take care of which pods. It was a duty and a blessing as much a political privilege and a promise of power. Claire would have made a poor merfolk mother, not just because she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what to do with that kind of power, but because when the time came to distance herself from her spawn, she knew she would fail. She was lucky that humans were so different.
There had only been three humans in her first batch of adoptees, and even together with later additions — a jumble of canid, mink, and other human-adjacent bloodlines — they made a manageable batch of twenty-three.
She watched in amusement as two of the little ones tumbled about in the sand, filling the air with childish screeches and giggles. Among all her brushes with death while roaming the stars, nothing had been quite as difficult nor as fulfilling as successfully an orphanage.
These days, her fire and brimstone was put to work making mackerel stew or shooting magical fireworks on Union’s Day. And yet, today was one of those days that made her wish she could just punch it away with a flaming fist.
Be kind to my friends above the sky and below the water, she asked as she tossed a piece of bread into the water. A fish came by, a big red gulper. It swallowed her offering whole, then turned in long, lazy arcs.
Memories of those times still crept up on her every now and then, as a sudden tenseness when the house got too quiet, or a kick to the heart while sleeping alone.
She tore off another sizable chunk.
Be kind to my little mudskips on this day of awakening. Give them helpful boons and mild banes. Give them a gentle path, a shared life of joy and caviar. It is all I’ve ever asked for. Guide my eyes to this path, and let me see success as a mother, where I saw only failure as an adventurer.
She was sure now that she didn’t belong in space.
I built this place for all of us. This is our home now. This is our lagoon of peace.
There was a crash, and a sudden stop in the sound of kids playing. Then the crying started and Claire rushed over with all the restrained speed she could muster.
“I am coming! Don’t worry, I am coming. Claire is here.”
+++
The noon summertime sun shone through a ceiling of green leaves and fern-like undergrowth. Nimble feet hit the sandy ground in a constant rhythm. The trees were a blur as a tall boy burst from the fronds, balanced across a smooth barkless line of logs, then hit the ground running and kept on going.
Final lap, Isaac thought. Too slow. Gotta go faster.
He was sweating streams and running as hot as he could reasonably be. A ten kilometer jog was quite the warm up before the obstacle course that went up and down the slopes of Seagull Island. It had been expanded over the years in turn with his needs and that of his siblings, and every year Hammond sported a wider grin as he unveiled the next section of physical educational torture.
“Humans like running, therefore you will run,” Claire had said. And she was right. Isaac relished the burn, from the hot-tightness in his calves, to the scraping-hot fire in his heart, to the stretched feeling in his arms after doing the monkey bars and tree-swings.
Up ahead, a forest of choconut shells were hung from strings on trees. He had to weave around them and hit them, alternating from the left and the right side. As Isaac grabbed a nearby prepared bat, a sudden war cry went through the forest, followed by a barrage of mudballs.
Kids were screaming, yelling, laughing as they pelted Isaac from the side. There were a lot more orphans at the orphanage nowadays, and apparently nobody had told them that going for the face was foul play.
“Get his ass!”
“Whoever hits him gets a gumdrop!”
“Ack! Pbthh!” Isaac spat some sand from his mouth. He saw a hint of straw-blonde hair duck behind a blob of ferns. “Zach, really, you bribed them for this?”
“I needed troops for my ambush,” he yelled back, entirely unapologetic. “That being said, group two, whack him!”
Another gaggle of kids flooded the course from the other side, sticks and twigs in hand. Isaac punched a choconut shell, twirled as he picked up one of the kids, then gave him a gentle push towards the others, toppling three like bowling pins. He felt someone try to jam a stick into his left butt cheek, then spanked the offender across the rear, eliciting a high-pitched squeal.
“That’s a paddling, you hear?” He was quickly outpacing the rest of the kids, and soon their cries disappeared into the tree line behind. “I’ll get my revenge lateeer…”
Ah. I forgot to hit all the choconuts.
The ground turned from loamy sand into full on sand mixed with palm leaves and dead grass as he left the trees behind him. The few vacation apartments and bungalows built ten meters above the sealine were bustling with activity from the tail-end of the vacation season. It was mid-summer, and the weather was beautiful, but, well, the tide would be in before the end of it. People were already stockpiling food and toilet paper, and they were seeing less and less traffic too. Soon the island would be empty of strangers, and they’d all be crammed into the orphanage to weather out the storm.
They were far from the mainland, but they had a Claire and a Hammond. That would be enough, though secretly, Isaac hoped he could help somehow beyond moving sandbags. He was still thinking about what he was going to do when he was out of his part-time job in a few months as he jogged around the Palmside Diner which had opened two years ago and invited himself into the back.
“Isaac, don’t you dare sweat on the fries,” the proprietor, miss Barnabie, yelled at him from across the sparsely populated kitchen, then — looking as busy as ever — disappeared into the backroom. She owned the diner, two nearby vacation apartments, and a snorkeling slash diving agency that offered tours on the side. As far as bosses went, she was demanding, but fair.
“Just using your shower!” he called, already throwing his sweaty clothes into a heap. Whatever complaints she may have had, they were drowned out by the blissful feeling of a cold shower. Thanks to this place he didn’t have to go all the way up the hill back to the orphanage, and since the diner was so much further down than the nearby water tower, the water-pressure of the shower was crazy good.
Cultivate, he thought as he cycled some trashy natural essence in and out of his soul, Cultivaaate.
When he was done, he put on his prepped pile of clothes, pulled a garishly orange shirt emblazoned with the phrase ‘Benerific!’ — which was not a word — over his head, tousled his brown curls in the hope they would air-dry quickly, then strode out and into the kitchen. He walked past the frying vats and counter-sized gas cookers, past the storeroom for scuba gear, the cramped office overflowing with binders and loose files of paperwork, and out to the dining area.
He didn’t take a uniform, or — gods forbid — a wetsuit. The last place you could find Isaac was in the water, though he did enjoy fishing.
Time to find out if I can earn any money today.
Isaac walked up to the whiteboard that was hung from the wall right next to the entrance and checked its crisscrossed timetable for the week. Someone had made a same-day reservation again, but Isaac didn’t have time to scoff. Mild inconveniences wouldn’t stop him from making a little bit of money on the side, and as long as they didn’t ask for anything too demanding, Isaac was glad to serve.
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There was one group of four marked for twelve thirty, which was… ten minutes ago.
Carpcrap.
He found the group waiting at a table outside, slurping slushy drinks. Chainmail ran down the sides of their seats, sweaty helmets were clustered on a nearby table, and one of them was wide enough that they likely needed two chairs. They looked like they were dressed for battle and they were the only group around.
“Hi, I’m your guide, Isaac, sorry I’m late. I kind of got ambushed by a horde of tiny orphans.”
A guy in half plate, maybe a few years older than Isaac, raised his brows at him. “Does that happen a lot on this island?”
Isaac made a so-so gesture. “They’re usually well behaved but try to be lenient if you get caught in any pranks, even if they make themselves look very kickable.”
Someone snorted. Isaac smiled. Now that he had their attention, everything was won.
“So, you want to learn about our cool little island out in the ocean? Maybe interested in the old castle, maybe about the mystery of why there aren’t any seagulls? We can start our tour right here on the beach, and I’ll show you every hidden nook on the—”
“Thanks, but we’re just here to delve,” mister half-plate said.
“Oh. Okay.” Then why did they put their name on the board? “I can give you a rundown of our island’s facilities. We have a skill-shop-slash-gear-store, a pok-ball court out back that should be clear to use if you ask, and a parkour course going through the island.”
“No training grounds with training dummies? No repair-smith, no grocery store, no — no WettNet! Please tell me you’ve got Wi-Fi at the top of the hill.”
Isaac made the politest face he could without telling the man that they’d only gotten running water three years ago, and that all their electricity came from diesel generators.
“Great. Wonderful.” His chair screeched as he stood up. “I’m going for a walk.”
His friend, Isaac assumed, was only a second behind. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t break anything. Or anyone.”
He watched the two stomp towards the tree line. The sound of one of the two girls slurping her drink brought his focus back to the table. “Should I be worried?”
“Nah, Richy’s just grumpy ‘cause he got seasick on his new shoes. He didn’t even touch his drink; you can have it as a way of apology.” The girl that turned to him had raven hair, and a face like a hawk, all sharp and piercing stares, while the other one gave off the impression of a nervous sheep, brown curled hair poofing out and brown eyes boring a hole in the table. “I’m Yvonne, by the way, and this is Ana. We’re delvers from Wett City, looking for a new place as a staging point for some deep-sea rift delving. Up and coming masters of the sea, The Wranglerfish, that’s us!”
That would explain the crossbow slash harpoon-gun Yvonne had slung over her shoulders, the thin spears, and the wetsuits underneath their armor. Fighting underwater was usually left to the merpeople for obvious reasons, and here was the exception solidifying the rule. There wasn’t much rift-delving done around Seagull island last Isaac remembered, so maybe they’d just found their niche. Yvonne seemed enthusiastic enough, though they couldn’t be above Tier 2 if they needed wetsuits to regulate body heat.
“I’ll be honest: I’ve never heard of you,” Isaac said as he sat down and took a sip of his free… coffee and half-melted ice cream.
“Told you the name was bad,” Ana said in a quiet voice, then went back to slurping.
Yvonne just rolled her eyes. “I think it is cool.”
Isaac leaned forward. “You’re part of a guild then, or maybe… adventurers?”
“We’re Delvers. Don’t ever get those two mixed up.”
“Why, what’s the difference? Both delve rifts, both show up on TV.”
Oh, that was the wrong thing to say.
Yvonne leveled a straw with an ice cube hanging from it at him. “One is a respectable, if slightly hazardous profession, with rigorous standards and traditions practiced across the empire. The other is a bunch of glory-stealing, self-aggrandizing clowns. They get their grubby little hands in every pie, then leave the actual fixing to the locals while they cash out and screw off on their fancy space ships. As if it isn't bullshit enough that they get all the loot, all the recognition, and all the essence, guess how you become an adventurer. Guess.”
It sounded exaggerated, and just a bit untrue. Though, Isaac wasn’t about to call her out; information was hard to come by, and it felt like he was eternally out of the loop. Besides, the situation demanded a quick answer. The ice cube was drooping dangerously. “Friendly, regulated competition?”
“Random chance!”
“It’s actually a week-long test,” Ana corrected. “The chance part is for the initial application. Yvonne’s just mad she didn’t make the coinflip a few years ago.”
Yvonne grunted. “I’ll get in next time, and then life’ll be a breeze.” Then she popped an ice cube in her mouth and crunched down on it. “So, what’s life on an island like, Island boy?”
“Well, it’s monsoon season. All our cisterns are full with water, so no need to exhaust ourselves on the roundsy-round.”
“The what?”
“You know, it’s like a wheel of iron bars that spins on its axis. Some charity bulldozed our water pump and hooked it up to a playground-thing instead. ‘The kids will have fun and they will have water at the same time’.” He said the last bit in a pompous voice. The water pump had been working fine before that. On the other hand, general enthusiasm for the new playground toy had lasted about a day, and now nobody wanted to play with the roundsy-round because it would stop moving after not even half a rotation.
The two delver girls just looked at him with an odd face. “Do you… do you mean a merry-go-round?”
“That’s what they’re called, yes!”
The two girls were looking on in horror for some reason Isaac couldn’t fathom. Yes it was an annoying change by do-gooders likely never seen an orphanage in person, but the water still kept flowing. Now if it had stopped, that would have been enough to get truly upset about.
“Sounds like something straight out of a rich kid’s PR campaign,” Ana muttered. “Was it even necessary?”
“I mean, not more necessary than all the mismatched shirts we’ve been donated from off planet. Some of them aren’t even for humans. Last month, there were ten of them sized M for minotaur, and two with six sleeve holes. We’ve got so many we’re using those as towels and rags, and with a little stretching I think I could even use one to make a bed.”
“That does explain your unusual fashion sense, islander,” Yvonne said with a smirk.
“Excuse you, mainlander,” Isaac countered while leaning back, “I’m benerific as fuck.”
Yvonne choked on her ice cube. Ana snorted so hard into her glass that half her drink rocketed back out at her face.
“You know, I still don’t know why you signed up for a tour, if all you’re gonna do is sit here and give me free drinks.”
“Yes,” Yvonne said with a sly grin, turning to Ana. “I wonder who that was?”
The mousey girl nearly dropped the napkin she was using to dab herself dry. Her eyes flitted between Isaac and her friend, like a deer caught in the headlights. A deer that wanted to run away terrified from one of them, and murder the other one later.
“Yo Isaac!” A pair of sweaty arms caught him in a headlock. “I see you’re still hard at work.”
“Not working,” he gurgled at Sophia.
“No? That means you can help me and Hammond do the laundry.” She stopped, finally noticing his company. “Sorry, am I interrupting something?”
“No!” Ana got up so hard the table clattered. “No, not at all. We were just getting ready to leave, right Yvonne?”
One pair left, leaving the other in an acrobatic struggle that was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Sophia ran the same route he did, except it took her longer because puberty hadn’t blessed her with height.
“They totally thought that I was your girlfriend,” Sophia cackled, dangling from his neck.
“People live such weird lives. Now get off, I just showered and you're getting post-workout grossness all over me.” Though with how hot the day was shaping up to be, he might as well go for a second shower. “Wait, you’re not dirty or sandy at all. How did you evade Kyle?”
“I heard your screams from kilometers away, so I snuck around him.” Sophia rolled her eyes. “And you, can you stop flirting with people at least on your big day? Did you even notice the hearstruck look of the fairman’s apprentice yesterday? Are you doing this on purpose, or are you just dense?”
I wasn’t… oh.
“I wasn’t flirting.” He tried to dismiss her with an airy snort. “And besides, the black-haired one indirectly talked shit about Claire. Called people like her greedy posers.”
“Isaac. The other one.”
“Not my type,” he said a bit too fast.
How was he being so dense today? It had to be the exhaustion after the run. Or maybe he was just nervous because today, Sophia, Zach, and him would get their boons and banes tested. It was the kind of experience you only had once, the magical rules that determined your path in life. Today he was just Isaac, but tomorrow he could be anything, a world-class athlete, a teacher that could remember and regurgitate entire volumes of dictionaries, a blimp captain, a master craftsman, a delver, an adventurer.
Probably not an adventurer.
The thought played with the tightness in his stomach. “Which doesn’t mean I’m not open for new experiences.” And then with a grin, he added, “If you want her for yourself, you better hurry.”
Sophia barked a laugh. “She’s not my type either. Not enough whiskers. By the way, Zach wants to challenge you to another pok-ball match.”
“Now?” His everything felt floppy and tired. If he had to play anything more intense than a board game, he would die. However, nobody challenged Isaac to a game of pok-ball and got away with it. Zach must have planned for this too, the orphan ambush was just the final push and probably some form of psychological warfare.
So, ignore the challenge, or get beaten at his favorite sport? The choice was between death or dishonor.
“Fine.”
They walked towards the playing field when with a start, Isaac realized something.
“You liar! You didn’t run around Zach, he just let you walk past!”