--- KINTHEK ---
Kinthek Korelli shaved his face, frowning at the wispy and indecisive whiskers that had started appearing.
He had begun to feel that he would never get a hold of himself. Most boys around his level of maturity had started doing this years ago, but as in all things, Kinthek was once more behind on everything. People had a tendency to hate him here, he’d caught them whispering about him quite a bit over the years. It was less often lately—Kinthek always thought he had good ears. Either that or they hadn’t been trying to keep him from hearing them.
Anyways, Kinthek wasn’t very practiced at shaving, he’d tried once about ten years back—just to see how it felt, not because he’d needed to—and all he’d gotten for his effort was a long but faint scar across his chin. This time however, Kinthek finally felt that he needed to. It was almost gratifying.
Years of waiting, and at the moment, Kinthek really didn’t think it was as neat an experience as his mind had been trying to convince him. He was disappointed mostly, but in the back of his mind there was a part of him that felt relieved. He hadn’t been missing some life changing experience all this time.
Now he could go on with his life and steadily get more annoyed about the daily ritual.
He set down the blade, smiling into the piece of polished steel in front of him. His mother had called him handsome, but he’d barely been old enough to tie his own shoes back then, so Kinthek wasn’t entirely certain if she would still call him that if she were here today.
He wiggled his eyebrows at himself, opened his mouth to check for things that might be stuck in his teeth, and finally scratched at a loose bit of scale. Stars above if he lost all his scales again there’d just be more staring. He was pretty sure that wasn’t about to happen, but you never knew what Atharian would saddle you with next.
Kinthek finally washed out his mouth, examined his left eye—which he thought might be a bit more green than yesterday—and then got distracted again as a sudden thought erupted into his brain.
What if they put lizards in the grinding wheel to turn it instead of those rats?
Kinthek considered the idea before remembering that he hadn’t even seen any lizards all week. That was unfortunate.
After several moments of frowning at the lizard shaped splotch on the mirror, he finally blinked several times and looked over his tail, yes… yes it was still tail shaped. Perfect. Kinthek nodded at himself in the polished steel and finally left the tent, smiling at the annoyed looking line of men on the other side, who were waiting for use of the razor. Eternal River prided itself on having such a tool, and the men were nothing if not dutiful in using it daily.
The first man in the line quickly rushed inside, and the line moved forward.
Kinthek walked past them toward the shrine, his face pleasant. When he’d first moved in, half of these men had still been kids, now they were all fully fledged farmers. He hummed lightly, a skip in his step as he passed a huddle of women doing laundry.
They gave him hostile looks as he passed, and Kinthek caught their conversation shift. “Soulless, they’re unnatural I say!”
The others agreed with her, “Preist Vespin should have kicked that one out! Instead we have to live with it!”
“It should go back to the seas where it belongs… a Soulless in the desert… Sacrifice himself should have struck it down!”
Soulless. Kinthek always felt his heart speed up at the degrading term, memories of a bigger city and the abuse there always hit him painfully at the word. Kinthek kept walking though. He remembered what his mother had always said though, and it gave him strength. “The world goes at a different pace from us. You don’t have to match it.”
So Kinthek continued to smile, making his way to the shrine at the far end of the village. It was a ways away from anything loud, close enough to civilization that the farmers could see it while working but far enough that it could be a haven from the world itself.
The shrine was a simple area. It didn’t have a statue of Atharian like most other shrines these days—Kinthek had heard Vespin complain about the rising popularity of that quite a lot. It was a simple stone arch, painted red like blood. In the center where the doorway might have been, there was a short pedestal where people were encouraged to leave things.
At first, Kinthek had assumed that Vespin was the one who always made those things disappear by the next sunrise, either that or a thief in the village. That’s what he’d expected.
But once he’d been unable to sleep, Vespin had taken him out here. The two of them had sat near the shrine, talking and watching it for hours. As the sun rose behind the arch, Kinthek had seen the items disappear before his very eyes.
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Now, Kinthek could say for certain that there was at least something that called this shrine home. He wasn’t sure if it was Atharian himself or a spirit of the land, but there was something.
Today, Kinthek knelt beside Priest Vilvav Vespin, who was in the middle of his own kind of morning rituals. He didn’t open his eyes, but the priest spoke softly, “You’re late, Kinthek.”
Kinthek felt his face go slightly red, “Sorry, I got distracted.” He spoke a bit louder than he’d meant to, but still lower than his usual.
The priest nodded and bowed his head back to the ground.
Kinthek copied him, feeling a certain peace in the sacrifice of time. The sacrifice of ideas—that one was the hardest. The sacrifice of thought. The temporary sacrifice of self. He knew that he was a better person when he was able to give these things away though, just an hour out of the day to be one with the universe itself, back to how it had been before the world was made.
Eventually the two of them rose to their feet. Kinthek always felt it was some kind of confirmation that Atharian was listening whenever they managed to do it in unison. It was rare though, usually Kinthek ended up falling asleep, having stayed up too late the night before. He could tell that Priest Vespin was disappointed when he did that, but the old bloke never said anything.
Today though, Kinthek didn’t have to think about that, because last night he’d fallen asleep after only half an hour! It was a good sign for what this day would bring him.
Hopefully some progress… the back of his mind whispered. He wasn’t nearly as focused with getting out of Eternal River as he’d been ten years ago, even with the date of his escape no longer being a far off and impossible event. He still wanted to travel. Someday. “You’ll live a long life, Kinthek.” He remembered his mother saying. “Use all that time better than I did.”
He would try. He would really try. But Kinthek found he wasn’t any more wise for that length. Not yet at least, he supposed that he was just still young.
He stretched as Vespin bowed to the shrine. “We thank Atharian for this time of meditation.” Kinthek bowed a moment after, remaining silent as was expected. Vespin looked up finally and met his eyes. “So. What distracted you this time?” The priest had a twinkle in his gaze though, more amused than angry. Kinthek had always found that refreshing. Vespin was far easier to get along with than any of the farmers or townspeople… and he was certainly better than his corrupt son, back in the city of Starlight.
Kinthek smiled, “I shaved. I never would have thought how interesting a mirror could be, but I think I need to clean my teeth more often.”
Vespin nodded with a smile of his own, “See, you were worried about never getting a beard for nothing.”
Kinthek sighed, it was just like how he’d worried about never losing his first set of teeth, or how he’d worried about the bald spot on the back of his head never growing back. He’d worried as well about never growing taller, but here he was, finally having hit his Red Curse height. He was at least a head above practically everyone else at this point—not Denthen though—and by the time he stopped growing he’d be even taller. “That doesn’t stop me from that worrying, next I suppose I’ll be worried about my tail, or maybe I’ll pick something more exotic like my fingernails and—Vespin do you think this fingernail looks odd?!?”
The priest smiled, his wrinkled face familiar and cheerful, “Your fingernails are fine.”
“Yes, but are you sure?! That part there has a bit of a—” he paused, frowning.
“It’s alright to worry about some things.” He nodded, “So, you got to shave, and I see you didn’t even cut yourself this time.”
Kinthek puffed up slightly, “That’s right!”
Vespin smiled again, “I’m glad. Let me know if the farmers get restless again, I can remind them that you only have about a month left at this rate.”
A month. Just a month. Kinthek could hardly believe that. It was so strange to think that he could finally leave soon, just a few more bundles and he would be free again. He could get away from these people who knew exactly what he was. But at the same time, he didn’t think he’d be able to tell the priest about the restlessness. It never really stopped. But it wasn’t lying to withhold that from him, was it? “If today’s a lucky one,” Kinthek smiled, “I might even be able to leave tomorrow!”
Even at the proclamation and the puff of excitement and joy, Kinthek wasn’t actually certain if he was ready.
-
Kinthek walked down the river. He would pause periodically to pick stems from the farroot, but besides that, he hadn’t stopped for three hours.
Despite his earlier hopes, Kinthek wasn’t doing great with the gathering today. Most of the farroot had stalled recently thanks to the rain a few weeks back, the plants would be working on their roots rather than their stems, since the water was deeper now.
Kinthek was baffled as to why this was, wasn’t the river right there? Couldn’t the plant just get water from the spray? But nature was odd, as always.
He picked a stem that looked big enough—once again mourning that this plant was always so small. It never grew anywhere besides this river, and it took some practice to differentiate it from its less pleasant cousins. Most of which would give you a rash if you touched them. Thankfully, Kinthek was practiced at this point with identifying the things on sight.
He hummed as he walked.
The bundle was far too small, but not as bad as some days. He would be bringing back plenty of the useful stems and he would be one step closer to leaving this place behind forever.
Unfortunately, that’s when he spotted someone else walking beside the river.
She was young, perhaps twelve by normal person standards. Kinthek found himself blinking in confusion at the blue cast to her skin and her complete lack of a tail on her back. What was— Kinthek found his mind stuttering as the stranger met his eyes across the distance.
She was so strange, and she was young, but at the same time it was hard to stop his mind from immediately tossing toward him reason after reason for why she might be here. For who she was. Ideas and interest smacking into him in turn.
She turned from her examination, her eyes wide and surprised. Her gaze seemed in that moment to see into his very soul.