That night, there were no dreams.
Only darkness.
Yet somehow, the darkness felt more cursed than her dreams ever did.
The part of her that wanted to normalize what she felt told her that it was just a result of her being disconnected from TheirWorld. The honest part of her mind, however, knew it was because whatever sleep she had had was an illusion. Time passed under closed lids, but it was a terrible half-sleep, with every sound, movement of shadow and light, or breath of air circulation causing her to jerk awake.
And every time she did, she saw the man’s ringed eyes, etched into the back of her lids, looking at her—through her—as if he knew more about her than she did. She tried to flail his face away from her, yet she lay paralyzed in the waking dream, a nightmare that gripped her so tight she could only roll her eyes in an attempt to move her body to wake.
Her alarm came before the sun rose, loosening the man’s grip on her enough that she was able to struggle her arm away from her side with enough force and intent to hit the snooze button. It took the better part of the five-minute snooze window to pull the rest of her body into moving shape.
The momentum of throwing her body forward caused her to lose her balance and fall forward into her hands. Her tingling body felt heavy as if the weight of her worries was made into a real, tangible thing. The alarm sounded again as she rubbed the mist from her eyes. It’s a new day, she told herself. Everything will be fine. You just need some coffee and a few minutes by yourself in your own head...
Bit by bit, she managed to coax her numbed limbs into working order as she melted out of bed. She wasn’t sure she managed to measure out the grounds and water correctly for her coffee, but she was beyond the point of caring. She was also hazy about how much sugar and milk she had put into her cup, but that seemed of little consequence as she swayed back and forth over the counter.
Perhaps it would have been better if she hadn’t tried to go to sleep at all. She took a couple of ibuprofen to combat the growing pain in her skull, then leaned over the counter in front of the coffee maker. The nutty smell of the steam washed over her like a warm blanket.
If she had to choose between this and the dreams, she would have chosen the dreams ten out of ten times. She didn’t understand them, and often, they made her feel things that confused and frightened her—but they weren’t real. That, and she still woke up from them being functional. They were more like mysteries that she wanted to solve, driven by some unknown need to finish.
Her coffee finished brewing, and she filled her cup as high as she dared before she stumbled over to her couch. Curling up with a heavy blanket, she watched the ocean churn on the other side of the glass as she contemplated the rest of her day and drank her over-sweet coffee.
As it turned out, there were some fish that were willing to come close to the ‘Bergs.
Three classes to attend and several papers and reports to write before the end of the week. If she didn’t get through at least some of those by the end of the day, she’d have to plan around them over the next few days. That thought wasn’t very appealing—she’d only just gotten her ability to play again—though, at that very moment, she wasn’t certain she’d be able to stay awake for that, anyway.
As she pieced together the bits of her schedule she could think of, an alarm went off on her smartwatch: 7:45, Prof. Sul.
Blinking at the note, she tilted her head at her wrist. Did she really plan on going to his class? Would he actually care if she did or not? Did she care? After being awake all night, she cared less than she probably should have, but at the same time, her restlessness pushed from the back of her mind. It’s only thirty minutes away if I don’t miss the monorail...
So she got herself dressed and, unsure of what she was really in for, headed over to the station. Managing to catch a car, she found a place to stand and grabbed a handle that hung from the bar.
It’s because I need a distraction, she told herself as she hung lazily, feeling more hungover than she ever did when she drank. In a daze, she wandered what seemed like streets that were far more familiar than they should have been until she found herself outside the doors of the Gathori Biodome. Staring up at the big letters that pronounced the building a habitat of the Garuli homeworld, she cursed, blaming it for her current state even though it had nothing to do with it at all really—even the master of it whom she sought had little to do with her situation—though the more she looked, the more her heart twisted in doubt.
Was he serious about inviting her there? But as several people gave her odd glances as they walked in past her, she sighed in surrender. She was already there. She may as well just go in and find out.
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Staff stood by the doors, taking up positions to ensure proper use of the double door mechanisms that kept things out and in as the large numbers of students passed through. When she asked one of the doormen about Professor Sul’s class, they directed her to one of the trails that she had taken before. Advising her that she would be a few minutes late, they also admitted that she wouldn’t be the only one, so she could always ask along the way if she got lost. Dassah thanked them and went in through the doors with the next wave of students.
Tropical heat hit her first, then the smell of the earth, and then the uncomfortable feeling of the humidity, as sweat began to bead up on her skin almost immediately. The sounds of the birds in the trees invited her forward despite that, and the gentle breeze helped whisk the sweat away. Whatever she felt about Professor Sathuren Sul and the other denizens of this place, there was no denying the magic of life held in the glass. Breathing the moist air and brushing her hands against the thick, waxy leaves was all it took to steady her heart.
The man called ‘Merlyn Jace’ frightened her. It was easier to admit when her mind wasn’t full of fog that was thicker than the air in the garuli dome. Somehow, whatever it was she saw hidden in those eyes of his was far more dark and scary than anything she had met in TheirWorld—even more scary than the dragon in her dreams. And as usual, the scarier the person or event she found herself involved in, the more she realized that her fear of the garuli was nothing more than the superficial fear of a child. And the stronger that that impression grew, the more foolish she felt.
She followed along the trail with two other students, but it wasn’t long before Dassah heard a familiar set of sounds carrying over the din. When they came upon a small amphitheater, she let the other two students go ahead and leaned into the bushes at the edge of trees surrounding it. Sathuren Sul stood at the front, giving a presentation to a group of 20 or 30 students. A large holoscreen behind him showed what looked like a battle going on between a small, brightly colored male being beaten by a large, grey female.
“As you can see,” he was saying in Isoli-Valkyrian, smirking. “Garuli tradition gives new meaning to the phrase, ‘You hit like a girl,’ depending on where you are from. You should have learned about handling such cultural differences in other classes, but it’s always a good thing to be reminded of—and yes, Mr. Briden, I’m looking at you.” Sul pointed at a young blonde man as the class chuckled lightly.
“It was one time,” the man said, causing the class to ripple with laughter.
Sul shook his head with a tragic expression, then pointed at a tivarys girl in the middle of the room who raised her hand. “Yes, Miss Bell?”
“What about you?” she asked. “Or, other sutak like you? How do you fare in such combat?”
Dassah swore that the garule professor’s eyes flickered over to where she was hiding as he nodded and said, “Well, that depends.” He waved to a slide that depicted two garuli. Both looked female, except that the one on the left had the brightly colored scales of a male, while the other was a deep, greenish color.
“First, all joking aside, any of these kinds of questions hinge on whether you are talking about societal roles or biological capability. In valkyrian society, societal roles of gender hardly exist, and even biological considerations are teetering on obsolete thanks to modern technology. In other cultures, there are plenty of people who, regardless of societal expectation, overcome one or both of these things—some with more success than others, and some making huge sacrifices to do so.
“For the garuli and their more ‘traditional’ culture, both parts are important, and those roles are so ingrained into their culture that it’s hard to discuss one without bringing up the other,” he continued and brought up a holoscreen connected to writing surface on a stone desk in front of him. “Let’s say, for the sake of conversation, that it is a biological normality—and societal rule—that garule male will never be able to overpower garule female. Reasons, Mr. Havothath?”
A man at the right said, “Size and muscle structure. Muscle mass of females is always greater.”
“Okay...” Sul scribbled on his board. “Miss Reka?”
“Experience?” she offered, but Sul shook his head. “That’s more social,” he told her and drew a line, writing her offering below the line. “Miss Tethane?”
A earar girl near Dassah went, “How about hormones?”
“I’ll accept that,” he said, then said, “All right, how about societal factors? Anything to add? Mr. Ural?”
“Any environmental factors,” a jikak man answered. “Access to basic needs and territory rivals.”
“Miss Whenen?”
“Religion and cultural elements?” a tall girl asked. “Garuli are land and spirit worshippers, but it’s polarized according to gender as well; Females are the ‘land’ and males the ‘spirits.’”
“An interesting thing to consider in this topic,” Sul told her and closed his writing window. “So, let’s go back to Miss Bell’s question: What about the sutak?
“Miss Bell, would you be so kind as to tell the class what a sutak is in your own words?” Professor Sul asked, holding his hand out to the crowd.
The tivarys girl who had asked the initial question shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “T-They are garuli who do not fit into the societal expectations of the general culture of the clans,” she said. “However, the garuli definition of male, female, and sutak fails to account for biological considerations deeper than what is visibly, or culturally, realizable.”
“That’s very kind,” Sul nodded at her as he smiled. “And a decent summary—but it won’t help you on your midterm.” The girl shrunk as he clicked to the next slide, which displayed several classifications of sutak-looking garule. “Let’s start from the top, shall we?”