Because Airya’s mom gave her many grueling days full of studying just like she had promised, her mind was too exhausted to want to do anything after the long days besides sleep. She wondered if her mom was doing it on purpose to keep her from going off to any other worlds, not that Airya really wanted to anyway after the last one she had visited.
Now after too many days of studying and no fun, she was swimming in the lake with friends. Some of the older children were more interested in her than they were before when she had been smaller, but she ignored them. She was more interested in being with her now-younger-bodied friends that she was used to. She was happy that her fear of them not liking her as much anymore was now gone. They had seemed shocked at first by her growth, but they did recognize her. It surprised her that they didn't shun her away like she had seen them do to a few of their previous friends who had aged. It made her wonder if it was because she was the daughter of their king and queen.
Hethei flew above them, unwilling to go anywhere near the water as Airya swam and laughed with Lilla. She hadn’t seen Lilla since she had hung out with her at the bottom of the mountain, but she looked exactly the same. Her parents still hadn’t aged her at all.
After a few laughs and dunks underwater, Lilla looked uneasy at Airya and asked, "Why do you think the Solocs won't accept us? I see them when I go a little further than I should on their side of Ausrine. They are so hateful. Aren't we willing to be their friends? Why are they not us?
Airya sighed as she treaded water which was a little easier than it had been when she had shorter arms and legs, "I imagine that we did. My mom told me that when our people came, they just left their homes and went down by the second river and built new ones."
"But why? Why leave all the things they worked hard for?"
Airya thought hard. A small headache began to form from the memory of the Solocs screaming at her and chasing her in that one little town, "Maybe they were scared because we were different."
"But what would it take for them to accept us?"
Airya tried not to roll her eyes. She looked away, understanding her mom's slight irritation at all of the never-ending questions that she used to have. She tried to change the subject.
“Have you gone on any great adventures lately, Lilla?”
“Of course not! I’m bored! And it’s even less fun when you’re stuck in the temple learning!” She splashed Airya’s face with a hand slap of water and giggled.
Airya wished she could bring Lilla with her to other worlds, but she wanted to wait until Lilla got aged up a little first. “Maybe soon you will be able to,” Airya looked up to Hethei, flying above them. “When are your parents planning on aging you?”
Lilla coughed.
Airya turned her attention back to her friend expecting the questions to continue, but Lilla's yellow eyes were widened circles of helplessness. Another cough had blood escaping Lilla’s mouth. The crimson floated into the water. Airya swam toward and grabbed her small body as it began to sink. Lilla’s head disappeared below the water's surface. Airya tried to pull her up, but the weight of Lilla's body was starting to drag Airya down. Airya's head got immersed and she swallowed water into her lungs while she worked to keep a hold of Lilla. Talons were grasping at the hair on her head trying to pull her up. She ignored them and focused on trying to get a better hold of Lilla, grasping under her shoulders as the tiny body kept slipping away. Her friend's eyes were lifeless and her hair floating up and around her like the swalak in the river. The slipperiness of Lilla's skin and the heaviness of her tunic made Airya lose her grip and Lilla fall away. Airya’s scream was muffled by water as she tried to swim down after her. But her lungs started to burn and her head started pounding as if someone was hitting it with a rock. She couldn’t get to Lilla’s body. She couldn’t see it anymore. It was no use. She swam back up to the surface.
Emerging from the water with one loud intake of breath, Airya yelled out for her friend and looked to Hethei as if expecting him to save Lilla or do something to help. She looked around hopelessly to see if any of the others could help, but heard more coughing and saw more blood. The same thing was happening to all of them, the lake was beginning to fill with blood. So much blood, taking over the lake, turning it into a deep satin red from the children’s noses, eyes, and mouths.
Airya had to get out of the river. She had to get away from the blood. She had to get back to the temple. Back to her parents.
A hole opened next to her. It was emerged halfway into the water like she was. She went in and fell to the floor in the temple soaked, having taken some of the water with her. Trying to stand, tears and whimpers escaped her. She kept slipping and sliding on the stone not able to get good enough footing to go anywhere. She gave up and let herself fall to the ground on her knees, "Mom!" she screamed, her voice breaking, "Dad!" her throat split along with her last cry. They came running out of another room toward her. Hethei was at her side. She wondered if he portaled there too. She wondered if he saw any more of what had happened after she left.
Her mom fell to the floor with her. Her dad stood above her as if defending her from an unseen source.
"Airya!" her mom yelled. She was looking at the bloody water on the temple floor. "What happened? Where did you go? I thought you said you were going just to the lake! Why did you go out to another world again? Why don't you ever listen to me!"
Airya started to sob hard and rolled herself into a ball clasping her legs and digging her teeth into her knees to keep the panic inside of her as it shook her trying to get loose. So much pain and so much loss. Lilla was lost.
"Eos! Calm down! You’re not helping her at all!" her dad said. He came down to the ground and pulled her wet body close to him.
"But do you not see, Delak! Do you not see that this is what happens?! Look at how terrified she is!"
"I didn't…" Airya tried to say through her teeth that were still biting into her knees, "Lilla."
"Lilla?" her mom questioned, "What about Lilla?"
"Airya, Airya, please honey come here. Let go. You’re making yourself bleed," her dad whispered pulling her apart from herself, trying to lengthen her out and take her out of her ball. Managing to do so only left Airya shaking and trembling. She got on her hands and knees and climbed, dripping into her dad's lap, hugging him tightly as she sobbed.
"Airya? What about Lilla?" her mom asked.
"I lost her!" Airya wailed.
"You. What?" her mom asked.
She heard her dad shushing. He began stroking her head as he rocked her. She wasn't sure if he was shushing Airya or her mom, but she let herself fall into the soothing noise, "Airya, try to explain. What exactly happened? Did you lose her in another world?"
Airya shook her head. Her mom let out a relieved sigh.
"Then what, Airya?" her dad prodded, "What happened?"
"The lake," Airya took in a deep breath, "All the kids in the lake." She couldn't say anymore.
They waited.
"Do you want me to go down there and see what she means?" her mom asked.
Her dad nodded. She heard her mom walk away. Panic erupted from her.
"NO!" she yelled out, climbing out of her dad's lap and crawling to her mom, shallow of breath. Somehow, she found her way to her feet. She fell into her mother's arms, "Please, please, don't. Please," she sobbed. "They’re all lost. Blood. So much. I can't. I don't. I don't want you gone too." She squeezed her eyes shut.
There was a dead silence. She felt her mom stop breathing and then heard her dad rise to his feet.
"Lost? Blood? As in death?" her dad asked gravely, a statue.
Airya nodded her head. Death. Death like the stories she was told. Death, the thing that their people had escaped from for so long.
Her mom took in a sharp inhale, "How many?"
Still shaking, Airya let go of her mom and looked to the stone floor, "Everyone in the lake."
"Airya."
She turned to her dad.
"I want you to go to your room. You and Hethei. We have to..."
"No! no, no, no, no, please don't!” She yelled, running to him and hugging him, weeping.
"Airya. Airya!" he yelled, trying to get her to stop, "We have to. We are the king and queen of our kingdom. It’s our duty to protect our people. That’s what we came here for. We have to see what happened. We have to go out there and make sure our people are OK."
Her mom peeled Airya off of her dad and she let her feeling helpless. She knew he was right, but didn't want him to be. She knew it was his duty, but thought it was unfair. She was scared. She didn't want to be alone. She didn't want them to leave her. She didn't want them lost too.
Her mom guided her to her room in a daze, laid her on the bed, and covered her up.
Airya laid there. The room’s emptiness pushed in on her as if it had its own invisible walls. She listened and heard nothing. Nothing. She only saw a blurry room through her sore eyes which had seen too much. There was nothing but gagging in her thoughts. Lilla’s cough, blood, water gurgling, hands slipping.
She jerked the covers off of her and ran back into the main room in the temple and then out into the atmosphere of Ausrine. The world was dull. Leaves darkening in the distance. The gentle wind that was always warm was cold. The grass was withered like it wanted to die. The sky once bright was grey.
She saw her mother and father in the distance coming back to the temple from the village. Her heart fluttered with fear and relief until she saw her dad drop to his knees, his hands to his face. She raced toward them, not seeing or hearing anything but her parents’ tears and her dad's sobs into the ground. Her mom bent over him rubbing his back, trying to console him.
They didn't see Airya as she slowed down, stopping only a little away. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to comfort her parents, who she wanted to comfort her.
"All dead. All dead, Eos. What did we do wrong?" She heard her dad almost scream into the ground. His heart was breaking.
Her mom only shook her head and continued to rub his back. Hethei flew up from behind her and landed on her shoulder, leaving her be. Airya turned her head and looked at the temple once more. There, she saw Stilk in the opening, looking gleeful for a moment before he spotted Airya and then frowned.
Lilla's body along with a few others that were in the lake were still nowhere to be found. All of their people had passed her parents had said. All the Yellow Eyes in the kingdom had the same symptoms and life were in their eyes no longer.
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Her parents had taken all the bodies, and one by one, dragged them to a giant pit up a hill in the ground on the foot of the mountain away from the lake. It was in the opposite direction from Atta that Airya had never thought to travel before. She never knew that the pit existed and was told it was now forbidden for her to go there, not like she wanted to anyway. She heard her parents talking about how they had also found multiple Solocs dead. Airya's heart ached for them. It had seemed that the Solocs outside of their village of Atta had died, which turned out to be a decent amount. Her mom saw them dragging the bodies of their own, but instead of depositing them into the pit, they were seen burying them into the ground.
Stilk looked sick to his stomach one day on the way back from his trip to Atta where he had gone for a few days after the incident that her mother now called The Release. The many times after that, when Airya saw him in passing, he had tears in his eyes. She had never seen him cry before that.
It also took days for anything to go back to any resemblance of how they were before. Her parents kept busy trying to clean up the kingdom, hoping to find any survivors but failing. They were shells of themselves it seemed. Once so hopeful and blessed, now so dreadful and full of doom. They left Airya alone and tried not to let her see them cry. They caught food for her to boil and put her to bed with hardened faces. Her mother had even suggested that Airya go somewhere far away for a bit to escape their sad dull world, but Airya had refused to go. She didn't want to leave them.
Finally, lessons began to pick back up with her mom again, which Airya was grateful for to distract herself. Her dad never fully came around and walked the village by himself aimlessly whenever they were in studies. It had been a long time since she had gotten to kiss his freckle. Airya cried herself to sleep every night, yearning for the comfort of her father that she used to have.
One day during one of their lessons, a tear fell from her mom's cheek to the stone floor, interrupting Airya's train of thought. She looked to her mother who was staring at her as if deciding something. Her mom grabbed her hand and looked her in the eyes, "I'm going to age you again, Airya, to seventeen. I need your brain to be developed enough to understand what has happened fully and for you to be able to handle it better."
Airya only nodded. She wanted to do anything to help her parents and herself.
Her mom stood, helped pull her to her feet, and then led her into the aging room. Airya followed in a complete daze, tears forming behind her eyes that she blinked away. She would be strong for her parents. What was one more little change in the face of everything that had just happened? They walked into the room together, Airya now a little ahead of her mother.
More days passed and Airya took that time to get used to her new and more complete way of seeing things as if her mind had grown along with her body. She was fuller now all around and felt not just wobbly because of her longer legs but also because different places her body now carried her weight.
Hethei nuzzled her ear as they sat in their room while Airya drew on a stone slab with a dark rock practicing using her larger hands. When she was finished, she set the heavy stone onto her bed and glanced at the finished picture before looking away, too heartsick to stare at it for too long. She had drawn the lake in the other world that had been trying to call them back. Hethei jumped down off her shoulder and hopped to it, hooting sadly.
"You know you can go, Hethei, if you want. I just don't want to. I don't want to leave my parents, no matter how much they seem to avoid me, especially dad. I want to be here for them in case they need me."
Hethei puffed out his feathers.
"I don't even know if I can go anymore. It has been forever since I’ve tried and, you know, I changed again. You never know if that might have changed too." She sighed as he flew off the bed to the wall that Airya usually called out to that made one of the portals open. He flew back and forth a few times and then landed on the bed and stared at her.
"I would try. I want to see if it is still there, but what if it isn't? I can’t handle that on top of everything else."
Hethei looked longingly again at the picture and gently nudged Airya's leg with the top of his beak. It was a gentle prodding and light encouragement. She sighed and then reached out into the many worlds, begging to return back to that place she missed most.
A hole began to open slowly and grow before her. Relief flooded her tightened shoulders, causing them to drop and her face to relax. She got up slowly and walked to the mesmerizing pool of the unknown, reaching out to it, until she stopped and pulled her hand back, cutting off all connection. The access to the world closed shut, and they were left still in Ausrine alone. She walked away and out of the room, away from Hethei, who sulked on the bed, just as afraid to leave her and go alone as she was to leave her parents.
"It isn't like we aren't ever going to go again. I just can't right now." She shouted to him as she left the room.
Walking into the temple and seeing it empty again, she wondered where her parents were this time. She found it strange that they seemed to spend so much time in the empty village when no one was there. She wondered what they did down there and if now she had aged closer to their ages if she could help in any way. Maybe they would now let her lend a hand or a shoulder for them to cry on. She headed to the village to see.
No one was there. Airya went into every house and down every street, but no one. A small fear crept up inside her and slithered its way to her throat. She had to find them. She had to know they were OK. She had to know she wasn't alone. She made her way to the lake. Her nails dug into her palms as she picked up speed. She wished that Hethei was with her. She was beginning to feel bad for upsetting him. She had pushed him away like her parents seem to be doing to her. She fell to the grass, trying not to cry but failing. Wetness rimmed her eyes and fell to the ground. She tried to push away the fear and emotions, but they came washing over her anyway. She just wanted to get to the lake. She wanted to find her parents.
There was a weird tingle in the air and she looked up to see she had made another portal. This time she reached out and let it take her wherever it wanted her to go.
It deposited her at the lake. No one.
Anger flashed over the fear she had as she reached out to the world once more, opening up another hole. She made the dreadful decision fast before she could turn back. She prepared herself. She had to find her parents, and in order to find her parents, she had to be brave. She was left at the corner of the pit.
Bodies. So many bodies. She bent over and vomited up mostly water to the side, feeling the disgust and sadness mix to create a whole different type of feeling that her body couldn't handle as she bent over and wretched in pain. She had to be brave. She had to be an adult. She had to be able to be there for her parents and for Hethei. She had to quit pushing her feeling away like she had been doing every second of every day. She had to let them in and face them. She focused on her breathing. One breath in, feeling the sadness and shedding of tears overtake her. She let it. One breath out, feeling the anger make her warm. She let it. One breath in, feeling the fear speed up her blood. She let it. One breath out, feeling the nightmare play once again before her eyes. She stood up straighter. She looked over the edge.
So many of their lifeless people. Eyes opened. Yellow blank stares. Children and adults all sprawled out over each other thrown in various ways. Their skin looked artificial. Their eyes were lifeless eyes, and dried blood was coming out of their ears, mouths, and noses. She was surprised at how silent, peaceful, yet dreadful it all was.
She looked away, the image still playing in her eyes.
Her mother and father weren't there either. She sighed, wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, and demanded to be taken back to the temple.
Her feet touched stone right outside of it, and then she heard a flap of wings and smiled as Hethei who was drinking from the river, flew up to her and perched in his usual spot. There was distressful arguing coming up to the temple, so she ran to the stairs but stopped just before reaching them to listen and not interrupt her parents, desperate to know what was happening.
"I don't understand! Why won't they move back here? Why won't they let us serve them and take care of them? Isn't that what they always wanted? Wouldn't that be ideal for them?"
It was her mom who was shouting. They must have gone to Atta.
"Eos, they’re hurting too. They may not have lost all, but they have lost many." Her dad sounded defeated. The world had beaten him down.
"I know, Delak. Doesn't mean I understand it."
Airya retreated and backed away from the steps knowing that her parents wouldn't want to see her right now as they tried to sort out their own issues. She headed back to her room.
Lying on the bed, her eyes tried to close, but she forced them open. She turned to her side to watch Hethei pick at his feathers, cleaning them. She suddenly felt this maternal instinct to pick up Hethei and clean himself, but she left him alone. She could understand why her mom wanted to help the Solocs. She felt bad for them like Airya did. The Solocs had never lost any of their people, only their gods, over their hundreds of years. And now, they had lost so many at once. After all of them have been together since their births. Airya's heart broke for them and ached for Stilk, who she had remembered seeing crying just like everyone else. The Solocs had feelings, too just like them. They probably felt just as much heartbreak, if not worse. After her mom lost all the people she had before, she dedicated her life to care for and live for the rest she still had. It only made sense that she would reach out to the others who were in need and hurting, too like the Solocs. Airya wished she could help both. The Solocs and her mother and father.
"Hethei," Airya breathed, interrupting his cleaning, "Why don't you go and find yourself a nice big rat?"
Not thinking twice, Hethei jumped up, opened his own little hole, and flew off into it.
Airya got up and headed back out to look for her dad. She missed him terribly and wanted alone time with him like she had had before. She wanted to comfort him and share stories and maybe even ideas on how to get the Solocs to come around and lean on them for comfort. To get them to move closer and be part of their kingdom in everyone's time of need.
She stepped into the empty throne room. The owl eye stared down at her as she looked to the darkening sky outside of the temple. More time had passed than she had thought. She hoped her dad wasn't already trying to go to sleep. She walked toward the river but stopped when she heard crying in one of the rooms. She listened closely, trying to decipher who it may be, but she couldn't make it out. She had never heard crying so deep and desperate before from anyone. It was coming from the aging room.
With a slow pace and carefully placed footing, she made her way to the aging room, not wanting to disturb and interrupt the person's sorrows. She wanted to make sure that they were OK. Maybe evaluate the situation and see if she could help in anyway now or later. But then she heard deeper sobs and a cry out of pain that froze her blood. She forgot about her footing and stepped hard and fast. Deep worry replacing her concern. She stood in the doorway. Her hand found her gaping mouth.
It was her dad. He sat on the ground in a heap, sobbing and wheezing. Blood was starting to make a little puddle that was reaching for his tunic. He had the aging spear pressed deep into his palm and worked hard with his other hand to press it deeper still, while taking in a sharp intake of a painful breath.
"Dad!" Airya yelled, afraid to move, "What’re you doing?"
Her dad looked up at her, lost. She couldn't find her dad anywhere in his yellow eyes, "Airya! Just go! Go! Get out of here!" he yelled at her through clenched teeth before looking back down at his hand and his blood in a trance.
"Dad," Airya whispered, shaking. She ran to him and dropped to the floor beside him, wrapping her hand around the staff to pull it out. But before she could even try, he let his hand go for a second and shoved her away. She fell flat to the floor in tears and sat up, confused.
He pushed the spear further in, his hair growing out of his head, making it longer with more curls. He yelled out in pain.
"Dad! Please stop!" Airya yelled, "What are you doing!?" She tried to get up again, but her dad took his leg out from under him and kicked her down and away from her, causing her to stumble and fall chest to the floor. Her hair blocked her vision as she looked up, the puddle of blood now circling him and some of it climbing into her hair. She sat up on her knees, ready to beg, his blood dripping from her hair onto her tunic and the floor. Down her cheeks, replacing her tears. She looked into his face, desperate to find any part of her dad in there, but his eyes refused to see her. The lines on his face where his smile once was grew more profound and more pronounced as his skin grew thinner. His yellow eyes were sinking in, and his once-growing hair was now falling out around him.
"I failed again. First my brother and now all my people. The people who trusted in me. I’ve tried so hard to work and forgive myself after all these years. Forgive myself for leaving my brother behind. Forgive myself for running and not staying behind in our home to fight. But I wasted my time. I have wasted my life working on the impossible. I can't be forgiven. Here I am once again, alive and safe while my people have suffered and died. I’m a coward. You can't fix that, Airya. You shouldn't have a coward for a father." He pushed the staff in deeper. This time it cut all the way through, and she saw the bottom of the spear exit the top of his hand. She reached out to try to stop him again, to pull it out and get it away from him, but his laugh made her pause for a second too long.
His smile had returned. Once bright and beautiful, now old and rotten. He looked to the ceiling crazed, his veins trying to pull out of his thin skin and his bones growing brittle and small in front of her. One by one his teeth fell, a few hitting the floor. For a moment, he sat there with no more crying, no more laughing, no more pain, just stillness, and peace. Before he fell to the floor in a heap in front of Airya, she screamed. She screamed so loud and fell forward on top of her dad, tears falling to his now bald head and trailing down to the insides of his ears.
She heard her mom run in. They were now all alone.
Her mom screamed and started sobbing as she fell to her father. She felt her mom pull and tug and heard a clatter as the staff hit the floor far away. Her mom took her father's head away from Airya, and she called to him in desperation. Her mom's head fell to his heart to listen for a beat. There was dread in her mom's eyes when she realized there wasn't one. Her mom broke then. Broke into a thousand pieces as all of the other hopes and dreams she had shattered along with her heart. Her mom tried to take an inhale of breath to cry, but no breath came. Her mother’s mouth was mute as Airya wrapped her hands around her and let her mother's hair wipe away Airya's tears as she pushed her face into it. She waited. Waited for her mom to breathe again. Waited for her mom to make the final transformation into a broken soul.
Her mom convulsed once and then twice. The only air left in her lungs came out in empty wheezes. Then Airya felt a tear fall onto her shoulder and heard a strangled sob. Then another and another. Airya hugged her tight and let her mom let go.