Tari woke up, not easing out of sleep and slowly becoming aware, but abruptly, like the snapping of a string, her body tense and mind seeking information. Her kyr-marks rolled in waves, dancing madly as they stretched and expanded off her skin into the ground and air to confirm what her five senses already told her: no enemies, no battle. She knew, but it wasn’t until her marks became still on her body that she allowed herself to breathe. Then, she was able to take in the sensations she had initially ignored: sounds of her comrades laughing outside, the bubbling of something in a pot, fire crackling, and quiet chattering. It seemed like she was the last one to wake up, but instead of immediately going out to join them, she laid back on the soft bed, looking at the ceiling of her tent, but seeing the dream she had woken up from.
The last time she remembered dreaming was almost a year ago, so she wanted to linger in it for as long as possible. In the dream, she was back on Marak, sitting in a nook by the window with a book, but rather than reading, she was more interested in how the crisp rays of sunlight danced upon the black and white symbols on the page, making patterns within patterns, how those same rays, danced upon her skin, making it shimmer like bronze. The feeling she longed most for from the dream was the way the sun heated up one side of her body, nearly burning it, while the other half, within the shade, was cool, almost cold. Tari sighed and gripped her blanket tightly as the echoes of the dream began to fade. She tried to focus harder on the feeling of the burning sun, but the more she longed to hold on to it, the faster it slipped away, like water, out of her grasp and gone, replaced by murky lukewarmness. She sighed again, threw her blanket off in annoyance and got up. The dream was great, but it had only made her more keenly aware of the fact that she was as far as she could be from Marak.
“Ah…I hate this place,” she whispered to herself as she peeled off her clothes. They were wet, not from sweat, but from the unnatural humidity and mugginess of the binding. She groaned, then forced herself to walk to a corner of her large tent, where the cleansing station was.
She squeezed the clothes in her hand and wrapped her marks around them. The marks, naturally black, began to glow blindingly white, igniting the clothes and burning them at a temperature so hot that not even ashes remained. Tari giggled as she watched the plasma consume the clothes. She couldn't burn down the binding itself, but she would take as much pleasure as she could from imaging that as she burned the clothes, she was also taking some small revenge on the place.
She rubbed her hands together satisfied with her petty actions. Then she waved her hands over the glyphs on the cleaning station, a disc-shaped piece of metal, about eight inches in diameter, and two inches thick, attached to the wall, with a small nozzle at its center. The glyphs on the disc glowed a faint yellow, then as they tuned green, steam burst out of the nozzle, covering her in a membrane of moisture. The steam poured out for a couple minutes, and then warm air followed after, drying her body and completing the cleansing. Tari smiled as the floral scent of the cleansing steam filled the room. One of the things that had kept her sane these last few years was this scent, light, crisp, and clean, though she admitted that, despite the convince of cleansing stations, she still missed an actual bath where she could sit in the water for an hour, solely focused on unwinding.
She sighed again, but deciding not to dwell on things she couldn’t change, she manipulated her kyr-marks to take on the shape of a simple shirt and leggings, then pulled kyr particles together into a soft but durable fabric of the same shape. Finally done getting ready, went to join her comrades.
“What’s the weather like today?” She asked as soon as she stepped out of the tent. There was always a moment when stepping out between her temperature-controlled tent unit and the thick warm air outside, where she had to brace herself against the strange feeling of the atmosphere. She knew that even spending ten more years there wouldn't get her used to what felt like the inside of an animal’s mouth.
“Hmm, let’s see,” Brel said, coming over to her and looking around. He pointed exaggeratedly to a random spot in the sky. “Well over there is yellow murky, and there,” he pointed in another direction, “is orange murky combined with a hint of brown streaks.”
“Wow, that’s amazing!” Tari said, clapping with feigned enthusiasm, playing along with their usual morning routine. Then more seriously, “Well, honestly, it’s definitely better than the purple and green mix we had yesterday.”
“Or the yellow and turquoise the day before that.”
“Exactly,” she said and laughed loudly in a painfully mechanical way that bordered on hysteria. “This is wonderful,” she added, and it sounded like she meant it.
Her four companions stopped midway in their cooking, training, writing, and whatever else they were doing to stare at her. Brel took a step back, watching as Tari whipped nonexistent tears from her eyes, her marks dancing frantically on her skin. Even as she straightened up and regained her composure, they didn’t stop watching her.
“Are you okay?” Fee asked, putting down the pad she was writing on. Her blue hair fell in wisps around her face.
“You seem a bit… tired,” Brel added, “Maybe you should get some more sleep.”
Tari shook her head and sighed at their concerned looks, letting out a hollow laugh. It had become something of a dial ritual to joke about how much they loved the binding, and she had played along as usual, at least she thought she had, but seeing none of the usual teasing or lightheartedness in their tone or looks, meant that she either really did seem unwell, or that they were too stressed to recognize the joke. It was probably a bit of both.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Really.”
“Are you sure?” Fee asked. “If you’re not okay, you have to let us know. We can’t have you losing your mind on us.”
Tari shot her a glare, then looked around, first, up into the sunless murky sky, already beginning to shift colors again, adding strange reddish hues into the mix, then down at the deep mauve stones that made up the desolate rocky terrain, and finally, she looked at her friends and saw the strain and tiredness that painted their faces in deep shadows. In an instant, she recognized in them, what they probably saw in her, that ten years of dimness, ten years of permanent twilight, ten years of this horrid sunless sky and its horrid colors were starting to take its toll on them all. It was no wonder they seemed concerned about her when she felt equally concerned for them. She wondered how they had all managed to keep their sanity this whole time.
“Maybe we’ve all actually lost our minds,” Silver said in reply to her thoughts. Then she turned away from her and back to her cooking, satisfied that Tari wasn’t any crazier than she had been the day before. She tasted the soup and smiled brightly.
“Maybe you should stay out of my mind,” Tari said, walking over and lightly kicking her.
Silver made a sound which was intended to be a grunt, but which, in her high hymn-like voice, sounded more like a lilting squeal, then fell in exaggerated pain. Her twin brother Capricorn, joining in on the fun, leaped over from where he had been training to catch her.
“It’s not my sister’s fault that you leave your mind completely defenseless,” he said, cradling his twin’s head. Keep your feet to yourself, hooligan,” he added dramatically.
“You all have far too much energy in the morning,” Fee said, stretching her back. She picked her notebook up and started writing, offhandedly asking, “Have you heard anything from Rick, Tari?”
“Nope,” she said, sitting down. Brel joined them around the food, and Silver started handing out large bowls of the transparent, watery soup. That good for nothing,” she scoffed and accepted a bowl from Silver. “He must be so thrilled to be back in Nol that he hasn’t bothered to contact us once, except when he bought a new pair of shoes. Why the hell would I care about his damn shoes? When we are still stuck here.”
Capricorn laughed, “That’s so like him. Well, he did say he would leave the final sealing to you. The fact that he’s not concerned means he trusts you. It’s unfortunate that the sentrinians have been attacking more frequently. They’re not giving us any time… but more importantly,” He said, mischief creeping into his voice. “Should you really be calling your father a good for nothing?”
“And who exactly is my father?” Tari said, giving Capricorn a look that dared him to continue.
“Rickandel Lupaine,” the remaining four said simultaneously, laughing obnoxiously as they did.
“Oh, here we go,” Fee said, exasperated, though she smiled softly as the banter they’d repeated at least a hundred times in the last month played out. Something about the repetition of these mundane conversations and jokes brought them a resume of comfort.
“I don’t remember agreeing to become his daughter,” Tari said, laughing. “He just goes along with his own whims.”
“Oh, please. Just a few decades ago, you were always talking about how you wanted to make Rick proud and how you loved him so much that…” The pink sand thrown in his face cut off the rest of Brel's words.
“Ugh, you got sand in my soup,” he yelled while the rest laughed.
“That’s because you say the most unnecessary things. All that happened when I was young and still thought he was the coolest man alive. Blame my naivety.” Tari mumbled.
“So, what you’re saying is that you don’t think he’s cool anymore?” Brel asked with obvious disbelief.
“No, he’s incredible. Always. But I’ll never tell him that to his face. It goes right to his already overinflated ego… Besides, Sol and Marviel are much cooler,” Tari said, then quickly shoved a spoon of soup into her mouth. Rick was the only real guardian she’d ever known, and for well over two thousand years since he’d found her, he had raised her as his child, declared it to the whole galaxy that she was his heir, but as much as she loved him, the nature of their relationship sometimes still felt unreal to her. She felt like one day she’d wake up, and…she let that train of thought go. The Binding was already depressing enough without making it worse with bad memories.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“You’re all so immature, talking about who’s cool or not,” Fee said, putting down her already-finished bowl of soup and beginning to drink the remaining soup right from the pot with the ladled.
“And your appetite is as baffling as always,” Tari said, putting her own bowl down.
They laughed and joked a bit more, then fell into silence for a while, each deep in their own thoughts. Tari looked off into the distance. The horizon, where the supple translucent dimensional walls of the Binding met the dark gray edge of the sentrinians dimension. More specifically, she looked at the point where a large rip in the dimensional fabric was roughly held together by Silver’s energy shield and her rough Kyr stitching. The shimmering threshold seemed to hum and vibrate with life.
She turned back to the group “Onto more serious things, what’s the plan for today?” She drummed her fingers on her knees. “I know we all just love being here, but I’m ready to go home. It’s about time we find some way to finish the final sealing. ”
Silver nodded, “I hate to sour the mood, but no matter how much we try to play at having a good time, I really don’t think we should stay here for much longer.”
They grew grave at her words. They joked frequently about it, but they truly feared that it was only a matter of time before one of them would really lose their mind, and the last thing they wanted to deal with, along with the sentrinians, was a very powerful lunatic.
“I think we can finish it by the end of the week,” Fee said, using her fingers to clean out the last traces of soup in the pot. “The breach is almost closed, and the sentrinians know this. That’s why they are trying so hard… think about it… for the last ten years, we’ve been steadily stitching the tear yard by yard. The extent of the damage we’ve fixed can not be understated, but now we’ve spent over two months since Rick left, trying to seal a hole that should take a day or two max.”
“Well, it’s difficult to hold them back with Rick gone,” Brel said, defensive of him and Capricorn. They were both at the vanguard fending off the waves of attacking sentrinians. A role Tari had been part of until Rick left. “Tari now needs to focus on weaving the tear closed, but without her help, we can’t stop their hordes from trying to destroy what has already been fixed or blasting through the breach,” he said.
Tari sighed, taking their words more personally than they’d probably intended. She was supposed to be filling Rick’s shoes now, and if she had even half of his skills and power, she’d be able to help fight off the sentrinians while weaving the dimensional thread at the same time. She knew she couldn’t carry the same weight Rick did and no one expected her to, but the burden was heavy. Their ten years’ worth of effort, fending off an incessant invasion, could all be in vain if she made a wrong step.
Silver reached over, laying a comforting hand on her back. “Don’t look so down, Tari, it’s not your fault.”
“I know, but it’s frustrating. If Rick was here, a hole that size could be closed in a matter of hours, yet we’ve been here for months.” She shook her head. “Heck, if all this nonsense with Iclax and Cajara wasn’t going on, Alexil would be here as well, and there would be no issue.” Tari sighed. Fee leaned forward, and everyone fell silent. Tari cringed inwardly, expecting the soft kind of rebuke that Fee was an expert at giving.
“The Master of The House of Lupaine has already been absent from the galaxy for ten years,” Fee said in almost a whisper. “Tari, you should know better than anyone that is unacceptable. As for Alexil, Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about that situation. As the next head of the Lupaine, it’s your duty to do this and to do it flawlessly,” Fee said unsympathetically, causing Tari to roll her eyes in frustration.
Fee allowed her words to sink in for a moment, before leaning back and continuing in a lighter tone. “Anyway, I’ve been doing some thinking, and I know how we can get this finished in about ten days…honestly, I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t think about it sooner.”
“How?” Capricorn asked, skepticism obvious in his voice. Then threw his head back and poured the rest of the soup down his throat, somehow still looking graceful as he did it. Tari smiled, thinking it was a special kind of affliction with the twins that everything they did seemed so naturally beautiful.
“As Brel said, we need Tari to focus on the actual sealing. She’s the only Marakian here. No one else can do that, so the rest of us need to hold the sentrinians back…”
“Sorry to cut in,” Brel said, “but that’s exactly what we’ve been doing, and the four of us can’t hold them back alone. Even when Rick was here, all five of us defended the breech while he closed it.” Brel said, rolling a small stone under his foot. “I thought you’d come up with something new.”
“Well,” Fee said, nudging his forehead. “If you let me finish, you’d hear the rest. The fact is, when Rick was here, only four of us were facing the sentrinians, and with Rick gone, it’s down three when Tari is closing the hole. As you are well aware, Silver has constantly maintained a shield around the entire Binding wall, so her contribution to the offense has been minimal. I think if she dropped the shield completely and helped us defend Tari, we could close the hole in less than a week.”
“Fee,” Capricorn said and shook his head. “That’s seriously not your plan, is it? The breech makes the entire binding unstable. Silver’s shield is the only thing that has prevented this place from crashing in on us. Do you want to be crushed between two dimensions?”
The rest said nothing, but the bit of hope that had sparked quickly died away.
Fee shook her head. “In the beginning, her shield was completely necessary, but that was ten years ago. The hole was almost the size of a planet, for goodness sake, but now it’s not even as large as a standard hovercar. Even if it’s just for a few hours at a time each day, we will have the full force of four of us, defending Tari and the hole. It will give her the time she needs to be able to actually focus on closing the breach, instead of having to start and stop every minute because you and Brel are getting overwhelmed … do you want to spend another month or two here, hoping the sentrinians will just let us be?” she said, raising her voice slightly.
They remained silent, each contemplating the idea, trying and failing to devise alternatives. Silver finally spoke up.
“I think it’s the best idea we’ve got. We’ve been here for months, and unfortunately, no one else has come up with anything better. It would be silly to repeat the same routine each day, hoping something will change,” she said, looking around. “Let’s try it out first, and if I notice the Binding starting to collapse, all I have to do is put the shield back up.”
“You make it sound so simple like you can just create a dimension-sized shield in two seconds by snapping your finger or clapping your hands,” Capricorn said, turning to his sister, his blue eyes flaring and flickering. “Who do you think you are, Prince Sol?”
“And not just once, Silver, but potentially multiple times? Are you actually trying to kill yourself? Death might be better than this, but there are much easier ways to die,” Brel added.
Silver laughed quietly for a moment, “There are definitely easier ways to die, but right now, I’m not so eager for death,” She stood up and smiled so brightly that for a moment, Tari didn’t miss the absence of sunlight. “This is actually a great idea Fee, and you know what? I think we can be out of here in two days, maybe less,” she declared.
They all looked at her with equal parts of confusion and desperate hope. “Two days?” Tari asked.
“Two days,” she said. “Like you said, Tari, a hole this size can be closed in a matter of hours if Rick were here, but I know you're capable of doing the same, so let’s drop the shield, fight hard for two days, then leave,” she finished, flicking her hand as though it were all as easy as brushing away some dust.
As Silver spoke, Tari couldn’t help the excitement creeping into her blood and pounding through her veins from the confidence her friend had in her. A smile slowly crept onto her face, and she got up, taking Silver’s hand. “Two days?” she said, then scoffed. “I’ll close it in one.” By now, an infectious thrill had fully spread through Tari and Silver, making them jump up and down wildly. Tari continued, her voice rising. “I’ll finally be able to go home,” she shrieked, jumping ten feet in the air and dragging Silver up with her, creating a cloud of dust underneath them. They hovered together in the air, flying around in circles like drunk birds.
Fee looked at them with mild concern but said nothing while Brel and Capricorn shook their heads slowly. They were definitely not sane anymore, and Brel was already planning a visit to Laurim for counseling the moment he got back to Nol.
“So that’s the plan then?” Capricorn asked, still uncertain. He was fine with fighting, but when he thought of the strain Silver would have to go through to put up the shield again if everything failed, he couldn't get as excited as everyone else. He looked up to where she was floating. Her hands and neck were covered in bandages from when her own powers had rebounded back at her prom overexertion, melting and scaring her countless times in the years she had maintained the shield. Even just releasing the shield would be taxing to her psycor. He also thought about Tari, splitting her Kyr-marks hundreds of times smaller than a strand of hair, trying to weave a dimension. He looked at her bowl of soup, abandoned on the ground, still full. She couldn’t even eat properly anymore.
“That’s the plan,” Silver said, landing lightly on the ground while Tari continued to fly around, morphing her marks into the shapes of mangled sentrinians and landmarks from her home, unconcerned about the energy she was using up. It was baffling how childlike she could be sometimes. “I’ll drop most of the shield except for a few delicate spots. I’ll also completely remove the temporary shield over the breach, so Tari has complete freedom to manipulate it while we defend until it’s closed.”
“Tari, Silver…I think you guys need to really consider the consequences of this plan. Even if it’s successful, how long do you think it will take you guys to recover from…”
“When do we start?” Brel asked, putting his arm around Capricorn’s neck and covering his mouth.
“Right now,” Fee said, “While I’m still full, it seems I won’t be able to eat for at least two days straight.”
“For one day,” Tari said as she landed beside them. “If you beautiful Cajarans and my always hungry Zentalian sister here can defend without me,” she said, putting an arm around Fee, “I will finish this in a day.”
“Such bravado from someone who was whining about not having Rick and Alexil’s help just a moment ago,” Fee said, smiling.
Tari laughed. “That’s true, but that was before I heard you plan.”
They all smiled, and for the first time since Rick left, they actually felt hopeful. Now that they could see an end, even Capricorn couldn’t help but give a small smile. The energy of their combined excitement was so palpable that small particles in the air instantly combusted, creating sparkles around them.
“Alright, let’s calm down a bit. The last thing we want is to get so excited that we mess something up,” Capricorn said.
“You’d sound more convincing if you weren’t smiling like a maniac,” Brel said, nudging him with his shoulder.
“Shall we begin preparing?” Fee said, clapping her hands softly.
They all settled down, although not with the level of seriousness they had earlier, and began mentally preparing themselves for the difficult day ahead. Silver sat down, closing her eyes and preparing herself to take down the shield. Capricorn and Brel went to change into their combat suits while Fee began making more mysterious notes on her pad. Tari grew still, focusing her eyes upwards on an empty point where nothing but the murky sky could be seen, but which she knew by instinct was the direction of Marak. Her marks settled down on her skin, and she emptied her mind for a moment to focus only on the now distant but ever-present pull from her planet. Subtly, she also felt the presence of Zental and Fee, who was still scribbling in her notepad. Fee sensed her thoughts and looked up to share a smile. After a few minutes, Brel and Capricorn returned fully dressed in their Cajaran nano-lyfol energy combat suits, and Silver opened her eyes slowly.
“I’m ready,” she said, smiling, and they began the short walk to the edge of the Binding.