Krezagon, Riyhneon, Leitsel, Soripel and the femehan gekod they had saved reached the place where they had left their gear. Taikehel was there waiting for them, shivering in the rain. Krezagon and Riyhneon were teary-eyed and Taikehel knew well enough what had happened. The soldiers did not speak at all. Krezagon took apart Poutnel's backpack and gave some of the things to the other soldiers. Freppet's backpack ey gave to the gekod, but decided to take the tent off and carried it emself because the gekod did not exactly look very strong and ey apparently had an only somewhat healed broken leg. Taikehel did not pay any kind of attention to the gekod. The soldiers tied up their wounds superficially and left.
They walked across a large rocky plain in the pouring rain. Fortunately the temperature was warmer than usual and there was a chance they might not even get ill, small though it was. Eventually the rocky plain ended and they entered a thick mixed forest. No one said a word and they only stopped walking when it was too dark to see. They huddled under a large tree until Taikehel remembered that Krezagon had a little lamp. Ey suggested that Krezagon should use it and find a cave for them to sleep and dry in. Krezagon did so, but ordered everyone to follow em and pick up whatever dead wood they could find on the ground.
After hours of searching, they found a cave that was properly sheltered and large enough for all of them. Fortunately nothing lived in it. Krezagon decided that they did not have enough wood and left to look for more. An hour went by. When Krezagon had come back, ey started making a fire using the lamp and the kindling ey had. The soldiers' things were strategically packed so that the waterproof blanket each of them had protected the equipment that would be needed dry most. The rain had soaked everything else and even small parts of the protected things. Eventually the fire lighted up and they all started drying off themselves. Riyhneon, Krezagon, Soripel and the gekod stripped all of their clothing and Krezagon hung them and everything else that was wet on ropes which ey attached around the cave wherever ey could.
At one point, while both Taikehel and Krezagon were up and walking, Taikehel embraced Krezagon and cuddled with em for a while. Then ey asked, slowly even for mind-speech: "Krezagon... that dark figure that looks like a gekod... is ey... real? Can you all honestly see em?"
Krezagon had no idea what Taikehel was asking, so absurd was the question to em.
After Taikehel figured that Krezagon was not about to reply, ey continued: "I can't sense anything from em. Until we started gathering wood, I was sure ey was a hallucination, something my mind had cooked up because of fear. Or because of the... jinhaliares... But now I'm not sure."
"Ey... doesn't speak... but I touched em." Krezagon thought of when ey had grabbed the gekod by the wrist.
Taikehel was quiet for a while. "Eir spirit is... is... non-existent! Ey is dead! How can ey be real?"
"All of my senses are telling me ey is."
"The one sense I trust most says ey is not."
Krezagon shivered against Taikehel and let go. There was nothing ey could do if Taikehel could not sense the gekod's spirit.
Some time after that Taikehel suggested that they go to sleep, and the soldiers set up the tents. After a few inconvenient moments, they had paired off into them. Soripel and Leitsel had both went into the three-person tent, Riyhneon had followed Taikehel very closely and Krezagon had stared at the gekod, wondering who ey would be sleeping with. Once only ey and the gekod were left, ey gave up staring after a while and said quietly: "Will you sleep with me?"
The gekod kept looking at Krezagon and said nothing.
Krezagon turned at the tent, opened its door and indicated that the gekod should go in first. It took a few seconds, but the gekod did go in and did also wipe eir feet after Krezagon asked em to do so. Krezagon then did the same, lay down and did not fall asleep easily.
Krezagon woke up due to nightmares twice. The first time, sun was about to rise, and the second time it had risen already. Ey still fell asleep the third time, and after the third nightmare, ey could not sleep again. Ey looked at the gekod, who was awake. Ey said nothing and instead rolled slowly around for a while before getting up. The gekod followed em.
They were the first ones up. It was not yet noon and the sun was shining, though it looked like it would rain again later. Krezagon dug out some rations and shared them with the gekod. Ey asked the gekod's name, but got no answer. Soon after the others got up as well. Taikehel and Riyhneon were a little slow; they seemed to have gotten ill.
After Krezagon, Leitsel, Soripel and the gekod had left on a search for more firewood before it would rain again and Taikehel and Riyhneon huddled together, they started talking.
"Riyhneon, you know... you seem ...upset. I mean, obviously, but you're not upset just because... because of the obvious. You're upset because of Krezagon... and you didn't want to sleep with em last night. Do you want to tell me...?"
Riyhneon looked down for a moment before replying. "I... Krezagon killed Freppet. Ey shouldn't have, and ey didn't need to! Freppet lost eir arms, but... people have survived and lived with worse injuries. Freppet was obviously crazed, but if I just could've... taken care of em, ey could've..."
"...Ey just killed em?"
"Yeah! ...Well, I mean... Freppet was saying over and over that ey wanted to die and Krezagon asked it too but... Freppet was so crazed, ey had no idea what ey was saying." Riyhneon shivered from sickness, anger and grief. "It was wrong... wasn't it?" Ey wanted Taikehel's approval, not confirmation for eir doubts.
"I can't say, I wasn't there. I wasn't taught what is wrong or right in a case like that."
"Hmh... but, what do you think? Did Freppet and Poutnel make it to the spirit plane?"
"I don't have an opinion, sorry. I'll rather be objective. I don't know what happened to them... the spiritual transition is a difficult process to follow even if I had been right next to them with no enemies breathing down my neck. But it's okay, you can just find it out yourself one day."
Riyhneon shook and tried to not cry. Crying had taken too much of eir energy already. Taikehel tried to comfort the gewakod.
The others managed to gather a fairly good load of firewood, wet though it was. It started raining not too long after they had returned. The ill femehans were fairly passive and Krezagon was too deep in eir mind to be very active, but Leitsel wanted to talk and mostly just forget what had happened. Soripel was grim, somber and seemed mentally hostile. The gekod did not speak or do anything. Leitsel tried to talk to em, asking a whole lot of questions, relevant and inane. Eventually ey got very fed up with not getting any answers. Soripel had listened as well and agreed that the gekod was weird for not answering.
"Are you mute or what?" asked Leitsel. "Nod or something!" A silent moment went by and the gekod just stared at em. "Gods! Do you not speak Femen? That's not possible! You're gasted ugly! Were you born that way or are you just playing a prosht?" This far Leitsel had not touched the gekod, but now the urge grew and ey shoved em lightly. "Say SOMETHING!"
Now something flipped in Soripel's mind and ey got up, grabbed the gekod by the shirt and picked em up. "Aioii, gekod! Answer us, you prosht! Are you one of those gzoozing rebels?!"
Krezagon came from behind the gekod and grabbed Soripel's hands. "Let go of em, Soripel!" It took a couple of seconds for Soripel to obey. "What is the matter with you?!"
"What is the matter with EM?! How can you just let em share our stuff when you have no idea who ey even is!"
"Ey's a soldier like us, and those gzoozing jinhaliares were holding em prisoner without reason! Should we just abandon em or what?"
"Why doesn't ey speak?! Or even nod, or anything!"
"I don't know!"
"A normal person would have responded something!"
Krezagon was quiet for a while until ey came up with something to say back. "Did you ever notice how quiet Riyhneon was after that homehan attack? Who knows what those jinhaliares have done to em! And I remember when we got Tegafel back from the homehans, it was after so much work that I got em to talk normally again!" Riyhneon whimpered and Krezagon knew ey should not have mentioned the homehan attack.
Soripel promptly took advantage of it. "You suck! Trying to defend that nutwit by making Riyhneon cry? What is it with you now?!"
"I didn't mean i—"
"SURE! If ey..." Soripel pointed at the gekod. "If EY stays, I'm not goi—"
"You'll what?! Now shut up, Soripel! If it bothers you that ey doesn't reply, don't talk to em! Leave em alone! And you too!" Krezagon shouted at Leitsel. "You're not being rational! If you're upset about what happened, talk about it with me or Taikehel and don't try to keep the fight going! You proshts! I should punish you!"
Both Leitsel and Soripel almost laughed at such a threat from an ankod's mouth, but they remembered quickly enough how good a fighter Krezagon was. After that, it was also hard to forget that this particular ankod was their superior officer.
Krezagon fumed for a moment, but as both Leitsel and Soripel were silenced, ey also cooled down. "You two better stop bothering em. I don't know why ey doesn't reply and forcing em like that will not help it one little bit. Leave em alone." Having said that, Krezagon took the gekod a bit further from the others and stayed with em.
Leitsel and Soripel sat close to Taikehel and Riyhneon.
"Ey's really suspicious, right? Any sane person would've replied!" went Leitsel.
After a moment, Riyhneon mumbled: "I guess. I wasn't that quiet... but ey could've been through a lot... but ey could've replied something..."
A moment passed while Leitsel waited for Taikehel to reply, but Taikehel said nothing. "Taikehel?"
"I watched em while you tried to talk to em. Usually I sense a person's mind and some emotions... I watched em, and I got nothing, even when you shouted and were so angry that I almost got enough energy to shrug off this illness! Eir spirit doesn't exist! Ey is dead! I'm still not sure if ey isn't just a hallucination!" That certainly silenced the others and they thought about it for a long while.
Krezagon, then again, spoke to the gekod: "I'm... sorry about that. I'm sure you can understand that they're upset but... they shouldn't have done that. I apologize. You don't have to reply or speak at all if you don't want to." Having said that, Krezagon sat right next to em and leaned very slightly on em. The gekod stared at em and then at the wall of the cave, but eventually closed eir eyes and returned the lean.
The night came and the femehans went to sleep. Krezagon slept with the gekod again. Eir sleeping rhythm had been disturbed by last night's running and the nightmares, and after a choppy night of sleep, ey realized that ey had not seen the gekod asleep once. Ey figured that the gekod probably had nightmares much worse than eirs, but since the gekod could still get up and do things during the day, it was not unbearably horrible. Krezagon was worried about em, though.
Taikehel and Riyhneon were completely out of it because of their illnesses and did not do anything except drink and eat a few scarce pieces of food. The raining continued and the weather turned colder. It looked like it might start raining sleet if it got any colder.
Krezagon slept a little better the next night. Ey was exhausted and did not have nightmares. Again, ey did not see the gekod asleep. Ey asked whether the gekod could sleep, but got no reply. The others did not warm up toward em. Taikehel and Riyhneon got a little better, but were not yet healthy. The weather turned better—the raining stopped, but the cold lingered.
The next night, Krezagon tried to stay awake to see how much the gekod slept, but fell asleep. Ey did wake up twice, only to see that the gekod was not sleeping. Ey asked again shortly about it, but gave up quickly.
Taikehel and Riyhneon had gotten better, and now Krezagon started worrying about the jinhaliares following them. Ey planned to leave tomorrow, if both Taikehel and Riyhneon felt better. The gekod's leg also worried em. Ey examined it after not getting a reply to eir question about whether ey could examine it or not. After deducing that ey just did not know enough about how the bones were set, ey called Leitsel to look at it.
Leitsel was not very cooperative. "I'd rather not."
"...Leitsel, just do your duty before I get any more smart-assed." Krezagon stared at the nigekod, who seemed frustrated and vaguely furious. "Do, soldier!" Leitsel rolled eir head around quickly but sat down and started poking around the gekod's leg. Ey did not look at the gekod's face once, while the gekod stared at em rather intensely.
After a rather long while, Leitsel said: "I don't know. What I can tell, this leg has been broken and wasn't set properly. There's no way to fix it anymore."
"No way?"
"Well... I guess some surgeon could cut the leg open, saw the bone as well as ey can and set it better. But that's... just no." Ey looked at the gekod for the first time now and was very disturbed that the gekod's expression was just like it had been before. "Agh! Ey is dead, you know that? Ey doesn't react to anything! It creeps me out to see em move and feel that ey's warm!"
Krezagon stared angrily at Leitsel, but decided to not say anything. Ey thought that doing nothing would disturb Leitsel most at this point. The gekod did not seem to care about Leitsel's words. In fact, ey had probably not really even noticed Leitsel speaking.
Again, during the night, Krezagon tried to stay awake to watch the gekod and failed.
In the morning, they packed their gear and left northeast toward the mountains. The area was quite hilly, but they did not get out of the forest yet. Very few edible things grew in the forest and their main source of food was animals that did not know to fear them.
They did not travel very far in order to not exert Riyhneon and Taikehel too much; Krezagon did not want them to get worse by exhausting their bodies. At night, Krezagon tried once again to observe the gekod, and this time ey managed to see em falling asleep.
Nearly an hour went by while nothing happened. Then Krezagon noticed that the gekod's expression had become very strained at some point, and eir breathing rhythm had increased. Soon after that, ey started moving about very little and tensing eir muscles. Krezagon was unsure of what ey should do. Then the gekod suddenly and restrainedly thrashed a bit and gasped, opening eir horror-struck eyes. Krezagon was fairly badly startled, but soon touched the gekod's shoulder and held it for a moment. The gekod looked at em and eir horror abated somewhat.
"Is... is it like this every night? You only sleep for an hour and then...?" Krezagon turned eir eyes down and wondered what ey expected, since the gekod did not speak. Ey moved eir fingers on the shoulder a bit. After some considerable time, ey withdrew eir hand and went: "I wish you could sleep. I do not wish ill on you." Ey settled down next to the gekod like before and kept looking at em. The gekod also kept eir very weary eyes on Krezagon.
Much to the ankod's surprise, the gekod said: "Yes. I haven't slept more than an hour per night for ...months." Eir voice was quite typical, though fairly monotonic.
After ey got over the shock of the gekod actually having spoken, Krezagon replied: "I would like to help you sleep in any way I can." The gekod looked at em for a moment after that, but then turned eir eyes away.
A short moment passed before ey said: "I won't sleep today anymore."
Once Krezagon figured that ey did not have anything to answer, ey just lightly touched the gekod's shoulder for a while and fell asleep.
The next day went similarly; they traveled a relatively short distance and settled to sleep before the night. Krezagon thought the whole day about how ey could possibly help the gekod to sleep. Ey did not even think it weird that the gekod did not speak to the others though ey had just proven that ey could in fact speak. Krezagon asked if Taikehel could help with it, but the far-walker's response was a vehement no. Taikehel seemed to be rather horrified of the gekod. Krezagon thought ey understood Taikehel's difficulties, but could not really grasp the issue—to em, the gekod was just as alive as any of the others.
When the night came, Krezagon stayed up again and saw the gekod falling asleep. Again, approximately an hour passed before Krezagon noticed that nightmares had invaded the gekod's mind again. Ey did not have much of a plan to help, but ey figured ey would need to start with something. Maybe eventually Taikehel could get used to the gekod and then be persuaded to help. For now, Krezagon did what ey could.
Ey moved closer to the gekod, putting eir arm over the slightly shaking body and then held eir hand. Ey bent over the gekod, looked at em for a short moment and whispered: "I promise I'll try to keep you safe. There is no one else here now. Your nightmares aren't real, and even far-walkers can't get to you... If you aren't afraid of far-walkers, what else is there? No one here will harm you." Krezagon mumbled something more about promising to protect and care for the gekod before getting into a more comfortable position. Ey thought that the gekod had calmed down a bit. A few mumbles after that, ey fell asleep as well.
Krezagon woke up in the morning and discovered that the gekod's arm was on eir chest and the gekod was still asleep. The ankod smiled widely and kept on lying there. Ey fell asleep again. The gekod was awake when ey next woke up. They looked at each other for a moment.
"Did you sleep better?" asked Krezagon.
"Yes." Krezagon smiled. "I remember that you talked to me."
"I did." Krezagon kept on smiling for a while, but started stretching then. "Will you speak to the others as well?"
"No."
"Why?" The gekod did not reply anymore.
They got up and found the others sitting around, waiting. Krezagon wondered why they had not woken em up, since ey had apparently slept quite late.
"Why didn't you wake me up?" asked Krezagon from Taikehel.
"No one of us wanted to come that close to your tent," replied Taikehel and smiled. Krezagon did not think any deeper from that and ordered the others to pack and continue on their undefined way.
Once they had again settled for the night and were drifting into sleep in their tents, the gekod spoke to Krezagon again: "You said that even far-walkers can't get to me. It's hard to know, but maybe you're right."
Krezagon did not understand what the gekod meant, so ey just smiled slightly. "Well, I'm just glad you could sleep."
A moment passed before the gekod spoke again. "My name is Tarkavinel Airahankio." Tarkavinel had expected Krezagon to recognize the name, but the ankod did not.
"I'm glad you told me." Krezagon smiled and took Tarkavinel's hand. "I'll try to make sure that you sleep well tonight too." Krezagon stayed up an hour after Tarkavinel had fallen asleep and did not see any signs of em having nightmares. Ey then slept soundly as well.
They walked silently during the day. They got out of the forest and noticed that they were heading to the mountains. Krezagon corrected their route more toward northeast and hoped that jinhaliares would not like to follow them into cold mountains.
In the evening, in Krezagon's tent, Tarkavinel said: "Do you know of any way in which you can prove me that you're real?"
Krezagon stared emptily at the back of the tent for a while, thinking. Then ey fell asleep. Tarkavinel did not actually wait for an answer either.
In the morning, Krezagon petted the not-burned half of Tarkavinel's hair until the gekod woke up, and said: "I guess I could surprise you, but I don't know how." Tarkavinel was admittedly a little surprised, but did not show it.
Just before they got out of the tent, Tarkavinel said: "If there's a way to fix my leg, I'd like to try that."
Krezagon stared at em for a moment. "...Really? But, Leitsel said that it would need to be... be cut open and s-saw—" Ey did not finish saying that.
"I don't mind."
Krezagon shivered and did not reply.
The next morning, Krezagon asked if ey could tell Tarkavinel's name to the others, and the gekod allowed it. They went outside and found everyone except for Taikehel having breakfast.
"Good morning. Ey told me eir name a while ago, and I'll tell it to you too. Ey's Tarkavinel."
The others were a little surprised, but then Leitsel went: "Ey speaks?"
"Yeah. Very little. I ask that you still don't push em to do it, okay?"
"...Yeah, fine."
Taikehel was the most surprised to hear that the gekod had spoken, and did not really even believe it. Ey seemed so upset about it that Krezagon was quite sure that the far-walker had not even confirmed it from eir mind.
They traveled further into the mountain areas that day. The southern parts of the Watery Mountains were not very difficult to travel, especially compared to the Forest Mountains they had walked around in summer. The altitude did not vary so steeply and the vegetation was thinner. They barely found any game while traveling—this wasteland could most likely not support a group any larger. Krezagon was glad of that, because it meant that they would not run into other people in here. Ey explained it to the others, and while the other soldiers were fairly indifferent about it, Taikehel was depressed and kept asking if they could please head for inhabited areas. Of course, they were doing just that, but all settlements were far away.
In the evening, Tarkavinel told Krezagon: "I'm glad we are alone here."
Krezagon smiled a little. "Alone, we have to deal with only ourselves. Taikehel has trouble handling it because ey has never had to be competent, and the others are too young to truly appreciate it, but they're starting to learn." Tarkavinel glared into Krezagon's eyes, and the ankod thought that eir line of sight finally cleared and sharpened.
Tomorrow, they continued their way once again. At some point, Tarkavinel stopped for a moment and turned eir good ear toward the thin forest. Ey then said, audibly: "I hear a river."
The others stopped immediately and stared at the gekod.
"What?" said Taikehel.
Krezagon walked toward Tarkavinel. "Where?" Tarkavinel pointed into the forest. Krezagon turned toward the others and smiled. "Would you like to take a bath?" Taikehel was too depressed to smile or reply, but Krezagon sensed through their mental link that the far-walker desperately wanted everyone to clean up. The smell of blood was probably driving em insane. The other soldiers seemed to welcome the idea as well. "Let's go then!"
The river was rapid at the place where they found it, so they traveled a bit upstream until they found a good spot for swimming. The water was still relatively warm after the summer. They washed all their clothes, tents and blankets and while the others hung them to dry, Krezagon and Taikehel left for a while to make love to have sex with each other.
"I've been thinking I'm becoming crazy!" said Taikehel after they were done. "The others just burden me with their worries of the dead ones and are so depressed... I haven't found a single feeling of joy around our minds for a long time. You're just holed up with that thing that looks like a gekod. Has ey still not said anything?"
Krezagon nearly snickered, but figured that ey should at least try to be subtle with the far-walker. "Ey spoke to me days ago and I told you yesterday that ey had told me eir name. Today, it was ey who heard the river. Ey said it aloud. Didn't you hear that?" Taikehel was quiet. "Do you remember what eir name was?"
"No..."
"It was Tarkavinel." Taikehel raised one eyebrow. Ey recognized the name but did not make the necessary connection. Ey did not speak of it to Krezagon. "We are the only ones here. Being alone is hard for a far-walker, isn't it? Would it help you if you knew how to survive just by yourself?"
"I don't know."
"Would you like to try?" Taikehel did not reply. "I'd like you to learn everything I know about surviving. You can do that, right? You can search my mind and copy the knowledge into yours?"
"...Yes, but it's not as good as learning it the hard way."
"Well, do it anyway and then I'll also teach it to you the 'hard' way. It would be easier then, right? Could you do that?"
"I could. Maybe it will be less depressing than having to deal with your little soldiers."
"Uh, I'm sorry if it's been that bad..."
"Hey, I'm just glad I haven't increased their depression. They handle death better than I handle their depression, even though they're obviously horrified of dying because they can't know that the spirit plane really exists." They were quiet for a moment. Then Taikehel held Krezagon's face and said: "Think about surviving now..." Krezagon did and felt how Taikehel came into eir mind. Ey then went through everything ey thought might be worth knowing and let Taikehel ask all kinds of questions. Taikehel was terribly uninterested in the actual subject, but as the plant book that the medic Fronsel had given Tegafel to read had done, learning about surviving in the wild took Taikehel's mind mostly off of the frustrating and, to em, irrational depression of death.
Of course, they were done in less than an hour, and after that Taikehel said ey would rather process the information and try to put it in the right place in eir mind. Krezagon went back to the others. Tarkavinel was staring intently at the water and the rest were trying to play a game. Krezagon decided that ey would play the game as well and check Tarkavinel's condition later.
Now Krezagon finally noticed that Riyhneon was actually actively avoiding em and tried to not smile to em even though they had fun playing the game. They stopped playing around and Krezagon decided to talk to Riyhneon later. Ey went to Tarkavinel who was still staring at the water. Krezagon sat next to em. "Did you wash your body already?"
"...No."
"Let's do that, then. Do you want to stay here or go over there?" Tarkavinel got up and walked further from the others. They went a bit further and then into the water. "Do you mind if I touch you?"
"No." Krezagon went ahead, finding dirty spots and explaining how to rub them clean.
After they had finished cleaning Tarkavinel's hair, they sat in the water and Krezagon kept touching Tarkavinel's shoulder lightly and looking at eir face. Tarkavinel looked forward and seemed to not be thinking about anything. Krezagon looked lower and eventually spotted a small, only barely bleeding scratch partly under Tarkavinel's left breast.
"You have a wound under your breast..." Tarkavinel turned eir head and eyes a bit more toward Krezagon and then lifted eir left arm and used eir right hand to lift eir breast. The wound was not very special and would not need any special attention, but the underside of the breast was in worse condition. "Ugh. The underside is inflamed. You should clean that better..." Tarkavinel lifted eir other breast as well and checked that it was similarly inflamed. "I'll go find some plants that'll help it heal."
Krezagon found the plant leaves and they then tied up Tarkavinel's chest so that the leaves would be pressed against the inflamed skin and quicken the healing.
They waited around until evening before their things were dry again. They walked a kilometer or so from the river before setting up their tents for the night. Krezagon chose to speak to Riyhneon then. Ey walked to the gewakod and touched eir shoulder.
Riyhneon turned eir head and went: "Uh... you."
"I... Is something bothering you?"
"I suppose so."
"Can I help with it somehow?"
Riyhneon was quiet for a while. "Why did you have to kill Freppet?"
Krezagon felt a little speechless. Ey had not wanted to think about that at all. "I... um, ey asked me to. You heard..."
"I know. But I mean... people have lived with worse injuries. Ey was obviously just crazed. If we'd have taken care of em, ey would've seen that eir life wasn't over right then..."
"But... what could've ey done?"
"I don't know, but we should've given em that chance."
"Ey was a soldier, you know that... We need all our body parts."
"Ey could still walk. Ey could have carried stuff."
"What kind of life could ey have had after that?" Riyhneon did not reply. "I don't think ey was that crazed. I'm fairly sure letting em die was for the best. But... I... I'm sorry I had to do it."
Tears dropped from Riyhneon's eyes. "You acted too gzoozing cold."
Thinking about the death and Riyhneon's grief made Krezagon weepy as well. "Maybe I'm too used to dying and all that bad treatment. But you know that... And it was Leitsel and Soripel who didn't cry after we left that place."
"They hid it better."
They were quiet again. Krezagon held Riyhneon's shoulders lightly. "I am sorry... but please don't get stuck on that one thing. Ey did ask to die, and we're soldiers. We tend to die in battle or in the aftermath."
Riyhneon sniffed. "I know... but..." Krezagon hugged the young gewakod and sobbed. They cried for a while.
Krezagon brushed Riyhneon's face with eir fingers. "Will you hold this against me?"
"...I won't. We can't know if you were right... I hope Freppet really spoke true. It was eir call."
Taikehel wanted to sleep with Krezagon that night. Riyhneon, though ey did not particularly like Tarkavinel, had no attitude problem about em not speaking or reacting like a normal person was expected to and therefore slept with em. Ey understood well enough that seeing and experiencing horrors could drive people worse than insane.
The next day, Riyhneon wanted to sleep with Krezagon. Again, Tarkavinel did not mind the arrangement, but Taikehel, Leitsel and Soripel rather slept all together in the three-person tent. Krezagon thought it was silly, but it did not bother em.
Climbing up next to the waterfall, Tegafel was quite annoyed but did eventually come to believe that maybe eir escorts had known about the waterfall after all. There were some stairs and ropes around and Tegafel could utilize them.
One morning, when ey had just started moving and assessed that ey would not have a long way to go anymore, ey saw a karangal. Tegafel knew how karangals were supposed to look, but had not before this actually seen one. Neither had the karangal seen a femehan wakod. Ey was wearing a tight shirt, shorts, hat and some wrappings around eir arms, legs and feet.
After sixteen seconds of staring, the karangal let out a snicker and said, in common Gomanian: "Hi."
Tegafel smiled and replied: "Hello." Ey paused but continued: "You are a karangal, right? I've never seen one of your kind before."
"Oh, yeah. Lucky you then, it's an honor being the first karangal you've seen!" the little creature sounded light-heartedly but good-willingly sarcastic. "I've seen femehans before, but not anyone like you, I think. I never really bothered with your sexes."
Tegafel chuckled a bit. "Yeah, I don't think I would either. Um, what's your name?"
"Tarkki-Xrotori. You?"
"Tegafel... Darrelter."
"Nice to meet you, Tegafel Darrelter. Say, what are you doing climbing around in here? Not that you couldn't, it's a free cliff, but I'm curious."
"Oh, I... um... eh, it's actually very complicated... an' I'd rather not explain it. But um, I'm just trying to get from Gaoranola to Kattormala. They're femehan nations an' this mountain range is separating them."
"Yeah. You need to be careful not to get stuck anywhere, mountains are really hideous places in winter if you're not used to it. And it's hideous even if one was used to them, yes I have experience." Tarkki-Xrotori smiled a bit and then looked contemplative. Tegafel was just about to ask what it was when ey continued: "Um, say, could you come over to my home for an hour or so? Because, you know... I and my friends are really small and there's this pile of trees that fell on top of our house... it's rather embarrassing, really. An' we can get them moved but it'll take so long..." Ey sounded a bit rambling and anxious.
Tegafel grinned with half a mouth and thought for a short moment. "Well, uh... I'm not very strong either, but I could come see at least. Sure."
"All right! Please follow me. I'm sure we can give you something in exchange. It's not very far from here, probably less than thirty minutes. Anyway, thanks a lot. Um, now I'm just making conversation an' all... but — an' you don't mind me asking right? What sex are you?"
Tegafel grinned at the karangal and felt rather amused. "Sure... um, I'm a wakod. I can, you know, get impregnated and impregnate other people."
"Oh? So your sex is like the base for all femehan sexes?"
"What?" Tegafel seemed rather astonished.
"Well, I mean... us races who have akkods, we're like you, or your sex. All of us can impregnate others or be impregnated. That's all. Why do you femehans need fourteen sexes? You would do just fine if all of you were the same sex as you are." Tarkki-Xrotori grinned a bit. "Though I'm of course not saying that you femehans should be like that. You can just as well have fourteen sexes! Or twenty!"
Tegafel was quiet for a moment. Ey had not thought of the sex issue in a way like that before. "I, uh. I'd rather like it if every femehan was the same sex as me, actually. Maybe then I'd be appreciated just as a person." The karangal looked at em curiously. Tegafel figured that ey could not know anything about sex stereotypes without having studied femehan or homehan culture. "The... the others expect certain things of me because of my sex. An' I don't like it."
"Why do they expect stuff because of that?"
"...I don't really know. I mean, I can understand that gewakods are expected to be strategists in the army because they're smart like that or that nikods are expected to do stuff like heavy lifting because they're big an' strong, but I can't understand why I'm expected to just have a million kids an' nothing else an' be ecstatic about it."
Tarkki-Xrotori frowned and raised eir eyebrow. "Weird. Well, having kids is pretty awesome and respected as far as I know but if you don't want any... I mean, it just sucks to be made to do something you really don't wanna."
"Yeah..."
"I haven't had any kids yet. But I will, but probably not for a year or four. We need to build our homes better first."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty. You?"
"I'm fourteen."
Tarkki-Xrotori smiled a bit. "Ah, you're just barely adult, right? We at least become 'adults' when we turn fourteen."
"Yeah."
The two reached the karangal's home soon. Three other karangals were there, positioned in strange places and doing some questionable work. However, Tegafel eventually saw the pattern; they were trying to construct some sort of way to lift off the trees that had fallen on their house. Three trees had crushed the wooden building and two more lay dead and fallen on the ground nearby. Tegafel knew quite well why the trees had fallen: lightning had struck them.
After shouting a greeting to eir mates, Tarkki-Xrotori turned to Tegafel again. "Well, you can see our issues..."
"Yeah. Huh, those are some big trees. I'm not sure if I'll be able to move them either... But why did you build your house so near those trees?"
"Well, we should've been more careful. We just, um, thought that even if they fell, they'd fall to the other direction. We forgot that there'd be wind. Dang, forget it, we were just a bit inconsiderate, you know, young and foolish an' all that," ey said self-mockingly.
"Yeah um, I haven't exactly done very considerate things either so I'm not going to preach or anything. But uh, let's see if we could get those trees off?"
Tegafel spent three days with the karangals, trying to come up with a way to move the huge trunks. Primarily with Tegafel's help, they eventually managed to pull the trees off and then held a small party to celebrate it. The moved trunks now formed a protective barrier around the house, so the karangals decided to rebuild the house just as it had been. They gave Tegafel some information, climbing equipment and food in repayment for eir services.
Tegafel continued on eir way. Ey made it to the top of the waterfall, where the river continued as normal. It was more like a rapid river now and the terrain kept rising higher. The river still flowed in a valley. Four days later, the first snow of the winter came down. It was very early for snow and Tegafel had been frightened for a moment but reasoned to emself that ey would get to the forests before snow really started coming down.
Indeed, the snow was gone two days later. Tegafel had not seen any karangals or even nakrans. Karangals liked to live in cliffs and nakrans were often underground.
However, what Tegafel saw next both amazed and disappointed em thoroughly. Ey saw the strangest contraption floating just off the ground and ey glared at it in such an embezzlement that it took em minutes to notice the small figure traveling next to it.
At seeing Availon, ey shouted out in frustration. "YOU! What are YOU doing in here!?" Availon stopped in eir tracks. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you!" Of course ey thought about a sufficient reason right away: Availon was pregnant. Tegafel stared at the immobile falangezka for a minute or so before finally shouting: "Go away!" With that, ey turned, walked on swiftly and did not look back.
When night came, ey stopped and looked back. Availon was not there, but Tegafel was not happy. Ey might still be there, following. However, Tegafel did not see em in the morning or during the next day. Ey came to yet another waterfall, but this time the cliff seemed much easier to climb. Ey set emself to it. Ey spent the night there and climbed again the next day.
Toward the evening, ey saw Availon's little balloon in the distance, at the river, some way from the waterfall. Ey stared at the balloon angrily and continued climbing. Tegafel had climbed quite fast due to eir anger-fueled strength. Now, as Availon reached the foot of the cliff, and Tegafel had nearly made it to the top, ey shouted: "You gzoozing prosht! Stop following me!" Availon just looked up, and Tegafel realized that Availon would need to come a long way to catch em now—even though ey was a falangezka and thus a fast climber, ey was now pregnant and weak and it would take em a very long time to come up the cliff. "Hah! By the time you get up here, I'll be long gone!" With that, Tegafel turned and started climbing the few meters ey still had left. From the corner of eir eye, ey saw Availon move a bit, but did not care about it and did not look at em again.
The last meters turned out to be toilsome. It took Tegafel a rather long time to reach the final edge, but ey was ecstatically happy to finally achieve it. Ey caught eir breath for a moment and then moved closer to the edge to see where Availon was going.
As Tegafel saw the balloon rise from behind the edge just before eir eyes, ey shouted out in shock, frustration, fear and anger. Ey jerked backward and lay on the ground on eir backside. "You gzoozing cheater!" ey shouted in anger and grief. Availon's balloon landed and the falangezka climbed out. Tegafel felt weary, tired and betrayed. Availon had never done anything supernatural before, and now that ey did, Tegafel only wished that ey would not have.
Availon finished fixing the balloon and then looked sadly at Tegafel, standing about eight meters away from em. "Tegafel?"
"You gzoozing hork."
"...I'm so sorry about... about everything. I would like to expl—"
"Kill yourself! You don't have anything to explain! You used me in a disgusting way!"
"It's not true! We talked about it together and you agreed with me!"
"You gzoozing LIAR!"
Availon took a few steps toward Tegafel. "Please, if you'd let me expl—"
"Šarkeli! STOP!" Availon paralyzed instantly. Tegafel got up. "Do NOT come closer! Why would I allow you to explain anything?!"
"Because... because I know what really happened..."
"DO YOU? You gzoozed my mind! You modified it! I can't know what's real and what's not an' I have no gzoozing reason to trust you in the least!"
"Before... before the trip on the seaship... We didn't fight, I didn't do anything. I only modified your mind when we were in the meadowlands because that'd spare you from punishment if we got caught. And it did! You agreed to it!" A few tears fell from Availon's eyes.
"I don't remember anything like that!"
Availon took a step closer. "It's behind blocks in your mind. If you'd just let me —"
Tegafel got dangerously furious. "You horrible gzoozing gasted idiot! I'm not letting you NEAR me! If you come any closer, I will KILL you! Pregnant or not! Or if I sense anything resembling your mind trying to contact me!"
The words hit Availon so bad that ey actually fell down as ey tried to back down. Ey was terribly scared since ey could not sense any deception in Tegafel's intent and Tegafel was now more than capable of killing em before ey could breach the personal barriers set against em. Ey started crying. Tegafel continued walking. Not too long after that, Availon forced emself to get up—at least Tegafel had not threatened to kill em if ey just followed.
Days went by. Availon kept on following Tegafel, staying only marginally behind. Ey was slower than Tegafel, but as Tegafel was slowed by vertical obstacles, Availon could get over them in a matter of minutes or hours. Tegafel mostly kept on mocking Availon and otherwise calling em names. A few times ey resorted to throwing rocks at em and even managed to knock em out for a short time. After that, Tegafel stopped throwing rocks.
The tactic that finally worked was forced travel—Tegafel could function with little sleep, Availon could not. Still, Availon kept up with the help of eir balloon.
One night Tegafel got up, sneaked around and took Availon's balloon away. Availon woke up in the process because ey slept in the balloon, but Tegafel merely threw the falangezka in the snow and ran away. Ey packed up eir tent as well and left. Ey heard Availon crying behind em.
Tegafel could not and did not dare to actually operate the balloon, so ey just carried it and the weight of the whole thing slowed eir pace. However, Availon had become a little slower as well. Tegafel traveled the whole day and when ey settled to sleep in a rocky plain amongst the cliffs, Availon was nowhere in sight.
In the morning ey still did not see Availon, but the falangezka could easily be behind one of the rocks. Ey did not see when Availon appeared, but at one point ey realized the falangezka was there again. Ey stared at the small figure for a moment. Availon was struggling to even walk and how ey had managed to keep up with Tegafel was a mystery. Ey seemed shifty and started pleading Tegafel to give back eir balloon and to listen to em again. Tegafel ignored em.
They walked across the rocky plain until they came to a cliff. It was not very high and seemed easy enough for Tegafel to climb, so ey got to it. Tegafel had just gotten to the top when Availon reached the bottom of the cliff. Availon looked quite distressed, and after making sure that Tegafel was up at the cliff's edge, ey started climbing as well. Tegafel saw that ey was weak, and after a few failed climbing attempts, ey started weeping. Ey cried at Tegafel and begged em to give the balloon back and listen. Tegafel mocked em for not being able to climb without eir silly contraption and threw a few stones at em, even though ey felt bad for doing it. The last one that Tegafel threw hit em in the head and knocked em out again. Tegafel looked down at the little immobile body that carried new life inside it and felt averse grief. Ey left.
Tegafel walked for an hour, starting to feel sicker and sicker. Ey had just condemned a pregnant falangezka to death. No matter how much ey hated Availon as a person and babies in general, ey could not make emself feel any better. Availon was a falangezka, a beautiful, wise and intelligent creature. Children, no matter how much Tegafel disliked them, were the living legacy of any person.
After ey had started crying, ey turned around.
Tegafel hurried back in less than an hour. Availon was still lying where ey had fallen, the little body collapsed around the rocks. Tegafel shouted to em, but ey would not wake up, and Tegafel got very worried; what if the stone had killed em? Tegafel set up a rope so that ey could just climb back up using it, and went back down.
Availon was alive and not even wounded, but would not wake up even after Tegafel shook eir body. Tegafel used another rope to tie Availon to emself and then climbed back up with the falangezka on eir back. Ey looked for a sheltered place and then set up a tiny camp. Ey gathered whatever flammable materials ey could find, made a fire and wrapped Availon up in the warm blankets. Ey also made an open shelter of the tent, since it would be better to let the fire warm Availon at least for now.
Tegafel waited for a long time. Ey had a meal some hours after midday. Availon did not wake up. The day turned to night.
Availon finally woke up. It was dark, but the first thing ey could see was the fire beaming at eir face. Ey did not open eir eyes. Ey felt that ey was relatively comfortable in a warm and soft place, lying down. Ey moved eir body parts a little. They were all functional, though many of eir muscles, especially in eir legs, were quite sore. Tegafel's spirit was clearly nearby, and Availon almost flinched away from it. Ey shivered and enjoyed how comfortable ey was feeling. Tegafel had saved em nevertheless.
Availon lay there, nearly immobile, for a fairly long time. In the meantime, Tegafel moved about, and judging from the sounds, Availon thought that ey was making food. Indeed, eventually Tegafel walked beside Availon and stood there. Availon opened eir eyes and looked at Tegafel's lower body, since ey could not really see higher without turning eir head. Tegafel put down a plateful of food and a water container and then walked to eir own spot again. Availon got up slowly and ate.
The night moved on, but soon Tegafel got up and crudely told Availon to get out of the way. After Availon had moved, Tegafel took the tent and set it up. Ey then commanded the falangezka to go in and followed soon after. As it had been before, the tent was quite small for the both of them, and they had to lie inconveniently close to each other. Tegafel felt very annoyed and Availon could only barely hide that ey was on the verge of bursting into tears. Ey did not want to annoy Tegafel any more. They managed to fall asleep.
When Tegafel woke up, ey spent a moment not remembering much anything, and when ey did, ey felt grumpy. Ey turned carefully and watched the little sleeping body of Availon. Ey still looked vaguely cute, but the sorrow and crying had made em look older and depressed. Eir eyes were watery. Tegafel nearly felt sorry for em and then spent a short moment agonizing over the mental conflict of hating em and feeling so sorry and protective.
Availon spent a longer time waking up, but when ey was fully conscious, Tegafel asked: "Can you walk?"
A long moment went by while Availon tried to answer. Ey eventually whispered: "I-I think I c-can."
Tegafel went out to make food. The routine was familiar to both of them, so they did not need to talk, even though Availon was not able to do eir part now. Later they ate and Tegafel packed up the tent.
"Will you make that thing of yours float again?"
"I can, but we should not use it unless we absolutely have to. This valley hasn't been very windy, but any wind could easily make us lose control of it."
Tegafel looked annoyed. "Fine. We wouldn't have been able to go faster anyway." Ey looked somewhat accusingly at Availon, and Availon turned eir face away helplessly.
They traveled for a few days, though Availon was in bad shape and hindered them considerably. Availon could not sense any communities nearby. Neither of them could see any either. Availon was depressed and tearful and Tegafel tried to just ignore it. Ey was simultaneously happy and sad that Availon was feeling so bad.
One night Availon was feeling even more tearful than usual. They had to stop traveling earlier and Availon could barely eat. In the tent, Tegafel felt very inconvenienced by Availon's sobbing and sniffing and finally just snapped:
"What is wrong with you today?"
Again, Availon took eir time to answer. Ey could barely speak due to sobbing and congested airways. "It's... the pregnancy... I-I g-get too em-emotional an-n' I uh... uh..."
"What?" Availon started bawling. Tegafel tolerated it for a moment, but eventually started yelling as well: "What!? Tell me how I can fix it! I can't stand you crying any longer!" After a while, Availon tried to say something, but failed and instead cried more. Tegafel grabbed eir shoulder and turned em on eir back. Availon just cried and tried to turn away.
After a short moment, Availon managed to say: "You can't help!"
"And why not?"
"Y-you're not my mate. You can't walone me and tell me that I'll be fine! You hate me!"
"What if I just cover your mouth?" Availon seemed quite opposed to the idea. Tegafel grabbed eir little body as ey tried to turn away. Ey then pressed the falangezka against emself while covering Availon's mouth and nose with eir hand. After a few futile attempt at freeing emself, Availon fell unconscious and Tegafel promptly stopped blocking eir airways. At least the trick worked, and Availon drifted from unconsciousness to sleep.
Tegafel nevertheless felt somewhat ill at having to silence Availon in such a way. Ey looked at the little falangezka and paid closer attention to eir scars for the first time. They were not just simple cuts, for mere scars could be faked by everyone. They had some intricate patterns in them and at least some seemed to have been burned on an open wound. Tegafel felt revolted.
They slept, though uneasily.
In the morning, Availon was ominously quiet, and Tegafel tried to pay as little attention to em as ey could. Secretly, Availon was still very unstable and only refrained from bawling through great difficulty.
Days went by and the two got used to each other's company again as much as they could. Tegafel started to not care about eir anger toward Availon, but also did not want to even accidentally treat em like a friend. Availon was depressed, though the pregnancy made eir mind sway from one direction to another—ey had never known why it happened. Other falangezkas had not been this moody when pregnant, and even Availon was more emotional than ey should be. Ey was inconvenienced.
Some snow came down occasionally, but it did not really stay. The grounds turned wet and cold and traveling through the changing terrain of the lands was difficult. When they thought they would only have a few days of traveling in the Flowing Passages left, they were faced by a nearly vertical, hundreds of meters high cliff that continued as far to their sides as they could see. It was massive and Tegafel had never seen anything like it in eir life. Very narrow river-mouths formed incredibly high waterfalls, some of whose water reached the ground only as thin rain. Availon cried and Tegafel felt hopeless.
They continued traveling, to south now, looking for any way past the huge obstacle or a karangal or nakran community.
The next night, Krezagon slept with Tarkavinel again. However, not much sleeping was done. The two were lying in Krezagon's tent, with Krezagon trying to sleep and Tarkavinel staring off at the ceiling of the tent.
"Krezagon, would you like to listen?"
Krezagon was not yet sleeping and was a little surprised. "Sure. But to what?"
"To me. This'll be very long."
"That's fine."
After a pause, Tarkavinel started: "I have trouble telling reality from what is not real. It's strange. You were right, you could prove to me that you were real by surprising me. Or at least more real than most other things I've experienced."
"But... Far-walkers can't touch your mind. They have no way to make you believe anything that is not real."
"Is that so? When I was a child, my older niwakoddin played with my mind. Ey was a far-walker. Eir favorite pastime was to make me believe weird things and make me doubt what was real. I didn't even know it back then. I tried to stop em and I think I probably succeeded sometimes. Ey sometimes started acting very weirdly when ey tried to make me do something. My parents thought I was weird, probably crazy. They never noticed that my niwakoddin was doing it to me, even though I told them that. Maybe I didn't really tell it to them. My niwakoddin wasn't taken away to be with other far-walkers. Maybe it was because of what we were. Don't you recognize my name?"
"Uh... no."
"I'm part of the royal family of Tarakiila. Probably the only one now, actually. I'm the direct descendant of the monarch who died last spring."
"...What?" Krezagon was astonished. Now ey made the connection and remembered that the monarch's family name had been Airahankio. Ey had not heard that the monarch would have had a gekodda, though.
"I remember that I only cared about what happened to me when I was very little. After that, I stopped caring. Nothing really changed. All kinds of things happened and they didn't matter to me. I feel like I've lived for a longer time than I really have. I suppose my niwakoddin played that long and intricate games with me. Ey was the first who raped me, too. Or at least I think so. I'm not sure. When I was twelve, I decided to run away. I ran, went toward the Watery Mountains and cut off my ear so people wouldn't recognize me. I didn't get far when some hunters found me and raped me again. Later some caravan found me and took me to another city. I'm not sure what happened there. I had gotten pregnant, and when it was time to give birth, I couldn't do it for some reason. So they cut the child out."
"...That's where that huge scar on your stomach is from? And you were just... thirteen?"
"Yes. I don't know what happened to the child. It felt quite real and that scar has always been there after that, so I think it was real. I never got pregnant after that, even though a lot of people have raped me since that. After I was well again, I left the place where I had been. I didn't know what place it was. I went to the draft office and said I wanted to join the army. I don't know why. I lied about my age and name and everything, actually, and they let me join. They never taught me to fight, though. They tried to teach me to be an infiltrator and impostor, but I couldn't do that either, because I couldn't tell what was real and I didn't want to play social games. Then they taught me to hide, and said that my job was to get in, hide, listen and get out. I learned to do that, and maybe I'm good at it. I don't remember much of what happened then. There was a big battle at some point and a lot of people died. I think most of the people I had been with died, and the others disappeared. The new people asked me a lot of questions, but since I didn't answer, they let me be. They locked me up in some place for a year, maybe. Then they asked more questions. Half a year later, they asked if I could join them, so I said 'sure' and they let me. We traveled around a lot then. Around the time when the monarch of Tarakiila died, we met four falangezkas who wanted to kill the jinhaliares in femehan lands and some femehans too. They led us around and did their business. They seemed rather real to me. Maybe it was because they were surprising and that was because they were of a different race. I think I liked them. But eventually they left too. In the summer, I was imprisoned. The prison was full of scum and I escaped. Some jinhaliares caught me. I think I tried to kill myself, but that feels strange. I wouldn't do that. They took me to that village where you found me. Their far-walkers did horrible things to me. They could get into my mind and make me see and feel things. It felt fake, though. But so do a lot of other things. Can you tell me what is the difference between a fake and real feeling?"
Krezagon was quite speechless. "I... a real feeling... a real physical wound leaves a scar."
"Right... My ear is torn, I have a big scar on my belly, my leg is broken and the right half of my head is burned. Is that real or am I imagining things? Will you fix them for me?"
"I can't. When I met Taikehel, I kept thinking if I could know what was real and what wasn't, since ey could make me feel all kinds of things. Then I thought that it didn't matter, because I felt good anyway. Taikehel liked me. So what if it was a lie? I'm pretty sure Taikehel hasn't made me feel anything fake, though. But I can't know."
"Anything I've felt has been bad, I think."
"But how is it possible? Taikehel says ey can't touch your mind. Ey can't feel a thing from you. How could other far-walkers do it to you when ey can't?
"The falangezkas said the same."
"If it was my call, I'd say they were right. Maybe you can let some people into your mind after all?"
"I have not wanted to."
"Maybe you haven't had a choice? Far-walker abilities may not work on you directly, but regular ways can. They can torture you and make you think that believing in a make-believe world is better than staying in the real world."
"...The falangezkas said that it was impossible to use far-walker abilities on me. They tried to speak to me in my mind for weeks but couldn't do it."
"And they treated you well, right?"
"I suppose. ...But... what if some doctors can fix my leg? Will it then be like it had never been broken?"
"No. In the best case, you may be able to use it like before, but you'll always feel that it's been broken. Feel my forearm here." Krezagon offered eir right hand to Tarkavinel. "My ulna's been broken before. Maybe your leg will be like that if it can be somehow fixed..." Tarkavinel felt Krezagon's arm for a moment and it seemed to calm em.
"You feel so real even though I'm comfortable. I hope this can continue. I haven't really hoped for anything in a long time."
"I'll try to fulfill that hope."
"Why?"
"...Well, why not? I've been through many kinds of torture, too, and I know how to appreciate the time without torture."
"What's been done to you?"
Krezagon spent two hours explaining some of eir worst moments to Tarkavinel who stayed expressionless, even though Krezagon had almost been about to cry a few times.
When Krezagon was done, Tarkavinel was not looking at em. "You've been through... more than I have."
"I'm older."
"I'm twenty-seven."
"I'm thirty-two."
"Did you ever wonder if it was unreal?"
"Not really... Before Taikehel, I had not even talked to a far-walker."
"Can you know whether right here and now is real or not?"
"I don't think I have any reason to think that this wasn't real. But I suppose I can't know. You should be able to."
"I decide that this is real. It will have to do. Did you ever wish your mind was impenetrable, like mine?"
"Oh, yes. The first time I ever learned about far-walkers."
"Once, when I was rather young and some not very competent far-walker was probing my mind, I decided that it would be nice if ey stopped doing it. So I think I lured em into a trap. I felt something inside my mind and turned it away. I turned it into itself. The far-walker went crazy then. Years later I was in a tent with another gekod. Our army unit had saved em from something. Eir nigekoddin was a far-walker. I thought it was unfair that ey wasn't a far-walker while eir nigekoddin was, so I thought it would be fair if I could make eir mind as impenetrable as mine was. I looked at em sleeping and tried to do some far-walker thing so I could touch eir mind. I couldn't, so I gave up, but I decided to press my head against eirs and try again. Then it worked. I could feel something else than myself and I could isolate it. I did something... I'm not sure what, but it was like hiding. I hid the bit of mind I had found so well that even I couldn't find it anymore after I was done."
"...What? Are... are YOU a far-walker?"
"When we woke up in the morning, ey wondered why it was so quiet. Ey got up and went to find eir nigekoddin. I followed em. Ey found em and that nigekod wouldn't acknowledge that ey existed. They were standing close to a cliff and after the gekod had annoyed eir nigekoddin enough, the nigekod started pushing em toward the cliff edge. Ey pushed em off the cliff then and started shouting and looking for eir gekoddin. A few others had seen em push the gekod off the cliff, so soon ey was really confused. The others thought ey had murdered eir gekoddin so they pushed em off the cliff too."
"Are you a far-walker? Wait, what?"
"I can't do anything that other far-walkers can do. But I can hide your mind like mine is hid, if it is real."
Krezagon looked quite confused for a moment before eir brain processed the information. "Are you just playing with me?"
"No. I don't know how. I'm not a far-walker. I can't read your mind or affect it. I can maybe hide it..."
They stared at each other for a moment. Krezagon tried to decide if ey could trust the gekod to modify eir mind, or whatever it was that ey would do. "Do it, then. Far-walkers are the only thing I've really been afraid of..." Tarkavinel lay still for a while, but then moved eir hands and held Krezagon's face. "Do I need to do something?"
"No..." Tarkavinel pressed eir forehead against Krezagon's. They lay there for a few long moments, but Krezagon felt nothing. Ey had always felt Taikehel's presence, especially after they had first had sex—in fact, after that, the only times when Krezagon could not feel Taikehel's presence was when the far-walker was sleeping and ey was not. However, even though Tarkavinel was apparently doing some far-walker thing to em, Krezagon could not feel anything. Ey then thought that maybe Tarkavinel had not started yet and would need to wait until ey fell asleep. After a while, the gekod said: "I'm done."
"Done? But... I didn't feel anything."
"I don't know what you should feel."
"...Neither do I."
"Taikehel'll hate you."
"Ey'll have to live with it." Krezagon grinned a bit and wondered if whatever Tarkavinel had just done would really work. "Thanks for telling me all that you did."
"Please don't tell it to others."
"I won't." They held each other's hands then and fell asleep.
In the morning, the others had gotten up first. Krezagon and Tarkavinel walked to them, said good morning and sat down to have breakfast. Taikehel stared around for a while. Krezagon could not feel em anymore. After a moment, the far-walker fixed eir eyes on Krezagon and seemed to become terrified.
"Gods! Tragsiel, help me! Can you... Please, PLEASE tell me Krezagon isn't sitting there! Please!" ey said to Riyhneon, Leitsel and Soripel. The three were confused and looked at Krezagon and then back at Taikehel, saying nothing. Taikehel bolted up and ran away crying uncontrollably.
"What the heck was that?" said Soripel.
Krezagon started running after Taikehel, but Tarkavinel said: "It's no use if you go after em." Krezagon stopped and stood there for a while, somewhat frustrated. Ey then returned to the others and sat down.
"What was that?" asked Leitsel.
"Taikehel told you how ey can't sense Tarkavinel's mind, right? Tarkavinel did the same to me last night, and I guess it worked."
"What, how? And why would you do that? Taikehel's so fragile ey might kill emself!" went Soripel.
"I'm a bit surprised to see that you care about em... but didn't you ever wish that far-walkers could never mess with your mind? That's the only thing I've ever been afraid of! Everything else, I could accomplish!"
Soripel almost laughed once again before remembering how competent Krezagon was. "Hrmh. Well, I guess... Still, didn't you really like Taikehel? Ey'll probably never talk to you again."
Krezagon stared at Soripel for a while before turning eir eyes away and looking depressed. "Maybe so... But I made this choice." They sat quietly for a while. "Would... could one of you go find Taikehel and explain this to em? And tell em that I'm sorry... and that... well, that I'm really sorry. Please?"
After a short moment, Riyhneon said: "I'll go." Riyhneon took a mugful of hot tea with em and went after Taikehel into the forest.
Even though Taikehel had ran relatively far, Riyhneon did not have trouble finding em. The far-walker was lying on the ground, curled up in a fetal position and crying. Riyhneon comforted em for a while, gave em eir tea and got em to stop crying fairly quickly. They sat on the ground, hugging each other.
"Do you want to hear what happened?" asked Riyhneon. Taikehel nodded. "Apparently Krezagon asked Tarkavinel to make eir mind like that —"
"What?! Ey did it... WILLINGLY!?"
"That's the impression I got... Krezagon said that the only thing ey had ever been afraid of was being controlled by far-walkers. I agree with em. I would like my mind to be like that as well... but I think the downsides would be worse, so I'm not going to do that."
"Tragsiel! Why... why would anyone want to be DEAD like that!?"
"They aren't dead. I guess they're just not letting you know that they exist. Maybe they can't, but I don't know. Krezagon did not act one bit like Tarkavinel after we'd found em. Ey's the same as before. Tarkavinel's gotten better too, you know. I'm sure ey behaves weirdly just because ey's been through some bad trauma. I don't mind that ey doesn't speak much, or stares off into nothing. I did that a lot..."
"How can I even travel with em now?" sobbed Taikehel.
"You should trust your other senses more."
"Why? I know they can be faked! Far-walkers can fool other far-walkers too!"
"You can fight against it."
"Yeah, and if I don't sense a mind in a body, the image of that body is false!"
Riyhneon did not have anything to say back, so ey just looked sad. "I'm sorry... Krezagon is, too. I don't know how to make you feel any better."
"As if MY life hasn't already been miserable enough..."
"I think Krezagon's has. I'm glad ey finally got something ey really wanted."
"When will I?"
"Probably never. Life is annoyingly unfair like that."
"That is so... gzoozing... unfair."
"Well, happiness is directly proportional to how much you can gzooz yourself. When you believe you're happy when horrible things happen, you may be crazy, but you'll be happy too."
"I'll never be crazy!"
Riyhneon smiled a little and pressed eir face against Taikehel's. "I'm sure there's a suitable balance of happiness and craziness somewhere." They sat there for a while and Riyhneon's calming rationality sunk into Taikehel's mind. Taikehel always wanted to be rational, but ey was usually too driven by eir desires. "If it helps you, you can keep your mind occupied by probing my mind, or something. I mean, as long as you don't really... dig, you know. Maybe the others could do that for you too... Soripel probably, I think ey's grown sort of fond of you."
"Thank you... that'd be great."
"You're welcome. You don't need to talk to Krezagon if you don't want to."
They got up and went back to the others. Taikehel did not speak to Krezagon, but ey spoke to Riyhneon and Soripel that much more. Leitsel was quite taken that Tarkavinel had started speaking more, and did eir best to encourage em without being too pushy about it.
A few days after Tarkavinel had hidden Krezagon's mind from far-walkers, Riyhneon wanted to sleep with Krezagon again. This time Leitsel agreed to sleep with Tarkavinel, so Soripel and Taikehel got to sleep together. Soripel was not very keen on sleeping, though, and eir thinking distracted Taikehel enough so that ey could not sleep either. Taikehel had noticed very early that Soripel was thinking about something quite private, so ey did what ey could to not pick it up, and was successful.
Soripel had lain a long time just looking at Taikehel. "Hey, Taikehel."
"Huh, what?" Taikehel opened eir eyes but did not look at Soripel. "Don't you want to sleep?"
"Nope."
"Then what?"
"I dunno. Maybe I'll continue looking at you." Taikehel glanced at Soripel, somewhat puzzled. Ey did not say anything, so Soripel grinned and touched Taikehel's chest where eir xiphoid process was. "You're a skinny little thing."
"And you are a mountain of flesh," said Taikehel amusedly.
"Are you reading my mind?"
"No, I tried not to. Would you like me to?"
"Does it matter now?" Soripel paused for a while and continued: "I still don't get how you can have sex. Or if you're just lying. But I kind of feel like trying."
"You want to... what, have sex with me?"
"Maybe."
"...Huh. I thought I would be elitist enough to refuse, but I'm not. So be it... My far-walking abiliti—"
"I don't care."
"Well, it'll be different."
"I don't care."
"Okay, good then..." Soripel had spread eir palm and was now feeling Taikehel's chest. Taikehel put eir arms around Soripel's ribcage and drew emself closer to the nikod. "Far-walkers aren't as barbaric as you other-walkers. Most of us know that ankods can have sex. I've had sex with other far-walkers... never with a nikod, though. I've never seen a nikod far-walker. I've heard of one, though."
"I had a little ankoddin when I was a kid. You remind me of em sometimes." Soripel did not want to think about that, so instead Taikehel kissed em and they started fondling each other. Soripel was excessively protective of eir delusion of power and kept holding Taikehel down and initiating most of what they did. Taikehel did not mind it and let em have that belief since it really made em feel that much better. One thing annoyed em a bit more though, and it was that Soripel had soon stripped em naked and examined em fairly thoroughly, while Soripel emself refused to strip until after a fairly long time.
Soripel also did not want to try rubbing eir genitals against Taikehel's crotch—gods knew if the uselessness would be contagious. That was something that Taikehel did not handle and instead modified Soripel's mind so that ey would not be that stupid. However, after that they still just fondled each other's bits with their hands until they came. Soripel was totally overwhelmed and shouted into eir pillow. They lay quietly for a time.
Then Soripel grabbed Taikehel's sweaty arm and held it loosely. Ey opened eir mouth and tried to say something, but only came up with: "Wooow..."
"Yes, impressive, isn't it? I told you about this, didn't I, back in the forest mountains? Well, I know you liked it."
"Guhhh."
They fell asleep. The next day, they smiled to each other a lot, but the others did not notice.
Tarkavinel liked to wander around their campsite for a while always after they had settled for the night. Ey also liked to do it while being secretive so the others usually did not see em. That was also the case when ey saw Krezagon and Riyhneon walking together and holding each other's hands. Tarkavinel followed them, and they soon stopped. Krezagon put down a blanket ey had been carrying and the two sat on it, starting to kiss and fondle each other.
They squirmed on the ground, got excited, took off their trousers and had sex. Having reached climax, they cuddled for a while, but Riyhneon was hungry and left back to the campsite soon. Krezagon lay around for a moment, but then sat up as well. Ey looked right to the spot where Tarkavinel was and spotted the gekod. Ey stared at em for a moment.
"Tarkavinel? What are you doing there?" Neither of them moved or said anything for a while.
Eventually Tarkavinel stepped out from eir hiding place and walked closer to the place where Krezagon was. Yet a moment later ey said: "I followed you."
"Huh? You mean when we came here? ...Did you spy on us while we were having sex?" Krezagon looked away, slightly annoyed. Tarkavinel did not speak yet. "You know, I don't really mind. But don't let Riyhneon know, ey doesn't like it if ey knows or will know that ey's been watched."
"Why would you even do it?"
Krezagon stared at Tarkavinel for a moment. Ey thought ey had started to understand the miniscule changes in the gekod's expression and that the current expression was that of belittling embezzlement. "What. You've usually treated me like any other person, but now you too think that ankods couldn't have sex? You just saw me do it!"
Now Tarkavinel looked clearly confused. "I know what I saw, and you obviously rubbed your genitals. But neither you nor Riyhneon have a goninjin or gowanjin, so what's the point?"
"Aioii. Not all sex is supposed to aim for reproduction."
"...What then?"
"...Uh, having fun? Feeling good?"
"But how can you even feel good without a goninjin or gowanjin?"
"...Wait, what?" They were quiet. "How can you not?" Tarkavinel was quiet. "Wait... you... you told me that you've... been raped... a lot. Have you... have you never just had sex for the fun of it?"
"It's not 'fun'. It hurts."
"So, you've... never felt good while having sex? You haven't even had an orgasm?"
"...Well no. Isn't that when a goninjin or gowanjin ejaculates?"
"No, no... I... uh." Krezagon stood up and walked closer to Tarkavinel. "I'm sorry about my tone a moment ago. I um... I didn't know why you said it at first and so many people have thought that I can't have sex just because I'm an ankod so... Uh, sorry." Tarkavinel looked blank again. "Um... would you like me to explain the sex stuff to you? Just because I'm an ankod doesn't mean that I couldn't know stuff about sex." Krezagon added the last statement almost automatically to defend emself, but in truth, Tarkavinel did not think of em as any less capable of explaining sex issues than another person of eir intelligence.
"...Sure."
Krezagon was quiet for a short moment. "I... let's sit down." Ey turned and walked to the blanket ey had Riyhneon had had sex on, sitting down. Tarkavinel followed. "Okay, well... all of our genital bits can feel pleasure. The shape and size and functionality doesn't really matter. And nipples can feel pleasure too. And having sex doesn't have to have anything to do with what one can do when it comes to reproduction... I mean, Riyhneon was raped once and ey was very reserved about sex for a long time. Ey still hasn't had sex with anyone but me after it, I think. Ey thinks it's comforting that I can't rape em. And I think ey doesn't want anyone to penetrate em for a long time either..."
"If all genital bits can feel pleasure, why mine haven't?"
"I don't know... well... if your genitals have been mutilated, then it's obvious that you'd feel nothing but pain. Um... have they?"
"...I don't think so."
"Then... I guess that it's only because everyone who's had sex with you hasn't cared about how you feel during it. I uh... I'm sure that if you have sex with someone who does what you want, you'd like it too. And you really don't need to let anyone penetrate if you don't want to." Tarkavinel was quiet. "Uh, you can try touching your own bits and find out what feels good yourself. I think that's the best way, I mean, if you want to..." Tarkavinel stared blankly into the forest. They sat there quietly for a moment. "I'll go back to the camp..." Krezagon got up, and so did Tarkavinel. Krezagon picked up the blanket, after which they returned to the campsite and went to sleep.
A day later, when Tarkavinel was sleeping with Krezagon, ey brought up the issue of sex again.
"How should having sex feel like?"
Krezagon was a little taken by surprise, but answered after a while: "Um... well... good?"
"What does 'good' feel like?"
"It's... I... well, kind of hot, I guess... and uh, like you want to get touched more, and it just... it just creates a sensation of pleasure. I find it really hard to explain..."
"Could you show me then?"
"...Like, have sex with you?" Tarkavinel did not answer. "I, well, if you want to."
"Yeah." Tarkavinel turned to face Krezagon. Krezagon was still rather surprised. "Should I take my clothes off?"
"Oh? Oh, no, you don't need to."
"I don't?"
"Well, neither of us is going to penetrate the other."
"But you and Riyhneon took off your pants."
"Yeah. But we didn't have to, we could've kept them on too."
"Oh."
They looked at each other for a moment, but then Krezagon went ahead and started to slowly introduce Tarkavinel to proper love-making. Ey hugged, kissed and stroked the gekod and managed to even get em to respond to the caressing. Tarkavinel still kept mostly expressionless, but once Krezagon had advanced far enough and touched the gekod's nipple for the first time, Tarkavinel twitched, curled and turned eir face away. Krezagon was a little worried that Tarkavinel had not liked it, but ey was soon convinced otherwise as the gekod held em tighter and closer.
They spent quite a while on foreplay, but eventually got far enough to start playing with their genitals. They still did not take their clothes off since Tarkavinel did not express any interest in doing that. Ey mostly seemed to be ecstatic. They kept at it for a long time, since Tarkavinel did not aim at having an orgasm. When ey was finally excited enough to go that far, ey became confused and Krezagon had to explain the seizure-like climax of love-making to em before ey would continue. After that, they finally went to the end, with Krezagon shouting and Tarkavinel grimacing as if in agony and squeezing Krezagon's ribcage.
Having finished, they stayed still, cuddling and breathing.
Tarkavinel moved eir fingers around a little in Krezagon's hair. "I've never felt anything like that."
Krezagon lifted the blanket over Tarkavinel's body. "I'm glad you have now." They fell asleep and in the morning, they were slow to get up since they had been up half the night.
The small group had steadily been moving northeast, toward Fetormana and populated areas in general. The mountains receded and they found themselves in hilly plains with only few trees. They saw a few stray houses and small fields that they did not disturb—they did not need help from other people. The weather turned gradually colder and colder. Snow started falling down, even if they all thought it came really late.
Some days passed and they eventually found their way onto an actual path, soon arriving in a small town. Taikehel was overly excited and socialized with the villagers quite a lot, even if they were rather reserved about an ankod, far-walker or not. The people in the town had never seen falangezkas, so they left on the same day.
The next village they found was slightly larger, and a military camp resided there. The lieutenant was quite disapproving of an ankod sergeant, a foreign one on top of everything, but like in Šeneilen, ey did not really care enough to directly disobey the general order of hospitality. In order to make Tarkavinel a part of eir squad, Krezagon needed a captain to make the official papers. The lieutenant told Krezagon that Farlami, the nearest town that had a military camp with a captain in lead, was a week's journey away.
The small team left again on the next day.
Fetormana's fringes were grassy plains seeded with some trees and gentle hills. The terrain would have been easy to travel on even without the roads that were much more plentiful than in Kervanela and Gekkyila. Snow did not seem to want to stay on the ground; it came down from the sky and in a day, it was gone again. Even Krezagon had not seen such a strange start of winter before. Tarkavinel might have known if the phenomenon was typical, but ey did not have much of a recollection of eir time there. They asked about it from the local people and found out that winter did actually start in this peculiar manner, but it usually happened earlier.
Krezagon and eir team reached Farlami in less than a week. Even Taikehel walked much faster now and did not get tired. Farlami was a much bigger town than Krezagon had thought. There was even a sign pointing them the right way. They did not have anything to do in the town so they merely passed quickly through. People stared and pointed at them as they went. Taikehel knew well enough that it was because of em, Krezagon and Tarkavinel, but ey did not think it significant enough to tell, especially since the others did not seem to care. Taikehel did stay in the town while the soldiers went to the military camp.
The guard at the gate of fence surrounding the camp stared Krezagon quite intensely. Ey did not say anything.
"Hello, soldier? Would you let us in, please?" asked Krezagon.
"Uh... what? Who are you?"
"We're soldiers from Kervanela, the other side of Watery Mountains. We're on a mission to acquire a fugitive."
"Oh?"
"...So, can we get in?"
"I... uh..." The soldier looked as confused as ey looked irritated. "Wait here." Having said that, ey opened the gate, went in and closed it. There was another confused soldier behind the gate.
Krezagon and eir squad waited around for some time before the gate was opened again. The guard came back with a lieutenant who looked even more irritated than the guard.
"Soldiers from Kervanela, eh? Can I see your papers?" Krezagon handed the slightly bloodstained papers to the nigekod. Ey read them and did not seem to notice that Tarkavinel had no paper. "Well... all right. Come on." The nigekod turned and went back in. Krezagon and eir squad followed.
The military camp was not as big as the town led to expect. They walked straight to the captain's office, where the lieutenant told the soldiers to wait and Krezagon to follow em into the building.
The captain was a gewakod younger than Tarkavinel. It was rare for a captain to be so young, but an ankod sergeant was even rarer, so Krezagon did not bother to question it.
"Uh..." The lieutenant read Krezagon's papers. "Krezagon ...Korielter, sogewa." Ey then gave the papers to the captain.
The gewakod stared at Krezagon. "Right... an ankod sergeant..." Ey stared reading the papers and tried to disbelieve what they said, without succeeding. "Are you serious? How does an ankod become a sergeant? You shouldn't even be a soldier!"
"I was born in a squad and once one captain saw that I would be a great sergeant, so ey made me one, sogewa."
"Must've been one gzoozing joke."
Krezagon felt extremely tempted to make a comment about the captain's age, but refrained. Instead, ey made a subtler comment. "How should I prove my competence to you, sogewa? Race the best soldier in the camp? A bow contest?" The lieutenant rolled eir eyes and smirked. Ey understood that Krezagon had just insulted the captain by talking about childish games.
The captain was fairly amused, thought for a moment and then grinned at the lieutenant. "Well, have a quick fight, you!"
"Here?" asked Krezagon.
"Now?" said the lieutenant simultaneously. The two were rather surprised. The captain still grinned and nodded.
The lieutenant glared at Krezagon, but believing that ey would win easily, soon grinned as well and attacked Krezagon. Krezagon ducked, and when the nigekod regained eir footing and came at em again with a less stable move, Krezagon grabbed eir arms and dodged, twisting eir arms behind eir back and forced em to the floor. Krezagon looked up at the captain, who was pretty much staring with eir mouth wide open.
"Was that good enough, sogewa?"
"Uh... I um... I guess."
Krezagon let go of the lieutenant who was so surprised that ey did not quite fathom what had happened. Ey just got up and stared at the captain's astonishment. "Captain, I'd just like to stay here for one night and join a soldier to my squad. We discovered some sort of renegade village in the wastelands southwest of here and found a tortured soldier in there and took em with us."
"A tortured soldier? Are you sure ey isn't a rebel?"
"Ey's loyal, I've seen to that."
"Well, fine I guess. Bring em here after you settle so we can make the papers."
"Yes, captain."
"...Uh, dismissed."
Both Krezagon and the lieutenant left. Outside the building, Krezagon said to the lieutenant: "Well, that was incredibly juvenile. I didn't think ey'd take my comment seriously. I'm sorry, lieutenant."
After a short pause, the lieutenant replied: "Uh, sure."
"Where can we settle?"
"Oh... we have a warehouse over there, it has a few bunks for visitors and can accommodate you."
"Thank you, sonige."
The lieutenant turned to a nearby guard. "Fertel, show them to the warehouse."
The guard eyed Krezagon and Tarkavinel very suspiciously but took them to the warehouse nevertheless and told when night snack would be available. After unpacking their things, Krezagon and Tarkavinel left to finish the paperwork. The lieutenant was still standing around in front of the captain's office.
"Hmh. The captain is really childish sometimes, no doubt. But... wait... you're a GEKOD? What the gzooz?"
"I hope ey doesn't have to prove emself, sonige..."
The nigekod snorted. "Right. I won't fight against a gekod. You people are really weird. A gekod would never be taken into the military here, even if ey was born in a squad. Just no. Your nation must be really gzoozing desperate."
"Can we go in?"
"...Sure."
"Excuse us, sonige." The lieutenant looked after them in disbelief and then walked away, shaking eir head.
Inside, the captain glanced at Krezagon and Tarkavinel. "Oh, you. Well, here's the form..." The captain's assistant was sitting at the side of the captain's desk with two papers. "Wait a minute. You're a GEKOD?"
After a short silence, Krezagon went: "Does ey have to prove emself too, captain? Ey's not as good a fighter as I am, but ey can hide extremely well."
The captain stared wide-eyedly at Tarkavinel and leaned on eir hand, looking quite helpless. "Right, fine, humor me." The next moment, Tarkavinel disappeared from eir eyes and ey became more alert. Ey looked around, trying to spot the gekod and straining eir eyes. The assistant did the same. Krezagon looked around as well since ey did not see Tarkavinel either, but did so more lazily. After a short moment, Krezagon saw Tarkavinel standing behind the captain's chair and nearly sniggered.
Tarkavinel stepped out of hiding. The captain startled and Tarkavinel walked back next to Krezagon.
"Agh! Groshje!" exclaimed the captain. "How the heck did you do that?"
"Ey is incredibly good at it. I don't really know how ey does it either, captain."
"Does ey speak?"
"Very rarely. Ey was horribly tortured while ey was imprisoned and I've done my best to help em with it. Ey trusts me and I trust em."
The captain leaned on eir hand again and stared at Tarkavinel, wondering how ey could disappear just like that.
"Uh, should we make the papers?" asked the assistant.
"Oh, right. Yeah, go ahead."
"Name?"
Tarkavinel actually replied this time. "Tarkavinel Airahankio."
"Age?"
"278."
"Birth place?"
"The city of Jolmanhaine, in the nation of Tarakiila."
"Home address?"
"None."
"And how many years should I put you down for...?"
Tarkavinel did not speak, so Krezagon filled in: "Uh... four is enough for now." Hearing no objections from Tarkavinel, the assistant put down the number and handed the form to the gekod for signing while ey copied it. Once the forms were done, the assistant gave them to the captain for stamping. Ey stamped them and gave one to Krezagon while the assistant filed the other away.
The captain still stared at the two for a short moment before letting them go. "Well... dismissed, I guess." Krezagon and Tarkavinel left.
It was already dark when the night snack was distributed, so no one noticed that Krezagon's squad was different from the norm.
However, in the morning, they caused a scene while trying to go have breakfast. Tarkavinel and Krezagon were literally driven out and had to hide. They went back to the warehouse after a while and packed things. The others came back after they had eaten. They had tried to get breakfast for Krezagon and Tarkavinel as well, but the cook would not give one person more than one portion of breakfast. In addition, people had commented excessively about Riyhneon's size, since ey was very short for a gewakod.
They left soon and Krezagon and Tarkavinel ate some rations. They met up with Taikehel at the towns gates.
Taikehel was rather irritated. "Good morning to you. The people in this town are close-minded little pricks and I'll be happy once we get to the more civilized parts."
To everyone's surprise, Tarkavinel spoke: "Fetormana's larger cities are worse than this place."
Taikehel had finally learned to listen to Tarkavinel even if ey could not hear em directly inside eir mind. "Is that so? I happen to know that in any nation, the fringes are nearly always backwater villages and the central cities are better to be in, because the large number of people forces them to be more tolerant."
"It's different on this side of the Watery Mountains."
"Yeah, right."
Krezagon started walking away. "Let's go." The others followed.
The small team visited a few more villages during their journey to northeast. Since forests were thin and rare and strong winds blew across the plains, many houses were built out of clay and stone. The countryside was sparsely populated, but there were always houses here and there, unlike in Kervanela and Gekkyila, where one could walk for days without seeing a single hermit hut. The towns were sturdy and dense. The people's attitudes toward them did not improve, and they found no trace of Tegafel and Availon. They did hear some rumors about a few falangezkas and rebels who killed important people last year.
At some point, the terrain turned too arid and barren and Krezagon turned northwest. Snow came down and now it stayed. The climate was still warm enough for them to travel and if they could not walk on the roads, they could always ski.
They always had problems in towns and military camps, because people would not believe that Krezagon was a sergeant and would not serve em in any way. Krezagon had an idea to evade the problems with the military camps. "Riyhneon, could you take my sergeant bracers and pretend that you're the sergeant? I'm sick of this nation's attitude and I just want to do this without causing any more scenes."
"Me? S– – but, but, I'm way too young to be a sergeant... soan... Couldn't Leitsel or Soripel do that?"
"The bracers won't fit them. They're nearly too small for you too but I'm sure they'd pass..."
"But I'm still too young."
"You can look older if you try, besides, there was that captain who was younger than Tarkavinel."
"But... what about the papers..."
"They don't look at them so closely if they think everything's all right. And Taikehel can make sure they see what they want in the papers."
"Couldn't ey make them see you as a gewakod or something?"
"That'd require em to concentrate on that all the time."
"But... I... No, I'm sorry, I can't do it."
"Come on, Riyhneon, it can't be that hard. And there's no danger if Taikehel backs us up, too."
"No, I'm sorry. And uh, we don't need to go to the camps, do we? We can just sleep outside and we can do work if we need money, can't we?"
Krezagon looked at Riyhneon and though ey was about to start convincing the young gewakod to go along with eir plan, ey decided to let it drop. Riyhneon was too young and terrified to do it. "All right, sorry. You don't need to do it if you don't want to."
Krezagon then decided to stop going to the military camps. It was easier to evade all the questions most of the time. From then on, Taikehel ended up doing most of their investigating, since ey was faster at it than if the others went around gathering information from the people. People would not have wanted to speak to Taikehel either, so ey made them think ey was not an ankod.
Since Taikehel only spoke to Krezagon when ey had no choice, Krezagon had no idea that Taikehel was planning to leave eir squad. In the city of Stawahani, a person finally hired Taikehel for a far-walking job even though ey was an ankod, and the city had a far-walker training center. They had been in the city for two days when Krezagon decided that it was time to move on.
Taikehel then informed em of eir own decision. "Krezagon, I'm not coming. I'll stay here."
Krezagon looked at the far-walker, quite surprised. "Stay? But... here? This nation is an awful place... for us ankods, especially."
"It's not that bad. This city is bigger than any I've been in, and someone actually hired me to do a job! Besides, I just can't take traveling with you anymore. It's driving me insane to see you and not feel you thinking at all."
Krezagon was speechless for a while. "Oh, I... I'm sorry. But if you really want to stay, I guess I can't stop you." Krezagon wanted to hug em, but Taikehel stood too far from em and probably did not want to hug em at all.
Taikehel smiled weakly. "Farewell, Krezagon, all of you."
The others said goodbye, fairly surprised. After Taikehel had walked away, Soripel said: "What the groshje was that? Ey just left!"
Krezagon felt like weeping, but tried to restrain emself. After some silence, ey continued: "Yeah... Let's go. We don't have anything to do here."
"We can't just leave em!"
"I can't believe you care so much about em, Soripel!"
To everyone's surprise, Tarkavinel spoke: "Ey will come back in maybe five days. We should wait for em."
"What? ... How do you know that?" asked Krezagon.
"There is no place for ankods in Fetormana."
"...Are you sure?" Tarkavinel's answer was to stare decisively at Krezagon. "Uh... Well, I guess we'll wait a few days, then."
Taikehel made eir way to the far-walker training center. Ey went in and spoke to the receptionist: "Greetings. I'm Taikehel Reþender, from the other side of Watery Mountains. Would you happen to have some space for me?" Ey expected the receptionist to answer that of course they had space, ey could live there and and then show the premises and explain the rules. Instead, the receptionist seemed confusedly miffed.
"Uh, why?"
Taikehel was speechless, even for a far-walker. Ey did finally come up with something to say, however. "Why? Why does any far-walker come in here? I want a roof over my head and to offer my services to the people. I've been traveling with a bunch of other-walkers too long and I would really like to live with other far-walkers again."
The receptionist fidgeted uncomfortably. Ey had eir mind closed from Taikehel, but many far-walkers did that. Thus, Taikehel could not know why ey was so uneasy. Ey thought briefly that it might be because ey was an ankod, but shut that away from eir mind. Far-walkers in a city as big as this could not possibly be that petty.
"Well... uh... okay." The receptionist got up and proceeded to explain the rules and give Taikehel a small room, though ey did so noticeably reluctantly.
Taikehel merely rested the remainder of the day as well as the next. Ey had been walking for so long that ey had nearly forgotten what it was like to not walk. Ey talked to a few people, but they all seemed rather tepid.
The next day, ey tried to get more sociable and went to a party the adult far-walkers were having. It was somewhat erotic in nature and not unlike some parties Taikehel had been in Kervanela, though in Fetormana, it felt like people were more restricted. In Kervanela, teenagers and generally anyone who wished to take part would be allowed to. Taikehel was met with open hostility, disbelief and rejection. Ey was almost thrown out. Taikehel ran back to eir room and cried. Ey could not believe that these people could be as ignorant and brutal as the worst opinionated other-walkers in Kervanela.
Taikehel was too upset to do anything – ey did not even eat. Another night passed, and early in the morning the receptionist came to talk to em about work. The receptionist was still rather reserved, but seemed friendly enough, and Taikehel thought that maybe ey would eventually get the others to understand. The receptionist then detailed Taikehel's job: cleaning, cooking and assisting the other far-walkers. Taikehel exploded, screamed and finally swung eir fist right at the receptionist's nose, knocking em out cold. Since Taikehel's room was far from the others', no one heard eir screaming, and since it was early morning, no one else was awake to sense the receptionist's fainting. Taikehel fumed for a minute, crying, and then packed eir bag and left.
Ey only figured that ey had no place to go once ey was already outside. Ey slumped down and moped desperately, thinking that eir only options were to go back to the far-walker training center or beg Krezagon to take em back – and then ey would have to travel wherever the soldiers had traveled during the three days.
Taikehel decided to rejoin the soldiers. Ey reached through to Riyhneon's mind and was surprised at how easily ey found it.
"Riyhneon? Do you... Are you... haven't you left yet?"
"No, not yet. Tarkavinel said that you'd come back in five days..."
"Ey... what?" Taikehel tried to process the sudden information and its unexpected source. Ey would never have believed if Tarkavinel had told em that people, other far-walkers especially, would react to em as they had. "I... I'll find you then. I'm ready to leave now."
While ey walked toward the soldiers' location, Taikehel tried to understand how Tarkavinel could have known something so profound, especially when ey rarely seemed to be even aware of eir immediate social surroundings. When ey came to the soldiers, they were ready to leave as well. Riyhneon hugged Taikehel. Taikehel then asked: "How... how could you know what would happen?"
All the soldiers looked at Tarkavinel who did not speak, only stared impassively around. Then Krezagon replied: "I guess ey had a vague idea or something. Ey predicted you'd be back in five days, though."
"Why did you want to return?" asked Riyhneon.
"I... don't want to talk about that now. Let's just go."
In the night, Taikehel told Riyhneon what had happened, and the next night ey shared it with Soripel. Riyhneon told the general idea to the others as well. Taikehel expected Tarkavinel to make a "told-you-so" scene, but ey did not – the gekod behaved as ey usually did, seeming to not really care what was going around em.
Only after three days of having encountered the huge cliff of the Flowing Passages, Availon sensed a community nearby and they headed toward it. They reached it the next day and found a nakran community. It was day when they arrived and the nakrans were still sleeping. However, one nakran at the edge of the community noticed their arrival and came to greet them from eir cave. Ey looked quite a lot like a karangal, but then again, nakrans and karangals were very similar.
"Hey! Who are you?" shouted the nakran in common Gomanian, a little alarmed but not hostile.
"We are friendly travelers and we seek shelter!" shouted Tegafel back. "I'm Tegafel Darrelter. I'm a femehan." Ey did not introduce Availon. The falangezka stayed silently behind Tegafel.
The nakran was quiet for a moment, but then said: "Welcome then... You can come here if you like. The rest of the people are still sleeping."
"Thank you." Tegafel and Availon climbed up to the cave and went in. Tegafel had some trouble fitting in, but ey managed to not break anything and could sit straight inside.
The nakran offered them a tea-like drink. "I'm Vertje-Terkori. May I ask what you're doing here traveling in the Watery Mountains when the winter is coming? You're lucky the snow hasn't exactly stayed yet."
"It's been a really complicated trip this far. It's all eir fault, really." Tegafel eyed Availon meanly. Vertje-Terkori did not quite believe that a falangezka could be responsible for the bizarre and sorry situation they were in, but Availon did not defend emself. Ey just looked into eir tea and tried not to weep. "Maybe I'll tell it later... We just thought that we could get over the mountains before winter, but then we found that huge cliff..."
"The Great Watery Wall? There used to be ways to its top, but they've been destroyed."
"What? Did somebody do that or did thunderstorms destroy them all?"
"I think someone did it, but I can't be sure... Maybe the village elders know more."
"Um... How come you're up at this time? If I can ask that is... Since the other nakrans are sleeping an' I heard you're nocturnal..."
"Uh... I just woke up because I heard you were coming."
Tegafel thought that the nakran must have had a really good sense of hearing. Ey also thought that the nakran seemed rather troubled or forlorn, but could not really make anything definitive out of it.
"You're a falangezka, right?" asked Vertje-Terkori from Availon. "What's your name?"
"Availon Gandeleihei. Th-thank you for the drink..."
"Are you all right? You're pregnant, aren't you? You really shouldn't be traveling, you know..."
"I know. I couldn't help it..." Availon turned away and tears fell down eir face.
Vertje-Terkori seemed rather concerned. "Are you okay? Is something wrong?"
Tegafel stated dismissively: "Ey's just being overemotional. Just leave em be an' ey'll snap out of it." The nakran looked at Tegafel for a moment, but did not say anything. "Um... should we go talk to the village elders once they wake up? I'm not sure what we should do now... Is there a way past the Great Watery Wall so that we could reach the femehan nations there before it's too hard to travel?"
"I'm not sure. I suppose you should go ask the elders..."
"When will they wake?"
"At sundown. It would be polite to wait for a couple of hours from when they wake."
"Oh." Tegafel was a little irritated at having to wait.
"Can I ask what sex you are? I never really got the chance to find out what all sexes you femehans have, to be frank." Tegafel then explained the femehans' sexes to the nakran. "So... you're basically an akkod like a falangezka or a karangal would be?"
"Yeah." Having admitted that, it crossed Tegafel's mind that maybe ey should not have told that to the nakran, since ey remembered now that the sex system conflict with the karangals was apparently the main reason for all the wars between their kinds.
The nakran sat quietly for a while, looking at eir own hands. "Maybe you should go to a karangal community then..."
Tegafel was a little surprised, since ey had by now expected some reprimands and comments of disgust rather than help. "But... Yeah, I suppose so. But where can we find one? Is there one nearby?"
"There... I, uh. Can you keep this secret from the nakrans?"
"...Well, yes, but... aren't you a nakran too?"
"Uh... The... Well, I pass for a nakran, but I'm really a half-breed. I know where my old village is. The other nakrans don't know it's there, and I think most of the karangals don't know that this nakran village is here."
Tegafel looked quite puzzled. "How does this... I don't understand how you were there and then here."
"My alhem was raped by a nakran iokod. Ey went back home to the village where I was born and told the others that ey had had sex with another traveling karangal and that they had had an accident. I looked enough like a karangal when I was born, but in puberty I started looking much more like an eikod, so I left and came here. I'm really lonely here too but I guess it can't be helped..."
Tegafel felt really sorry for the half-breed. At that moment ey thought that eir own position was not that bad, since ey at least had a position and would not be killed or mutilated on sight like the unfortunate half-breed.
Availon joined the conversation as well and said: "You could leave and travel to femehans' or falangezkas' areas. We wouldn't treat you so badly."
"Maybe... But far-walkers creep me out and you femehans are so big, I'd just be another kind of outcast then. No offense..."
"Oh... I'm sorry." They sat there quietly for a short while. "Would you tell us the way to your old village then, please?"
Vertje-Terkori pointed and said: "Go that way and head southeast. Do you want more detailed directions or can you just sense large concentrations of people to guide you?"
"I can. Thank you..." replied Availon. Ey and Tegafel got up and went outside.
"Thank you for the drink. I uh, hope that things will get better for you here."
"You're welcome. May you walk on dry grounds."
Tegafel was a little amused at the way of wishing a good journey when the ground was covered by snow.
Availon sensed the half-breed's thoughts for a short while. Ey suddenly started thinking that now was eir chance to let eir alhem know that ey was still alive and well, but ey did not want to bother them with it and wondered if their taking the message would reveal that eir alhem had really given birth to a half-breed. "Do not worry, Vertje-Terkori. If your alhem is alive, I shall discreetly let em know what came of you." The half-breed looked relieved and grateful and went back into eir house.
Tegafel and Availon traveled the rest of the day and then slept. The mountains were difficult to travel and they could see why the two communities did not know of each other, even though they were relatively close. After a day, Availon could sense the community. It was rather large for a karangal community and could even have a name – usually karangals' and nakrans' communities did not have names.
Availon was by now so far pregnant that it became quite difficult for em to travel quickly. Tegafel was frustrated, but simultaneously enjoyed that eir abilities were not pushed so far; ey could enjoy the nature and hunt and gather while they made their journey.
On the fourth day, Availon suddenly turned a little troubled and contemplative. "Tegafel, I sense something... someone. I don't think all is well with em."
"Oh?"
"Should we... Do you have a problem with finding out why that is?"
"...I guess not."
They changed their course a little. Availon homed in on the source of distress, and when they were within two kilometers of the troubled person, they found a path relatively easy to travel. It appeared to be used, even.
Just before finding the right place, they heard a concerned voice shouting: "Hey? Is someone there? Please help me! I'm right above the path!"
Tegafel looked up, trying to spot the place. "All right, I'll come."
"I sense em in there", said Availon and pointed at a cleft in the rocks above.
"Right. You stay there an' I'll go help whoever's in there." Tegafel put down some of the equipment ey was carrying and started climbing up the hard, steep rocks. At the source of distress, ey found a young karangal who was stuck under a large loose rock.
The karangal looked at Tegafel wearily. "Whoa, I thought you sounded weird but I didn't expect um... someone like you."
"I bet. Are you all right?"
"I've been better but I'm not in a hurry. I've been here almost a day I guess. My arm is stuck under this thing and it's numb but I think it's okay because I can still move it and I feel stings every now and then..."
"I'm not sure if I can lift that."
"Try finding some sticks and stones to stuff under here so it won't at least crush me if you try to move it?"
"...Yeah, okay." Tegafel figured that the karangal had obviously had time to think about how ey could come free. Tegafel gave eir waterskin to the karangal and set out to search the materials. There were plenty of stones close by, but in the manner of wood, Tegafel could see only small bushes and twigs. There was a young tree somewhat below the place they were in, and Tegafel went to get it. Cutting the tree to suitable pieces took Tegafel some time, but eventually ey had placed a good assortment of supportive sticks and stones next to the karangal's stuck arm and was ready to use the rest of the tree as a lever, since the fallen rock was too heavy for em to lift. The karangal had squirmed and nearly screamed in pain as the supportive materials had lifted the rock an infinitesimally small distance, relieving some of the blocked veins and returning some violent sensation and pain to eir arm.
Tegafel finally managed to lift the rock and the karangal did eir best to pull eir arm free. Free it came and the karangal cheered, only to cry in pain as the arm finally started regaining proper sensation. The arm was badly scratched, even wounded, and probably broken. The karangal sat for a moment and wept. Tegafel tried to examine the arm but could not really tell what it needed and whether it would heal properly or not.
"Can you climb down? I'm traveling with a falangezka an' ey might know more about this kind of stuff. Oh, what's your name? I'm Tegafel Darrelter."
"Thank you, Tegafel Darrelter. I'm Arike-Rigexiti."
"Actually, I think I can just carry you down. Especially if you can hold onto me."
"Okay."
"Okay, climb on..." Tegafel sat down with eir back to the karangal.
Arike-Rigexiti put eir good arm around Tegafel's shoulder and chest. "Is there something I can grab? I don't think it helps you if I slip and grab your hair or nose."
"Uh..." Tegafel was amused at the mental image. "Here, hold this." Ey offered the edge of eir winter jacket. "I'm pretty sure it's tight enough an' won't come loose.
"Right." The karangal then put eir legs around Tegafel's waist.
Tegafel got up without much trouble; the karangal, while ey obviously weighed something, was not even as heavy as all the stuff Tegafel had been carrying around the mountains.
Arike-Rigexiti was rather anxious to see a falangezka, but when Tegafel had brought em down and ey could see Availon, ey was a little disappointed. "I thought falangezkas were pretty..." Availon turned away and the karangal eyed eir belly, wondering what in the world could make one of the supposedly intelligent falangezkas travel while pregnant. "Okay... why are things as bad as they seem with you two? How could you possibly have gotten into a situation like this?"
"Well, it all starts by being eir fault..." Tegafel then explained shortly how Availon had manipulated em and how it all had culminated in Korrankola, the capital of Gaoranola, where other femehans had discovered Availon's plans, punished em and exiled em.
Arike-Rigexiti nodded along, but seemed still confused when Tegafel finished. "Why are you traveling with em now?"
"I don't... Well, ey kept following me an' I tried to get rid of em but... well, I just couldn't leave a pregnant falangezka to die out there. It'd be so indecent."
"I suppose." Arike-Rigexiti eyed Availon accusingly. "How did ey manage to get emself pregnant anyway?"
"Ey had sex with a jinhaliare of all things!"
"What!" The karangal and femehan laughed mockingly and commented on the general absurdity of what Availon had done. Availon sat on the ground and wept.
Tegafel was very inconvenienced by Availon's crying and shut up. Arike-Rigexiti, then again, did not mind. "Seems sure enough like you brought this on yourself. I thought your kind were supposed to be smart!"
"Tegafel is lying!" cried Availon.
"I am not!" exclaimed Tegafel.
"Ey doesn't know the truth."
"The truth you so willingly want to put in eir head?" commented Arike-Rigexiti. "Yeah right."
"Would you two ignorant brats stop talking about things you don't understand!" shouted Availon and tried to hit Arike-Rigexiti's hurt arm. The karangal evaded, but looked at Availon more seriously now. Availon sat, wept and looked at the ground for a minute. "I'm sorry. I can look at your arm i– –"
"No way."
"It needs – –"
"Shut up!"
"Maybe you should go on ahead so you won't bother us", said Tegafel. "We were trying to find a karangal community we could spend the winter in. Is your home nearby?"
"Yeah, the path is the way there."
"Go on, then!" Tegafel shooed Availon, who left. "I guess it needs some bandages and a sling. I have something in my bag..." Tegafel dug out the bandages and did eir best to tie the karangal's arm. The result was not a masterpiece by far, but at least it worked. Tegafel also dug out a little food because ey thought that Arike-Rigexiti must have been starving. "How far is it to your home?"
"Not too far. We should be able to get there within the day." They started slowly walking after Availon. Arike-Rigexiti munched on some of Tegafel's food, but was also curious about eir new savior. "Say, what's with all the scars? Were you a gladiator or fighter or something?"
"A soldier."
"Wait a second... you were a soldier and then the falangezka tricked you to work for em and against the military of femehans?"
"Yeah..."
"Somehow ironic, I guess. You know, we karangals don't really have any of those military things. If we need to fight, all of us who can do and that's that. We don't force anyone to and we don't organize it or anything. A lot of karangals can fight though because we're usually taught that more or less."
"I guess that works fine when you don't have big towns an' cities like we do."
"Our community has too many people already for my liking!"
"How many are there?"
"Probably four thousand or something."
"A smallish femehan town would have about that much people. My hometown had something like six thousand."
"Huh, that's a lot... You know, I've never seen a femehan before. I hear you have a lot of sexes, and that one sex doesn't do anything to help reproduction. Are they teased a lot about it? Because I don't want to have kids and my great-grand-alhem really complains about it a lot."
"Wow, I don't want to have kids either and people sure teased me about it! They think that all wakods should have as many kids as they can an' be ecstatic about it. It's gzoozing stupid."
"Wakod is one of your sexes right? And you're a wakod?"
"Yeah. The ones who can't do any reproduction are ankods. I knew one an' ey was teased a lot... A lot people think ankods are crazy an' useless an' that they can't have sex but that's not true. I think ey sort of wanted to know how having children would be like but I doubt ey'd like it since ey's so much of a soldier."
"I see. What other sexes are there?" Tegafel then explained the femehans' sexes once again. Arike-Rigexiti smirked. "No offense, but that sounds needlessly complicated."
"No kidding. It'd be great if every femehan was a wakod!"
"Heh, maybe."
"What was it with your ...grand-alhem, right? Why's ey so upset because you don't want to have kids? Or are karangals in general really upset if someone doesn't want to have kids?"
"Well, one thing is that ey doesn't have any other direct relatives and ey would really like to have some more. Ey likes kids but ey's too old to have any. I heard ey tried when I was a baby but they all died and ey almost did too. And it seems ey thinks having children is the meaning of life or something and that it'll have been meaningless for em because all eir children have died somehow. Ey's a far-walker too and really stuck-up about emself. Ey thinks ey can do everything and I guess that was true way back when ey was younger but now ey's just... stuck-the-groshje-up. Ey's a better far-walker now though, I'll give em that. I hate em."
"Huh... couldn't you move away to some other community? I mean, if ey picks on you that much?"
"Well, I've been thinking about it... but I'm really young still and I'm not really sure about it yet. I am sure I don't want kids though. Other people whine about it too you know. Yesterday I was hunting with a few older people because I wanted to learn it and when we were getting back, I got stuck under that falling rock. The others did try to move it first but when they couldn't, they just said that the bother of getting the proper equipment there to get me out was bigger than just letting me die because that's how invaluable they thought I was!"
"What!? Those gzoozing horks!"
"Yeah, talk about being close-minded and insensitive! I guess I'm lucky that it was you who happened to be walking on the path and not someone from home. Of course not everyone thinks I'm stupid for not wanting kids but I doubt people will tell them what really happened. I wonder what they'll do when they hear how the others just left me..."
"That sucks... I guess that even I couldn't get away from being expected to have kids if I lived with karangals..."
"I doubt any karangal would expect you to have kids since you're a femehan."
"Hm. Do you know about the huge cliff west of here? Is there a way over or around it?"
"The Great Watery Wall? I don't know much about it, but I guess someone does."
They caught up with Availon rather soon and then made their way toward the karangal community. Availon did not speak to the other two and was a little surprised that ey could not read Arike-Rigexiti's mind without trying, and ey did not want to to risk being noticed. Ey thought Tegafel could become aggravated if ey even tried to read eir new friend's mind.
The sun set and the path became slightly more difficult to travel on when they started seeing caves and houses. Availon wondered why most of the homes were built in such a difficult place, but ey did not bother to ask.
"My home is a bit further away, but not far", said Arike-Rigexiti.
After a pause, Availon managed to ask: "Is there a far-walker living somewhere in here?"
"Yes, my great-grand-alhem, Verkije-Rigexiti. I still live with em, so you can't avoid meeting em." Availon was incredibly relieved and tried to hide it, though ey quickened eir pace. "I bet ey's a better far-walker than you."
Availon scoffed a little and said politely: "I'd be exhilarated if that were the case." Ey was being very sarcastic, but did not let that show.
It was nearly too dark for Tegafel to move about when they finally reached Arike-Rigexiti's home. People had already greeted them, some asking who the visitors were and others saying they were glad Arike-Rigexiti was all right after the accident the older hunters had told about. The young karangal was too tired to bother correcting them at this time.
"There's Verkije-Rigexiti, waiting for us since ey obviously knows everything going on in here." They made it to the ledge where the house was. Tegafel squinted, but Availon saw quite clearly the old karangal looking at them form the doorway of eir house. Their eyes met briefly and after a bright connection of the mind, everything went black for Availon.
Verkije-Rigexiti was very old, and quite tall for a karangal. However, ey still had piercing and vigilant eyes and the mobility to be envied even if ey had seen eir prime more than a hundred years ago. Ey walked out of eir house, so confident it seemed like ey owned the whole world. "Well, here's one sorry excuse for a falangezka! Pregnant! Broken!" The old karangal put one hand on Availon's belly and felt it up. Availon just stood there, empty-eyed, and did not react at all. Tegafel looked at the falangezka confusedly. "Don't worry, little femehan, I just grabbed hold of eir mind for a moment. Ey's a mess! They say falangezkas are the best far-walkers there are, but this one certainly can't boast with eir abilities now." Having said that, the old karangal watched, smiling, as Availon plopped on the ground and rolled about a bit with eir limbs toward the sky as if ey were some kind of furry animal. "My, my, whatever did you manage to do to em? Ah well, you can surely tell all that when you're rested. It's bedtime for little femehans, isn't it? I'll take care of this poor violet wonder. Ah, Xetaga-Javexi, you'll show this femehan a place to sleep, won't you? Good. Now off you go."
Tegafel was fairly speechless at the old karangal's dominance, but did not have objections. Xetaga-Javexi led em up to some cave, and Arike-Rigexiti followed.
"Ey is a better far-walker, but annoying as groshje, isn't ey?" the young karangal commented.
"Well, yeah... I can see how that tone could get old fast."
"Fifteen years! I was sick of it when my parents were still alive, and that was such a long time ago I barely remember it."
Xetaga-Javexi changed the topic: "We don't have any places big enough to fit you comfortably but maybe you'll be comfortable enough here."
"Right, thanks..."
"You have a bedroll and blankets, right? Those are probably more comfortable for you than our stuff. I live right on top of this cave, so come see me if you need something."
"You can find me too if you want", commented Arike-Rigexiti.
"All right. Thank you. Good night..."
Back at Verkije-Rigexiti's house, the old karangal made Availon walk straight into eir bedchamber and lie down on eir large bed. Ey had eir servants bring some food and drink there and then released the falangezka.
"Whuh... what..." Availon saw Verkije-Rigexiti smirking and offering em a glass of something.
"I've rarely seen mental barriers that are as shredded as yours. Why don't you drink this, and some more? With barriers like those, it's better to have them melt somewhat and then rebuild them properly."
Availon stared at the old karangal wearily, as if eir head were hurting, though it was not. Ey took the drink and sipped it. "I would still rather wake up and find out that all this did not happen..."
"Well, too bad. As far as I know, this is quite real, though I can't tell what you might have experienced. Do you mind telling me what's going on, or are you too tired? You're way too tired. I kind of hoped you'd be energetic enough to have sex with me, but I guess not. Well then, eat and drink some and slumber!"
Availon did as the old karangal suggested and was too tired to even thank the karangal for letting em sleep in eir bed.
When Availon woke up, ey felt quite comfortable. Verkije-Rigexiti was lying around next to em and noticed when ey woke up.
"Ah, good morning, you poor violet wonder. Have you rested enough or would you nap with me for a few hours?"
"Mmmwuh. I could nap." The old karangal took Availon's hands, held them and pressed eir head against the falangezka's. They fell asleep.
Availon had a nightmare of Tegafel ripping open eir stomach, taking out the baby and then eating it. Ey woke up crying, but the fit went over quickly. Verkije-Rigexiti offered em a drink again. "You have some interesting dreams. Here, take this." This time Availon did not even bother to taste it, but chugged it right down. "Do you want to start sorting it out, or do you want some more rest?"
"I... think I would like some more rest."
"All right. Well, come on, get up and come have breakfast."
"I... thank you so much. For ...everything."
"Also what I haven't done for you yet? You're welcome. You've spent too long a time with those ungrateful femehans, haven't you? Forget them and enjoy yourself here." The old karangal took Availon to have breakfast.
Arike-Rigexiti woke up later and went to meet Tegafel. "Sleep well, Tegafel Darrelter?"
"Yeah. It's great to be warm while sleeping for a change! It's a bit weird though, everybody was up when I woke and then they went to sleep again and now you're up again..."
"Well, I think your sleeping rhythm is weird!"
"I wonder if I could get used to the same rhythm as you."
"You could try. You'll be staying here the whole winter, won't you? That's plenty of time to do boring things since we'll be stuck here."
"Maybe I'll try. Um... could you explain something to me about your names? It's not a taboo issue, is it?"
"Well, no... Sure."
"You all introduce yourselves with your full name an' I've only heard people referring to each other with full names... Do you always say the full name?"
"Most of the time. Family and close friends use just the first part. Oft-met acquaintances can use just the second part. I usually call my great-grand-alhem just Verkije and ey calls me Arike. Actually, to be honest, what we usually call each other is quite invective."
"Uhm. I'm going to be in trouble..."
"How so? Did you go and call one of the elders with a half-name?"
"Oh, not yet. It's just that you have that weird sound in some of your names and I'm pretty sure I can't um... say that."
"What?" Arike-Rigexiti looked amused.
"Well, like in your name. Arike-Rige...khsiti. That's not how it sounds like an' uh..."
"Hah! It's the 'exi' letter. I suppose you'll just have to practice saying it. Lucky for you it isn't usually rude if you don't say a person's name at all! You can call me just Arike, though. You're quite friend enough for that, saved my life and all." Tegafel smiled joyously and then started practicing saying the letter exi.
After another day of rest, Availon was ready to tell eir story to Verkije-Rigexiti. Ey did so with a great deal of crying, uncovered some more blocks and then rebuilt eir barriers with the old karangal's help. They had a hearty meal to help Availon recover, after which they went to lie around the bed of Verkije-Rigexiti, who started talking some more about the falangezka's situation.
"I was quite an adventurer when I was younger, but this stuff you're doing is something rather different. I can tell easily enough that your side of this story is the truth, obviously. Restoring Tegafel's memories isn't a problem. But what do you want to do? Do you want to go home? Do you want Tegafel to know the truth, even if it means that it'll probably make em less popular with the official military of femehans, should ey return to them?"
"I don't know... I wish I was home now. I should be, being pregnant."
"Maybe you ought to wait until you've given birth and gotten rid of those hormones in your system. I've never seen anyone be so affected by them. I only hope it stops when you give birth!"
"It should. At least it always did before..." Availon paused and drank some wine. "I think I would want Tegafel to know the truth. Afterward, if ey thinks it would be better for em to hate me, we could put em back that way."
"That sounds sensible enough. I can only hope Tegafel is smart enough to make a reasonable choice. Switching and moving those memories would be annoyingly toilsome, though. If only I'd have some little far-walker trainee here who I could teach to assist me! But no, my children never managed to have much offspring of their own and Arike is being irrational. Ey doesn't want to have children. Ey doesn't even want to have sex! What kind of adolescent doesn't want to have sex? There is something wrong with em. I just can't figure out what..."
"Forgive me for saying, but you seem like the kind of person who would just modify the mind of another to get your way."
"I am. I have modified eir mind a little, but not completely... Before, ey would not have had sex even if I'd paid em, so to speak. Now, ey is at least a little curious, though it will probably take a very special situation to make em want to try it." Availon looked rather puzzled. "Would you mind trying to find out what eir problem is?"
"I would really not like to, but I will, if that is your wish."
"All right, forget it then. I won't ask you to do something you find that distasteful." Availon closed eir eyes and leaned on the old karangal's head.
Tegafel ja Availon löytävät kanjonista nakran-yhteisön, ja ovat jäämässä sinne talveksi, mutta yksi puolirotuinen nakran-karangal kertoo vanhasta kylästään, joka on lähistöllä, joten he lähtevät.
Tegafel ja Availon pelastavat Ariken kiven alta, ja viettävät talven karangal-kylässä. Arike liittyy mukaan. Availon saa lapsen, joka on reviekin, eikä siitä tiedetä mitään. Paljon porua tyhjästä! Henkimaailman reviekinit nauraa keuhkonsa pellolle. Lapsi syntyy karangal-kylässä ja jää piiloon sinne. Ariken esi-alhem auttaa vähän muistojen kanssa.
Krezagon's next stop was a city called Grehainali. They found out that a rebel group had been discovered there a year ago. Tarkavinel remembered that it had been eir group and shared this information with Krezagon, but no one else. Ey had never actually walked among people back then, so no one had seen em and could not recognize em. Ey did not consider that the far-walker who had revealed them might have also found out how ey looked like, but no one seemed to recognize em either way. They also heard some vague rumors about a falangezka having caused trouble in the northern neighbor state Gaoranola a month or so ago.
If they kept on going north, they would find themselves surrounded by the Watery Mountains, so Krezagon decided to go northeast once again and head for Gaoranola instead.
A some sort of hospital was located just outside Grehainali. People with severe illnesses and injuries lived there. The hospital was only for the rich and respected so it was not as much of a prison as it would normally have been. There were no fences and only a few guards walked around. The more delusional or contagious people were isolated, as usual. The road out of Grehainali passed through some of the hospital's grounds. A sign by the road explained how great a place the hospital was to provide rich injured people the treatment they deserved and that Grehainali was a great place for the hospital to be.
Krezagon looked rather dismissively at the sign. "Ugh. Those poor people should be put out of their misery."
"What if they're not miserable?" snapped Riyhneon.
Krezagon was about to argue back, but remembered that eir killing the injured Freppet was the reason Riyhneon had suddenly become snappy, so ey decided to let the issue drop. Ey could not help thinking that maybe Freppet could have spent eir life in a hospital such as this one, but came to the conclusion that Freppet would not have wanted it.
Not even a minute passed when they heard someone shouting: "Hello? Is somebody there? I could use a little help here."
Krezagon walked over to where the voice had come from, finding a tiny rock cliff above the small stream that flowed next to the road. Someone was sitting right next to the stream and could apparently not climb back up, though Krezagon wondered how climbing such a short distance would be so difficult. The person, a heavily robed nikod, looked a little condescendingly when ey saw the ankod. "I am not crazy, you know. And you can see I'm not weak either. I can lift you up from there, though I am rather amazed at how you managed to get stuck there of all places. Can't you climb up yourself?"
After a few seconds the nikod softened a little and cracked a smile. "Oh, all right then. Why don't you lift me up to see why I have such trouble climbing."
"Fine, give me your hand."
"You'll have to take my arm."
Krezagon was slightly puzzled when the nikod got up somewhat onerously and offered eir arm, but grabbed it nevertheless. Ey felt rather uneasy, but could not figure out why quite yet. Ey lifted the nikod and managed to get em on eir feet, even, so that eir robes did not soil on the muddy ground.
"Wow, yo– –"
"AAGH!" Krezagon had just let go of the nikod's arm and brushed eir hand where the nikod's hand should be, only to touch a small piece of cloth. The nikod had no hand, and now that ey was standing, Krezagon saw that ey was also missing the whole of eir other leg. Krezagon reacted so suddenly and violently that ey almost stumbled down into the ground and the nikod flat out fell, though not back down the tiny cliff. Krezagon backed down a few steps and then ran away behind the nearest large tree.
Krezagon's squad just stared after Krezagon – even Tarkavinel looked after em, though not in a staring manner.
"What the groshje was that?!" shouted the nikod. "I was just about to comment eir admirable strength and ey does this...! Gzoozing useless ankod!"
Taikehel was ready to save eir own reputation as an ankod, at least. Ey walked up to the nikod and helped em up. "Why, I'm truly sorry that happened. I can quite safely say that this has never happened before, and as you can see, the rest of us are just as flabbergasted as you."
The nikod was quite convinced by Taikehel's polite and articulate manner, though ey was still somewhat grumpy.
Soripel spotted a smoothed stick on the ground and picked it up, offering it to the nikod. "Is this yours?"
"Yes, it is, thank you."
"Say, you don't look like someone who would get emself into a place where ey would not be able to get out of, so how did you end up down there?" asked Taikehel.
The nikod eyed Taikehel, but replied: "The snow surprised me a little there, you see. The ground turned just slippery enough to risk my injuring myself or falling to the stream if I tried too hard to get back up again."
"I see. Well, you live in the hospital, don't you? Would you like us to escort you back there...?"
The nikod looked at Taikehel, thinking that ey would rather go alone than with an ankod. Taikehel sensed it, but did not care. "No, I'll be fine." With that, ey left.
The soldiers and Taikehel turned to Krezagon who was still cowering behind the tree. Seeing the others come at em, Krezagon turned and headed back to the road, intending to continue eir way.
"Krezagon! Walking away now, are you? What was that?" asked Taikehel. "I've never seen you react like that! Why did you do that?"
"Shut up!" snapped Krezagon furiously. Taikehel was so taken by Krezagon's sudden burst of emotion that ey did indeed stop eir questioning. What was even more amazing was that ey actually felt a flash of emotion for the first time since Tarkavinel had hidden Krezagon's mind. Taikehel stopped in eir tracks and only resumed walking after Soripel had told em to move.
Tarkavinel went to walk next to Krezagon and observed eir reactions when they passed some more inhabitants of the hospital who were spending the nice winter day outside. Krezagon seemed frightened and did eir best to not look at them. Still, ey could not help but furtively peek at them in silent horror. Tarkavinel found out what Krezagon feared and did not speak of it.
After half a day of walking, when Krezagon seemed to have gotten better, Tarkavinel asked: "Why were you so afraid?" Krezagon turned eir face away and did not reply. Had the topic been anything else, ey would have noticed that this was the first question of concern that Tarkavinel had expressed.
A small snowstorm brewed and the soldiers decided that it would be best to star making a camp in some relatively sheltered place. Since most of the landscape was just plain hills, shelter was hard to find. When they had finally chosen the best place for a camp, two people walked up to them on the road they had been traveling on. Leitsel was closest to them, so ey talked to them.
"Hello! Whatever are you doing there? Don't you know there's a storm coming?" asked one of the two people.
"We're just setting up a shelter."
"It'll just blow to the sky!"
"Well, we'll try our best to bolt it down."
"Psh, come on, come t' our house until the storm dies."
"Oh. Uh, thanks for the offer, I'll tell it to the others..." Leitsel then went and shared the message, after which Krezagon decided that they could just as well take up the offer. The two people then led the squad to a stone house not far from the hillside.
"Hello, Torsel! Dertikel!" said a gekod from inside the house. "You brought visitors?"
"Yeah, them travelers were trying to camp by the road during the storm an' I invited them over."
"Well, welcome to our humble home, then!"
"Thank you", replied Krezagon, having just entered. The inhabitants of the house then stared at em with a mix of befuddlement and hostility. "Are you having second thoughts now? We can go back into the storm if you wish, but I really do not see the point in that. I'm not crazy and neither is my friend here. We're decent and lawful soldiers and none of our physical qualities, be it sex or height or whatever, make us less competent." The three people just stared at em, and Krezagon could see that more people were peeking in through barely open doors. "I would be grateful if you allowed us to spend the night here. We will be no trouble to you."
The people were rather inconvenienced, but eventually Torsel, the nigekod who had first spoken to them, said: "Well... I... I suppose it's okay then."
After some more awkward silences, settling and eating, Torsel managed to start a conversation about ankods with Leitsel. "How come you've ended up traveling with ankods? I have a really hard time believing they wouldn't be crazy. An' on top of everything it seems like ey's bossing you around!"
"...Well, what do you want me to say to that? I used to think ankods are all crazy and useless too. I never met one before Krezagon though. I didn't want to believe ey wasn't crazy first, so I just ignored em. Then, during summer, one captain promoted em to a sergeant."
"What?"
"I don't really know how that happened. It was probably because the earlier sergeant nearly killed Krezagon."
"So the captain figured that promoting em would make em feel better about it? What the groshje?"
"No... Krezagon is really good. I don't think I've ever had a better sergeant. I haven't had that many though so I can't say if ey's that good, but well, I think ey is. I haven't seen a thing ey couldn't do yet." Torsel looked at em disbelievingly. "Hey, I don't know how to explain it any better. I've changed a lot since summer... I can just say that I don't think Krezagon is crazy. Nor the rest of us."
In the meantime, one of the children in the house was staring Krezagon.
"Are you really an ankod?" asked the kid, who was most likely a nigekod.
"Yeah, why?"
"Because you don't act like one..."
"How would you know how I'm supposed to act?"
"Because I know how the ankod who lives in the hills acts..."
"What? There's an ankod living out there?" said Riyhneon.
Giltinil, apparently the nigekod's alhem, butted in: "Yes, don't you know about em? Ey mostly just runs around and does some insignificant mischief."
"We're travelers, we really aren't from around here."
"Oh."
"So there's really an ankod living here? Where exactly?"
"Maybe we would've gotten a better reception at eir place", commented Krezagon, thinking that ey would not be taken too seriously, and was right.
"Ey doesn't have a house or anything. I think ey sleeps outside or in a cave or something... I'm a little surprised why ey hasn't died yet." Riyhneon looked questioningly at the gekod. "Ey is totally nuts, ey doesn't even seem sane any of the time, like uh..." Ey looked at Krezagon. "I don't how how ey survives. Ey probably steals something small every now an' then but we barely notice it. Torsel tried to kill em once when ey openly stole a whole basketful of food but ey was too sneaky an' got away. Torsel looked for em but couldn't find anything."
"So ey's out there right now, in the snowstorm? Way to abandon a fellow femehan..." continued Krezagon.
"But ey's crazy!"
"Yeah right."