Alice and Finch (Alpha)

A Novel by Daniel Triumph

Release Information: Early Rough Draft

Copyright 2017-2024 Daniel Triumph

 Dawn

1 Primary Dawn

Alice was always a point of interest in the capital. During her childhood, she passively garnered followers, kids in the neighbourhood and later children from around the entire city. Alice was an energetic girl. She wasn’t entirely logical, but she was very driven and people found value in that. Adults would watch her warily and some would even keep their children away from her. It was her unusual appearance. Alice had an obvious and striking look to her. Her hair was brightly coloured. It had less of the yellow-blonde common in Solune hair and was instead more of a sandy orange. Her eyes were usually a deep maroon, but when she got excited or angry they would become an astonishingly bright red. But the real reason why adults avoided her was because of her unpredictability paired with her tooth and nail.

Alice had three sets of canines, longer and thicker than the Solune’s. They often hid behind her darkened, stretched dinosaur-like* cheeks, but when she smiled they came out. Her mouth had two fangs pointing downward, followed by four more, two on each side, jutting upward. Her nails were not only long, but animal like. And her free spirit made many worry; what would she do next? Even worse, there were rumours. Rumours that she had committed murder and that worst of all, she didn’t regret it. Some people suspected that she didn’t feel remorse.

But those were only rumours, right?

Finch had heard all of these things, and had avoided the southern area of the city. His father, Ilias, had told Finch that she was a dangerous monster. Sometimes his friend Artus would invite him along to go visit her, but he always refused. Finch listened to what his father said, and kept away from the monster.

Finch was on his way home from the library with an armful of books. His father had been homeschooling him; the primary method of education in the Solune Kingdom. He’d sent the boy with a list, and Finch had also taken some books the he was personally interested in. Unlike most children, Finch wasn’t interested in Prince Yuvelliya’s adventure series or Gwenhime: A History of Conquest. Finch sought only Natural Studies textbooks. He also liked finding books from outside of the city, from external academics such Joss Resz, Bradley Jeremy, and Azure Double.

He was halfway to his house now, and the books were starting to strain his arms. He might have taken too many personal picks.

“Aww man…”

Finch knew he’d have to rest at some point before reaching his house. He saw a bench and decided that now was as good a time as any. He sat down and put the pile of books beside him. The pile of books beside him almost reached up to his shoulders. Finch closed his eyes and caught his breath. He had definitely taken too many.

“Hello there!” A small voice said.

Finch jolted, immediately tensing up. He turned to his left side, and saw the top of a head hiding behind his pile of books. He didn’t remember seeing anyone there while sitting down, but the person looked so small that he wasn’t sure if he’d missed them altogether.

“Umm,” Like most children, Finch had little sense for pleasantries and got right to the point, “How did you get there?”

“Oh, I saw you sit down, so I came and sat next to you. Or at least I tried. I didn’t want to sit on your books!” The voice replied.

“Oh.”

Finch could still only see the small person’s hair. It was an unusual colour. His father and he had black hair, but most of the other people in the city had either blonde or light brown hair. This person had blazing orange-yellow hair.

“Your hair looks like a fire.” He said.

“I know.* Isn’t it cool?” The little person replied, sounding excited.

“Yeah. Hey, can you stop hiding behind the books?” Finch asked.

“No, you’re scary.”

Finch stopped, confused. No one had ever called him scary. Maybe it was because he was already twelve. He was a big kid now, only three years from being an adult! Maybe that was why. But he wasn’t sure, so he asked.

“How am I scary?”

“Your hair is so dark. And around your eyes too!” The small person said.

He had never thought about this. He looked just like his dad, but thinking back now it seemed that almost no one else looked like them. Finch became very confused, but he was still more curious than anything.

“If you don’t show me your face,” He started, thinking, “I’ll just stand up so I can see it!”

“Oh…” The person said, “Okay fine.”

The small person leaned back slowly, peeking from behind the books, her* head titled down.

“You’re a girl!”* Finch said. It was hard to tell by voice with the younger kids, he found.

The small girl nodded. Finch decided that she was the unusual one of the two. She had darker skin, like she’d been in the sun for… forever!* Her bright hair colour made her eyebrows and eyelashes stand out.

“Hi! What’s your name? How old are you?” She asked the two most common questions* a child could ask.

Finch was used to answering* them, “My name is Finch Dirge Zeth, I’m twelve.”

“That’s a strange name. Out of all the kids I’ve talked to, you have the most weirdest name.”

“So?” He said, “What’s yours then?”

“I’m called Alice! Alice May Dawngale. I’m fourteen.” She said proudly. “That’s the name my mom told me a long time ago.”

“What do you mean a long time ago?” He was curious now.

“Well, my mom has passed down.” She said almost robotically.

Finch had a feeling she had said this sentence many times,* to many people. But he was more interested in what was said than how it was said. He wasn’t sure what “passed down” meant, so he just assumed that it was the same thing as passed away.

“Wow. My mother is gone too,” Finch replied looking forward*, “It’s just me and my dad.”

“Hey, that’s cool though!” She said, excited. He noticed that she always seemed a little excited.

“What do you mean cool? Almost everyone has a dad.”*

“Not me…”

Finch couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“You have no parents?!” He yelled, jumping up to look at her.*

Alice pulled her head down into her chest, “No… It’s just me.”

Finch felt bad. He started to think what it would be like without his dad. How would he get food? How would he learn? Just read? Who would he talk to? Who would take care of him? It would be all him, he’d have to do all of those things. Finch thought about Alice doing that all alone, with no mom or dad. He thought about her going into the forest all alone, hunting mobile moose or finding emango trees and climbing them for the fruit, without anyone to catch her if she fell. He wondered where she lived, did she sleep outside in the rain?*

“Hey, are you okay? Are you crying?” Alice asked.

“No.” He replied, wiping his face.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, but I have to go.” She said.

“Okay, goodbye.” He replied.

“It’s not goodbye. It’s see you later! So, I’ll see you later!”* She said and then jumped up.

The girl was really small. Finch didn’t believe that she was two years older than him. He stood up too. She winked at him* and then ran off to the south. South.

“Oh no! My dad!”

Finch had remembered the monster from the south. That was it! She was the monster! Alice Dawngale was the monster that he was supposed to be keeping away from! He grabbed his books and ran home, worrying.

Every child lies to their parents, even more so if they know they’ll be in trouble if they tell the truth.* Finch slowed to a walk as he neared his home. He could see it at the end of the cobblestone* road, right on the corner. He wasn’t sure if he should tell his dad. He didn’t know if he’d get in trouble, what he would do. Finch knew that his dad always knew best though.

“Right. So if dad always knows best, then I can tell him and he will do what is the right thing to do.” He said, stumbling over his own sentence nervously.*

Finch got to the door of his house, pulled the latch with his elbow and nudged it open. He went inside and separated his pile and the pile his dad had asked for.

Finch handed his father the stack of books along with the list, and then told him about the encounter with Alice. Ilias’s face slowly became a scowl.

“You must stay away from that creature!” He said, “It is dangerous! You must remain safe, for your mother!*”

“But Alice is just a normal girl though.” Finch told him.

“Listen to me, okay? That girl* is a monster. Stay away.”

Finch went to his room and sat on the bed. He didn’t think that his dad understood. He hadn’t met Alice, so how could he know anything about her? Finch didn’t like breaking the rules though, so after that Finch did his best to avoid Alice. He took the long way north, avoiding the bench where they first met and everything returned to how it was.

 2 Secondary Dawn

The next day was Asylum Day, the day the wall was completed and the Kingdom was wholly protected. Parents often gave their children this day off, and even the university celebrated by cancelling classes. Finch was playing out on the streets before breakfast. His father told him that he would get the afternoon off, but he needed to catch up on math. Finch was walking through the alleyway* beside his house when Artus spotted him from the main road.

“Hey Finch! I’m going to go play with Alice! She’s got a real big group of friends now.” He said. “Everyone in the area’s coming for Asylum Day! Even some of the kids from the next district, it’s a huge game day.”*

Thinking about Alice just made Finch uncomfortable and unhappy.

“Come on! We’re going to play territory fight!” He continued.

“No, I can’t” Finch said.

“Aww, it’ll be so fun though.” Artus pleaded.

“I know.” Finch replied, “But I’m not allowed.”

Artus left without him. Finch ambled back into the alley and sat down, leaning on the side of the house, right underneath his room’s window. His dad would call him in for the next class soon, and then they would have supper and he would be free. Finch liked learning, but it was starting to get boring. Even his Natural Studies texts weren’t able to keep his attention anymore. His mind wanted to focus on other things.

He sighed.

His father found him. “Come son, it is time for maths.”

Finch learned about the order of operations. The things inside of brackets must be done first, then the powers, then multiplication, then increases and decreases. He did all the practice questions diligently and then had supper with his dad. Ilias was a tall man, at least, tall compared to him. Compared to other adults though, he was fairly short. Just like Finch, his dad had black hair, dark eyelids and pale brown eyes.

“I still am obligated to work for three hours today* in order to continue teaching you by myself.” He said, “So stay safe inside the house until I come back.”

Finch wanted some new texts from the library. “Can I get some books then?”

“Fine, but take the quickest route.” He said, putting on his jacket, then pointing, “I will not be in the city, so it is less safe. Please make no other stops.”

As his father left, Finch followed, and they went separate ways outside after a hug. Finch headed east to the library, and his father went north to the gate. Finch’s father was a domestic hunter, someone that hunted animals whose daily migration habits were well documented. Finding the animal was not hard, but killing it in a way that preserved meat quality and then transporting it afterwards was. That’s why his father worked with a team. Finch had always wanted to be part of a team.*

He passed a bench, thinking of what topic he wanted to read about. Maybe biology.

“Hey!”

He recognized the voice. This was not good. He turned, and there she was, sitting with her legs swinging unusually fast.

“Hello Alice.” Finch said, still walking.

She stood and fell into step with him.

“Where are you going Finch?” She asked

“I’m going to the library to get a new book.” He replied.

“Library? Book?” She asked wide eyed, excited. It seemed Alice was often excited.*

“Yeah. You can borrow books from the library for free,” He couldn’t believe he was explaining how a library worked, “And then you give it back later.”

“Wow!” Alice jumped ahead and then turned to face him, “What’s a book?”

“Don’t be stupid, you know what a book is.”

Finch caught up with her, and they walked together again. She wore a thoughtful expression, like she was trying to remember what a book was. What a strange girl!*

“A book is a bunch of pages of reeds paper with words on them. They can hold information, or stories.”

“Woah! I like stories! Can I get* a book?” She asked.

“I think so. As long as you don’t destroy them.” He said.

“Do I look like someone who destroys a book?”

Finch looked at her hands. Her fingernails were long and curved.

“Well, you have claws.” He told her.

“Oh yeah.” Alice nodded, “Well I’ll just be really awful careful then!”

Her sentence didn’t completely make sense to Finch,* but he didn’t know how to correct her, so he didn’t.

The two walked to the library together. Finch felt a little bad that he was disobeying his father, but like any youth* he made excuses to justify himself. Technically, he had made no other stops. Technically he had stayed away from her, because she was the one who was following him. He felt there was some flawed logic in that thinking, but Alice was interesting. He liked talking to her.

The library had shelves of books that stretched all the way to the tall roof. A Solune man ran the place, and Solune people were exceptionally tall. Thus, the library had a very high ceiling. A man with long brown hair was taking some books off of a shelf and putting them on a cart. He was older, maybe fifty or sixty. He noticed the children entering.

“Hello Finch!” The librarian said, “Who is your little friend?”

“Hello Erin, This is Alice. She wants a book too.” Finch said.

“Well, surely you came to the right place,” He replied, “What kind of book are we looking for today?

“I want a story!” Alice said.

“Ah, there are many kinds of stories. What interests you?”

“Umm.” Alice pondered this question. As far as she knew, she was interested in everything.

“Everything!” She said

“What an excellent choice. How about you Finch? Another Natural Studies text?” Erin asked.

“Umm… you know, I think I want a story too.” Finch replied.

The librarian brought them to the youth fiction section. Alice looked at all the books, at the colours. Finch read the titles. None of them seemed interesting to him, too childish. He wasn’t sure he wanted to step down this far from the textbooks he had been reading before.

“Can I get something that’s… harder?” He asked.

“Ah right, you are the little reading prodigy, aren’t you!” Erin laughed.

He lead Finch to the adult fiction section. Finch looked around.

He read titles aloud, “Timeline, Men at Arms, Small Steps, David Copperfield, Jurassic Park.”

He liked that one, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. It had a picture of an unusual skeleton on the front. He read the first page and found it very interesting, so he took it.

Alice grabbed a book that was blue and then met up with Finch at the librarian’s desk.

“Okay, so when you take a book, I take the card from the last page and write your name on it. That way I know what books are gone and who has them. Make sure to return them in two weeks, that’s sixteen days, remember!”

They left the library and Finch took the most direct route to his house. Alice followed, looking inside her book. She liked the pictures, but nothing else made sense to her.

“What is all this?” She asked.

“All what?” Finch said, looking over to her.

Alice pointed to the words.

“Words? Letters? Sentences?” Finch asked.

“Yeah.* Does it mean something?”

“Uh,” Finch couldn’t believe it. Alice didn’t know what books were, and now she didn’t even know how to read? She really wasn’t lying when she said she had no parents!* Finch was stunned into silence for a few moments.*

“Understanding those symbols is called reading. They each represent a sound, and the sounds form together into words.” Finch explained.*

Alice looked at her open book. “Oh.”

They walked in silence until they reached Finch’s house. He opened the door and then turned back to face Alice.

“I’m sorry I can’t play today. My dad said that I have to stay inside. He said I need to stay away from you.”

Alice looked up from her book, and her heartbroken expression cutting into his heart*. But then her eyes widened, a warm glow spread from within to without. She raised her arms.

“Then just don’t listen to him!” She said excitedly.

“No! I need to listen or he will get mad!” Finch replied sternly, trying to copy his father’s voice.

“Okay. Okay.” Alice was undeterred. She thought for only a moment before, “You have to stay in the house and keep away from me?”

Finch nodded suspiciously.

“Well, you already broke one of those!” She said, “Anyway, take a step backwards, Finch.”

He was confused, but he listened , stepping over the threshold into his house.

“Now you’re inside. Since you’re home, and sort of keeping away from me,” She smiled, “Can you teach me to understand the pictures of words?”

Oh no, Finch thought, she’s bending* the rules even worse than me!

Alice turned the book to face him, “Look, I don’t think I can figure out what all this says without you. And like that man in the book library said, you’re a reading pro-der-gy!”

Finch sighed.

“Fine, but not here. Go into the alley and I’ll teach you from my windowsill.” He said.

Finch pointed to the right, then closed the door on her. He opened his window and saw her down the alley looking around stupidly. Finch called to her and she ran over excitedly. She slammed her book down*. Finch pointed at the small words first.

“This is ‘the.’ And this one is ‘I’” He said.

“Why does ‘dthe’ have four little pictures, but ‘Ei’ only has two?” She asked.*

“Those are letters. Each makes a sound. Look, this one makes the ‘ah’ sound.” Finch pointed.

He tried to point to the little letters on the page, but eventually got frustrated and got some reeds paper from his desk, as well as a fountain pen. He wrote out the alphabet, all twenty-three letters, then he went through them all.

“Right * now just remember these ones, the vowels.” He said.

Alice nodded, and then, “I think you need to go over it again…”

Finch did. It was kind of fun teaching, he understood why his father did it.

At some point, the sun had set and it got too dark for them to read. Finch made a sudden realization.

“Oh no!” He said, “My dad will be home soon! You have to go! And take this with you, I don’t want him seeing!”

Finch thrust the alphabet into Alice’s hands.

“But…” Alice looked distraught, “We didn’t even start the book.”

“I can’t today. You have to go.”

“Well,” she sniffed, “When can I come back?”

“You shouldn’t come back. Not when my dad is here.”

This made her look even sadder.* Finch couldn’t stand it.

“I-I’ll visit you. I’ll bring a pen.”

Alice looked up at him, brightening.

“And,” He continued, “It’ll be tomorrow, so don’t make any plans. Remember, it’s not goodbye. It’s see you later, right?”*

Alice smiled, cheeks pulling back to reveal her terrifying teeth. Finch became slightly unnerved, but he tried his best to hide it.

“Go, quick! I think I hear my dad!” He said.

Alice ran off, and Finch closed the door, his primary heart thumping in his chest. He ran to his desk and pretended to read his new book. Moments later his father really did enter the house. He rummaged around for a bit and then went up the stairs, where his room was.

Finch breathed a sigh of relief. He took the Jurassic Park book into his bed and lay back. He read a couple chapters, wondering why the main character kept changing. He read until his system calmed down from all the tension, and* wondered what tomorrow might be like.

 3 Tertiary Dawn

Finch sat in his room listening. He was reading too, but mostly he was listening. He heard the front door open, and then close shortly after. His father had gone to his obligated shift again. Finch stood up and went to the window and opened it. Grabbing his pen, he leaped out into the alley.

He hadn’t ever gone to the south end of Murdock, and he got lost many times along the way. Luckily, the castle wall that surrounded the city served as an omnipresent landmark, and he found his way. When he reached the southern wall, he looked left and right. He couldn’t really see much because there were a lot of buildings in the way. One of them stood out though. It was a three story building with a bell tower.

“A bell tower. Temples have bell towers. Maybe I’ll check that out.”

He made his way to the temple. It was on a street that tilted from the main road at an odd angle, so the temple had a small nook between itself and the city’s wall. A thin triangle of an alley. Finch wasn’t quite sure where he was headed, so he just stared down the road, looking at the building.

After a few moments, a man came out of it. He was very old, and he had unusually dark skin and a long white beard. Finch realized had read of these people before in a Natural Studies book. The East Metch often kept their facial hair, and they also had absolute resistance to laszers. Fittingly, they came from the east and were known for their intelligence, efficiency and their competent army of knights.

This man didn’t look like a knight. He was dressed in robes. Slowly, the man hobbled out of the temple, aided generously by a cane. He wore a stern, almost angry expression that reminded Finch of his dad. Then he saw Alice poke her head out from the triangular alley. She looked at the man, and the man looked back. He then continued walking as if he hadn’t seen her. Finch started down the street to where Alice was. He passed the old man. Seeing him close up, Finch was certain that he had been alive forever.

When he met up with Alice, he brandished his pen.

“I told you I’d come. But I need to leave again before my dad gets home at sundown.” He told her.

“Sure!” Alice said.

“So, where’s your house? Do you live in the temple?” He asked.

“No no, I live beside it.” Alice lead the way.

The alley had a roof built into it. It looked as if shelves were brutefully smashed into the castle and temple walls, then old boards shoved into the holes. On top was a collection of porcelain and wooden shingles, as well as bits of leather. This little refuge was big enough that they could both sit in it, and it seemed only a little longer than Alice herself.

“The clergy guy doesn’t let you stay inside that temple?” Finch asked her.

“Well, when it rains he sometimes does. Batshiva explained that no one should stay inside a temple overnight, else you’ll get some nightmares.” Alice explained.

“Oh. Did you get nightmares when you stayed there?”

“Yeah. Wars, bloody conflict. Sometimes a calm blanket of red would wash over the battlefield, and then after all the soldiers would be dead.” She looked through Finch solemnly. “Those ones put me in a bad mood. Not me really, but the… the Servant of Conflict. He’s the lens of the dreams.”

“Oh.” She was starting to lose him.

She brightened up again, “Yeah, so actually I prefer it out here. And it’s not like Bat has anywhere else to put me. He lives in almost a shoebox, no bathroom even. He uses public outhouses. We also don’t talk much because I’m not really interested in the Servant of Conflict.”

Finch had read about Servants, but he’d never actually gone to a temple. It went like, all major forces in the world eventually gained a powerful spirit that helped its continuation. Mother Nature supported life on the Overside, Father Nature on the Underside, and Newman on the Innerside. Then there was Birth whose influence had apparently helped the smaller races like the Riley, his race, survive abysmal mortality rates. The Servant of Death opposed Birth. And this, it seemed, was a temple dedicated to the Servant of Conflict, who also opposed Death.

“Well, anyway, let’s get to reading.” Finch said.

“Sure!”

He taught Alice the alphabet about five or six times. It seemed that Alice was a really slow learner. Finch could remember when his dad was teaching him the same things, and he usually understood right away. They moved on to the book she had picked out. Alice tried to read it, but she needed a lot of help. A lot of help. Finch didn’t get frustrated though, he actually enjoyed the process. He wondered if there was a job for people who liked to show others how to read. He’d probably be good at that.

When they got through the book, Alice said, “Again!”

The second time through was almost as bad at the first, but by now Finch was used to her slow learning. After they finished, she wanted to read it a third time.

“Why don’t we get another book from the library?” Finch offered.

“Yeah!”

Finch found it interesting that Alice was really excited about reading even though she was also really bad at it.

They actually stayed in the library and read through an entire shelf of books together before Finch looked out the window and saw that it was getting dark.

“Okay, that’s all for today. Why don’t you choose a few books to read tomorrow when I come back?” He said.

“Oh…” Alice was sad.

Finch left Alice to the books, but before leaving he talked to the librarian.

“Hey Erin, do you know about adult jobs?”

“Of course I do, being a librarian is an adult job. Your father is a domestic hunter is he not?”

“Yeah.” Finch nodded, “Are there any adult jobs that for teaching people how to read?”

“Of course! You could be a teacher! There are some parents that are not very good at teaching, or are very busy serving the city, and so they get a teacher to do it for them in what is called a “public school.” But I think you could be much more. You could likely be a Natural Sciences professor at the university of Murdock, or Hannibal if you wished.”

Finch nodded. A professor. That sounded cool. He could tell other people about Chemistry, about Physics. Finch decided then that that was what he wanted to do when he turned sixteen, to become a university professor.

He walked home and climbed back into his room through the window.

The next day was a full teaching day. Finch’s father reviewed a lot and then told him what he planned to do in the future. Then he gave Finch a lot of practice exercises and text readings. He took them into his room and worked on them for a few hours, taking a break whenever he lost focus on what he was doing.

Then, when he was halfway though a linear function, he heard a knock. It sounded like something was hitting a very thin door. He checked his room door, but his dad wasn’t there. He checked the front door, but he sound faded as he went to the kitchen. It seemed the sound was coming from back in his room.

He opened his wooden shutters, his family couldn’t afford glass, and peered into the alley. Through the window stood Alice, smiling.

“What are you doing here?” Finch jumped.

“You didn’t come! It’s almost night now.” She stated bluntly.

“My dad didn’t work today, I just had school the whole time. Look, I’m studying right now even.” He pointed.

“Oh.”

Then he heard the doorknob turn. Adrenaline pumped into Finch’s bloodstream. He pushed Alice’s head down, whispering to hide.

“Hey Finch, I’m now going to go to the market before they close all up.” His father said.

“Okay.” Finch replied.

“Hey, don’t break for too long. It looks like you still have a page of work to do.”

Finch nodded, his primary heart threatening to active the secondary one for help. When his father left, Finch turned and leaned out his window. Alice was there crouching and looking up at him.

“You have to go, we can meet up tomorrow.”

Alice gave him another sad face.

Finch didn’t know what to do.

“Uhh,” He said, “Don’t worry, my dad works tomorrow.”

Alice looked down, and then ran down the alley.

Finch went back to his desk and then-

“Ah! It’s you!” His father shouted.

Finch stood up so fast that his chair fell over, then he ran out of his room. There was his father, in the doorway. His must have run into Alice out on the road. Finch had to play innocent, so he ran to the door.

“What’s wrong dad?”

“It’s her!” He said waving an accusing finger, “The monster! Stay in the house. You, get out of here! You are not welcome, leave!”

Alice looked frightened. She was small compared to Finch, and next to his father, she was almost nothing. She stared at him, frozen a few cubits from the doorway. Finch peeked out of the door and tried to shoo her with his hands. She looked at him, and then at his father. And then Ilias grabbed a broom. Finch wasn’t sure what his father was going to do, but he watched as the man stepped out and prodded at Alice.

Alice jumped back.

“Leave! Go back where you came from!” Ilias shouted again.

He swatted with the broom. By now a crowd had formed around the scene, Finch’s dad and Alice at the center. Alice looked around, panicked and cornered by all the people. But the crowd only grew.

“Out!” He said.

Finch watched as his father shoved Alice with the brush, and then spun it around and jabbed her in the gut with the handle.

Alice grabbed her gut, catching her breath, and then her expression changed. Her eyes turned from a calm maroon to a bright red. She bared her fangs, all six of them, and then gripped the broom in a vice. The wood splintered in her hand, and then she pounced on Ilias. Alice knocked him over amid gasps from onlookers, and then clawed into him twice, once in the face, and once across the chest, digging through his shirt. Then she breathed a few times, looking around at the horrified faces and calming down. Finch watched her eyes darken again as she jumped off of his father and then ran, tackling the people in the ring, even knocking one of them down.

In his state of shock, Finch’s mind pulled back into logic. She must be pretty heavy to knock my dad down. She must have been holding back if she could so easily destroy the broom. How can such a small person be so heavy? I wonder if she hates me now?

What he didn’t think about was the repercussions of Alice’s actions. People started talking, and one of them hailed a guard over. The guard looked at Finch’s dad and just nodded.

“Good.” The guard sneered.

Finch thought, good?

“I’ve been waiting for this,” He continued, and then strode off to the Kingdom Hall of Enforcement and Taxation.

 4 Quaternary Dawn

The next day was a blur for Finch. Too many things happened and his regular schedule became jarred. His father went to the hospital where they declared his wounds unusual but superficial. The guard returned, and they did some paperwork. His father was sent to the Kingdom Hall of Poets and Law to make a statement. To testify against Alice.

Finch woke up that morning to the sound of the door slamming. He lay in his bed on edge. He was nervous, and he couldn’t stay still anymore. He got out and changed his clothes and headed for the door himself. Then he stopped, turned around, and went through his window instead. He wanted to keep it open just in case.

He decided to follow his father to the Poet’s tower. The town square was surrounded by the castle and six towers arranged in a semi-circle. Each tower managed a certain aspect of the city, the guards, the poets, the academics, and so on. Finch followed his dad to the tower, but after the door closed, he didn’t know what to do. He would surely be seen if he followed inside.

Finch looked around. The roof of each tower was connected by a bridge, but he still didn’t feel comfortable entering any of them. But, the two farthest towers also connected to the castle, with the castle wall completing the semi circle. The first floor of the King’s castle was considered public space, so Finch headed inside freely. He found a staircase and hoped it went all the way to the roof. It did. Outside, he went to the hanging bridge and crossed it, going from tower to tower until he reached the hall of Poets and Law. There was a hatch on the roof, and Finch cracked it open a little and peered in.

“Yeah, he’s here now.” He saw the guard from the other day talking to an unhappy looking woman, also in uniform.

She said, “So you think we’ll finally be able to get rid of this nuisance now that she’s actually attacked someone?”

“Well who’s going to defend her? She won’t be able stand up in court on her own, will she?” He replied.

“Probably not. The cleric might protect her. Starting conflict conforms with his Servant.” She said, “It doesn’t matter though. She’ll be in the dungeon for a decade minimum once I have a word or two with the poet.”

Finch let go of the hatch. He had read about a poet once. She had been sacked for taking bribes to extend sentences from a particularly vengeful guard. The city watch and the poets were in separate halls for a reason!

Finch stood and ran across the bridges, into the castle, down the stairs, and then outside again. He ran south to Alice’s small house. She wasn’t there. He opened the Conflict temple door. It looked empty.

“Who’s there?” a voice asked.

“Finch!”

The old East Metch man came down from a staircase on the side. The temple was large, a three story building with only one floor and thin balconies on either side. Finch was momentarily dazzled by all the fancy glass.

“What do you need boy?” The man asked.

“Where’s Alice?”

“She got fidgety, as usual, and then left.”

Finch ran again. Back to his house. He looked into the alley, and there she was, hanging off of his eaves, looking rather silly.

“Alice.”

“Oh.” She dropped down. “That’s where you are.”

“They’re going to take action against you, you know.” Finch told her.

“Oh.” She said again.

They looked at each other for a moment.

“I don’t know what to do, Finch.” She told him.

“Well me either. Where… where did you come from? You’re not a Solune, or a Riley, or even an East Metch.” He said.

Alice looked up between the buildings. “I came from the sky.”

Finch looked up, then back down.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” And then, “Wait. Are you from the Outerside? Are you an alien?”

Alice looked at him, “I don’t know! I just know I came from the sky.”

Finch thought. He had been hoping that she came from somewhere more specific, and that he could maybe help her return there.

“Wait wait, did you come alone?”

“No, my mom came with me.” She said.

“Where is she-” He stopped himself a little too late. She’d previously told him that her mother was dead.

“To the south.” Alice said. “Outside the wall.”

“Let’s go there,” Finch said, “Right now.”

“…okay.”

They left the city through the north gate, and then headed south. Alice lead the way, but she wasn’t quite sure where she was going. She told Finch that she hadn’t been out here since she was very young. Maybe four or five. There was a mountain to the south, a spire that jutted out almost vertically into the sky.

Finch pointed to it, “Did you fall from there?”

Alice stared, and then began to run towards it. They ran through a forest, dodging trees and jumping over vines and roots. They reached the kingdom wall in front of the mountain, and Alice followed it to the left.

And then, “This is it.” She pointed to a large rock, carved into it was a name.

I am your Mother,
 Inck Alice Dawngale.

Finch couldn’t read it.

“What does it say?” He asked.

“I don’t know. I just found the symbols on the stone in her hand after she died.” Alice said.

“How…” Finch trailed off.

Alice pointed to the summit. “Up there. She was looking for a place for us. She climbed from the other side with me on her back. It was cold, there was no food. We were going to die. And then she climbed the mountain and we saw this. This world, this kingdom safe inside its walls.”

Alice sat on the moss. The place was bringing back memories.

“She pointed there,” Alice looked to her right, west. “And told me that’s where we were from. And then…”

Finch couldn’t believe it, “She jumped and took as much of the impact as she could!?”

Alice continued, “She didn’t die immediately, she bled from the wounds in her legs and her broken back. And then she told me to wait one day, and then bury her. And then to go… And find a new home.”

Finch shook his head. Find a new home. Alice hadn’t done a very good job, but he guessed the next generation of Murdock would love her. He couldn’t believe his thoughts. Alice had built herself a home, not in a specific location, but in the future.

“Alice you can’t go back, not now, okay? They want to imprison, to lock you away for ten years,” He said, “But listen, people change. When we’re adults everything will be different. All your friends, Artus, and the other girls and boys you play with, they’ll be running the city then.”

Alice stared at him, and tears started streaming down her face. They were dark red, like her eyes.

“When you, when we’re adults,” Finch said, “You have to come back to me.”

Alice nodded

“But… how do you know I won’t be thrown in jail then?” She asked.

“I- I’ll make sure. I’ll join the guards, I’ll put,” He chocked on his grief, “I’ll put my dreams on hold for you, I’ll join the guards, and I’ll become the boss. The only person who could put you in jail then would be me, and I won’t.”

The two hugged and cried, and then said their goodbyes. Nothing extravagant, just:

“See you.”

“Yes, in…” she paused, “When?”

“Seven, wait,” Finch did some math, “Four years. I’ll be allowed to join the guard at fourteen, then I’ll have two years to, to rank up. And the current Captain will retire by then so I can, so I can…”

He trailed off, “Anyway, it’s not goodbye. It’s…”

“See you later.” They both said.

 Inck

Inck Alice Dawngale made her way through the dim snowy wood. She wasn’t sure where to go. The south was barren. She would find no resources, no food there. She had survived on nothing but snow melted in hand for eight weeks, rationing the only food she had to her young child. For the most part, the child stayed on her back, wearing Inck’s only shirt in addition to her own clothes to stay warm.

Inck had followed the base of the cliff west for two weeks, then east for six. She knew she didn’t have enough energy to double back again. She didn’t have enough energy to continue much longer either. Her bare shoulders were developing frostbite, her fingers spared only because she kept them crossed and under her arms. The trees stopped most of the wind, but she found little solace in this.

As she had followed the cliff, the ridge had become higher and higher, and then suddenly it spiked. She was sidling a nearly vertical mountain at this point. On her back, the child Alice woke up. She slept a lot, lacking the energy to stay awake.

Inck said, “My Alice, my Alice, what shall we do? I’ve walked to the edge of my vision, and again I see but the same. We will not make it farther than the naught I see now if we continue straight.”

“Ah, and we can’t go that way right?” She pointed to the forest, “And we can’t go back! So we have to go… there.”

She pointed up the mountain.

Inck stared at the summit. She could not tell for sure, but she doubted anyone lived at the top. She took her hands out of her armpits and stared at them. The Plainkind kept their clawlike fingernails long enough to be effective. In the past month and a half they had continued to grow unbitten, unused.

Inck looked at the sky. She had a lot of time left, but she knew it still wouldn’t be enough.

Inck dug her fingers into the stone, satisfied that it was soft enough. She began to pull herself up, limb by limb, cubit by cubit. Alice watched as they climbed with amazement.

Higher, higher, higher. Inck made it halfway up before her sleep reserves gave out. Her arms began to shake, her legs tremored, but still she climbed, not looking back, her eyes ahead.

Alice could feel the shaking, “Are you okay mum?”

“Yes. Just… Tell me about home.” She could use the distraction.

“Home? The Plainkind desert? It’s warmer there. My dad is there. My friend, umm, Marisa. She’s there too.” Alice’s voice was wistful, but still held much joy.

“And,” Inck huffed, “What happened?”

“To get us here? Oh, well, we got lost in the sandstorm… We got stuck below the cliff. You tried to climb it, right? Yeah. It didn’t, well it, yeah. It didn’t, wasn’t soft enough. So we tried to go around, both ways. It’s cold down here. Snow is cool! But… Only for a while.”

Inck nodded as Alice continued.

“And now we’re hungry all the time. And now we’re climbing a mountain. And I haven’t seen, we haven’t seen anyone, anyone in so long…”

Alice got sad and so she stopped.

“It has been very… long.” Inck agreed.

Time passed as silence fell between them. The sun began to set, and soon night was upon them. Inck could see well in the dark, but it was cloudy, and her night vision was still inferior to her dayvision. She climbed primarily by feel.

Some time in the night, she reached the top. In the dark she could see that it plateaued.

“Ah.”

Alice said nothing, she must have been asleep. Inck could see the edge of the summit in the far reaches of her vision. She wasn’t sure if she should rest or continue. She decided to continue. However, upon her first step, her exhaustion and starvation caught up with her. She sneered at her own condition as she fell forward, catching herself with her arms as not to wake Alice.

There was only a thin veil of snow here. Inck lay awake for the minutes required to melt it with her heat, and then she allowed herself to drift away.

She awoke before morning, trembling from the cold. Usually this was the time she made real sleeping quarters, but the resources on the flat summit were limited, and so was her time. Instead, Inck stood and began to walk.

Her only goal was crossing the mountain to the other side. She would be able to see all that lay before her to the north; to see where her home was. Right now she was focused only on moving forward.

When she reached the other edge, the sun had risen. She looked out over the lands in amazement. The warm rays woke Alice up, and she too gazed, excited.

“Wah! Look!”

Inck nodded, “There is our home, the desert. In front of us appears to be the world beyond the eastern walls. And look, another group of settlements lies yet further east.”

“All we have to do is get down!” Alice was excited.

Inck knew immediately that she would likely never again have the energy to make the climb. Her energy reserves were at their limit. One frightening solution rang out in her mind. She stared down at the plummet. She could survive the landing. The injuries would undoubtedly be her undoing, but she would have the strength to protect her daughter from the fall.

As a mother, this idea was quickly pushed down to a secondary plan. Inck dug into the ground for a couple of stones. She was familiar with rocks and found two, a softer and harder stone. She copied something in Plainkind Script and then began her descent. On her back, Alice excitedly twisted around, looking at the world below. She wanted to go back home, but had a severe interest in the new kingdom they were now descending into.

This downward climb was the most difficult thing Inck had done in her lifetime. Her muscles ached and shuddered. As they went further, Alice became more and more worried about her mother’s shaking.

One third of the way down, Inck had to stop. She steadied herself. Aside from her tremors, she could not move. Physically she could not continue. She looked down and wished upon her ancestors that she’d had the strength to continue just a little further. Inck closed her eyes. She wished she hadn’t headed west for so long. She held onto the regret for but a moment.

Then she thought of Alice, who was doubtlessly concerned clinging to her back. Inck was certain that one of them would survive the fall. She channelled her life, her reserves. She shed her regrets. And then, she pushed away from the mountain.

Alice screamed out of shock. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening. She clung to her mother as tightly as her small body let her. It was tight enough. The fall ended sooner than expected, and Inck took the landing as hard as she could. Nearly all the force went into her leg muscles, and then into her bones. Her shins and thighs crumpled under the force. Both of her spines had broken.

Her daughter felt the force of multiple gravities, but was unhurt overall. Alice dropped off of her mother’s back and ran around to her front.

“Mum! Ah!” She didn’t know what to do.

She looked at her mother with a pleading expression.

“Dear Alice… Alice May Dawngale…”

Inck looked at her lower half, damaged beyond conventional healing. She watched blood ooze slower and slower as her superficial outer wounds healed. Still she did not let go.

She said, “When I stop moving, wait but a day. Then, bury me in front of that boulder.”

Inck pointed with her long damaged fingernail to the stone. It must have been part of the mountain at some point, as it stood out starkly from the surrounding forest.

“Copy this onto it.”

She handed the stone to Alice. She could not read it. She couldn’t read anything yet.

I am your Mother,

Inck Alice Dawngale.

They spoke together, of home, of the sandstorm and their perilous journey, but most of all Inck focused on Alice’s future.

“You must find a home. Any home, even if it is not our old home. You must live a happy life for me, for yourself.” Inck shed a tear, as deep a red as her eyes, “You needn’t even be productive. Simply happy.”

Alice nodded, and embraced the parts of her mother that were still alive. She too cried ruby tears. Though it was only morning, the two, exhausted, slept together for the last time.

Leagues away, Inck’s partner still grieved, having lost his whole family into the sand sea.

The next evening, Alice felt her mother. She was warm, it seemed to no longer be the warmth of life. Alice scavenged for food and found many fruits. She returned and fed some to the mouth of her mother.

“…” Inck exhaled and gave Alice one final look, a look of hope. And then she died.

Alice looked at Inck for a long time, frozen, staring at the vacant expression of hope for many moments. And then, when she felt she had absorbed all she could from this last mortal message, the final emotion from her mother, Alice moved. She reached forward and closed the eyes. She took the fruit and ate it. Then, she began to dig.

Dusk

 6 Primary Dusk

Finch headed to the library nearly every day after his dad’s lessons. He studied the Solune Guard out of a book called The Minimum Standards of the Solune Guard, Pocket Edition. It seemed that for whatever reason, because he was a Riley, he was allowed to join at the age of fourteen. The Solune had to wait until seventeen, and the East Metch ‘til fifteen.

It was on the day before the weekend that, sitting in the library, Finch came to the realization that he would have only two years to become the captain or else Alice would be arrested upon her return. He put his hands on his face. She had been gone for two months now, ninety-eight days to be exact.

Finch flipped to the back of the book, curious to see what was on the borrowing card. It seemed that someone named Ekaterina Rhye had been taking it out a lot over the past year. That name, Rhye, seemed familiar but Finch couldn’t think why. It seemed Ekaterina had stopped borrowing it about a month ago. Finch guessed it was because she had bought her own copy. He wondered if this Ekaterina was in the guard, if she would possibly be able to help him, teach him, or even recruit him!

He closed the book and went to the librarian’s desk.

“Ready to go Finch? Done all your reading already, or are you taking out a book today?” Erin asked.

“Borrowing,” Finch said, putting the pocketbook on the table.

“Oh, interesting. This seems to be quite a popular book as of recent.” The librarian said when he saw the card.

“Actually,” Finch thought out loud, “Do you know the person who kept taking this out?”

“Why,” said Erin, “Don’t you recognize the name, Finch? Rhye is a very important name in this kingdom.”

Finch considered this. He was sure now that knew the name from somewhere.

“Is…” Finch pondered and then shouted, “Oh! Rhye is the name of the Royal family!”

The librarian nodded. “Ekaterina has been the Captain of the castle guard for a very long time now. She only recently became interested in the specifics of her task, and also of the law which she is enforcing.”

“So,” Plans were sparking up in Finch’s mind, “So I could find her in the castle!”

Erin smiled and nodded, finishing with Finch’s book.

Finch stuffed the book into his new backpack and left. On the streets he shamelessly ran, weaving in and out of foot traffic. His friend Artus caught up with him and ran alongside.

“Hey Finch, where you headed?”

“The castle.”

“Wanna play?” Artus asked.

“Not today, I’m researching.”

Artus stopped, “You’re always researching. You never hang out with us anymore.”

Finch stopped too. His friend was right. In fact, he had turned people down so often, that Artus was the only one who even bothered talking to him anymore. Finch came up with a second plan.

“Tomorrow is Secast, my dad doesn’t make me study on the weekend. We can play then.”

A surprised look came over Artus, “Really? You’re really going to come out with us?”

Finch nodded, “It’s a promise.”

They touched thumbs, and then Finch ran off again, tightening the straps on his bag as he ran.

 7 Secondary Dusk

Finch reached the city gates. It was the middle of the day and they were currently wide open. He ran down the path and out to the fields north of the capital. He should have taken the path that lead right, straight to the castle, but upon seeing the low, grassy plains outside the city, Finch gave into his urge to run around in it for a bit. This would make a terrific sporting area. Imagine the games of territory fight that could be played here!

He ran in the knee high mix of yellow and green grasses until he ran out of breath, then he sat down. Finch thought that Alice would have liked to run here too. He wondered if she had, before leaving. He wondered where she had headed.

Finch stood up again and headed to the castle. There were large double doors right in the center of the two and a half story building, the third floor currently under construction. The castle doors were also open, and noise was issuing out.

The Solune castle was something of a community center. Small trade and auctions went on in the foyer, as well as all sorts of gatherings. The room was filled with people, and Finch got a little intimidated. He never really liked crowds. He silently wondered if that would hurt his ability to be a guard.

Finch took a step forward, wading through everyone until he found a wall. Then, jammed against the wall by all the bodies, he sidled over to the nearest door and opened it. He squeezed into a room with two giant chairs on elevated ground. A purple rug ran from one of the chairs down to his feet.

“This is the throne room,” He said to himself, “It looks like it’s empty right now.”

Finch sighed, stepping into the crowd again and heading right along the wall again. He found another door but it was locked, so he kept going. He could hear shouts over the white noise of voices that filled the foyer.

“Three Solune!”

“Four!”

“Ten Solune!”

“He’s mad! Who would pay that much for a single shoe?”

“Why is someone auctioning off their shoe?”

Finch turned at a corner and ended up where he started, at front doors.

“I guess I’ll go the other way this time,” He sighed, then kept going.

The next door opened, and he was brought into a large square tower. It had a staircase running along the stone bricked wall, with landings at each corner. There was also a door to his right. He tried the door. Locked. A little frustrated now, Finch marched up the stairs. Now on the second floor, he tried the south facing door. It opened!

Finch found himself in a long stone corridor with doors lining the right side. It reminded him of an inn. At the end, it seemed the hall turned right.

Nervously, Finch began to walk forward, closing the door behind him. He looked around, wondering why there were only a couple doors on the left, but lots on the right. As he walked, someone came around the corner ahead. Finch flinched; he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be here.

The person who found him wasn’t a guard at all. She was a young woman, very tall with broader hips and shoulders, and blonde hair that ran down past her back in great curls. The woman wore a light blue shirt, and grey pants with a white braided ribbon for a belt. Finch noticed that she had no shoes. Her toenails were talon like. The woman was carrying a thick book.

“Ah,” She exhaled, “Where did, ah, who are you?”

The woman spoke in a light, wispy voice. Finch thought she seemed a bit airy. He wasn’t scared of her anymore, after hearing her talk.

“I’m Finch. Finch Dirge Zeth.” He said resolutely.

Finch expected her to reply with her own name, but instead she said, “Oh. Ah, what are you doing here?”

He was starting to get a little agitated with all the exhaling she did, especially since she vocalized them with an “ah” all the time.

“I’m,” His quest seemed quite foolish now, “I’m looking for information on the guard.”

“Oh.”

He continued, “I’m looking for Ekaterina Rhye.”

“Because she is a member of the guard?” The woman assumed, “She is the, ah, she’s the Captain of the castle guard.”

“I know.” Finch said.

This woman seemed so dumb!

“I want to learn as much as I can about the guard, I figured a captain could help out. Maybe she could teach me.” He continued, trying to hide his building anger.

The woman frowned at him and simply said, “No.”

At Finch’s dumbfounded expression, she continued, “Ekaterina is far too busy, she is Captain! Surely that makes sense? Although, you’re only a child. Children are supposed to very good at making mistakes. That’s right, isn’t it?”

She watched him with an amused expression.

Finch was getting really flustered, “Well, I want to join the guard when I’m old enough!”

The young woman now began to consider him a little more seriously now.

“That is a valiant quest to take up at so young an age.” The woman mused.

Finch was no longer trying to hide his irritation.

He said, “I won’t be so young once I’ve joined. I’m going to be the next captain!”

He rummaged in his bag then thrust the pocketbook out like a weapon.

“Look, I’ve been studying you know. I probably know more about the duties of the guard than you do!”

“I doubt that. Ah,” She exhaled vocally again, grating on Finch’s nerves, “Possibly you know more the micro elements of guard duty, but my sister is a Captain, she tells me all sorts of things…”

And then she trailed off, seemingly finished with her sentence.

Finally, Finch let out the seed of his rage, yelling at the blonde woman standing so idly in front of him.

“Who in the name of Overside are you anyway?!” He shouted.

The young woman was taken aback.

“Eh…” She stammered, “I, ah, I’m Yuvelliya…”

She trailed off, but this time she actually finished her statement.

“I’m Yuvelliya Rhye, Seventh Prince of the Solune.”

Finch’s energy shifted almost instantly from anger to excitement.

“Rhye! You must know Ekaterina!” Finch said, almost jumping.

“That’s…” Yuvelliya seemed entirely distraught.

“Oh,” Finch realized, “Sorry for shouting at you. I think I’m getting a little excited now that I’m so close to meeting Ekaterina Rhye. Wait, is that the sister you were just talking about?”

Yuvelliya nodded, composing herself.

She closed her hands and put them on her hips, “Now listen here, youth, Ekaterina is already too busy for me, I don’t need someone else coming to take her time! I’ve been so bored now, what with Gavria leaving, and Ekaterina’s being Captain for a good few years now. I’ve really only got mum, and she’s ever so boring, talking about her murderous conquests and all that.”

Yuvelliya sighed.

“Umm, are you telling me that Gwenhime conquest book is a true story?”

“It happened long ago when things like colonization was acceptable.” Yuvelliya said dismissively.”

“Well, anyway, I’m really more interested in talking to Ekaterina. I want to become a guard.” Finch said.

“I told you she’s busy. Hard working, she is. But if you like, I could tell you a thing or two. I’m sort of the opposite of my sister in that regard.” She admitted.

Realizing that this would likely be better than coming home without any information, Finch agreed. Maybe, he thought, I could get to Ekaterina through this woman.

Finch was lead down the hall where Yuvelliya had come from, and around the corner. A couple doors down, Yuvelliya stopped and grabbed the round handle. She made a motion with her hand, like she was jimmying it, but in a very specific and practiced way.

“Is that a trick lock?” Finch asked as she messed with the handle.

“Ah,” She inhaled this time, “I do not like keys. I just lose them.”

Finch could understand this, seeing her talk like her head was made of bubbles.

“So, instead my doors open with a mechanism, like a combination lock. It cost a bit, and we had to get the handles imported, but now I can get into my room, and my library.”

Just as Yuvelliya mentioned her library, the door swung inward revealing a room, all four walls lined with books. In the centre of the room were two modest desks.

Finch gazed in awe and immediately went to see how she organized them. Finch organized by author’s last name, while the library went by category, then last name. It seemed that Yuvelliya’s books were organized by category, but he noticed that every category appeared twice, and on different ends of the room.

“How do you organize these?” He asked.

“Well the left hand side is texts that I’ve either touched on, reference frequently, or plan to read in the future. On the right is what I’ve finished, I can’t really get much more from them.”

She seemed in her element here, and she spoke much more freely. Finch gawked at the shelves. She had read, and possibly even memorized half the room’s worth of books! Finch had thought himself well read, reading seven or eight Natural Studies texts, but this was some truly high level scholarliness.

“Do not, ah, don’t look at me like that,” Yuvelliya said, her cheeks flushing, “Ah, you said that you were looking for information on guards?”

Yuvelliya turned left and grabbed four books off the shelf, adding them to the one she had been carrying already. She put the stack on the larger of the two desks and sat down behind it. She then motioned to the chair in front of the smaller, tilted desk.

Finch sat down, and Yuvelliya ruffled through the four books very quickly. As she skimmed, Finch stared at the seven bookshelves of literature that Yuvelliya had claimed to have not just read, but learned from to the point that she didn’t need to use them anymore. There were no books on guarding, but there were quite a lot on history. Three entire shelves had been dedicated to the subject, and then one shelf’s worth of culture. Beyond that, there were a few Natural Studies books, and Finch was interested to see which subcategories she had learned herself.

Finch didn’t much like math or physics. He was more inclined towards biology and especially chemistry. It seemed this woman was interested in all three, but had read more about chemistry, biology of the mind, and a lot of physics.

“You like physics a lot, do you?” He asked.

“No, not really,” Yuvelliya said passively, still reading up on guards, “I just figured I’d start with the governing forces and work my way up so I could understand everything right. Physics is sort of boring, I prefer more complex things like biology and biochemistry.”

Finch looked back at the wall and saw a small category labelled biochemistry. He wondered what the difference was between that and chemistry.

“Ah,” Yuvelliya said, not inhaling or exhaling this time, “There we go. I was looking for this summary.”

Finch turned his attention to her. Yuvelliya stood, her back becoming illuminated by the bright orange-red stained window behind her. She looked almost magical now, and her excessive amount of hair shone brightly.

“Ah,” She exhaled, almost, but not quite, ruining the mystic backlighting.

“Written in 1992, that’s last year, Vinth Hurlock made a statement in this journal on culture. He said, ‘Since I started as Vice-Captain of the castle guard, I have studied Ekaterina Simon Rhye very closely, in order to learn from her all that I can. She seem intelligent, but not in the bookish manner, but rather in a practical and tactful way. Such thinking is needed in the guard. We are very practiced and deliberate here, unlike the guard out in the capital. Inside the castle too, our opinions are met with great consideration instead of scoffs. I really don’t like that woman, the Captain of the city guard. That’s why I transferred in the first place immediately after becoming a Vice-Captain. I admire Ms. Rhye, and was interested in working directly beneath her.’ Well, it seems that the Vice-Captain fancies my sister.”

Yuvelliya scrunched up her face in confusion at all her new mixed emotions on the subject.

“Well,” Finch said, “It seems he’s pretty professional about it. Maybe he would be professional in a relationship too?”

Finch thought about Alice. Their relationship was a lot of fun, but now it seemed pretty professional, at least on his end.

“Ah, you see,” Yuvelliya said, “both Ekaterina and Vinth are, as you say, professional in their temperaments. I imagine that if the two did end up courting each other that their first date would result in something like a stiff job interview.”

As the two tried to imagine this, they burst out laughing. Finch was coming to like woman, she seemed a more tolerable now.

Yuvelliya and Finch continued researching the guard, and Finch was having a lot of fun. But after a long time Yuvelliya stopped suddenly and looked out the window.

She said, “When did you have to be home? It is a sixth or so until sundown.”

“Oh!”

Finch jumped out of his seat, “I should get going before dark!”

Yuvelliya smiled at him, “Would you like to return tomorrow? If you like, I could talk with-”

“Yeah, I’ll come back,” He said, running to the door, and then, “Wait, how’s the day after tomorrow?”

“That’s fine with me, would you like it if I-”

But again she was cut off, this time by Finch’s frantic exit.

 8 Tertiary Dusk

On Secast, the first day of the weekend, Finch honoured his promise and met with Artus. He found himself enjoying their game of territory fight a lot more than he expected. He had finally met kids that weren’t Artus or Alice.

There were a lot of people, Finch counted seventeen kids including himself. He only managed to catch a few names. There was Jutt, Hallin, Halith, Alm, Ahriss, Millich, Roah, as and of course Artus. It seemed that only Finch, Hallin and one of the girls, Jutt, were Riley. Finch noticed that everyone else was Solune, not that it mattered to him.

Despite Finch making the group an odd, prime number, Artus still managed to divide them into what he believed to be two fair groups, and most matches ended up very close as a result.

Finch quickly learned the rules. There was a flag, for one team it was a shirt, the other a sandal, and each group was to hide there’s. If you buried it, or hid it particularly well, you had to make sure that at least one fist-sized area of it was visible. Artus had said that a match often became very boring without this rule.

Territory fight is a game that starts slow, both teams playing a much harder version of hide and seek, almost ignoring each other. If you tagged someone from the other team then they had to go back to their base for twenty five seconds, but while people were looking for the flags, no one much bothered with tagging. Either one team would find the other’s flag, or the other would become suspicious of a specific area because they kept getting tagged if they got near it. Then it all went to chaos, as the defending team tried as hard as they could to search while still defending. The most enjoyable games of territory fight were those in which both teams found out who had the flag. That’s when things got interesting.

Finch had a lot of fun playing, but he was a little more interested in what the kids did while waiting between games. Jutt or Artus usually gave new rules to fix issues, or yelled at some kid about breaking one. Artus also liked to shift people around in the name of balance.

But Finch wasn’t really paying attention to them either, he was watching the crowds of children as they divided themselves. They seemed to be from three or four different groups, like they wouldn’t usually play together if it weren’t for need for extra people in territory fight. Finch had the suspicion that the whole reason a lot of them still gathered was because of Alice. It was something of a legacy.

After a couple games, Finch said, “Have you guys tried playing out in the fields outside the castle?”

Jutt turned on him, her usually low voice becoming oddly normal-pitched, “What? We can’t do that!”

Finch turned to her, confused, “Why not?”

“Well, I don’t know how your father takes care of you, but most of us aren’t allowed out of the city.” She replied quickly, as though this was to be the end of the discussion. Despite her tone, Finch made sure it wasn’t.

“It doesn’t seem that bad out there, and there’s this great area with short grass, it’s perfect really. We can hide the flags in the brush” He continued.

“I can’t believe you!” Jutt said.

“Well, now, hang on,” Finch shouted loud enough that everyone could hear, “Hey! Who out of you hung out with the dangerous beast Alice before she was exiled?”

All but a couple of them lifted their hands, including the reluctant Jutt.

“And,” he went on, “How many of you were told to avoid her by your parents?”

Everyone except Artus, who Finch remembered always had very understanding parents, put their hands down.

“Well, there you go. This seems far less dangerous than hanging out with a monster,” Finch said, mocking the word, “It’s not like this lot isn’t used to breaking a few little rules.”

While Finch was having a lot of fun, both he and his friends were getting tired, and it seemed Jutt was getting more nervous as the hours passed. She kept looking at the gates, and down the north and westbound paths, and also becoming a worse and worse player, forcing Artus to shift people around more than usual. He didn’t complain though, he really enjoyed the process.

At a certain point, a long time before dusk, Jutt decided to end the games during a break.

“Okay,” She said after the final match, “That’s it for today.”

The rest of the group, especially Finch, was very tired by now. Most of them were sitting on the grass at a trampled area. It had become a sort of unofficial meeting place for them between matches. Most nodded to agree with Jutt, the rest lay back, looking at the sky.

“Yeah, I’m late for lunch.” Artus said, “Coming back home Finch? We live near each other, we can walk together.”

“No, uh, I’m going to go to the castle actually.” Finch stammered.

“What for?” Asked Artus.

Finch was almost ready to convince Artus that he had been exploring the place, but he doubted that would sound convincing.

Instead he said, “I’ve made a friend and I want to see if she’s there today.”

That wasn’t a lie.

Artus shrugged, “Okay, see you later. Should I tell you when we’re going to play next? Have you ever played with more than two teams? It gets weird!”

“Yeah, tell me next time.” Finch nodded.

The children began making their way back toward the gate and into town. Artus was running. He and Finch generally liked to run places. In fact, the only place that Finch didn’t run to was the library. He liked to think of what he was going to get on his way, and didn’t like to run with books on his way back.

Jutt had stopped near Finch, taking her hair out of a ponytail.

“It’s nice, this place. I just feel nervous out here in the open.” She said.

“Yeah,” Finch agreed, “I see what you mean now. In the city there’s all the walls and buildings.”

“And the guard,” Jutt continued.

Jutt stood there for a while, watching the crowd that was quite a bit away now, before saying, “Well, bye.”

“Yeah, see you next time,” Finch said as she walked away.

He found it nice to see that there were other Riley people in the city.

Finch watched Artus disappear into town, and then looked at Jutt for a moment before standing up and heading to the castle to find Yuvelliya.

The castle doors were wide open, as they had been yesterday. Finch entered, and he wondered if Yuvelliya would actually be there. He had told her that he wasn’t available today, so she might be out doing something else.

Finch figured he would find her in the library but when he got there, it was locked and no one answered his knocks. He sighed, and looked around, up and down the hall. It seemed that all the doors had small labels. This door had the words, “My Library,” etched into a rectangular plate made of a dark wood. The writing was very pretty, as if the woodworker that had carved it was also trained in calligraphy.

“Hmm.”

Finch wasn’t an artist, but the dark wood seemed to go well with the stone and wood doors that lined the wall. Finch continued ahead to the next door. It read, “Yuvelliya’s” followed by a star. It was also written in the same calligraphic style as the library’s tag.

Finch knocked, and waited. Nothing. He then tried the handle. To his immense surprise, it turned, and with little effort the door swung open. Finch peered inside nervously.

Yuvelliya’s room was only a little larger than his own. Finch found this surprising. He expected a prince to have something much larger. The window was a little nicer than the one in the library. Instead of looking as if it was made from colourful pieces of broken glass glued together with metal, this one had a little more direction to it. It was an orange square inside a yellow one, all bordered in pink.

A dim colourful glow emanated from the glass. Yuvelliya’s bed was on the left, with a dresser at its foot, and on the right was a giant dark hardwood desk. It was a beautiful deep brown, and had two lamps on it. In fact, Finch noticed a lot of lamps. One near the bed, sharing a small bed stand with a pile of books, the ones on the desk, and even standing one in the corner to his left, next to a small mirror. It seemed that the oil in the ceiling lamp was gone, perhaps it had never been filled.  Finch took a quick peek behind the door, where very predictably there stood a tall bookshelf.

Finch, feeling quite like an invader by now, stepped back and closed the door. He moved on, wondering how Yuvelliya hadn’t burned the place down with all those lamps.

“Although,” he said to himself, “The castle is mostly stone brick…”

The next door was unusually tall. It had a word etched somewhat more crudely in the plate which seemed to be in another alphabet. It was followed by, “and Gwenhime.” This must be the King’s room. Finch didn’t touch the knob, instead he kept walking and reading. The next one read, “Ekaterina.”

Ekaterina! He thought. That was the guard Captain he had been looking for the other day!

Finch knocked, but predictably there was no answer.

He continued, reading names. It seemed that only Yuvelliya’s looked really nice. Next up was, “Kain,” and then, “Crystal Jealousy.” Finch thought that to be a really strange name. He turned the corner, having run out of rooms on the south wall. When he rounded, he saw that the first door on the east wall was ajar.

The door read, “Gavria.” From inside he could hear the voice of a woman.

She said, “Really, we don’t need to tell my father anything unless he plans to make a move against Venus. It would be inconvenient to tell anyone more than they need to know about the ordeal as things stand.”

And then she sighed very loudly.

Finch walked past the door, and glimpsed inside. He saw someone who reminded him of an older, more pointy Yuvelliya. Her hair was shorter too, her face a little smaller. Around her legs and shoulders she wore a dark grey jumpsuit, similar to the light grey one that guards wore. She had it unzipped all the way down. She wasn’t wearing much underneath. Her torso was curtained by the unzipped suit so that, while she was being very revealing, nothing was actually revealed. This woman also looked quite powerful. She had a compact set of abdominal muscles and, he pulled his eyes away from her midriff finally, she also had very lean, stiff looking arms. A tanned, dark haired man was with her too, leaning on the wall and looking away.

This woman had the same deep brown eyes as Yuvelliya too. The only reason Finch could tell because they were looking at him. He had expected the woman to slam the door in his face, but instead she just smiled. It seemed that this woman was not ashamed of herself.

“Hey, keep an eye on girls your own age kid.” She said, and then laughed at him.

The man grunted along with her, but Finch just kept walking, his face becoming hot, which made her laugh even more as he walked out of sight.

What a strange place this was. Was that woman Gavria? Was she Yuvelliya’s sister? In order to stop thinking of her, Finch went back to reading doors.

“Uhh, this one is…” He cleared his mind, “It’s…”

But he couldn’t read it. It seemed to have a “Z” and a few other tall letters in it. The name had been entirely gouged out though, and it seemed to Finch that it hadn’t been done with real woodworking tools. He looked back at the slightly opened door he had just passed and wondered if it was Gavria that had ruined this tag.

“And, uh, over here is… brooms.”

Finch frowned. It looked like this family wasn’t all that big. He thought back, counting on his fingers. Yuvelliya, Ekaterina, Kain, Crystal, Gavria, and the mystery name. That was six, which was pretty large.

Finch knew from his Natural Studies books that even two or three children was considered a large amount. It was very hard to have children, it seemed. Something about unusually large brains compared to other creatures. It was even harder before the Servant of Birth was around to help the process and prevent stillborn infants.

Before Finch could think further about dead children, someone came out of the room at the end of the hall on his left.

“And who is this? A youth lurking about on the second floor? Surely you must know that citizens are to remain on the first and base floors?”

It was a tall man with finger-length wavy blonde hair. He also wore a guard’s uniform that had a fancier looking ribbon on it than normal. This man was of a higher rank.

“I’m looking for Yuvelliya!” Finch said.

“Oh? She’s in the library. Not her library, the castle library,” The man said, “But who are you anyway?”

“I’m Finch Dirge Zeth!” He replied.

“Ah yes. I am Vinth Axxiss. It’s a Solussa last name. Anyway, I can show you where Yuvelliya is, Ekaterina was telling me how excited Yuvelliya was about you. Something about wanting to become your secondary teacher.”

“What?” Finch followed after Vinth.

Finch remembered the man’s name from the text he and Yuvelliya had been reading, but right now he was more concerned about what the man had said.

As they went down the hall, and back down the stairs, Finch thought about his future education.

His father Ilias wasn’t particularly rich. In fact they were almost poor, but Ilias wanted a better life for his son, so he had been on the lookout for a personal tutor to pass the baton to for over a year now. He didn’t want to send his child to a simple public secondary school, but the time to make the switch was coming very soon and he was worried it would end up being his only option.

At the landing of the steps, Vinth stopped at the door to the foyer. Finch noticed that there were more stairs leading further down.

“Almost there.” Vinth said, and then following Finch’s gaze added, “Not that way, that’s the public entrance. The private royal library is kept safe, on an even lower level. Stay close, I don’t want to lose you in the crowd.”

And then they stepped out into the loud foyer. Finch really didn’t like it here. Nervous about losing him, Finch grabbed at Vinth’s hand. The guard looked down at him for a second, and then grabbed back. Finch felt a little more confident as they walked across to the door that Finch had found locked the other day. Vinth opened it, and they entered.

The room was filled with hard leather and metal armours on the left, as well as straight, single edged swords on the right. They walked straight between the rows of arms and armament. Finch thought about Vinth. He must be the Vice-Captain to Ekaterina.

“Do you know Ekaterina?” He asked.

“Of course.” Vinth said, a little faster than normal.

“Well, Yuvelliya says she’s been really busy all the time recently. Is that true?”

“Of course.” Vinth said again, “The guard are overseeing the construction of a third floor for the castle.”

“Oh.”

Well, that did seem important. Maybe he would get a chance to talk to her after the renovations were done.

Vinth went right, passing the hanging row of swords, and then stopped at the wall between racks. Finch noticed beyond was another hall of equipment, but this barrier in between them was different. It had a door.

Vinth said, “Be careful now. This staircase was made before the kingdom had come up with appropriate staircase regulation. There is no landing, and it is a two flight drop. That is four times the usual height.”

“Umm,” Finch replied, “Do you mind much if I hold your hand here too?”

“If you must,” The guard stated.

Vinth unlocked the door with two separate keys, and then when they stepped in he locked it behind them. Finch looked down. There was a torch bracket in the wall, and the torch was lit.

As they went down the stairs, Finch occupied his mind thinking of the torch. It seemed to him that once this bracket held a much older type of torch, but right now there was a thin metal cone with a rope wick sticking out. Surely the cone was filled with some form of oil or fat.

“We’re about halfway down. You can tell by the hum of the crowd in the cafeteria and announcement room.” Vinth said. “If you tunnelled through this wall that’s what you would find.”

Finch turned his thoughts to Yuvelliya. She had been a whole lot of fun yesterday, and Finch was sure she would make a great teacher. He wondered if she wanted to teach him out of boredom, or if she really liked him. Probably both.

They finally reached flat ground, and turned right at a corner, and then another, and then another. They had made the most laborious left run Finch had ever taken.

“To prevent any dropped torches or other hazards from affecting the books,” Vinth said as they passed underneath the staircase.

And then Finch saw it, the library. It seemed to be a long room with openings on either side, left or right, there were more halls lined with shelves. Each of these smaller hallways was labelled with a range of numbers that Finch realized were dates. The labels were in the same flowing writing that had been on Yuvelliya’s door.

“They’re organized by year!” He said.

“No,” Replied a muffled voice, “Not yet anyway.”

Yuvelliya peeked her head out of one of the furthest racks. She had an armful of books, and as she stepped out, Finch realized she was carrying a couple more in her large right hand. He also noticed she was wearing long sleeves today.

“Oh, ah, hello there Finch.” She said.

“I will return to my work now.” Vinth said, and then promptly exited.

“Hi, I wondered if you might want to, um,” Finch suddenly felt a little out of place.

“Ah, well, see, I made some plans to rearrange the library you know,” Yuvelliya said.

Finch was surprised that she wasn’t straining, carrying all those pages.

“Yeah… sorry.” Finch said.

“Oh don’t worry! Well, would you like to help? I’m almost done the current century you know.”

“You’re going by century?” Finch asked.

“No no,” She said, “Ah, well mostly yes, actually, but we’re grouping centuries with less writings together. See, ah, we only have twelve of these shelf sets, and we have about five or six… well, at least six millenniums worth of writings.”

Finch gaped.

Yuvelliya went back into her nook and put down her various volumes, then returned.

“Not bad, eh!” She said.

“Yeah,” And then, “Is what Vinth said true? About you wanting to teach me?”

“Ah!” The fair skin below Yuvelliya’s eyes began to turn pink, “I, ah, I…”

Finch looked at her, trying to show that he would be very interested in the idea. He had a very hard time though, as he was quite certain that there was no expression for this. He ended up doing a sort of restrained nod instead.

“Well, I may have… changed my mind.”

“No!” Finch said, “My dad doesn’t want me to be stuck in a public school, he thinks I need better, since I’m always reading.”

“Hmm…” Yuvelliya thought.

The library was silent for a long time. Yuvelliya and Finch stared at each other.

“So, I could… teach you?” She said tentatively.

 9 Work Horse

Baracus was not a town with many children in it. Despite FACE being the hidden village of bandits and thieves, Baracus was still considered the Rogue Town of the Kingdom. People tended to avoid having children in Baracus, instead leaving when it was time to have a family, while others still entered when they needed to buy thing such as tools, specialized parts, or even contractors.

It was a very dusty place, it could almost be called it shabby if the buildings had not been so sturdy and well-constructed. That was Baracus’s primary export, skilled labour and craftsmanship. Baracus was a rough town, the kind of place where merchants checked their costumer’s coins carefully and were eternally suspicious of newcomers.

Alice had arrived in Baracus after five days, and although she was sure she could have made it in half that time, she not been in high spirits. Right now Alice was in a wood-built parlour called “The Keeper” that sold syrups by night, and bitter drinks by day. Alice was sipping on her favourite, a pale blue drink called a stipper. She was deep in thought, reminiscing back to those first few days out of Murdock. She had left ninety-eight days before, and she wondered if Finch too was keeping track.

After Alice had split up with Finch for their allotted four years, she had headed west, towards the place her mother had pointed to. When she had first arrived in Baracus, she hadn’t stayed, simply marching determinately past as if there had been no change of scenery. But, upon meeting the very friendly guards at the gate, she found that the kingdom was currently separate from the rest of the world.

You could not freely enter and exit. The guard had explained that it had been this way for a thousand years. He said that she could exit, but she would not be able to return again.

Alice sighed and turned around. Maybe one day in the future then, she would make this one way trip. She had been headed to the Plainkind Desert, interested in spending her four years in her homeland, maybe finding her father. These hopes were now dashed.

When Alice had returned to Baracus, she had no money and no idea how to get any. Without Batshiva to feed her the occasional leg of mobile moose or entire robbit, Alice was rediscovering the feeling of hunger. It was a feeling that she had come to fear since her mother’s passing.

Predictably, Alice had proved to be an easy friend. In her first ninety-eight days, Alice had not only befriended many adults, but had also been adopted. Her second father was a gruff, widowed construction foreman. Alice figured that she must have reminded him of his deceased son.

When Alice finished her stipper, the innkeeper asked her, “Refill? On the house as usual of course.”

“Nope!” And she jumped off the stool.

Alice had a lot to do tomorrow. She couldn’t stay here all night. As much as she liked people, as a fourteen-year-old, Alice was a little wary of those who had become intoxicated on sugar and syrups.

She ran out of the shop, yelling, “Thanks!” and then headed home.

There, her second father, Jithin, greeted her.

“Hello Alice, how was your free time today?” He asked.

“Excellent! I’m ever so busying myself at all of the times in the day, since now I am being had some lessons!” She garbled excitedly.

Jithin had quickly discovered that this girl had an unusual accent. He learned from an elderly woman named Oritha that the small girl was a Plainkind from the west, beyond the wall. The Plainkind, she explained, had unusual minds and had produced a language with very strange syntax and grammar. Jithin had not understood these last two words, but he knew well enough.

It was actually this woman who had offered to give Alice lessons.

“She’s so very young. It isn’t fit for you to be working her all day! It seems the poor dear has had no formal education whatsoever, and I intend for you to allow me to remedy that.”

Jithin had the suspicion that Oritha was right about working her as a member of his company, but she had become rather excited about the whole ordeal. It was almost by accident that Jithin had found himself giving the small girl more and more tasks at his job. She seemed to enjoy it, finding some form of purpose in it.

Was it really his fault that she had taken on so much work when she had asked for it? Alice had built muscle with unusual speed, and he had the strangest feeling that her torso had broadened to adjust. She was now able to carry more beams than even him!

“Alright little workhorse, head to your bed.” Jithin said.

This was the sort of nickname that was bound to come up in Baracus, especially from a single parent who had no one else to tell him how poor of a choice it was. He thought it fitting, the horse being a mythical beast from the children’s books of the foolish hero Victimus. His colleagues seemed to find it fitting too, and so the name “little workhorse” stuck.

“Although I don’t run shifts on Secast, your teacher would like to touch on a few things. She usually does the week review on the first day of the weekend, right?”

Alice nodded, and then jumped up and down, an action she was much too old and heavy to be doing. The house shook.

“Alright, goodnight. Do you mind if I… Actually never mind. I had better go to bed myself.” He said.

Alice headed up the ladder to her room. It had been storage, and still half of it was filled with all form of possessions. But, Jithin had made enough room for a bed and a dresser, and that’s all that Alice seemed to really want or need. Like the rest of the house, this space was cramped. It was a strict upgrade for Alice, who had been used to living as a borderline homeless youth. She was grateful.

Alice put an X on the grid she had made. It was a calendar, the first thing she had made after learning about numbers and timekeeping from Oritha. Alice had constructed this countdown calendar to cover four years divided up into: nine months per year, four weeks per month, and eight days per week.

Alice crawled into bed. Her final thoughts turned to her old friend Finch. She thought of the 1438 days until she would be able to see him outside of a dream. It did not take her long to drift off to sleep.

 10 Quaternary Dusk

“Yes!” Finch said, “I would love for you to teach me!”

But then he stopped.

“Are you even qualified?”

Yuvelliya looked around at the shelves that surrounded her. She seemed to be thinking.

She said, “I got my qualifications nearly two decades ago. You will be my second student, if your father is okay with it of course.”

“Wha?”

For the first time, Finch noticed the thick metal band around her neck. It was made of gold-coloured brass, and he knew it to be the royal crown worn by princes. He knew by her name, Rhye, that Yuvelliya was a member of the royal family, but for whatever reason he hadn’t really taken it in until now.

Yuvelliya watched Finch patiently as he turned his thoughts to Yuvelliya’s statement. She was qualified. This was important, as his father was desperately looking for a new teacher, and they were cutting it very close.

“Wait a minute, Yuvelliya,” He said, “You look like, what, eighteen? You can’t be more than twenty-four at the oldest. How could you get a qualification so young?”

Yuvelliya blushed.

“Ah, don’t you know about my family? Have you not heard about the King?” She asked.

Finch thought for only a moment, “Isn’t he thought to be really old? Some people claim that it was him who started the whole thing two thousand years ago.”

“Yeah,” Yuvelliya nodded, “We age very slowly. After reaching maturity, time passes us by at almost one-hundredth the speed of the average Solune. I’ve done some experiments to find out why… I can explain it later if you are interested.” She trailed off, and then found herself again, “I am eight-hundred-fifty-six.”**

At this the fair skin of her face turned a slight shade of red.

Channelling his father’s practicality, Finch asked, “How much? Will it cost to hire you, I mean.”

Yuvelliya’s skin faded back to normal.

She smiled at him and brusquely stated, “Nothing, of course. Well, ah, I’m no cheap lass.”

Yuvelliya laughed, it was a light but strong sound. Finch thought it to be a much more beautiful vocalization than the “ah” sounds she had the habit of making.

Yuvelliya continued, “Maybe twenty-five Steel per month?”

Finch counted on his fingers. That made one Solune coin per day, not including weekends, which was about a third what most charged. Either way, this was clearly a very affordable option. In fact, her price seemed far too low.

After studying Finch’s face for a moment, she smiled and added, “Child, I am, ah, I’m of the royal family. What do you suppose I would do with any Solune coins? Not a lot. This will cover the cost of books and materials.”

Finch became very worried. “Well, why would you even want to teach me? Aren’t there better students you could be educating?”

Yuvelliya continued to smile at him.

She said, “Possibly there are, but you came to me, no one else has. No one’s parents have. And further, you were not seeking me as a mentor in the first place. Your goals are pure, you came to me looking for knowledge! Tell me Finch, do you study outside of class? Do you go to the library and take out books on subjects that your parents have never taught you?”

“Yeah… Natural Studies.” He replied.

Yuvelliya nodded knowingly, “I am entirely self-taught myself, I actually got my qualification by taking the entrance and exit tests alone. Personally, I focus on History and Culture, but I’m certain I’ve learned more about Natural Studies in my time then you have in yours.”

Finch considered this for a very long time.

“There’s another, possibly more convincing reason,” Yuvelliya turned her head, a hint of mischief in her expression, “To find an intellectual match is the dream of many geniuses. While I don’t consider myself to have genius, I do admit that I have yet to find someone outside of Bradley Jeremy who can keep up with me in intellectual discussion.”

“And you think that I-” Finch was cut off.

“No, but I have a very strong feeling about you. I think you might in the future. In my library I saw you as we researched the guard. I saw you, and thought of myself. Searching for information. Eating knowledge. Ah…”

Finch didn’t know how to feel about this, so he just frowned instead.

“Why do not we, ah, why don’t we talk to your father?”

“Yeah,” He rubbed his forehead, “That sounds like a really good idea.”

They headed up the hazardous stairs, Finch leading the way.

“So I can catch you if you fall,” Yuvelliya told him.

Finch had replied asking if he would just knock her down with him.

As they walked up, Yuvelliya explained, “You’re much lighter than me. Not only are you a child, but you are also Riley, one of the lightest races. Probably I, ah, I could probably throw you if I wished.”

She laughed again.

“But, in addition, I’ve been gaining far more bone mass than usual due to my age. That’s why I’m a little taller than a normal Solune. I, ah, I used to be rather short, you understand.”

“Wait!” Finch stopped on a step and turned, “You must know I studied this! The Solune’s bones never stop thickening as they grow, right? That’s why Solune scales are so good, because they are judged based off of how well a medical person can guess the age based on the weight of a person! Are you telling me that the bone density increase applies to size too?”

“Well,” Yuvelliya prodded the boy to continue moving, “It always does, just by fractions of a cubit. Have you seen my father? Four-thousand years have done the works on him, we had to elevate the second floor roof you know.”

Yuvelliya promptly headed out the open doors when they had reached the top floor. The two walked into town, with Yuvelliya strutting nobly ahead of Finch. That was, until she realized she didn’t know where she was going.

“Ah, where do you live dear?” She said.

And so Finch took the lead, and Yuvelliya adjusted her step to more of a stride better suit her new situation.

It wasn’t long before they arrived at Finch’s door. He broke out in a sweat, and it felt as though his primary heart was getting stuck on suddenly thickened blood.

“Err, I’m not so sure,” Finch started.

But Yuvelliya had reached right over him, being exceptionally tall, and knocked on the door.

A few moments later, Ilias answered with a chisel in his hands.

“Who’s this now?” He said, and then, “Finch, boy, what have you done to have a prince bringing you back home?”

Finch was not surprised that his father had assumed something bad. That was a tendency of his, Ilias was not an optimist, rather he had become very defensive.

“Incorrect,” Yuvelliya said resolutely, “I’m here to offer myself as a secondary teacher.”

“No!” Ilias shouted, much to Finch’s surprise, “I can barely afford a regular tutor, and now you bring me royalty, Finch?”

“Incorrect,” Yuvelliya said again, “I charge twenty-five Solune Steel per month.”

Ilias, who had always been particularly good at math, said, “Two-hundred per year? That is the absolute cheapest offer I’ve gotten.”

But Ilias didn’t question it. He was highly intelligent, like his son. In mere moments, he realized a prince would have little use for money. He also noted that he would be able to work full time now, meaning the cost would be further lowered. Additionally, he would finally be off of public assistance.

“I accept.” He stated squarely.

“What?” Finch said quietly.

“Alright. Shall we draft a contract?” Yuvelliya offered.

“Absolutely,”

So Ilias and Yuvelliya sat down at the marked and battered kitchen table. Ilias cleared his war games off easily, simply lifting up the terrain map and pouring all the pieces into a box. Yuvelliya, for whatever reason, had reeds paper and a fountain pen on her person. And so they began.

Finch realized that this wasn’t going to be a particularly short process, so he sat down with them and tried to comprehend what was going on. After about an hour of fervent conversation between his father and Ms. Rhye, she stood.

“We will have to get this signed off by a Poet of Law.”

“Of course,” Ilias said, “Go ahead and do it yourself.”

He signed the contract he and Yuvelliya had just finished drafting.

“Surely if I can’t trust the royalty, I cannot trust anything,” Then he added, “I need to get myself a real occupation.”

“Right,” Yuvelliya stood and turned to Finch, “Come, youth, there are sixths still left in the day. According to this, you are to start immediately. Kindly bring your most recent work with you.”

Finch nodded, and ran to his room to stuff his bag. When his eyes reached the Jurassic Park novel, he stared at it for a moment, and then looked out the window.

“I won’t have to worry about that for another few years.”

He closed his shutters.

Finch and Yuvelliya took the short walk down to the Kingdom Hall of Poetry and Law, one of the seven circular towers that made up the Kingdom Halls. The contract was subjected to a couple minor changes.

“Would you like this re-drafted in the language of scholars, Methusa?” The poet had asked.

“No, I am, ah, I’m unsure if my second party can read Methusa.”

And so they left, and Finch readied himself for his first day of classes.

And so, Finch, who entered the castle not too long ago looking for one prince, had instead found another.

 11 Quinary Dusk

The days began to whir by now, months passed with little change in Finch’s schedule. The only thing that broke into his joyous days at the castle was the weekends. Finch had been keeping up with Artus most of the time.

They didn’t always play territory fight, and they didn’t always play in the field either. Finch had thought playing outside the castle walls was bad, but it seemed the Hallin, the third Riley kid, had discovered another place. Finch had thought for sure that the guard would get angry at them if they played here. That’s actually why he hadn’t made a fuss when Hallin had suggested it, he hoped that he might encounter Ekaterina. It was only after that he remembered that she was part of the castle guard, and not the city guard.

Hallin had said, “I know the perfect place to play seek the hidden!”

“What? Where? There are no good places to play that, that’s the whole reason we almost never bother.” Artus replied.

“Yeah, well, the new district.” Hallin said proudly.

“What?” Jutt asked.

“The new district! You know, the place east of the castle right in the corner of the city walls. They built all these new houses and hotels, but there was no need for them, so now they just sit all empty and whatnot.”

“Let’s do it.” Finch said.

Jutt looked apprehensive, but she wasn’t about to spoil their fun.

In fact, she said, “Well, there’s no rule against playing there as far as I know. If a guard stops us, he or she wouldn’t be able to do anything unless there is a rule, other than maybe a warning.”

So they went to the abandoned district. All the doors were locked, but this place was big. You could hide actively, dodging in and out of cover or running around corners to stay hidden.

Finch enjoyed this game a lot more then territory fight. It seemed that as a Riley, his dark features, lightfootedness, and good ears gave him an advantage. It was usually him, Jutt, and some other kid left at the end of most games.

When they had finished, Finch said, “We have to do that again next weekend.”

“Yeah, well, I think I’ve thought up a better game to play here. We’ll be back for sure.” Artus said, and the group split.

Again, Jutt stayed behind for a bit.

She said, “You were pretty good this time around.”

He knew that this statement was part insult, but he just said, “Yeah, you too.”

And then she left.

On the second day of the new week, it was back to classes again.

Finch sat in Yuvelliya’s library, using her little reading desk. It was a bit awkward at times, because it was tilted at an angle, but he managed with little issue.

“Alright,” Yuvelliya started, “I talked to the serviceman, and he’s readying us one of the spare rooms for classes. We should be able to use it tomorrow.”

Yuvelliya looked at Finch struggling to keep his pencil on the lip of the reading table.

“And it will, ah, it’ll have a proper desk for you too.”

“That’s good.” Finch mumbled.

“Okay, now onto today’s topic. Remember we covered genes more broadly last week? Well today we’re talking about alleles, or allelomorphs.”

“What?” Finch asked, more curious than confused.

“Alleles. They are the different forms a gene can have.”

Yuvelliya wrote ἀλλήλ on the board she had hung on one of her shelves.

By now, Finch was getting very familiar with the language of scholars, Methusa, and Yuvelliya had been using it freely in his lessons. She had instructed him to ask any questions he had, should one of the words confuse him. So far he had asked none, but she had also only given single words.

“Hmm. The serviceman, Gehald, said that there will be an inkboard in the new room too. That will be nice.”

“Okay.” Finch had no idea what an inkboard was, but he didn’t want to stray from alleles, so he decided to wait until he actually saw it to ask questions.

“Right, so your alleles are taken from your parents. They are responsible for your traits, among other things, but we’ll cover that later.”

“Sure,” Finch jotted down a short note.

“Right, so you for example, likely inherited your dark hair and eyes from your father.”

“Not quite,” Finch corrected her, “My father has dark brown eyes you see. I think he had a touch of Solune in his past.”

Finch pointed to his own eyes, “My eyes are pale blue. More typical Riley colours. Dad says I get them from my mother.”

“Oh yes, I never did feel comfortable asking about your mother.”

“Well,” Finch said, a little nervously, “We tell people she’s dead, but really, she’s more just dead to us.”

Yuvelliya gave him a questioning look.

“Diesel Dirge abandoned us shortly after my birth. It seemed she fancied a one night stand and got stuck with me.”

Finch shrugged. He had never known her, so what did he care really?

“Hmm.”

Yuvelliya didn’t say that she wasn’t surprised. She didn’t mention that this was unusually common in Riley families, especially those with less Solune blood. Yuvelliya knew that in the ancient Riley communities, monogamy and even polygamy was unheard of. Instead, all members were freely promiscuous, and all children were raised communally by the village.

Now that all Riley had between five to fifty percent Solune blood, such habits had become more and more unusual. There was no longer a social structure to support such abandoned children. She realized now why the Riley town of FACE had such a large orphanage, and why few seemed to be concerned about it.

“Okay, well, we’ll move past eye colour as it’s one of the more complex topics. It’s actually influenced by a large array of alleles from your deoxyribonucleic acids strands. I think now we’ll talk about the person who discovered alleles and how important they were.”

“Sure.”

“It was Gregor Mendel who did the testings. That was oh, about two hundred years ago. I met him, but I wasn’t interested in biology at the time. Shame, otherwise I would have asked more questions!”

“Okay, so what did he test?”

“He bred something with a short maturity cycle. That is, he bred deadly leaves.”

“What?” Finch had never heard of this plant before.

“Deadly leaves. They’re usually quite normal, but as the leaves wither, they harden, becoming very sharp, and then fall off. You wouldn’t want to be near a tree during the autumn. You very well could die!”

“How can a tree be a fast growing subject?” Finch was confused.

“Well, the leaves each hold a seed. That’s why they’re so sharp, see? It’s so that they can cut through the ground and plant themselves. Well, saplings grow very aggressively for this same reason. They don’t know where they’re going to land.”

Finch was copying her words down furiously.

“Anyway, there were two varieties, yellow and green. He bred them, and also kept a purebred. He found that yellow leaves were the dominant phenotype.”

She hadn’t explained this word, “Dominant what?”

Yuvelliya wrote the word on the board too, φαινότυπο.

Finch copied it down, but said, “And what is a phenotype?”

“It’s the physical trait that we can actually observe. It’s break time now though, I’ll explain phenotypes and genotypes when we return. Would you like some tea today?” Yuvelliya asked.

“Sure…” Finch was still trying to figure all this biology stuff out. It was his hardest subject out of the three, and so they had to spend more time on it. Finch didn’t really like memorizing things; he preferred to figure them out instead. That’s why he preferred physics and chemistry.

They had tea, and then the lesson continued as normal. Finch’s life continued as normal, accelerating back to full pace.

 12 Sluggish Mind

“No, you’ll have to try again, dear.” The old woman said.

“Ah! Ahh!” Growls of anger drifted from between clenched teeth.

Then the splintering of wood was heard.

Oritha had switched very quickly from pens to pencils. Alice frequently became frustrated, and when things were going particularly foul, she often snapped them. Oritha had lost a somewhat expensive fountain pen to this, followed by profuse apology. Now it was clear that a small investment into a bulk order of one hundred inexpensive pencils was a wise decision. This girl had uncanny strength. At least, it would be uncanny if her arms and legs didn’t bulge so, proving that it was quite canny.

“Why am I having so really stupid!” Alice shouted, mashing the pencil tip into the table as if it were no stronger than a blade of grass.

“Dear, I have told you over and over. You are not stupid, you are just a slow learner. You are a natural at physical tasks, but not at mental ones.”

Then Oritha stopped and considered her statement. Upon reflection, she realized that it was not true. Recounting their years’ worth of lessons, Oritha concluded that Alice had never forgotten a thing she had learned. Her final examinations were identical in score to her earlier preparatory tests. It was as if information was encoded far more thoroughly into her mind.

“That is actually incorrect. You just learn differently than everyone else.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Martin said that that’s what teachers tell their stupid students to make them feel better.” Alice retorted.

“Martin is correct about that,” Oritha admitted, “I have told students such for those reasons before I retired.”

“Ah-ha!” Alice accused.

“What did I tell you about ‘ah-ha,’ Alice?” Oritha responded calmly?

“That, I should stop saying it because I always immediately get proven wrong?” Alice responded in what had once been Oritha’s own words.

“Yes. So, in most cases I was correct, in some such students had successful futures outside of academia. No, I mean it in your case. Answer me this, what are the four major cities in Murdock? The ones to which the surrounding settlements and villages pay taxes to and take rulings from?”

Alice wasn’t sure what was happening, but she answered her teacher, “By population, Hannibal, M-Murdock, Baracus, and FACE. But FACE doesn’t have any proxy settlements.”

Oritha was impressed, but not surprised that Alice had remembered the point on FACE.

“And the Capital?”

“Is Murdock. That’s where from I have.”

“Try again.”

“It is Murdock, isn’t it?” Alice asked, but then realized her syntax issue, “Oh, That’s where I am from!”

“Okay,” Oritha decided to give her a more difficult one.

It was something they had learned at the beginning. Alice had wanted to learn nearly everything about Murdock.

“What are the names of the members of the Royal Family?”

“Why are you asking me all this?”

“Do you not know?” Oritha asked, adding, “I will explain after, dear.”

“The wife of the King is called Gwenhime, she had no last name, and so she took his, Rhye. Then, from youngest to oldest is Yuvelliya, Gavria, Ekaterina and Kain are twins, Zealott, and Crystal Jealousy. We don’t know the King’s name, do we?”

“No we do not.” Oritha nodded, but then Alice continued.

“Right, but his nickname is Mars. He has two brothers, also unnamed, but called Pluto and Venus. Pluto has a wife called On’hor who is thought to be a spirit, their children are called Gaul and Millie.”

Oritha was taken aback.

“I did not teach you any of that,” She said.

“No, I read about it. Martin gave me a book.” Alice said.

“Oh. Well, still this proves my point. Most students had forgotten most of the names after this much time had passed. And yet, you haven’t!” Oritha said proudly.

“What… What by that do are you saying?”

“Try again.” Oritha said once more.

Alice cleared her throat, and her mind, “What do you mean by that?”

“Consider the wood carver.” Oritha started.

Alice listened intently.

“He makes a sign with letters carved very shallow into it. It only takes a day to make it. The rains and the sands batter it, and in a few months, what happens?”

“The maybe sign it,” Alice saw Oritha’s look and tried again, “The sign maybe fades?”

“Right! But consider a second wood carver. This woman carves deep, meaningful letters into their board. It takes many days to complete, but when it is finished how long do you think it lasts?”

“Years!” Alice jumped up, causing the house to shudder.

“Please sit down. What have I told you about jumping? You are nearly two hundred pounds now, and only fifteen. I would not want you falling through the floor, dear.”

“Oh, sorry,” Alice sat, “but that’s me? I the second carver is what I will are to be?”

Her sentences got worse when she was excited or angry. Oritha gave her another look.

Alice sighed, “I am the second carver?”

Oritha nodded sagely. She reached back and removed her black hairpin, letting her long grey hair fall around her shoulders. Alice recognized this as the signal that class was nearly over.

“You have a very good memory for what you have learned, but in order to etch that memory, you have to carve deeper. It’s not that you have a sluggish mind, but rather a deliberate memory. Please, try to be patient with yourself as I have been patient with you.”

“Yes miss.” Alice nodded.

“Now, you have a good evening. Don’t let your father, sorry, your second father work you too hard. I don’t need you coming here sore again.”

It seemed that every time Alice had come to her house sore, her muscles had been noticeably larger. Oritha was almost tempted to start measuring the circumference.

That’s probably what I’ll teach tomorrow, she thought.

It wasn’t just that. Alice had grown quite a bit since she had first arrived. Before, Alice had been an adorable little creature with a permanently joyful grimace. Now, that grimace was beginning to realize that there was more than one emotion. Alice was hitting adolescence.

There wasn’t a lot of information on Plainkind development, but Oritha was sure that this seemingly late development was quite on time. Alice had grown physically too. It seemed that, possibly reacting to the work, her shoulders had broadened. Oritha had read this somewhere, that the twin Y shaped spine of the Plainkind would broaden to adapt and increase strength and leverage.

Finally, Alice had become lanky. She wasn’t quite tall, but she had certainly grown. Over a cubit in fact! No longer was she small waist high girl, now she reached chest or shoulder height. Oritha had noted that Alice had more the physique of a young athletic man. Not the stocky build of a worker, but the lean, flexible build of a courier or a hunter.

Yes, she had a very masculine torso. But her face was still quite beautiful and feminine. Perhaps more so, now that she was starting to look less like an excited cherub and more like a high-spirited woman.

 13 Senary Dusk

“Right, it is simple on a two dimensional plane, but it gets a little more difficult when we add angles and multiple forces.”

Yuvelliya drew a diagram on the inkboard. It was circle with three lines coming out. The new classroom was just the right size. They probably could have fit three or four more students in it if they wished. Finch glanced at the window. It had been raining when he arrived, and it was still raining. He turned back to the board.

“See, here we have three vectors with different directions. I want to find the resultant.”

“Well, what do we do? How do we work with diagonal forces?” Finch asked.

“We have to break each of the forces down into their x and y values. To the nearest ninety. That way we can add them together, while removing the directional issues.”

Finch studied the board.

“So… vector A is just negative sixty force on the x?”

“Right. Can you guess how we get the x and y of a diagonal line?” Yuvelliya asked.

“I have no idea. I just went for line A because it was straight.” Finch conceded.

“Angleometry!” Yuvelliya exclaimed

Finch’s eyes widened, “Are you telling me that we can apply adjacent, opposite, and hyp rules to physics vectors?”

“Isn’t it exciting?”

“Yeah!”

Then there was a loud crash, and the roof caved in a little. A large wooden beam fell in through the ceiling, and slid sideways into Yuvelliya’s face. Finch heard a wet crack.

“Ah!” Finch leapt up, knocking over his chair and jumping over the desk, “Teacher!”

Yuvelliya, somewhat less dazed now, carefully grasped the beam in her two hands, and pushed it away slowly. Finch gazed at this feat of strength for a moment, and then went to help her. He heard voices from the floor above as Yuvelliya pushed it away from her face.

“Pull it up you fools! How could you drop that through the floor?!”

“Sorry Ekaterina! Sorry!”

The beam was pulled back through the hole. Then Finch saw a face that looked like an older version of Yuvelliya’s. This must be Ekaterina, he thought.

Ekaterina gazed down, seeing her sister clutching a bleeding cheek, and then turned her face back up.

“Get out. You are suspended for the rest of the day.” She told someone from the floor above.

Finch didn’t worry about this, she ran to Yuvelliya.

“Are you okay?”

“I ah,” She winced, “I don’t believe I am. I think my cheekbone broke. I’m sorry Finch, but we’ll have to postpone classes for a bit.”

It seemed like talking was causing her pain, no doubt because the jaw and cheek are closely connected.

“I’ll take you to the hospital.” Finch said.

He lead Yuvelliya out of their new, now damaged classroom.

“Take me to Gwenhime’s office.” She said.

They went down the stairs, and Yuvelliya added, “I… will send for you when, ah, when we are to resume classes. Hopefully, hopefully it is soon. It’s right here.”

She motioned to the locked room at the staircase landing. Finch had always had a small curiosity for what was behind this door. He walked to open it, and then stopped, hearing someone thunder down the stairs behind him.

It was a very tall woman with shoulder length blonde hair. She wore a grey jumpsuit that was tattered with sawdust. It was Ekaterina. She pushed Finch aside and grabbed Yuvelliya’s shoulders, looking down at her face.

“I have half a mind to fire that man. Are you okay, Yuvelliya? Did you acquire any brain damages?”

“Ekaterina, I don’t know at the moment, I’m only just arriving at mother’s office…”

Yuvelliya turned her head to look at the door. Her hand was still clutching at the knob.

“Yes, do that.”

Ekaterina let go of Yuvelliya. Finch stared up at the woman. He probably could have stood on his own head and still not been at eye level with her.

Yuvelliya opened the door, and immediately Gwenhime had stood up. The room was unusually long, but in moments the middle-aged woman had crossed it.

“Yuvelliya, what did I tell you about trying to fly?” She asked, her face now very near to Yuvelliya’s, examining the wound.

“That I’m not ready yet. Well, now, wait a second! I got this from a wooden beam, not flying!” Yuvelliya said.

“Hmm, that would make more sense. You are bleeding on the inside. This will be interesting.”

Gwenhime lead her daughter to one of the beds. There were two, lined up against the right wall. Finch sat on a chair on the left side, and after closing the door, Ekaterina sat next to him. They listened patiently.

Finch would have almost considered the woman to have gone senile, if it weren’t for the fact that Yuvelliya was answering all of her odd questions as though they were completely normal. Perhaps they were, Finch considered. But then he thought about it. Flying? He watched Gwenhime open a large amount of Yuvelliya’s face and begin some sort of odd procedure.

He turned his attention to Ekaterina. He had been trying to talk to her for over a year now, and finally he had his chance!

“What, uh, what happened there?” Finch asked.

“Some fool dropped one of the ceiling beams. This has never happened before. It is my fault, I should not have assigned that man to the ceiling. He will be carrying materials to us from now on.”

“Oh,” Finch wasn’t sure what to think about that, “Umm, I would like to join the guard.”

Ekaterina turned to Finch. He had been expecting doubt, but instead he got an expression of consideration.

“How old are you, Riley?” She asked.

“I’m thirteen.” He said.

“So you can join next year. But that would mean dropping out of school. From what my sister tells me, you are getting along well with your study. Are you sure you want to exit into the work force so young?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll get back to learning later on. I just need to join the guard as soon as I can.”

“Why?” Ekaterina looked down on him.

“It’s important to me.”

Finch couldn’t quite remember why he had wanted to become a guard in the first place, but he did know that it was the most important goal he had at the moment.

“I will remember you, Riley.” Ekaterina replied.

“Finch.”

“Finch.” She nodded.

Gwenhime dismissed them not too long after. Yuvelliya was asleep. Gwenhime said she would be better in three or four days.

Finch exited and stepped out into the field. It seemed that it had stopped raining. Even now, in the damp, cloudy light, it was beautiful. He stared out to the north for a while, and then looked at the nearby mountain. He sighed.

A man exited the castle behind him. Finch turned and saw that it was a Riley. This must be the man who dropped the beam. Finch decided to follow him, mostly out of boredom.

The man headed into the city. Finch trailed him, as if he was in a pretend game of seek the hidden. He passed his own house. His father would not be home, not yet. It wasn’t long after when the man stopped and went into a larger looking house. The guard must pay well. That’s good.

Finch heard some shouts from within, and then a few moments later a small girl jumped out of the building looking mildly cross. She was also a Riley, with short cut hair that came just far enough to cover her eyes. She had pale skin, and dark-lined eyes, the signature look of the Riley. She caught his eyes with her own, a pale green stare.

“Jutt?” Finch said.

“Hey Finch. I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“Yeah, you look older.” He said.

Jutt shrugged, “I am older.”

She started walking south, and Finch followed.

“Where are we going?” He asked.

“I don’t know. I might go down to the university. I like it there.”

“What?” This utterly confused Finch, “Why go there if we’re still in secondary school?”

“I don’t know. I like to sit in on classes. I’m going to try and fast track my secondary school so that I can attend early.” She said, “We’re in a holiday now, but I would still rather be learning. If it would get me out of secondary faster, anyway.”

“You can do that?” He was surprised.

“Sit in on classes? Yes, they don’t really care as long as there’s room. Exit secondary faster? Yes to that too. Usually you get out at sixteen, right, four years after you join. Well, you can cut it down to fifteen, fourteen if you’re some sort of prodigy.”

She gave him a dull, but meaningful look from behind her hair.

“Oh, yeah.” He had forgotten that he was known as a prodigy, because of all the textbooks he used to read.

“What are you learning with that prince anyway?” Jutt asked.

“Well, I’ve learned about alleles, and vectors, and functions, and about the Solune-Metch wars as well as the founding of the kingdom.” He replied.

“That’s final year stuff,” Jutt said, “You never told me you were fast tracking.”

“I- I’m not!”

“I think your teacher is highly unorthodox if you’re learning that stuff so early.”

“We just go at my own pace!” He huffed.

Jutt crossed her arms, “See, this is why people call you the prodigy. Stuff like this. Accidentally being three years ahead in school subjects.”

“Well,” Finch wasn’t sure how to make himself sound dumber, “I don’t take holidays either…”

“Hmph.”

Finch didn’t know what to say. Finch just looked back and forth down the streets as they passed them. He saw a shabby looking temple, and felt a sudden emptiness in his stomach. Jutt followed his gaze lazily.

“Shame he’s dead, huh.”

“What? Who?” Finch asked.

“The East Metch guy who owned that temple. They say it’s lucky he was able to draw up a will on his deathbed, otherwise it would have been a hell to figure out who to give his possessions to.”

“So,” Finch pondered, “Who owns the cathedral now?”

Jutt shrugged, “All I can tell you for sure is that it’s not me.”

They came to the academic district. Finch had never been here, but already he was happy he had come. It made him really excited, being around all this knowledge.

“Alright, I’m in! How does it work? What do we do?” Finch asked.

“Hmm? Oh, we wait.” Jutt said flatly.

Finch looked around. The plants here seemed overgrown, grasses tall enough to seed, and dripping vines running up the buildings. This made Finch even happier. These people didn’t bother with the look of the buildings because they were focused on the knowledge on the inside! He also realized that there were quite a few different buildings, many were different sizes, and some looked older than others.

Jutt started walking, and Finch fell into step beside her. They stayed out of the damp grass as they moved.

“So,” He said, “Which one is the university building?”

“All of them. What subject are you interested in?”

“Uh, Natural Studies.”

“That’s this way.”

They walked past the first set of visible buildings, and Jutt navigated through what was almost a maze. The path they walked on was covered in gravel. Finch had the vague suspicion that this had once been a dirt foot trail, and that the school had simply covered it in gravel and pronounced it an official path.

They came to a building that looked like a regular, albeit large inn on one side. The other side was mostly made of large panes of glass.

Finch looked at Jutt, and she said simply, “For plants.”

After a couple of minutes, many young adults exited the building.

“Now we just wait for others to come in, and then we just follow someone to a class.” She said.

“Oh.”

Finch wasn’t sure if it would end up being that easy, but it really was. He diligently followed Jutt, who in turn was tailing a young man with unusually long black hair. He reached out and grabbed Jutt’s hand so that he could look around freely without losing her. She gave him a passive look, and continued her task.

The inside of the building was even more interesting than the outside. They walked through halls, and went up stairs, and Finch read every door label. He noticed after a while that a brunette woman was following them. Finch had just assumed that she was going to the same class, but after staring at him for a moment, she vanished in the crowd. They soon found themselves in a classroom. It was far bigger then Yuvelliya’s. Finch expected it could fit forty or fifty people.

“We’ll sit at the back,” Jutt said, “We don’t want to draw too much attention.”

Finch nodded, and they sat down. He then realised his hand was in hers and so he let go. Jutt, who always wore black cargo pants, pulled out a small notepad and a fountain pen.

“I think this is the biochemistry room.” She mumbled, flipping through her book.

There were a lot of headers on her pages, subjects Finch knew, and others he didn’t. She flipped to one titled biochemistry just as the brunette woman strode in.

“Oh.” Finch said. That explained why she was following them.

The class itself, while very interesting, went almost entirely over Finch’s head. He glanced at Jutt every now and then. About half the time he was sure that she was just as lost as him, but other times she listened intently and even jotted down a few words in her book. At the end of it all, Finch surveyed the inkboards at the front of the room in amazement.

He had no idea what had just happened, but he wanted more.

“Can we do that again? Like, right now?” Finch asked.

“That was the plan.” Jutt replied, stowing her book away.

And then Finch realized that the teacher, the brunette, was walking towards them. The rest of the class had nearly all exited by now. Jutt noticed her too, but remained silent, putting away her pen.

“You two are not students here.” The woman stated.

Finch started to panic. Were they not allowed to be here? What was going to happen? Were they now in trouble?

Jutt crossed her arms defiantly, “Is that a problem?”

The woman considered Jutt, just a short girl with hair nearly covering her eyes.

“I’ve seen you around here before.” The teacher said to Jutt.

“That’s because I’ve been here before.”

The woman frowned, but pulled a card out of her pocket, saying, “You should register.”

“Register?”

“Not as a student, I’m sure you’re too young, but rather as an unrestricted learner. That way, at least you’re in the system. You can even start logging your courses. Of course, you cannot obtain credits until you have your secondary school papers, but logs are quite favourable additions to applications.”

Jutt had loosened up as the woman went on.

“Oh. Thank you.” Jutt said, taking the card.

“I don’t have one for your friend, but he can request one himself if he’s interested.”

“Yeah.”

The brunette teacher exited.

“Woah,” Finch said, “Favourable additions to applications!”

Jutt did something that Finch had never seen her do. She smiled.

“Yeah,” She said, “Let’s go to the secretarial building and register. Like, right now.”

Finch nodded vigorously.

 14 Good Servant

Last night, Alice had crossed off the final day of the second last month. There were only forty three days now, as she had left five days before this month’s end. There were no classes for her today. She was just helping her second father, Jithin.

“Hurry up Alice, we don’t have much time,” He called out across the skeleton of a house.

Apart from becoming the strongest person on the workforce, Alice had also learned to climb, and had also developed a strong sense of balance to go with it. Today was the first day of the week, a day off. But, Jithin was eager to finish the roof.

She called down from the frame of the second storey, “Really? It’s only midday, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, well, we had better be back home before noon.” He stared up into the sky.

“Why?”

“Don’t worry about all that. It is best that we go home soon. Actually, let’s leave right now.”

He began to pack away his tools, and took off his work belt.

Alice was surprised, but she listened. She leap down, dropping fourteen cubits with a thud. Jithin was sure that the earth must have quaked. This young woman was over 220 pounds by now.

Alice and Jithin walked home together. Jithin wore brown tattered work pants, and a sleeveless shirt with a few holes in the front, near the bottom. His face was as hairy as his chest, mostly because he couldn’t be bothered to shave. Too much effort. His arms looked strong, but they were not toned or contoured, unlike Alice’s.

Alice herself looked like a tall weight trainer, but the closer you approached her, the shorter she appeared. She was actually still shorter than him, and hadn’t grown much in height recently, despite continually growing in muscle. Supposedly the Plainkind were short, so he doubted she would grow further.

She was also beginning to cost a lot in food, as she preferred raw meats to affordable things like bread and lettuce. It seemed Alice was a no-filler kind of eater. Jithin now found himself asking the butcher for entire animal carcasses. Alice would consume them, making sure not to waste the blood, and then she wouldn’t eat for three or four days.

Jithin had once asked her if she was a vampire, drinking blood so. Alice had laughed.

“I don’t know what that is, but if it means someone who drinks blood, then I guess I am one!”

He asked Oritha about this unusual habit, and she had just nodded, “The Plainkind require more iron than most. In their homeland there is no water, it’s a desert. One-hundred percent of their liquid intake is blood.”

Jithin had laughed, musing that his daughter was a vampire.

When they arrived to the cramped home, Alice ran up her ladder. She sat on her bed, staring at her calendar for a while. Downstairs, Jithin took a jar of water from the cool-box and took a drink. He sat down on his second-hand couch. It was the signature colour of second-hand couches, green-brown. After a few minutes, Alice came down and followed his footsteps, taking a jar and sitting down on the wiry and creaky chair across from him.

“So why did we stop?” She asked.

“We shouldn’t be out in town this afternoon.” He said.

Now Alice was really curious, “Why? Why?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Alice crossed her arms. What were they going to do for the rest of the day? And in this small house? Maybe her second father would tell her another story! Or, they could read one of the tall tales of Victimus and his noble mystical horse! Alice figured out exactly what she wanted to know.

“Hey, you said you had a family once, right?”

Jithin nodded. He seemed to agree that this was a good time.

“Yes. That was when I lived in Hannibal.” He nodded.

He took a deep drink of his water, and then put it down.

“The buildings here are all sturdy. Murdock was built under the intelligent watch of the Solune King. Hannibal is an architectural nightmare. Some buildings are amazing, most are decent, but others look like they were based off of the plans of someone who had spun around fifty or sixty times before putting pen to paper.

“It was one such building, a temple of the Servant of Death, that had fallen. It had always looked threatened by the wind, but I never imagined that it actually was. We had been walking home, we had just picked up school books for my boy’s first day at school. But after the crash, I looked back, and just saw stone, wood, and glass.”

Alice looked horrified, then sad. She shed a few tears.

But moments later, her face turned to anger, “Did you say the Servant of Death?”

“Yes. Sometimes I fancy that my family were some sort of chosen ones by her. Marked.”

Jithin shrugged.

Alice crossed her arms, her face in a tense grimace. Jithin watched her eyes brighten a little.

“Conflict. Death. Are there no good Servants?” She shouted suddenly.

“What? Well, a few people like Birth. And Mother Nature is a favourite of the N’Tariel people.” Jithin wasn’t sure where this was going.

“Okay, fine, but are there no Servants that are nice? Like, a Servant of happiness! Or joy!” Alice nodded at these fine suggestions.

“I suppose Tendrils? The Servant of Tendrils? He watches potential timelines and tries to guide the world towards a better future.”

“Hmm…” This wasn’t good enough for Alice.

“Really, Martin knows more about Servants than I do. I think he’s an Agent.” Jithin said.

Alice stood, and walked out the door.

It took Jithin a few minutes to realize that she had just walked out to danger. Worried, he stood up to go find her, hoping that he would not encounter them.

Alice strode towards the main street, but just before reaching it, she turned right, and began scaling a wooden, two storey house. She hopped onto the roof, and knocked on a trap door. It swung inward, and a dark haired man watched her with his unusually large black irises.

“Hello Alice. Come inside, it’s dangerous today.” He said.

Alice jumped in, just as Jithin rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of her sandy hair.

Martins house was also small. The second floor was a metal workshop, and the first was his living quarters.

“Are there any good Servants?” She asked him.

“What?” He asked, and then, “Tendrils, Birth…”

“There isn’t one for being happy?” She said.

“No, not really.”

“Hmph.” Alice crossed her arms.

Outside, Jithin looked for the door, only to find out that there was none. He would have to climb, and he wasn’t particularly good at that.

Alice sat down on an anvil.

“So, why is it dangerous today anyway?” She asked.

“Bandits have been spotted.”

“Aren’t there guards?”

“No. Only the cities have guards. The shops are closed now, but they aren’t locked. If you don’t let them in they break in. Generally, the shops will leave a convincing amount of coin in their tills too.”

“What? No one stands up to the bandits?” Alice was surprised.

“Some of them we do. But this is the band of Diesel Dirge. She isn’t afraid of killing people. Some say she’s marked as one of Death’s followers, so killing is easier for her. Rewarding even.”

By now, Jithin was on the roof, and he opened the hatch and dropped it.

“Am I ever popular today,” Martin said.

“I think we’ll be staying here until night, Martin. Sorry to disturb you, but I saw them coming from the roof. They’ll be in town very soon.” Jithin said.

For the first time in her life, Alice sneered. She crossed her arms.

“They aren’t taking anything today.” She said, opening up the ceiling door once more.

“What?” Jithin stared at her, and then as she climbed out, he shouted, “No! Stop!”

Both men followed her out, Martin more out of curiosity than anything. Alice jumped down from the roof and headed to the main street. Jithin cursed. He would have to climb down.

“You know what?” Martin said as Jithin began to descend, “I’m one of the King’s Agents. It’s my duty to help her stop bandits.”

“That’s great, but-”

Martin interrupted him, “Go find anyone who will join us.”

“What?”

“Tell them that we’re out there. Tell them that Alice’s Militia is standing up to the bandits with the help of a man of the King.”

Jithin’s voice caught in his throat, so instead he just nodded. He scaled down the wall, and let go three-quarters of the way down. It hurt his ankles, but it was worth it. Martin followed him down shortly after.

Alice stood in the middle of Main Street tentatively watching the bandit group approach. All but two of the nine were Riley. The leader, this Diesel Dirge, had the expression of someone who thought very highly of themselves.

Diesel had a slow, confident gait, and her head was tilted up so that she looked down on everyone. He eyes were squinted a little, and she was flanked by two large men, one Solune, the other an unusually tall Riley.

“What are you supposed to be? Some sort of mutated Solune?” Diesel scoffed.

Alice was the shortest and youngest of them all. She looked up and them and smiled brightly.

“Hallo, I’m Alice! I am have to ask not that you steal anything.” She said.

“Just stay out of my way and there won’t be any trouble, lass.” Diesel said.

“I am here in your way,” Alice stated , “But if you’re just as visitors coming here, there will not have issue.”

“What the hell is wrong with your speech? Get out of the way, girl!”

Her two flanks stepped forward. The Riley punched his fist, the Solune cracked his knuckles.

Alice’s first plan was to try to befriend them. It wasn’t working, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet. Alice wasn’t sure if her second plan, to fight, would work out or not. It made her nervous. There were quite a lot of them, and she was a sixteen-year-old girl.

Despite all this, Alice sure she would not be able to convince them to stop. And yet, she didn’t mind. She hadn’t fought seriously, not once, and something primal within her was calling out, crying for the hunt. But Alice had developed a high tolerance, she was very patient thanks to her schooling, and also to being among the children of Murdock.

“I’m sure we can be friends? If you do not break any then rules everything is good.” Alice offered.

Diesel wasn’t paying attention any more.

“Kill her.” She muttered absently.

 15 Bandit Slayer

“I said kill her.”

The two henchmen strode into action. The Riley one strode forward, reaching for Alice’s neck.

Alice closed her eyes for a moment. Deep down, she had been hoping for this. She very much wanted to hunt. It had been an urge for a very long time, but Ilias’s father, she knew, was not a good target. But these people were bad. She had clearly been marked for death by the leader.

Alice grabbed the man’s hand and bent all of his fingers backward.

“Ahh!”

The Solune, realizing that this was no longer a joke, threw out a fist. It moved with uncanny speed, and Alice was hit. She felt no pain, as if she had been hit by a strong gust of wind as opposed to a fist.

She had never punched, and had never even seen a punch. She copied him, and punched back. The Solune man flew back three cubits.

Alice smiled, and Diesel stepped back. This must have been some sort of signal, because the other six members of her band rushed forward and fell upon Alice. Alice, feeling rather excited at the prospect of combat, rushed towards them.

Most of them drew swords. Alice didn’t know what they were, but she was smart enough to recognize that these extended knives would be dangerous. She opened her fists and bared her claws.

“Watch out Alice!” She heard a voice, her father’s voice.

She didn’t have time to look for him, but she saw the second Solune drain his eyes down his cheeks. He fired twin beams of plasma from his eyes, a dull yellow. They hit Alice, searing her flesh like a brand. Her face tensed further, and the tension moved down her neck, to her shoulders and then to her arms and abdominals. Her eyes blazed bright red.

She felt her muscles shift positions. She did not realize this, but they had shifted into positions appropriate for hunting.

The burning stopped, the laszors disappearing. Alice saw more metal bolts rain into her enemies.

And then, they clashed. Five Riley, men and women, attacked her. This was a mistake, as they got in each other’s way. Like the rest of her body, Alice’s skin had become very tense. Swords cut into the skin, but not many could get deep enough to draw blood.

She bared her teeth and clawed at the woman in front of her, sticking four fingers into the abdomen, and throwing the Riley back.

Behind her, one of the bandits got the clever idea to thrust. All of his force pushed towards her, concentrated on a point, and he pierced deep into her back. Alice turned, and the sword turned with her. She had accidentally disarmed the man. She swiped, gouging into his chest, and the punched him away. There were only three now.

Alice realized that there were other men fighting alongside her. Martin was stationed on a rooftop, firing bolts. Her father was pummelling the Solune she had punched earlier. In fact, it seemed that there was a whole allied army around her, keeping those that she had beaten down previously out of the fight.

Alice instinctively let out a piercing shriek, a battle cry. She stared up at her enemies, looking exactly like the kind of monster everyone in Murdock had thought she was.

Two of the men, following their comrade’s example, thrust into Alice’s flesh. One hit her chest, the other her right arm. Alice pulled the sword from her chest and smacked the pommel into its owner’s face with her left arm. Her right was now injured. She could use it, but it would hurt. The third Riley must have realized it was still usable, so she thrust into it as well. They pulled their blades from her arm and Alice began bleeding freely.

One of them got piked in the neck by Martin, and in a wild fury Alice grabbed the other one by the shirt and lifted her up. She launched the poor soul into Diesel Dirge.

Dirge sidestepped, and then strode into the fight, her face a mask. She drew an axe with a small head, the appropriate size for battle. She swung expertly at Alice’s bleeding arm and hacked into it. Alice thrust her left arm, claws jutting forward.

Dirge swung towards the arm with ease. She had training, skill. Alice was nothing more than a scary looking monster, a brute.

“Come on you degenerate. Can’t you do any better than that?” Diesel laughed as her axehead cut into muscle.

Alice shrieked again, her long canines jutting out of her mouth. She reacted with speed, using the scream as a ruse and cutting forward with her injured arm.

It was the most painful think Alice had ever done, but she forced her right ahead with all of her effort. Her nails cut towards Diesel’s neck, and she pulled up, lifting the Riley up by the jaw.

Diesel swung, teeth clenched, her axe hitting Alice’s neck. It shuddered as if she had tried to harm a mountain, and Dirge lost her grip. The axe clanged onto the ground.

Alice wasn’t really in the mood to speak, so she just said, “Exit the town.”

Everyone else had finished a while ago, and was caught dumbstuck. Jithin came to his senses and stepped forward.

“This town is now protected by Alice’s Militia. Feel free to tell your friends.” He said.

Alice thrust her arm up suddenly, and then lowered Dirge to the ground. She clutched at her throat and stared at the creature before her.

As Alice’s breathing slowed, her muscles shifted back in their normal positions. Her form became less brutish, her skin less tense. Her eyes faded back to maroon, and she put her teeth away.

 16 Septenary Dusk

“Oh, it is, ah, it’s good that you’re here.” Yuvelliya mumbled as Finch entered Gwenhime’s small clinic.

“Yeah?” He said.

Yuvelliya javelined a roll of paper to him from her bed. Finch caught it. It was a report dated for one week prior.

It read, “Gavria, I hope all is treating you well. Please pass this along to the leader of the Agents, the King, when you are finished with it.

“We have just taken up arms against bandits in Baracus city. It was primarily the work of a Plainkind girl. They are just as fierce a people as the reports claim, and I suggest recruiting from the west when the walls open in a few years. Baracus will be needing a guard, please reallocate some of Murdock’s and Hannibal’s forces to Baracus. I think we may have put a target on this town.

“From Martin Æisticht.”

Finch looked at Yuvelliya’s bandaged face. She looked a lot better now.

“Tomorrow,” She said, “We will be learning about Plainkind.”

When Finch left, the first thing he did was search for Jutt. She was sitting in the field, leaning against the castle wall. Likely, she was waiting for him. They had been meeting up all week, since both of them had no classes at the moment. He told her the news, and asked her if she knew what a Plainkind was.

“They say Alice was a Plainkind. That’s why she looked so frightening, was the claim. But none of us have ever seen a Plainkind, so it’s hard to know for sure.” She said, and then continued, “I learned about them in university. Apparently they are one of the few races created by someone other than Mother or Father Nature.”

“What? Who made the Plainkind?”

“They claim it was the Servant of the Djeb. But, I don’t know who the Djeb follow.”

“The Djeb?” Finch felt like he had heard this word before in his classes.

“Yeah. It’s the biggest city around. It’s not inside this Kingdom, it’s to the west, past the deserts.” Jutt murmured.

“Oh.”

The next day, Yuvelliya spent a lot of time talking about the various races.

“The North Metch and East Metch used to be the same race about three thousand years ago. The North Metch were never an issue for us, but the East Metch were quite territorial,” She said, “There are also the Elken to the north, and further still north you can find the 100% Riley.”

“The what?” Finch jumped.

“What percentage of Riley blood do you have?” Yuvelliya pointed her ink marker at him.

“Umm, I think seventy-five.”

“Right! Up to ninety-five is considered stable. There are no higher amounts in the Kingdom, if there are, they are likely locked away by now. The 100% Riley are an insane race. It’s amazing that they’ve survived for so long. They prefer to feed on other human races. They found the Solune particularly delicious, that’s why we travelled south, here.”

“What…” Finch felt a little strange to hear that his ancestors were cannibals.

Yuvelliya nodded, “Right. The human biologist, Arkine Resz- What is it?”

Finch was waiving both hands in the air. He said, “What is a human?”

“Oh, sorry, ‘human race’ is a term that covers all races descended from the ancient and terrifying humans.”

“What’s an ancient human?” He asked.

Yuvelliya sighed, but this tangent was highly relevant, so she obliged.

“The humans were highly adapted collaborative hunters. The females had two thumbs, better to grip and strangle its prey. The males had split forearms, for better climbing. That’s actually why we have two bones running down each forearm. Once, they were two separate arms, for males anyway.”

“I thought it was rotation?”

“That came later. Humans rotated with their shoulder joints. From what we can tell, the males scouted, and the females killed.”

“Wow.” Finch was amazed. He scribbled a note as Yuvelliya went to the inkboard.

She uncapped her marker and wrote the word άνθρωπος. She drew a line downward.

“The most direct descendant of the human was the Metch, which divided further into the East Metch, North Metch, and Djeb.”

There was that word again! “What are the Djeb?”

“They’re a race from the far west. My mother told me of them. Apparently, they revere the Servant of Birth.”

“Is Birth the one that created the Plainkind?” Finch was getting excited.

“What? I, ah, I am not sure…” Yuvelliya trailed off. She would have to look this up.

“Anyway, we’re getting to that,” She continued, “So, the humans that managed to find their way to the Underside fell under the influence of Father Nature and became the Sollussa. On the Overside, Mother Nature focused on a group of humans. She primarily ignored the Metch and let them develop naturally. The humans she turned her eyes to became the unusual bird-like Obsidian race.”

“Obsidian…” Finch copied down the tree.

“The Obsidian had a mentality issue though. Mother Nature’s influence has a strange habit of driving a small percentage of her people mad. That’s what happened to the second generation humans actually. Drove themselves extinct. The Obsidian knew this, and their counter measure was to exile anyone who tore their own exoskins off.”

“They what?!” Finch shouted.

“Oh, I forgot to mention. The Obsidian have a thick, black leather exoskin. If you tear it off, then you’d see pale, but regular looking flesh. That’s actually why Riley are so pale.”

Finch stared at his hands, shocked.

“They exiled all the less sane Obsidian people, and those became the Riley. When the Riley began to eat and also mix with the Solune, we rebranded them as the one-hundred-percent.”

Finch’s breathing became heavy.

Yuvelliya paused a moment, and then beside Obsidian she added, Elken.

“That was another heavily influenced race. That is why the Elken are so spiritual.”

Then she put her marker next to human, and to its right she added Κολλυρίων, then drew a line downward and wrote Πεδιάδαγένος.

“Shriken, and then Plainkind.”

“Plainkind…”

“Right. The Shriken were a fierce race. To be created by Birth would make sense. As you can see, the Plainkind are not human related at all.”

“Can they interbreed?” Finch asked. He wasn’t sure why this concerned him.

“I’m sure with the help of Birth it would not be too difficult. The Shriken were too powerful, so Mother Nature weakened them.”

A sudden realization crossed Yuvelliya’s face.

“Ah!”

She opened a large text book labelled, Aνθρώπινη. At the back, she found an entry on Plankind and read. Finch meanwhile, was taking notes on his heritage.

“Okay, I was right! The Servant of Birth created the Shriken, and made them extremely overpowered. Mother Nature became extremely cross with her son, and silenced his voice to the ears of the Plainkind. He then moved west and began to influence the people of the Djeb instead. The result is that over the years the Shriken devolved into the Plainkind.

“It wasn’t an evolution! The Plainkind are a post-celestial race! They were created by a Servant, and then abandoned!”

Yuvelliya called for the end of class, and then grabbed her tome and ran, literally ran down to the royal library. Finch stared at the board, dumbfounded. Like the Plainkind, he felt slightly abandoned.

 17 Octonary Dusk

“Happy fourteenth.” Ilias said.

Finch smiled. His father had made a big breakfast. Ilias had been in much higher spirits since he had begun to work full time. He had switched from hunting to cullinary, and he was enjoying it much more. Further, he was making more money. Finch sat down and they ate.

Ilias smiled, “It has been a while since we could afford such pleasantries.”

He took a pie from their hot box.

“This is what I do now. Desserts.”

“Wow!”

Ilias nodded sagely, “If I keep this up, I’ll be working in the castle cafeteria very soon.”

“Awesome.” Finch didn’t even know what to say about it.

He didn’t know his father was so talented at desserts. They had never been able to afford desserts.

What Finch was really eager for, however, was joining the guard. After eating, he sprinted to the castle and found Ekaterina.

“Hello, youth.” She said.

“Finch. I’m Finch, don’t you remember?”

“No.” Ekaterina lied.

“Whatever. I’m fourteen now. I want to join the guard.”

Ekaterina crossed her arms.

“All right. The test day is today. I am unsure as to how it landed on your birthday, but I am sure that Yuvelliya’s rescheduling had something to do with it.”

Ekaterina looked down on him, “You had better be worth her efforts, child.”

There were two parts to the guard test, the written, and the practical. Finch was certain he aced the written, as he had been studying the guard for years now. The practical was a struggle for him though. He wasn’t the only one who applied either.

It turned out that Artus had tried out too, as well as Hallin, Halith, Alm, Millich, and Roah. There was also a dark skinned young man who Finch had never seen before. She had heard that there were dark skinned people, but he had never seen one before now.

Well, the dark man ended up acing everything. He was incredibly strong and fast. Finch struggled, and began to feel jealous of the man.

At the end of the first test, Finch approached him, panting.

“I am Finch.” He said.

The man nodded, “I am Orison. You are Riley.”

Finch nodded, “You?”

“N’Tariel.”

Finch had learned about all the races known, but he had never heard of N’Tariel.

“What?” He asked, and then a little more politely, “I’ve never heard of the N’Tariel.”

“We are known in some places as the North Metch. It as a name we do not enjoy. We call ourselves the N’Tariel and would that others call us this as well.”

“Oh.” Finch would have to tell Yuvelliya about this.

At the end of it all Ekaterina lined them up outside the castle, in the courtyard that the Kingdom Halls surrounded.

She had a clipboard, and her Vice-Captain Vinth was with her.

“So,” She sneered, “Since a large portion of our force had been divided to aid Baracus,”

She was cut off by Artus, “What happened in Baracus?”

“They’ve started defending themselves, finally. It seems that someone named Alice started a militia, so Martin has requested a formal guard. And do not interrupt!”

Ekaterina continued.

“Since a large portion of our force is now missing, the format has been changed. No longer do you need to pass the tests, now simply, you must not fail. Thus, even those who did poorly on the physical,”

She glanced at Finch and Alm.

“And those who did poorly on the written,”

She looked at Orison for a long time,

“Will also be allowed to join. All have passed. Please return tomorrow, and bring your measurements. For your uniform.”

Finch’s heart raced. He gave Artus a reverse salute, and then sprinted home.

 18 Plains Woman

With a trembling hand, Alice crossed out the last day on her calendar. She had had her birthday just yesterday, but she hadn’t told anyone. She didn’t want to create a fuss the day before she left.

She had told Jithin a while ago that she was going to leave soon, and when she climbed down her ladder with a backpack on, he was waiting for her.

He said, “I am going with you.”

Alice had not been expecting this, “Don’t worry, I am an adult now. I turned nineteen just yesterday.”

Jithin’s brow furrowed. He started counting on his fingers.

“Alice, you’re only fifteen or sixteen in adjusted Solune years. The Plainkind don’t reach maturity until the age of twenty-one.”

Alice blushed, and pushed her fists down at her side, “Well I used to live on my own just fine!”

Jithin gave her a sort of pleading, imploring look.

She shook her head, “You can move to Murdock with me if you want. But! I am not going to wait for you! I have to get back as soon as possible. I have an appointment.”

“That calendar?”

Alice nodded. Before she could leave, four men and a woman entered the little house. Alice knew these people, it was Jithin’s work crew.

“Hello, Workhorse, we heard you were leaving today!” One of them said.

“Yes!” The woman said, “I talked to the owner of the Keeper. We’re throwing you a party. A goodbye party!”

“Ah!” Alice smiled.

She wasn’t sure why, but the woman had brought a suitcase with her. When they entered the Keeper, all of Alice’s Militia was already there, along with Oritha and Martin. They all cheered.

Alice milled about, excitedly saying her goodbyes and telling everyone about her plans to return to her childhood friends, and about Finch. She told the story of how Finch had helped her so many times, she was sure everyone had heard it twice.

Then, as Alice was describing Finch’s hair to Oritha, the woman from Jithin’s crew slammed her suitcase on the table. Oritha jumped, and Alice turned to stare at her.

“What is all that, Arihanna?” Alice asked her.

Arihanna crossed her arms, “You’re three and a half cubits tall right? So am I. It’s clothes.”

Alice heard clapping behind her. A few of the militia cheered.

She heard one say, “Yeah, dress her up!”

Jithin called out too, “You don’t want to be wearing work clothes when you meet up with your boyfriend!”

Alice looked down at her brown coveralls. She didn’t really care, but after all, it couldn’t hurt to arrive looking pretty. She blushed a little.

“Oh.” She said in a small voice.

Arihanna smiled at her, and busted open the trunk. She pulled out a green dress.

“There are no legs.” Alice said.

“That’s the point. It looks cute.” Arihanna said.

Alice looked around, frowning. She didn’t want to wear such a stupid looking article no matter how cute it was supposed to look.

“I want something I can climb in without showing my underwear.” Alice stated.

Arihanna had realized that the dress was not impressing Alice, and so she threw it aside.

“Green doesn’t work for you anyway.”

Oritha watched all this, as they were sitting at her table. She said, “I’m sure you’ll find that Alice’s colour is orange.”

Arihanna nodded, and dug. She pulled out an orange dress. It was very short, the kind of thing you wear if you really want to show off thigh.

Alice noticed, and turned a little pink. Arihanna handed it to Alice, and then found a pair of white capris, and handed those to her too.

“Oh.” Alice said again.

“Well, go to the washroom and-” But Alice had already changed clothes before she finished.

“Hmm?” Alice asked.

“Well then!” Arihanna said, “Look at this! It’s perfect! Turn around, Alice.”

Alice did a little spin as Jithin came to the table and sat down next to Oritha.

“It looks great!” He said.

“Just one thing.” One of Jithin’s crew had followed him. It was a very slick and beautiful Riley man who Alice knew to be called Elliot.

He pushed his greased hair further back and took off his taupe-white scarf and proceeded to wrap it around Alice’s waist. Then, he tied a large beautiful bow at her back. He double knotted it so that it wouldn’t undo, no matter how far she ran. Elliot was quite aware of how rough Alice was.

Elliot pushed Alice’s chest, “Child, you have no chest and your hips are small. The only thing you have going for you is your slim waist.”

Alice’s face burned, turning from pink to red.

She said simply, “Oh.”

Arihanna piped up, “Well, she has a pretty face too!”

Elliot crossed his arms, “Yes, but she’s not about to put clothing on her face. Actually…”

Elliot reached across and took the hair clip out of Arihanna’s hair. Arihanna also blushed. The clip had a silver flower on it.

“Is this not a desert lily?” He asked.

“Yes, it is. Yes.” Arihanna stammered.

Alice swayed a little as she watched them. She wondered if they knew each other, or if they had just met.

Elliot noticed her stare, “That is perfect! A desert flower for our desert prince.”

He tied Alice’s hair back.

“Oh!”

Arihanna pulled a mirror from her suitcase. It was so large that Alice wondered how it had fit. She saw herself. She tilted her head left, then right, then she swayed and twisted. She clapped her hands together.

“Wonderful!” She said, “But, I can’t take all these things from you…”

Oritha spoke now, “Alice, dear, was it not your birthday only yesterday?”

Elliot clapped, “Happy birthday, Alice!”

It seemed that her game of dress-up had become a sort of exhibition, because the rest of the inn had heard them. They all chorused happy birthday, cheering. Oritha nodded her approval.

As things began to wind down, Alice waved goodbye to everyone.

She leaned in to Arihanna and whispered, “You and Elliot should start a clothing store.”

And then she promptly exited.

Alice stopped at Main Street, realizing that there was a small group following her. It was Jithin, Oritha, and Martin.

“Dear, your schooling is not yet complete!” Oritha cried.

Alice looked down to her feet. She said, “There are more important things for me to do.”

Oritha nodded sombrely.

Martin said, “I’m coming too. I need to meet up with Gavria about the guards here.”

“So Baracus will be safe without me?” Alice asked.

“Yeah. Haven’t you seen? Murdock and Hannibal have both sent over those willing to relocate. We just need a formal Captain and Vice-Captain.”

A weight was lifted off of her shoulders. Jithin entered the square. Alice shook hands and gave out unlimited hugs. She was shorter than everyone, but also stronger.

Alice took a deep breath and stared off in the distance towards Murdock.

“It’s four-hundred kilocubits away. That’s a five day walk, if we walk eight hours.” Martin said to her.

Alice did a very slow calculation. Her brain was not good with maths, it was good with facts. Recollection.

Four-hundred kilocubits divided by five days. Eighty kilocubits per day. She had to keep track of her units or else she would be lost at the end. Okay, eighty divided by eight is ten. That’s ten per hour. And what was her top speed? Not sprinting, jogging. Alice wasn’t sure. She guessed forty kilocubits per hour. Four hundred divided by forty. Ten.

“I’ll be there in ten hours.” She said after nearly five minutes of calculation.

“What?” This made absolutely zero sense to Martin.

Alice turned to her second father, and to Oritha, who had become almost a grandmother to her. She waved.

“I’ll see you in five days, Alice!” Jithin called.

“Yeah.” Alice called. She ran back to him, and reached up. They embraced, and Alice shed a tear.

“Don’t worry, Alice, it’s only five days.”

Alice’s heart began to beat with excitement. For her, it was only ten hours. Adrenaline began to leak into her bloodstream, and she figured she had better start using it.

Alice had walked backwards all the way out to the town limits, waving.

She whispered, “It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later, Alice. It’s time to see Finch. It is later.”

And she pivoted. Alice began to canter, and then jog. Her muscles started to shift again, and before she realized it, her jog had turned to a low-energy sprint. She glided down the path, her bare feet gouging holes in the dirt.

“Woo!”

She stared ahead, and her eyes adjusted. She could see, far far in the distance. Plainkind eyes are almost telescopic. It was one of the many overpowered traits that remained from the days of Birth.

Alice had been right. It only took her ten hours to cross the four hundred kilocubit bridge between her and her destination. Before she knew it, Alice was at the outer walls of Murdock catching her breath.

 19 Nonary Dusk

Finch sat the roof of the Kingdom Hall of Enforcement and Taxation. Artus had been placed in the Castle Guard, so they hadn’t ended up working together. He gazed across the city.

It hadn’t been hard, what he had done. Again, people were calling him a prodigy, but this time about his guarding. This, he knew, was not true. Finch had practiced and learned for years. He knew every single relevant law and had memorized the entire handbook.

It made sense that he would become Vice-Captain eventually, everyone agreed. Really, it was only luck that he had taken the post so young, at the age of sixteen. The previous Vice-Captain had been the husband of the current Captain, and he retired.

Finch smiled at this.

The current Captain was an aged woman, who seemed to be permanently angry. There was a very specific reason that Finch hated the Captain, but he couldn’t remember it. It didn’t matter though, she too was going to retire, and in only one year. Finch knew he was the only eligible Captain. It was so easy!

He lay back and stared at the sky. The dawn was approaching, and the sky was getting brighter. Soon Horith, the leftenant of the night watch, would finish his shift, and Finch would start.

“No, you can’t do that. That isn’t how it works.” Finch told the scowling man.

“Yes it is! Look, I found it, so it’s mine!” He shouted.

Finch sighed. He hated dealing with people like this, but it was part of the job.

“Look,” He said, “The wallet has identification in it. This belongs to…”

He took a closer look.

“It belongs to Gavria Rhye. Wait, what the-” Finch stopped, not wanting to swear on the job, “That’s the Prince! Would you steal from royalty, Mr. Silch?”

The man, Silch, looked dumbstruck. He didn’t even speak, just shook his head. Finch told him to move along, and strode to the castle. He met up with Alm along the way and told him he was making a quick stop to the castle.

The Captain must have seen him through her window, because as he passed the guard tower, she rushed out to yell at him.

“Zeth!” She shouted, “What are you doing out of your post!”

Finch revealed the wallet.

The Captain stared at it. She figured out who it belonged to. Then, she yelled at Finch again.

“Where did you find this? I’ll be returning it! Get back to your post, child!”

Finch scoffed then walked off. Only one more year of this, right?

 20 Null Dusk

When Finch finished his shift, he headed for the castle. He wanted to ask Yuvelliya something. He wondered if maybe he could start taking night classes with her. It wasn’t like he did much after work, especially now that his friends had stopped playing and started working, or taking schooling more seriously.

Up until now, he had either played war games against his father, or sat in on classes with Jutt. There were also a few times that he and Jutt simply walked around town and discussed things.

They were together now, walking in the dusk. Finch had come up with the idea to request part-time education because of these conversations. He was always eager to ask her everything about her experience at post-secondary school.

Jutt had grown into a very interesting young woman. She was three years older than him. At eighteen she had started her career as a full-time student at the university. Finch was proud of her, but also extremely jealous. He would much rather be an academic than a guard. He began to wonder why he became a guard in the first place.

“So, what are you studying?”

“Chemistry and biochemistry,” She said, “It is very interesting.”

Jutt always spoke in very flat tones, but Finch had learned to pick up on her more nuanced emotion. It was clear to him that she was enjoying her studies.

“I am also minoring in music.”

“Music?” Finch didn’t know how to feel about this.

“I have always wanted to learn the violin. And the piano.” She nodded.

“I never knew.” Finch said.

They exited the town and reached the field he liked so much. The sun had almost set. It was very dark. Jutt and Finch’s eyes adjusted easily to the dark, due to their Riley ancestry. Even in the dim greys of night, the field was beautiful. He wanted to call it something, to give this place a fittingly beautiful name.

And then he stopped, grabbing Jutt’s arm. Finch had heard light breathing. He blinked, looking around at the blue and grey landscape. He saw something unusually bright, a tall figure with light coloured hair. It was a Plainkind woman.

Noct

21 The First Night

Night Fell. Finch strode towards Alice, consciously letting go of Jutt’s arm as he left her side. He reached out to her with both arms. He felt possessed almost. They embraced. Alice knew exactly what was going on because, like Finch, she could see just fine in the dark light.

Finch spoke, his head now level with Alice’s. She h grown faster than he in their four years apart, and now they were exactly the same height.

As they touched, something deep within him something primal stirred. He let out his whisper. All of these primal urges sought to deny him his words, to stop him from ruining their one chance, the change to be together with Alice.

It took a long time for the wind in his lungs to finally vibrate against his vocal folds.

“I have failed you. The guard will hunt you still.” He said, and then a piercing whistle came out of his maw.

Alice’s soft grip hardened. Her fingers dug into his back. She pushed him away.

“You failed?”

Alice had never, not once, considered that this could happen. That Finch would not hold up his end of the agreement. She leaped back and stared into his eyes. She saw his failure, his regret.

All of her anticipation, everything she had been looking forward to, everything she had been counting down, all of her hopes had been dashed. And it was all Finch’s fault. Worse, he had cowardly given up. Maybe he hadn’t even tried at all.

Apathy fell over her and at once every other thought became muted under its seething and pleasing relief.

Alice’s breathing intensified, eyes burning a bright red, hands baring long claws. She stepped closer to Finch and then opened her mouth so wide that her jaws unhinged, as a snake’s would. Her long, suddenly dangerous canines were now visible, clearly brandished. She stood, an armspan’s distance from Finch’s face and then shrieked.

Finch stiffened and stepped back, reaching out his hand to protect himself. Alice had turned into a monster before his eyes, talons ready, teeth bared. This was not how he wanted to reunite with her. He wasn’t scared, but he also wasn’t sure what she was going to do. That primal feeling stirred again within him, but the last thing it called for was a fight. Instead, paradoxically, Finch saw Alice with rosy eyes.

Alice leapt the short distance towards him, and then struck his feeble outstretched hand. Her index nail cut through the flesh between his thumb and index finger, piercing all the way through his hand.

She froze, staring him in the eyes. He saw her fear and all of her youthful adolescent insecurities. Finch didn’t really care if she, too, saw what he was feeling. His wound began to bleed, but it was too deep, and his nerves had not noticed yet. Finch was entirely unconcerned with the blood he was presently losing.

Alice stepped away. She looked at the city gates, and ran. She ran away.

Finch stared after her for what felt like a sixth.

“No…” He whispered.

Alice ran to the only place she knew would be safe. She ran to her triangular alley.

Thoughts flashed in her mind, emotion recollected in tranquility as she cantered. Finch had not been weak in his admission. He had also been wearing guard uniform. He had certainly tried. He had joined the guard at sixteen, maybe even earlier just for her. She knew he was an academic at heart. He had abandoned his own dreams, entirely for her sake. And then she had injured him. And she had stared into his face and seen an unexpected expression. He reacted with love, and understanding, and even a touch of something else.

Alice blushed. She was certain now, that he had seen her beastly Plainkind form as beautiful. When she reached the cathedral, she stopped and leaned her back on the door to think further. Her mind was slow, and could only concentrate in a limited capacity while she was running. She slumped and sat on the dirt and thresh.

Alice put her elbows on her knees, and her face in her hands. He bloody finger rested below her mouth. Her thoughts hovered between Finch and Victimus. Victimus was always saving, or being saved by a princess. Her name was Captialla. The children’s books always stated that they were in love, a true love, and that their relationship never wavered.

Alice had always identified with Victimus, as she too had suffered all her life, although in far less childishly comical ways. Was Finch Captialla? Was he the captivating object of her affection? Maybe it was the other way around, maybe she was Captialla, and Finch was the poor victim, the victim that had been doing his very best and had failed. Victimus had failed before.

What had Captialla done when her love had failed? Alice thought. She had… she had always saved herself, and then gone and saved him after, saved Victimus from his failure. And then, she forgave him when he said he was sorry. Forgiveness had always been a major theme of the Victimus stories.

Alice looked at her bloody finger. She had not forgiven Finch, but she still could. She stared up at the cathedral door. On it was a note, stitched into stiff and hardened leather and nailed to the wooden entrance. Alice stood up to read it, asshe was now entirely literate.

“Huh.” She said when she had finished, “That was awfully nice of him.”

She was not talking about Finch.

“It seems you do not know how to treat a lady,” Jutt said plainly.

Finch fell down, kneeling on the grass.

“Oh,” He turned to face her, “What should I do Jutt? Can you help me? Can you please help?”

Jutt pointed an accusing finger at him.

“You have to go find her.” She said, as though this was more obvious than breathing.

Finch tilted his head, “Why do you think that?”

“I used to read a lot of romance novels.”

“Used to?” His head tilted the other way as he asked.

“Yes. They’re all the same after a while, you see, so I had to stop.” Jutt shrugged, “It gets boring. Repetitive.”

Jutt walked over and fell beside him. They sat in silence together, then as suddenly has she had dropped, Jutt stood up and reached her hand down to Finch. He stared up and grabbed it with his still bleeding palm. Jutt pulled him to his feet and he winced, realizing suddenly that he was in immense pain.

“Don’t worry, Alice will understand. She is far from unreasonable.” Jutt stated.

Finch nodded, and then hugged Jutt.

They stood together. Finch said, “Ihave no idea where she is.”

Jutt said, “I have an idea. I’ll talk to you later.”

She awkwardly exited the embrace, and Finch realized that he had bled all over her back.

“Wait! This is important, what are you going to find out? How will it help with Alice?”

“I think I know where she went. I need to go to the tower of Law and Poetry before they close for the day,” She said, “And you need to go to a doctor before you die of blood loss.”

She was right. Finch stared at his hand. It had not stopped bleeding.

“Look, you made my back wet, so now you have to pay the consequences,” Jutt stated, “Take off your shirt.”

Finch looked at her, confused, but she immediately started doing the same, taking her shirt off. Finch stared at her shadowed form. She was a slim, like all Riley, but she was also unusually tall because she was half Solune. Her legs were strong from running, her arms slim, only really good for carrying books. Her stomach was flat and smooth. Jutt did not wrap her chest like most Solune did. Finch noticed that it had grown, but was always kept hidden under the shirt. It was not hidden now. Jutt looked at him, and he looked back.

“I’m not abandoning my clothing for your amusement. Although; I am flattered.” She gave Finch the most mischievous look he had ever seen.

Jutt had gotten that one from one of the more well written romance novels.

Finch coughed, almost vomited at his indecency, and then unzipped his uniform. They traded shirts. He noticed that had bled right through the back of hers.

Finch had not finished growing, but Jutt had. She was nineteen. Her shirt was too big for that reason, and because it had been baggy. His was too small. Jutt wasn’t exactly fit, but her slim Riley form was accentuated by it.

“You know,” Finch said, “You’re pretty good looking. You don’t really need romance books, you could just get a mate whenever.”

Jutt smiled at him, “No, I don’t need books, I told you that. You’re right though, I have had eyes on me for a while now. Girls notice stares, you know.” She looked at him meaningfully at this, “It’s just a shame none of the students at the university have realized how things work. Even you must know that a signal of interest is necessary to initiate a conversation.”

Jutt crossed her arms in the tight shirt. If she wasn’t so much like a sisterly, and sometimes even motherly, figure to him, he might have given her such a signal. Right now his heart was focused on someone a little less attractive and a lot more beautiful.

“I like this shirt. I’m going to keep it unless you ask for it back.” She said. And then, “Finch, aren’t you feeling a little emasculated now? Don’t you feel some sort of need to should figure out this situation on your own?”

“No, not really. If you know where Alice might have gone, then I need your help. Wouldn’t it be stupid to refuse your help now?”

Jutt tried to shrug, but it was hard for her to do.

“It would be stupid,” She said, “That’s actually one of the reasons I stopped reading romance, characters do a lot of stupid things to string the plot along. I’m happy you’re not like that. I’ll come back to you, just go get help. Your hand hasn’t stopped bleeding.

And then Jutt ran into the city and turned left.

Finch started to follow, but after a couple steps, he became very dizzy. Then he actually did vomit. Then, he fell over onto the ground. Then, after blinking a few times, he became unconscious with his eyes open. And he would have died from his wound, which was too large to heal on its own, if someone hadn’t been listening to Finch and Jutt’s echoing conversation with bashful interest.

The eavesdropper peered out from a castle window after hearing Finch’s thud and gasped at what she saw below.

 22 The Second Night

The voice he heard was sweet as treacle and intoxicating as syrup. Finch fell in love with it in moments. His thoughts were not currently attached to his memory, and would not be again until his blood had grown back. Right now, all he cared about was the beautiful voice of the n’juzu as she spoke. A n;juzu is an N’Tariel water spirit, known for beauty and timid nature. It has the shining dark skinned body of an Elkin or N’Tariel from the knees up, and the body of a black snake from the knees down. Finch wanted the creature to say more words, just to hear its voice.

He reached out longingly, and grasped fabric. He pushed again, and grabbed a shoulder.

“It looks like he’s getting better. You’re sure mom’s left town? We might get him to a hospital.” The n’juzu said.

“He will be fine.” This was the n’juzu’s sister. Her voice was not sweet at all. It had a different, more sinister allure to it, “Look, he slept all day today, you know? That’s a good sign. I know how this works, you need to sleep at least a full day to get that much blood back.”

“She’s right, he’ll be fine by tomorrow. I’m sorry we have to go so soon after helping you, but you know how it is.” This was a man.

“Yeah. I’m leaving for my hunt soon. Martin and I are going to catch Zealott.” The sister said.

“Oh my…” The n’juzu sounded nervous. Finch did not like to hear her sound so worried.

Finch tried to open his eyes. It sort of worked, and he gazed idly from his half-opened lids. He finally saw the n’juzu. The light skin was even more beautiful than its voice. He had a very strong to feel her skin on his, but he was too tired to move. His eyes swivelled to the other two.

The sister, he recognized the sister as the woman from the room a long time back. Again, she was wearing her dark jumpsuit. It was unzipped all the way to the navel. Like Jutt, this woman didn’t bind her chest. He nervously snapped his gaze to the man. It was the same man that had been with her all those years back.

He said, “Don’t worry Yuvelliya. Gavria and I will be doing the ceremony before we leave.”

The n’juzu, who Finch now learned was called Yuvelliya, replied, “So you will become her protector?”

Finch’s eyes went out of focus but he heard the man say, “Yes, and she mine.”

The n’juzu came into painfully sharp focus. She seemed relieved, but still concerned.

The man and the sister began to talk to each other.

“Martin, is Baracus dealt with?” Gavria asked.

“Yes. And in good time too, Alice left this morning. I did too, but it took me a bit longer to get here. That young woman must have strossmadoss blood in her or something, to cross land at such a speed.”

Finch felt like he should know who Alice was, or who Yuvelliya was, but right now those parts of his brain weren’t receiving enough blood to allow for the passage of memory.

“Hmm. I like how you speak of her. You talk as though she is some dear sister of yours, Martin. We should meet with her before we go,” Gavria nodded, “I would like to give her a few words, and also to see if she lives up to all you say.”

Martin shrugged, and Finch lost focus again. He closed his eyes, and the events that he had witnessed receded into his mind. He fell asleep once more.

 23 The Third Night

When Finch next woke, it was the evening of a third day. He lay in his bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling, and trying to fit the memory of the n’juzu in among the rest of his thoughts. He blushed a lot. He had been entirely captivated by Yuvelliya’s voice. He had wanted to touch her. Now that his brain had enough blood to think properly, this all seemed ridiculous.

Is that what he would have thought of her? What he would have felt if he had seen the Prince for the first time through adult eyes?

Then, Finch’s mind focused on Alice. He knew exactly what he had done with her memories, because it had happened the last time something bad had happened. This is what he did with bad memories, he piled information on top of them and tried to forget.

He blinked. His eyes were puffy, and he had a feeling he knew why. Finch lay back and thought. He would have to search the entire city for Alice, it was the only thing he could think of. Unless Jutt had come up with something.

For the first time, Finch realized he wasn’t in Gwenhime’s clinic as he had been last night. He was in his own room. They must have moved him. Finch opened the shutters. It was still dark, but he could see light blue in the distance. It was definitely dusk. He changed his clothes at high speed and then headed to the kitchen to raid the food cupboard, and then heard footsteps.

“Finch, you are okay?” His father asked.

Finch turned around, “Yeah, I guess. What time do you think it is?”

“Sun will be down in a two or three, I think.” Ilias said, sitting at the table.

Finch hadn’t noticed, but his father had already set dinner for them both.

“What was that you were saying the other day?” Ilias asked.

“What?” Finch took a water skin from the shelf and sat down too.

“You were saying something about getting your own place, now that you’ve been working for a couple years.”

“Oh yeah,” Finch remembered, “Yeah, but I decided that it might not be so good an idea if I decide to go to university after.”

Ilias smiled and nodded, “I definitely think you should study. You’ve always been someone who valued information. It was Natural Studies, am I right about that? You must keep in your  mind that doing something you like for your living improves your quality of life immensely.”

Finch had to agree. His father had become so much happier since he had started his job as a cook.

“Well, I’m off,” Finch said.

“Where to? Work?”

“No,” Finch said, “It’s Secast, I don’t work today.”

Illias nodded. He was on a different schedule, so he had forgotten.

“Well then where are you going?” His father asked

Finch thought for a moment, then said, “I’m going to find an old friend. We have a lot to talk about together.”

He put his on his feet sandals and then ran out into the streets. He figured he should head to Jutt’s house, and maybe even Artus’s. Although, maybe he would bring Artus along later.

Finch navigated the dark streets almost randomly. He had first headed to where he thought Jutt lived, the building that she had come out of that one day when Yuvelliya had been hit by the beam, but he didn’t recognize anything. He was lost now, and just wandered along aimlessly. Eventually, he found his way to the outdoor town square, surrounded by the six kingdom halls and the southern castle wall.

Jutt came out of one of the six towers with a look of triumph on her face.

“Oh, Finch.” Jutt still had a subdued manner about her.

Finch looked at his hand. It had been bandaged, and the fabric had a small red dot on it.

“What did you find, Jutt?” He asked.

She unravelled the scroll like a royal messenger and read. It was the will of Batshiva, the East Metch he had seen years ago while looking for Alice. He was the one who owned the cathedral for the Servant of Conflict.

“So, he willed all of his possessions to… Alice?!” Finch’s eyes widened.

Jutt nodded, “Yep. He couldn’t give it to someone in the East Metch Kingdom, it’s against the law. Something about retaining the Kingdom’s wealth during times of closure,” Jutt waved her hand, “Anyway, Alice was literally the only person he talked to on a regular basis, so he gave everything to her. I’m sure we could find her at the temple. Where else could she have gone?”

Finch nodded. He looked at the sky. It was getting dark.

“Let’s go then.” He said.

 “I think it’s best if you meet up with her alone,” She said, and when Finch gave her a confused look, she added, “I’m the one that’s read the romance books, right?”

Finch looked at his clenched hand. He nodded and continued alone. Again he got lost many times. He really only knew his assigned district and the way to the library, university, and castle. Everything else was a mystery to him, and he had very poor navigation skills. He was sure a couple of sixths passed before he found the tilted lane.

Finch had expected the cathedral to look impending in the dark, but instead it looked shabby, sad almost.

Finch took a deep breath, and then stepped to the door. And then he heard a scream.

It was a high pitched scream of terror. It quickly changed into a roar of fury, and shortly after a window burst outwards his right. Finch saw a holy symbol made of wood fly out, a crossed rapier and falchion. He knew that the roar was Alice’s, so he opened the door to see what was going on.

Alice was in full combat stance. Finch had never seen her like this, he didn’t know that the Plainkind’s ability to shift muscles became more apparent when they hit puberty. He didn’t even know that the Plainkind could shift their muscles around. Alice looked shorter, stockier, deadlier. And she was throwing things.

Candles, symbols, and even furniture were forcibly parted from walls, bolts in the floor, and tables. Nothing was sacred anymore, not after Alice had thrown it at a wall.

But she stopped when she saw Finch. Her face seemed to calm, but her muscles did not. Her had held a stone goblet with the rapier and falchion symbol on it. She said, “Finch, help me.”

Finch looked at her, incredulous, “Help you with what?!”

“We need to drive the Servant of Conflict out of this temple. Did you hear me awake from that nightmare?”

Finch nodded.

“I don’t want frightening dreams of war and combat. I don’t. This is my temple, not his!” She shouted, “Get out!”

She threw the goblet into the wall, where it shattered. I small piece got stuck in Finch’s hair, and he took it, looking. It was half of the symbol. Finch had never exorcised a Servant from a temple, but he was pretty sure smashing up all of its symbols was a great place to start!

“Let’s do it!” He said.

As he said this, Alice gave a smile, one more charming than any njuzu could, and promptly leapt up and tore the chandelier off the ceiling Finch grabbed a metal candlestick from the wall. It was surprisingly easy to tear from the wall. He ran around and smashed goblets with it, keeping an eye out for Conflict’s symbol.

Finch was a little more strategic than Alice. He specifically sought items with the symbol. Weather he was right to do this or not, he was never sure, but it added an extra level of fun to the ordeal.

It wasn’t long before a crowd formed outside the temple. Artus was one of them, and when he saw Alice swinging from fixtures through the broken window, he entered.

“What’s all this then? Destroying that poor man’s temple?” He shouted.

“No, he’s dead, this is my temple now.”

Alice didn’t say anything about the will, or that she really did own the place, but it didn’t matter to Artus.

“So? Explain your destruction!” Artus said. He was just waiting for a reason to begin revelry.

“We’re driving out the Servant of Conflict so I can sleep here!” Alice dropped to the floor, taking a ceiling lamp with her. She tossed it through an expensive stain glass window.

Artus had no idea what she meant by this, but he grabbed a bench and lobbed it into another bench.

“I’ve been waiting to try these out!” He said, flexing his guard’s muscles, “Can’t be punching citizens, right?”

They laughed.

As the night continued, one by one, Alice’s friends filed in and started helping them. Everyone was there before midnight fell. Finch watched Alice revel with her friends, and then he silently stepped out. He walked, almost marched, to Jutt’s house. She had left him to Alice, and it was time to return the favour.

He knocked on her door, and an angry looking Riley man answered.

“You’re lucky us Riley get up at around this time, you degenerate. Looking for the resident fiend I assume?”

Finch had not expected this.

Jutt thumped to the door, and then walked right past it.

“Hang on, honey,” She called out. Finch was certainly not her honey, but he eyed the man again and knew that playing along would be in Jutt’s best interest.

In the brief moment he’d seen her, Jutt looked very tired. It was like she hadn’t slept in days and Finch had just woken her up after only an hour’s rest. He felt immense guilt, but when she returned, her expression brightened and she stepped out with him. Jutt grabbed his hand in hers, interlocking their fingers. They faced the angry man, who’s expression was now on the border between murder and rampage. Jutt sneered at him, making his expression more sever and then pulled Finch close and kissed his cheek. Her fingers fluttered a goodbye to the furious man.

“You vexing witch! Don’t you dare come back here! I’m done with you, find your own place! Obviously you think you’re old enough, you fool. You will not curse my home any longer!”

He spat in her face. Jutt ignored this and they turned away together. He noticed that Jutt had carried a rather full rucksack out with her, which she now slung onto her back. Finch had the feeling that he had suddenly become one half of an eloped marriage. One that had been found out.

After they had crossed two separate blocks in silence, Finch said, “That’s not your father then.”

“No, he’s my uncle, worse, he’s an in-law. He really believes that bit about being a witch. I’m half Solune you know.”

“Half Solune?” Finch said.

“Yeah. You know how our blood doesn’t mix properly, right?”

Finch nodded.

“Well, mind did. It’s extremely rare, but when it happens you get someone that looks like both, instead of either Solune or Riley. And so, idiots like him think it’s an ill omen, my height, my eyes.”

Finch had never really cared about racial differences, but thinking back, people did seem to be either Riley or Solune and never in between. Jutt really looked like a Riley, but she was also tall like a Solune. Her eyes were also dark like a Solune’s.

“Huh. So, that uncle doesn’t like you then?”

Jutt nodded, “Yea, he got stuck with me after my mother went mad and wandered out of town.”

“Went mad?” Finch knew better than to ask about her father. She would tell him on her own if she wanted to.

“Yes, she was accused of manslaughter. My father,” Jutt nodded, and then stared into Finch’s eyes. Jutt had striking grey irises, and they watched Finch’s expression changes with great interest.

Finch, horrified, said, “What? How do you know that it was your mother?”

“I watched it happen. Finch, I don’t have the time or information to explain all this right now, but Batshiva’s will got me thinking. When I go to seek my revenge, not on my mother of course, but the one who made her do it. Anyway, when I go to seek my revenge, I’m leaving what little I have to you.”

Finch was going to ask her to explain what she did know, but before he could they arrived at the temple. It seemed that the teenagers within had started a bonfire using the wooden pews.

“Geez, maybe I shouldn’t have left them unsupervised.” Finch said.

Jutt gave a sweet little laugh, and they walked in. Both were treated with joyous fanfare. It seemed someone had brought sausages. Everyone crowded around and listened to Alice’s stories. Finch took great interested in hearing of her fight with his mother. It was interesting to him that she still existed somewhere out there, causing just as much trouble as she always had.

As the night moved on, some of the kids left for curfew, while others fell asleep in the cathedral. Jutt and Finch were among them.

Alice lay on her back, blinking. She was wearing a cute little dress and short pants. Finch found that it was the best outfit he’d ever seen her wearing. They eyed each other, and Finch smiled.

“I am sorry Finch,” she said, “I overreacted. You were with me this whole time, becoming a guard.”

Finch sat down next to her.

“Yeah.” He said.

“But, Finch, what do you really want to do? You like books, maybe you want to become a professional book reading person?”

Finch laughed quietly. It seemed that everyone else was asleep now. He stared at the fire, musing at how lucky it was the cathedral was made of stone.

“I don’t think that’s a real job, Alice.” He replied.

“Oh,” she blushed, “but you do want to do something with books, right?”

“Yeah, I was thinking of working at the university actually.”

“Hey,” Alice said. She pointed to a pair of people who had become tangled around each other in their sleep, or possibly even before.

But she didn’t say anything, she just pointed. Finch sort of nodded, but he wasn’t sure what he was agreeing to, or if it was something that one even could agree to. Apparently it wasn’t, because Alice shook her head.

“Why are they doing that?”

“Alice they’re in a relationship.”

“We are too, we’re friends,” she said.

Jutt, who had not gone to sleep, mumbled, “A romantic relationship.”

Finch shot her a look of surprise, but her eyes were shut. She had been faking.

Alice stared at Finch. “I think that we could have a romantic relationship too,” she said.

Finch shrugged, and Jutt said, “Don’t shrug you idiot, answer her properly.”

“Will you stop!” Finch poked Jutt in the ribs with a nearby board.

She stood up, stuck her tongue out, and left the temple saying, “I’ll be back in a bit, and you two had better be closer together then my family when I get back.”

Alice looked entirely confused.

“I think we should just continue to be friends until…” Finch saw her face become blank at this. He was going to suggest they strengthen their bond first, and then try dating, but apparently Alice thought they were beyond such pleasantries.

“Okay, how about we try dating for a bit-”

“Try again!” Echoed a voice from outside.

Finch threw a broken piece of tile out the window he guessed Jutt had called through. He heard her laugh again. This time, he leaned really close to Alice’s face.

The stared at each other. Finch was far more interested in Alice’s eyes then Jutt’s. He said, as quiet as he could, “Okay, you’re my girlfriend now.”

Alice nodded, like she knew this was an important statement, but had no idea what it meant.

“Okay, that’s great, but aren’t I already a girl friend?”

“No no, it means that we’re in a relationship, uh, in a romantic relationship now. I’m your boyfriend.”

Alice nodded, again taking this in slightly the wrong way. Finch had the feeling that she wouldn’t truly understand until they had been together for a few days. She seemed to think they had entered some sort of blood pact. Maybe they had, in a way.

Finch wasn’t sure if his father would be happy to find out that his son had fallen asleep in front of a bonfire with his hands intertwined with that of the monster he was supposed to be avoiding. But right now, his mind was bliss. The new couple was asleep before Jutt returned.

Jutt had her own problems to think about. She wasn’t intending to return to the place where she was thought of as a witch, and so she went to sleep worried about the future.

No one dreamed of war that night.

 Dusk

24 Denary Dusk

Finch unceremoniously slipped away in the morning. He had a lot to do now that Alice was back. In fact, he had already thought of a plan to finally, finally make everything right for her. Finally.

Alice awoke to the sound of her friends milling about. Some went home, others had returned with potatoes to throw into the coals. Others still were playing touch tag or seek the hidden inside and around the temple.

“It would be nice if there was another doorway.” Jutt said.

Alice turned and looked at the tall Riley girl.

“Why?” She said.

“So that they have another exit. Right now, if someone gets trapped inside, they’ll hop out of a window to avoid getting tagged. Two. That’s how many kids’ hands I’ve had to bandage from broken glass.” Jutt shook her head, “The responsibilities of the eldest I suppose.”

Alice twisted onto her stomach and rested her face in her hands. “How old are you?”

“I’m nineteen. I will be twenty soon.” Jutt said.

“I just turned nineteen two days ago!” Alice beamed.

“So, he likes older girls, huh?” Jutt mused.

Alice gave her a confused look. Jutt just closed her eyes and in minutes had gone back to sleep.

The temple was full of spotted sunlight and running children. Alice watched Artus fish a potato out of what had once been a bonfire. He dropped it, it was too hot. He turned to Alice.

“Oh, hey! It’s been morning for about an hour.” He told her.

“Where… where’s my boyfriend.”

“What in the name of mobile moose!” Artus jumped up and almost squashed his breakfast, “You’re finally dating Finch then?”

“Finally?” Alice cocked her head.

“Come on! Even you should have been able to tell that it was only a matter of time. I know about his plan to become Captain and waive your whole assault thing on his dad. He’s been completely obsessed with the guard since you left!”

Alice blushed. She absently opened her mouth and began fiddling with one of six her finger-long canine teeth.

“I thought he forgot about me.” Her words were flat.

Alice figured that she would see what her friends thought of that first, and then face Finch once she was armed with weapons of knowledge.

“Alice…” Artus had become very serious, “Don’t you know about him? About his mother?”

Alice shook her head.

“She didn’t leave right away. That’s just what he tells people.”

“Leave? I thought she was dead?”

Artus’s eyes opened wide, “Oh man! Listen up, okay, you’re way behind!”

As Artus began to tell the story of Finch’s past, a handful of kids gave up on their games to join him. Jutt opened one eye and both ears.

“Okay, so Finch’s mom was another Riley. They say her father came from the north, they say he was 100%!” He noticed that Alice and a few of the Solune children had missed the significance. “They’re the pureblood Riley from the northern wilderness. People like Jutt and Finch’s father, and Gina there are only about five percent. The 100% Riley are really dangerous! They’re crazy, and they kill people,” He paused for effect, “and then eat them!”

There were assorted gasps. By now Jutt was sitting up.

She added, “They find the Solune to be very delicious. That’s why the King added so much alkaline food to our diet. It makes us bitter to the taste.”

Alice found it odd that Jutt was grouping herself in with the Solune, but she let Artus continue.

“Right. So Finch’s grandfather was one of those. He had two children with Finch’s grandmother.”

“Artus, what are you telling them?” Finch had entered.

Artus turned, horrified. “Uh…” He stammered, his brain stumbling over itself.

Jutt took his baton, “About our grandparents.”

Both Finch and Artus gave her the strangest look.

Finch sat down in what had become a small circle next to the bonfire. She continued where Artus had stopped, and Artus just ate his potato, splitting it with Alice and giving her some of the salt that he just happened to have in his pocket.

“My grandparents were in a very violent relationship. I wouldn’t call it abuse, because it was quite mutual. They loved each other in a very violent way, which is completely normal for the 100% Riley. They were called Finch and Aretha” Jutt sighed, “They had two children, two girls. My mother, and Finch’s mother. My mother came first. Her name is Hail, and right now she’s off as part of a Riley gang. Finch’s mother came eight years later, after about one stillbirth every two years.

“When Diesel, my aunt who is also Finch’s mother, was finally born, she took Aretha’s life with her. Finch, the older one, went berserk and lashed out at Hail. Hail fended him off of course, leaving him with a large scar across his abdomen. Since then, Hail has become very adept with the rapier.”

Finch was staring at her in awe. He hadn’t heard any of this.

“So, they both ended up becoming parts of Venus gangs. Diesel runs her own at this point, and I think Hail is in a decently high position in another.” Jutt shrugged, “Anyway, Hail met my father, a Solune. There was an issue with her gang because he was a poet, a threat. Hail was ordered to execute him. To capture and behead her husband, or I would be killed. This is the sort of sick game Dezallldwin plays. One day, I will kill that man.”

Finch wasn’t very interested in hearing more about this Dezallldwin, so he said, “And my mother? What do you know of my family?”

“Hmm? Oh well, Diesel didn’t really like Ilias. She actually left him when you were young. But she did like you, a lot. She would have stayed just for that, I heard from my mum that you two were close. I can sort of remember it.”

Finch nodded, tearing up. Alice watched him longingly.

Artus noticed Alice’s hopeless gaze and whispered, “Grab his hand. Gently!”

Alice slipped his hand into Finch’s. He looked at her, surprised, but then pulled himself closer. They leaned on each other.

Finch, now bolstered by his bondsman, said, “Right. You’d be surprised what you can remember from such a young age. I remember we did a lot together. She tried to go to the university, but failed almost every class. We used to go together. She taught me how to make paper gliders, and paper spinners,” he was lost in memory by now, “We would drop them over the edge of staircases and watch them spin to the ground. The bigger ones were better, you know?”

He sighed.

“Well, she ended up having to leave. She told me she didn’t want to. She told me never to become involved with Venus, and that my father was a good man, even though she thought he was an awful bore. She…” Finch choked a bit, and added feebly, “Well, Lex can continue.”

He and Alice embraced at the side, and the conversation was once again passed to Jutt.

“I’m surprised you used my real name.”

Artus said, “Nitza. I’ve heard Finch call you that before.”

Jutt nodded, “Jutt is just a nickname. It was weird, I got my fang teeth first, and they often jutted out of my mouth. Finch gives… uncreative nicknames.”

Finch felt Alice heave slightly, probably a silent chuckle.

“I think that’s it though. Now that I have an excuse, I’m going to go find my mom. She went mad after the whole ordeal with our grandparents. She couldn’t cope, I was basically independent since the age of eight. She couldn’t even work, I have no idea how she manages in a gang. In fact, I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”

Finch looked at her, horrified, “And what about my mom?”

Jutt shrugged.

Alice said, “A gang leader? Called Diesel Dirge? Raids, well, used to raid Baracus?”

Jutt looked at her suspiciously, “Yeah that sounds about right.”

“And is not nice? And is telling her friends to having to kill me!” Alice stood, leaving Finch suddenly lonely, “And then is cut-hurting Alice and her militia!”

Finch was shocked, “Alice and her militia? What?”

Alice crossed her arms. She told the group all about her battle.

“The Plainkind are fearsome enemies. I didn’t know about the muscle shifting, but it explains a lot. I don’t really care for biology… I’m a chemistry girl, you see.”

Finch couldn’t believe that Alice had taken out a whole gang. Jutt was very happy to hear it.

She said, “It’s good to know they aren’t all that strong, actually, since I’ll be invading one of them to find my mum. Anyway, weren’t you going to tell us where you went?”

“Yeah!” Alice said, “You abandoned me in the night!” She sang. Finch wasn’t sure if she was joking.

“Right, actually, it was about you.” He said, pulling Alice back down to the ground. Their faces were very close together. “I talked to Yuvelliya about you. We have a plan. You’ll be safe now, and free soon.”

Alice looked at him, perplexed, but overjoyed. She hugged him and almost literally broke most of his ribs.

In the end, she stopped after hearing only four or five snaps. For the second time in two days, she had caused him a major injury.

Finch was bedridden on the floor of the temple for the next few hours, following Jutt’s instructions to take large breaths to keep mucus out. Alice ran around frantically, and ended up shooing out all the kids except Jutt, Artus, and of course Finch.

Jutt looked at Alice, “He’ll have to tell you tomorrow.”

 25 Undenary Dusk

Finch slept until the next dusk. He awoke frequently, and fervently, and every time he did, his eyes searched for Alice. She was there every time after the first.

“Ah, mother?” Finch looked around, “Ah!”

Alice was gone, it was just Jutt. Jutt looked a lot like Finch’s mother, except that her face wasn’t as wide, and her hips and chest weren’t nearly as laden with healthy layers of motherly fats.

“Yes Finch?” Jutt turned to him.

He immediately realized what was going on. This was the second time he had woken up injured and looked on by a pretty girl. He wasn’t going to embarrass himself this time.

But after asking, “Where’s Alice?” He realized that he had failed.

“She’s getting you food. And bandages.”

Finch nodded.

“Keep breathing. My mother told me about this. There was a guy who got a lung infection in her gang because he wouldn’t breathe deep enough.”

“No!” Finch shouted. Talking didn’t hurt, not as much as inhaling did, “I can’t leave her alone! Where’s Alice?”

“Alright, dear, just go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up in a bit to make you breathe some more.”

Finch gave her a dirty look, as if he really were a child again. Jutt just smiled.

“Hey Lex?” He said.

“Mm?”

“If you see my mother, tell her that I want to see her again.”

Nitza “Jutt” Dirge nodded solemnly, “Don’t worry, dear, I will.”

Finch, comforted, went back to sleep.

He was woken up only twenty minutes later to the sound of arguing n’juzu. Or rather, arguing women.

“No, you can’t bind his chest, that’ll make things worse! He needs to breathe!”

“Well! Well! Well!” Alice stumbled, “Help! I want him to have my help from me!”

Jutt shook her head, “Look, the second, er, the first think he did when he woke up was ask for you. If you want to help, just be there next time he wakes up.”

Alice glanced at Finch and stopped. She dropped the abnormally large bandage roll and sprinted to him, crossing the temple in a vigorously short period. A second, maybe. She grabbed his hand, and almost broke more bones.

“Ouch!”

She instantly loosened, “No, no! Did I break more of your parts?”

Her face was bright red.

“No, I don’t think so.” Finch proved it to her by moving his fingers inside of hers.

Alice spent the next few minutes feeling his body parts, squeezing things and asking, “Does this hurt?”

He realized that she was testing his pain thresholds. He was amazed. He didn’t think Alice was that clever. Jutt watched them, amused. She half hoped that he would grab the one piece of anatomy that they didn’t share. She did.

 Jutt laughed, and Finch inhaled, causing his ribs to pain him. “Don’t touch that!” He managed to growl between clenched teeth.

Alice withdrew, “Why? What? Ah!”

Jutt took Alice by the elbow and took her away to explain a little about how men and women were different, and also, to Alice’s horror, how children came to be planted inside of a womb.

Finch fell asleep to her soothing words, filled with technical terms and unrelenting description. Lex was enjoying making Alice feel entirely uncomfortable, and also a little curious.

When Finch next awoke, he heard Artus talking to Jutt.

“Yeah, he seems a lot better. I figured it’d be okay to let him get a full cycle or two of sleep. That’s three or four hours, you idiot. Learn basic biology.”

“Hey, you’re the genius not me.”

Finch opened his eyes. Alice was still red faced, and she was looking around, bashful. She noticed his stare, and they locked eyes. Neither person blinked for over a minute. Eventually, Finch’s eyes began to burn.

He whispered so quietly that Alice had to lean in.

He repeated, “What did she tell you?”

“Everything!” Alice hissed, “You adults are all so disgusting!”

She pointed at her chest, “I’m almost happy that Plainkind don’t have breasts!”

Finch gave her a wary look.

She blushed, “But I wouldn’t mind if we… but later.”

Finch nodded, “Yeah. Later sounds good.”

He sat up.

“Alright, good folk. It’s time that I told you all of my news. Yuvelliya would like to meet with Alice. She looks a lot different now, and Yuvelliya thinks that we could use that to our advantage. She’d also like to know if Alice has any sort of genius… for personal curiosity apparently.”

He found that breathing was a little easier now. When Lex looked at him, he took his prescribed ten deep breaths. Then he stood up.

“Let’s go. She wanted to meet today.”

Alice nodded, and then Finch’s blood rushed to his head and he promptly lost his balance and fell over.

A few minutes later, he was on Alice, piggyback, his nose no longer bleeding.

“As I said, let’s go!”

They all shared a laugh, and Finch let Alice carry him to the castle.

 26 Duodenary Dusk

“Lovely! You didn’t tell me your bond was so pretty!” Yuvelliya gushed.

They had met not in a library, but in Yuvelliya’s lamp-filled bedroom.

“And look!” She grabbed Alice’s arm and squeezed it, then pulled it, “She’s rock solid! Must feel safe sleeping beside someone so strong.”

Yuvelliya blushed, and Alice gave her a weird look.

“Tell me dear, have you had any education? Ah!” Yuvelliya couldn’t help herself. She rubbed Alice’s hair and squeezed her cheeks, “You’re so small!”

Alice was the same height as Finch, which meant that she was fairly short. Yuvelliya was nearly two heads taller. She was actually the tallest person in the room, Jutt coming in second, and Artus being the only person of regular height present. Those two were sitting on Yuvelliya’s surprisingly hard bed.

Finch began the process of detaching Yuvelliya from his mate.

“Oh sorry.” Yuvelliya wrapped her delicate arms around herself. She hadn’t realized how lonely she was until now, but that she kept secret.

“So?”

“Oh, umm, I like learning about families. I know all about yours.” Alice said.

“Oh! Ancestry! How wonderful!” Yuvelliya was radiant, “I personally love history. We might make a good team in the future.”

Alice nodded. She wasn’t sure what to think of this woman. When Finch had told her that Yuvelliya was hundreds of years old, Alice hadn’t been expecting someone who barely looked twenty.

“Finch told me that you had some sort of plan.”

“Right.” Yuvelliya nodded. Her face became authoritative, almost imposing. It was a look that suited her in a strange way. “You look like a completely different person. I saw you, you know. It was Gavria who gave you all that meat.”

Alice didn’t believe her, “Batshiva did!”

Yuvelliya nodded, “You’re right about that, but he could rarely afford meat. It’s expensive you know. Ah, well, Gavria ended up donating most of what you ate to him.”

During this, Finch’s mind was racing. Who was Gavria? Why did he recognize the name?

“Isn’t Gavria in a relationship with Martin?” Alice asked, “I know Martin from Baracus.”

Yuvelliya stared, “What?” This was news to her.

“Oh! Yeah! I saw them one of the first days I came here! Right before I met Vinth for the first time!”

Yuvelliya turned to him, “You saw them together?”

Finch nodded, “And Gavria, whew! She wasn’t wearing much.”

Yuvelliya put her hands on her face. Her voice stuck its highest pitch, “Well, it could always be worse…”

Alice poked Yuvelliya’s nose. Lex, who had been patiently watching, laughed sweetly. Yuvelliya blushed.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I’ll have to talk to my sister though…” Yuvelliya looked out the window, “If the guards ask, your name is Jessica May, and you’re my board, my live-in student.”

And, interestingly enough, in a few short days, that’s exactly what she became.

 27 The Epilogues

What Happened to Nitza “Jutt” Dirge

Alice and Lex lived together in the temple for a few days before Alice moved into the castle. A few days later, Lex turned twenty and left the city to find her mother. Within the next year, she succeeded in her quest, but lost most of her teeth in the process.

Much later, (and after another adventure in which she invented an absurdly large instrument by the name of “a Quartet”) Nitza finally turned her efforts to her dreams and began studying chemical research at the Solune University, followed by classical music composition.

What Happened to Alice “Jessica” May Däwngale

The third floor was finished by the time Alice had moved in, and the entire royal family’s rooms had been moved up with it, to keep away from the noise of the first floor. The second floor was now half guard’s quarters and half guest rooms. Between both was Alice’s room.

Alice learned all she needed from Yuvelliya to get her secondary diploma. Afterwards, the two girls studied history and bloodlines together, without any sort of curriculum. After Lex left, Alice started training to become a guard.

Once the year had passed the guard Captain retired, and Ekaterina took her place, transferring from the Castle guard to the City guard. Alice joined soon after, and slowly befriended literally the entire city. Alice and Finch worked together for a few months, but he left soon after to follow his own goal of going to school.

What Happened to Artus Hellion Zephophile

Artus moved up swiftly in the castle guard’s ranks. Soon, he became a member of the military, and later became a tactician for the army that fought in the Legendary Event. He was knighted, and became Sir Tact. Artus Hellion Zephophile, a high title for someone in their early twenties.

Shortly after his knighting, he decided to take advantage of the kingdom’s new freedom and access to the outside world, and so he joined a rock band and toured the world. Obviously, as a non-musician, he plays the easiest instruments, vocals and the bass.

He is on good terms with the guard, and hopes to return to their ranks in the (distant) future.

What Happened to Ilias Dirge Zeth

Ilias became the head dessert chef at the castle. Not once was he forced to do anything that he didn’t want to, with the exception of one thing. There was a certain monster who had become a guard.

He had apologized to her, and dropped all charges, a Solution neither Finch nor Nitza had thought of.

Since then, he became one of Alice’s many friends. The one thing he did that he didn’t quite enjoy was learn to butcher. He made sure that Alice was fed a large, bloody, meat, chunk of once every three days. For, that is how often the Plainkind need to eat if they are well fed, and Alice was always well fed.

What Happened to Finch Dirge Zeth

Finch was denied his promotion, and he no longer even needed it. Alice seemed to get along okay with Ekaterina, and after her assault and battery charges were cleared, Finch no longer had a reason to be in the guard. In truth, he sort of hated the job.

He left and began studying advanced mathematics, with a minor is music. He had taken a slight interest in the violin, and wouldn’t mind playing with his cousin in the future. During the entire time Lex was gone, Alice and Finch did not do anything she had explained to Alice.

Their relationship had slow and steady improvement, like Alice’s learning style. They only think Finch pushed for was a kiss, and that was after much prodding from Artus.

Nearly one year later, Finch, Alice, Ekaterina, and Nitza did meet up again. It was not joyous time, but Finch was glad that Lex had asked for help when she was in so desperate need of it. Her life had been in danger, and Ekaterina had stepped in. It turned out Lex had gotten mixed up in a matter of national security. Finch was only of minor aid in this event.

 Author’s Note

What Next?

If you enjoyed this piece, you can follow the story in its indirect sequel, Gathering All of the Evidence, which is about Yuvelliya and Gavria.

If you’re lucky, I may have already finished Codename: Involuntary Arbitration, which follows Nitza’s harrowing adventures in Venus’s gang. It’s a brutal tale of murder, torture, conquest, and of course, involuntary arbitration.

Otherwise, you can find the first few chapters of the first draft serialized on my website, http://www.danieltriumph.com. Just check the table of contents.