I am a calm stream.
Sweat trickled down the back of Meg’s arms, dripping off the points of her elbows. The rough wooden hilt of her training saber warmed beneath her calloused fingers.
She curled her bare toes in the lush grass on the outskirts of Aushadha Village. The scent of bubbling curry and heavy spice tickled her nose, her stomach lurching in memory of how long ago lunch had been.
Stop that.
Streams didn’t get hungry. And she was a calm stream.
Inhale peace. She let the wooden sword fall in a perfect arch as she lunged on her right foot. Exhale balance. She teetered in place and ground her teeth.
Calm. Stream.
She reset her feet, blades of grass brushing against her bare soles.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
She’d get this sequence right if it killed her. Gripping the hilt, she lunged again, and rocked sideways on her right foot again.
She growled and clubbed a mocking tuft of grass beside her.
“Calm.”
Whack.
“Stream.”
Whack.
Of course, the grass wasn’t actually mocking her. It was grass. If streams couldn’t be hungry, grass couldn’t mock. But clobbering it sure made her feel better.
Meg shook herself, reset her feet, and resumed her breathing. She lifted her wooden sword again and scowled at the clump of mud clinging to it.
She flicked the sword, and the mud didn’t come off.
Grumbling, she dug her fingers into the slimy clay and peeled it away from the wood. She opened her hand to drop it on the grass, and it stuck to her palm.
She sagged with a hapless groan. And something small and solid cracked against the back of her head. Meg yelped and spun around, practice sword raised, and caught her foot on the mauled tuft of grass. She tumbled sideways with a shriek and face planted into a soggy patch of turf.
Meg jolted upright, coughing and gagging on fetid grass-flavored water. She scrubbed her hands down her face and sank down to her backside, spitting and spluttering.
“A truly graceful performance!” Hands clapped behind her.
Meg wiped the mud and gunk off her brow and glared at the furry figure crouching next to her. “Malaka!” Meg shoved her friend’s shoulder with a huff. “What was that for?”
The Avi female cackled, her fox-like features splitting in a wide, toothy grin. “You looked so serious. I had to intervene.”
“I was a calm stream!”
Malaka snickered. “I have seen raging rivers calmer than you, bhaina.”
Meg snatched Malaka’s arm and wiped the palm full of sticky clay into her brindled fur. Malaka squealed and yanked her arm away.
“Wretch! Do you know how long that will take to wash out?” Malaka barred her teeth. “No, you don’t, of course. You don’t have fur. You’re just naked!”
“Hey, you started it.” Meg rolled over to grab her training saber. “At least I didn’t rub it in your feathers.”
Malaka shivered her speckled wings folded against her slender shoulders as though she were proving a point.
“What’d you hit me with anyway?” Meg touched the back of her head where her long braid was coiled and pinned. Her hair felt somewhat sticky.
“Just a peach pit.”
“Oh, thanks. Thanks for that. So now I have your nasty Josharon spit in my hair?”
“Along with your nasty human sweat.” Malaka sniffed. “Naked child.”
Meg wrinkled her nose. “Furry monstrosity.”
“Tail-less heathen.”
“M-mattress stuffing.”
Malaka scowled. “What?”
“Mattress stuffing. You know. We stuff feathers in mattresses?” Meg flapped her hand at the Avi’s wings.
Malaka raised a single eyebrow. “And you were doing so well.” Her dark eyes twinkled. “Comparatively.”
Meg heaved a groan and pulled her knees against her chest. “Leave me alone.”
Malaka folded to the grass next to her and dug in the bag slung around her chest. “You don’t want that. You want this.” She pulled a ripe peach out of the blue cloud-print sling bag and held it out to Meg in her clawed hands. “Fresh and juicy, picked just this morning.”
Meg rested her cheek on her knees. “Why are you here, Malaka? It’s not to bring me fruit.”
“No, I picked a fight with you first.”
Meg raised her eyebrows and waited. Malaka sighed and turned the peach over in her hands. “I am not spying on you. I was truly here for some karuadah berries, and I saw you practicing.” She picked at a rough spot on the peach’s fuzzy skin. “Though I did not think you were meant to practice alone.”
Meg scrunched her face up and glared at the grass. “Who told you that?” She pinched a blade of grass.
Malaka sat up, her wings shivering against her back. “Velanna makes you practice your Andaiku forms alone? How can you know if you are doing them correctly?”
“Maybe I just know.” Meg pulled the grass blade apart.
The answering rumble in Malaka’s throat indicated she didn’t buy it. Good for her. Meg didn’t buy it either.
With a scoff, Meg pitched forward and stood, pressing her hands into her lower back. “I’ve got a lot to do, Malaka. Did you need something else other than to bother me?”
Malaka’s triangular ears twitched in the mass of her reddish-brown mane. “I don’t believe Velanna sent you here to practice alone.”
“What if she did?”
“It would be highly inconsistent.”
“She’s done stranger things before.”
“Well, that is because Velanna is strange.” Malaka grinned. “But she is not inconsistent.”
Meg growled and bent to pick up her training saber. “Am I going to have to hit you with this?”
Malaka’s eyes sparkled again. “Can you hit me, bhaina? At this point, the only hit you’ve landed is on that poor bit of turf.” She got her paws under herself and stood. “Of course, if someone were here training you, you’d have a witness to any actual feats of bravery—”
“I wanted to be alone.” Meg cut her off. “Okay?” She turned away from her Josharon friend and set her feet in the grass. “Not like that’s something you can understand.”
Malaka was the closest thing Meg had to a friend, but no matter how much time they spent together, the Josharon couldn’t understand. Josharons weren’t human. They lived different lives, valued different things. Malaka’s village already respected her. Her people already acknowledged her intellect and her skill. She didn’t have anything to prove. She was born without anything to prove.
Meg tightened her hands around the hilt again.
What would life without anything to prove even be like?
She shook herself and breathed in. The dusty scent of disturbed earth and grass, the sweet clean air, the ever-growing aroma of coconut milk and vibrant spices.
Malaka sighed softly, and with the rustle of clothing she returned to sitting on the grass. “Do you still want to be alone?”
Meg didn’t look at her. “No.”
She stepped forward, swung her saber, and wobbled only slightly on her right foot.
Not good enough.
She’d been at it for hours, and she couldn’t figure out the balance problem. It shouldn’t have been an issue. She had excellent balance. Something about being so short, her center of gravity was much lower than Velanna’s or even Tzaitel’s.
Yet every time she attempted this one specific saber thrust, her balance went crazy. What was wrong with her? It was utterly unacceptable.
“It looks fine to me,” Malaka said.
“It’s not fine.”
“Are you certain?”
“Completely certain. I can’t show this to Velanna.” Meg turned back to her friend. “She’ll have my hide.”
Malaka’s snout turned downward. “Meg, Velanna should be teaching you.”
“She is.”
“Then why is she not here?”
Meg shifted her hands on the hilt again. Velanna would have been more than happy to watch her stumble and fall repeatedly, to criticize every move she made. That was what Velanna was good at, after all. And she was right to be. She was the only living Andai Master left after Celtica’s Great War.
But learning an ancient sword style from your adoptive alien mother took a level of patience Meg wasn’t sure she had.
Velanna’s blood daughter had offered to come. That wouldn’t have been so bad, maybe. Tzaitel wouldn’t have been as critical.
“Tzaitel offered,” Meg blurted out.
Malaka tilted her head. “Then where is she?”
“I told her not to come.” Meg set her feet again. “I can do it myself.”
“Do what? Train?” Malaka howled with laughter. “Meg, how can you train yourself to do something you don’t know how to do?”
“I can do it.” Meg glared at her. “Velanna showed me the form. I know what it’s supposed to look like.”
Malaka folded her arms. “Are you trying to compete with Tzaitel?”
Meg glowered. “No.”
“I would hope not.” Malaka twitched her two bushy tails in the grass. “She’s been at this Andai thing a little longer than you have.”
Meg grumbled under her breath.
“Like more than a hundred years longer?”
“I know how old Tzaitel is, Malaka.”
“Yes, but sometimes I think you forget how young you are.”
“I’m the same age as you.” Meg swung her saber again and tilted sideways.
“Sixteen seasons, yes. Tzaitel has lived fifteen ten-seasons. And her mother has lived ninety.” Malaka set her bag in her lap and pulled the peach out again. “Celticans live longer than stone, Meg. I think you forget.”
Meg swung the saber again and scowled. She hadn’t moved her feet at all. Malaka was distracting her.
“I didn’t want Tzaitel here because she would have told me everything I was doing wrong.”
“You mean, she would have taught you?”
Meg pointed the saber at her. “You’re annoying.”
Malaka snorted. “You make no sense.” Her ears fluttered. “Naked child.”
Meg blinked at her and opened her mouth.
“If you call me Mattress Stuffing again, I will throw a whole peach at you.” Malaka shook the fruit.
Meg set her hands on her hips. “That was a good insult, bhaina. It’s not my fault you didn’t understand it.”
“The point of a good insult is for the person you’re insulting to understand it, you goose.” Malaka rolled her eyes. “How you are related to Danny and Jenny, I will never know. They retain marvelous creative insults. In multiple languages. You are a lump of mud.”
“Should I have said pillow stuffing, then?”
Malaka barked on a laugh. “Only if I can call you a smelly hairball.”
A deafening crack of thunder sent them both diving for the grass, brilliant white light tearing across the sky. Meg threw herself over Malaka, covering her head with her hands.
Trembling, Malaka peered between Meg’s fingers. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up.”
“I’ll shut up when you get off me.” Malaka pushed her away.
“You never shut up.” Meg brushed herself off and turned her face toward the sky. “Was that thunder?”
“It sounded like thunder.”
“But.” Meg stood slowly, scanning over the summer-blue heavens. “Where are the clouds?” The Andarian Dimension saw some unusual things, but not even Rainbow Valley had ever had a thunderstorm without clouds.
Motion in the treetops caught Meg’s gaze.
She grabbed her training saber and cautiously moved toward the line of trees that guarded the edge of Aushadha Village.
“Meg,” Malaka hissed after her.
Meg pressed her hand against the rough bark of a redwood tree, eyes pinned on a spot overhead in the forest. A patch of undulating air. It shimmered like heat waves or like the ancient glass in the windows of Prism Castle.
“Malaka.” Meg pointed to the spot just inside the forest, twenty feet up the side of a spreading redwood.
The air wavered and shivered, pinpricks of light sparkling at the center of the disturbance.
Malaka hissed in warning. “What is it?”
Meg’s stomach turned over. The dryness of her mouth tasted foul. Malaka wouldn’t recognize the rip in the interdimensional barrier. She’d never seen one before. Meg had only seen it once, ten years earlier, when one opened in front of her and her siblings and dragged them unwillingly down its black throat.
With a shockwave powerful enough blast them with leaves and twigs, the shimmering patch of air split apart. As though invisible claws ripped reality itself in two, and a churning maw of shadow and lightning opened as though it would devour the tree tops.
The portal thrummed with enough power to raise the hair on Meg’s arms and neck, static electricity crackling all around her. Malaka snarled in discomfort as her fur electrified.
The roiling tear in the fabric of the world shuddered and shook, its edges turning translucent, and dropped a figure out of its yawning mouth.
Malaka gasped at Meg’s shoulder. “Meg!”
The figure hit the ground with a loud thump, and Malaka started toward it. Meg clutched her arm and held her still. With an interdimensional rip that size, it could spit anything else out. They needed to wait, to make sure nothing else was coming.
Meg’s heart punched her ribs.
Who had just fallen into their world? A friend, or an enemy? Had they come with purpose, or had they fumbled their way here by the will of the Creator, like Meg and her siblings had?
Meg forced her breath to slow, wrenched control of her pulse away from her emotions.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Panic solved nothing. Fear solved nothing. Velanna had lectured her so many times on letting her emotions control her. For once, Meg was going to listen.
Breathe in peace. Breathe out balance.
Meg released Malaka’s arm and stepped forward. She ignored how her bare foot wobbled the moment she set it down. That wasn’t a helpful thing to notice anyway.
She crept toward the unmoving figure sprawled on the loam of the forest. Overhead, the rip kept spinning and churning, but the sharpness of its edges had faded. The static electricity crawling up and down her arms had lessened. The rip still remained, but it was losing power.
Meg focused her eyes on the figure—the person who had fallen twenty feet. Fortunately, the springy forest floor had probably cushioned the impact, but it was still likely that the person was injured.
Meg batted Malaka away and paused at the figure’s feet. She nudged one of his shoes with the tip of her wooden saber.
Strange shoes. White with laces. They were nothing like the leather boots the Josharons had made for their human and Celtican friends.
Josharons didn’t wear boots or shoes, of course. They didn’t need them.
The figure didn’t move, didn’t respond in any way.
Swallowing hard, Meg slid closer, kneeling on the soft earth. The figure wore a dark green jacket and pants made from a sturdy dark blue fabric. And now that she was closer, Meg could see blond hair. Gently, she placed her hand on the figure’s shoulder.
So, it was a human most likely.
This close, the figure was much taller than Meg had expected. Not broad. Slender, really. But very tall. Meg gently pushed the figure’s shoulder over to roll him onto his back.
A boy.
Meg caught her breath.
A human boy.
Meg carefully pulled the broken set of eyewear away from his brow and brushed the dirt and leaves off his face. He had a strong jaw and a light dusting of freckles across his nose.
“What is he wearing?” Malaka whispered.
Meg glanced back at her friend and narrowed her eyes at the shirt beneath the boy’s jacket. Cotton, black, and emblazoned with bright white letters: “No, I won’t fix your computer.”
“Strange,” Meg mumbled.
Malaka hovered behind her. “What is he?”
Meg traced her hand up the side of the boy’s slack face and paused as her fingers found something wet in his hairline. She pulled her hand back, fingers red with blood.
Meg paled. “I’m going to go with human. How about that?”
“Yes, this seems a fair assumption.”
Meg stood. “He’s hurt.”
“I imagine so, Meg. He fell twenty feet. Where did he come from?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Meg snatched the sling bag from around Malaka’s shoulder and pulled it over her head and off her wing. “Fly back to the village. Get one of the elders and a wagon. We need to get him home quickly.”
Malaka nodded and spun, spreading her wings and launching into the air without a second thought. Meg dove into the contents of Malaka’s bag and smiled when she found a packet of karuadah berries and a packet of lace moss.
Bacteria killer and blood clotter. Whoever this human boy was, it was his lucky day.
As Meg prepared the herbs to apply the boy’s injuries, she cast a glance overhead at the ominously churning rip. Her stomach clenched.
Even as a child six years old she remembered what passing through the portal had been like. Disorienting. Painful. Blinding. But it had been worth it in the end. The rip had spit them out in Tolan Ittai’s wheatfield, and they hadn’t left.
She pressed the mix of berries and moss against the boy’s bleeding head and ignored the anxiety building in her mind. Ultimately it didn’t really matter where he’d come from. He needed help.
The boy uttered a groan, his face twisting in pain. “Hold still.” Meg dabbed the blood away. “You’ll be all right.”
He didn’t answer, still unconscious.
If he was smart, he’d stay unconscious for as along as possible. Velanna was going to grill him like a fish, and even if the boy had come to cause trouble, Meg wouldn’t wish one of Velanna’s interrogations on her worst enemy.
The boy quieted as she pressed her hand against his face, and Meg eyed the portal still churning overhead.
It had faded slightly, yes, but it hadn’t vanished. And it should have vanished by now. The rip that had brought her family to Andaria ten years ago had ejected them and disappeared.
So why wasn’t this one still here?

The content of this page is distributed to members of the Heirs of the Mazzaroth Patreon Group ONLY. This content should not be shared outside this group in any form, whether in screenshots or printed media.