The Endless Solvent

Bette visited him not long after carrying a platter of bread and a bowl of thin soup. She and Melette fed him over the course of his recovery - he’d assumed that they thought he was too weak to get his own food. He hadn’t expected to be refused in the common area. He confronted her. It surprised him because he didn’t think he had it in him, but the words came out the moment he saw her.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Ralos, you are asking me to convince my people to accept a Gaian as a Champion,” she said. “Even you should understand how ridiculous that sounds.”

“Your own Wisdom wanted me there. Doesn’t that account for something?”

“The Wisdom doesn’t make decisions. We respect his visions when we can. You should know this.”

“So you would all lie to yourselves?” Ral rubbed his neck frustratedly. “You would rather ignore the outcome of the Trial like Dalsk than to accept the outcome?”

“I would rather not start a civil war within a tribe that must stay together for survival,” Bette retorted.

“And all that shit Dalsk is saying about Mikol? And yourself? Why do neither of you have anything to say about that?”

“You will believe what you will,” Bette said, studying him. She was infuriatingly calm. How can she be so calm?

“So you don’t deny it then?” Ral heaved himself to his feet even if it pained him. “Is that why Mikol hasn’t come by to see me? Because he planned it all, tricked me and now you’re telling me to just accept it?”

“I told you not to join the Trial,” Bette hissed back angrily. “What, do you expect me to jump for joy that this happened to you? And then you explicitly went against what I ordered you to do and you want us all to celebrate what you’ve done?”

“Is this what this is?” Ral said, incredulous. “I’ve gone against your word and now you’re angry. You’re just punishing me for being a bad child.”

“If you don’t wish me to treat you like a child then stop behaving like one!”

“There is more to this than your sun-cursed pride!” Ral roared back.

“I have more to deal with than your issues,” Bette shot back. “You think I didn’t want them to accept you? You don’t think I tried? I know exactly why you threw yourself at the Trial. Everyone fucking knew. I told you it wouldn’t work and you didn’t listen to me. This isn’t about my pride.”

“You don’t know anything. That thing that started the Trial is a Gate, it’s what’s ruining the world right now. Monsters pouring out of it, decimating villages, it’s ruined my home,” Ral said. “I had to go see it. It’s my calling, Bette. It’s why Rask was down here in the first place.”

“Excuses.”

“What?”

“That is an excuse,” Bette said. “A convenient one that you convinced yourself was the motivation. But in truth you simply want to show the tribe that you belong. It had nothing to do with the Gate.”

It was like she slapped him. The words were a bitter pill that refused to be swallowed. “Does that justify anything that Mikol did?” he asked hollowly. “Does it excuse him for taking something like that away from me even when I almost died for it?”

“Mikol did what he had to,” Bette replied. “Justice has nothing to do with it. Your feelings have nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah, he had to go be Champion after lying to me,” Ral spat out. “Of course justice and feelings have nothing to do with it.”

“You are alive because Mikol, as Champion, forced the issue. Dalsk and dozens others in the tribe would not have hesitated to end your life over what happened.”

“I didn’t kill them,” Ral said sharply. “Calkin and the others. They wanted to kill me. You saw what they did to me.”

“And you defended yourself,” Bette said. “I don’t blame you.”

“I didn’t kill them,” Ral said again, frustrated. “Why can’t you hear what I’m saying? I didn’t do it. I could barely move -”

“It matters not whether you did or didn’t. They are dead from the Trial, they have failed it. All of them understood the dangers of participating.”

“Dalsk thinks it matters. Why are you trying to lessen the importance of it?” Ral demanded. “Is it because Mikol murdered them in cold blood? I saw him there, Bette. I saw him speaking to Calkin, it was the last thing I saw before I passed out. He must have been the one to kill them all.”

Bette fell silent. Ral wanted to shake her by the shoulders.

“Are you going to tell me that the difference between what matters and what doesn’t is divided by a thin line?” Ral said in a nasty tone. “Or are you going to admit the thing that serves you best is what makes the difference?”

“Do not think to teach me of the philosophy of my own people,” Bette said disdainfully. “No matter how upset you feel you have the right to be.”

Ral scoffed.. Bette’s pride was talking - it was the loudest when they argued. She always had to be the smartest, the most powerful, the fastest, the wisest. “You barely wanted to teach me about your philosophies,” he said. “Not that it matters. I never made any sense. You ended up telling me to forget all of it.”

“It never suited you.”

“Right, because I could never be one of you.” Ral passed a miserable hand over his face. “Why did you even try?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Back then, when I asked to join. You did everything you could to keep me here. Is Dalsk saying the truth? That you wanted me for some sort of political advantage? Did Dalsk tell the truth when he said you taught Mikol how to use people?” Ral looked at Bette, desperate for any kind of reaction. She had none.

“I did it at the behest of the Wisdom,” she said.

“You have no problems going against what the Wisdom says,” Ral pointed out. “Why did you listen to him back then? Why are you even helping me now?”

Bette stared at the plate of food she’d brought him for a long time, blue eyes stony and still. “Long ago, when I was young, we had good relations with Gaians that lived on the fringe of Issvak,” she said finally, after a long pause. “It helped us. We helped them. There is a benefit from trading with your people. I saw it as an opportunity to expose the Somas to you and yours.”

“So it is for political, if not economical purposes,” Ral accused her. “I’m sorry to say I have no connections to help you any more. I am not even a nobleman.”

“No, I had no intention of using you,” Bette rolled her eyes. “I understand what happened to your home. I’m not stupid. I wanted the tribe to be accustomed to dealing with Gaians. For decades we’ve lived amongst ourselves and warded off anything that didn’t look or speak like us. At most we meet with merchants or Freerunners once or twice every cycle. I wanted to open them to the idea of trading with your people again.”

“Well, since that Kentor guy is the first live Gaian I’ve seen in years out here, I would say none of that worked.”

“No, there’s too much bad blood,” Bette agreed. “I also didn’t expect Dalsk and Loxst to be so vehemently against you. Hopeless traditionalists, those two. I hoped that they simply grew accustomed to you over the years but that did not happen.”

“Why are you different?” Ral asked. “Not only do you speak Gaian, you’re the only Leader interested in Gaian allies.”

Blue eyes glanced at him, studying him. The day was quickly ending and the darkness allowed for her irises to glow slightly. She sounded reluctant to tell him. “I once met someone. A Gaian. They were my cleemessi. But the tensions between our peoples meant we couldn’t be together.” She sniffed. “I did the cowardly thing and chose to remain here with the tribe, my family.”

“Then… am I here for you to see if a Gaian could live amongst you?” Ral said with difficulty. She was making it sound like he was a test subject, an experiment. A replacement. “I was here for you to test their tolerance of a foreigner?”

“You are here for many reasons, Ralos,” she said. “But yes, I will admit it was one of my reasons.”

“And now… now that I’m asking for something in return you are discarding me?” Ral looked around his sad wooden hut. The wooden planks were not even fastened together, merely propped up as a temporary shelter.

“Ral, you were never going to be Champion,” Bette said. “Never. The Somas would rather ignore the Trial in its entirety than have a Gaian as Champion. You heard what Dalsk was trying to say. Having Mikol as the Champion is the best way forward, why can’t you understand that? And I am trying to keep you with us. Mikol as well, even if you hold anger against him. You just have to put effort into staying with us and not anger anyone like Dalsk - ”

Effort? Effort? What in the sun’s name has he been doing here all this time if not putting in effort? It felt like a second slap to the face. He was now back at the beginning, as if an invisible hand stopped him mid-run and plopped him back at the starting point. And he had been running for such a long, miserable time just to not have the Somas look at him with scorn.

“I… I didn’t even want to be Champion,” Ral said helplessly.

“What did you want, Ralos?”

In an instant, Ral finally understood what it meant that the difference between what matters and what doesn’t is divided by a thin line. Everything that was everything to him: Mikol, Bette, the Trial, the Somas, all of it suddenly mattered not at all as none of them cared about him. He had spent so long asking for their attention, begging for their approval and only received a sliver of satisfaction through Mikol’s friendship and Bette’s begrudging acceptance. Even that is now gone, tainted.

“Not this,” Ral said finally. “Not this.”

Why would anything matter to him anymore? He cared too much and now it all dissolved away. There was so much more he wanted to ask. Ral wanted to wring the truth out of Mikol, he wanted to know if their friendship was ever real. He needed to know when Mikol decided to use him. Maybe if it was in the heat of the moment, Ral could forgive him.

Instead he sat in his sad hut out of camp and ignored Bette until she left and ate the cold leftovers. When night seeped into the sky, Ral chose to stretch out under the mostly clear sky to stare at the glowing moon.

The moon burns, can you not see?

There had to be a reason for Mikol not to defend him. A reason why he sat in the Champion spot and acted like it belonged to him. There had to be a reason why he hadn’t visited once, even when Ral stood at the brink of death. The question still stands: why hadn’t he come to him and explained his reason?

Miserably, Ral thought of his troubling dreams while he was unconscious, of Aris crying and committing terrible deeds. Why was he even here? He should be with Aris. When she cries, when she hurts, he should be there to help her. They were the sun and the moon of the holy skies over Caelis. What was he doing here, a place where nobody wanted him?

Ral thought he would dream of his sister again, but for several nights he did not dream at all. It should be restful and peaceful, but Ral found the dreamless sleep oppressive and stifling. It was a heavy darkness that followed him even in sleep and he didn’t like it. He hoped he could see Aris again, maybe talk to her, but there were only night filled with nothing.

Nothing at all.

He found that he gained most of his movements again after a short week. Even if it hurt, he felt he could tolerate it. He ate what he could and thought of nothing. Then one morning, after a long night of dreamless sleep, Ral got out of his small, makeshift hut and left.