Zafiil, Distant Past, Chapter 1

We begin our religious epic in the world of the Faulfenza! Chapter 1: In which we meet a prickly child...

***

“Give your sister a goodbye nuzzle, Zafiil,” Qazen-dii said.

Zafiil rose on her toes so she could rub cheeks with the baby bundled in her mother’s arms, suppressing her envy. How good it would be to be an infant again! If she hadn’t gone and grown up she wouldn’t be in this position! One of the intraplanet shuttles tore past outside, the rumble shaking her all the way into her bones, and she hugged Qazen-dii as hard as she could. “Mother, I don’t want to go!”

Zafiil’s mother bestowed a benevolent smile on her, squeezing her shoulder with her free hand. “I know, little one... and we’ll miss you! But you’ll find your footing faster than you think. Your foster family will help; you’ll grow to love them as you do us, you’ll see.”

“But I don’t want to love anyone else! I want to stay with you and Paden-aul, in Paidiiza!” Zafiil looked up into her mother’s eyes and dragged out her last and deadliest volley. “I won’t be happy without you!”

But amazingly Qazen-dii laughed. Zafiil scowled and assumed a hurt expression, half in earnest and half in hopes of manipulating her mother. “It’s not funny!”

“I know, my dear, and I’m sorry.” Her mother bent to cradle Zafiil in one arm, the baby balanced against her knee. Zafiil buried her head against the soft charcoal fur she had so often fallen asleep against; when she opened her eye, she could see the reddish-orange of her mother’s throat. These were the colors of home, of safety. “I am not laughing at you, you see,” Qazen-dii continued. “It’s only that when my mother sent me to be fostered on Quapendai, I was as frightened as you are, and I said the exact same things.”

Zafiil’s blue-violet eyes widened. “You were from Quafiirla?”

Qazen-dii smiled. “Oh, yes! This planet that you find so familiar was very scary to me... but I promise you, Zafiil, you will like Quafiirla, especially where you’re going.” Here she leaned forward, so close they almost touched noses. “It’s much easier to see the stars.”

Zafiil straightened, her twice-tufted tail twitching in excitement. “Really?”

“Really,” Qazen-dii replied. She hugged the young Faulfenzair. “Your shuttle is boarding. Go now.”

Even the promise of stars couldn’t offset the alarm Zafiil felt at the roar of the shuttle traffic just outside the terminal’s smooth walls. She clung to her mother, wondering if they’d let her stay if she hung on tightly enough… but Qazen-dii detached her with a gentle hand and looked into her eyes with such sobriety that Zafiil grew still.

“Go, daughter. Faulza will walk with you.”

Swallowing, Zafiil dipped her head and turned, trudging toward the gate where her shuttle was loading. The bag that had seemed so light when she’d packed it was now so heavy she was sure it was dislocating her shoulder… and no matter how much dirt she knew her dragging tail must be collecting, she didn’t have the heart to raise it. She glanced over her shoulder at her mother and sister; so intent was she on this last sight of her family that she bumped into the conductor-of-passages.

Mortified, Zafiil hastily sketched an apology with her hands. “Excuse me for running into you,” she said as properly as she could, embarrassed that the entire terminal had witnessed her carelessness.

The conductor smiled kindly at her. “No worries, little one. May I see your pass?” 

Zafiil fumbled in her bag until she found it, then relinquished it with a shaky hand.

“That’s good, little one. Walk on.”

With a last wild glance behind her back, Zafiil stepped into the shuttle that would bear her away from Quapendai, the Seeker’s Side, where she had lived all her life in the manor by the sea with her birth-parents, brother, and baby sister. Walking aft, tail catching on the floor because she refused to lift it, Zafiil located her window seat and flopped into it. Other Faulfenza streamed into the shuttle; she ignored them until the soft click of the doors locking shut caught her fanned ears.

“Welcome aboard Flight Z20. Our estimated time of arrival on Quafiirla is fourteen hours. You will be informed when we have left atmosphere and may move freely around the shuttle. Thank you, and pleasant journeys!”

Zafiil’s nose smudged the window as the shuttle turned and taxied slowly into position on the runway. Curiosity warred with her anxieties: she had never been on any ship that could enter space! Would it be anything like the short shuttle trips she’d taken to the city?

The bulkhead she was leaning against began to tremble, and beneath her gaze one of the painted markers outside inched past… and then scrolled away, taking the ground with it. Clouds whipped past the windows; Zafiil clutched her bag, wondering if the quivery feeling in her stomach was normal. And then she gasped at the sight of the ocean revealed by a break in the cloudcover, and pushed her nose against the window in her eagerness to watch the planet fall away. That’s what it felt like: not that she was rising, but that the world was dropping from beneath her, and it should have scared her and it did, but it was the delicious kind of scary that made her glad to be alive.

Zafiil remained transfixed by the sight until they were so high she could see the planet’s curvature, and only then did she realize how much her neck hurt. How long had she been flattened against the window? The window pane was cold. She rubbed her nose-print off the glass guiltily and hugged her bag to her chest. How far away Paidiiza was now! Her birthtown was so little she couldn’t see it. Maybe she’d just missed it? She peeked out the window again to search for the cities, but they were barely visible smudges, looking more like something her baby sister had smeared with a chalk than a proud work. Why weren’t they more magnificent, or prettier, or… or something? Anything!

Zafiil shivered and dropped her nose onto her bag, ears fanning closed. Qazen-dii had never told her how small she was—all the Faulfenza were!—in comparison to the glories of Creation. And no one had ever mentioned how queasy and queer she would feel in space, as if she had lost half of her body’s weight.

“You may now move freely. We will be interplanetary for roughly twelve hours. Please observe all partial-gravity warnings.”

A tiny rim of gold edged Quafiirla as the shuttle turned, and Zafiil peered at it solemnly. A golden sparkle bulged out from that edge, and then the sun burst free, so bright the window darkened to protect her eyes. Zafiil gasped. Was Faulza there? He was the Firedancer, and the God of their people, and her parents had always said He was watching over them. Where else could He be, if not in that sun? 

Was He watching her? Right now? Humbled and a little frightened, Zafiil ducked her head, feeling even smaller than she had a few moments ago.

“You look like someone with something on their mind.”

Zafiil twisted toward the owner of that kind contralto, a silver-tipped Faulfenzair with eyes the amber of zedi candies. The stranger had the air of someone who understood the troubles of mature, grown-up people like Zafiil, and the wisdom to help. Best of all, she looked old and snuggly, like someone’s mother’s-mother.

“Faulza is looking at me,” Zafiil replied soberly, turning back to the window. She could see the reflection of her eyes in the glass; it overlaid the sun, making it seem like it had a face and was staring back at her.

The stranger looked toward the porthole and smiled. “I felt the same way the first time I went into space. That I could see Him clearly, in a way I simply couldn’t on the ground. It was wonderful.”

Zafiil hunched her shoulders, fingers clenching her bag’s strap as she glanced up at the female’s profile. “Was it?”

“It was,” the stranger said. “Like He’d been waiting for me all this time, and here I was, and He said… hello!” She smiled down at Zafiil. “What about you?”

“It’s not like that.”

“No?”

“The stars, they’re so big! And the sun so full of fire, and I can’t even see my home it’s so tiny and unimportant...” Zafiil felt like keening, but only children cried, and she was no longer a child. She was old enough to be fostered! 

The female made a quiet noise, weaving a sympathetic pattern with her hands. “I see. It makes you feel like you don’t matter.”

Startled, Zafiil said, “You understand!”

“Of course I do. I’ve been on this shuttle for many, many years, making three or four flights a week. It can be awe-inspiring, and awe is never comfortable… that’s not what it’s for. But you do matter. Do you know why?”

“Why?” Zafiil asked obediently, fascinated.

“Because,” and here the female’s voice dipped to a whisper, “you have a piece of Faulza in you.”

Zafiil’s eyes widened. In all her time at home, she had not been told about this! That her soul had been forged by Faulza, yes, but a piece of Him in her...? “I do?”

The other mmmed a very serious affirmative. “And do you know who put it there?”

Zafiil unclenched one hand for long enough to twitch a quick negative.

“Faulza did, small one. When He forged your soul, He put a little of Himself in you, as He did when He made the sun, the stars, and the worlds. And here’s the biggest secret of all.” The female’s brow ridges lifted. “Are you listening?”

Zafiil jerked her fingers in a swift affirmative.

“He uses more of Himself to make His children than He used in all of Creation. The sun, the worlds, the sea and moons, the dust that glitters in space, every star and creature and spinning world has less of Faulza than you. Because you are one of His children, whom He loves best of all.”

Zafiil’s hold on her bag loosened.

“Do you wonder how we might travel between worlds? How the Fireborn came to us, and led us closer to Him? That we might have survived for so long, on more than one planet? That we might have mastered the forces of Creation? It’s because He gave us all the galaxies as a gift to enjoy. So you see…” A smile wrinkled her nose. “You’re not small at all. Those stars are yours, and you burn brighter than any of them.”

Zafiil barely felt the soft, Mindfire-warmed touch the female bestowed on her shoulder as she departed. Hesitant, she peeked out the window and tried to sense the piece of Faulza in those heavenly bodies. There, that star... the golden piece was shining! And the sun... it too, had a golden heart. Even the planet falling from her... it was not long before Zafiil fancied she could feel a tenuous gold line connecting her to everything she could see. 

She no longer felt small. She felt as big as the universe, and space wasn’t frightening anymore. It called, and everything in her thrilled to its entreaties.

How long she spent staring out the window this time, she didn’t know… but a gentle hand stirred her from her reverie. The stranger had returned, this time behind a small cart. “Are you hungry, small one?”

“Yes, please?” As the female assembled a tray of milk and fiirlaz petals, Zafiil added, “How do you go out into space? If you want to live there?”

“That depends on what kind of job you’d like to do,” the stranger said. “If you want a job like mine, then you start work at the port. But there are other paths. There are even schools that teach you to explore space, to seek the Lost Kin and the Others.”

“Exploring!” Zafiil forgot the petals, the milk. She had heard about the search for the Others and the Lost Kin, of course... but it had never occurred to her that she could be one of those seekers, and the romance of it seized her and set her on fire. “The Lost Kin... the Others!”

The stranger’s grin was so marked it wrinkled her nose all the way to the bridge. “And why shouldn’t you, if you wish? And you do wish, don’t you, small one. Or what shall I call you?”

“Zafiil,” she said quickly, ears blushing. “Zafiil Paidiiza.”

“Here, let me have your tray. I’m Jaziin Neparan. Where are you bound?”

Zafiil was eating the petals with gusto, having realized her queasiness was partially due to hunger. “I am going to Qodii to be fostered.”

“I was also fostered on the Preserve. I loved it. Most of the villages are on the star-facing side of the world, so you can see many more stars than you can in many places in Quapendai.”

Zafiil gaped, clutching her milk bulb. “That’s what Qazen-dii said.”

“She’s right. They seem close enough to touch, on the Preserve.”

Zafiil turned her eyes to the window again, the diaphanous connection she imagined between herself and the stars springing back to life. “They can’t be any closer on Quafiirla than they are now. And one day I will live among them, in space!”

The elder Faulfenzair laid a gentle hand on Zafiil’s shoulder. “That is possible, small one. That is entirely possible. But for now, drink your milk. You will need to grow if you wish to live among the stars. They demand strong spirits in those who seek them.”

Zafiil slurped at her milk, ears flattening. “I am strong in spirit,” she muttered, but Jaziin had already moved on. The cold of the window now felt reassuring; leaning against it, she closed her eyes. The warm milk had settled her stomach, and after the excitement and stress of the morning she was glad to relax.

“Wait for me,” she whispered one more time. “Wait... for me.”

It seemed to her that she heard, like the faintest wisps of a solar wind, We will, before she lapsed into dreaming.

*

 When Zafiil stepped off the shuttle onto the Preserve, she halted so abruptly the Faulfenzair behind her bumped into her. With a hasty apology, she jumped forward and covered her watering eyes against the bright morning sunlight. How was it already morning again, when she hadn’t gone to sleep yet? She was so tired! She wobbled into the shade and squinted until her eyes adjusted. What she found dismayed her. She was literally on the Preserve, for unlike the port where she’d embarked, there was a landing pad and a small pavilion beside it for the comfort of those awaiting arrivals… and that was all. Bewildered, Zafiil glanced at the tall trees, dark-barked with their maroon leaves, and the teal grass at the pad’s edge. In the distance loomed a mountain just a few shades darker than the sky. No Other planet could have been as alien as this verdant forest, so different from the uninterrupted horizons of the beaches at home. The sky felt choked, and she realized abruptly just how far from home she was. She didn’t feel she could move her legs, which was for the best, because she was sure they were trembling and walking would have revealed her fear to everyone.

Two Faulfenza started out of the knot of people at the pavilion. Zafiil could only assume they had come to take her to Qodii, for they were heading directly for her. The tall one, a dark gray female with maroon chest and light gray ruffs, had an energetic demeanor and purposeful walk. Skipping beside her was a young male so full of curiosity Zafiil could sense it radiating off him: he was her age, his coat a gray so deep it was almost black, with light gray ruffs and red-orange chest. Drawing herself up in as dignified a fashion as she could, Zafiil prepared to meet these strangers. The pair stopped before her. Looking up, Zafiil could see the older one’s eyes were orange and the smaller one’s eyes were green.

She spoke before they did, determined not to be found discourteous. “Greetings. I am Zafiil Paidiiza, and I am to be fostered at the village of Qodii. Are you my escorts?”

The taller one erupted into laughter. “Your escorts! Well yes, I suppose we are, but there’s no need for such formality, little Paidiiza! I am Jeniiz Qodii, and this is my brother, Duzai. We’ve come to bring you home.”

Taken aback by Jeniiz’s manner and indignant at being the recipient of a nickname reserved for children, Zafiil replied with as much hauteur as she could muster, “My home is Paidiiza... and we cannot walk there from here.”

Before Jeniiz could respond, Duzai stepped forward and poked Zafiil experimentally in the arm. “She talks like a Hunter,” he said to his sister, “but she’s soft like a baby.”

All Zafiil’s homesickness and unease burned away in the furnace of her indignation. She grabbed Duzai’s jaw ruff and yanked. “I am not a baby, you... you... piipiizauq!” There was no worse insult; not only was the creature’s odor offensive, but it was ugly, and Zafiil had never forgotten the one that had washed ashore on Paidiiza’s jeweled sands.

Duzai jerked back with a yowl. Rubbing his jaw, he gave her a respectful look. “Maybe I was wrong.”

Jeniiz grinned. “She’ll make a fine Hunter, once she’s taught. She has teeth.”

Pleased with this obviously astute statement, Zafiil awarded Jeniiz a dignified inclination of head.

Chortling a little, Jeniiz indicated the forest. “After you, Quapendai.”

Being nicknamed after one’s planet was even more embarrassing than being nicknamed after one’s city, but at least Jeniiz hadn’t called her little Quapendai. Zafiil fanned her ears shut to hide their flush and strode forth. She would not show weakness before these rude strangers. She held her head high as Duzai skipped to catch up with her.

“Let me take your bag!”

Zafiil didn’t relish the thought of handing her treasures over to a stranger, but Duzai seemed to be more mischief than malice, and her arms were tired. “All right.” As she handed it over, she ventured, “How far is it to Qodii?”

“About three days, more or less,” he answered cheerfully.

“Three days! But... but how will we eat? Where will we sleep?”

Duzai stared at her, ear tips sagging. “We’ll hunt for food and sleep on the ground. What else?”

Zafiil had never really thought about where the food she ate came from. “Well... you... you buy it.”

Duzai frowned, brow creasing. “But where does it come from before you buy it?”

Admitting she had no idea would make her look ridiculous. Zafiil thought frantically until she struck the perfect response. “Why, from Faulza, of course.”

“Faulza?” The dubious look on the boy’s face became more marked.

“Of course. All good things come from Faulza.”

This was inarguable, and Zafiil enjoyed his silence for long enough to make it seem like they’d moved on from the topic. That way she could casually pose her question. “Where does your food come from?”

Duzai grinned. “The forests have roots and leaves and flowers to eat, and animals for us to hunt, and streams for us to drink from.”

Zafiil sketched a breezy affirmative, trying to look as if she had known that all along. “So... we will eat food from the forest on the way to Qodii.”

“Exactly. Jeniiz is a Hunter, though she Dances more often than she hunts! Maybe she will be Fiilzafiir soon!”

Zafiil skirted an incredulous look over her shoulder at Jeniiz, who was following them. “Her? The Favored Dancer? But she doesn’t look like a Favored Dancer.”

Duzai bristled. “Of course she does! What do you know about Dancing, anyway?”

 “I watch it all the time on the viewers,” Zafiil said, and this was true: nothing fascinated her more than the Dancers chosen to perform for the holiday worldcasts. She loved to stare at the intricacies of the language, of which her store of gestures was only the smallest of parts. She had even seen her mother and father Dancing in Tandem once on the beach, and alone in her room she’d never stopped attempting to duplicate those motions.

“Viewers! Fai! What does Quapendai know about the Dance?”

Brought out of her daydreams of her mother and father spiraling around one another, Zafiil hissed in anger at Duzai. “We know as much about it as Quafiirla does! And I probably know more about Dancing than you do!”

“I don’t think you know anything!”

“I do, so!”

“You do not!”

Jeniiz’s hands on their shoulders stopped them. “If both of you promise not to peck one another to pieces, I might Dance one of the scrolls for you tonight.”

Lured by the prospect of seeing a Dancer close and in person, Zafiil clapped her mouth shut. Duzai grumbled, but didn’t needle her. They walked, and the silence left Zafiil to contemplate her exhaustion, and to wonder when they were going to stop. She’d already been awake so long! Why did it have to be so… so morning-ish on Quafiirla? Respectable planets would have been done with morning by now!

It wasn’t even very pretty, not compared to her home, anyway. The air was wetter and the colors darker and more vivid on the Preserve. The tree trunks were either black or a bright reddish-orange, and their leaves a confusing tangle of magenta or bright green. Between her bare toes, the grass was turquoise, and the dirt orangish with streaks of burgundy and maroon. She looked for the plants Duzai had mentioned, finding them in bright spots of green, blue or purple with flowers of every color, and wondered which ones were good to eat. Her stomach grumbled but pride forced her to ignore it. She would not admit to hunger in front of these strangers. Though the terrain was different, this was not more walking than she had done on the shores of Paidiiza. Or at least, it didn’t seem like much more walking. Would they stop soon for a meal? Would they stop at all?

It didn’t help that the sky was strange; she couldn’t see even a sliver of Quapendai in it, and it didn’t seem to fluctuate in color or darkness. How could she tell what time it was if it was always bright out?

By the time the sun was directly overhead in the sky, Zafiil’s legs hurt. The hard-packed earth with its springing grass required a different gait than the sands of Paidiiza, and she was so hungry her middle felt like a huge, cavernous hole. Would her stomach eat itself, lacking anything else? Surely her companions must also be tired and hungry? Duzai had vanished, leaving only Jeniiz to pace her, and the older Faulfenzair didn’t look troubled.

In Paidiiza, she would never have starved to death. Her mother would have packed her a basket of petals for snacking and delicate juices for drinking, and by now she would have been sitting on the sandbar near the Crescent Edge, her feet dunked in the cool ocean, the warm sun on her back, sipping the syrup of the jaiznii flower and watching the sea-birds wing past....

Zafiil did not see the root she tripped on, tumbling to her hands and knees with a startled yelp.

Jeniiz jogged to her. “Zafiil? Little Paidiiza, are you all right?”

That nickname again. “I am not all right. I have been walking so long my legs feel like sand, and I am so hungry my stomach is eating itself!”

Jeniiz looked torn between concern and laughter, and concern won. “I’m so sorry, little one, I didn’t know you weren’t used to... though I should’ve, of course you’ve never had to walk anywhere in your life... oh, Dancing God.” The Faulfenzair sighed as Duzai appeared at their sides, his arms filled with plants and roots and colorful flowers.

“I got midday meal, like you asked,” he said, then looked at Zafiil. “Are you hurt?”

Zafiil’s side was smarting, her stomach was caving in, her legs and feet were sore and her pride had been stung as if by a zelii beetle. But all she could bring herself to say was, “No...I am just taking a small rest.”

Now Jeniiz did laugh. She took a fat portion of the roots and plants and handed them to Zafiil. “Little sister! You are a little penuzii, you know that? All full of prickles and needles. You should relax... you won’t need that pride where we’re going.”

Slightly mollified by being appointed a ‘sister’, and supposing that ‘little’ was, whether she liked it or not, a logical descriptor, Zafiil applied herself to the food, judged it raw but filling. A sip of Jeniiz’s water and she stood, brushing the dirt off her black coat.

“I am ready,” she announced.

Jeniiz eyed her with raised brow ridge, unconvinced. “Are you sure you don’t want a little more rest? We could stop for an hour or two.”

An hour or two! Zafiil’s heart soared at the idea. But suspicion made her ask, “Are you tired?”

Duzai spoke through a mouthful of petals. “Of course not.”

Jeniiz glared at Duzai, which only solidified Zafiil’s decision. “I’m not tired either. Let’s go.”

With a sigh, Jeniiz gestured them forward, Duzai taking the lead and Zafiil falling in between them. The food had refreshed her, and Zafiil remained resolved not to appear weaker or softer than these strangers. But her limbs began to drag as they trudged on, and Zafiil had ample time to regret her obstinacy. She forced her tail up out of the dust, hoping Jeniiz hadn’t noticed it sag, and plodded on. It became harder and harder to keep up with Duzai’s brisk pace, but she remained determined to keep up… which she did until her eyes closed. She opened them: they closed again. The third time they closed, they stayed that way.