^ "Stargazers" (10-20-2020)

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LIOR

Relations between Titus's Army and the Kyogre Clan went south in the days after Titus's "demonstration".

In what specific way, Lior wasn't sure. Perhaps it was because the Army was still there, bedded down in the trench? Possibly — Phinebas had told them he'd wanted them to leave the Clan's waters, but three days later, no one had so much as packed a tent.

Perhaps Titus's talk with Lord Kygriss-Mari hadn't gone too well. That day of the demonstration, Lior had managed to coax the grieving boy from his hiding place in that secret graveyard, and they'd quickly been spotted by Reuben and several other Clan members, who had come rushing along to collect him, pestering him with questions. When they'd ushered the boy away, he had giving Lior one last look, a comical one of great annoyance, with his tongue stuck out. It had made Lior smile, and remember the time that he and Mother had done a funny face contest one day while Father had been out hunting.

But after that, Lior had heard little to nothing about Lord Kygriss-Mari — the next day, he'd begun feeling the first sure signs of oncoming Drought, chills and deep shakes that made him want to seek the sun, and he'd gone up to the surface with another group of soldiers going Dry, to wait it out on a nearby spit of sand sporting a tidepool and one palm tree.

It had been far from a break, though — the Army's mountain of mundane tasks had been dumped on him and the rest of the soldiers that had come up with them, and they'd spent the next few days pounding the dings out of dented armor, darning torn kilts and skirts, sharpening blades, and making seaweed rope — yards and yards of seaweed rope.

When the Drought had finally sloughed off and he and the other soldiers had returned to the sea, it had been to an Army in unease, and an active rumor mill. On his errands, Lior heard all manner of sorry news: Titus and Phinebas were on the verge of coming to blows over Lord Kygriss-Mari. Titus wanted some information out of the leader of the Kyogre Clan, and he refused to give it. There was talk of blackmail, of using those piles of newly-sharpened weapons to put Phinebas in his place. Or on the boats that were coming around the Ruins — as Phinebas had predicted, a handful more had come from the mainland, sniffing around for the humans Titus had drowned. There was talk of leaving. Talk of staying until Phinebas caved and gave Titus whatever he was asking for.

There was aggravation, a lot of it. Apparently, Titus was being secretive, and some soldiers wanted to know what was going on. Others were simply growing weary of whatever this was... Life in the Army, which seemed to have no purpose without an actual enemy to face. Lior heard some of the soldiers speak of bringing their concerns to Titus. Others suggested simply leaving without a backward glance.

Lior had stiffened and stared at the soldiers who'd spoken so readily of desertion, hoping they were joking. But they'd seemed serious. Can they do that? It couldn't be as simple as just throwing down your spear and swimming off into the blue... Or was it? A dangerous thought crossed his mind: Can I do that?

He;d shaken his head vigorously, sending it away. Idiot. Of course he couldn't, and of course it wasn't that easy: every misstep had a consequence in this place. And desertion... Lior could scarcely imagine the punishment he or anyone else would receive for such a transgression.

He heard more intriguing and conflicting rumors throughout the week, but the strangest seemed to surround what happened between Titus and Lord Kygriss-Mari when they finally met. Lior had assumed that Phinebas and Titus would sit the boy down and speak to him about this...whatever it was with Kin and fighting humans, whatever that had to do with the boy, but apparently things had gone down in a rather explosive fashion. Every soldier Lior overheard said the same thing: Titus had offered the boy some kind of deal, and tiny, young, weak Lord Kygriss-Mari had dismissed Titus out of hand, and told him to leave the trench or he would bury him. Apparently, he had also spit at Titus before he'd left in a huff, but Lior was certain that couldn't be true. How could anyone possibly have the wherewithal to spit at Commander Titus?

Then again, how could anyone reject the Commander so contemptuously, especially someone as young as Lord Kygriss-Mari? It didn't make any sense, yet everyone couldn't be making it up. Right?

A couple of days later, Lior found an opportunity to ask Lord Kygriss-Mari himself.

It was early morning, a few hours before dawn, but Lior was already awake. Something had snapped him out of sleep, something wriggling across the floor of their tent. He sat up quickly, heart pounding, wondering if it was a rogue Pokémon that had wandered in, but no—it was the fluke of a Huntail, the tip poking at his arm. Blinking in astonishment, Lior looked up and saw Lord Kygriss-Mari peeking in through the flap of the tent.

"What is it, sweetheart?" Tirza Mari groaned. Her eyes were still closed, but she must've awakened to Lior jumping awake beside her.

"Uh, it's—" He faltered when Lord Kygriss-Mari glared at him, holding a finger to his lips. "Um, nothing, just a bad dream..." The young boy beckoned him with a hand, and Lior continued, "And I need to relieve myself."

He waited for a response, but there was none — Tirza had dropped back off to sleep. Lord Kygriss-Mari beckoned him once more, and then disappeared, his tail slinking out of the tent. Quickly, Lior rose and dressed, and was tucking in the folds of his undershirt when he emerged from the tent. "Lord Kygriss-Mari?"

"Over here." Lior squinted in the dark, and saw that the boy had ascended to the top of a nearby boulder, his long tail wrapping gingerly around it. "Come this way," he said, beckoning again.

Lior came forward. "Is everything okay?" he asked, concerned. "Should I go get an officer?"

"Nope, just follow me." Lord Kygriss-Mari launched from the top of the rock, snaking upward like a rippling arrow. Confused, Lior followed.

"What's happening?" he asked.

"Shush, or someone'll hear us. You'll see when we get there."

An anxious cramp rent Lior's stomach, but he didn't protest, and simply followed the boy as he ascended up through the water column, until the empty ocean began to glow a bluish light. Abruptly, they hit the surface, breaking through into what Lior was certain to be a humid day.

Lior studied their surroundings, and saw nothing of note — the sea was easy this morning, almost as though it itself had not yet woken up, and there was nothing to the east, south, and west. To the north, he saw a stretch of lights piled up on one another like a heap of gold — a city, one that, in the darkness, appeared to be sitting right over the water.

"Wrong way," Lord Kygriss-Mari said. He pointed up. "Look there."

Lior did, and saw that the sky was loaded with silver stars, like scattered treasure. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lord Kygriss-Mari lay on his back in the waves and place his hands on his stomach. "Aren't they pretty?" he asked.

"Uh... Yes," Lior said. Pause. "Um, is this why you brought me here?"

"Yeah. Do you like stars?"

"Sure," he said, not wanting to disappoint the boy. "My Father liked them a lot more, though."

"Oh." Lord Kygriss-Mari bobbed back and forth on the waves, and shrugged. "I thought you'd like stargazing. I wanted to show you two days ago...but you were gone. Where did you go?"

"Sorry, I was on Drought."

"Oh."

The silence stretched long, and became awkward. Lior peered up at the sky again, trying to keep his eyes open: he longed to be back in the tent with Tirza Mari, getting a few more hours of sleep under his belt before he had to report to Titus.

Titus... He glanced uncertainly over at the boy, who suddenly spoke up again before he could.

"There's a field nearby," he said. "It's past the Ruins. Lots of rocks there, and sometimes human stuff, too. I go there all the time."

"Oh. Okay."

Lord Kygriss-Mari's tail twisted out of the water a moment before going back under. "Do you...wanna go there with me later today? We could collect some rocks, make a grave for your parents, and your sister."

The offer was so sudden and so...striking, that for a moment Lior wasn't sure that the boy had actually said it. "Really?"

"Yeah. I thought that maybe if their graves were close to Dion's, Dion might be able to find them, y'know? And he wouldn't be wanderin' around heaven like a dummy."

"That would be...great. Thank you...uh, m'lord." Though it wouldn't be their true final places of rest, Lior felt a strange sense of security at having a monument to his parents and sister nearby, a place at which he could sit and grieve when things became hard.

The boy made a sound of annoyance and eased off of his back. "Don't call me that," he grunted. "I'm not a lord. Call me Elon, it's easier."

Lior frowned. "But Lady Tirza said—"

"Tirza's dumb. So's Reuben, and Phinebas, and all the rest of 'em. I'm not a lord, and I don't wanna be."

Why? Lior wondered, but he kept his thoughts to himself. "Okay... Elon. Well, um, I usually work all day, so I don't know when—"

"Wanna go right now?" Elon asked.

Now? "I have to report for duty in a couple of hours—"

"It won't take that long! We're just gonna grab some rocks and run right back." He gestured. "C'mon!" He dove a second later.

Lior dipped under and scrambled after him. "Wait! We shouldn't go by ourselves. Let's tell Lady Tirza—"

"I've gone by myself plenty of times," Elon said dismissively. "We'll be okay." He turned and gave Lior a sudden grin. "Now keep up!"

He took off, and Lior had a trying time keeping up, both with Elon and this situation in general. What is happening? He wasn't sure, and wasn't sure how he felt about it — all his energy was focused on keeping pace with Elon as he swept up the trench slope and then twisted out across moonlit sand. The boy was surprisingly swift, despite the fact that Lior, as a Milotica, should have been faster — no doubt it was because Elon knew these waters and this terrain far better than he did.

Beneath him, sand turned to rock, and Lior thought he spied the chute leading down to the Ruins. For sure he saw the wreck that Titus had overturned, collapsed heavily against a wall of rock and suffering from a dozen gaping holes. Then they passed through a stretch of dark, crested two hills, and abruptly slowed; Elon was digging his tail into the sand, anchoring himself, when Lior pulled up.

"Slowpoke," he remarked.

Lior frowned. "I wasn't racing. I didn't know the way here, anyway."

"Excuses." Elon dismissed them with a wave of one hand, then pointed with the other. "Look. Cool, huh?"

Lior squinted, and found that it was. They stood before the underside of a small ridge, one that seemed to fold in on itself. In the shadows was a vein of rock, running along the heel of the ledge, and scattered about were stones, big and small, black and gray. Their shapes were quite interesting to Lior: not smooth and sleek, as like the ones he'd collected back home, but jagged and sharp, like they'd recently broken off from a larger body of earth. Elon slithered past him and picked up one, handing it to him.

"Look at this one," he said. "It looks like an arrow! Do you think it could make you bleed?"

Lior took it and was amused. "No, I think it would have to be much sharper." He'd spent enough time filing Adiah's spearheads to know.

Elon shrugged and picked up another one. "What about this one? It kinda looks like a Squirtle shell, doesn't it?"

Soon enough, Lior was down in the silt beside the boy, pawing through all the rocks, looking at their shapes and colors and imagining the kind of grave markers they might make. It might've been fun, if the task hadn't been for so morbid a purpose. All the same, Lior felt a distinct ease come over him as his creativity came out from wherever it had been hiding for the past year.

A mountain, he thought as he gathered rocks at his tail, Father's has to be a mountain, made of big and strong stones, like him. Mother's will be smaller, and hers will be smooth. And Lael... Lael's will be colorful. Maybe I can find a blue stone for her. Or a green one.

"Hey, Lior," Elon said after a while. He passed Lior another stone, one that was long and banana-shaped; Lior thought that would be a fun addition to Lael's grave marker. "I have a question: why don't you have a surname?"

Lior glanced at the boy, who was unearthing some rocks hidden in the sand. He was digging quite deep, and the seabed appeared to shift easily around him in the dark. Is that like quicksand? "Surname?"

"Yeah, like a second name. A family name. Like mine." Elon held up one finger, then another. "Elon Kygriss. First name, surname. See?"

"Oh." Hadn't he asked him this once before? "Um, I thought it was Elon Kygriss-Mari, though."

Elon shrugged. "That's just the clan name — it depends on where I live."

Lior didn't quite understand. "I don't think I have a family name... Or a clan name."

"So it's really just 'Lior'? That's all you're called?"

"Yes." Suddenly self-conscious, he said, "Is that weird?"

"Well yeah! Everybody's got a family name! You had parents: what were their names?"

"Mnason and Hulda."

Frown. "Just Mnason and Hulda?" When Lior nodded, Elon crinkled his brow. "Huh. Well, maybe it's different where you came from. Where did you come from?"

Lior grew uncomfortable. "I don't know..."

Elon rolled his eyes. "How can you not know?"

"We...didn't really have a name for the place we lived," Lior said defensively. "It was just 'home'. Mother and Father were just Mother and Father. And I was just Lior!"

Elon let out a hrrmph, and continued moving that writhing sand, until he unearthed a big rock that was hugely wrinkled. "I guess... I was just asking."

"Why does it matter?" Lior asked. He eyed Elon's rock and said, "Can I have that one?"

"Only if you tell me why you're with all these weird merfolk. Isn't it weird that you're the only kid there?"

"I guess...?" But you're the only kid with the Kyogre Clan. "But they rescued me after my...family died. They're taking care of me."

Elon snorted and heaved the giant rock over. "But you said they make you work all day. They don't let you play. They sound kinda mean to me."

"Yes," Lior agreed, but he didn't know how to explain that he didn't have much of a choice. Without his parents, how could he hope to survive in the great ocean by himself? He needed someone to feed him, clothe him, protect him, tell him what to do.

Elon didn't seem to be interested in that, though. "How old are you?" he asked as he parceled another rock out of the sand.

"Nine." I think. "How old are you?"

"Guess!"

Lior raised a brow and studied the boy a moment. His great tail gave him the deception of size, but considering the smoothness of and color of his cheeks, the size of his teeth, and his naiveté... "Five?"

"Jerk! I'm almost seven!" He hurled a small stone at Lior. It slammed into his shoulder with such force and speed he was stunned it didn't go right through him. As it was, he was knocked back, and he yowled.

"OW!"

"Oops." Elon crawled over, helped Lior sit up. He collected the rock he'd thrown and tossed it away; it left a purpling crater in Lior's upper arm that hurt like fury. Lior wheezed and glowered at the boy, and his next words were mangled:

"Why did you throw that at me? That hurt!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"You didn't think it would hurt? Ow!" Lior tried to lift his arm, and with amazement, found that he couldn't. "I can't move my arm," he said with acute astonishment.

"It's okay," Elon said, looking a little upset. "Give it a minute. Hold it like this." Gingerly, he lifted Lior's arm from underneath, stretching it out straight, and Lior hissed as pain rushed up to his shoulder socket and back. But sure enough, a few breaths later, feeling began to creep back into his arm — a pins-and-needles, knife-sharp kind of feeling.

"There, see," Elon said cheerfully. "Better?"

Lior's pained glare had not dissolved. "It still hurts. What is wrong with you?"

"I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you. Look at this." He went back over to his piles of rocks and lifted one that looked like a three-dimensional starburst. "I'll give you this rock and a couple more I found."

"I don't think I can carry any of these back, not with this arm."

Elon's face fell, but brightened a second later. "I can come back later and get them for you. We'll put them in a big pile beneath the ridge. No one will steal them."

"Why don't you do that?" Lior said meanly.

Elon opened his mouth to protest, then wisely shut it. "Okay, fine. Be back in a minute."

He watched the boy work, filching giant armfuls of stones and toting them into a deep shadow beneath the ridge for storage. Something was bothering him... Besides his arm. The boy was only seven, but he was carrying giant piles of rock over to the ridge, some so big that they should've weighed him down like anchors. Yet he toted them along as though he was carrying sand. Something about that and the bruise he'd gotten from the rock Elon had thrown seemed... Off. Am I imagining things, or... Is he really strong?

"All done," Elon said sometime later. He wound back over and then peered down at Lior. "Better?"

"No," he groaned. "It still hurts." In fact, it had gotten worse during Elon's task.

The boy tapped his lip, and then said, "I can give you a sleep sting, if you want. If I make the needle smaller, I think it'll stay in your arm."

A flash of alarm. "Sleep sting? What's that?"

"This!" Elon lifted the barbed end of his tail. "I can put poison in this needle, and a...sed-uh-tive, Dion told me. It's something that makes the pain go away. Watch!"

Elon's tail flashed like an Arbok, jabbing Lior's arm so quickly that it was over before he could get scared. Instead, he got angry again.

"Elon, what did you do?"

"It's okay!" the boy insisted. "I told you, it'll make your arm stop hurting. It's probably working now, right?"

He was right: the pain was quickly draining from Lior's bruised upper arm. But... "I can't move my arm again," he gasped.

"That's okay. It'll only last half an hour. Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Yeah, and you can have Tirza take a look at it. She can bandage you — she patched Dion up plenty before... You know."

Lior glared at him. "Ask before you do that, next time. You can't just sting me without my permission!"

"Okay," Elon said agreeably. "But you feel better now, right?"

"I guess." His arm was a useless length of meat hanging from his shoulder socket, but he couldn't do much about that right now. Good thing I'm already dressed. He pushed up from the sand. "I have to get back."

"Wait!" Elon said, grabbing his good arm. "There's one more thing I want to show you."

"I can't — I've got less than an hour before dawn. I have to be ready to report to Titus—"

The boy's face twisted. "Who cares about that pushy old brute? Just tell him you were with me, that'll do it."

Lior was incredulous, and for a moment, he wanted to laugh. Just tell him you were with me? "Just because you can yell at him doesn't mean the rest of us can," he snapped. "If I do that, he'll hit me."

Elon scowled. "I didn't yell at him."

Lior lifted a brow.

"I didn't! I just..." Elon looked away, grumpy. "I don't wanna talk about that."

"I answered all your questions. And you hit me with that rock, didn't you? That hurt."

Elon groaned, crossed his arms. "I just told him I didn't wanna be his brother, and I didn't wanna do that stupid ceremony with him. I told him I wanted him to leave, and leave me alone!"

Lior's mouth parted. So he did tell him to shove off. He was amazed that the boy had somehow gotten away with it — something to do with his age or his importance to Titus or both. "What ceremony?" he asked.

"The one that brings Kyogre back to life," Elon growled. A thunderstruck look suddenly crossed his face, as if he hadn't meant to say that. He glanced at Lior, and Lior didn't know what he saw in his face, but it was clear that he'd made a mistake. Reaching out, he grabbed Lior's hand, and then dragged him through the sand, which was growing warm with approaching daylight. "Enough about that! C'mon — I want you to meet someone."

Lior barely heard him. A ceremony that brings Kyogre back to life? The sea god? He knew from the stories that he was dead, from the apocalyptic fight with Groudon in the distant past... But he hadn't been aware that he could somehow be brought back to life. Or that there was someone who wanted to bring him back to life. He thought of what Titus had said to Phinebas on top of that cliff, in the shadow of that overturned boat.

Groudon was a man-made abomination, but King Kyogre is a god. They will quake and break before his might.

Who, Titus? The humans?

Yes. And suddenly, he felt a breath of relief that Elon had told Titus to shove off.

***

They speed swam for fifteen minutes across a lightening seabottom broken into lengths of shadow by cliffs and more dark trenches. Eventually, Elon pulled Lior to the surface, and he found that the city that had resembled a heap of treasure from a distance had swelled in a vast metropolis that, indeed, stood right over the water.

In the water — they were so close that even in the gloom Lior could make out the rustic architecture of the buildings, which stood on giant wedges of cement and concrete that created canals  slithering between them, funneling the waters of the ocean directly into the streets. That's strange. As they moved along, they passed a harbor filled with boats and gondolas; they rocked on the black waves, bumping against the branching stretches of water-slicked wood on stilts that made up the piers and boardwalks.

He imagined one vessel was missing: a small white boat with a red stripe down the middle. The thought made him shiver: have they discovered what became of those humans?

He shook his head, coming back into focus. "What are we doing here?" he hissed. He regretted falling into a stunned fog on the way over; now he was here, and couldn't make them turn back.

"You'll see," Elon said with a mischievous grin. "C'mon, this way."

They dove, and for a second, Lior considered simply abandoning the boy, and swimming hurriedly back to the trench. But he couldn't do that. For one, he wasn't sure of how to get there from here. And two, making wake would leave Elon alone out here, way too close to human civilization. He worried his lip, and followed the boy into the dark waters beneath the piers. Please, Arceus, let this be quick!

He couldn't quite see where they were going, but the surface became dappled with sunlight, and a heavy stone wall appeared out of the gloom to their left — it went down quite a ways and buried itself into the seabed, which was remarkably clean for being right at the edge of a human settlement. Elon ran his hand along the stone, and then grinned when it dipped into a ragged hole in the rock. Abruptly, he jetted up, and surfaced. Lior followed warily.

They were treading water before what Lior almost thought was a drowned building: there was a low roof and window not five feet above their heads, sporting a large flower box overflowing with lilies and sunflowers. Beyond the paned glass was a set of pastel green curtains.

Elon extracted something from the pocket of his robes: a small pebble. He rolled it around his palm once, and then tossed it at the window, which hit with a light crack. Lior flinched all the same.

"Don't do that!" he cried. What if there were humans inside?

"It's okay. Watch." He threw another pebble, then a third, and finally the curtains behind the window shifted and parted. The window opened, and a young girl stood beyond, the light breeze rustling her dark burgundy hair and her polka-dotted pajamas. She yawned and peered down at them, and Lior stared back up at her, frozen with fear.

Then she said, "Elon! It's, like, five o'clock! What're you doing here?" 

"I brought you some rocks," Elon said. "And look!" He gestured to Lior. "This is Lior! I met him a couple of weeks ago. I want us all to be friends. Lior, this is Debbie."

"Hi," she said, looking amazed. "Wow! This is so cool: I have two mermaid friends now!"

"Merboy," Elon huffed, and then Lior dove, panic shooting through his body. In seconds flat, he was back out in open waters, but he still felt like something was after him, like something was watching him. Why did he take me there? What's wrong with him? Father had raised no fools — humans accidentally spotting merfolk over a long period of time had led directly to the Cataclysm, and he'd told Lior many times that though they were generally harmless, they were to be avoided whenever possible, for the good of the seafolk.

But Elon had taken him directly to see a human, one he knew by name. Is he mad? Am I mad? Why hadn't he grabbed Elon and dragged him back underwater when that window had opened, and that girl's innocent, unassuming face had appeared above the flowerbox? Why is this happening?

Vaguely, he was aware of a sound coming from behind him: it sounded like Elon, long-calling his name. He didn't stop.

Somehow, he found his way back to the trench; he began wheezing as he went down, the pressure clamping around his ribcage like a shrinking sphere, crushing the air out of his lungs. He had to stop; he went down, falling to his tail and hands on the silt, only to be yanked back up again abruptly by huge hands.

"Ah, what a coincidence." Lior's skin crawled — it was General Mattathias, yawning as he finished tying off his long braid. "The Commander told us to keep an eye out for you, and here you are. Thought you'd sleep in today, eh? Well, you know what they say: you'll sleep when you're dead."

He laughed at his morbid joke, and motioned to his men who lifted Lior from the ground; they toted him along, and he struggled to breathe, this time not just around the pressure, but an upwelling of fear. I'm not too late... Am I? Did it matter? To Titus and everyone else in the Army, late was late, whether by a minute or an hour. He felt a flash of hatred for Elon—Why didn't I tell him no when he dragged me along? Why did he take me there? To see a human?

Too soon, they arrived at Titus's pavilion. The giant merman was up — clearly, he'd been waiting, for when he turned to face Lior, irritation edged his eyes and the corner of his mouth. "General," he said, "it seems you have found our wayward courier."

"Yep, coming down from the surface waters," Mattathias said as Lior was shoved into the tent. "Looks like someone was wandering around all hours of the morning. Exploring, maybe?" A shrug. "Kids will be kids."

Titus's eyes narrowed. "Here is the crossbow," he said, voice clipped; he indicated a rumpled sack sitting on Titus's low desk. "Test a few rounds in the training area, and then report to Oren's pavilion for our noon meeting."

"Aye." A wicked, eager gleam came to Mattathias's eye as he scooped up the sack and swept back out the door.

All-business, Titus swam a pace forward and slapped Lior across the face. Only it was more of a slash—Lior felt Titus's nails rake across his lower jaw, and the sting and slow, searing burn that followed brought tears to his eyes.

"The surface waters," Titus said, voice low and cold. "What business did you have up there, Lior?"

Lior grit his teeth. Arceus, it hurt, but he had learned by now that to whimper and snivel was to invite another strike. So he swallowed a small cry, but could not send down a sudden flash of rage in the same fashion: Elon, was on the tip of his tongue. Elon, it's his fault — he took me out there! I didn't ask to go!

But that would earn him another blow too, because had Elon truly dragged him out to that plain, or to the human city? He'd pulled on his hand, but Lior could have dug in his tail and refused. He hadn't. And so was Elon truly at fault?

"Do I need to ask again?" Titus asked softly.

"No sir," he rasped. A jolt of pride — though ragged, there were no tears in his voice. "I was restless, sir. My head hurt. And I had to use the bathroom. So—"

"Why didn't you use one of the latrines?"

"I'm so—" Pause. "I didn't want to. I wanted to go up where the pressure wasn't so bad, and maybe...see the sky."

"How sentimental. But I don't need willful soldiers, Lior, who act on their own at every passing fancy. I was going to start you with Cephas tomorrow, but for this, you'll spend two weeks with the latrines again. I do not have the title of commander so that you might snub me at every turn. Understood?"

"Yes sir," Lior said sourly, and crossed his arms, awkwardly, into the salute. The latrines again...as if the first time hadn't been bad enough. He grit his teeth: I'm not speaking to Elon ever again!

Suddenly, there was some commotion outside: soldiers, and another voice, high and squeaky. Lior's brow furrowed: Elon?

The boy swept into the tent a moment later, out of breath. "There you are!" he cried, flocking to Lior's side. "You were so fast! Why didn't you—" He gasped; he'd noticed the bleeding scratches on Lior's face. He spun, glowing at Titus. "Did you hit him?"

Lior's eyes went wide; no one in this trench, not even Phinebas, had spoken to Titus like this, with a reproachful kind of outrage. And the look of fury on his face... Stop him, Lior, before he gets hurt!

But his words got stuck in his throat.

"You did, didn't you?" Elon said accusingly.

"I'm f-fine!" Lior managed to stammer out. "Elon, please don't—"

"Silence." Titus floated forward again, fists clenched as he glared down at Elon. "And you would do well not to question things outside your sphere, brother — our ways are not yours. Lior is my subordinate, and I will discipline him as I see fit."

"I'm not your brother," Elon snapped. "And did you hit him 'cause he was late? That was 'cause of me — we were out collecting rocks together."

Titus's eyes widened a fraction, and he turned to Lior, who flinched and tried to make himself small. "Lior," he said, his voice rumbling with threat, "did you lie to me?"

"No!" Elon insisted. "He just didn't want to get me in trouble! We were just getting some rocks for his parents' graves, and I kept him too long. Anyway, he's here now, so who cares?"

Lior wanted to run or die. Arceus, please get me out of here! "Elon, stop," he croaked. "Just go, it's not your fault — you didn't make me do anything." Maybe if Elon left, he could get this over with that much quicker.

"No," Elon said stubbornly. "If I go, he'll hit you again. And you didn't do anything wrong."

"I suggest you do as he says, brother," Titus rumbled. "Before I decide to give you what's going to him."

A flash of fear crossed Elon's face, but just as Lior was sure that the boy would cave and back out of the tent, his uncertainty disappeared in a flash, as though sucked away through cracks. "Okay, fine," he said, slithering in front of Lior and throwing his arms out. "Go ahead and do it. I'm only seven, but go ahead and do it. I've never been hit before, but go ahead and do it." A sneer leapt across his face. "I'll hate you forever...but go ahead and do it!"

Titus's lips pressed together and then spread, in a way that said he was just barely suppressing his rage. Lior stared between the two, feeling dazed, almost drugged, as though Elon had delivered him a sleep sting in a dozen places.

Then Titus growled, "Are you blackmailing me, young man?"

The boy frowned. "What's blackmail?"

The giant merman's teeth appeared in a scowl, and abruptly, some of the tension left the line of his shoulders. "Fine, I won't hit him again," he growled. Then he cocked his head, a crafty light coming to his eye. "For now, at least. Who's to say I won't once you leave, little brother? Who's to say that when you're sleeping up in your nice cozy cave tonight, I won't summon Lior to my pavilion, and strap him with this?"

He reached down behind his desk and lifted something into view: it looked like the sheath for a sword, a long wooden one capped at the end with a pyramid of shaped iron. The boys both stared at it, and Lior imagined it striking his backside. Part of him could actually feel it — the young, thin scales on his fluke would not protect him from that wood, he thought. There would be splinters there that Tirza Mari would dig out the next day. And certainly there would be bruises that would ache for days afterward. Maybe weeks.

He shuddered against Elon, and the boy became furious. "What's wrong with you?" he demanded. "He's only two years older than me! Why are you hitting him? Why are you making him work? He should be with me all day, playing!"

"Lior is a soldier. Soldiers work. Soldiers are hit when they're insubordinate. There's nothing you can do about that, little brother." There was a mocking lilt in the merman's voice, one that Lior had never heard him use with anyone else. It wasn't until Elon spoke next that he realized why:

"Yeah there is! If you keep being mean to Lior, I won't even think about doing that stupid ceremony with you."

Titus raised his brows in comical surprise. "What?"

"Yeah, that's right!" Elon wore a naïve, triumphant smile. "The Kyogre one."

"Are you saying that if I don't hit Lior anymore...you'll cooperate with me?"

"Not just that. You have to..." Elon paused, thinking. "You have to let him play with me, too."

Titus's fingers tightened on the sword sheath. "As I've already said, Lior has work to do. He can't play with you all day."

The boy lifted his chin. "That's the deal. Take it or leave it."

Titus pretended to think about it, and then came forward. "No. Stand aside."

He shoved Elon away, and then seized Lior by his hair, digging his fingers into his scalp. Lior sucked in a breath when he felt the merman's strength, remembering how Nightlight was nearly crushed by these very same fingers... And his air came back out in a mangled scream when he felt the sword sheath belt the back of his tail, sharp as a whip, yet heavy and blunt as a fist.

Later, he would think of the blow as more of a paddle, one that was nowhere near as powerful as it would have been had Titus actually been serious. But the fact that the Commander had actually followed through with what Lior had been sure was an empty threat, and that it felt almost as bad, if not worse, than he'd imagined... His stupefied cry came out horrified, and high enough to break glass.

"Stop!" Elon lunged at Titus, winding his tail around the merman's torso in a feeble attempt to get him to stop. "Okay, what about afternoons? Please?"

Titus laughed unpleasantly. He lifted the sword sheath again.

"An hour!" Elon begged. "An hour, just an hour before dark. He can do that, right?"

The Commander took another pause, a crafty pause, a conniving pause — fearing the worst, Lior braced himself, preparing to bear another strike from the sheath. But Titus released him, freeing Lior's hair of his fingers. Immediately, Elon circled Titus's bulk, jamming himself between him and Lior. It wasn't necessary, though: Titus backed up a couple of paces, and suddenly seemed to have no interest in delivering Lior another blow.

"All right," he growled. "That sounds reasonable. An hour every other day."

Elon's voice wobbled; he seemed to be clamoring to save face. "An hour every day."

Titus simply stared at him, and a long, dangerous minute passed. Lior saw Elon's shoulders droop. "An hour every other day," he whispered. Then his head jerked up. "And you won't hit him," he added sharply.

"I won't hit him," Titus said agreeably. "And in exchange, you will attend my meetings with Phinebas. When I have a question, you'll answer it. And when the time comes... You will participate in the ceremony. Yes?"

"Yes," Elon said hatefully. He reached back and grabbed Lior's arm. "Can we go now?"

Titus's eyes went to Lior, and the fire sweeping up his backside seemed to intensify under the man's stare. "Don't lie to me again, Lior," he growled. He waved. "Dismissed."

Elon towed Lior towards the door. "It's okay, now," he said quietly. "He won't hit you again."

"Yes," Lior said weakly, but he didn't believe it. A look over his shoulder, and he saw something in Titus's eyes: a triumphant light, one that told him the merman had just won a decisive battle.

--

Featured Artwork: "Lord Kygriss-Mari" (10-14-2020)

I can't draw kids, guys. I also don't know how they talk, which is probably why Elon sounds older than he should in this chapter. XD

Man, drawing merfolk is all about knowing what to do with the tail, I swear. For this one, I thought, "F*ck it, just have it loop underneath him."