Chapter Text
CRASH!!
The voices stilled and Firmus clutched his hands to his ears.
Please no, please no, please no…
Then a hand grasped his shirt and he was hauled upward with a gasp as his Father’s furious face appeared inches from his.
“How dare you use your nonsense! How dare you destroy our property! As if we have enough to spare! You useless little runt!”
He flung Firmus back against the wall and stomped back to find the broom, loudly berating his wife for the oddness of their only son.
Firmus sobbed, not from the new bruises but because he couldn’t stop it and he didn’t know why he did these things and…and…
The expected migraine came on, so he stumbled out of the shabby little house, and made his way to his secret place to get through it by himself. He’d dug a little cave behind and below the large red rock about fifty yards from the back entrance. It was shaded and, while not cool, per say, it was always ten degrees less than the outside temperature while also being blessedly dark.
He curled up on the red earth and squeezed his eyes shut tight, the warm air evaporating the wet tears on his face swiftly.
It was Rilla who came to find him—it was always Rilla— and it was only then that he realized that night had arrived.
“Come, Shaja,” she said gently, holding out a hand. She was five years older than he was, but they had always been friends. His baby sister had died two years previously and it was that incident which had changed Mother permanently. She rarely did much anymore, and it was his two older sisters who kept things going around the house.
Father worked in the city and sometimes he brought money home and sometimes he drank it all.
His oldest sister worked as well so that all of them could eat. Rilla had taken it upon herself to run the home and cook since Mother never did so anymore. And Firmus had started to take little jobs where he could—in the outskirts of the city.
He had to be careful however. These strange powers of his manifested unpredictably, and he did not dare risk others seeing them. Rilla had been very clear that he must hide that aspect of himself.
He could only hope that as he got older he somehow…grew out of it, or learned to suppress them better.
“Are you hurt anywhere, Shaja?” his sister asked as they walked to the little clay home and made their way up the steps to the flat roof.
He shook his head. “I’m fine.”
A few more bruises were nothing. Father never actually hit him. He raged and yelled, and occasionally shook him like today, but he didn’t hit him. It was the gangs in the city that did that if he wasn’t quick enough.
His sister had created this spot on the roof. Mostly it was a place for Mother to go. She would sit under the humble little cloth shelter Rill had made and stare out at the far red mountains across the desert, mumbling, her restless fingers fiddling with a long strand of hair.
It was better when Mother did that. Otherwise she irritated their Father when he came home, and terrible fights ensued such as happened this afternoon. Rilla was very good at finding ways to try and keep the peace, but even she had limits.
Firmus could see that she was very tired, and she stretched out on the thin pallet beneath the cloth shelter, patting the space beside her.
He eased down next to her, the heat of the clay roof keeping them warm against the increasingly cool desert night, as they both stared out at the brilliant starry vista above them.
It was the most beautiful part of Axxila, Firmus thought. The night skies. So pure and clean and glorious.
“Is your head better?” Rilla asked quietly, her hand finding his and gripping firmly.
“Yeah,” he replied, appreciating that she usually knew why he retreated to his little cave.
“I’m sorry I don’t have anything to help.”
“Not your fault,” he murmured, frustration knotting in his chest. “I don’t know why it does that, Rill. I was trying so hard to stop and I just—!”
She squeezed his fingers gently.
“I know, dear. But you and I know that if they start yelling, you need to get out. That’s one of the triggers.”
He sighed and slid his other arm under his head.
“I know. But it happened so quick. And I couldn’t slip out without him seeing me, and you know he doesn’t like it when I’m being ‘sneaky’ and so…”
Rilla bit her lip and turned her head to meet his eyes.
“You aren’t ‘sneaky’ like that, Firmus. Or a coward. Or anything else he likes to call you.”
His throat tightened up.
He had been well aware, from an early age, that he was a disappointment to his Father. Too small. Too strange. Too quiet.
He’d worked so hard the last few years to be the right sort of son. Tried to get work and bring home money. Tried to suppress his strange powers even though it meant awful migraines. Tried to avoid being any sort of bother or trouble.
But when he came home with a split lip or a black eye because the local gangs of feral children enjoyed targeting him, it would only send his Father off into a rage. Not because his son was hurt—oh no. Because his son was stupid enough to get caught in the first place. Because he couldn’t fight back effectively. It was embarrassing, apparently.
He was silent for awhile, trying to wait for the hot tears sliding down into his hair to subside, so that he could reply without a sob.
“What if he’s right?” he asked his sister at last. It was the question that plagued him. What if he and Rilla were wrong? They were just children after all and Father worked with tough beings. He knew what cowards looked like.
Rilla emitted an angry huff at the night sky and turned to lean up on her elbow so he could see her face.
“He is NOT,” she emphasized, reaching down to wipe his tears with her fingers. She’d known he was crying anyway.
“But what do we know?” he pushed. “We’re just—-”
“I know , Firmus Piett,” Rilla told him fiercely. “All those stories we read—they’re by beings who are smart. Who know these things.”
It was the one luxury they had. His sister had found a battered and ancient datapad one day in a dumpster outside her work. Firmus had tinkered tirelessly with it to make it run—-hunting for wires and chips himself to do so. It didn’t connect to the holo network or anything. But what it could do was download the free books from the small local library. He would go there whenever he could, and the kind lady with the wrinkled face like an old apple would assist him.
“You telling me they’re all wrong about courage or cowardice, Shaja?” Rilla pursued relentlessly.
He looked up into her large brown eyes, the moonlight making them shine at him with intensity.
“No…”
“Karking right, no ,” she nodded, and he couldn’t help the snort laugh at her language. She smiled down at him and leaned in to kiss his temple hard. “Don’t you dare listen to him, brother of mine. You’re the bravest.”
“ You are,” he shot back immediately as she lay back down.
“I try,” she agreed, “but there’s lots of kinds of brave, Firmus. It’s not all about fighting krayt dragons.”
He smiled into the darkness. He loved those particular stories. Brave knights. Space battles. Exotic creatures and daring feats. His favorites were the ships that sailed in the stars. To captain one of those…
It was a dream he hadn’t even expressed to Rilla. It was too big—-too impossible.
And yet.
It stayed in his heart.
Rilla’s own great dream was to be a politician. To make a difference for the people of Axxila and reform the corrupt government. He couldn’t relate to this, but he felt she would be very good at it.
“I know, Rill,” he said to her, smiling and gripping her hand. “You should be in school. But you’re here. Keeping us alive. And I love you.”
“Sweet talking little nerf,” she chuckled fondly. “C’mon. We need to go in before we fall asleep and freeze out here.”
Firmus wasn’t to know this would be the last time they would be together like this.
*************
He worked particularly hard to suppress any ‘damn oddness’ the next two days. He woke up on the third day feeling nauseous and dizzy.
“Never mind,” Rilla said comfortingly, laying a hand on his head. “Just sleep, Shaja.”
She left a cup of water by his pallet in the room all the siblings shared, and gently tied a rag around his eyes—-the best she could do to protect him from the sunlight streaming in the unshielded window.
He was miserable all day—dry heaving every thirty minutes and longing for actual sleep. When he at last dropped into unconsciousness it was not restful. Strange images plagued his dreams and an ominous sense of foreboding had him in its jaws. He saw a fearsome monster with no eyes and terrible claws approach him…then it shifted and his own hands were on fire… another shift and he felt a presence as though someone was speaking in his mind but it wasn’t human…
Rilla woke him when it was night and helped him sip some water. She’d scrounged a packet of broth powder somewhere. It was gritty and tasted of chemicals, but it had the nutrients he needed.
“I’m sorry,” he croaked, but her hand was cool and soothing on his forehead. WHY must he always be the one to get sick? It only confirmed their Father’s opinion that he was a weakling and a burden.
“Nope,” she said briskly, kissing his head. “No sorry from you, little brother. You are here toughing it out like a champ and I wish I could take away your misery, but—-”
He reached up an arm to tug her down into a hug and the two of them held each other tightly for a moment.
Firmus was forever grateful for that moment. That memory.
“Try to rest,” she ordered, rising again.
And he obeyed.
In the morning, while he didn’t feel great, he was well enough to get up and see about getting some sort of odd job in the city. His Father wouldn’t tolerate him ‘slacking’ much longer. He was sick too often, and Father already didn’t feel he pulled his weight as he should.
So he walked the three miles to the city after Rilla insisted he drink more of the broth. It took him about an hour, the hard dirt of the road hot beneath his thin boot soles. He was soaked with sweat when he finally reached the shade of the slum neighborhoods at the very outskirts.
Firmus was very careful here as he made his way through narrow streets and alleys. This was where his tormentors resided, though they were not likely here this early in the day. They hunted their prey in the late afternoons and early evenings since most beings headed home from work with their paypackets at that point.
Sometimes he sought work in the upper middle class parts of the city. But he needed all his energy for that—-they preferred bright, cheerful help, full of energy and cleverness.
He was too tired for that—too worn out still from this latest bout of sickness. So he stuck to the areas that all the blue collar workers frequented. People weren’t picky here. If you were strong enough to lift things and smart enough to obey instructions, you could usually count on a job. The pay wasn’t nearly as much as the nicer areas, but it was pay, and Firmus would be content with that today.
He tucked his earnings into his inner trouser pocket—the secret one Rilla had sewn for him—-and made his way toward his home a little early so as to try and avoid any trouble with the usual suspects.
He doubled back a few times and then shimmied up a pipe to go over a flat roof at one point—-the one where there were flats for the old people.
He paused in the shadows on the other side and looked around for any pursuit. Nothing seemed unusual. He could hear an elderly man bellowing inside for someone called Elmara to turn down the damn holonews.
Confident that he had made it, Firmus trotted up a narrow alley to the little square where there was a shop that sold second hand fruits. He wanted to get something for Rill and she would love that.
He purchased two jubals, both of them very bruised, but not rotten, and turned to find that his confidence had been misplaced.
“Hey, plizze, ” grinned the leader—-a thirteen year old with thick lips and a large forehead.
Firmus darted his gaze around the square, looking for all his known exits. Unfortunately, the other members of this particular gang had already situated themselves near each one.
Kark .
“Hand it over and you might be able to walk home,” the leader continued, a boy named Kymuz.
And something stirred in Firmus. A sort of primal frustration—with himself, his weakness, his Father, and these gutter kriffers who would pick on the weaker. He narrowed his eyes and lifted his chin.
The others saw this act of defiance and began to close in.
Good .
One beat. Two beats. Three beats…
Firmus made a break for it, ducking under the meaty grasp of Kymuz and fleeing for the building with the pipe. If he could get up—-
His fingertips brushed the warm metal, but then the back of his shirt was grasped and he was yanked roughly away from it to crash to the broken stone cobblestones of the square.
His illness had left him slower. He felt the smashed jubal fruits beneath his body, and it was the knowledge that his hard won gift for Rilla was destroyed that had him rolling snarling to his feet. It was suicide—he knew this—-but he was so damn angry he tackled the nearest boy with a shriek of rage.
For about two minutes, he managed to scuffle with the enemy. Then the others tired of this and hauled him off to receive his beating.
It ended as it always did with Firmus curled on the stones, covering his head to protect it from the kicks. There was pain, as ever, and then hands ripping at him, looking for his meagre pay.
All his hard work and struggle represented in those small bills.
Something ignited in his chest—-something hot and powerful and other .
It grew and expanded, filling his lungs, his heart. It was as if lightning coursed through his blood stream. He couldn’t stop it—he wasn’t strong enough to stop it—
And then…
He didn’t want to.
With a yell his eyes went wide and his hands snapped open and he felt… something go out from him.
High pitched screams of terror echoed in his ears and then there were crunching sounds like bodies hitting stone.
Then silence.