Stories from the Deep by Claudie Arseneault

Author:Claudie Arseneault
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action/Adventure, aromantic, asexual, cozy fantasy, non-binary, found family, road trip, chosen one
Publisher: The Kraken Collective
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Three Plateaus shone by its simplicity. Three teams of three players faced off in a circular arena that had been divided in equal thirds—each representing one of the three flat plateaus on which Trenaze had been built. Another smaller circle delineated “the mountain”, a neutral zone in the middle. To mark a point, a team needed to get the ball to fall on their opponent’s third. Any hit outside, however, counted as a negative point. In proper arenas, walls about a meter high enclosed the arena and split the thirds, but Horace had to do with dragging much lower tree trunks in place, and using taller sticks as guides for height. The latter might have been enough, but the game wasn’t the same without the ball bouncing off the top of the walls, so the trunks would serve as a chaotic replacement. They’d have to get runners to place any balls that escaped back in the neutral zone, too.

“The last rule,” Horace said to the gathered group, “is that each player on a team can only employ one of three parts of their body to touch the ball: one uses their hands and arms, the second their feet and legs, and the third the rest of their body. No grabbing the ball.”

“That’s it?” A dangerous eagerness floated through Keza’s tone. “No other rules?”

Horace raked eir brain. There was a good chance e’d forgotten something. Three Plateaus had less moving pieces and rules than saira, but eir memory had never been eir strong suit. E’d gone over the arena lines, how rounds played, how to score points and player specificity, so…

“Oh!” It came back to em, a flash prompted by memories of Trenaze’s most scandalous Three Plateaus game. “No touching the other teams’ players.”

Keza pouted. “But I can aim the ball at their faces, right?”

“Y-yes.” Which would hurt a lot more with these stretchy amber balls than it would have with the softer ones at home. “Don’t break someone’s nose for a point, Keza!”

She grinned at em, sharp teeth adding a layer of viciousness to the expression. “You’re no fun.”

“I’d like to be on Keza’s team,” Korrin piped up, fear lacing the request.

The other sailors laughed, but before long they were arguing over the third position, equally eager to not face off with the agile felnexi who’d been climbing all over their rigging. Horace let them, instead scanning the beach for Aliyah. They stood a distance back, but e knew they’d listened to every word of eir explanation.

“Come be my Feet,” e said.

Aliyah’s gaze flicked to the rest of the crew, ending on Jameela. They had avoided one another since their tense discussion inside the Wagon, but Horace refused to let Aliyah miss out on the fun because of it.

“I’m team leader. I decide who’s on mine. And we make a good team, no?”

A hint of a smile, a barely perceptible nod, and Horace knew e’d won this. Aliyah shucked their tattered cloak off, removed their boots, and walked over barefoot in the sand with obvious trepidation.

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