The Shimmering Prayer of Sûkiurâq by S.L. Dove Cooper

Author:S.L. Dove Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kraken Collective
Published: 2022-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

“What do you mean?” Naenâm Nâbae had found his voice first, though he was closely followed by Aelei Miseu.

“I mean exactly what I said.” Euleim nroi Tântei’s voice was clipped, her eyes eerily distant. “We don’t have time to do any of this properly.” She held up a hand before anyone could speak. “I know I’m not speaking sense to you. It will, though perhaps not for a while. I’ve already spoken to the captain to make all haste. We have a few hours left before we arrive. Let’s not waste them asking questions you’ll find answered in due course. Sit, all of you.”

If finding a comfortable way to stand together in the cramped room had been difficult and prone to causing bruises, Oibe Ekêmai thought sitting down was even worse. In the end, the two aloof naequaunau recruits took up a position beside their captain while Oibe Ekêmai and the other four teenagers sprawled into a heap on the ground in front of the desk. Immie sat as far away from them as space allowed, her whole body now wrapped around the bucket and her braid once again half-undone. Oibe Ekêmai hadn’t had any time to finish it. Thae thaeself was practically sitting in Aelei Miseu’s lap to thaes chagrin. The two of them had parted on friendly terms, but thae knew Aelei Miseu had taken their break-up hard and thae wasn’t sure how good this was for him. But the alternative was getting squashed like a pancake between thaes former partner and Naenâm Nâbae. In other circumstances that might be delightful, now it was just awkward.

Euleim nroi Tântei gave them no warning for anything. She merely launched into a story that Oibe Ekêmai had heard a thousand times before. It was the story of the Star Children and the Twin Goddesses of Stasis and Motion. It was the story of how the world had been gifted with eixi and the lêqnaemi’s role in preserving or altering the flows. Oibe Ekêmai could probably recite the tale backwards.

But the euleim didn’t follow the story that Oibe Ekêmai had heard several thousand times, if only because thae had begged to hear it told as a bedtime tale until all thaes siblings were sick of it. The woman added something about monsters that lived just outside the world, just in the corner of one’s eye, and the people who could summon them. That the Stasis always sought to return the world to its original state. That eixi was more than a way to make lives better, but a goddess-born gift intended to protect the world. That a thin veil between the world and the void protected them all, and while it could be manipulated and maintained by lêqnaemi, it was more accurate to say that it was enforced and had been for many years. In the euleim’s story, dancing was more than correcting the flow of eixi. It was a struggle against the darkness the creation of eixi had banished from the world, against the nightmares that preyed upon the people and sometimes broke through.

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