Fire of Ennui by Ivana Skye

Author:Ivana Skye [Skye, Ivana]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy
Goodreads: 37933818
Publisher: Eta Carinae Press
Published: 2018-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

8

Nena & Maràh

sedge

There is a town at the edge of the desert, just below the mountains. This shouldn’t be surprising: it’s a rather obvious location for travelers coming from either direction to restock on their supplies. That demand, in addition to impressive natural hot springs, made it inevitable that a town would grow here.

We were still at the foothills above the town and I was enjoying the dramatic wind in my braided hair when Maràh turned to me and said, “So, do you have nickname suggestions?”

I blinked. They’d never directly asked me for help before. “I mean,” I said, “I guess I could.”

“Good,” Maràh said. “Because now seems like as good a time as ever to say good riddance to this awful name.”

I almost smiled and I turned to them on that wind-swept hill and said: “Be careful, though. You wouldn’t want to accidentally stumble upon your truename with me already knowing it.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d actually mind that,” Maràh said, and I was pretty sure they were smiling at me. “Getting one of those would be pretty fucking nice, even if someone else ended up knowing. It’d just be nice to have one. And, yknow, to not have this name.”

“It’s not that—”

“Yes, it is. It is that bad. And you don’t get to tell me it’s not. You don’t get to tell me what names do and don’t horribly communicate my identity. You. Don’t.”

I nodded. “Point,” I said. “Now, what kind of name are you looking for?”

“One that isn’t this.”

“Got it.”

“So,” I said. “As tried and true places to look for nicknames go, there’s always obscure science terms…”

“And how are we gonna track those down before we get into the town? That seems like the kind of thing you’d need a library for.”

“Well,” I said. “I do have a synonym. I could contact one of my parents, or something.”

“Hm,” Maràh said. “That might be a little awkward. The contacting someone else part.”

And we stood there for a long moment, probably looking quite dramatic if I do say so myself. “Hm,” I eventually echoed. “You’re probably right.”

“Well.”

“Yes.”

“Indeed.”

“Yup.”

“Should we, uh … start?” Maràh asked. “With just us two talking.”

“Sure,” I said, sitting down and waving them down to sit with me, which they did.

The grass twitched and moved in the wind around us and I started to think. “So, hm, there’s wind names. Like Zephyr? Uh, Breeze would kind of be a bad name, so would Gust … uh … yeah, Zephyr might be the only one there…”

Maràh started laughing. Vitalities, they seemed to be in a progressively better mood the longer I traveled with them. Maybe they were getting comfortable. “No,” they said, “I don’t think that name’s going to fit me.”

“Hm,” I said. “Well, we probably can’t very well name you Mountain, or Valley.”

“Are you just free-associating based on what stuff’s around us?”

“Yup. How could you tell?”

Maràh rolled their eyes. “How ever, I wonder.”

I glanced up to the sky. There were no clouds today, but there could be, sometimes.

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