The Island

 

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The Pond

The Spring Solstice Feast was about to begin when Mila crouched at an empty spot surrounding one of the crowded cooking fires lining the beach with flickering lights. The feast brought the islanders together in loud celebration. The rainy season was over. The sea stopped rolling farther and farther up the white shore, taking larger bites of the land with every storm. Children were free to roam away from their mothers in giggling herds, kicking up sand as they ran. There was no more fear of rain-swollen waves sweeping a child away. The elders gathered the youngest ones and told them stories of Peek: the one-eyed monster that lived in the jungle and saw you with his big, lidless eye when you disobeyed your mother. The adolescents gathered in a sandy space clear of cooking fires to dance to the quick drumbeats. A wide ring of drummers surrounded the dancers. They pounded their drums to the known Dance of the Dolphin and Silver Fish. The beat mimicked the swell and rise of the waves. The men advanced and retreated in play, predatory aggression. The women darted in and out of their reach with graceful twists and turns, coyly evading their advances. If the man were lucky, the silver fish would let herself get caught. The women danced for the attention of the right man, not stopping their furious swim until the right dolphin gave chase. If they swam with enough enticing zeal, perhaps they could convince the dolphin to chase them and only them through the depths of the ocean. 

Meat from the day’s hunt cooked and crisped over the cooking fires dotting the beach. The fires burned in the dry space between the soggy sand and the rough patch where the beach shifted into hard ground and jungle brush. Islanders crouched around fires sharing stories of the rainy seasons past and the spring seasons to come. Mila’s mother, kneeling several cooking fires over to her left, chastised her with a narrowing of her eyes for arriving late. Mila shrugged it off. She was more than glad to miss the festivities that preceded every feast: the young couples doing their awkward dance of brushing hands, and flickering eye contact that refused to commit for longer than a breath.

The spring’s warm breeze combed its fingers through the island trees. The breeze swept the smells of the three islands together until they swirled into a heady scent that stirred the stomach and mind with wistful thoughts of dinner. The islands, part of a continuous chain, were so close to one another that when Mila was particularly bored, she would count the cooking fires of the surrounding islands. Each pinprick of orange light served as a distraction from her mother’s glare. It was a glare that could make a child guilty of a thought, a sneeze or even a heartbeat if her mother willed it. Her mother often willed it.

The gentle nudge of puppy love seemed to hibernate over the months of heavy rain and monsoons that blew ripples through the Islands like a mother blowing her child’s soup cool. The very moment the sun pried the rainclouds apart, spring reappeared and carried love along with it. Well-rested and shaking the rain off of its coat, spring swept through the Islands, dusting the young from head to toe with the welcome jitters, aches and pains that only a fresh bout of infatuation can inflict.  Even in the thick of the season, most of the men never pursued Mila with wagging tails, barking for her attention as they would with other girls.

While other girls swooned and blushed, Mila’s smiles were rare and hard earned. Only one boy followed her with sighing eyes, flushed cheeks and a pounding heart. His name was Blythe. While crouching in front of the cooking fire, Mila felt his unwavering eyes on her for what seemed to be the millionth time.  He was kneeling at a cooking fire several feet ahead of hers. The amount of cooking fires lining the beach and roasting every hunt-able animal in the jungle were nearly uncountable. Yet she ended up sitting a stone’s throw a way from him. While Mila contemplated moving to a different cooking fire, a loud giggle tore through her thoughts.

A girl named Anouk approached the crowded fire that Blythe knelt in front of. She shouldered her way between Blythe and another boy, giggling as she sat beside Blythe. She pulled him in close like a snake constricting her prey. Anouk nodded towards the dancers and whispered in Blythe’s ear, starring up at him through a dark fringe of long eyelashes. Blythe looked at the dancers, then back at her, bewildered.

Anouk was one of the most sought after girls of the Islands. Mila, at seventeen years old, stood at a daunting five feet and ten inches with a respectable chest, worth a nod and an eyebrow raise; Anouk stood at a petite five feet with breasts as full as Mila was tall, which warranted a full stop and a slack jaw. Anouk wore red body paint that swirled about her bare waist, abdomen, thighs and arms in flowing curls and waves: the color and strokes of femininity, fertility and intentions of marriage. Mila was still swathed in blue smears that detailed her arms and legs in the straight, platonic, genderless lines of adolescence. She didn’t wear the midriff and skirts made of the island palm leaves like Anouk and others her age. She wore the just-above-knee length dress of girlhood made of sturdy animal hides. They were easy to run around in. She preferred the days of childhood, when everyone felt and looked the same. Before all of the defining body parts began to grow in and then suddenly everyone was either a girl or a boy and nothing else seemed to matter.

Starring at the blue paint on her arms, Mila could hear her mother’s voice in her head.

“When your brother was born and you were born minutes after, I knew there’d be trouble,” Her mother had sighed. “You had a boy as your playmate for nine moons and now you’ve become one.”

Mila didn’t grow up mashing red berries with other little girls, drawing red swirls on each other and giggling behind their hands at the implications. She didn’t spend her days learning to dance like a silver fish. She spent her days running through the jungle, thwacking her brother Kai across the ribs with a stick. While other little girls returned home with flowers woven in their hair, Mila returned with Kai in tow, caked with mud and coated in the scent of the jungle.

Mila first realized the truth in her mother’s words when she and Kai were twelve, and a boy named Cree saw them play-fighting with twigs on the beach, the clear water lapping at their toes. Cree walked up to them and didn’t saying a word until Mila and Kai stopped their game to stare back. He was Mila and Kia’s age, but she’d never spoken to him.

“You’re not supposed to be playing like that,” Cree said, nodding at Mila.

Mila turned to Kai, he shrugged at her, looking equally puzzled. “What are you talking about?” She asked.

“My mother says a boy and a girl aren’t supposed to be growing together from the start like you two. Mother said that’s why you’re all mixed up,” Cree declared, crossing his arms.

“Mixed up?” Kai rolled the phrase around in his mouth, not knowing exactly what it meant, but not liking the taste of it. Kai stepped forward, raising his own twig for emphasis. “She’s not mixed up. We’re just playing a game, Cree.”

Cree stepped close to Mila, their toes almost touching. He dwarfed her in height. At twelve years old she hadn’t hit her growth spurt yet. She took a step back. “I heard when you were in your mother’s belly, you were a boy! But then your dingdong fell off! That’s why you act like a dolphin instead of a silver fishy. You’re all mixed up!” Cree said, his voice cracking into laughter.

Tears gathered at the rim of her eyes and Mila squinted to keep them in, but Cree grinned victoriously when they rolled down her face. Kai stepped in front of her, pushing her behind him with his arm. Kai’s face was still padded with baby fat, but his adult height of 6’4 was clear in the breadth of his shoulders.

“Cree, I don’t know-” Then Mila’s foot shot out and buried itself in Cree’s groin. She’d ducked under Kai’s long arm, gotten between the two boys and thrown her leg out. She was aiming for his stomach, but landed the blow lower than expected. Cree doubled over, dropped to his knees and planted his face into the sand. His scream had a garbled sound to it, as if he were screaming through swallowing something too hot. Mila looked down at her foot, then at the sniveling Cree, then back to her foot. Kai opened his mouth to say something, then snapped his lips shut. He winced at Cree, who was curling into the fetal position, before grabbing Mila’s hand and dashing down the beach.

Kai finally skidded to a stop where the beach ended and the thick brush of jungle grew. It was the entrance to the jungle that led to the valley where the sleeping huts were- a valley guarded by a ring of sturdy trees to protect the huts against rainstorms. Mila almost collided with his back when he stopped after five minutes of running. She scrubbed at her wet eyes with her free arm. Even though she just discovered her right foot seemed to have magical powers, the sting of Cree’s words destroyed the moment. Kai let go of her hand and turned to her.

“Listen,” He said, grasping her shoulders in his too-large hands as he caught his breath. He was at a point of growth where his hands and feet were too big for the rest of his body. “You’re my baby sister-”

“I’m only three minutes younger than you-” she began in protest, her voice thick from crying.

“Fine,” Kai conceded, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “You’re my sister, and if anyone says anything mean to you, then I think you can hit them. Just don’t hit them there.” Kai motioned downward, below his waist.

“What?”

“Just punch them in the face or something. Don’t kick them there. It hurts a lot there.” He explained with a grimace.

Mila starred at him and was a little disappointed upon realizing that her foot didn’t have special abilities. She raised her arm up to rub her eyes again, but Kai took one hand off her shoulder to stop her. “Do you think he’s right?” She asked him.

Kai squinted at her. “That you had a dingdong, but it fell off in mother’s belly?”

“No!” Mila swatted his arm.

“That you’re mixed up? I don’t even know what that means. He’s just stupid! You’re Mila just like I am Kai. I don’t care about dolphins or silver fish! That’s just dancing stuff.” He hooked a long arm around her back and pulled her into an embrace. Her arms rose weightlessly to circle his neck, as if she were underwater.

“I hate dancing,” She murmured into the crook of his neck. Her tears rolled down his collarbone.

“I know,” He agreed. “It’s stupid. You and me are made of the same stuff. If you’re mixed up, I’m mixed up,” He shrugged. “Whatever that means.” She nodded into his shoulder. After a long silence, she pulled back from his embrace. Kai ruffled her hair and grinned at her, as if daring her not to grin back. She wiped her nose and face clean before tentatively smiling back. Kai turned his back and knelt in front of her. His hands rested palms-up at his sides.

“Get on!” He said over his shoulder. Mila starred at his back for a moment. Kai was the only person who was allowed to baby her. At first she thought she let him do it because he was her older brother. Even though he was only older by three minutes, Kai'd claimed the title and with it there was the expectation that he would protect her. As she grew older, she realized expectation had nothing to do with it. It was because when he looked at her she knew he looked beneath the paint. He was like the men who decided which tress were ready to be carved into canoes. They could look at a tree and know its potential. Underneath rough, wrinkled bark they could see the smoothe curves of the canoe it could become.  When Kai looked at her, Mila knew she had a purpose within her. Beneath the bark, beneath the paint there was something that he could see. Something that was dismissed by Cree's taunts and the disappointment in her mother's eyes. Kai's eyes could peel back the hard shell of bark, strip her of her sadness and reach the smooth surface of who she was. So, with only a moment's hesitation, Mila climbed on his back. He stood, gripping her behind the knees and took off in a sprint. 

“Where are we going? Why did we run away from Cree so fast? Should we go back and help him?” She said in his ear, her eyes squinting against the wind.

Kai snorted. “We couldn’t help Cree if we tried! I’m surprised your foot didn’t get stuck in there. And we’re running because we have to get to mother and tell her about this before she hears it from someone else!” Kai shifted her higher on his back and picked up speed. They entered the jungle, his feet moving quicker on hard ground than on sand.

“What? Why?” Mila yelped. “She’ll kill us!”

“We’re pretty much dead already!” Kai called back over his shoulder.

The popping sound of the flames brought Mila's mind back to the present. A new, salted kill was placed on the spit above the fire. The blood dripped continuously. The flame tongues lapped up the blood with constant, loud pops. The beats of the Dance of the Dolphin and the Silver Fish grew quicker. More islanders began joining in. Mila spotted Kai swirling into the ether of the dance. He waved at her as he circled a partner who dipped away from his outstretched arms. He was a good head taller than everyone else. His black hair swung over his tan shoulders as he spun. Kai laughed at the playful slight of his dance partner and spun deeper into the spiral of dancers. Mila turned back to the fire. Blythe caught her eye again while Anouk edged closer to him.

Blythe politely detached himself from Anouk’s arms, shaking his head shyly. She shot a glare at Mila before moving on to the next suitable bachelor. Still crouched next to the cooking fire, Mila shrugged off the glare and turned her attention toward the meat roasting above the flames in front of her. She couldn’t tell what it was when it was still alive, but the smell of it drew a ring of hungry admirers. A woman stepped forward and prodded the meat with a knife. She declared the meat ready and began doling out slices with a motherly grin.

After the men received their shares, Mila accepted hers, wrapped in a sturdy leaf twice the size of her hand. The men reached out for second helpings before they even finished their first servings. Bronze arms snaked forward with paint markings that told Mila different stories. Blue waves up the forearms- a fisherman who could turn fish to fish oil and debone a fish in minutes. Green stripes that curled around a nimble wrist- a hunter who probably stalked and killed whatever he was asking for a second helping of. The female arms only showed red markings. Whether they were swirls, dots or stripes they meant the same thing- woman. By the end of the feeding frenzy, the woman handing out slices barely had any meat left for herself. Mila sat on her bottom and stretched her legs out in front of her. She pulled the browned meat apart with her fingers, hoping Blythe would finally lose interest like a child would with an old toy.

No one could not understand his decade long obsession with her. It was not as if she transformed into a cliché of fantastic beauty over the years. Her features had grown slightly softer and more delicate, constantly chaffing against the strength of her attitude, which sent all other suitors shrinking away with their tails tucked between their legs. 

Someone accidentally dropped a piece of meat into the flames. Mila eyes snapped up at the sudden hiss of the flames and the annoyed protests of the man who dropped the meat. A woman passed the man some of her share and he quieted down. Once again, she accidentally caught Blythe’s adoring glance. Blythe had been looking at her with that same expression since the first day they met.

BLYTHE

Blythe breathed a sign of relief when Anouk finally disappeared into the dance. Anouk had a way about her that both scared and enticed Blythe. She made him feel like a butterfly flying closer and closer to the flame. Enticed by the beauty, but the parts of his mind that had yet to be paralyzed by the curve of her lips and the slope of her lowerback told him being so close to something so beautiful had a price. Anouk was beautiful, Blythe knew that no man on the island could deny that. She didn't walk so much as curl through the air like smoke. Blythe couldn't spot a straight line on her body. The swirls of red paint that accented her wisp of a waist seemed unneccesary because she herself was nothing but a constant curve. When she danced, her small feet spraying sand with each turn, she seemed to shed her skin and turn into ocean water. The song became her moon, pushing and pulling her body to the tide of the music. Her hips swung with a natural sense of purpose. As if movement was built into her natural instincts of survival along side of eating and breathing. With each turn, each step forward she moved like a blade of grass bursting through the dirt to drink in its first gulp of sunshine. Yet, Blythe could not bring himself to say yes to her when she asked him to join her in the Dance of the Dolphin and the Silverfish. 

Cree, who sat beside Blythe, gnawing on a hunk of wild pig, rolled his eyes before elbowing Blythe in the side.

"Idiot,"  Cree snorted, as he bit into a pink hunk of pig. 

Blythe flushed. "Are you talking to me?" Blythe already knew that Cree was talking to him, he just hoped that Cree would deny it if askd outright. 

"Yes I'm talking to you, fool. When Anouk asks you to dance, you dance. I'd rather be chewing on her than this," Cree sneered, half-chewed pig rolling back and forth between his cheeks. "That dolphin Mila should've left you to drown in that pond if you're not smart enough to dance with Anouk." Blythe felt his cheeks heating and turned away from Cree. He let himself fall back into the memory of when he'd first met Mila at the pond.  

 He’d been about ten, an age when he should have known better, while she was only seven, an age when knowing anything at all was more than an accomplishment. His father had taken him to the armor hut and shown him the torso pieces of a suit of armor. Blythe starred at the armor excitedly, resting his warm hand on its cold, smooth surface. Men of the Island never wore armor. They chose to greet death with bare skin and nothing but painted symbols of bravery to shield them from the hungry spear of an enemy. But each chieftain of the three Islands was given a piece of a suit of armor from the land before. The land before safe Islands. The land before the escape.

Long ago during the Great Migration to the Islands, many things were smuggled out of the old land. Cats, many of which were hunted and killed by Island predators until the Islanders had the good sense to keep them inside theirs huts at all times; dogs, which were swatted on their wet noses and nearly left behind for barking during the secret escape; cloth, food, water, and seeds to be planted in a new land; and, to remember the ceremony and beauty of their motherland, one suit of armor was smuggled out.

The armor was split between the three Islands and the three clans that claimed each Island. The westernmost Island, claimed by The Monkeys Who Laugh From Above clan, was given the helmet, the metal gloves, and the pieces that encased arms in steel. They built their huts high in the trees and rained garbage on those who trespassed. They jibber jabbered and laughed until their backs hunched and knees shook. They could drink themselves into a stupor until they fell from the trees and into the protective nets secured just below their treehuts (built just for that purpose), but they could cut the throat of those who threatened their family should the need present itself. They preferred that the need not present itself.

The Worms Who Squirm Underfoot clan, the easternmost Island, was given the feet and legs of the armor. The pride of every Island man, regardless of clan, was his swift movement during a hunt. They were to have the soundless, predatory grace of the creatures that crept in the jungle. A true Islander must shed his skin and grow fur. He must hunch the back, and fall on all fours. He must enter the jungle not as an intruder, but as a member. The chief of The Worms Who Squirm Underfoot was given metal feet and legs to further shame his island and clan for a past dishonor. To imprison them in their human form so that they may never dash through the jungle with grace again. It was a dishonor that the younger generations were not allowed to know about. A secret adults spoke about in such hushed tones that all children within earshot would pause in mid-breath, screwing their faces up in concentration, as if a few moments of true focus could strengthen the ears and let them in on the secret.

The Panthers Who Do Not Fear The Night clan, Blythe and Mila’s clan, was given the torso pieces of the armor that stretched down the chest and back from collar to hips. The chunk that encased the chest and back in a tube of silver. Their island was at the heart of the chain; where the first boats met shore, and the Island natives accepted the refugees onto their land. Together they formed the three clans that still stood generations later, their bond solidified by the gift of the armor from the refugees to the natives.

With the passing of time and the armor, the cultures mingled. The refugees shed the constricting clothing of the homeland they’d fled from. Long sleeves, sweeping dresses with corsets underneath, long-tailed cloaks with ladders of buttons that their fingers once climbed up each morning as they saluted a King they feared. The natives soaked in the culture of the refugees as well and moved from grass loincloths to thin shorts of animal skins for the men and short dresses or midriffs and skirts of woven island leaves for the women. The languages mingled into a tongue all its own.  A combination of the refugees’ flat, structured grammar and the fluctuating tones and endless vowels of the island language, a language that worked the mouth like an accordion.

After hundreds of years, the two groups became indistinguishable. The pale-skinned refugees and the cinnamon toned natives had mixed into a myriad of bronzes, tans and olives. It all began with the gift of armor from one group to the other. It was a story that every island child was raised on. Blythe was one of the few who could touch the armor that fueled a thousand child’s stories and carried the weight of a legend.

Upon touching the armor, Blythe felt a power rippling through the armor, as if it had its own heartbeat.

“One day,” his father told him,  “You will be chief. You will be the father of this island. This armor will belong to you.”

After what seemed like half a moment to Blythe, his father put the armor away, until Blythe became chief; but as soon as he laid eyes on the armor, Blythe decided he wanted it. All day, every day, he wanted to wear it. And as often happens with children, it only took a moment to gear his entire being toward that one goal. At the very moment that night fell and his father was absorbed in the foreign business of men, and a foul tasting drink that tore at his throat when he snuck a sip, Blythe stole into the armor hut.

It was a small hut at the edge of the clearing for sleeping huts with a thick, mud roof to prevent rain from dripping on the armor and any other old items in need of protection from the elements. The armor lay in its own box made of clay, lined with cloth woven from the deep sinew of the trees. Blythe looked at the armor in the clay box, pillowed by bundles of grasses and thatch. The box sat exalted on a table carved of stone above Blythe’s waist. He tried to pull the large chest piece out of its clay prison with little result but the beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. He looped one arm through the neck hole of the chest piece and the other through the waist hole. He pulled backward until his toes left the ground and all of his weight lay on his bare heels. With the force of all his weight, the chest piece, the clay box it lay in, and Blythe himself went tumbling to the ground. The clay box broke into thick shards with a loud, echoing crack. Blythe lay stock-still with his hands clapped over his face and awaited the inevitable. No one came. Blythe took it as a sign of the Gods’ favor and crawled into the chest piece as if he were crawling through a hollow log. He poked his head through the neck hole. His twig arms, stringy with boyhood, went through the armholes. Blythe marveled at the size of the holes. He tried to imagine filling the gaping holes with hard muscle. He rotated his arm, tracing the circle of the armhole. In his eyes, it might as well have been a cave where a panther sheltered her cubs from the rain. 

After several failed attempts of pushing off his knees he stood tall, wearing the torso piece. On a man of age it would stop at the hip. On Blythe it stretched passed his bottom, bouncing against the backs of his thighs. He heard a voice laughing from outside around the backend of the hut. Blythe tottered out the entrance of the hut and tried to run towards the trees behind it. The best he could manage was a graceless speed walk. He clumsily reached the shelter of the trees and disappeared into the jungle, determined to have an adventure or two before returning the armor to its place. Maybe if he had a great enough adventure, father would tell him that he had become a worthy man and let him keep the armor. Blythe let the dream bloom in his head and puff out his chest.

            He hooted, pounding the chest of the armor like a drum as the jungle closed in around him. Blythe walked farther into the jungle, only pausing to sit and rest his sore shoulders. The canopy of leaves above grew so thick above him that not even Solaris himself could stretch a guiding hand. Blythe was suddenly frightened. Although the enticing glint of the armor had lead him to temporarily believe otherwise, Blythe was as sheltered as a house cat. His soft paws were not suited for the wild. He’d gone on excursions in large groups to hunt, bond and just be men, of course, but never alone.

Without the cheering men clapping one another on the back, the jungle took on a different demeanor. Every corner held darkness, bright eyes that blinked hungrily under curtains of thick fur, and snapping twigs falling victim to some heavy-footed beast that could charge at any moment. Blythe stood paralyzed, sweating from the thick humidity, but still finding a coldness to make him shiver. He remembered his father’s words as he showed him the armor:

            “A chief’s armor is the house of his warrior, his soul’s beast. He is a great source of power and strength. But a chief’s warrior must be kept separate from his soul. It has the power to darken him. Encase him in shadow forever. You must only call upon him when you are in dire need.”

            This, Blythe thought hopefully, must be the right time for him to be wearing the armor. Blythe spread his arms wide and looked toward the heavens, waiting for his wild eyed beast to leap forward and fill him to the brim with whatever made his father and uncles charge into battle without a second thought. But after standing, with arms open wide for several minutes, Blythe felt nothing. No super strength, courage or speed that coiled him tight, ready to spring on an enemy. He was still just a ten-year-old boy, alone in the middle of the jungle, wearing ill-fitting armor that would likely do nothing but slow him down should a pair of those bright eyes get hungry.

            He was just a fluffy, white house cat in armor.

            Pants of fear broke past his lips. What was that? The booming shrieks of the jungle beasts seemed to double then triple in sound. Blythe found himself turning and turning in search of the source until he had no idea which direction led to the village. In a snap decision, he decided to follow another piece of paternal advice: “The element of surprise can turn the tides of any battle.”

            With the most guttural battle cry he could muster, Blythe bravely charged, as quickly as he could, which was not quick at all, into the thick brush to meet whatever friend or foe lay in wake… And promptly fell into an unseen pond.

He wasn’t afraid. Children of the Islands could sooner swim than walk. He swung his arms up toward the surface, but he was still sinking like a stone. His eyes widened, eyelids swelling with water.

In a frenzy he wriggled his arms back in through the armholes in hopes of sliding out of the armor. He couldn’t wriggle out. His arms were pinned to his sides inside the armor. His mouth popped open only to choke on dark, stagnant water, thick with moss and silence. Darkness swaddled him in a cocoon, soft, black and still. He grew sluggish. He was wrapped in the same blank, safety he felt when waking in the middle of the night from a persistent itch on his nose, only to fall back asleep within the space of an exhale. The safe cradle where one dream ends and another begins.

He thought of when his mother wrapped him tight in furs when he had a fever. He was so young back then the breadth of his father’s arms could swallow him whole, and he would still rise on his toes to receive a kiss from his mother like a flower straining for sunlight or a wave rising to break on the sand. He remembered how she’d pushed his arms back under the furs when he tried to reach out for water. Now there was nothing but water. His eyes shut and his body fell limp.

A lithe figure dove into the water, grabbed him by the ankle and gave him a sharp tug until he was upside-down. The weight of the water pulled the armor over his head. His arms spread free as the metal armor fell to the bottom of the pond. The figure dragged him out of the pond, promptly flipped him onto his stomach and pounded a fist on his back until all of the water he swallowed was wrung out of him. After coughing painfully and clearing his nose, Blythe rolled onto his back to see the curious face of a girl younger than he was. She looked as if she wasn’t sure if it was in his best interest for her to save him or to let him drown in his own stupidity. She said nothing and blinked at him observationally.

            His head full of water and adrenaline, Blythe thought of the tales of guardian spirits saving islanders as they toppled on the brink of death.

            “Are you a guardian spirit?” He rasped. The girl furrowed her brow before leaning over the pond, inspecting her reflection carefully.

            “I don’t know. What does one look like?”

            Blythe reached within himself and found the strength to shrug. He could find no more energy afterwards. She wrung out her long, black hair. He did nothing but stare up at her as if he would grant her every wish if he could just summon the courage to ask her.  It was the very same way he stared at her ten years later during the Spring Solstice Feast.  

Each time Mila evaded his gaze, a wave of hot embarrassment doused Blythe from head to toe. She did it often. She did it every, single time she looked at him, but he could not stop himself from starring. It was a childish obsession, he knew. Yet, since the day she'd breathed life back into him, Mila's became other worldly. She became irreversibly perfect. Her heart pumped moonlight through her veins, not blood. She breathed ocean breeze and he would follow her as the sun and moon followed each other in an endless dance. If only she could hear the music as he did.

 If she would only smile at him, then he could muster the courage to tell her what he needed from her. Blythe's botched armor adventure was only the begining of many embarassing attempts at manhood. Blythe could not hunt. His clunky footsteps could wake a mama bear from pregnancy-induced hibernation. When the Island boys were taken on jungle excursions, Blythe had watched Kai string a bow and shoot with ease. At twelve years old, the age when every edge of the body was softened with baby fat, Kai was already hardened by rigid muscle. As a thick pall of jealousy wrapped him Blythe as he watched twelve-year-old Kai, climb a tree, and hang upside-down from a thick branch before shooting a sow straight through the side of her swinging stomach. Blythe was three years older than Kai and could hardly shoot an arrow at a tree, let alone a sow ambling through the jungle, piglets in tow. 

Blythe had been floundering in the currents of manhood, but Kai seemed to be born to swim, and as Blythe had learned on that fateful night in the pond, Mila seemed born to swim as well. When Blythe woke up beside her, coughing up water and the heavy taste of death on his tongue, he looked into her eyes and saw something he could never find in his own reflection. Something he knew would help him string his bow and send an arrow flying through the pelt of a beast. Whatever made her jump into the pond and risk her life for his was what he needed to become the Chief his father wanted him to be. The Chief the island needed him to be. If he could make her see him, make her his, then maybe whatever she had within her would become his too. Anouk could not capture Mila's spirit in the moves of a dance. Just as Blythe could not capture her under his gaze. 

"After tonight it'll be different," Blythe promised himself. The anxiety of what he planned to do burned through him, but he shook his head, hoping to shake himself free of the feeling. "It will be different." 

      MILA

Mila could hear the beats of the drums winding down. More dolphins and silver fish were pairing off and leaving the dance. Kai was still somewhere in the mass of dancers. Mila felt a cloud of guilt hovering over her, quieting the sounds of the drumbeats and conversations around her. She remembered that when she was twelve, the story of her kicking Cree circulated amongst the children like wildfire. Within a week everyone knew the story of Cree and the Dolphin. Many other boys began taunting her. They would follow her, shouting “dolphin!”, throwing sand at her and leaving her crying into the crook of her arm. In the thick of the bullying, as she sat alone waiting for Kai to meet her at the beach, Blythe walked up to her. His fists balled up into the sides of his shorts. Mila starred at him as he struggled against the urge to flee from her. He scratched the back of his neck while she wondered why he was there in the first place.

“If you weren’t a dolphin,” Blythe began and scratched nervously at the back of his neck. At the mention of the word ‘dolphin’ Mila met his gaze with a glower that made his toes curl into the sand. Blythe paused and swallowed. “I- I think if you weren’t a dolphin- if you weren’t you, I would still be at the bottom of that pond.”            

Mila stared at him in surprise. At that point it had been five years since Blythe fell in the pond. For those five years, Blythe did very little but stutter in her general direction. As she stared at him, a blush spread up Blythe’s neck and face, up into his coffee-brown hairline like a fleet of fire ants marching up an anthill. Before she could respond, Blythe turned on his heel and ran as if he were actually standing on a fleet of fire ants. Kai appeared on the beach just in time to watch a red-faced Blythe barrel past him and disappear into the jungle brush.

Kai jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction Blythe ran in. “Did you kick him in the dingdong too?” Mila, still shocked, could only shake her head in response.

As the Spring Solstice Feast buzzed with life around her, Mila thought of Blythe’s words. The dance finally ended. The drums fell silent. The dancers, glazed in sweat, retreated to the cooking fires with renewed hunger. She spotted Kai walking towards her with a grin. Blythe was, as always, gazing at her in a perfect rendition of his ten-year-old self, a look both grateful and unmistakably smitten. She didn’t return Blythe’s doe-eyed look with a smile. Mila felt she was afflicted with the same illness Blythe had. Just as he would eternally see her as the angel who fished him from death’s grasp, she would always see him as the wet, house cat she pulled out of the pond. 

 

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The Proposal

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The Pauper Prince

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