The Landing

The Landing

Thea was small. Quiet. A thin, leggy girl who could slip where no one noticed, who could find her way up the tiniest cracks, and out into the light. She was a climber, a listener, a forgotten child in the corner of the Ship, and barely anyone had a spare thought for her. This was all right with Thea. When adults did pay attention it was only to send her “away”, back to her bunk, back to dark confines of “below”.

She leaned her head against the water warped railing and stared at the world of green. The Ship behind her was busy with “important things” and the adults were so excited that they were more forgetful then usual. No one had looked for Thea since the first explorer had come back from the green. His words, that they had finally reached landfall, real land, an endless land, made the adults cry with joy. Some collapsed to their knees and thanked the gods as they wept.

Thea peered at the green. She could remember Acadius, the land they had been forced to flee when she was eight but it seemed like a dream to her now that she was eleven. Three years at sea, with the only respite when they reached the islands… Oh, how Thea had wanted to stay there but Mother had not won the lottery and they were sent on…

Acadius had been a red land. Red sand, red cliffs and trees that puffed out on top… Delicious dates…hmmm. She had loved those, but they were gone last year when the stores were finally depleted. Would this new green have dates? Somewhere in that mass of dark husky trees and rippling hills were date palms waiting? What would it be like to stand on that soft emerald grass? She ducked her head as the next expedition launched their dinghy. She watched the Captain, a burly man of silvery gray hair, and six of his officers paddling toward the beach. Beach. How Thea wanted to wiggle her toes in the sand.

She watched the dinghy go ashore, and when the Captain climbed out and waded inland the adults cheered. Thea caught sight of Mother weeping and slouched lower. She shook her head. She thought it terribly unfair that she hadn’t been allowed on shore yet. They’d been anchored for three days!

“Thea! What are you doing? You’re supposed to be watching Baby Tobias.” Mother had found her after all. Thea gave a long suffering sigh.

“Lena is with him.” She said. “I wanted to watch the landing…”

“Oh, darling, soon enough we’ll all be ashore. Now go below and do your share. There’s no room for idle hands on this Ship.” Thea had heard this statement so many times it was nearly meaningless. It was the motto of all the survivors of the Exodus. No one could be idle. There was not enough food for the useless. Everyone had to earn their bread, even if it had maggots in it.

Thea went below, into the dark maze beneath the Ship’s main deck, and searched out her sister. Lena was thirteen, pale, fragile, and sickly. Fortunately her natural skills with little children kept her aboard. She tended all the little ones, and usually Thea was forced to help her. There were no babies to look after at least, though sometimes this made Lena sad. Lena wanted a baby to hold more than she wanted to see landfall. Thea found this idea odd, to say the least. She had no urges for babies.

Thea knew that there were no babies on board because of the Ship Council did not allow them, and once had heard Geri Summersong crying and crying after they forced some foul thing down her throat. Geri had wanted a baby, like Lena, and had somehow found a way to make one. The medicine put a stop to that. Now up on the deck Geri was cheering the loudest. If they were finally at the end of the Exodus, than she could have a baby…lots of them.

Thea went to help her sister with the children and tell Lena what she had seen. Later they made up games for the little ones, and sat in the familiar shadowy darkness of the hold. Thea hated the dark.

That night Thea dreamed, and her dreams were odd… as if a stranger was wandering through her head, walking down a corridor and opening ill fitting doors. The stranger took out each thought and examined it. There was the night of the great fire ball, Thea remembered peering back at her homeland from the rails of the Ship and seeing a light that was brighter than the summer sun. That light had burned in her eyes for days afterwards until she feared she was going blind. Then there was the sight of all twenty-eight ships, the floating Armada as they were called on a calm flat glass sea…

Six ships had stayed at the islands, and that memory was turned over and over. Thea had cried and cried that her family had not been chosen. She had despised those happy people who were allowed to stay while the rest of them sailed on and on and on… Her mother said that the islands could not support all of them, but Thea didn’t know what that meant. There seemed to be so much food there, hanging nuts, bananas, and wild seals with pale gray backs.

Now they were here. Landing. Would they stay? There was no where else to go, even Thea knew that. The food was almost gone, the water that had been replenished by rainfall was nearly empty…the children would die first. Thea moaned in her sleep. That thought did not seem like hers.

The children will die.
Why should we care?

Thea awoke with a jerk. She blinked in the semi-darkness. Some commotion overhead awoke her, she thought. There was thumping and talking on deck. She glanced at the other children. Tobias was peering at her with his thumb in his mouth his blue eyes wide. He pulled out the digit with a wet smack. “Te-ah. They shouldn’t kill the monsters. They shouldn’t. It’s going to make THEM mad.”

Thea shook her head. She told herself she didn’t know what the baby was talking about. He was only four. What could he know? “You hush now and sleep. I’ll go check on things.” She patted him back down into the bunk he shared with Lena.

Thea climbed up a hatch. She found herself under the aft mast, and moved quickly behind a stack of rain barrels. She glanced out at the sea to check the other ships, and they were there, all lined up and down the coast. Their masts were like the great tree trunks that she had seen now and then floating loose in the sea. The wind pulled at the signal flags and she, like every other survivor, could read them all instantly. Her eyes were pulled back to her own ship when she saw the Captain come aboard. He was flushed and excited. Ropes were hauled, and men grunted, and then something new was dragged up onto the deck.

The monster was hairless, green and bumpy. It had a bulbous nose and was vaguely, disturbingly, manlike. Great arms, four feet long each thumped down on the deck. Dead, thought Thea. They had killed a monster. Tobias’s words came back to her with a shiver.

The adults were scared, but happy. They thumped each other on the shoulders. The men stood over the fallen monster and grinned widely. The women shuddered, exclaimed, and peered out at the woods with trepidation. Thea didn’t understand any of them. The green creature didn’t scare her. She thought it pathetic, and sad, all trussed up and flopping, to be poked at and the wound… ick. Its head had been bashed in by a rock. Who had done the deed? A lowly ensign or that was what everyone was saying. They hoisted the boy over their heads and paraded him back and forth.

More boats came over from the other ships. Talking and more talking, the adults were planning things. But something was wrong. Thea leaned closer to hear what. A girl on one of the other ships had gone hysterical and wouldn’t stop screaming. Some madness, people said. Thea wondered. She moved as close to the railing as she could, and gazed at the green.

Come talk to us.
We must decide what to do.
Kill them. They are Wasters.
Some are Changing. They are affected by our presence. She is listening… See?
Come little one. Come small being. Come and let us see what you are. Perhaps you are not without worth.

Thea nodded. She climbed over the railing and jumped. She was a good swimmer. She heard cries and maybe her mother yelling, but she heard the voices too. They pulled her along. She swam with tide, and rolled in with the waves, sputtering seawater and staggering to shore in a dripping torn tunic. She shook her short, brownish hair from her face. She smiled down at her feet. She was touching sand. It was cold and wet. As she walked it grew warm, rocky, and the sharp edges of broken shells scratched her feet. She didn’t mind. It was wonderful.

The trees leaned down over her, thick and smelling sweet and yet bitter too. She climbed up the bank, and then walked into the woods without looking back. There was a carpet of moss under her feet now and it was both cold and spongy with each step. The trees rose up like masts of a hundred ships and she ran her fingers over their rough bark.

Sunlight dappled the ground with shifting patterns of gold and the young white saplings shook their round leaves at her, whispering. She stopped at the edge of a deep shadowy glen. Five great trees stood in a circle in the center. Each was more than a house wide, but they were not so tall. They had woven their branches together forming a ceiling overhead of intricate design. Thea paused beneath this canopy of green and listened to the hushed silence. She felt the voices here. She felt them. Goosebumps rose on her arms and she rubbed them idly.

It is very young.
A child yes, but she can hear us. The others are deaf. She is Changing.

Thea shook her had. She suddenly felt younger than her eleven years and for the first time in a long time she wanted her father. He had not made it to the ships when the Exodus was called. He was in that bright light, forever burned into her eyes. But he had been more than her mother, Thea knew. He had understood things that her mother didn’t. He would have known what to say to the voices.

It is scared. It can not speak for its people.
Then who will? If we can not come to terms…

“I can speak, but I don’t know what you are. Can I see you?” Thea’s voice sounded too young, too scared for her own comfort. She tried standing straighter. Why was she here? They should be talking to “Authority”. The Captain. Adults. Why were they talking to her?

Because you can hear us, little one, and the others can not. Your species is mostly deaf and blind. But you have been Changing. It is making you more. So we will talk to you, and you can plead the case for your people.

Thea felt tears come to her eyes. She didn’t want this responsibility. What if she messed it up? What would become of Lena and Tobias? She had to try, but she felt herself trembling with fear. “We have to stay. We’re out of food and water. There seems to be enough here for everyone. Can’t you share it with us? My sister is so sweet. She good through and through. And my mother… well she’s a bit bossy…” Thea bit her lip. She was rambling, and crying, and getting just a bit mad. “I don’t know what you want. Can’t you just come out?”

A figure moved out of the tree, stepping literally out of the trunk but through no door or portal that Thea could see. The figure emerged, and the image shifted quickly from one thing to another… a woman, a wolf, a huge lizard-like creature with wings and talons, and then a woman again. She became solid. She had long black hair parted in the middle and a longish face with sharp beautiful features. Her eyes shifted color, from gray, to blue, to lavender, to emerald. “We are Fae.” She said softly, in melodic voice that whispered of spring rain, dew on cobwebs, a mist rolling over hills… Thea shook her head. How could a voice convey so much? It was like a dream.

“I am Thea.” She said back, awkward, a silly girl sodden with sea water.

“We know. Thea, these lands are under our protection. They are a reserve and a sanctuary. We are part of the Land, and yet keepers of it. We would give you a place here, but we fear that you will not maintain the balance. We fear that your people are Wasters.”

Thea shook her head. “We will die if you send us away.” And she knew this being could do it too. There was infinite power behind those changing eyes.

The Fae nodded. “We know this as well. But you came and have killed already. You were not harmed by the Troll, and yet you killed it…”

“They thought it was a monster.” Thea said softly. “I’m sorry. But my sister didn’t kill the Troll. She wants a baby. She likes to take care of things. She’s a good person and if you send her away she’ll die. We don’t have to be Wasters. My people. We can live in peace with you. Give us a chance.”

The woman’s eyes turned black as she tilted her head. The voices started up again as if in argument, but there no great emotion to any of them.

Let them die. They are Wasters.
But the ones that are Changing could be useful. We could have mortals that would interact with our creations. Living models.
They will breed, they will ravage the land, and they will then split apart into tribes and kill each other. What is the use?
They could be useful.
Some of them.
A small minority.
Good enough then.
Are we agreed?

The woman’s eyes turned green as she came back to life, her eyes focusing once more on Thea. “We will allow your people this piece of land. They may have as far as they could walk in seven circles of the sun, but no further. You will let it be known, that the hills to the east are their boundary.”

“Thank you.” Thea wanted to sit down, the relief was so great, but all she did was wipe the tears from her face. “Thank you. And we won’t kill your trolls…”

“Our creatures will retreat to the boundary. What ordinary animals you find you may hunt or breed as is your nature. But now we must speak of you, Thea. For this gift of life you have bargained for your people comes with a price. It may seem high now, but you will come to understand. You must complete your Change, and then you will come to us. You will walk to the hills and then beyond. You will be ours and not theirs any longer. Can you do that? At first you will be alone, but other changelings will find their way.”

Thea felt dizzy. Now she sat on the cool grass. Would she really go into the wilderness without her family? Without her mother or sister? How could she do that? She would die.

The being in front of her offered her a pale hand. “Will you come?” She asked in her calm, reasonable voice. To save my people? Thea swallowed, and was surprised that she wanted to go. She wanted to see what was beyond the hills. She took the woman’s hand, and something moved through her, colors, sounds, and then life. Blood. It was pumping loud in her veins. When had her heart beat so hard in her chest? When had her mind seemed so clear? She smiled. She was Changed.

The Fae was gone. But she could feel them now clearly, and if she wanted she thought she could hear their voices. They were retreating, backing away and calling their creatures to come with them. The wild troll men, the unicorns, the griffins sunning themselves along the beach to the south of the ships… all of these heard the call. The land would silently empty.

Thea ran back toward the beach. Soon, she thought, soon she would start her adventure. On her face were tears of joy and tears of grief. But she would never be in the dark again, she thought. And that was worth any price…