Atilan

     “What’s your concern with that?” Papa said, sipping chamomile.

     Papa always stuck to the gentleman adventurer model — even in the pictures of him shaking hands with the Honoured Mother of the Lutari, he was wearing a cravat. Roxton hated cravats. When he became an adventurer, he’d dress like the ones he read about in books. Granted, those adventurers were usually archeologists, and Roxton wasn’t sure about that, but archeologists didn’t have a copyright on wide-brimmed fedoras.

     Roxton studied his claws on the lace tablecloth. They needed to be filed down; they were catching the fabric. Sometimes Aloysia tried to trim them, but she could never figure out how to do it without drawing blood.

     “I gotta write an essay—”

     “Have to,” said Aloysia over her teacup.

     Roxton scowled. “Have to write an essay for school. We each gotta — have to,” he corrected when Aloysia looked up again, “pick a faerie. No doubles.”

     “Illusen.”

     “Everyone picks Illusen.”

     “Illere, then.”

     “Who picks Illere?”

     “Exactly. There you go.”

     “‘She lives in the woods and she’s scary’ isn’t a very good essay.”

     “You wrote it, not me.”

     Roxton huffed, infuriated, but Papa seemed to sense a fight about to break out and interrupted. “Surprisingly, yes. There’s one faerie.”

     “Really?” said Roxton. “Does she wear feathers and paint and stuff?”

     “She wears leg warmers.”

     “That’s not very tribal.”

     “What’s ‘very tribal’ to you?”

     “Y’know, feathers and paint and stuff,” Roxton muttered, embarrassed.

     Roxton had never been to Lutari Island, but his peers at preparatory school had a lot to say about it. Lucretius Winthrop had initiated a game of “Lutari Island” in the schoolyard. Obviously, he tried to make Roxton a Lutari.

     “Lutari don’t eat people, they eat fruit,” he’d protested.

     “Yeah, right. My papa says that your papa just says that ‘cause they commission him for every tour boat that goes over there,” scoffed Lucretius. “One of these days he’s not gonna come home ‘cause your kind boiled him in a big pot and ate him.”

     Roxton’s face burned. “Shut up!”

     “Look at me, I can speak Lutari! Ooloolooloo!”

     Lucretius got smacked with a ruler for that last bit, but the teacher had already seen him and his buddies making face paint with mud and headdresses with feathers and didn’t do anything about it, so Roxton didn’t feel that vindicated.

     Papa shook his head. “I wouldn’t expect you to be so insensitive.”

     Roxton felt like he was shrinking.

     “In any case, Briana dislikes the paint. She says it irritates her skin. She would wear feathers if they let her.”

     “Is that her name?”

     “Yes, she’s an air faerie. Technically, the Lutari call her Priana — they don’t have the letter B. It’s a funny coincidence. Priana is their word for ‘storm.’”

     ———

     /pree-AH-nah/

      noun

     Literally “storm,” but can be used more broadly to mean “weather.” Sometimes used in a figurative sense to refer to something thought of as unpleasant, but inevitable and unchangeable.

      —Lutari Dictionary Vol. II

     ———

     Matuk knocked on the hut’s door so forcefully it seemed like he was going to knock the whole building into the ocean. “Priana!”

     Roxton felt a little silly being as on edge as he was right now. He’d been on precarious structures before. It was exhilarating. Fun, even.

     But then again, he’d been a much younger man then, and standing on a set of stairs nailed to a sideways tree with no railings and the full knowledge that his knee could give out at any second was not fun at all.

     Strangely, he hadn’t had as much trouble getting up here as the others, who had all fallen — luckily, at points much closer to the ground than this. It felt like his center of gravity was shifting to compensate. Lillian had helpfully shouted from below that it looked like his tail was balancing him, and sure enough, the thing was moving like it had a mind of its own.

     Weird. Weird, weird, weird. Turns out, he didn’t appreciate adventure when it was coming from inside his own body.

     “Priana! You have visitors!”

     A lilting, amused voice came from within the hut. “‘Visitors?’ Is that what we’re calling intestinal parasites now?” She chuckled.

     “Surprisingly, that’s not the first time I’ve ever been called that!” Roxton said.

     There was a yelp of surprise, followed by someone approaching the door. An eye-slot opened and two blue eyes peered at them. Then there was the sound of many, many locks coming undone.

     Faeries didn’t age in any real way, but Briana somehow gave the impression that she’d aged somewhat. Or maybe she’d just started blending into her surroundings better — she still wore fuzzy leg warmers, but her more standard air faerie dress had been discarded for one that seemed more local, less evenly dyed. Her face was so pale next to all the colors it seemed to shine. Or maybe that was just sweat.

     She waved angrily at the petpetpets in the air before pointing at Roxton. “Who is that?”

     “I—”

     “Actually, no, I don’t care,” Briana said. “Better question — how did he get here?”

     Roxton said, “Boat.”

     “This island is cursed to be unfindable. It has to be. Nobody’s found it in twenty years.”

     “Technically, we were looking for a different unfindable island. A loophole, I suppose.” Roxton shrugged. “But I digress — what happened to the island?”

     Briana threw her blotchy hands up. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be stuck in this horrible place, would I? I came here wanting a nice beach house and I got petpetpets science hasn’t named yet flying into my mouth. And the other day,” she said, suddenly manic, “A Floobix got into my house, and I said, ‘Oh, a cute little bird!’ and when I tried to touch it, you know what happened?”

     “Er—”

     “It turned out,” Briana wailed, “that Floobixes have venomous spurs! It knocked me out for, like, an hour! Why does a cute little bird have venomous spurs?!”

     “Alright, but you’re an Air faerie. Haven’t you ever tried to leave by…” Roxton did a little wave with his claws. “Magicking the storm away?”

     She laughed bitterly. “It’s nice to meet someone who knows less than I do, for once.”

     Briana turned to show him the open back of her dress.

     Her wings were wilted. Withered. Grey.

     “The day we lost contact, I woke up like this.”

     ———

     At the new village square — formerly known as the Market — they were welcomed as honoured guests. The tone was significantly different from any pamphlet or Lutaritown.

     The island sometimes canted slightly, meaning that rainwater from the storm could flood the ground at any time, driving the islanders to chiefly inhabit treehouses near a cliff. Elders lethargically exchanged feathers and beads for fruit that, although foreign to Roxton, he could tell was a bit off. Blackened and twisted with abnormal growths.

     There was a very carefully watched fire on a very open platform flanked by two drummers. They, at least, had energy, but the heartbeat drums no longer scanned as calming.

     “The Honoured Mother Kiaan,” an Acara with red paint all across his face announced sagely.

     Roxton had seen pictures of Honoured Mothers in books. A lot of advertising showed feathers everywhere but, really, the only person allowed to wear feathers was the Honoured Mother — the wisest Lutari on the island. Any rank less would be disrespectful.

     When they first discovered Lutari Island, the Honoured Mother was someone named Erin. He’d never properly met her, but in every picture she stood strong and confident, with a broad, friendly smile.

     A door opened. A vaguely Lutari-shaped sack of dust, bones, and decaying teeth under a layer of feathers and paint shuffled out with Matuk holding her elbow. The feathers were wilted, and looked like they’d been left in the sun for so long as to be bleached nearly white.

     She was helped into a chair. It was not a regal-looking chair. Roxton had the impression that these things were generally done with the Honoured Mother standing up.

     The Acara continued, “The Honoured Mother welcomes—”

     The Honoured Mother suddenly screamed, eyes rolling back, and pointed at Roxton.

     “Atilan!” she wailed. “Atilan!”

     Matuk looked at the Acara, panicked. With a pained expression, the Acara gestured for him to escort the Honoured Mother out.

     “Atilan, Atilan,” the Honoured Mother sobbed as Matuk hastily took her away. “Tuar atila mu yumulu!”

     Roxton leaned towards Lillian. “Did you understand any of that?”

     “I — I didn’t catch it,” Lillian said, startled.

     The Acara cleared his throat. “As I was saying. The Honoured Mother welcomes you to the island. I am P’Tunka — her assistant. She is feeling a little under the weather right now… as is the island. But you are nonetheless welcomed guests. If there is anything you should need, we will try to provide.”

     They were shown to a place further up in the canopy that they were informed was once the most luxurious hotel on the island. It was now the only hotel on the island. Lucky them.

     Much of the hotel was inhabited by people who’d been displaced in the initial disaster and had eventually just settled down there because, well, they didn’t have much use of hotels now, but the honored visitors got a private room.

     “Alright,” said Roxton, still uneasy. Their “private room in a luxury hotel” was six feet by six feet in area, with a bead curtain instead of a door. The space was fine, but the door... “What did we find today?”

     “An island with a cursed storm,” Jordie said, “And an air faerie that was greyed in the middle of the night.”

     Lillian nodded. “You’re not supposed to causate a correlation, but I feel it’s safe to assume they’re connected.”

     “Yeah. Yeah,” Roxton said.

     “...And?”

     “Nothing, just a general bad feeling. Like we’re being watched.”

     “HELLO!” said Tuikutat, bursting through the bead curtain with a covered bowl in her hands.

     “AUGH! Why?!”

     “Silly atilan,” she giggled. “Dig up clams with me! We eat!”

     “We’re really tired, Twee — Tweety—”

     “Tuikutat.”

     “Can I call you Tui?”

     “I will let you because you are stupid!”

     “Thank you. My point stands. We’ll eat something in town.”

     “Papa had me bring dinner for you, but…” She wrinkled her nose, then leaned in to whisper. “It is gross.”

     “It can’t be that bad,” said Roxton.

     He opened the lid, saw something move, and immediately shut it.

     “I’m going to dig for clams with Tui,” said Roxton.

     “Yay!”

     ———

     “You do not know how to swim,” Tui said, hitting a clam with a rock.

     Roxton waded onto the shore, frustrated. Tui hadn’t gone past the shore because that’s where the clams were, but Roxton had pointed out fish in the water, and Tui had remarked that he probably wasn’t fast enough to catch them, and now here they were.

     “What do you mean, I don’t know? You just watched me swim.”

     “I watched you fight water and lose.” Man, kids these days are mean.

     “It’s not exactly easy to swim with this thing in the way,” he said, bringing his tail around.

     “But it should be,” Tui said, tilting her head. “Tail gives balance, motion. You fight tail, it becomes dead weight. I show you.”

     Tui demonstrated. Roxton mostly used his arms, but Tui barely used hers at all. She propelled herself almost entirely with her legs and tail.

     “You try!”

     Roxton did. It felt weird, but it did make him feel like he could actually control where he was going.

     Tui clapped. “Good start, atilan! And don’t lock up your back! You have bendy body, use it!”

     Oh, was that a Lutari thing? It would explain why his range of motion freaked out so many doctors over the years. He shook off the water. “I keep hearing that word — atilan. What does it mean?”

     She opened her mouth like she intended to answer before suddenly making an X over her mouth again. “Mm-mm,” she said. “Am not supposed to tell. Papa says it is forbidden.”

     “It’s not an insult, is it?”

     “Forbidden!”

     “Fine, I’ll figure it out myself. You said something similar earlier,” Roxton said, snapping his fingers to try and recall it. “Ataulat? Is that one forbidden?”

     “I can tell you about the Ataulat! The monstrous white bird! He lives in there!”

     Tui pointed at a cave that wasn’t far from where they were standing.

     “Is the Ataulat dangerous?” he said.

     “Ain tells me stories about how he swoops down from the sky and snatches babies to try and scare me.” Tui rolled her eyes.

     Roxton could’ve written that off, but there were, in fact, very, very big white feathers on the beach, along with some very dead wildlife.

     He’d assumed it was the work of an oversized seabird. Now he wasn’t so sure.

     “And you wanted to dig for clams right next to that cave.”

     “Is why I brought adult. Smart, yeah?”

     “No! Not smart. Very not smart! We’re leaving.”

     “Atilan! I thought you were fun!”

     “I was fun twenty years ago, now let’s—”

     “Uh,” Tui said, suddenly alarmed. “Feel that?”

     “Tui, you’re not going to distract—”

     Roxton felt it this time. The beach shifted under his feet.

     The beach tilted under his feet.

     “...Did we just go up or down?”

     The sound of oncoming water answered the question for him.

     Tui grabbed his hand and started running for the cave.

     “In there!”

     “The cave you just said the baby-eating monster is in?!”

     “No other place to hide!”

     They scrambled into the narrow mouth of the cave, which slanted up and towards… Towards a door. Like a vault door. And it was open.

     Roxton grabbed Tui and threw her inside before getting in himself and trying to crank the door shut.

     Water slammed the door, drenching them both before he finally managed to close it.

     Roxton sat down on the floor, wheezing.

     “Well, at least this day can’t get any more weird, confusing, and emotionally fraught.”

     “Who are you and how did you get in here?!”

     Roxton looked up to see a white Eyrie in a worn-out suit pointing a saber at him.

     The Eyrie dropped the sabre when he saw Roxton’s face. “Son?”

     Roxton narrowed his eyes. “Father.”

     Tui hid behind Roxton.

     “Ataulat.”

     To be continued…