Atilan

     (He’d told Roxton that he’d made time to come to Career Day. Years later, Roxton would realise he probably just happened to have an open schedule on that day.)

     “The k’tiin is the sacred headdress of the Honoured Mother of Lutari Island. It’s said to connect the Honoured Mother to every Lutari ancestor, providing her with guidance from the souls of the dead. It’s also said to be literally magical in this regard, but no outsider has ever been allowed to check.”

     The picture of the headdress was passed around the room with varying degrees of interest. Lucretius raised his wing.

     “Why didn’t you bring the hat? Or, like, a fake one or something?”

     “Like I said, the k’tiin is — it’s sacred,” Papa chuckled. “That would be extremely rude.”

     Lucretius rolled his eyes. He was already starting to pick at his feathers.

     “Continuing: the k’tiin is made of feathers from a specific aquatic bird. The ancestors are heavily tied to water in Lutari culture — death is referred to as ‘a wave returning to the ocean.’ Rain is thought of as the ancestors providing for their kin. Although, lately, the ancestors have been providing a little too much. My humanitarian work rescuing Lutari children from the destruction of the storms and severe NeoPox outbreaks…”

     At recess, Roxton did his usual thing of sitting on a bench reading books — not books like Papa wrote, but the kind printed on cheap wood pulp with paper covers.

     Lucretius came up to him. “Play Lutari Island with us.”

     “Go away,” Roxton said. “Last time you wanted me to tie you to a spit roast.”

     “We’re not doing that this time! This time we’re all gonna be Lutari.”

     Roxton looked suspiciously up from his book. “Are you gonna tie each other to spit roasts?”

     “Aw, lay off. Your papa made Lutari Island look cool and we want in. You gonna play with us or not?”

     Cautiously, Roxton approached Lucretius’s gang. Lucretius was as skinny as Lennies came, but his friends were a pair of Skeith brothers. They weren’t twins. One of them had been held back a long time ago, and no one could remember which one was older anymore. They liked to hang out in the corner of the schoolyard, by the big pothole that filled with cold, muddy water when it rained.

     “Here he is! Roxton the Lutari!”

     The Skeiths ogled like they were just noticing his species for the first time.

     “What was it like to live on Lutari Island?”

     “I don’t know,” said Roxton. “I was adopted as a baby.”

     “I heard Lutari all dream about swimming,” said the other Skeith. “You dream about swimming?”

     Sometimes. Roxton didn’t like swimming very much now, but apparently as a baby, it was the only way to get him to sleep. His mother, before she left, had begged for Papa to bring her a Lutari baby, apparently picturing that baby large-eyed and at peace in the water, wise beyond its days.

     And that baby did turn up. In the water and only in the water. The moment the last drop dried, he was howling again. Roxton never got a straight answer as to why his original mother gave him up, but he suspected the crying didn’t help.

     “You wanna paint your faces and stuff?” Roxton said instead. “I can do that.”

     That was sort of true. Roxton knew he wasn’t supposed to just throw paint and feathers around willy-nilly, but anyone could know that if they picked up a book.

     Roxton wouldn’t let them use mud to make face paint. “The colors mean different things,” he said, swirling some crushed up chalk with rainwater.

     He dipped his claw in the makeshift green paint and beckoned one of the Skeiths closer. He drew a green line between his eyes, with sprouts off the sides like a tree.

     “This means you pick berries.”

     He drew yellow stripes on the other Skeith’s ears.

     “And that means you’re fast.”

     And he drew a blue line from the top of Lucretius’s head all the way to the tip of his beak.

     “And this means you’re wise.”

     Lucretius rolled his eyes, transparently bored. “What’s the war paint look like?”

     Roxton took a handful of red paint and scrubbed it inelegantly onto his face.

     “Like this.”

     “That doesn’t look cool.”

     “They don’t paint themselves like this to look cool, they do it to look scary!”

     “Like anyone’s scared of you,” Lucretius scoffed. “I don’t look Lutari enough, I just look like I got a blue line on my face. I’m puttin’ this on.”

     Lucretius produced a headband with his own feathers crudely pasted to it.

     “Were you even listening?!” Roxton snapped, face burning. “You’re not supposed to make fun of the ka — the katy—”

     “Man, lighten up, it’s just a weird hat. You don’t even know how to say its name,” said Lucretius, putting it on.

     Roxton yanked the headband away.

     “Hey!”

     He threw it over the iron schoolyard fence, where it landed in the middle of the road and was promptly trampled by a carriage.

     “Seriously?!” Lucretius said. “This is why nobody wants to talk to you! You’re such a crybaby about the Lutari stuff!”

     “What am I supposed to do? Let you make fun of me?”

     “Make fun of you? You said it yourself, you got adopted as a baby! I bet you’ve never even been back there!”

     Lucretius’s face twisted with an idea.

     “Why don’t we help you meet your ancestors?”

     They dragged Roxton, kicking and screaming, to the puddle, and then they pushed him over and into the cold, gross water.

     He put up a fight, but it wasn’t enough. It was dark.

     ———

     And then it wasn’t.

     Roxton blinked, and although he was still cold and his eyes stung with muck, he didn’t see muck. He saw a small, dark tent with a fire in the middle.

     “Aimaina wa wata.”

     If Roxton had control over his body, he would’ve jumped.

     “Lui uta rii?”

     There was no one else there. He couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from, but it was a woman’s. Quiet. Warm.

     “Where am I?” Roxton said. He sounded smaller than he would’ve hoped. “Am I dead?”

     The woman paused.

     “You must be one of the atilan,” she said. “And you are not dead yet. But if you are with me, that means you are dying.”

     “Oh.”

     The fire crackled. There were shadows moving outside the tent. He could hear distant laughter.

     “Try this.”

     A flipper moved in Roxton’s vision, but not his flipper. It was attached to his body, but that body wasn’t his, either. The body was green.

     The green flipper picked up a cross-hatch cut fruit, something that looked like a mango, and raised it to Roxton’s-but-not-Roxton’s mouth. It tasted sour, but not unpleasantly so.

     “This is a lutanku fruit. Do you like it?”

     “It’s nice.” Roxton paused. “Um. Can I go home? I’m scared.”

     The shared body sniffed. Roxton’s vision blurred.

     “It is a big world out there. You could go anywhere you want. But you will suffer. You must have already suffered, to come here,” the woman said. “I cannot even guarantee that you will live if you go home. You may simply leave and die anyway.”

     The green flipper wiped at their eyes.

     Roxton considered. He wanted to become an adventurer. His papa would be mad. And one time Aloysia said that she wanted his room if he were to go missing.

     “What do you think?” Roxton said.

     “Me?”

     The woman paused.

     “Learning to give up is easy. Learning to fight is hard.”

     “I can do hard things,” Roxton said without hesitation.

     The woman chuckled. “Very well. I wish to see you again one day. When we’re both alive, I hope.”

     “It was nice meeting you.”

     “It was nice to meet you too.”

     The eyelids shut.

     “Fight and live, mu atilan ain.”

     And then he woke up.

     ———

     /PAH-pah/

      noun

     Father.

      —Lutari Dictionary Vol. I

     ———

     Papa had many of the comforts of home, approximately. His teacup was a wooden cup. His teapot was a cooking pot. Even the tea was a swirl of unrecognizable leaves, but he sipped it nonetheless. He appeared to have lost weight. Scars marred his body.

     He set a cup in front of Roxton. Roxton immediately slapped it off the table.

     “I’m glad you’re alive, too,” Papa said, nonplussed. “You, girl. Would you like a cuppa?”

     “No thank you. I am terrified,” said Tui, under the table in the fetal position.

     “Fair enough.”

     “That’s nice,” Roxton sneered. “You know what I was hoping to hear? ‘Sorry I was missing for most of your adult life! And, honestly, a lot of your child life too! My bad! Pip-pip, cheerio!’” he said in a posh accent.

     “We can discuss that later. There are more important things afoot.”

     “More important things, sure, sure, sure—”

     Roxton slammed his hands on the table.

     “I am your SON!”

     Papa took a deep breath.

     “Fine. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I went missing trying to save a civilization from destruction. I’m sorry you still needed me in your twenties.”

     “That’s not,” Roxton said lamely.

     “No, no, you wanted an apology. You’re owed that. Right?”

     Roxton opened his mouth to rebut, but then closed it.

     “If you’re hungry, eat,” Papa said, like what he’d just said was nothing. “If you’re thirsty, drink. If you’ve come down with any of the exotic diseases this place has to offer, my cabinet is fully stocked. The paradisiacal appearance of the island belies all manner of parasites.”

     Roxton suddenly felt itchy, but that was probably just sand again.

     “If I seem gaunter than I was, that was a recent run-in. The local medicine man wanted to cut my leg off about it — I drank poison instead. Nearly killed me, but it worked.”

     “What, it’s better to die than get eaten?” Roxton said. He used to like his father’s dramatic recountings. He wondered what had happened to him that he no longer did.

     “The hope is that the thing eating you will die first. But yes, I suppose it is.”

     ———

     “Okay, so you can’t tell me what atilan means,” Roxton said.

     His father was briefed on the situation. He knew that he had not come alone, that there were others in the hotel. Roxton hadn’t wanted him to meet them, but eventually, he was worn down into allowing it.

     There was nothing left but to ride the flood out. Eventually the island would right itself. Until then, he’d try to focus on Tui, and not on his aching knee or his fraught relationship with his father.

     Tui nodded, plainly afraid. “I should not have told you about the ataulata, even. The ancestors are angry out there.”

     “It’s okay,” Roxton said. “It’s gonna be okay. But I need to know more.”

     Tui shook her head, making the X again.

     “Okay. Uh, how about this — is it taboo to answer yes or no questions about it? Since that’s technically not you giving out details, just confirming what I’m saying?”

     She frowned. Clearly, Tui hadn’t considered trying to rule-lawyer whatever curse was in play here. “Maybe okay.”

     “Alright. Atilan and ataulat are different forms of the same word. Does atilan mean Lutari?”

     She cocked her head.

     “You and me — are we both atilan?”

     “I am not atilan. You are atilan. Lutari is wrong.”

     “Is that not what you call yourself?”

     “Our kind is not ‘What are you?’” Tui giggled. “Our kind is Mak.”

     “Right,” said Roxton, the memories of old books coming to the surface. They called themselves Mak.

     The fact that he technically didn’t remember the name of his species off the top of his head was disquieting.

     ———

     “Don’t scare me like that!” Lillian and Matuk said in concert.

     They barely had to approach the village to rendezvous with the rest of the party. As soon as the flood receded, they practically came racing onto the beach. Lillian did come racing onto the beach, and so did Matuk — until he saw Roxton’s father.

     Matuk immediately stopped, his eyes on the white Eyrie, even as Tui came crashing into him.

     “What are you doing here?” Matuk said.

     Lillian looked up from embracing Roxton, and then she recognized his father. “You — you’re—”

     “Roxton Colchester II,” he said, offering his hand.

     “The discoverer of Lutari Island!” said Lillian, moving to shake it. “I’ve been waiting for so long to meet you! I have so many questions—”

     “Stop.”

     Matuk had stepped between them.

     “What,” he repeated, “are you doing here?”

     Roxton’s father narrowed his eyes. “Am I not allowed to return my guests, safe and sound, to your care? In fact, if I remember correctly, the village is struggling to support itself, let alone visitors.”

     “You were warned to stay on the shore. You come no further inland.”

     “I’m on the shore!” Roxton’s father said, gesturing at the sand under his fine shoes. “They came to me. Lucky they did, too. They would’ve been swept away without me.”

     Matuk looked at Tui, aghast. Tui covered her face.

     “In any case, I believe it would benefit all involved for me to play host to this adventuring party.”

     “Absolutely not,” said Matuk as Lillian said “Absolutely.”

     “Mr. Colchester is the foremost expert on Lutari Island — he was the one who guided ships through the coastal storms in the years following first contact. If anyone can solve the storm, it would be him,” Lillian explained.

     “Also, the hotel’s roof caved in,” said Scrap.

     “That hotel was going to collapse eventually,” Matuk sniffed. “It was not built for this climate.”

     “I thought you said it was the most luxurious hotel on the island.”

     “Built by outsiders. We tried to tell them that a hotel built of particle board and carpet was not a good idea, and this was before the apocalyptic rains began.”

     Roxton’s father beamed. “Well, that settles it.”

     Matuk, glowering, made his way to the treeline. “Pah. ‘Foremost expert,’” he hissed. “I live here.”

     Roxton said, “I think I left something at the hotel. I’ll be back.”

     “What?” Lillian asked his retreating back. “What did you leave? We don’t have anything!”

     “Uh, hey, Matuk — ah!”

     Roxton’s hands suddenly slammed the ground, brought there by pain.

     He managed to wrench one eye open to look at his knee. The paint was gone, and only now did he realize he’d missed two doses of healing potion.

     Matuk was at his side immediately. He attempted to carry Roxton out of there, but he refused. “I’ve already been embarrassed too many times in the last two days. Just get me to a state where I can walk.”

     He frowned, but applied more paint. “It needs a moment to work,” said Matuk, sitting down.

     “That’s fine. I can wait.”

     “Mr. Colchester—”

     A rogue branch swatted Jordie in the face.

     “Mr. Colchester,” he repeated, holding the branch. “I’m coming with you.”

     Roxton raised his eyebrows. “You’re not impressed by the great Roxton Colchester II?”

     “I just don’t think we’re going to get anything done by hiding in a rich guy’s bunker.”

     “Mgh.” Roxton leaned his head back against the tree.

     “...Also, I told him I’m Shenkuuvian, and, uh, after that, I decided I don’t want to stay at his house.”

     “Wait, what?”

     “He wasn’t a jerk about it,” Jordie said quickly. “But he told me I was ‘well-spoken’ and then he went straight to waxing lyrical about traditional Shenkuuvian scholars’ exams. He didn’t even ask what my field of study is.”

     “Oh no, he said your Neopian was good?”

     “Yes! Oh no,” said Jordie, sounding like he’d just tried to explain to an unwilling audience why that wasn’t a compliment. He probably had. “Oh no. I don’t want to be stuck between that guy and a couple of dumb—”

     Jordie noticed Tui’s presence and cut himself off like he’d been about to say something derogatory.

     “Between him and… Lillian and Scrap… for however long it takes us to leave. Uh, no offense. He is your father.”

     “My poor little lad! (“I am twenty-six,” said Jordie.) I’ll find you space at… wherever it is I’m going.”

     “You may stay with us.”

     They looked at Matuk.

     “You don’t have to do that,” Roxton said. “We’re rugged explorers. We can certainly pitch a tent.”

     “The floods, though.”

     “...We can probably pitch a tent,” Roxton said, even though Jordie looked hesitant.

     “Consider it an advanced payment for saving my island. Also, I refuse to stand by and watch that man beckon people into his home.”

     “You have a history with my father?”

     “To be completely honest? My second greatest dream is to never see your father again,” Matuk said, as casually as anything.

     Despite his reservations, Roxton asked, “What’s your greatest dream?”

     Matuk broke into a smile. “To see him get what he deserves….”

     To be continued…