Stranger Skin ch 6: What Do We Believe In

Xlack almost couldn’t believe it. The discoloration was gone, and his skin returned to its gray pallor.

Even if he did have new reverence for the color red, he was grateful. He would change to fit his new role, yes. He would step out of his comfort zone, but that didn’t mean he had to give up everything that made him who he was.

He fully expected the leaders to analyze and tear apart this new-found confidence, just as he expected all five of them to be present at this second interview they had summoned him to in the same room as before. Instead, the door opened to reveal only Mystis and Myr.

Mystis sat cross-legged on the desk. “Anything clever to say in your defense?”

Xlack glared at Myr. “It was your suggestion, wasn’t it?”

“Straightforward confrontation. How jejune,” Mystis crooned. “What has become of subtlety?”

Ignoring her, Xlack kept his gaze on the other leader. Like sunshine to a plant, it nourished the old man’s grin.

Myr’s voice was a soft, warm breeze full of amusement and affection, like a grandfather humoring a toddler. “Recollect my words when it was my turn to question ya.”

He couldn’t call up the exchange verbatim, but he recalled Myr mentioning his question was a test to see how Xlack communicated and what he hoped to be, ‘even when the answer is far from simple.’ And he definitely remembered the part where Myr had labeled him a possible ‘idiotic buffoon.’

“The whole thing was your test?” Xlack guessed. “The lecture on Kinetic Talents was just to distract me so you could slip inside my mind.”

“Indeed,” Myr confessed. “My test was to see not only how ya fit in or fought, but why. Stating yer loyalty is one thing. I wanted to watch ya show it.”

Because as Mystis had earlier said, they tested his real loyalties, not his hypothetical ones.

Back on the Isike, Xlack had told Twi he didn’t have hypothetical discussions mostly because he hadn’t wanted to talk about the ‘what if’ she had brought up. Now he would have preferred a series of ‘what ifs’ over thinking he had lost his sanity, seeing Twi die, Stevalok injured.

“Did I pass?”

Mystis chuckled. “The test was a chance to prove yourself an asset or a buffoon. Which do you think you acted like?”

He would prefer to say ‘asset,’ but his conscience prickled, pointing out his flaws. He had panicked over an imaginary skin condition, allowed Stevalok to goad him into a petty battle while they were supposed to be vigilant, and broke a few priceless museum items along the way. Stevalok had been injured because of him.

“The answer is ‘both,’ Xlack Ekymé,” Myr said, elbows on the counter and hands folded beneath his jaw, “as it is for most of us. Ya are a bit of a buffoon, but yer admirable qualities are just as bright.”

They didn’t expect him to be perfect? What a strange concept. He was a prodigy, born for greatness.

It was a relief.

“You exhibit astounding loyalty to Twi,” Mystis commented, chin resting in her hand, “even when Myr strove to make you question her. Even when she performed as she never would, you excused her. I’m not saying that is right or wise, but it certainly is interesting.” A frightening glint flashed in her eyes, and Xlack retreated a pace.

Then a revelation in that statement hit him.

“Master Myr choreographed the nightmares? How could you hurt Stevalok like that?”

Myr sighed. “Stevalok was not permanently harmed.”

“But he was,” Xlack insisted. “He was mentally scarred. He can’t forget.”

“Can’t?” Mystis leaned so far forward, she would have fallen if not for her Kinetic hold. “Did you not offer him a solution? And he declined. That is choice, not inability, little Aylata.”

Xlack clenched his fists. “He can’t forget on his own. That is inability.”

“That is why we so value teamwork.” Mystis giggled. “The inability in question here is not the possibility of him forgetting, but his reluctance to trust you.”

“Though I do owe Stevalok an apology,” Myr admitted. “Note that most of those illusions were conjured by yer own subconscious. I only gave these pieces a slight shove here and there, yet I did not fully understand the strength and depth of yer Mind Talents. They are a little different from ours.”

Xlack had noticed this last to some extent. The Talents of the Alliance Magni, though similar to an Aylata’s, were not identical.

“You mean, if I were Tala, I wouldn’t have pulled Stevalok into the nightmare?”

Myr shook his head. “It would have been less likely. A Tala’s Talents primarily function internally, affected by external stimuli. Compare Tala to tiny creatures venturing through a forest. Even a blade of grass becomes an obstacle they must work around. Whereas ya are a giant bumbling through, expecting even trees to bow to yer whim.”

That sounded insulting. Xlack opened his mouth to defend himself, but Myr spoke over him.

“Yet I believe this to be an asset. I believe it was this outward nature of yer Talents that allowed Twi to escape the clutches of insanity despite her Ier wound. Ya were her anchor.”

“Just as she was my anchor when I faced myself,” Xlack realized, awe turning the thought into an audible whisper.

Myr smiled. “She recognized me and helped ya push me from yer mind so ya could regain control. There is something I would like to show ya, if ya would accept a memory flash from me.”

Was Myr trying to get back in his head? If that were his goal, would he have asked permission? There had been no aggravating push as there had been before. And Xlack was more on guard now, more alert to Myr’s presence. Xlack didn’t think he would have difficulty tossing him out if the Tala overstayed his welcome.

Xlack nodded and accepted the flash.

The med-center, with its high contrast of light and shadows. Twi sits upright, regal despite her med-toga, confidence bloating every word.

“Master, you’re the one who harried me to find a new hrausq member, and I’ve found one like no other,” she tells a woman with straight, caramel hair stiff just above her shoulders, skin shaded like a faint shadow, and galactic, lavender eyes.

A part of you knows her, Stella, the most recent addition to the leaders, the woman who rarely leaves her face unconcealed. Surprise bubbles in another part of you. She seems very young for a leader, not even old enough to be mother to a nineteen-year-old like Twi.

“He’s too unique,” Stella argues. “Pick one less preposterous.”

“Master, we are all preposterous. I choose Ekymé because I believe in him, not in a façade or a label, but in who he is. He needs us, and we need him.”

The scene faded, and Xlack found he couldn’t breathe. His heart swelled at Twi’s assurance, leaving no room for his lungs.

“Twi’s trust is not paltry,” Myr declared. “It is the most persuasive argument advocating for ya to stay, though some of us feel it is also a strong argument against ya.”

Xlack didn’t see how, but he remained motionless. If they rejected him, where would he go? He didn’t like what he had seen thus far of the Aberrant. While these Adjuvant leaders disturbed him a little—and Mystis more than a little—his friendship with Twi could glaze over that.

“I want to be an Adjuvant.” This time, he meant it, head held high and gaze locked on Myr’s.

“I know, but what if that is impossible?”

“It’s said Aylata live in defiance of the word impossible.” There was a loop in that logic, Xlack saw after he said it. Mystis caught it, as told by the mischievousness in her smirk, and he knew she would bring it around to bite him.

“Adjuvants, then, live in defiance of the word preposterous.” She grinned, reveling in the surprise that splashed through Xlack.

“We refuse to accept fate as dictated by our worlds’ natives or the Aberrant,” Myr concurred. “They cannot see what we can from our position, standing between a world and its destruction. And we think ya can, standing there with us.”

“Does that mean you’ll let me stay? You’ll accept me as an Adjuvant?” Xlack asked. Disbelief made him lightheaded.

“It means ya have a lot of work ahead of ya,” Myr defined. “Go see yer hrausq leader. She has something for ya.”

***

Twi waited for him, making a valiant, stubborn effort to greet him while standing of her own power. Xlack wanted to rush forward and hold her, but the pride in her eyes warned him she would consider that demeaning.

Instead, Lanox squeezed him in the tightest hug he had ever received.

“Welcome to the family, big brother!” she cooed.

“Lanox,” Xlack croaked, a plea for her to release him as Twi tried to step forward and stumbled. With Lanox still clinging to him, he dove to catch her, as did Rifo, and they all fell in a tangled group hug.

“Look, everyone’s piling on Rifo! Count me in!” Stevalok called as he and his amaraq stepped through the doorway. He dove on the group.

“A tangle of overly-affectionate Tala. How uncouth,” Entrycii denounced with a note of superiority, arms crossed.

Stevalok laughed. “Somebody’s been practicing his vocabulary words.”

“I heard it from Mystis. I’m fairly certain it means uncivilized.”

Lanox jabbed with her elbows to clear a path for her words. “But isn’t the point of civilization to be able to get along well in a group?”

“Can’t. Breathe,” Rifo gasped.

Xlack couldn’t see him, though he felt the Tala’s heart against his back. Xlack’s gaze was on Twi, her face a finger’s width from his. Pain resided in her grimace, but so did mirth. She was glad to be here with her hrausq family.

Before Xlack could find any words, Stevalok and Twi were hauled away by Dr. Qcoice.

“Twi can barely stand, and you leapt on her!” The giant Lettaplexal doctor held Stevalok aloft by the front of his jacket.

“I was leaping on Rifo,” Stevalok defended, “and Twi happened to be there, too.”

Qcoice deposited Twi on the med-bed and exited the room, still holding Stevalok.

“Wait, Master, where are we going? Entrycii, help!”

“Rifo, ya make a great pillow,” Lanox sang, and offense bubbled from him.

“Would ya get off me already?”

Xlack had already done so, reaching Twi just as she attained a sitting position. “Master Myr said you had something for me.”

“A riddle,” she assented, voice strained. Xlack wanted to go throttle Stevalok. “If I believe in you, and you believe in me, what do we believe in?”

After a moment’s consideration, Xlack answered, “Us.”

“Correct.” With a nod, she held up her right fist, fingers unfurling to let a pendant drop.

A metallic heptagon stopped in front of Xlack’s face, dangling from a thin chain. An Adjuvant emblem, fish-shaped, same as Rifo’s.

“Each member of a hrausq believes in every member. We all believe in us, and we’re stronger for it, a team, a family.”

Xlack stood, unable to move, a portrait painted by the deft hands of joy and incredulity.

“Doesn’t it hurt to stare at it cross-eyed like that?” Lanox snatched the pendant and Xlack’s arm, loosely looping the chain around his wrist several times before securing the tiny clasp.

Eyes still glued to the emblem, he mumbled, “Thanks…little sister.” He didn’t have any siblings, not really, certainly no one like this crazy crew.

Maybe he used a too-specific Napix word for the address. Confusion overtook Lanox’s countenance. He definitely had his work cut out for him, trying to fit in here, but he wouldn’t trade it.

Hadn’t he already traded everything for this?

~END~

Thank you so much for reading Stranger Skin, the second companion novella of the RALI series!

The events of this story take place within between book 1, Renegade and book 2, Alliance. If you haven’t already, check Renegade out. If you’ve already done that, the tale continues in Alliance, but don’t miss the other series companion novella, Measure of a Messenger. It takes place within the timeframe of book 1.

Renegade link: https://theprose.com/book/1466/renegade-rali-bk-1

Measure of a Messenger link: https://theprose.com/book/1650/measure-of-a-messenger-a-rali-novella

Alliance link: https://theprose.com/book/1714/alliance-rali-bk-2