Trey - Part 9

Foxkind, he said, was what others called them, although they only shared a resemblance with foxes. In his own language there was not one name, because there was not a single word that could say everything they could be. They might be called many things: the fallen snow; the breathing tree; the contemplative stone.

A very long time ago (and I was unsure, here, whether he was telling me history or legend) every Foxkind had lived freely without human-skins, racing across their world - Yinuuna - like reflections of the lights that swam across the sky. They were fierce and joyful and beautiful. Then, Terebinth, one who many loved and respected, said that this was wrong. Terebinth believed they were frivolous and irresponsible, wasting their lives fighting over games when they could be joining hands to create something their descendants would be proud of.

So Terebinth led them to wear skins, build houses and tend animals. Villages sprang up all across the world, like the constellations of stars. In time it became shocking to see anyone out of skin, except between family. Some few even deemed it improper to speak without tongue, one to one, as you could be insulting others present without their knowledge.

There were those who disagreed, those who believed in being the racing wind and the leaping flame and who refused to follow Terebinth's instruction. They took to banding together, for their own protection, and roaming from village to village, sometimes offering entertainments like songs and stories, dancing and acrobatics. They called themselves Eruovi (which translated as 'being free', Oleander decided, after some thought). Those who wished to insult them called them Merk, which implied wrongness.

Oleander's parents, he said, who were villagers, had been unable to create a child themselves. They had taken this as a sign to adopt from the next orphanage that passed by, although some of their friends warned them against it because there was no knowing who or what the child had come from. But Merryn and Halhas were generous, loving people and they were not worried.

So Oleander grew up in a small village called Torm. He attended school half days and assisted in the family's apothecary shop the others. He was a slow student, he knew, but people also said he was dutiful and polite. Some days he felt tired of being dutiful and polite.

When he was near fourteen, a troupe of Eruovi came to Torm. He was alone behind the counter in the shop and could only watch from an unsatisfying distance while the troupe made themselves at home in the square and the children of the village pretended not to hear their parents calling them away. Then one of the strangers walked into the shop. She wore red hair, blue eyes and loose, sleeveless clothes that couldn't possibly have protected her from the cold. (When he asked, later, she said seriously, "I do not feel the cold. I am a hot spring.") She asked for an infusion for nausea and watched him intently while he prepared it. After she had paid, and they were still alone in the shop, she said, "I believe I know you. Tell me about your life."

So he did. She listened in silence, inscrutable, without the smiles, frowns and nods that most people displayed to show they were paying attention. Yet he felt she was paying closer attention to him than anyone else ever had. When he admitted shame of his poor learning, she stopped him with a raised hand.

"Do not be ashamed of this," she said. "You were not made to learn of the world through books and the mouths of those who echo them. You were made to go out into the world and discover it for yourself."

She told him that if he wished to do so he would be very welcome to come with her and the rest of the troupe when they left. He was free, she said, to come or stay.

He was free. It was the first time anyone had told him so, though he supposed it had always been true.