Training began the next day. The girls were woken before the sun peeked above the horizon. Breakfast was bread, milk, and a slice of ham, set to the romantic visage of rising orange piercing through the fabric of the tents. Forks clinked against plates. The soft sounds of chewing stood vigil over conversation. As if talk was to be dreaded.

There was nothing to say anyhow. The murder had happened. A man was dead. And training must begin. The camp commanders quickly established that any talk intended to speculate about the cause, the perpetrator, or the motivation, was subject to swift and merciless penalization. Not that she was prone to gossip. Lisŗa couldn’t stop seeing the victim’s face, covered in blood and cuts. He looked eerily peaceful.

After breakfast came the jogging. The ring road around the camps was a good couple miles. It only took one lap before people began slowing down. Just a few steps to her side, Lisŗa saw a girl branch off the road and onto the grass, relinquishing her breakfast. She looked away, only to see yet another one fall to nausea. The sergeants cracked their whips and yelled. All the lines and insults Lisŗa expected.

“Mommy and daddy can’t pay your way out of this.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have? We barely started!”

“You can’t even protect your family’s honor, let alone Faleria’s interests.”

Unsurprisingly, Dolores managed to maintain a pace even three laps in. Lisŗa kept up, but didn’t push herself. She didn’t want to seem ill-performed, but neither did she want to impress. Less than ten percent of the male and female cohorts were left. Among them was Lisŗa, Dolores, and Chessie. But Chessie was near the end of her rope. Soon she fell back and received an earful from the sergeants.

“Where’d you get that stamina, Ciroqe?” Dolores asked cutely. “Very impressive.”

Lisŗa regarded the girl through narrowed eyes. A couple thin trails of sweat marked Dolores’s forehead. She continued to breathe deeply, steadily, and slowly, and had room left in her lungs to speak. The girl had barely begun. Meanwhile, Lisŗa didn’t know how much longer she could keep going. Another half a lap? If she bowed out now, would she garner less attention? She was too hot to think. Sweat had drenched the chaffy uniform they gave to all recruits. The longer she ran, the more she seemed to weigh. But something annoyed her about the way such a thin-looking girl like Dolores could last so long.

Lisŗa decided to set her pride aside and leave the track.

“I expected more from a working class looking ruffian like you!”

“Come on that was barely three laps!”

“You’re worth less than the shit off my shoe!”

The ire from the sergeants washed over her like a rite of passage. It was obvious that it was a test, a gauge to see how best to implement the instructors’ training based on the cohort’s capabilities. In fact she regretted holding on this long. She just didn’t want to lose to Dolores. Pride. One of her many weaknesses.

She sat on the grass beside the track away from the others who had dropped out. There were tears and sniffling, and a lot of bonding over resentment for their families for sending them here. Why were there so many wealthy children here? That archbishop’s words echoed in her memory. ‘Faleria has always been meritocratic.’ A smile surfaced on her lips.

Meritocratic my ass.

Perhaps she had a different definition in mind.

“What the hell is so funny, huh?”

The smile disappeared. Lisŗa turned her head to see the approach of some of the ‘bigger’ girls. She vaguely remembered them; they had dropped out quite early.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Because it looks like you’re thinking something humorous is going on here,” the leader said. She had curled hair and a face flushed red.

“No, nothing is funny about the situation we’re in,” Lisŗa said.

“Don’t get too confident just because you lasted that long,” the girl next to the leader said, a rounder, shorter woman.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Lisŗa knew she mustn’t attract any more attention to herself. If all it took was humility and verbal prostration, she’d do it to get them to leave.

“Fucking Aldren pute. They should’ve finished your species off when they took the capital.”

Lisŗa leapt to her feet. Hardening her grip, she slammed the joints of her fingers into the leader’s throat. The girl was sent rasping, choking, grasping her neck with shaky hands as she stumbled back. The round one reached for her. She blocked a grab with her elbow, and transferred the assailant’s momentum behind her with a hard slap in the back. The third, the largest one of the three, went for the restraining hug, arms outstretched. Lisŗa ducked and slammed her fist into that soft triangle of flesh beneath the sternum, sending the girl gasping for air. The round one recovered and charged at her again. Using the flexibility she had taught herself in her rooftop jaunts, she kicked high, the sole of her right foot thrust a spurt of blood out of her nose. The round one fell onto a kneeling position, clutching her face, screaming, crying. Lisŗa kicked her down, then kicked her again. And again, and again. Until the girl couldn’t gather enough breath to cry for help.

Lisŗa blinked.

She turned away.

“Useless individual,” the leader of the three said as a final word. The three turned away and left her alone, joining the other members of noble families to gripe about their own circumstances. Lisŗa gathered her knees closer, hugging herself in silence.

Chessie plopped herself down on the grass next to her.

“You’re just going to let them say those things?” She asked.

“I haven’t a safe place to err on,” Lisŗa said. “I’m a nobody.”

“You’re a lot more patient than I would have been.”

“My mother taught me that there was no such thing as cruel people, just people capable of cruelty. They give what they’ve learned to those around them in the unconscious hope that someone breaks that echo and shows them how to be different.”

“How kind of you to be so considerate.”

“I’m not. Whatever hell you nobles are in, I couldn’t care less. What they need is an outreached hand, and I’m not going to be the one to give it to them.”

--

Jorge followed the native man deep into the forest. At first he hacked the ferns and vines out of the way. Then he noticed that the man had no difficulty navigating the flora, and he began to mimic his movements. It was difficult for Jorge because of his bulk, but soon he realized in his mimicry that the plants all around him were alive.

Not in the obvious way. They were alive in a way gardeners would kill to understand. Voices travelled through the stems and the leaves. Through the roots and up the trunks of great trees. He didn’t hear relatable words, nor was the forest communicating in any real language. He heard the desires of life. The ferns wanted water, it wanted sun, it wanted creatures to die at its feet so it may sup from its nutrition. And if he quieted his mind, ignoring his own earthly troubles and insecurities, he can exude similar wishes. Jorge wanted to move through the forest, he didn’t want to kill, he didn’t want to cut. He voiced these desires silently, and the leaves, vines, and roots seemed to move away to accommodate his steps. He couldn’t see them physically move, but his passage was suddenly easier, and far more paths opened before him.

His guide observed and seemed pleased. They had been travelling for hours. Jorge didn’t understand why he was still following the man either, but he didn’t refuse the gift of knowledge. When the guide was thirsty, he’d find a repository of water on a leaf and he’d tilt it into his mouth. Jorge did the same. There was water everywhere in this forest. Clean, fresh, safe water. But the sources didn’t reveal themselves to him if he went around chopping everything in sight. No forest on Earth was so hospitable. Jorge had no doubt if he were in any Earthly woodland, he’d have died long ago.

That was not to say this place was much easier than an Earthly forest. Giant snails crawled along the ground and alongside tree trunks. They were the size of footballs, slimy bodies encased in swirled shells. When Jorge reached for them out of curiosity, the guide held his wrist, shaking his head. To demonstrate, he plucked a leaf and touched the shell. The leaf browned almost immediately. When the afternoon came they found one of the great flowers that Jorge had fallen in when he first arrived. Rich, nectary odor wafted towards him. His guide pulled him away before he started walking towards it. They watched from behind a bush as those monstrous pulsating insects Jorge had encountered before floated towards it. A great tree nearby rustled. A large lizard as prodigiously gifted in appendages as a centipede crawled down the trunk and began eating the insects that came close to the flower. Judging by its size Jorge could easily imagine the lizard tearing apart a school bus. He had been lucky that his was the one flower that hadn’t been stalked by one of these predators.

Night fell, and Jorge was reaching the end of his rope. But this night didn’t come with impermeable black over his eyes. He was seeing light. Glowing caps grew on the sides of trees, growing in brightness and size as they neared their destination. The guide began walking on the living stairs, travelling higher and higher into the middle of the trees.

Jorge didn’t follow. He was too heavy. But the guide waved. Jorge took tentative steps to which the native found amusement. The caps showed no signs of straining under his weight. So they travelled up the trunk with Jorge panting, spiraling up towards the dense forest layer of branches and leaves. The gentle mass of vegetation pushed against him. He held back his frustration and pushed through calmly, keeping his mind away from thinking about his hatchet. His mouth went agape.

Vine bridges connected hundreds of huts made of sticks and leaves. The village stretched all the way up to the canopy of the forest, and so far laterally Jorge couldn’t see where the end was. From the ground this place would have been invisible. Jorge wondered how many villages were suspended just away from sight near the river. He did not get a chance to ponder. His guide was pulling him to come along.

They arrived at a hut that did not appear special in any particular away. The entrance was narrow and had no door. Jorge squeezed through and met an old man seated in a cross-legged position. His eyes widened. The old man bearded and covered in greying hair. Lean muscle rippled under his tanned skin. Jorge could tell the skin did not used to be as dark, but most of all, he could sense the familiarity.

The old man spoke. Jorge didn’t understand, but he recognized the language: Russian. Noticing the excited confusion, the old man switched.

“English?”

“Yes. I speak English!” Jorge said. He couldn’t resist smiling ear to ear, sputtering nervous laughter. The old man quickly matched him and they embraced each other, hollering in happiness.