The morning after the match, a crate full of story-bottles was delivered to the warehouse.

“The best past matches of the city's teams,” Serit explained to Saia as they set down the crate on the kitchen's table. “We'll study them together.”

“How?” she asked, looking down at the rows of wooden screws and dusty glass.

Serit opened a bottle and put a finger inside, motioning for Saia to read it too. She sat down in front of them and gripped the bottle with one hand.

“We'll read slowly, I guess. Stop me if you see something you don't understand.”

They spent two days doing just that, with Serit explaining some details and rules they had glossed over during the match, like how the narrators kept playing purple balls after both of them had finished all the other ones, until a team scored twice. Or that the ball always went to the narrator when they had to speak, even if it had to be discarded immediately after.

“It's because the players can add some viss to the surface of the ball. They can communicate simple messages through the intensity of the viss,” Serit had explained. “The code they use is nothing too complicated, but this way they can suggest to the narrator what to do and vice-versa. The story is more of a collaborative effort than it looks.”

“What if the ball goes to the opponents?”

“They can read the viss if they know the code, but usually the teams change it before every important tournament. More importantly, all of the suggestions of the opponent get discarded.”

She wanted to actually practise the movements, but Serit insisted that learning from the bottles was more important. They finished just at the end of the second day, when a guard appeared in the doorway to announce that Héshe had accepted their request for a meeting.

The next morning, they returned to the arena. There were guards in front of the entrances, more numerous than during the previous match. They didn't stop Serit, instead surrounding Saia when she entered, falling in step with her as she climbed the staircase to the stands.

The arena was a lot less impressive in the morning light. The wood of the seats was cracked and sometimes even stained, and the floor of the field seemed made of simple gray marble, the light of the fog lost in the atmosphere. The players of the Twilight Doves were divided into two teams and playing with a gray ball. The narrator sat alone on the balcony, eyes on the game but a finger immersed into a bottle.

Saia looked at the floor and remembered what Serit had said about it: wind sprites. She wanted to ask them what they were, but there was a barrier of guards dividing them and they were already descending the stairs that crossed the rows of seats toward the people sitting at the bottom: members of the team's staff, talking to each other or observing the match.

A handrail divided the seats from the area around the field. Héshe was sitting right in front of it, observing her team. She turned her chair when the rest of the staff went silent, staring at Serit.

“Come closer,” she said to both them and Saia.

She could feel the guards tense the closer she got to the representative, so she slowed down and stopped some steps away from her, the ring of guards squished into the small space between the handrail and the seats.

“Thank you for accepting to see us,” Serit said, raising their cupped hands. “We have an unconventional proposal that might interest you.”

When they said 'we', Héshe glanced at Saia.

“I hoped for some updates about your research,” she said, keeping her voice sweet and a light smile on her lips. Still, those words betrayed her hope to get an edge over her colleagues.

“Unfortunately, I'm still looking for a way to teach Saia how to solidify éshan, and it seems like she can only learn it through someone who already knows how to do that. But maybe she doesn't have to meet a wind spirit to accomplish that.”

Héshe's eyes returned to the field. She gave them a quick nod that seemed more of a dismissal than a sign of understanding.

“She can read the story-bottles and copy the information they contain inside her viss. Maybe she can do the same with patterns. My hope is to start with making her learn herlamis, and if she can do that, ask my contact for a bottle in which he demonstrates how to solidify himself.”

Saia listened, nodding along in key moments to emphasize what Serit was saying. The idea they were illustrating was older than her arrival at Iriméze, another contingency plan Serit had considered and immediately discarded. As they had explained, the viss had to be recorded inside the bottle, in a way that would let Saia see both the spirit and how the viss moved inside his body. Since wind spirits couldn't write story-bottles as well as shilvé did, the transcribing would have to be done by a viss-sculptor from Iriméze, with enough precision to record every single change of pattern inside the spirit at every movement they did. Huge cost in both time and money with only a small chance of partial success, not enough to consider it a solution. But Héshe didn’t know that, since Serit had never pitched the idea to the representatives.

“I thought that maybe Saia could play for your team, to test whether she can learn only from the bottles. The activity of moving her statue requires her to create various patterns in quick succession, which is what she’ll have to do when solidifying someone.”

Héshe looked at them again.

“It's great that you have found an idea, Serit, but what do I have to gain from this?”

“She's extremely strong and doesn't get tired. She can learn new information extremely fast.”

Saia didn't like how they were talking about her without feeling the need to address her, even if she appreciated they were referring to her as 'she' and not 'the sphere'. She also saw Héshe's glances to the match become more frequent the more Serit talked, as if she was waiting for the best time to politely dismiss them.

“I’m from the mountain,” she said, capturing her attention. “Mount Ohat. We have stories and myths nobody has heard. I could make suggestions.”

Héshe’s surprise reminded Saia that she had never heard her speak.

“Let's say I accept,” she said. “What if you fail and everyone realizes you're not human?”

“They'll only think she's a tanhata dressed as a human,” Serit interjected. “A good story to boost the team’s image.”

Saia's viss buzzed stronger when she recognized the word. She needed to ask Serit what it meant as soon as they were alone.

“Enanit will be furious if she finds out.”

“I can temporarily change my appearance,” Saia said.

Héshe nodded, then smiled, and for once it seemed sincere and not a mask to cover other thoughts.

“I’ll admit, I'm curious and one of my players needs to rest. But I also have to think about the future of my team, and the right way to do that would be to ask a player from a different category to replace him, not a complete beginner.”

“Is there something I can do to convince you?”

“If you want in, you need to earn your place. Being strong isn't enough, I need to see how you move.”

She clapped her hands loud enough that it reverberated in the whole arena, then took out a tool from a pocket identical to the ones the narrators used to amplify their voices. Saia saw swirling grooves all over its surface. Héshe’s viss flowed to fill them.

“You'll have a new player for today's training,” she announced. “Ilit, she'll take your place. Please use this time off to rest that elbow.”

Ilit nodded and jogged out of the arena through the players' entrance.

“Nashan, I want to see what she can offer story-wise. If she writes a suggestion, try to incorporate it. I want to know your opinion at the end.”

The narrator nodded. Héshe put away the amplifier and turned toward the team's staff.

“Please, give her a uniform and bring her down there.”

A woman from the staff stood and led Saia into the building and down the stairs. The guards followed her for a bit before going back to guard the entrance to the stands.

Saia was led inside a room full of benches and clothes. The woman waited outside as she changed, then gave her a piece of paper with a list written by hand: every element of the list was a letter of the Shilizé alphabet with a circle drawn next to it.

“The current code. Keep it with you for reference.”

Saia was about to point out that the circles were all identical, then noticed the traces of viss on the paper. Each circle had a different intensity associated with it. She examined them all, then put them in a pocket of the uniform. It was a tunic made of one piece, purple with small pink plumes sewn at the hem and on the short sleeves.

The staff member led her out another door and down a short corridor. The end was square and bright, large enough for five people to enter side by side. She could hear the players shout to each other as they moved around the field. She realized she was stepping outside alone, without Serit besides her. If her theories were right, the guards observing her from afar should notice that and deactivate her.

She stepped onto the rough glass of the field with her special shoes and braced herself for the fall. Nothing happened for several instants, to the point the team's captain started to gesture at the position she had to occupy near the red circle.

Saia jogged up to the empty spot, wondering if she had guessed wrong and being near Serit had nothing to do with whether she got deactivated or not. But then she couldn't imagine the reason why they didn't ever leave her alone in the warehouse. Unless they feared the enemies they had warned her about so much they didn't dare to get too far from her, except when they were forced to. Which was weird, since she'd never sensed that much fear or anxiety coming from them.

The narrator threw a green ball down and the players moved. Saia had memorised many matches from the bottles Serit had brought, but even in the rare case when she guessed what she had to do in time, she found that moving her body accordingly wasn't that easy and the opponents were quick to anticipate her.

Her role was that of a runner, the most versatile one, because she had to follow the ball back and forth while the rest of the team kept their position in the half of the field to which they were assigned, either as attackers or defenders.

It took her one second too much to realize that she had to run toward the ball like the other runner of her half-team. The other still managed to catch the ball despite being against two runners. When one of them managed to touch his shoulder, he stopped and turned, eyes looking around.

“One,” a staff member shouted.

A player screamed something at Saia and she realized the other runner was looking for her. She got closer, but two opposing defenders did as well, blocking her path. Just before the referée could shout 'three', the runner threw the ball at her and an opponent intercepted it. She ran behind him, pushing more viss into her legs to go faster. She managed to touch him, but the referée whistled.

“The three seconds weren't over.”

Saia nodded, stepping back. She hadn't paid attention to the counting, focused as she was on reaching the player. While the opposite team received the ball, she risked a glance toward Héshe, but she couldn't see her expression from that distance. Not that she expected anything positive, apart from amusement, maybe.

The match resumed. The opponents managed to get the ball to their own half of the field, and their attackers made two attempts at scoring. Saia joined the defenders, ready to run toward the opposite half of the field in case the other runner caught the ball.

Except the attackers focused on her side of the circle. The defenders got closer to each other, freeing more space than what they could afford. She stepped forward to touch the opponent who was holding the ball. Instead of retreating, they accepted her touch.

“Not this close to the circle,” a defender shouted.

She realized why too late: the attacker she'd touched easily passed the ball to the one to their right, since the defenders didn't dare step too far from the circle. That one was still close enough to be untouchable for three seconds, which allowed her to get even closer. She tried to throw the ball down, but a defender deviated it. The first attacker had circled around her and was in position to catch the ball. He managed to score while the ring of the defenders was still closing.

Saia jogged back into her starting position before the angry glances of the players could become words. The ball was thrown to the narrator, who briefly closed his eyes to decipher the team's suggestions.

“Is he telling two stories?” she asked the closest player, one of the only two humans. They were playing for the mixed category, after all, where the gender and species of the players didn’t matter, as long as their strengths were roughly equal.

“No, just one for both teams,” he answered.

The story had begun a while before Saia and Serit had arrived at the arena, so she had to guess who the protagonist, his goal and the city in which the story took place were from the short introduction of the next character.

“In Lyméze, the city of trees, there was also a temple dedicated to the goddess Gélana. Here lived a group of young people who were servants of the goddess, hunting in her honor to feed the whole city. Nobe and his friend approached the guards at the door, looking for someone who could give them guidance.”

As the next character was introduced, Saia reflected on the stories that were either part of the mountain's sacred texts or Suimer's local legends. Since it was clear to everyone that she didn't know how to play, she had to convince them with her ideas for the story. She hadn't seen enough matches to know what they had already heard hundreds of times and what could be new, so she needed to get her information in other ways.

She focused on the stands, where Héshe was talking with two members of the staff, the rest confabulating among each other. Saia expanded her domain, taking in the entirety of the arena. She tried to mitigate the explosion of viss that left her body by expanding only one side, but found out she could only let it expand in every direction equally. She stopped as soon as all of the staff was inside her territory, aware of the days of life that were leaving her at every second.

“…a temple, I've seen it too many times in the last year only,” Héshe was saying.

“The character they added is a priest of Gélana, so it makes sense to introduce him that way,” a member of the staff pointed out.

“Maybe we could make it more symbolic. Nobe could meet him while hunting, for example,” said the other.

“I’m more worried about why Nashan has introduced him in the first place,” Héshe said. “He needs the characters to find a boat if he wants to reach the island. I hope he’s not planning to achieve it by divine intervention. There isn't enough meat on this story to pull it off.”

“It's a story focused on the goddess of water,” a staff member from the group sitting on the stands said. “She was the one to give the protagonist the mission, she’s the one who sent his friend his way. Invoking Gélana too feels a bit excessive.”

Saia gave Serit a glance. They looked resigned, as if they were taking for granted that she would fail.

She shrunk her domain. There were a lot of old stories in Suimer regarding the sea, like the Loripit, a species of fish that became smaller every time they ate human meat until they transformed into one of the beautiful shells that could be rarely found by digging near the shore. But the fact the protagonist needed a boat made her think about another one that Aili had told her.

She put together a plan while the narrator chose a gray ball from the bag of the opposite team. The new character had become a part of the opponents, despite such divisions not existing inside the story.

Fortunately for her, the ball was being juggled back and forth in a corner between the attackers of her team and the defenders of the other, so she had all the time she needed to compose the message in her head, using the code she'd been given: a thread of viss, the different intensities that corresponded to the letters one right next to the other.

She jogged in the general vicinity of the ball, ready to help in case it was headed her way, with the goal of adding the sentence to its surface. But the opponents easily avoided her and threw the ball to one of their runners, who quickly approached their team's circle. If they scored, the story would go forward and her suggestion would have been useless. So she expanded her domain again and added the viss with her message on the surface of the ball. It was short: 'Water-goddess jealous, send flood, boats float free'.

The opponents scored and she cheered internally. The ball returned to Nashan, who took a while longer before speaking, to the point the referée started shouting numbers again.

“The goddess Lunushé was displeased with Nobe because he had involved a follower of Gélana without her approval, so she made the sky rain as it had never happened before in the history of Lyméze. The waters of the twenty rivers started to grow and grow until the knots that fastened the boats loosened. Nobe and his allies fled the temple of Gélana and prayed together Lunushé to not hurt the city in their stead. After hours of supplication, the waters returned to their rivers, leaving behind a single boat.”

Saia glanced at Héshe and her staff as the narrator told of how the protagonists pushed the boat into the river and sailed toward their goal, which apparently was to prevent the assassination of the local representatives. Their expressions weren't clear from that distance and she didn't feel like wasting more energies to hear what they were saying.

She kept playing as best as she could, even managing to steal the ball from an opponent and pass it to the other runner of her team before the staff called for a pause.

She jogged with the other players toward the stands, where the staff was distributing water bottles. She pretended to sip the one they gave her, studying Héshe with her all-around vision. She was looking down at the team from behind the handrail, a pensive expression on her face.

Once the players had finished resting and rinsing most of the sweat, she finally addressed them.

“What do you think, Doves? Could Saia play a match with you after adequate training?”

“No offense,” the other runner of her half of the team said. “But it looked like she was playing for the first time.”

“I saw a lot of rough talent,” the captain added, putting away the main character’s coat he'd been wearing. “Her throws are strong and extremely precise, she just needs to learn where to throw. And she’s a fast runner. She doesn’t even seem tired.”

Héshe glanced at Saia. She understood it was something she needed to work on, pretending to tire out a bit and maybe adding some drops of water in place of the sweat she didn't produce.

“She lacks technique,” one of the defenders said. “She's obviously not better than Ilit, if that's what you want to know.”

Héshe nodded and thanked them for their contribution. Saia looked around for the narrator, the only one who could help her cause: he had descended from the balcony and was now walking between the seats toward the staff.

“You can get changed, we've finished for today,” Héshe said. “Saia, come up here.”

She obeyed, using one of the two staircases that led from the lowest level of the stands to the field. It was blocked by a locked gate at the top, but a woman of the staff opened it to let her through. She approached Héshe like Nashan was doing from the other side, except he wasn't immediately surrounded by armed guards. He gave Saia a confused look before focusing on what Héshe was asking him.

“You added a good twist to the story. Did Saia contribute in any way?”

She realized the narrator could just say 'no' and her whole plan would have failed.

“Involving Lunushé for the boat was her idea, even if the original motivation was a bit distasteful.” He looked at Saia. “Our gods aren't 'jealous'. I suggest you at least learn about them before insulting them again.”

Héshe gave Saia a slightly amused look, probably thinking about the fact she’d be considered a goddess too. Saia wanted to reply that Gélana, Lunushé and their other gods weren’t real, at least not in the way the mountain’s deities were, and that they should only be grateful about that.

“I’m sorry,” she said instead. “I’ll make a better suggestion if I'll have a second chance.”

And she stared at Héshe, eyebrows raised with an implicit question. She dismissed Nashan before beginning to answer.

“I like the suggestion you made. Everything else wasn't as good, though, and we’ll play another match soon against a team from another city.”

“If I may,” Serit said, raising from the seat from which they'd been following the conversation. “It's the first time she's ever touched the field, after only two days of watching past matches. With your training and some more examples, I'm confident she can improve even faster. Look at how good she speaks Shilizé.”

Héshe gave them a long look before nodding and turning to face her staff.

“How is Ilit?”

“Stable,” said the woman who had accompanied Saia to the team's changing room. “His elbow still needs a bit more rest. We should prepare a substitute in any case.”

“Then it's decided,” Héshe said. “Saia will train with us. Ilit remains our main runner, but we'll replace him as soon as he gives signs of fatigue.”

“Thank you,” Serit said, releasing their breath with a sigh.

“I’ll do my best,” Saia added.

“I’m sure of that, but I need to warn you about something,” Héshe said, lowering her voice and pushing the wheels of her chair until she was just in front of Saia, only the presence of a guard to divide them. “Don't use your powers to cheat. I will know it and immediately disqualify you.”

Saia's viss buzzed as she wondered whether Héshe knew how she'd put the message on the ball.

“I need my powers to see, hear and move my body,” she said. “And I can't put viss onto the ball without them, which defeats the purpose of having me here.”

“Then use your powers for that, but nothing else. I'm trusting you.”

Saia nodded. Héshe dismissed her and Serit with a smile.

“Keep me updated on how the experiment is going, engineer.”

Serit hesitated, the uncertainty they’d been keeping hidden up to that point resurfacing.

“There's still a chance this plan will fail,” they said.

“In that case, we'll talk again about your visit to the wind spirits. If Saia can prove she can disguise herself well enough.”

Serit thanked her and raised their hands in a farewell. Saia quickly imitated them, her viss buzzing with a sense of triumph.