Chapter One: Light and Dirt

Welcome to Chapter One of At Kiran. There are three main characters, each with their own point of view, so they alternate from chapter to chapter. (Writing Asha makes me feel drunk. You'll see why.)

Chapter draft: 2.

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It's too bright outside. Light keeps bouncing—reflecting, Asha—reflecting off all the materials they have used to build. It wasn't a problem when we were inside the ship. Inside it was darker, and cool, and the artificial lights glared, but they didn't burn like the sun does now. Most of the time it was dark. Looking at the sky from my old home, it had never occurred to me that something so full of light would be pitch black. The metal of the ship is smooth under my hands and feels strong. The plastics don't feel strong. They can’t burn the tips of my fingers and make me wince.

I don't trust plastic. I stare it it and other people stare at me and suddenly I want to cut my hair and change my clothes and why is my skin so dark? It shouldn't be that dark if I want to belong—I obviously am not from here. Nanda grabs my dark hands in his dark hands and makes me look into his eyes. His eyes are brown, not blue. They don't stand out like mine do, they just absorb. No one stares at him.

“Shhhhh.” Despite the light and the carrion thoughts of the crowd, he calms me. Or I try to let him calm me, but the light is really too bright and I can't figure out why no one else is bothered by it bouncing everywhere, off the metal and concrete and into eyes—how can they see with all this light?

“Asha,” he speaks again, and his hands grip mine more tightly. He’s not afraid of hurting me, because at least the pain will make me focus and if I do wince he’ll be less annoyed. But it’s not working because I can’t feel his hands on mine, only my hands in his.

“We have to get in line now. Please stop staring and walk with me.” His words sound forced and the structure is strange. He's not talking for me.

“Why are you talking to me in this language?” I ask him in Kiranese. My accent must not be right because the people behind me are annoyed. No, that's not it. They want me to move because I am in the door and I am blocking the steps and I should just go back to my rock if I can't handle how different things are here. I hit Nanda across the face and start to cry as my right cheek smarts from the impact. His right eye waters as his nerves tell him what I’ve done but he doesn’t get angry. He never gets angry at me he just gets sad and I hate it I hate it—

“Come on, Asha. We're almost there. We have to get in line.” He tugs at my hand gently, trying to guide me down the steps. I stumble after him, but why did I hit him? The steps ring loudly as metal does and our struck faces are throbbing with each footfall. Everything is swimming. People's faces are washed out by the light but they would all look the same anyway. They're too angry. I can't focus. I'm dizzy. He catches me as I pitch forward.

“I can't. I can't. Nanda, please.”

Suddenly there is understanding. I feel a hand on my shoulder. He is twenty-three and from Kiran and thinks my eyes are pretty because they stand out. I close my eyes and try to fix the way the world is spinning by using this man and Nanda as counterbalances. His hand on my shoulder levels out the ground.

“You seem to have your hands full,” he says to Nanda. His dialect is thick and I don't understand the words.

“She is usually fine. I am not sure why she is so bad right now.”

“Oh, come on. Aren’t you an empath? It's obvious she’s scared. Why don't you give her a breather?”

Nanda stiffens against me and gravity starts misbehaving again. They don't like each other and it is making all the oxygen dissolve. I gasp for air and feel more arms holding me steady but I need to fall because the earth will be cool and if I am flat it won’t roll so badly beneath my feet. “I am trying to get her out of the way.”

He rolls his eyes and makes the stinging in Nanda’s cheek worse. “Burn them, they can move around her.” His voice gets louder. “Guys, guys! Hey! She's a Type Three!” There is the grumble of old trees in a storm. “Yeah, that's right, feel guilty. You're all making it worse, so just get moving and give her some room so she can think for herself, alright?”

My eyes are closed and that's why I can't see. They both let go once the people have escaped and I am free to do as I please. I open my eyes and sit down in the dirt next to the shuttle, floating down slowly with relief. Nanda is anxious that I am drawing attention to myself, but the stranger sits down too. He is comfortable, but everything he is doing makes Nanda’s cheek feel worse and worse. My eyes sting again and I feel suddenly ill. My heart isn't beating right because they aren’t feeling the same and I can’t hold three people in my head at once if they can’t agree no matter how calming the earth smells and feels between my fingers.

“She know any Kiranese?” the blonde asks Nanda, who is standing behind me in case I forget to keep sitting.

“Some,” he replies. “She is scattered. Give her time.”

The air smells good here, much cleaner than at the station we landed at initially. Plants live here. The sky has no haze, and the clouds are coming in thickly. It will storm soon. My head hits Nanda's legs and I flush as I realize I forgot to hold myself up. Hands on my face, and the blonde comes back into focus as I reach up to feel them. He's holding me still and looking into my eyes. His are hazel. His skin has spots. I've never seen a spotted human.

“You're a handful, aren't you?”

I focus on his spots. Freckles. Where did Nanda learn that word?

“Hey, you.” He’s actually trying to find me, so out of politeness I do too. I blink. He's a person now and not just hands-spots-eyes. “Hello,” I say, and I know I said it right because they both understand me this time.

“What's your name, little one?”

Name, name. No more clouds and no counting freckles because it’s harder to use words when my mind is so busy being interested. “I...” My hands fall to tear at the soil.

“Her name is Asha,” Nanda saves me. I sigh in relief.

“No. She has to learn to do this for herself, you know. I know you want to help, but let her be the one that talks to me.”

Now my cheeks are cold and there are hands on my shoulders, pulling me back to my feet. By the time I tear my eyes away from his freckles they are gone, but Nanda has not moved so it must be the pale man. I have to tilt my head back or I am staring at his chest.

“You have a nice shirt,” I tell him, and he laughs but Nanda is embarrassed.

“Thank you! You'll get one like it if we can just get you into a line.” His smile makes me trust him but something in what he says is bothering me. Why isn’t thinking easy yet?

He snaps into focus, suddenly, and I am able to stand on my own. Line! We were trying to get in a line. I've held Nanda up.

“What...what are you called?” It's not quite right, but Nanda isn't helping and I don't know why.
“My name is Keven.”

“I hope I haven't made you late, Keven,” I stammer.

“Not at all. I'm in my third year. Just here to help out. Feeling any better?”

I nod and take the chance to get a good look at his face. His features are so much stronger than I am used to. Nanda doesn't like them, but then again, Nanda is jealous and insulted that he cut in.

“Yes, I am. I don't...I don't do well in crowds.”

“No one like you does. That's why you're here. They can fix that, you know. They can fix anything.”

“That is what I am afraid of,” Nanda mutters. His hand reaches for my elbow. It is time to go.

Keven reaches for my shoulder to give me a goodbye pat and I flinch away.

“Whoa, which one of you was that?”

“I...I don't know,” I stammer.

“I was just trying to help.” He's staring at Nanda and getting taller. Nanda's cheek is already burning from where I hit him, and I don't want it to get worse. His hand on my elbow is infuriating, and I can't figure out why it should be. What am I, his pet? Wait, no. That's not me. My knees buckle and I am almost back at the dirt when Nanda's arms encircle me. He presses his lips to my ear and begins to speak in a language I do understand, but I don't listen to the words because it is his compassion that is soothing.

“Some help you are,” I hear Nanda say, but everything is too bright again, and I can't get my body to move right. How can I be holding me, falling, and looking at myself all at once? Why is no one agreeing?

“No, no, no,” a girl's voice says. Me. My right hand arcs out and hits Keven square in the chest. Nanda lets go, and I stumble forward, following with my left. Then Keven disappears, and what is left is thoughtless flesh. Like that, the rage goes away, and I am back in the dirt. I stand up slowly and brush myself off. I'm not going to be fit to be seen by the time I actually get to the line.

“How did you do that?” I look up at the blonde man, who is still Keven, who is looking down at me, but he’s not there when I shut my eyes. His teeth are showing and I think that means he is amused.

“Training,” is his one-word reply. Nanda understands it before I do, so I get the strange echo of the Kiranese overlapped with our own dialect. It makes my head hurt.

“It was...nice...meeting you,” I tell him, but I can't tell if he knows I am telling the truth.

“Same here! I'll come check in on you in a week or two, see how you've settled in. Both of you,” he adds, as Nanda glares up at him. They give each other curt nods and then I am being guided back up the path toward the place where we need to line up. The grass crunches under my feet in places, but has mostly been worn away like a deer trail, but this one leads to shelter, not water. This planet makes no sense. The air is too hot, and I am beginning to wish I had agreed to put on their strange clothing. I wanted to feel comfortable, and instead I feel stuffy and everyone stares.

“They would stare anyway,” Nanda mutters, and I am forced to agree. We don't blend in. Everyone is so much taller, and paler. Changing into their clothes would only make us stand out more because then we'd be pretending we belonged.

Nanda looks up and sees the buildings we are supposed to be finding. His excitement forces me to look up from my sandals, and I stop walking when I see what he sees. He runs into me and we both stumble. Someone up the path giggles. As far as we can see, tall, slender buildings of white stone rise from among the trees. Sections of them are open so we can see inside, where students sit in rows and wish they were somewhere else. Some of them are covered, but the covering is clear. It is unlike anything I have ever seen.

“Glass,” Nanda mutters in Kiranese. I wonder where he learned all these new words.

“On the flight. While you slept, I listened.”

All I remember about the flight is the doctor with the dead eyes and the tired mouth who had given me the shot that had made me sleepy.

“It was supposed to. They were worried you would panic.” We had both said no, but there had been no one else to stop him. Nanda's anger is comforting and makes me smile.

He pauses. We see the line now, but he wants to ask me a question before we get back around all those other interested strangers.

“Do you really think you'll be happy here?” He has already decided he won't. But he didn't want to leave in the first place. It is my fault he is here, but he refused to let me go alone. I am not yet sure which one of us is to blame for his misery, but I know how useless I am most of the time and how frustrating it is for everyone to take care of me. I want to fix it. I want to fix me.

“I like taking care of you.” This thought is tinged with guilt.

I shake my head and walk over toward the line of people and stay focused on the grass. Grass doesn't think. It's not working because someone is staring and wondering what could possibly be so interesting about the lawn. My eyes meet his and he looks away quickly. He's a poor Type One, or less, and doesn't understand how hard it is to think. It's a shame, since I'm so pretty, that I'm so damaged.

Damaged?

“Nonono,” Nanda says, pulling me to him. I push my face into his shoulder and try to get rid of all the people crowding in and giving me all these opinions that aren't mine. “Here, focus on me. Tell me about your brother. Show me your favorite memory of him.”

And like that, Mani is alive again. He’s teaching me how to ride the horses, which terrify everyone else but seem to love me. They seek me out when I am near the paddock and he thinks I can help him and my other brothers train the colts if I have a good seat. He teaches me how to vault onto their backs and sit on their warm, scratchy fur and hold on for dear life as they run. At first he and I rode together, perched atop a huge roan mare, but by the end of the day I was riding on my own and loving their ears and noses and checking their hooves, the hooves that in a panic a year later would crumple Mani’s bones and beat his blood into the paddock dirt.

“Excuse me, miss?” says the redhead at the table. My eyes jolt open and Nanda lets me go. She's staring at a machine and giving it a word so she can pull up my name in their database. She thinks the word so loudly that I am sure I'll never be able to forget it. I'll have to figure out what it means later. There's something I am supposed to be saying, clearly, since the people in the line behind me are waiting.

“Yes?”

She smiles, relieved that I speak Kiranese. “Your name, please?”

It comes to me immediately this time. “Asha.”

“Last name?”

“I...don't...”

Nanda cuts in. “Indrani.” I flinch, and he runs his hand over my back reassuringly. They had to have a surname, after all, and why not use his since I don't have my own? The redhead is satisfied, and exclaims brightly. “Ah! There you are!” I am amazed at how adept she is at showing enthusiasm she doesn't really feel.

“You'll be bunking with the other Natives. Here's you-”

“No, no!” I am yelling, and Nanda cannot make me quiet. “Can't you put me somewhere else?” It is Kiranese. Where did I learn so much Kiranese?

She blinks rapidly. My kind never want anything to do with the outsiders. “I...don't you want to live with them?”

“It would most likely be easier for her if she didn't,” says Nanda over my shoulder. “There are...cultural issues.”

I bring my eyes up to the girl behind the desk, and she has a sudden flash of understanding when she sees how blue they are. Even here, they know what a disgrace it is that I am a half-breed. At least it is working in my favor this once. She scrolls furiously and stares at her screen.

“There is space in a second-year dorm, if you'd like it,” she offers at last.

“That is fine.”

A low, rich voice sounds over my shoulder, and I jump. Nanda puts a hand to my waist protectively. “No, that's not fine. Why is she getting preferential treatment?” I don't know what the words mean, but the girl behind the desk does, and so we get angry at the same time.

“Reid, why are you even here?” Her words are carefully cold but her cheeks have gotten hot.

“Just walking by and overheard the conversation. Indulge me.”

I turn and look up at him. Something is not quite right. He has long, wavy black hair, pale skin, and depthless green eyes. He is so tall he reminds me of the animals back home, but he is slender instead of possessing the raw power of a workhorse. Once I am used to this place, I think he might be attractive. Except...

He makes eye contact and smiles at me, but I do not feel it. An inorganic man.

“Hello.” The word is flat.

“You have no emotion,” I say, and am surprised when all the upperclassmen who are helping us move in begin to laugh. Nanda looks around, confused. The man's cheeks tinge with the faintest red.

“Have we met?”

I shake my head. The laughter increases.

“An empath, then. Type Three.”

“Yes.”

“Been having fun hopping in and out of people's heads all day?”

I stare at him for a minute, working on the words. “No, actually.”

“I thought that's what you people do.” A hint of stress on the last word.

“It is.”

“So why don't you enjoy it?”

“Do you enjoy what you do?” Nanda’s hands tighten on my hips. He wants me to stop talking, but I am too curious.

“No,” is his curt reply.

“What…what do you do? I can't tell.”

Reid's face grows redder, and everyone around me is laughing now, even the new students. Nanda grabs my shoulder and tries to turn me back to the redhead, but I keep my focus on Reid.

“I am sorry, what did I say that was funny?”

“Nothing at all,” he replies. More laughter from the crowd. I am suddenly giggling, too, and Nanda is tugging harder. When he sees me laugh, the green-eyed man turns on his heel and walks off quickly. Someone at an adjacent table cheers.

“Why does everyone like me now?” I ask Nanda, but I ask it in Kiranese by accident, and everyone that hears me laughs harder.

“Let's just get you to your room,” chuckles the redhead, who is trying to reassert control. “I take it you'll both want in the dorm?” she asks Nanda, who nods. “Alright. Here are your wristbands. The screen shows a map of campus. Follow it to the flashing dot and you'll be at the dorms. Your Teachers will be by tonight to introduce themselves, so feel free to relax!” She is still giggling as Nanda leads me away.

“What did I do?” I ask Nanda aloud, in our language this time. If he shouts like he wants to, I don’t want other people knowing why.

“Why were you provoking him?”

I didn't know I was provoking anybody. The red-head seemed happy and the crowd in the lines were nicer than the crowd by the shuttle—and Nanda was the one provoking Keven, not me.

“The dark-haired man. Reid.” Nanda kicks a rock off the path.

All I did was ask questions. He was closed off, so I had to ask questions.

“You made him angry!”

I couldn't feel him getting angry. I couldn't feel anything from him. I can't know whether I am upsetting someone if I can't feel their anger! How was I supposed to know?

“Use your eyes, Asha!” He snaps, gesturing at my face. My breathing gets irregular again and I am back down in the grass before I realize that I am crying.

“Oh, no. Nonono, I'm sorry. Asha, no. Don't cry. It doesn't matter. Come here.” He's helping me up and he’s sorry he is frustrated with me but his face still hurts from where I hit him earlier. I'm crying so hard I can't even see and I don't know why. The people have stolen my energy and I am heavy and tired and hollow.

“Come on, let's get you to your room. I'll make sure anyone that come by to meet you do it tomorrow, okay? You can have the whole night alone, just you and me.”

He helps me navigate to the second floor and undresses me with the door shut. He folds my clothes, rubbing grains of dirt off the leather as he does so, and I feel the bedclothes. Smooth, not at all like dirt under the fingers, and so white they are still there when I shut my eyes. My skin has never felt something this soft that wasn't alive. Nanda makes sure I am comfortable before leaving and shutting the door. He’s out in the hall, back against the door, making sure no one disturbs me. I feel protected by him and the blankets both, and I realize I am smiling. The pillows form around me and my muscles unclench and forget how long they'd been forced to sit in a shuttle chair. For those few seconds before I slip into unconsciousness, I am actually alone.

For those few seconds before I slip into unconsciousness, I am always terrified.