Marya's Chronicles
Chapter 2: Love in the Time of Tension "Hey, Marya."
Marya didn't look up. She happened to be reading something very
good at the
time the voice floated into her room, and she didn't intend to
stop. "Marya. Marya!" The voice wouldn't quit.
"What?" she finally replied irritably.
Marya's younger sister, Lirie, came into the room. "Marya,
do you see something outside the window?" she asked tentatively, pointing.
"I tried to tell Mother, but she's still sick even though
Keely and I are well. The others won't wake."
Marya tried to change the subject on her younger sister. "Never mind,
Lirie," she said firmly. "What are you doing up so late?" It was the earliest
hour or so of Ixionian time, and most of the population lay dormant at that time.
"I could ask you that too," countered Lirie.
Marya smiled. "I was reading," she explained, showing Lirie the book. "When
you get older you'll love this stuff."
"What if I don't live to be older?" shuddered Lirie. "Look outside, Marya.
Do you see something out there? Dark, and moving around suspiciously?" She seemed
scared enough that Marya played along and looked out the window. Lirie
helped her along, saying things like "More to your left" and "No, not that way, this
way!" Marya looked until she was certain Lirie was either joking or
hallucinating. Then she saw it. "I see it, Lirie!" she cried, and there it was (whatever
"it" was at all). Lirie said nothing, following the dark blur with her eyes.
The blur seemed to be digging up the family garden. Lirie moaned in horror. "That was
my Jupiter blossom," she wailed. "It was almost ready to bloom!" She ranted about her
Jupiter blossom, but Marya turned a deaf ear. She was fighting herself, wondering
if she should attack it, go down and investigate, or call for help.
Lirie made Marya's mind up for her. "He's uprooting your Fanpot Cabbage,
Marya!" Lirie shouted. The Fanpot Cabbage had been Marya's pride and joy,
and the darling of the garden. Most of it was still standing and the rest of it
seemed to be salvageable, so Marya chose to attack. She had to get it away from her
cabbage.
She threw energy sparks at the blur from the window. Lirie wanted to join
in, but Marya restricted her. "Don't ruin it," she warned. She then chased it
up and down the garden with her energy beams.
"It's not leaving," Lirie said worriedly. She was right. It was just dodging
around the garden avoiding Marya. It wasn't running away.
"What do we do now, then?" Marya growled, using her newfound levitation
skills to hurl rocks, sticks and clumps of muddy leaves at the
intruder. "At least he's too distracted to keep tearing up my cabbage."
Lirie spoke on sudden inspiration. "Go down there and face him,"
she said. "I'll come with you for backup."
"Are you crazy?" demanded Marya. "It's the Unknown! We could be
facing death or irreversible life complications, or..."
"Remember the cabbage," taunted Lirie.
"Let's go," Marya agreed, suddenly in agreement with her little sister.
Marya popped open her window. Lirie flew out first, trying to focus upon
the blur.
"There it is!" shouted Lirie. Marya hurtled out the window after
her sister. "See it, Marya? Look!"
"I see it," called Marya, "and I'm going in!" She dove, aiming
right for the blur and stretching out her hands, which were sparking with power.
She flew straight at the blur and gave it a double punch fueled by alien energy.
The blur gave a squeal that sounded unearthly (which it was). But Marya and Lirie
knew it wasn't of their race as soon as it did.
"It's an Out-Of-Species!" shouted Lirie. Out-Of-Species, or what
could be called animals, were very scarce in
populated areas on Ixions. The Ixionians
were vegetarians, and pets were absolutely unheard of. They had little use for
what they called Out-Of-Species, which anyhow came so rarely that every sort of
Out-Of-Species were almost legendary. Now, Marya and
Lirie had been faced with the task of dealing with
the Out-Of-Species intruder. Marya had backed off, and she and Lirie hovered in the
air watching it dig up their garden. Marya put up a shield from her own
alien energy around her
Fanpot Cabbage to keep the Out-Of-Species away from
it, but the energy shield was not a solution. Then it was
Marya's turn to be struck with inspiration. She turned to
her sister as quickly as she could. "Lirie," she stated
excitedly, "have you been taught how to make whips out of your energy beams?"
"We just finished last week," Lirie replied. "I'm not very good, even so."
She suddenly looked terrified. "Why, Marya?"
Marya gave a satisfied grin. "We're going to use the energy whips as ropes
to capture the Out-Of-Species, of course."
Lirie looked even more frightened. "But
we can't. I'm
too inexperienced with whips. I'll hurt the Out-Of-Species,
and Lady Dharang said that no matter what, Out-Of-Species
are too rare to injure!"
Marya sighed exasperatedly. "Oh! Fine, I'll rope him
myself." She extended her hand, and a fine whip of energy
skipped from it. With a shout, she flung the energy whip at
the Out-Of-Species and, dodging here and there, managed to make a
loop tightly around the creature's ankles, or where
she thought its ankles might be. The Out-Of-Species,
incapacitated, toppled over.
Triumphant, Marya turned around and faced her sister. "Go wake
Mother and Father," she instructed, shooting another beam at the
Out-Of-Species and roping it more tightly. "Tell them I've got an
Out-Of-Species secured in the garden."
Lirie nodded solemnly, then flew to her parents' window,
popped it open from the outside, and flew in, while Marya
held fast to her energy ropes. The creature was beginning
to struggle against its bindings.
There was a shout from the room Lirie had just flown in via the window.
"AN OUT-OF-SPECIES!" it shouted. Marya almost lost hold of the
energy ropes tying the creature. As soon as she regained control of the
"ropes," her parents' window opened, and out flew her mother, then her father,
then Lirie, who was holding a fussy Keely in her arms.
"Did I just hear my daughter say that there is an Out-Of-Species in
my backyard?" exclaimed Marya's father,
a rather excitable personality called Pengro Chang.
"Yes," Marya replied. "And if you don't hurry
and help me you'll never see get to see it."
Pengro Chang was a strong believer in Out-Of-Species,
though he had never seen one, and he had
always wanted to see one. This was an opportunity
he was not going to miss.
Pengro swooped in next to his daughter. "Let
me handle this, sweetheart," he said, gently pushing
Marya off to the side. With one fluid movement,
a bolt of reddish energy flew from his hand
and collided with the Out-Of-Species. The creature
promptly fell to the ground, whether sleeping,
unconscious or dead Marya did not know.
"Father!" wailed Lirie, as Marya released her
energy ropes that had been binding the
Out-Of-Species. "Father, how could you? Lady Dharang
told us that in the event of an Out-Of-Species
encounter, we must do whatever we can not to harm
it! And now...you've harmed it!"
"Lirie, darling, I've done nothing but subdue it,"
Pengro reassured his daughter. "Dearest child,
it'll wake soon. I just put it out for a second so
we could relocate it. Perhaps we'll get to study
it!" Pengro looked ecstatic at the idea.
"Look, Father. You can examine it," Marya said
placidly. "I just want it away from my cabbage."
"I'll examine it far away from your cabbage."
* * * * * "Okay, when I said far away from my cabbage,
I didn't mean the attic," Marya muttered. She had mostly said
this to herself. The rest of her family was too immersed in looking
at the Out-Of-Species lying on an old dining
table to take in anything else. "What's it called?"
breathed Misha. She looked up from the creature. "How'd
you come across it?"
"Well, I don't know what it's called, Misha," replied Lirie
importantly, "but I know how we came across it. I happened to
peer out my window and see a blur moving. I tried to wake you,
but nobody would wake. Only Marya was any help at all." Lirie
smiled at Marya, who smiled back. "She was the one who first
captured the Out-Of-Species."
"On the other hand," said their father, who was
riffling through study notes across the room, "I may not
know how we came across this Out-Of-Species, but I know what it's
called." Holding a notebook fat with writing, he flew to where
his family stood around the creature, watching its every move.
"By my calculations, it's probably a Wracmunger."
None of his daughters had ever heard anything of the sort.
"That name," Misha declared, "is almost as foreign as the head
of my Educational Center's name."
Marya had to agree. "Yes. That Kevin name is one thing,
but a Wracmunger? What's that?"
"It's an eccentric name for an eccentric Out-Of-Species,"
said Pengro knowledgeably. "Many records, including my own,
state that the Wracmunger has been spotted only about four hundred times
in the Ixionian people's rich, six billion year history of
civilization."
"That's cool," one of Marya's younger sisters, Davia,
contributed. "Maybe we should turn it in for investigation. There
could be an Institute or something that
would love to study such a rarely encountered Out-Of-Species."
"We won't do that just yet, Davia," Pengro told his daughter.
"There are hardly any Out-Of-Species around these places, so there
are hardly any people around that would like to study them.
We have no uses for Out-Of-Species but to let them thrive if they will,
wherever they live."
"So, are we going to release it?" Davia's twin sister, Tae, asked.
Pengro didn't answer right away. Instead he walked to the attic window
and looked out it. "The streets will soon be filled with commuters," he
remarked. "If we want to get this young Wracmunger out of here unnoticed...yes,
we do want to get him out unnoticed...we'd
best start now." So the family prepared for the departure of the Wracmunger.
They set off within the hour, while it was still not quite light. The Wracmunger had been,
yet again, subdued, and shoved into a spherical containment
chamber. They simply flew off into the early morning sky with the
Wracmunger's containment chamber balanced on Marya's back. She had offered to
take it; she had superior strength even among her innately strong people.
"So, where are we going to be releasing it, Father?" asked Misha.
"Yes, dear," said Marya's mother, who was called Pan. "Misha has a point.
We don't know where to drop it off at." "Don't
worry, Pan, darling," replied Pengro reassuringly.
"Anywhere far from the city is fine. Remember,
most people have never seen an Out-Of-Species and
like it that way. If they saw one, they'd probably
kill it." "Don't let that happen to this little
Out-Of-Species," said Marya fondly. The spherical
containment chamber rattled on her back. They
flew until they were so far away from all cities that
not even the most noticeable of all the buildings
had faded away, to be replaced by the little-seen
natural undergrowth. Ixionian plants and oddly
shaped rocks poked out, the plants growing in their
own awkward patterns. A rushing river flowed nearby,
and it was decided that the bank of the river would
make a good place to release the Wracmunger.
"Okay, Marya," called her father. "Put it down and
open it." He gestured to the carrier on her back.
Marya set down the spherical containment chamber
and looked at it for a few moments. "Say good-bye
to our Out-Of-Species buddy," she said. "Good-bye,
litte Wracmunger. My Fanpot Cabbage better not suffer
any lasting damage from what you did to it." "I
hope you live long and well," Misha added. "Don't..."
Right then, Misha was interrupted by both a curious
rustling sound in the background and Tae. "Stop,
Misha!" she cried. "Look! Someone's there!" She pointed
to where the sound was coming from. "I hear them!"
Marya had heard it too. "Stay where you are!" she
cried brashly. "I'm going after them!" She left
her family where they were standing bewilderedly,
and chased after the rustling noise, which too was
on the move. She shot flaming orange energy beams
at the sound's source. The rustling stopped
as soon as the first blast hit. Marya, startled,
stopped firing at it. Then came something that
surprised her even more. A voice spoke.
"Wait! Stop! Cease fire!" it said. It had a
bit of an accent at the edges of the words.
The phrasing was a little too curly and
feminine, though the voice was male. Marya knew the
race that spoke Ixionian with that accent. "You!"
she demanded. She couldn't see who she was
yelling at, but she could hear him, and directed her voice
at where she thought he stood. "You're Ziranian!"
The Ziranians were the inhabitants of the planet
Ziranez, a female-dominated planet that was
constantly at war with Ixions.
Their difference in beliefs was the only real
reason they were always fighting, though several
sources gave many, many more reasons, most of
them exaggerated or downright ridiculous.
Because of the senseless reasons and frequent
warrings, most Ixionians hated the Ziranians,
and vice versa. Marya heard a sharp gasp
from whoever she was talking to. "Don't," the
male voice said. The speaker came forward
out of the shadows. It was a boy who looked
just a little older Marya. He was dressed in
the Ixionian uniform that the governments
decreed the lawful clothing of the planet.
Marya looked at him, then frowned. "If you're one
of those Ziranians," she said, throwing contempt
on the word, "why are you wearing Ixionian clothes?
Are you a spy in hiding?" The boy bent near to her ear.
Marya could see his features clearly, and
the boy did not look any more Ziranian than she did.
"Miss," he whispered. "I know you've got a lot of
questions just now. Follow me and I'll answer them."
The boy started to fly. Marya followed him, knowing
then that he could not be Ziranian. Ziranians
could not fly. Marya flew after the boy until
she saw him alight on a tree. She sat down next to him.
"I've got questions for you, Master," she said almost as
soon as she had been situated next to him.
"Why do you have a Ziranian accent? You're clearly Ixionian."
The boy sighed. "That will take some explaining. Clear
your schedule, Miss." He folded his hands in his lap.
"My father is not an Ixionian. He is a Ziranian
man. Don't interrupt me, Miss," he said warningly,
seeing Marya's mouth open. "Yes, he is a Ziranian.
Years back, long before my birth, he and a group
of forty other men left the planet, being
unable to stand getting crushed by the women. They
fled to Ixions to acquire power over the women
instead. They soon realized that despite the
common ancestry of the Ixionians and Ziranians,
they looked too different to pass as Ixionians.
But they were not going to be returning to
Ziranez anytime soon. So they found an undeveloped
area of land and settled there. It was little
more than a primitive camp, the living conditions. It
still is." Here the boy paused, more for the
dramatic effect than anything, Marya guessed. Then
he resumed. "Many of my father's friends were
disgruntled. Two were found dead. They all wondered
if they were better off on Ziranez getting controlled
by girls. Then one day changed everything.
After almost two months or so of living on Ixions, one of my
father's comrades reported that he had taken an Ixionian
woman as a wife. She had borne him two daughters, and
she was going to go live in the encampment where he was
living. My father and his friends were delighted. They
had not known that they could have children with
an Ixionian. But there was no stopping them now
that they knew. Soon after my father's friend brought
his wife and daughters to live with us, my father found
my mother. He was the second of his posse to have a child with
an Ixionian, and the rest of his friends were not far behind.
One of them, who had left his Ziranian wife when he
left the planet, took an Ixionian wife too. Not long after
all the marriages, my twin brother and I were born. My
twin was a stillborn, but I lived. My father never
told my mother about this life he had. As immoral
as it sounds, my father met my mother,
she had me, and my father took me from her."
"Then what?" queried Marya, who had
gotten quite interested in this boy's story. "Soon the
ranks of the people living there swelled to three times
the population of those that had originally come," he
continued. "So you've been living over here all your life,"
interrupted Marya, trying to follow this boy's story.
"Nope. That's one thing," he said. "I was a young toddler
when it happened. We were betrayed by one of my father's
friend's wives. We were lucky enough to have news of it
early enough to destroy everything and move, leaving
behind the woman of course. Her reputation was tarnished."
"Oh," said Marya, bemused. "So you've been living here
most of your life, then." "Yet again, no," sighed the boy.
"Only recently have we moved here. See, we were almost
discovered just two weeks ago. No betrayals this time,
but some people walking around came across the remains
of a feast from the night before and almost
found us. We moved here from
all the way across the planet." Marya sat and
pondered that. After a moment she said, "Do
most of the children of your father's comrades look
as Ixionian as you do?" "All of them look
just as Ixionian as you and I do," the boy said. "Ixionian
genes trump Ziranian genes. I even got an Ixionian
name. It's like my father never was a Ziranian."
"What's your name?" asked Marya. "I'm Marya."
"Colocrus." "Nice to meet you, Colocrus," said Marya
cheerfully. Colocrus did not smile back, though. "It's
not nice to meet me, Miss Marya. Not at all. It's dangerous
for a beautiful Ixionian girl like you to know a
Ziranian like me." Marya smiled. "No, it's not. You don't
even look Ziranian and you speak perfect Ixionian."
"My people have ways of telling, and they will
be able to tell," said Colocrus. Worry seeped into
his voice.
"But there's nothing to fear. The Ziranians aren't
at war with us. We have no need to fear invasion,"
said Marya, though she wasn't sure. She knew how
erratic things were with Ziranians. Calm one day,
warring the next. "One of Father's friends was
a Predictor," Colocrus informed her. "He predicts
war. He says he can already feel the tension of it
in his soul. I think many others are feeling it
too. I've heard it's a pretty big rumor."
Marya thought back. "I think you're right about
it being a pretty big rumor," she said slowly. "Now that you mention it..."
Marya remembered flashes of school. Students talking
in whispers...but she'd never thought much of it...what
had they been speaking of? Perhaps this warring theory?
Had it been?
"It's all tension," Colocrus repeated.
Marya put her hand on Colocrus's shoulder. "You'll
be fine." She smiled. "We'll be fine." Unexpectedly,
Colocrus turned her head towards his and kissed her.
"Yes, we will." Marya stared at him. Ignoring how odd
she looked with her eyes wide and piercing,
he pushed her off the tree bough they were perched on. She fell
all the way to the ground. That shook her out of her
stupor. Before Marya had any time to speak, Colocrus
yelled down at her, "You'd better go. I saw your family
with you. They'll be wondering where you've gotten to." He
waved good bye to her, and just before she took off
he called, "What were you guys doing all the way out here anyway?"
"Releasing an Out-Of-Species. Do you get many of those around
these parts?" she replied. "So many we're swamped in them,"
shouted Colocrus. "I hope we'll come across your little
Out-Of-Species friend before long." He stopped, and Marya started
to fly. She was almost out of earshot (pretty far, since
Ixionians have a very long earshot) when he yelled, "Visit me?"
"Of course!" she yelled back, and then she was gone, banking a
turn away from her love in the time of tension.