It’s hard to pick a moment that explained to me why we were separated from the clan. We weren’t exiled but we weren’t accepted either. There was no single moment, though. Just a gradual accumulation of incidents, of words. It was like the tide rising, revealing resentment, fear, and even anger. I noticed it first, I suppose, at my first meeting with First Mother. But I would be taught this lesson continuously during my youngest days. The days when Medis and Akmuo should have been with all the other children at the Meadow. Even I was approaching the age when my family would expand to the entire clan, and not just my Hopa, LoPa, and mother.

  After Medis and Akmuo helped HoPa gather clay at the river, they wandered off. I followed. Because I loved them. Because they were my big brothers and everything they did was something I wanted to do, to be a part of. There were times they snuck off by themselves. These were the worst times. They filled me with anxiety and rage and sorrow. I never understood why they would choose to do anything without me.

  They held hands as they often did when we left HoPa throwing a new pot to cook with. LoPa massaged his shoulders and sang a meaningless tune imitating the robins fluttering through the trees. My mother tended her sword, a daily ritual. I followed as fast as my tiny legs could carry me. Running to keep up with their pace that was an almost constant cycle of skipping, walking, and trotting. Medis released Akmuo’s hand and picked up a stick fallen from a tree. It was a long and straight and thin. He swung it through the air so fast it nearly whistled.

  Akmuo said, “Let me,” and reached for it but Medis spun away into a fighting stance like mother’s. His weight on his bent right leg while his left leg was straight. His body slightly bent forward, his right hand afloat, wrist limp, but his left arm was straight out, the thin stick pointed right into Akmuo’s face. Medis’ expression was Deathly.

  Akmuo smiled and tried to grab the stick but Medis snapped it into Akmuo’s knuckles.

  “Hey!” Akmuo pulled his hand back, “That hurt!”

  Medis’ expression didn’t change and he remained in a fighting pose.

  He was beautiful, like mother. His stance was a poor imitation of hers, but for reasons that are difficult to explain. Where my mother was fluid, like water, Medis was like a statue. His body in the right shape, yes, but he appeared so tense. His body rigid, lacking the grace my mother carried so naturally, so effortlessly.

  Akmuo scanned the ground for a similar stick but found nothing, “Come on, Med. It’s not fair if I don’t got one.” He smiled, passing it off as nothing, as a simply known rule of play.

  But Medis remained in his stance. The tension rose in Akmuo. His smile made him look frustrated and sad. The forced smile barely clinging to his face. He rubbed the hand Medis struck, the fingers of both hands in constant motion. His agitation was rising. I saw it in his constant movement, in the painful smile he forced on his face. His eyes kept bouncing back and forth from Medis to their surroundings.

  We were between two hillhomes. Lapas and Upe both lived as near to us as anyone else. A man and a woman living separate and alone, which was a shameful thing in the clan. To be unpartnered usually meant there was something deficient with you.

  Most of those who lived at the forest’s edge were unpartnered. A mix of criminals, outcasts, and immigrant exiles from other clans. Only my family was whole.

  Akmuo said, “Lapas will be angry if we play in his garden.” His hands kept sliding their grips over one another, his fingers spreading and closing rapidly.

  “We’re not,” I said.

  Akmuo’s head snapped in my direction and he glowered, “Go home, Lulu.”

  Rather than send me running, this emboldened me. I stood up straighter and crossed my arms. And then Medis, seeing Akmuo distracted, lightly slapped him on the cheek with the stick. Akmuo yelled, “Hey! Not fair.” Tears were in his voice as he turned back to Medis, only to catch him turning and running up Lapas’ home and through his garden.

  Akmuo smiled and followed. They stomped through his cabbage while I ran round the small hill, reaching the front door just in time to see Medis landing, stick no longer in hand but smile broad on his face, and running away. Akmuo came over the top of Lapas’ home but struck the grass like a thrown rock. He stumbled and fell onto his hands and knees, his expression pained, but he hurried after Medis, and I ran after both.

  We burst through the rolling hillhomes of the clan. Medis kept running up their backs and through their gardens before leaping off the front and on to the next one. After his first attempt, Akmuo chose the safer route round the homes. I followed, losing more and more ground with each step.

  I ran so hard. My little legs pumping as fast as they could. But no matter how hard I tried, each step brought me farther and farther away from my brothers. They didn’t even look back to make sure I was still following or keeping up. They were lost to their game, to the world that the two of them shared.

  Slow as I was, my lungs burned and I panted, trying to find a way to breathe effectively. My side hurt but I didn’t want to lose them, didn’t want to lose the race, hopeless as this was. I couldn’t even see them after the third home we passed but I kept running in that same direction.

  Words got stuck in the air. Slut, whore, demon, bitch, witch. They rolled over me but also dug into my skin, their roots reaching deep. I didn’t feel it then, barely even noticed, so caught up in the chase was I. My heart roaring, my feet hurting, and my eyes almost wet with tears from the wind and the effort. But each word was a seed that burrowed into me and gradually took root.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  I found them crouched quietly behind the bushes that created a barrier round the Meadow. They held hands again, clasped tight. Their cheeks pressed together and their faces pushed into the bushes. I came up behind them, creeping slowly. I either made no sound or they were too focused on what they were watching. Their bodies were tense. As I got closer I could hear the shouts of play beyond the bushes that distracted my brothers. I got so close I could smell them. Their sweat. Their hair. So similar to my mother’s but so distinctly their own. The two of them almost shared the same scent and I always imagined they shared the same heartbeat, the way my mother said. That was why they always held hands, why they slept so close, why they could speak without moving their lips. Just eyes and touch. But I slapped them both on the shoulder and chirped a high note like a falcon. They both gasped and fell in different directions, but their hands were still clasped so neither one hit the ground. They caught one another and held each other up. It was like a movement in a dance, like they planned it, but the startled expressions on their mirrored faces were too real to be an act.

  I laughed loud and they released their hands in order to grab me. Pulling me in, Akmuo’s hand clasped my mouth and Medis said, “Quiet, Lu.” Without another word, they turned back to the bush and the Meadow beyond. They huddled close but there was enough space for me to see as well. But I wasn’t looking right away. I was angry that my joke had gone unnoticed and quickly stifled. I licked Akmuo’s hand until he pulled it away.

  “Ew,” he pulled his hand away.

  “You ruined it!”

  Medis’ eyes were wide when he turned back to me, “Quiet!” his voice was a harsh whisper.

  “Why?” I whispered back, still angry but following along because Medis always knew something I didn’t.

  “Because.” Then he and Akmuo turned back to the space between the branches and leaves.

  I was furious being held there, but something about it seemed important. This was a secret they shared. A secret all three of us now shared. After a time, they let me go and their hands found one another again.

  It was then that I paid attention.

  So many children. All the children of age in the whole clan. They ran and played and laughed and sang. Faces I had never seen before. Some darker than we were and others with skin the color of mud. Most with black hair but others with hair so red it mimicked the sun. I gaped, having never seen anyone like that. Their hair bright and shining atop their dark head. And it’s not just that the hair was red, but that it fell down to their shoulders.

  This may seem nothing to the two of you but I was a child still. I had never seen someone without the coarse, tightly curled hair that my family had. Our hair didn’t fall down but expanded outward. My own hair, having never been cut in my still short-lived life, was like a great bush extending from my head. A wild, tangled thing with a life of its own. Sometimes it was full of leaves or even sticks that had found their way in only to get trapped until mother or LoPa brushed it out.

  Most of the children had the same hair but there were a few with the bright red hair. Some hung flat against their heads but others grew like mine and the rest: out from their head.

  My focus remained there for the entire time we watched. How did their hair get like that? Was their hair like mine? What made them different?

  Countless questions ran through my head and I tugged at my own gnarled black locks. My eyes followed those redheads as they ran and jumped and sang. They played games with the other children. Games I didn’t understand. Some of the games looked like fighting. The girls wrestling without using their hands. They locked one foot with their opponent and tried to force the other to lose balance without touching them with any other body part. The redhead with flat hair lost repeatedly but she never stopped smiling and laughing.

  I admired her, I think. Not because her hair was like falling fire, like solid water the color of the sun. It was that she could lose and keep trying and not care. I thought of Akmuo. How he always lost to Medis at the games they played. How he was like a contained waterfall. His anger and frustration trapped behind a smile like stone. The fact that he lost to Medis frustrated him endlessly. Even so, he kept trying.

  As the suns began to arch towards the horizon, Medis put a hand on my shoulder and Akmuo said, “Mother’ll want us back now.”

  We walked home, quietly. There was no running or playing or even laughing. Medis and Akmuo walked beside me but held hands behind my back.

  “You ran through everyone’s garden,” I said.

  Medis smiled, “I forgot. Did anyone see?”

  Akmuo’s expression became pensive but he said, “Who cares?”

  “Did you ruin their food?”

  Medis shook his head, “No one will even know.”

  But when we came to Lapas’ home he scowled at us and muttered “Wild ones” loud enough for us to hear.

  When we were past him, Akmuo said, “He’s a thief. I hope you smashed his squash.”

  Medis slowed down and we slowed with him. He turned back to Lapas’ home and then his gaze fell on Akmuo. The way they exchanged looks meant nothing to me but Medis sighed and stared down at his feet. Akmuo pulled him in and they hugged. Medis’ body shook and his eyes were clenched shut.

  “What?” I whispered, looking round us. We were in the flat stretch of grass between our home and Lapas and Upe’s homes.

  Medis’ sad eyes turned to me, “Nothing, Lulu.” His voice was thick and he blinked rapidly.

  I didn’t believe them but I didn’t press them either. The ground beneath my feet seemed unstable, watching Medis show such pain. I held my breath until he wiped his eyes on his forearm and smiled at me. A sad smile, but a smile still.

  A smile stretched over Akmuo’s lips, “Remember when we caught him pooping?”

  Medis laughed through his nose and his smile began to transform.

  Akmuo laughed, “He was so startled.” Akmuo mimed squatting to shit, “We were hidden in the trees, breaking twigs and imitating the squirrels. His poop stopped halfway out and almost sucked right back in when you screeched. And then when we jumped out,” Akmuo flailed his arms and fell over, miming a panicked expression.

  Medis’ smile broke wide and he laughed, so I laughed too.

  “I’ve never seen someone so scared in my whole life,” Akmuo got up, laughing. “Remember the summer we switched all of his and Upe’s vegetables?”

  Medis’ laugh was loud, “She threatened to bring First Mother way out here.”

  Akmuo mimicked First Mother, moving slow as if with great age, pulling his skin from his face so it appeared to droop.

  Medis was laughing and said, “Let’s get home.”

  Akmuo picked me up, grunting “You’re heavy,” then placing me on his shoulders. Even though I could feel the strain in his arms and back and the unsteady way he walked us home, my body became light. Not only because I was on his shoulders, but because I believed him. He was my big brother. My beautiful, perfect brother.

  Akmuo recounted more of their pranks to Medis and the frustration and sorrow melted away from him, as if it had never been there.

  I think that was Akmuo’s greatest talent. Even more than singing.

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