Swallow the Moon

by dizzy

I.

Ready or not, here I come!

Sunlight swirling. Wind blowing. Orange leaves kicked up and around, dancing wildly. Laughter in my ears. Laughter in my ears and sunlight in my eyes.

Safe!

Safe!

Safest!

You were last safe! You're it!

Not so!

So!

Not so!

My eyes snap open. I feel a hand running up and down the back of my neck gently. "Ronan, we're almost there," Lana tells me. Katarina, Jeremy, David, Marianne, Zeke, Elisabeth, Logan, and Teresa are paired up, holding hands and saying generally reassuring things to each other. The passenger compartment of the shuttle is cramped with the ten of us, but the soft light and pastel-colored upholstery on the chairs are relaxing. We've already been briefed several times over. Everything should go as planned. The whole of our training has led up to this moment. But doubt swims in all of our heads. Four other squads were trained this way. Four other squads are thinking that everything should go as planned. It can only happen for one.

"Did you dream?" Lana asks. She's the calmest of us all; always calm. They say she hardly cried when her parents died. She accepted it and moved on, raised her younger brother Garhett without a word of complaint. The board of public ministry had assigned them a supervisor, who became quite involved in their lives and urged Lana to apply to the center for later-childhood acceptance. Of course she was accepted. Garhett was sent to live with their grandmother, which was a strange but appropriate course of action.

"No," I say, wishing I didn't lie to her so much. I miss Andrew. I could tell him anything. Andrew wasn't good enough to go for training at the center. His parents were upset. They wanted their son to be something, since they were shop-keepers. Andrew must have been relieved. All most of the younger applicants want is to play with their toys. When I had to go I almost wouldn't. He got scratches on my arms because he reached for me and wouldn't let go, dug his nails deep into my arms and refused to let go. Andrew refused to let go. They had one of those janitors, a new model at the time, drag him off me. You don't use police on a six-year-old. We both cried the whole time. Then I climbed the shuttle and was gone. It's been ten years since I cried good-bye.

I wonder what he's like now. Is he tall? His father is a very tall man. Or maybe I was just a small child. Are his eyes still blue? They say that sometimes eyes change in the lower breeds, something about impure breeding, but I don't know about that. Andrew was never lower than me and my eyes are the same muddy brown as always, I think. I remember the way his hair was kind of like soft yellow fabric, shimmering and loose. His bangs always got in his way. I used to tease him about it.

"Missing Andrew?" Lana asks. Her intuition isn't surprising.

"No," I say, wishing I didn't lie to her so much.

My parents never mentioned Andrew in our communications, though records, which are open, show I asked about him at first. When you're little you can send one message a day. After awhile they wean you off them, so you're allowed to send one message every month, on the sixteenth day. I am feeling poorly/well. Training is going poorly/well. I am sleeping poorly/well. I am eating poorly/well. My health is doing poorly/well. Your other's name here and I are developing our relationship poorly/well.

You do, of course, get to use the touch pad to sign it.

Lana laces her fingers in between mine. "I'm… worried, Ronan," she says carefully. "About you. This mission determines our future. Are you okay with that?"

"I passed the psychiatric exams," I say. I'm glad not to lie to her. At least I resisted the urge to be sarcastic.

"You're… being evasive, Ronan. I need you to talk to me," she says.

Don't lie to her. Don't lie,  I think. "I'm fine," I say, wishing I didn't lie to her so much.

"Okay," she says, but she's lying to me now. Concern laces her forehead, and she's not okay with what I've said. Not okay at all. I think I could say anything, and she would know the validity of what I said, even if I said it over a text link.

I sit for a while contemplating things. Jeremy and Kat play a rather animated game of Sharp Eye, but I don't join in.

"Something blue! Is it something blue?"

Kat shakes her head, no.

"Something green?"

Beside me, Lana pulls her hand from mine. My eyes feel ready to close….

Orange leaves kicked up and around, dancing wildly. Laughter in his eyes. Laughter in his eyes and sunlight in mine.

I got you!

I got you!

Hey! I said I caught you!

"Silly, I said we landed. C'mon we've got a whole round of briefings before the game starts," Lana says. She puts my hand in hers.

"I still don't know what it is, Kat. I give up," Jeremy says, pretending to be annoyed.

Kat gives Jeremy a quick kiss. They're probably the closest of each of us. Kat fingers the emerald necklace her mother gave her and Jeremy laughs.

"The future begins now!" Zeke says enthusiastically as the door wooshes open, and we all stand to face our commander.