Tolan Odyssey (part 1)

Brush crunches under my feet as I run through the dense forest, branches reaching out to attack my exposed skin. I glance to my left finding Cocoa is keeping pace, zig-zagging in an out of sight. An arrow whizzes past my ear, another catches my side, I wince in pain and begin to falter.

“Know your body, push its limits. That’s the only way you’ll survive here” My aunt’s voice rings in my ears as loud as the pain. I push harder than I have before, knowing I’ll regret it later. But I can’t live in the later when in battle, I must live in the now, another lesson my dear, sweet aunt has drilled into me.

Suddenly the forest is moving faster than I am...and at a different angle. I realize that I am now rolling through the foliage, a branch must have caught my overworked legs by surprise. Cocoa is already at my side when the sky stops spiraling, she sniffs me gently checking for signs of life.

“I’m alright girl, thanks for the concern.” I gently scratch her once soft, now mud caked chest fur. I retain the urge to cry out as I sit up. “Or maybe not,” I feel my ribcage and discover a couple bruised ribs along with the arrow wound that had already soaked my shirt with blood “Aunty Aella is not going to pleased.”

“Lia, are you okay?” Keagan’s comforting voice approaches from behind. He lowers his bow and crouches beside me.

“Just bruised. I’ll be fine.” He ignores my words and checks the gash in my side.

“Keagan, step away from her, training isn’t over.” Rease rebukes sternly. “Get up Zollia.”

“She’s injured.” Keagan stands to my defense.

“Silence. Aella demanded we be ready for initiation and whining about a few cuts and bruises is unacceptable. I said, get up.” he stomps over and jerks me up by the arm. I bite my lip in an attempt to hide my weakness. He takes notice of the blood seeping through my tunic and down my thigh then mumbles something under his breath. “Gwen, bandage her side. It doesn’t need to be perfect, just enough to keep out infection.” Gwyneth shakes her head but gets to work, muttering about loss of blood and my death not being her fault. She finishes with a sigh and Rease briefly examines her work, he nods and tells everyone to gather their gear. “We’ll start again from the ridge. Maybe this time you’ll pick up your feet.”

Since I came to live with aunt Aella, Rease and his friends have enjoyed trying to make me feel inferior, when really, they’re just intimidated by my awesomeness and natural-born talent. I don’t blame them, but it’s a fair battle to make it onto the Tolan - The largest of five spacecrafts our government developed when we found out there is life on other planets. The United Federations Tolan was built to maintain relations with our allies and explore new planets.

My aches cause me lag back. Keagan casually glances at me now and then to make sure I’m still alive, but gracefully keeps his distance. Not with me, but not with them either.

Keagan and I bonded from the moment we met. My mom died when I was born, and my dad died when I was twelve, so I was sent to live with my aunt. Keagan had said girls couldn’t be soldiers because they don’t hit hard enough, so I knocked him out right then and there. No matter how many times he pretends to not be interested in me, I can feel the unspoken hope for a courtship. The only reason neither of us have made the first move is because we don’t know if we’ll see each other ever again after this year.

An initiation process will begin by all qualified cadets demonstrating their skills and the chosen will leave for up to fifteen years, taking on various occupations.

For a young man of nineteen he’s respectably built, standing roughly six feet tall with broad shoulders and muscular forearms. I must have missed his ‘scrawny’ phase, if he ever even had one. He’s never one to boast his stature either, not that he has to, he walks with a notable confidence: his head held high yet stooping to greet small groups of children that crowd around him, never failing to greet them with a smile and a small sweet he’s acquired from his scout travels. He glances back at me and I realize I’ve been staring. A blush burns my cheeks as I quickly look down at Cocoa. He smirks and shakes his head.

We ran the forest trail three more times without a break, it’s a miracle I was able to walk all the way back to camp. Keagan offers to walk me to my tent, but after being caught gawking at him, I choose to walk in comfortable silence.

~ * ~

Warmth. The only adjective that can properly describe the feeling of being held by someone you love. The way your body melts, the unashamed blush that dances on your cheeks and makes you dread letting go.

I don’t remember falling asleep, or even getting ready for bed, but this moment couldn’t be anything other than a dream. There was that haunting feeling you get when you know you’re dreaming, the sensations were almost palpable, but empty. I look up to his face, already fading quickly. He gently wipes away tears from my face,

“You’ll be okay without me.” he whispers.

“How do you know?” I shamelessly whimper.

“Because I raised you. And I know you’re stronger than you think.” He grabs my shoulders and pushes me away. A sob steals my words as he kisses my forehead. The scene blurs to room 213, the last place I would see my father again. With all we’ve discovered, cancer is still an undefeatable demon. “I’m always with you.” were his last words.

“Dad!” I jolt awake, breathing heavily. Grasping for anything to remember, the color of his eyes, the sound of his voice, the smell of his cologne, nothing. I jump up and dig through my desk drawer, sighing with relief when I find the tattered photograph. I hold it to my chest and breathe deeply.

“His eyes, green. His voice, soft. He never wore cologne, he was a blacksmith, he smelled of smoke, and ash.” Three simple things my eleven-year-old self-vowed to remember. I close my eyes tight, trying to lock the image from my dream behind them.

~ * ~

I dodge a jab at my right side. Keagan recovers quickly, pulls the dagger from its sheath around his waist and swipes at my left shoulder, my awkward angle denies me movement and the small dagger slices a clean cut. I falter back and regain a defense position, low and ready to strike. Cocoa barks and pulls on her leash, I smirk, imagining her cheering me on, “Go for his legs!” I hear her say. My feet slide in the sand as I charge at him unexpectedly, the sharp ringing sound of metal fills the air as we viciously swing at each other, calculating the others’ move before they make it.

The physical exertion from the past three days is finally catching up to me; I can feel my arms growing weaker and my breath burns in my chest. Keagan must have noticed, he starts to slack in his offense. I glare at him and push myself harder, my body is slow to respond so Keagan takes the upper hand. He swiftly disarms me by twisting my sword with his own then pressing the hilt into my injured shoulder. I stumble back but manage to stay standing and maintain some amount dignity.

“Zollia!” I hang my head at the sound of my aunt’s harsh tone. “What was that? If I didn’t know better, I would think you've had no training at all. He disarmed you with the simplest attack to defend.” She shows no kindness in her reprimand, despite the large crowd watching and listening.

“I apologize Aella. I’ll do better next time.”

“If that were a real battle there wouldn’t be a ‘next time’.” I’m not taken by surprise as she steps into the dueling circle and takes Keagans place, initiating her ‘if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself’ motto. “We’ll try it again.” she signals for two wooden swords, used when teaching so as not to injure anyone. I catch the one that is tossed to me and place myself in the position I had before Keagan disarmed me. Aella comes down hard on my sword, I expected her to start out gently and talk me through it like she has in the past.

“Again!” She snaps, “Don’t be afraid of your own strength.” I parry a second unexpected blow she had aimed for my injured side. “Dig deeper Lia.” she spins, and in my disarray, I miscalculate where she is going to hit next. I block low and she does hit my sword, but then her elbow digs straight into my sternum, knocking me to the ground.

Aella walks over to me and at this point I don’t know what to expect. She offers her hand, I grab it and she helps me to my feet. “never trust your opponent, friend or foe, don’t think you understand their next move, because you never will.” There was a solemn tone to her voice. “We’ll go through it slower this time.”

I finally got the upper hand on the fourth try, which surprisingly earned me a break. “You’ve earned your rest.” she’d said, “No further practice until the initiation ceremony.” I couldn’t believe what I heard, so after eating and taking a small nap, I made my way to her tent site.

“Commander Aella?” I question formally.

“Over here Zollia.” I walk around to the back of her tent to find her standing, looking at the vast meadow below. “In less than 48 hours the U.F Tolan will be docking in that valley.”

Being recruited to staff aboard the Tolan was an honor and a dream, because once you’re accepted, you stay with that ship and crew, opposed to constantly being transported, dropped off, and picked up. Never with the same group of people for longer than a couple weeks.

My father took me to watch it dock once, when I was only five years of age. He always had a dream to be a member and travel amongst the stars, but he didn’t want to expose me to that kind of atmosphere so young, we discussed applying when I turned fourteen...but that never happened

I turn to my aunt and notice her shoulders are relaxed from their usual intimidating hold, her face wears a melancholier appearance than I have ever seen on her. “Is everything alright Commander?”

She snickers and turns to face me, looks me over from head to toe and back. I tense as she pulls me into her arms. My aunt hasn’t given me a hug or treated me as family since the day I arrived as base camp. She pushes back to arm’s length and looks me in the eye. “I’m going to miss you. I just need a moment to pick three things.” Tears jump to my eyes.

“Three things?”

She laughs again. “Your father and I had this thing, that when someone would leave, we would pick three of our favorite aspects of them to remember. You can never remember everything, but if you remember just three things, the rest seems to build from those.” A hazy memory of my father explaining the same thing while in his hospital bed fills my head. He laid there patiently waiting for me to stop crying long enough to list them off with him. I would hold myself every night and repeat them over and over again.

“He told me that…” I whisper. “His eyes, his voice and the way he smelled are what I hold on to.”

“Your laugh, freckles, and the way you sing when you think no one can hear you. That’s what I’ll remember about you.” I stand there, truly unsure what to say or do. She clears her throat, returning to her commander stature and cutting off our intimate moment. “Now go do whatever it is you do in your free time.”

“What do you mean? There’s only two day left for training.”

“I know. You’ve worked hard, I have nothing left to teach you.” I nod and turn to walk away. “Zo zo.” a nickname I haven’t heard since I was a young child. “You’re going to do great.”

“Thanks to you.” I state gratefully before heading back to my tent.

~*~

Cocoa barks her excitement as I finish fastening my knife sheath to my thigh and slide Callan - my 3-foot saber with a single turquoise ruby embedded in the pommel - into the scabbard at my hip. I have a firearm concealed on my person as well, but I prefer a sword. It’s more  personal; when I was 7 or 8 my father and I lived in a dangerous neighborhood and he told me I had to learn how to defend myself so he laid various weapon choices before me, the sword is what I was drawn to - the way the hilt grip felt so natural in my palm like an extension of my arm, the way it flowed through the air and made a slight whooshing sound, it simply felt right. Ever since I’ve become familiar with many weapons, but my weapon of choice is the blade.

“Come on girl, let’s go see how all these years of training have paid off.” I attach a strand of leather to her makeshift collar so she can be restrained from jumping in to fight with me.

“Lia!” Keagan greets running over from the mess hall, otherwise known as the tarp over tables. Aella likes to keep things as rough as possible to make any situation aboard the Tolan seem high-quality. “Did you get any rest last night? I was tossing and turning all night. I can’t believe today is finally here.” He looks and sounds like a child on Christmas morning.

“I stayed up most the night practicing.” His smile fades, and he stares at me, his eyes darting to every inch of my face.

“I hope they chose us together.” He bashfully looks away, losing whatever courage momentarily overtook him.

“I hope so too.” I steady myself with my hands on his shoulders, raise on my tippy-toes and gently kiss his cheek. He looks at me confused “For good luck.” I lie, it was truthfully a just-in-case goodbye kiss, but if I said that, it would make things sad and sappy. I don't want to end things that way.

He grabs my left hand, cradling it gently between both of his. “If we are chosen...would you like to maybe meet for coffee or something with me? I mean, it's just that...” It’s both adorable and painful to watch him fumble with his words. Despite the fact he’s been trained to be a ruthless hunter, he remains every bit the gentle, caring, twelve-year-old boy I fell in love with all those years ago.

“Yes. I would love nothing more than to go on a date with you.” I blurt out with a school girl giggle. Suddenly, I notice what a glorious golden sparkle his eyes hold, the subtle dimple that only appears on the right side of his mouth. Things I knew were there, but took for granted, or decided to ignore because there was always a chance, he wouldn’t ask me to be his. I can hardly believe he finally has, but at the same time I feel that dream-like feeling everything will slip away at any moment. I hold on it to with all my will power and admire every second.

He lets go of my hand and we begin walking a respectable distance from each to the training grounds, while making small talk about how we think we’ll do in the assessments. There is only one open position for his skill as a hunter this year and at least five cadets being presented. My chances were only slightly better with ten openings and twenty-four soldiers literally fighting for one.

There’s a large turnout of towns’ folk coming to watch their sons and daughters basically compete in a talent competition. The ‘judges’  - General Liam and his second in command - had our qualifications sent to them months ago by my aunt and they looked through them, decided who they would like to demonstrate those qualifications, sent them back, then my aunt trained those they chose to the best of her ability, now here we are. All terrified and trying to grasp at any lesson to remember, begging our reflexes to focus.

I personally try to keep my breakfast in my stomach standing in line as each of the us are paired off with our equally-skilled opponent. One by one my friends are separated, I take account of who is left, “only six left” I pause on Reases’ face. “Is he sweating?” I do everything in my power to not smile or laugh at the thought of him, of all people, being nervous. Rease is one of the most well-trained, courageous soldiers I’ve seen. But I guess it proves even the strongest person is still human.

“Zollia Heffman and Rease Gunnars.” Aunt Aellas’ voice pulls me from my thoughts. I look back at Rease, he looks at me with pure panic on his face and seems to be breathing heavily. “Is he actually scared of me?”  I see him close his eyes and take a slow, deep breath, opening them to appear collected. But I can still see his hands trembling.

We stand together watching the other teams battle one by one. “Stage fright?” I tease when he begins rubbing his hands together.

He lets out a defiant chuckle. “You wish.”

“You’re a good soldier Rease, you shouldn’t be intimidated by me, or anyone one else here.”

He appears taken back by my kindness, even though I’ve never parried his harsh words with more harsh words. “Thanks. You too.” we’re called to battle before anything else can be said.

~*~

Keagan’s hand brushes against mine, his way of reminding me to breathe. My aunt stands before us all, listing off one name after another for cadets who need to go pack up their tents. She pauses abruptly, a smile momentarily appears. “Zollia Heffman. Assigned to faction 12, sector 1.”

I squeal with uncontainable excitement before sudden dread hits my stomach. I look to Keagan not attempting to hide any emotion. He smiles and grabs my hand, giving it a soft squeeze. “You’ll be okay without me” I can feel him say. Tears burn in my throat. I can feel it all fading, the things we never had - never will have. When gracefully, I hear it.

“Keagan Montenegro. Assigned to faction 13, sector 8.” Relief rushes over me, I cover a sob with my hand and hang my head to hide the tears I can’t contain any longer. Keagan wraps me in his arms, placing a kiss on my head. Warmth. The only adjective that can express being held by someone you love.

~*~

“Is this everything?” My aunt questions so softly her voice is almost inaudible. I embrace her without the slightest hesitation.

“I love you aunty. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.” I give a firm squeeze and let her go. She laughs and wipes away her tears. “I’ll see you in couple years.”

“I know. I guess I’ve been denying the fact that my little niece is all grown up.” her soft hands cup my face, “Your father would be so proud.”

A young man appears beside us and clears his throat “Sorry to interrupt,” my aunt drops her hand, instantaneously transforming back to commander Aella. “I’m here for cadet Hoffman and her luggage.”

“Thank you, captain, here is her luggage and I will be escorting Miss Zollia myself.” He nods, gathers my solitary bag and makes his leave. “Now.” My aunt turns back to me. “I want you to email me at least once a month, I want to know as much as you’ll tell me about you and Keagan and whatever else goes on out there. Also, don’t worry about Cocoa. You and I both know no one can own her, but I’ll take good care of her.”

Seeing this side of my aunt again makes it harder to leave her. I go over my three things I’ll always remember about her. Her hugs, a bit stiff but only given to people she really cares about, her seemingly infinite wisdom, and the way she loved her brother, shown in the way she always talked about him with a smile on her face.

Before I know it, it’s time for me to board. I give my aunt a final hug and head off to join my fellow cadets. I find Keagan at the back of the small crowd. General Liam gives a short speech and we begin filing in, at least everyone else does. Keagan stops when he realizes I’m no longer beside him.

“I’m scared,” I whisper. “What if I can’t do this? What if I haven’t learned enough?”

“Lia.” He grabs my arms to silence my rambling. “You never stop learning. None of us do. We’ll all make mistakes and hopefully continue learning from those. This isn’t an end, it’s simply a new beginning and I’ll be here the whole time.”

I take a deep breath, letting fear fade and excitement take its place. He grabs my hand and we take the first step to a whole new life. Together.

The end