#saeri

Sori is sick.

It's the kind of sick that comes up in spurts and spreads out in waves, sends dizziness from her pit and makes everything in her shake.  That’s what it looks like to those who can see.  Her mother, her umma, stands behind her and rubs her back.  She stands behind her to shield her, too, and shield the children behind them both from the scene she’s making.

Sori is sick.

They cannot hear her.  Or, Saeri cannot, but Saeri supposes she must be very far away anyway.  Bii, her own umma, has a hand on her shoulder.  It is large, and warm, and present, and the weight of it makes for a comfort as deep or deeper than anything she’s ever felt.  But when Bii smiles at her to, Saeri thinks, reassure her, Saeri feels like her umma isn’t quite looking at her.

“Why’s Sori sick?”

Saeri asks without thinking much of it.  She doesn’t think much past her worry, because she doesn’t want Sori to be sick.  She’s been told that Sori got them out of the Program, along with her siblings and her umma.

She can see Sori shaking from where she is, hiding behind a tree.  She sees Sori’s hand, darkened with a lot of dried something clutching the tree in front of her as she leans over again and heaves soundlessly.

They are amidst a great many trees, her family, Sori’s family, and her.  The city that she never knew to be her home is a great many paces away from them.  She isn’t sure how to measure exactly how far they are, but she’s heard the term “miles” before, and she wants to believe, because a mile sounds quite large, that they are at least a mile away from the town.

Bii looks down at her daughter and runs her hand through Saeri’s curls.  She smiles at her kindly, though it’s one of those things that’s too small to take away all of Saeri’s worries.  She steps closer to Bii instead and grips the edge of her gown.

“Sori had to work hard to get us out,” Bii said.  “She had to do scary things.”

“Did the things make her sick?”

A fair question.  Bii looks at her with quiet eyes.  Her mouth opens before she speaks as she reaches around for a way to make Saeri understand things she herself does not know.

“You know,” Bii says softly, getting down to look Saeri in the eyes, “how, when you do something that you don’t like, it hurts here?”  She puts a hand, large and gentle, over Saeri’s heart.  Maybe a little to the side and lower, closer to her stomach.  Saeri nods.  Bii’s smile gets wider for a half second as she nods.  “It’s like that, but it hurts Sori enough to make her feel that bad.”

Sori drops into the snow, slipping away from the tree and out of Uakea’s grasp.  Her shoulders shake before Uakea moves down to pick her up again and hold her.  Uakea takes a skin of water off her belt and gives it to Sori to drink.  Sori drinks, chokes.  Her shoulders shake as she coughs into the snow and, it feels, sobs.  Saeri can see her scream.

But the exchange is silent.  Saeri understands this to be something some Kohumae can do––exist in silence and do things without being heard.  Not all of them, though.  Not her, for instance, and not her umma.

“We need to move on,” says Daesun, a tall man with a close-trimmed black-brown beard.  His brows sit furrowed deep in his face, his mouth drawn into a thin, hard line.  He could be silent too, if he wanted to be, but he doesn’t want to be, now.  He wants to be heard. 

He crosses and uncrosses his arms as he looks around the forest.  “Can’t she...do that when we’re farther out?”  His eyes are on Sori now.  The air around him feels as solid with tension as a tree’s trunk, but he doesn’t shift or move.  Saeri can’t understand how he does it––that standing so still.  She doesn’t try to, though.

“Sori’s sick!” she exclaims, then immediately covers her mouth as her older sister, Giin, turns towards her with wide eyes and holds a finger to her lips.  Saeri gives her an apologetic look and puts a finger to her own lips.  She looks back to Daesun.  “Sori’s sick,” she whispers.  “You gotta wait.”

Daesun’s jaw works as he looks at her.  His eyes move to the side before his head does, and he looks to Wolzen instead.

Wolzen shakes his head before Daesun can even start.  “Better to get it out now, don’t you think? Gives Taizen the time to get the supplies moving ahead of us anyway.”

“And time for us to cover tracks,” Molwen, Wolzen’s twin brother, chimes in.

Daesun sighs.  He doesn’t argue more.  Saeri looks up at her umma, whose hand on her shoulder is heavy and warm, but stiff and still, too.

Bii’s jaw is set.  It’s clear that her face is a little square beneath its present softness.  Her brown eyes watch Daesun as he settles against the tree behind him, and Saeri tugs on her sleeve to pull her attention away from him.

“Umma I wanna go to Sori.”

Bii’s brows go up before she looks to Saeri.  A smile returns to her face.  She rests a hand on Saeri’s curls again and says, “Wait a little longer, love. They went far away because they needed a moment to themselves.”

Sori is pressed tight into her own umma’s chest.  If Saeri squints against the dark, she can make out Uakea’s lips moving.  She doesn’t have to squint much to see Uakea rock Sori back and forth, though.  Sori, who is seventeen, still needs her umma sometimes.

Saeri holds onto Bii’s dress again.  In response, Bii offers her her large, warm hand.  Saeri takes it.  “I’m sure Sori would like to see you when she’s done,” Bii says, then squeezes Saeri’s hand just a little.  “Just wait a little longer.”

They wait for the rocking to stop, and for Sori and her umma to stand up again in the snow.  They take a step towards the rest of the group.  Snow crunches beneath their feet.  Sori’s eyes are red and her face is puffy.  She looks miserable, Saeri thinks, and she goes right up to her to check, releasing her umma’s hand to reach for Sori’s.

But Sori stops her at arm’s length before Saeri can get close to her body proper.  Saeri looks up at Sori and opens her mouth as though to ask why, even though she had no intention of saying much at all.  Sori gives her the smallest, weakest smile.  She’s chewing on something, it seems.  The center of her palms glow faintly.

“I smell kind of bad, you know,” Sori says, patting Saeri on the head.  “I’m still dirty.  But when I’m clean, I promise to hold you if you want.”

Saeri isn’t sure that’s what she wants, actually.  Her mouth stays open as she tries to figure out what to say.  More, she’s cold and she can smell Sori, but there’s something more important at hand.

“I want you to be okay!” she says, a little loud again.  Saeri can imagine Giin behind her, with her finger to her lips.  But Saeri decides it doesn’t matter, because Sori smiles at her then.  It’s something that comes with a quiet huff, half like a chuckle, and it makes Sori’s eyes squint.  That’s what Saeri wants, too.  She reaches up to hold Sori’s wrist, and Sori pats her head again.

“I’m okay,” says Sori.  “I’m just smelly.”  Her hand drops.  Sori looks past Saeri, and when Saeri turns, she sees she’s looking at Bii.  “Let’s go.”

Saeri sees Sori sign an apology to everyone, very quick.  She signs more, too quick for Seari to catch, and the group starts back out into the snow.  Uakea brings up the rear, covering their tracks as they move deeper into the night.

No sound follows them as they leave.

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