holding each other
by DEY RIVERS
Fid Thompson, fellowship, digital photograph, 11X14 inches, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.
holding each other
DEY RIVERS | JULY 2023 | Issue 25
i want a hug. a simple condition i think, but for nearly two seasons and ten days since my Rites, many catch themselves flinching away from me. i left verdant red plateaus in northern Kyn Territories where kyndred often shifted their gazes, bodies twisting, repelled by my presence and came to Tahven hoping to reconnect with Iedda, my oldest comrade. ze live in this large border settlement where an uneasy peace lingers between Junga and Kyn. most collective memories revolve around the fifty-cycle-long-war started by Junga seeking refuge from a distant dying place, made worse by Kyn for we are sturdier in body. both Kyn and Junga keep these memories close even with the war over long before i was born. we are still learning how to live with each other.
i sit on a perch near the top of Tahven, smelling the settlement’s damp metallic rigidity filling me with an unsettling turbulence. Tahven has tall grassy grains growing in mud ribbons at its base and stacks itself, clinging and crawling up the ridge yet refuses to touch the plains-land stretching beyond the other side into Kyn Territory. i see a figure below catching a current to take zem from a higher location of the settlement to a lower one. i notice Kyn in Tahven fly that way, low and unobtrusive, neglecting the sky and its wideness. here Kyn and Junga also peer at me with narrowed eyes of wariness.
Iedda’s partner Shinn, of Kyn-Junga parentage, welcomed me, but no other Kyn were invited to join us on the feasting rug upon my arrival. Iedda says Rites look different in border settlements. Rites are not supposed to be quiet. Rites are occasions of festive celebration and revelation.
Iedda says, in Tahven we practice giving each other assurances until the Pact is complete. do your best to abide by our compromises, including neh going high-far
Shinn adds, many are wary of Kyn too free in their forms
reaching for Wind, i go high, far enough where i am free in my entire form. winged creatures witness as i stretch and glow softly without casting shadows. this is Wind’s gift to Kyn. all Kyn receive their markings during our Rites and only Seers can see the designs to bring forth a kyn-form, bestowing Wind’s gift. kyn-forms at rest, surround us in glinting tendrils, an ever moving ethereal display until they become corporeal. i have not yet learned to regulate the shifts from tendrils to corporeal. my markings are tattoos of fine patterns in swirling lines covering every part of me from toe digits to crown of my head. the lines, slightly darker than my red-brown coloring, radiate an unusual golden flicker rippling along the lines from my center.
Wind sends a stronger, thicker current, i lean and catch it. singing with weightless delight, giving my joy to the last rays of lavender sunlight and darkening violet clouds of night. being far-high i can escape bodies avoiding me. i hop from one humid rich current to another in wider and wider loops over the fields. flip and swoop back down, riding a current tasting of rain lifts me up again. in Wind’s embrace i soar. with my fullest voice, i call out gratitudes. winged creatures return my call. some come close, nudge me and screech playfully.
a shhhiiiick catches my ear and from the corner of my eye a silvery contraption shoots toward me. i bank to avoid it. it spreads into a net, catching my side in stinging stickiness. the once inert glinting tendrils of my protection patterns shape into ridges and horns and claws denser than bone. and i fall. slam into Land, shocking the breath from my chest.
i roll in mud and tall grasses hoping to scrape the net off as it clings to my cloak and right upper limb, burning into my kyn-form. i recall Iedda’s earlier warning when we set out the feast. is this what Iedda means by compromise, i growl.
a sweet scent of hollow reeds and salt caresses the air. i stop struggling in wet flattening grasses. a Kyn? neh, a Junga, with dark eyes to match deep brown-purple skin. they bite a bottom lip between flat teeth, approaching cautiously. a cloud of indigo curls surrounds concern in their face.
they remind me of Iedda circling and asking me what i need after our meal.
comfort, i say
you enjoy a bath, let me prepare one for you, Iedda offers, leaving the rug where platters and bowls rest empty, where Shinn and Iedda had sat at the farthest point possible across from me.
the bath water is hot, oily, liquid heat. a layer of dried herbs float. i dip into the waiting water causing pieces of herbs to hover, suspended below the surface for a moment before sinking. i melt against the wood basin, a curtain of hanging leafy plants on one side and rounded walls on the other. Iedda hesitates before approaching me. a smile broadens zir mouth and a high-pitched whistle flows out of zir missing left fang. i was witness and a participant in the aftereffects of Iedda’s Rites. knowing kyn-forms offer new areas of sensuousness, a wave of shyness makes me slide lower into the water until my head is what remains visible above the surface.
is good to see you again, ze say, sitting beside me
am not myself, have not been since my Rites, i say
Rites make us more of who we truly are
i am changed beyond anyone else, i insist
Iedda sighs, we all change. it takes many cycles to get used to a kyn-form
i lift my forearm above water, imploring Iedda to try what i already know. ze murmur assurances more to zemself than me since zir palm is trembling and digits flex. Iedda rests zir palm on my arm and the contact sends tremors deep into my belly, insides crash and roar in a cacophony of confusion and alarm. my kyn-form pushes past my will to contain it and spikes jut into Iedda’s palm. ze hiss at the sharpness, jerking away to the far end of the room. i lower my limb, kyn-form submerging, dissipating.
Seer says my form is closer to our ancient ones in our oldest song-stories. markings covers all of me. my hair will neh grow back. Seer says, neh one will ever come to me for pleasure. i cannot bear this in solitude
Iedda sits on zir haunches, rubbing zir palms together, Shinn will agree you can stay as long as you desire.
ze retreat with soft footsteps out of the bathing room. Seer was correct. we will not share intimacies as we did after Iedda’s Rites. i have traced all zir dark markings, thick and bold over zir bronze upper limbs curling across the expanse of zir shoulders, over zir feet. many couplings flowed between us. pleasure for both, heightened for Iedda. once, ze tried to test zir new strength against an Older and got zir left fang broken off for the audacity. i flew to my comrade to find an impassable distance encasing me.
***
the Junga assesses the net-trap and makes a clicking noise. “I’m supposed to wait for a Guard to release you,” they say in junga-tongue.
i narrow my eyes at them, slitting my pupils to sharpen what i see in the beginning dusk. they stand so near i can see their pulse fluttering under the short stiff collar of their burnt orange top. the Junga pulls stiff gloves of some hide-like material over their hands and pours a foul liquid from a clay jar onto the sizzling netting.
“This is a solvent to remove the harpoon-net. Smells terrible, doesn’t it? Like a league of cosmic farts. keep still. you want more to spread? you new to Tahven? this happens to Kyn go high-far here. At least until we settle on the terms of the Junga-Kyn Pact. Who knows when that’ll be, we’ve been at it for two cycles. I’ll probably never be assigned to civilian-patrol after this.”
i admire them for speaking back and forth even when they get a few tonal shifts wrong, changing some meanings in kyn-tongue, they also do not speak too fast in junga-tongue. as they finish rubbing in the liquid stench, i notice they are unfazed in my presence. hopeful sparks glide through me. i stop myself from leaning into their touch.
a Junga who speaks Kyn, i say and hiss when they peel net cords off, rending my cloak.
they toss the harpoon-net aside, grin full and wide, “learn kyn-tongue for trade when younger.”
water and grasses muffle the sloshing run of a singular set of legs coming closer.
“You can leave.”
i want to touch you more, i say
they blink and eyes widen, “Don’t even know your name.”
Aerrim
“If i say, yes, will you go?”
i give a light grunt.
“I’m Gennix, by the way.”
meet me there, i point upward to the precipice of Tahven and the invisible border.
i rise into Wind on the next current tugging at the edges of my cloak.
“You let the Kyn get away!” a shout wheezes.
“My position in this Ward is to help residents, not capture anyone,” came Gennix’s firm reply.
***
i wait in muggy twilight. unfolding plain-lands of Kyn Territory on one side, the roof of Tahven’s topmost building on the other. determined grasses grow in tufts from cracks. i wonder if Gennix will come. they did not wholly say yeh. Wind is quieter tonight. Moon critters and creatures less so. huffing and puffing echoes before i see them. the fluffy top of Gennix’s head, indigo-black. they take a moment to gather themself, laying down, gazing up at our three moons in various crescent stages shining a mauve mist between weighty clouds. i sit next to them on hard rock ground, dust padded and pebble speckled.
“What exactly are you asking me to do?” Gennix asks, a hesitant lip disappearing into their mouth again.
hold each other, i say and tentatively lay to face them
they smile, flat teeth shining bright, “we can do that. sit or stand?”
Stay like this
Gennix holds out their limbs and i nuzzle into loose sleeves sliding down their arms.
my kyn-form wants to surface. i squeeze my eyes shut trying to constrain it, fearing spikes or claws will come forth.
“are you well?”
opening my eyes, my patterns unfurl, swirl and dance hovering just above my body the way they do in Wind. Gennix does not move away.
yeh, i breathe and shiver at my own declaration. a fullness fills my throat, eyes leak. they hum a low vibration and adjust themself to pat my hairless crown. my insides cease roaring and i soften into a warm pool of contact for however long we keep this embrace.
Dey Rivers is a non-binary Black american navigating mental health challenges, playing in fictional worlds and poetry, painting and collective dreaming where they reside on stolen land. Their work is based on Sankofa, in conversation with the past and present to imagine futures. They have an educational background in Fine Arts and mental health advocacy, and were selected for the 2020 Ooligan Press Writers of Color Showcase. Dey is currently revising a queer historical novel.
Fid Thompson is an artist, writer, gardener, wonderer, queer white human who grew up in rural England. Her art is informed by her bi-cultural family and the humans, cultures, creatures, plants, and landscapes of the places where she has lived. Her work inquires into inner and outer worlds and weathers, nature, mental health cycles, and portraiture of all the kinds. Fid has twice been a recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ Fellowship, including for her Queer Enough portrait project, and is a 2023 grantee of the Washington Project for the Arts's Wherewithal grant. She is currently writing about worms, among other things.