We’re writing a round robin story this week. Here’s the first installment. Amy McLane will be posting part two on Wednesday, and S.C. Green will post the conclusion on Friday. Enjoy!

Blueshine, Heartfire

Jareb grew tired of cleaning. Not just tired. Fed up. He slopped the sewal into the cob and dragged it along behind him. Outside the night swarmed hot and his throat felt full of grit. He wiped the sleeve of his tunic across his forehead and pushed his corded twists back under his cap.

Slobs, the lot of them. Smiling and laughing. Carefree and careless. Leaving it to the Vindalines to clean up after their messes.

The cob’s wheels squeaked along the floor, echoing through the empty hall. Jareb licked his lips and whistled a dry tune, the one he’d heard the scallic boy singing from the rafters just after pranton, midday. He couldn’t remember it all. Just the starting notes and the bit that rose and fell again. Words, something about the feral stars of the Hobastion Belt. A place he’d surely never see. Not moving sewals and wiping slop. He whistled the song through again, filling in the empty spaces with snatches from the pheran songs he’d learned in his days before the migration.

He slicked the sewal along the floor where the footfalls tracked in sand from outside the airlocks. He lined up his foot alongside one of the prints. Counting the frayed bits at the toe of his boot, his matched up. His stride longer. His gate strong. Not limp or gnarled or monstrous as some would guess. No different at all, to be true. And why should it be? Because his craft lagged behind others his age? Because his mother fled to the Vindals to bear him? The thought left his throat thick, his shoulders tight. He wiped away the dusty prints. Erased them as those who left them would have him erased. Lost himself in the movement of the sewal and the moonglint in the shiny places.

Only when his back boot knocked the jaberstand off its bearings did he see the gimlet. He’d have missed it entirely he was so lost in his thoughts. He glanced along the corridor before bending to pick up the treasure. He turned the stone over in his hand, held it up to the light of the sky domes. Blueshine and heartfire, its facets cast the starlight into his eyes.

Who had been so hapless as to lose such a rarity? Surely someone would be missing this beauty. He tossed it once in his palm, feeling its grace. With this, he could make a change. Do some damage. Open some eyes. But wielding it required creeda he’d never tried. Did he have the mettle?

The slightest sound, like the cooing of a pip, startled him and he clasped his fingers round the gimlet tight. He turned, using the motion to tuck the prize into his pocket and place his hand again to the sewal.

Effy.

Her blue eyes and marble skin glistened from her efforts. Hers to care were the common rooms and millery caskets.

“Cast er inut, eh?” she said. The familiar greeting from their vindal pheran.

“Eh,” Jareb replied, wondering how long she’d been there, watching. Had she seen the stone? He fingered its smoothness safe in his pocket. “Farren sabit.”

He liked the way her dark curls rounded her face and fell about her shoulders. The way her tantor skimmed the floor as she moved. In another life, another station, he’d have drawn up the heart to ask her pavan. But here, with his lack of punt? His misshapen creeda? Despite her own lot, she would find better.

Effy bit her lip and spied him through her eyelashes. The same encounter each night. She’d blush and wave and be on with her work. He on with his.

Unless.

“Effy,” Jareb said, feeling his heart knocking inside. He drew his fingers around the stone and pulled his hand forth for her to see.

To be continued…