Eddylines

epsilon

As the van trundled down the Ethan Allen highway, Daszé soaked up the scenery like a sponge, drifting off halfway through conversations to stare out at the rolling terrain as it flashed and glittered in the morning dew. All around them, thin wisps of steam rose from the hillsides as the gold-grey sunlight drew the cool out of the earth and cast long shadows across the road, alternating dark and light as it reached through the gaps in the treetops and the mountains themselves. He loved the random intervals of farms, fields, and telephone poles, the spaces between dotted with the occasional passing car and road signs for places still foreign to him.

And that was partly why today was so special, he reminded himself. His interstate travel restrictions had finally been lifted, and for the first time, he was free to go where he liked.

There were still a few caveats, of course, but nothing that didn't apply to Marek, Suge, and any of the others who had gotten all wrapped up in the giant bureaucratic nonsense that now dictated so much of their lives. They still had to check in several times a day by phone, but that was just one of the many prices they had all paid to change two worlds for the better.

Or so they hoped.

But it was easier to set aside those worries right now, because today was also the day that Marek delivered on a promise made three years ago and five-hundred thousand miles away. That morning seemed so distant now, but they had been planning this ever since, and something told him it was going to be worth the long wai-

"Hang on," Marek interrupted, rising from the donut stupor behind his sunglasses. The van suddenly dipped as the smooth surface of the road gave way to rough-cut gravel, and boats, paddles, and the shuttle bicycle clattered and thumped together noisily behind them.

"Vr'kapa, didn't see that coming," Daszé remarked with wide eyes, hanging on as Marek swerved them around a crumpled cone someone had knocked into the vaguely defined lanes. On the edges of the road, orange and yellow heavy equipment replaced the bucolic scenery for a brief moment, and then they emerged back onto the smooth grey tarmac with a loud thump.

"I can't believe they're still cleaning up from this winter," Marek observed, taking the wheel with his knees as he uncapped his water bottle and took a swig. "I figured they'd have fixed it all by now, but damn."

"Why wouldn't they have?"

He shrugged, squinting and shielding his eyes as the rays lanced through a gap in the mountains. "Who knows? They're probably gonna say it's our fault, like everything else seems to be lately."

"I'm getting really tired of being blamed for everything that goes wrong," Daszé sighed in assent, brushing a hand over the freckles in the short fur of his snout. "Even this morning, some lady was giving me a mean look when I was getting donuts and I tried to be nice and smile but she just got... mad. I mean, I'm used to people staring but this was different." He stared down at his hands. "Like she wished I would just go away."

Marek grimaced. "I'm getting the same shit now, too, even from people I've known my whole life, though I think it's worse for you because... well, you're... an 'oyar."

"Vha, well, can't do anything to change that."

"You shouldn't have to, and it's not like you did anything wrong, so fuck'em. Fuck all those people." He smiled half-heartedly. "If anyone's to blame, it's me and Suge, not you."

They settled into a shared, perturbed silence, watching the miles tick by as one of Marek's favorite songs played softly over the steady burble of the engine. As much as Daszé loved it here on Earth, he still wondered if it would ever truly be home. Though things had settled considerably since the first arrival, a quiet undercurrent of hostility still lurked in the world at large. It didn't often intrude into the sweet safety of Chittenden County, but when it did, it seemed to suck the hope out of any future beneath this strange blue sky.

"I'm not going to let it get me down, not today," Daszé stated abruptly.

"Good, me either."

"Vha!"

"YEAH."

Marek slapped the dashboard. "And now look to your right to see some cool shit."

"Vr'davaii!"

In the distance, a great stone obelisk projected skyward from the greenery, brilliantly lit in the rising sun. It wasn't that he hadn't seen monuments before, but there was something about the novelty of it here that spoke to him. His world was covered in towering, thick trees among the vertical ruins of the Caaratiige, all reaching far taller than most everything here on Earth, and yet this seemed to carry a greater weight than anything back home.

"What is it, though?"

"The Bennington Battle Monument, to commemorate the day we kicked the crap out of the British over the border in New York."

Daszé looked confused. "I think I read about that, but... if this is Bennington, and the battle took place in New York... what?"

"I dunno. We won, so I guess we got to write history."

The 'oyar pondered this for a moment, considering this new perspective. "I wonder if we should be more aware of that, you know? Especially now that everything's settling out back on Laosora."

"I mean... well, yeah," Marek replied, rubbing at the scruffy shadow on his cheek. "But I don't know that I'd call it 'winning'," he said ruefully. "I think as long as we're all honest about what happened, we'll all be better off. I just wish people here would understand, though. They're mad about immigration and non-existent alien diseases and all this made-up fear-mongering bullshit that doesn't affect them at all, and none of them realize just how fragile it all was, and still is."

"I don't know if they ever will," Daszé said, unconsciously touching his neck at the spot where the first bullet had pierced it. Marek did the same with his own invisible scars, echoes of just how close they had both come to losing it all three years earlier.

"No, probably not."

Daszé cracked the window, taking a deep breath of the cool morning air.