Phoenix

Ants

Ash walked a little way down the beach to be alone with her thoughts and found a secluded patch of sand a little way past the tavern. Her body wanted nothing more than to fall into bed, but that would mean running the risk of bumping into Freia and Eli, who she knew were still in the tavern and she didn't want that. So, she sat on the beach until the party began to thin out.

Her eyelids drooped, then closed and she almost fell asleep still in a sitting position, when something bit her toe. "Ow," she hissed. A trail of ants scuttled over her feet, marching with army precision down the beach. Unlike regular city ants, these ones drifted in a fleet of green, carrying fresh leaves above their heads like sails. After her conversation with Gunner, she watched them with heightened intrigue. She wriggled her foot and watched their line break, momentary confusion as they re-set their direction to avoid the obstacle, then, smooth as a conducted army.

"Fascinating aren't they."

Her head snapped up and her gaze met the molten eyes of Eli. She could smell smoke on his robes and a subtle musk that reminded her of their cramped night in the cabin of the boat during the storm. It was a smell that was unequivocally his.

"What are they doing?" It was the first question that popped into her mind.

"They're collecting leaves to take back to their nests. They chew them to a pulp and a special fungus turns the leaves into proteins and sugars which they eat."

"How do you know that?"

Eli didn't answer, just took to gazing out to sea. Ash considered the tiny creatures again, but this time, with newfound respect. These little black insects weren't simply finding food. They were farming.

She looked up again, a question on the tip of her tongue, only to find Eli gone, his footprints retreating to the water's edge where he stood with something in his arms. A long, ellipsis shaped object, just taller than him, not much wider. A board of some kind. Wading out into the ocean, he leaned forward and propelled himself forward, lying flat on the board, letting his trajectory take him over an incoming wave. Paddling out past the broken whitewash, he floated for some time, rising and falling with the peeling waves, eyes on the horizon.

Suddenly, he turned and with a swift pumping action of his arms, caught the next wave. The wedge of his board rose up the glassy face before falling in a perfect glissando. He stood, crouched low and swayed, leaving glassy swirls upon the water. He was riding, as if by magic, the silver stallion waves.

Ash watched him paddle back out to the line of breakers, turn, and catch another wave to shore before repeating this process again. She continued to watch until the cornea of sun disappeared beneath the horizon and Eli was nothing but a grey shadow against a backdrop of red-spectrum light.

She realised in a rush of sobering cold like a bucket of ice water over her head, that she wanted to stay. She wanted to be a Wanderer, plain and simple. She didn't want to go back to a life of constant hiding, of constant fear, of living each day with the knowledge that the next was not going to get better.

She would pass her induction, she decided. Take each challenge and raise the bar as Gunner said she'd done that day. Be so impressive that they would have no choice but to accept her. Then, she could find her brother and bring him here.

It was a plan that seemed unfathomable, and yet, for a fleeting moment, she believed it could be done.

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