Call of the Starling

Chapter 7

“Oh. My. God. They’re- they’re gay?“ Murre says, disbelievingly. Rolling my eyes, I take her hand. “Yes, Murre, they’re gay. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

“Of course not,” Murre tells me, calming down. “It’s their choice. Doesn’t matter either way- and I guess, well- it could be their only chance to- you know… Have a relationship.”

“Exactly,” I say. Then, making eye contact with her, I see that she wears a slightly troubled expression. Edging closer to her, I murmur, “Mmm?”

Murre blushes, and bites her lip. “Never mind.”

“You’re not telling me something.”

“I’m not telling you a lot of things.” Seeing the hurt expression on my face, she hastens to reassure me, “No- I didn’t mean it like that! I just mean, like, I don’t tell you every little bit of the world that I take in, like the fact that our tent is made to camouflage with our environment, and like Eider has blue eyes-“ She shuts her mouth quickly. At the same time, my jaw drops.

“Oh,” I say. I’m dumbfounded. How can I have been so blind?

Murre looks away from me. I rest my head on her shoulder, trying to comfort her slightly. She shakes me off. “Leave me alone,” she says, her voice tight. But, instead of complying, I move around to face her, and place my hands on her shoulders. “Murre, I say. “Murre, what’s wrong? I’m your best friend. We’ve always told each other everything.”

“Until now. It’s not like you’ve been totally honest with me either, have you?”

This time, it’s my turn to look away. “W-what do you mean?” I ask, my voice faltering slightly. She turns on me, eyes burning.

“Oh, so now you aren’t just avoiding telling me, but you’re straight out lying to me? I would have expected better from you, Starling!” she spits at me. “What do you think I’m talking about?”

Of course, she knows I know, and she isn’t afraid to tell me so. Taking my hands back, I look down, and begin to play with my fingers. I say nothing. 

Still furious, Murre carefully shifts her bedroll to the other side of the tent, and climbs into it. Sighing quietly, I follow suit. A couple minutes later, her breathing has evened out into a constant, unconscious pattern. It’s hours before I join her.

Over the next two days, we mostly just practice fighting and survival skills. We all go for a swim in the boggy water, which is unpleasant, because the water’s freezing, and it’s full of little grubs and bugs and weeds and whatever and when we come out, our Lightsuits are all caked in a thin layer of grime, and we won’t be able to change out of them until we get back. The final morning, we’re practicing two-on-two armed matches, when Jay calls for us to stop.

“Guys, before we leave, we’ve got to make a decision.” As we come forth, he explains what he’s saying. “We’re accustomed to traveling during our practice runs- just like all the other teams. But for the real thing, we have a choice. The fortress worked- it was easy enough to build, and in our mock battles, even with the attackers knowing exactly what the defenders were doing, we could hold off  attacks with up to three attackers for each defender. It worked really well, but it isn’t what we’re used to. Which are we going to go for?”

“Traveling- when we stay stationary like this, we’ll need to continually search further and further for food,” says Eagle. Jay nods, conceding the point. “That’s true, but if we send out two or three hunting parties a day, and they go in a different direction every time, then we won’t have to go out quite as far. Right?”