Nathan wanted to be out of the city. He’d dropped out of the University of Gjionic Studies and was already on everyone’s bad side in Droon. He strolled in the park, aimlessly. This was his third lap through the six sextets. He giggled at the name. If he ever had children he would forgo the coming of age speech. Instead he’d have a sextet talk and teach them how to navigate the parks of Droon. They’d learn the rest on their own anyway. Maybe. He shook his head. Why was he worried about imaginary children? 

He’d searched every crook and cranny he could, but no scary shadows jumped at him. It would be impossible to find every hidden location. This was where students and adults alike came to elope or simply kiss or flirt. He settled on walking toward the university. The Dean didn’t like him. In fact he was banned from the campus. Wasn’t Dean a boy’s name? 

Upon stepping from the dirt path of the parks onto the ceramic walk of the university, Nathan felt a new sense of freedom. When he went about during the day people that knew him simply glared. Let them glare! The day was still early so students would be in classes. Maybe he could take a look at some of their inventions.

He turned left after passing the gardens. There were wooden workshops. That was certain. However they’d been surrounded by barrier runes. Tricky. They were hiding something there! The runes gave off an eerie light. He tried to step over them, but the light flared and the runes extended up which knocked him back. Why would they close the workshops? Something related to the attack must be there. Nathan had only to touch the runes and his desire was made known instantly. The spirits of the dirt craved being whole again. Dust of the dirt blasted back together - a mini sandstorm. Within a speck of time the runes near his hand were filled as if never carved. He walked through his little gap of flat dirt and visited workshop after workshop. 

Most benches did not have anything novel to see. These students must be committed to bring their projects to the dorms. They sure were a devoted lot. There was one table with a glass sphere in a half-circle divet. The etched markings seemed to be mountains and oceans.

What? Was this the planet? He left the globe untouched, but he kept thinking about it. All the shops had drapes enclosing them on one side without a wall.

He was moving aside a drape when he felt pressure in his navel. He looked down and saw a knife jutting out there. Someone from inside had stabbed him. Before he could register the pain, several streams of airborne water entered the knife’s entry point and in doing so pushed the blade out.

By the time the water fled him again he had somehow been healed, though he had a cut in his shirt and a scar.

“Oh.”

He touched the scar. The raw bumpiness felt like any other scar from a blade.

The drape was moved aside to reveal a young group of people. One had the dagger still red with his blood. The woman holding it looked horrified. 

“I could have killed you. I was trying to kill you. I…I’m glad you’re not going to die slowly from a gut wound. Sir.”

“Ugh. The pain came as a sore and stiff memory. “Sir?”

“Yeah you’re well-known in Droon. By people who gossip. And we make sure to store all the gossip in our vault.”

“Alyz please, stop.” This second voice came from the still-shrouded shadows.

“It wasn’t a joke.”

“Well, I'm glad your reflexes match your protective instincts. Just remember to listen for the footsteps and gait of the mystery person before going stab-stab.” The voice was confident yet frail. 

“Yes Drizzel.”

“Drizzelda? You’re the daughter of the President of UGS!?”

“Yessss.” She stood and punched him in his new scar. “Please call me Drizzel. Sir Dropout.”

“Oooohhh….”

“Ugh stop complaining. At least you got to skip all the bleeding out and getting infected and healing slowly, part.”

“So you did support my dissertation?”

“Nooooo.”  She sat with a huff of exhaustion. “It was a bit derivative and uninsightful. If you want a paradigm shift, you need to cut to the heart of the school’s student, teacher and sponsor’s core. And even then you have to follow up with swift and decisive action.” 

“Well what in the cloudsea are you doing in Droon?”

“We were having a nice quiet time. That’s all.”

“This is Shiv isn’t it?”

Silence. 

“I'm right!”

“No. Silence does not equal ‘gotcha!’. We’re just Drizzel’s friends. We would never kill anyone.” This voice was deeper. A young man, or an old boy? 

Nathan looked at Lilly. “I know you’re safe with Drizzelda. Whatever she’s doing here.”

Nathan sighed. “I’ll … come back later, maybe.”

“So reliable.”

“Not a joke?” Drizzel inquired of Alyz.

“No. Why would that be a joke?”

Twenty-three slivers later:

Lilly sat on the only chair in the workshop. She stared at the tarp that hid the nearly sunpeak light from them. She did not want to look at the lady named Drizzel, so she looked at the wooden boards and wheels of the personal carriage that she sat in. 

That is not a chair. I’m sitting on the only chair, she thought. Just a box with wheels.

Alyz leaned over her. “What do you remember?”

“Nothing. Just mama’s hand…”

Drizzelda sighed. “Alyz, maybe think about how recent this happened.

Alyz patted and pet her skirt, then sighed too. She knelt in front of Lilly. That put her a bit above eye level to Lilly. The older girl’s eyes were flatter on top and curved below. Her eyes were a steel blue.

“Do you - are you okay to talk 

 The man named Nathan was gone. He didn’t stay very long. 

“Lilly…”

“Hmmm? Oh…He already told me. They killed people. Mama.”

“The Shivs. They won’t stop.” 

“Reports have been going up for weeks, even months. First we only protested in public. We were aggressive but not violent. Now the militants are finally reporting that the Shivs are ending people's lives.”

“Not enough to change anything. But it should have. The militancy is a budding organization. Not yet large enough to sustain itself should its leaders perish.”

“Lilly, you can have a rest. Nobody can get in here until they investigate the murders that happened here.”

‘Here?” Lilly sat up. She felt chill but she could feel her heartbeat with clarity.

“Who did they kill?”

“They killed students. This is the university.”

Mother went here. 

The boy named Barn interjected. “I’m tired of talking about killers. Let’s talk about livers.”

His face was quite serious. They all took him seriously - until they realized what he’d said. 

Then they all burst out laughing. 

“EeEeww!” both Drizzel and Lilly said at the same time. Lilly looked down. Her cheeks were warm. 

A few residual chuckles and laughs later, they all calmed down.

No more was said. They were all tired, but the day was not even at sun’s peak yet. 

-

Lilly lay down on the ground where a shawl was bundled into a pillow for her. She lay there and listened to the conversation. Nothing that mattered to her. Time slithered on. So slowly. In the boredom Lilly realized that she could go look for her mama. Even if she was…gone.

She stood up and walked out into the sunlight. The three others looked at her, but said nothing. Barn nodded. She didn’t know what that meant, but neither he nor Alyz stopped her. 

She walked through a maze of short wooden poles and tarps and walls. 

Beyond a distance of poles and air she caught a glint of blue. Nothing was there. She peeked in some of the workshops. She remembered the orb suddenly. Le’falyne playing with it. Nobody knew anything about it so it was now forgotten on the bench back with the others.

A blue flash between two walls. Movement at the corner of her vision. She chased and chased the blue phantoms until she came out between two sheds onto a walkway. Strange lights were rising from the ground here. They made a wall that spanned far to either side as well as she could tell. 

There in front of the wall of lit symbols was let-water. A huge undulating boulder of it. Somehow Le’falyne was growing bigger. The boulder of water looked bouncy like her mother’s own invention from uni. It was a useless sackchair with a spring and a board in it. Anyone that sat on it either fumbled off or was sprung forward onto their hands and knees. Uni. university. That finally clicked in Lilly’s mind. She must have known….While looking at the boulder rippling she fetched an idea.

She bounced on Le’falyne. She was a finger squished into proved dough. Then the dough bounced back and launched her into the air. Over the rising shapes of light she flew. A tingle buzzed at her nerves as she went over. She fell rapidly, but her watery protector splashed apart over and around her at amazing speed to rejoin below heras a liquid ramp. She fell, slid. and fetched another idea.

-

Lilly noticed things now. Moving through the city on living water made that possible.

People stared at her, but she avoided them as easily as she avoided toyboxes and tables indoors. She only bumped into two people. She was sunken in up to her ankles, but with a lean left and slightly forward, a lean right, a lean back, she could almost move as if she were water too.

She was looking for the reports that her abductors mentioned. in a wide walkway with trees lined up across the middle she saw parchments on the walls. narrow alleys branched off perpendicular to the path. There were no doors on any of the buildings.Instead, parchments were plastered all over at an adult’s eye level.

At one of many walls, Lilly asked  Le’falyne to place her down in reading closeness. Many posts were wind-thrashed and worn. This one read, Le-falyne split apart and spun up into the trees behind her in playful spirals around trunks, branches and leaves. playing tag with itself. Lilly laughed and turned back to the side of the building in front of her to read the message

_

[Shivs: terrorist group. 

armed and deadly. 

Report to militant hall or a city submission post. 

One child has perished. 

Help us to protect the citizens.

Official Hall of the Militant Post]

_

Under this one was another plastered to the wall. The ink was in red. 

{reward for Shiv member. 

Return deceased. 

50 pebbles.}

Lilly scoffed in her head.These writers don’t even know when you’re supposed to capitalize letters and when not to! Mama…mother…could’ve tutored them on that matter.

“Why is there no place mentioned on the second parchment?”

“That’s because only one establishment can afford that ink.”

Lilly looked back. She had not expected a response from her thinking aloud. A woman gave her a smile. She had on thick red lipstick.

“Is that what your lips are wearing too?” The woman’s voice was deep as if a man was speaking with her mouth. “Are you zeman?”

“Haha!” 

“You sound like a man but you are a woman. Maybe.”

“I’m not a zeman. Here.” The not-zemen gave her another paper with a report on it.

“This is the latest. Looks like the militancy here is trying to blame the slaughter yesterday on the Shivs. They are the perfect scapegoats.”

Lilly read the post. “This is about mama and…four more people died?”

“Mama?”

“What is a scapegoat?”

“Someone you can blame your deeds on.” The strange adult sighed. That’s the fourth sigh today. Why are they sighing? 

“Now go float on your magic water. Get out of this street. A lot of people saw you swishing around.”

“Hmmm. Where do they take dead people?”

“Oh….” The not-zeman went suddenly solemn. “That…uh would be the morgue. And then the grave, or ashes. Then a headstone for the living to pray before.”

“Where is that?”

“I’ll take you there. There’s a family-friendly restaurant on the same street. About time I went to visit anyway.” 

-

They arrived at the restaurant when the sun was high and the shadows were barely there.Sunpeak. This is when we ate at the daycare.

“Just over a slice. And speaking of slices, let’s go inside.”

Inside, Lilly’s escort walked straight to a table in the middle of many tables’ Lilly sat across from her.“Hmmm. I don’t know if you're safe.” Many of the tables and booths were occupied by children and their parents. Would she abduct her too? A fear spiked in her chest and back. She could be from the shivs!

“You’re right, I don't feel safe around a girl that can ride water. What else can you do?”

“Not me. I’m just… a girl. It’s Le-”

That moment a knife caught the light from the sky window. They both stared at the steel between them.