Chapter 2-1
626 Words
2The days until Raka's Rebirth Day flew past, the way days always do when something bad is about to happen. As the fateful day raced closer, Raka became increasingly desperate to find a way to avoid it.
One week before her Rebirth Day, she even tried something that she had tried without success at least a dozen times before. She decided to try, just one more time, to talk her father into giving her a reprieve.
Raka went to Ikaz when he was sitting outside the house, sharpening the blade of his spear. He had been in the sea most of the day on a hunt, and he and his pack had brought back more than a dozen grayfish. Now he made ready for the next day's hunt as the last rays of the setting sun washed out into gray twilight.
"Father," said Raka, sitting down in the dirt beside him. "I'm scared."
Ikaz drew the sharpening stone along the gray metal blade of the spear. "You should not be," he said simply. From the way his cheek puffed out on one side, Raka could tell that he was chewing a clod of the bitter red nuts that he loved so much.
"I'm scared that I won't come back from Rebirth Day," said Raka.
Bringing the spear point close to his face, Ikaz blew the dust from its sharpened edge. "Everyone comes back from Rebirth Day," he said, turning the spear and taking the sharpening stone to the other edge of the blade.
"Everyone has gills," said Raka, "but I don't."
Ikaz gave her a look from the corner of his eye. "The wind can blow a man off a cliff," he said. "The wind can blow over an entire village. Can you see the wind?"
Raka hated when her father talked nonsense, but she resisted rolling her eyes in annoyance. "No," she said.
"Just because you cannot see something, that does not mean it is not there," said Ikaz. He raised an eyebrow meaningfully, then turned his attention back to his spear blade. "Your gills are there," he said. "They only need some time in the sea to make them open...and you have not spent much time in the sea, have you?"
"No," said Raka, looking away. She sighed heavily. The conversation with her father was going about as well as she had expected.
"And have you been praying to Char and Swik, the gods of rebirth?" said Ikaz. "Have you been praying for success on your Rebirth Day?"
Raka didn't answer his question. "Don't make me do it, Father," she said pleadingly. "Don't let me die."
Ikaz smiled at her, displaying his jagged teeth. He had filed them down years ago, he had said, when he had first become a warrior, so that they would resemble the teeth of a shark. The filing of teeth was a tradition that had been handed down through many generations on Shark Island...just like Rebirth Day.
"In a few days," said Ikaz, "when you have returned from your Rebirth Day safe and sound, we will sit together like this, and I will remind you of what you just said, and we will both laugh about it. You will not believe me when I tell you what you said today."
Raka got up and dusted the dirt from her grayfish-skin dress. "Or maybe it will just be you sitting here by yourself," she said, "wishing you hadn't sent your only child to her death."
Ikaz's expression grew somber. "When you return from Rebirth Day," he said, rasping the sharpening stone over the edge of the spear's blade, "you will thank me."
"Thanks for nothing," said Raka, and then she stormed off. In truth, it was about how she had expected her talk with her father would end.
But she had hoped for more.
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