Steph's Outcast

Devi leans over his arm, squeezing it. "Great idea, baby. We can try that!"

22

STEPH

We take spots ahead of the creature, which does look pretty pathetic. Its tentacles—normally a pinky-purple—are drooping and limp on the sand. The shell is covering most of it, but I can see the flat “foot” of the body just under the shell itself, and the edges do look a little…dry. I stand next to Sam and O'jek, and Devi and N'dek work on the other side, and we start digging with the spears. They're not great digging tools, so we mostly stab at the sand until N'dek jumps into the pit and uses all four of his hands to scoop the sand out as we loosen it up. After that, things go faster.

Daisy and Pak sit a short distance away from both creature and shore, and I find myself constantly looking up to check on them. Pak sits in her lap, singing a counting game under his breath as Daisy sings along with him. She's good with him, I realize, and it makes me relax a little.

"If you are waiting for resonance, you will be waiting a long time," O'jek says, out of the blue. "The Outcast clan does not resonate."

"Well, that came out of nowhere," Sam murmurs.

I'm not offended. O'jek clearly has something bothering him, and he feels comfortable enough to bring it up. This is the perfect opportunity for me to ask questions. "But Pak is Outcast, and his mother was Outcast," I point out. "Doesn't this disprove your theory?"

He shrugs, stabbing his spear almost violently into the sand. "Most Outcast," he says. "Most Outcast do not. Pak's mother was special."

"Recessive genes can sometimes lead to male sterility," Devi adds helpfully. "I can't remember what I read on it back in the day, but I do know that is sometimes the case. Do you think that's the situation here?"

"I'm not sure," I say. "Since most of the traits that cause people to be Outcast are cosmetic, are they not? Look at Juth. He's strong and handsome. The only reason he doesn't fit in with your idea of clan markers is because of his shortened tail and his small horns. He—"

"His fur, too," O'jek says suddenly.

"What?" I ask, pausing in my digging.

"He has very little face scruff," O'jek continues. "Nor does he have much on his arms or legs. He does not have the spirit of any clan in him, so he is Outcast."

"And do you agree with this?" I ask, since O'jek is the one that brought it up. "You think it is fair that because someone's tail does not look as you think it should, that he should be outcast from everyone? His tail does not change how he hunts. Pak's hair color does not affect anything, but he is considered outcast, too."

"Those are the rules set by the ancestors," O'jek says in a firm voice. "That is how it has always been."

"I didn't ask who set the rule," I point out softly. "I asked what you thought of it. Do you agree?"

O'jek is silent. He continues to work, stabbing at the sands, and I wonder what he thinks of my gently probing questions.

"What if someone lost their horns?" Sam asks suddenly. "Would they be considered Outcast?"

"I lost my leg and I was not Outcast," N'dek offers, slinging double-handfuls of sand onto the hill steadily forming off to the side. "Perhaps I should have been, but there are no rules for how many feet."

O'jek grunts. "That is different and you know it."

N'dek just shrugs. "Sometimes I wonder. I was more of a burden to my clan than Juth would have been. He is an excellent hunter."

Part of me preens inwardly at the praise for Juth from N'dek. I'm going to tell him about that later, but for now, the conversation we're having is too important to interrupt. "What if we had joined you on the island?"

"Then we would all be eating ash," O'jek says in a sour voice.

"No, really. What if there was no volcano—no smoking mountain—and we all lived on the island with you? Would we all be considered Outcast because we don't look like you? Because we're human?"

O'jek shoots me an exasperated look, and I suspect he's reached his limit. "If there was no Smoking Mountain, there would still be four clans and my family would be alive. All of the clans would be whole and healthy, so this is a foolish argument to make."

I shrug, digging as I do. "I was just curious. It's something to think about—how much a person's appearance matters versus how much they contribute to the group as a whole."

I don't point out that Daisy is not great at contributing anything but being pretty, and no one nags her about it…except possibly me, because I want her to realize that she is worth more than her prettiness. I want her to want to become a productive part of the group so people will respect her more. Everyone tolerates her like just another kit, but I worry that someday if food is thin, people won't be quite so forgiving.