Continuing the serialized version of my "aquatic SFR" -- The Shell and the Star -- we pick up at the start of the Boggy Ball game to be played between Trey, his older "normal" sibling, Tardem, and some of the local boys of the Shell. Jinn, parked nearby in her envirosphere or "bubble," is an interested spectator.
If you're just finding the story now, you can catch up with all the segments posted to date here:
I'll preface this week's portion with a few brief words about the sport of Boggy Ball.
It's the favorite pastime of the Perling -- or The Shell -- and it's something like combining the Aztec/Mesoamerican sport of handball with water polo, since the playing "field" is the surface of the water.
This segment provides a little more info on the sport.
Also a side note that though this particular game is played only with male participants, it's not necessarily the norm. There are also games played by males and females, or all females. It's just decided by whatever group or individual happens to initiate a tournament.
Tardem was the ringleader for this one.
On to the story...
The players broke off their warm-up
exercises and moved into formation at the surface, signaling the start of the
game. Trey’s fellow competitors were all enormous, averaging at least
ten-footspans in height and dwarfing her suitor’s six-plus footspan frame.
Though Trey was easily half a hand width larger than she was, he seemed no
match for these Perling youth with their superior reach and the impressive kick
radius of their fins.
Jinn piloted her bubble to the
surface, watching as Tardem and his five teammates formed a circle around
Trey—apparently the lone Middler—and worked as a group to keep him from
intercepting the small, multicolored ball they batted back and forth over his
head using their fins.
Trey earned points when he managed
to snag the ball and make a “plunge point” by putting it through a narrow arch
that extended from a rock wall at the edge of their circle. The others did
everything in their power to stop him from scoring, including punching,
kicking, and elbowing. It seemed a brutal game. Jinn cringed every time they
landed a blow but Trey withstood their pummeling and remained focused.
Jinn’s rapt attention to the game
was only broken when she spied a large group of Perling spectators arrive,
gathering in a tight group at the surface near the scoring arch. Most were
young females who stared and pointed at her, talking and giggling among
themselves.
Jinn’s face burned with shame. She
stiffened when she saw one of the Perlings swimming her way. This female wore a
bright teal bodyveil and her radiant flame-colored hair fanned out in the water
behind her long, elegant body.
What did she want? Had she come to
mock Jinn’s appearance? To challenge her presence at the Perling game?
The female paused to tread water a
body-length away from Jinn’s bubble, her scarlet hair drifting in graceful
tendrils with the current.
“Hello,” she said with a smile.
“I’m Eldelza. You are the Talstar who’s come to answer Trey’s bid?”
“Yes,” Jinn fought for composure,
knowing she must look like a hideous creature to one so flawlessly beautiful.
“I’m Jinn.”
“Welcome, Jinn.” Eldelza moved to
the right side of her bubble and turned to watch the game, her voice going
softer. “You are fortunate. The Imperator’s son is so very handsome and
athletic, is he not?”
A sharp pang of
emotion—jealousy?—flared in Jinn’s belly, until she noted how the young woman
had her adoring eyes fixed, not on Trey, but his brother, Tardem.
“Yes, he is,” Jinn agreed, then
with a quick side-eye to Eldelza, she added, “They both are.”
Eldelza traded a grin of complicity
with her.
So it seemed Eldelza fancied Trey’s
cheeky older sibling, heavens help her. And she was friendly and
welcoming--treating Jinn like a peer instead of a freak. Maybe she could come
to like this Perling girl.
A shout emitted from the speakers
in her bubble. Trey had managed to score his first point. Jinn cheered along
with Eldelza, but his opponents’ abuse grew all the more rough.
“They can be hard on Trey,” Eldelza
lamented. “But they are just jealous of his skills, I think.” She winked at
Jinn and smiled again.
Jinn felt an immediate affinity with
the Perling, and enjoyed several marks of talking with her about the finer
points of Boggy Ball. At the end of the first round, Tardem swam over to talk
to—and show off for—the clutch of Perling females and Eldelza’s friends
urgently waved her to return. “My friends want me to rejoin them. Would you
care to come, too?”
Eldelza was friendly, but Jinn
doubted from their disdainful glances that the others would be so kind. She
knew from experience the ruthlessness of peer groups. “Thank you for the
invitation, but I think my bubble would only get in the way.”
A sad smile of understanding
settled on Eldelza’s lips and she nodded. “Then I hope we’ll talk again very
soon, Jinn of the Star.”
“I do too, Eldelza of the Shell.”
Jinn smiled as she watched Eldelza
swim away. Maybe someday they might be friends.
Her offhand thought made her shift
back in her couch. Friendships take time.
Do I mean to stay?
Her attention shifted to Trey. She
wasn’t at all sure what she was feeling, but it seemed her alien suitor had made
an unexpected impression on her heart.
Maybe she’d linger a bit longer,
after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for chiming in! We love to see your comments. (All comments are moderated so spam can be terminated!)