Surkar sneered. “That’s the way slaves are made. Make yourself indispensable, and those who are stronger will chain you to serve them. Why should they respect you or care about your wellbeing, if they can simply force you to do their bidding? Without the power of retaliation, none of your talents matter. You will become the lowest of the low, doomed to a wretched existence. No. My people will not live like this. I cherish my freedom. I will not set it aside. I will not cower.”
“Untrue.”
“I don’t lie, fish. I have no need. I’m strong enough to force others to suffer through the discomfort of my true words.”
“Kill your enemies,” Oond’s translator said, its voice soft and sad. “Murder parents. Slaughter offspring. You cannot grow safety this way. You grow memories. They sprout deep in the bellies of the survivors, like sea urchins covered in spikes. They hurt and hurt until those you have crushed return to crush you and rip the source of their pain out.”
Surkar bared his teeth. “They will regret it.”
“And then the eggs of pain will be sown again. In turn your people will grow their own anguish and will seek revenge. And so it will go, a cycle of pain never ending.”
“The crucible of revenge makes us strong,” Surkar said. “I had six siblings. The war took four. Only my brother and I remain. We are the strongest of our clan. By achieving victory, we proved our right to live.”
Tiny sparks of light ignited along the oombole’s fins and body. Oond turned within his fishbowl, drawing a complete circle. It was a breathtaking sight, yellow and red lights sliding through his layered fins, graceful and beautiful. He raised his fins, lowered them, and turned again, like a living flame.
The arena watched in hushed silence.
The mesmerizing fins flowed. The light pulsed, gentle and beautiful.
“What is he doing?” Surkar asked.
“He is dancing for you,” Sean told him.
“Why?”
“You are a child of pain,” Oond’s translator said. “You have suffered. This is a small gift. A moment free of anguish.”
Surkar stared at him for a long moment. “A pretty dance. A pity that dances don’t win wars. I’ll give you a piece of advice: when the enemy comes for the lives of your children, gather them and run away to your coral. Don’t waste time on dancing.”
He turned to the First Scholar. “This farce is over.”
“Very well,” the First Scholar said.
“Do the oomboles have professions in the traditional sense of the word?” Kosandion asked.
“Yes,” I told him. “Oond is an ookarish, an exceptionally beautiful being whose job is to dance for those who are aggrieved.”
Cyanide was next. The beautiful sleek Higgra padded into the arena on her big paws, looking very much like a mythical cousin of a terrestrial snow leopard.
Most species evolved appendages that allowed them to manipulate tools. The Higgra did not. They still walked on all fours, sitting on their haunches or lying down in specialized tool chairs when they had to do something intricate. Their digits were dexterous, but it was their claws that truly made their tool-use possible. Long and curved, they allowed for extreme precision. A Higgra could pluck a yolk out of an egg and carry it across a mile of rough terrain without breaking it. It was theorized that the Higgra didn’t evolve at all but had been enhanced by some advanced civilization lost to time. Their origins were one of the mysteries of the galaxy.
Cyanide sliced one of the remaining three orbs with her claws, as her own orb dropped out of view. The insects tagged the Donkamin representative. He came to stand next to her on the arena floor.
“Are you bound by Fate?” The First Scholar inquired. “This is your question. You have a hundred moments to contemplate.”
Cyanide didn’t bother with waiting for 100 moments. “Yes. That which shall be, will come to pass.”
The Donkamin twisted his neck to the side, stretching it to two feet. My stomach tried to crawl out of my body.
“We are the architects of our future. Fate is an empty concept.”
Cyanide smiled, showing her blue gums and gleaming white fangs.
“If everything is predetermined, why should one try to do anything at all?” the Donkamin candidate demanded.
“Of course, one should try. The future is unknowable, and we are blind to what’s to come. Our life is a test by which we are measured. To earn your fate, one must prove they are worthy of it.”
“There is no evidence that fate exists.”
“There is no evidence that one has a soul, and yet here we are.”
“I have no soul,” the Donkamin candidate stated.
“Then I shall not speak with you any further, soulless one. Our dialogue would be pointless.”
Cyanide turned around and went back to her seat.
Okay. That was over quick.
The First Scholar waited until everyone was seated and spread his wings. “The final two candidates may come to the floor.”
Two ramps unfurled from the Team Smiles and the Temple sections. Amphie was the first on her feet. She’d practically jumped up. A long purple gown accented with geometric white and black embroidery wrapped her figure. The color was beautiful and deep but desaturated rather than vibrant. It was less of a ball gown and more of a formal state dress befitting the spouse of a Sovereign. Her dark locks crowned her head in an artful arrangement—not a hair out of place. Black sandals decorated her feet. It was all very tasteful and dignified.
Lady Wexyn also wore purple, but hers was an unrestrained celebration of amethyst. Her translucent gown flowed at the slightest breeze, iris-purple in the center, then transitioning to a fiery rose, and finally turning an exuberant yellow. Her hair was pulled back from her face into an elaborate rose secured with a spiky golden ornament that looked like stylized sun rays. The long slit of her dress opened as she walked, giving everyone a glimpse of her tan, round thigh. A dozen anklets tinkled with tiny bells as she moved, and when the breeze swept the hem of her gown aside, I saw that she was barefoot.
They stood side by side, an elegant, somber inhabitant of a palace and the woman of light and color who would’ve been at home in a flowering meadow.
“The question before you is as follows: what is love?” The First Scholar asked. “You have 100 moments.”
Sean hummed a familiar tune into my ear. I picked it up. It was catchy and I was really tired.
“Don’t hurt me…” Tony joined in.
The egg turned white.
“Love is complex,” Amphie said. “It is at once an abstract concept, yet it has the power to affect living beings. Its impact is irrevocable and those who experience it are forever changed and often scarred, and yet, despite the pain they endured, some of them have no regrets. One can say that love is a process of elevation, a transformative journey from baser animalistic urge to a near-spiritual purity of feeling, from the compulsion to possess to the enlightenment of self-sacrifice, a transcendence that no longer requires mutuality but exists independently of the object of desire. It can be a passionate longing, or appreciation rooted in respect, or it can be unilateral and impartial, as the love of a deity for its followers or a ruler for their subjects.”
The First Scholar nodded.