She turned back around, alarmed. She pinched her sister next to her and drew her away from the conversation she was engaged in. Yem?ja was ??un’s closest friend, in that she was her only friend, bound by blood and bonded through water.
‘Turn around slowly, like you’re looking for someone. Do you know who the tall new boy is?’
??un said ‘boy’ to calm herself, to allow herself to feel some semblance of control over this man whose gaze was making carefully compacted parts of her stretch and bloom into their fullness.
Yem?ja blinked twice, thrice, startled that ??un was talking to her casually about things that regular sisters talked about casually. Yem?ja’s baby sister was extraordinary beautiful, and extraordinarily, beautifully strange. Once, when they were on the benches in the school field, watching ?àngó and his boys defeat another county, ??un’s eyes had glazed over and she’d said, ‘Did you know that thunderstorms don’t always produce rain? It’s a shame, because the rivers hear the thunder and see the lightning and expect to be filled up, only to end up disappointed. Dry thunderstorms are just show offs. Scaring birds and burning trees while the river pants. Forgetting that the river helps feed the clouds that thunderstorms are created from.’ Her eyes never left the sports field as she spoke. Soon after, ?àngó scored the winning goal.
Yem?ja rarely knew what ??un was talking about. She often nodded and smiled when ??un uttered things like this, knowing that anything she replied would only ever make ??un’s eyes shadow in impatience, would cause her to retreat quickly again, when her cerebral soulfulness wasn’t matched. Yem?ja was of the ocean as ??un was of the river, but Yem?ja was earthy, practical, tethered to the things of this world, tied to the non-anointed peoples, so she could relate to them, mother them. Her younger sister had the freedom to stay connected to the heavens, to allow her psyche to dwell outside this realm. Yem?ja was the root and ??un was blossom, forever reaching for the sky. And so, Yem?ja pretended to understand what ??un was saying and ??un pretended that she was understood. It was a sweet kindness they shared that benefitted them both. But Yem?ja understood ??un clearly now and was pleased. ??un needed more than ?àngó. ?àngó would rather make himself feel bigger with women less powerful than ??un instead of elevating himself. Yem?ja did as she was told – turned around casually – and when she turned back to ??un, her smile was gleeful.
‘Ah. That’s Erinl?. He is joining the academy next season. He won the country-wide competition for a spot and was invited to this festival as an early introduction.’ They had shifted away from ?àngó and his boys – not that it mattered. They wouldn’t have been able to hear the sisters speaking over the sound of their own voices and the giggling girls surrounding them anyway.
??un nodded and sipped at her palm wine. Yem?ja smiled wider. ??un barely drank. ‘What won him a place here?’ Their academy was selective, a training campus for the gifted. One was either born into it, being of celestial heritage, high-blood （？？un, Yem?ja and ?àngó）， while others were scouted for their particular skill, sourced through tales of power and often mysticism throughout the counties. They were known as the earth-born; of the rooted realm.
‘Hunting, my heart,’ Yem?ja said, allowing herself the indulgence of using an intimate term of endearment. To Yem?ja’s pleasure, ??un didn’t flinch.
??un nodded and poured more wine into both their bronze cups from a gourd.
‘So he’s an earth-born.’
Yem?ja shrugged. ‘Aburo mi, it means nothing. We are all equal here. Those who are supposedly high-born often act like they were born beneath ground.’ Yem?ja sidled her eyes to where ?àngó was sat, tipsily jeering, and ??un bit into her smile.
Yem?ja continued, shuffling closer to ??un, so their shoulders were touching. If strangers saw them, they might have presumed that they’d always been this way, companions, confidantes, sisters by blood and friends by choice, that they sat between each other’s knees and braided each other’s hair while gossiping as ritual.
‘He is a master bowman. Farmer too. It’s said he can bring crops to life with a touch. Good with his hands.’ She shot a knowing, playful look at ??un, and to Yem?ja’s surprise, ??un allowed herself a tiny, fraction of a smile. It made Yem?ja feel like she’d won something and she felt bolstered to continue. ‘It’s said that the scars on his chest are from when he fought a lion. They say the lion wanted to eat his heart for his strength.’