"Line up, line up, it's tagball today!"
"FINALLY," bellowed Lucian, smacking his knees as he stood. "Was wondering whether you'd make us run laps again, Tury."
"It's Mr. Tury, Lucian."
"I don't really care."
"Consider yourself lucky, Lucian. If you weren't such a high prospect for this district, you might have joined Elwin long ago."
"At least you have a sense of humor."
"ANYWAY!" announced Mr. Tury, clearing his throat. "I need two captains, one for each team. Navy and gold."
Lucian's hand shot up. "I get the gold."
"Of course," said Mr. Tury, rather resigned. "Anyone else?"
An athletic brown-haired girl strode forward.
"Right, pick your members," he said, stepping to the side.
Elwin waited in the crowd as Lucian and the brown-haired girl picked their team members one by one.
"Hey, hey, HEY! You know Mark's mine," said Lucian, threatening the girl. "And Gilliam, and Antonio, too."
"You always pick your buddies! How're we supposed to have fun when you take everyone good?"
"Oh, you're playing to have fun? I'm sorry. I'm playing to win. If you want fun, you can take Elwin on your team. It'll be hilarious to see him dodge, seeing he's already half blind!"
The brown-haired girl smacked her forehead and carried on.
Elwin looked down and away as many were picked before him. Perhaps this time, he wouldn't be the last one out. Just perhaps. He held onto that faint hope, dousing rapidly by the minute.
But before long, he was the last one out, as it always had been.
Both Lucian and the brown-haired girl looked away, each trying to shimmy their obligation to pick the half-blind boy.
"Come on guys, don't do that," cajoled Mr. Tury. "Lucian! You take Elwin."
"WHAT?"
"Seeing as how confident you are, you should win even with Elwin in the team, correct? Great leaders lead their people to victory no matter how inexperienced the army," said Mr. Tury. That seemed to dam what would have been a tirade out of Lucian's mouth.
"Oh, I'll show you alright," muttered Lucian, grinding his teeth. "And you," he said, stepping so close to Elwin that his messy swept back hair of ash-blond was touching Elwin's tangerine-cream, "If you are the last one still tagged and cost us the match, I'll take your other eye out after gym."
"Then I'll take out both of yours," Elwin growled, knowing full well that he couldn't win in a fight against Lucian. But he said it anyway.
"Peuh!" Lucian spat into his good eye, shoving past him.
Mr. Tury blew upon his whistle bell; and at once Lucian snatched the two balls from the center of the court with a long whip of water, having condensed a tub's worth out of vapor, holding it above the sky outstretched for all to see. He was the only one in their year that was able to perform such a feat.
With his skill, he could easily find an apprenticeship anywhere he wanted, or try his hand at higher places with just a simple demonstration.
"Wow, I wish I had his blessing..."
"If only I could join his club..."
Everyone was awestruck. Everyone but Elwin and the brown-haired girl.
Then, without a moment to spare, jumping high into the air, he lashed his whip down hard, careening the two balls with the fury of a gale towards an unsuspecting boy and girl below. It smashed into their chests, one bouncing off and hitting another, therefore tagging three almost instantly.
The rules of tagball were simple: There were two balls in the court, and anyone could throw it to 'tag' someone on the other team. Those who managed to tag a person 'ascended' to the winner's platform, and the first team to ascend all their players within the 3-minute time limit won. Those who were tagged had to hit someone on the other team or catch a ball flying at them to become 'normal' again, and the person who threw that ball would become tagged instead. Only 'normal' players could ascend. If a tagged person in one team could neither hit nor catch a ball for a long time, then that team was doomed.
"That's already three-to-zero. That one in blue and that one in red looks like they can't dodge that well. Mark, you take care of the purple one. Gilliam, you take the green, he runs fast and you can track him well. Antonio, screen in front of Elwin so that he doesn't get hit. I don't want him to cost the match. Don't you daredevils lose on me," arrayed Lucian, stepping onto the raised platform named 'Ascended,' taking great pride at being the first. When it came to competition, something in Lucian always changed; the thirst for victory overwhelmed everything else in him, and he became cold, incisive, and calm. There was a reason why people respected him, despite his boastful pride: Lucian always did exactly what he said, and if he said he was going to win, he most definitely won. They could always count on him.
"Well, here comes nothing!" the boy on the other team yelled, as he ladened the ball with a gust of air and hurled it as hard as he could at Elwin, eyeing his eyewrap.
Antonio caught the ball, diving in front of Elwin.
"Woah, careful there!" his teammates yelled.
He threw it across, and tagged a girl out on the other team; another boy picked it up and threw it at a girl on Elwin's own, which missed and tumbled to Elwin.
Elwin picked up the ball, and threw it as best as he could at another boy on the other team, but because he had only one eye, he misjudged the distance of the throw. It missed spectacularly – so far from its mark that everyone on the other team laughed – and Elwin's own team made a collective groan.
A girl in the other team picked up the ball and threw it back, missing just by an inch, and Gilliam picked it up and threw it, then another, then another.
Soon the entire court was ablaze with the soot of fire, tumbling earth, sprays of mist, and wheezing gust. Elwin saw and dodged the best he could, as people from his team and the other were tagged left and right, and more and more ascended to the platform. Soon, only he and a lanky boy were in his team; the other team had three still tagged. The lanky boy made a square shot that landed on one of the three; he ascended, leaving Elwin to be the last on the court for his team. The chance of victory all fell on him.
Elwin threw a ball at the one across, but it missed; one of them threw it back, in a rather high-arc that was easy to dodge. But knowing that Elwin's left was blind, another hurled a spare ball at him to his left; Elwin was hit squarely in the head.
He was tagged.
Now there were two in the other team.
"DON'T LOSE, YOU IDIOT! GET 'EM, GET 'EM, GET 'EM!" Lucian bellowed over the cheers and jeers.
Elwin, delirious with sweat and sand, flung the ball that had hit him towards the remaining two, and got one out, removing his own tag.
"GOOD! GOOD! GOOD!"
But as soon as it had hit them, the two boys returned the balls at the same time. Elwin was ready to dodge them both, but somehow, the balls arrived faster than expected, no thanks to his single, useless eye, and he was tagged again.
"NO! NO! NO!"
He couldn't lose. He shouldn't lose. He didn't want to lose.
But his targets were all running, dodging, weaving, and ducking so fast, sprinting forward and backward to confuse Elwin's sense of depth, to exploit the absence thereof.
"20 seconds!"
Elwin just needed those two strikes, just two, and his team would win. He could save himself the embarrassment. Just this once! Come on!
He threw one ball as mightily as he could muster; but alas, the second boy was to his left when he threw, and he intercepted it easily, ascending to the platform.
Now there was just Elwin and another boy.
The other boy hurled the ball at Elwin, and Elwin dodged it; Elwin threw it back, and the boy dodged back. They sprinted, zig-zagged, skidding on sand, the court filled with the chaos of exchange.
And just in the split second that sweat fell into Elwin's good eye, and Elwin blinked hard, trying to see clearly again, the red ball had flown into his face, sealing the match.
The last boy ascended to the platform; Elwin alone on the hard, coarse sand.
"MAHA DAMN IT!" Lucian roared in anger.
***
"You had ALL THAT SPACE TO RUN ABOUT! Why didn't you dodge? What in the world is wrong with you? Huh? How can you be so bad at running!? One would think you were missing not just your eye, but one of your legs, too! BAH!"
Lucian drove his finger deep into Elwin's chest, crinkling his shirt, cornering him with his peers.
"It's because of my eye. It's not something I can help."
"Then don't come to school then! Always sticking about like a lousy fly, sticking out as a sore thumb! You love making excuses, don't you?"
"Look, how can this be called an excuse when you can LITERALLY SEE MY EYEWRAP?" retorted Elwin, raising his voice.
"I don't care about your stupid eyewrap," spat Lucian, grabbing it hard and flinging it off his head, exposing the marred flesh underneath.
Elwin tackled Lucian, driven to the point of breaking, almost knocking that ash-blond creature down; but Lucian kneed him hard in the nose, and without a moment to spare, Gilliam next to him had put him in a chokehold. Lucian was about to strike his belly hard with a gauntlet of frost; but Elwin dug his nails as deep as he could into Gilliam's trunky arms, and slashed it down, making him yelp, freeing himself.
Elwin grabbed his backpack and broke into a sprint, to anywhere, far from Lucian and everyone else, tears pooling in his eye.
"Look at you, scratching like a cat instead of using your Maht! Can you even call yourself a man? A HUMAN? NO WONDER YOU'RE ALONE, AND FOREVER WILL BE ALONE!" Lucian hollered after him, as Elwin receded from view.
Elwin ran and ran through the cobbled streets and alleyways until he had no more breath, and twilight was upon the sky. His good eye was red, and bloodshot; he flung his backpack down onto the pier, and wept and wept, out of sight, out of notice.
It wasn't supposed to be like this, he cried. It wasn't supposed to be like this!
Why? Why of all people do I have to be singled out? Was it something I did? Was it just how I looked?
He tilted his head to the great heavens overhead, hoping that perhaps, if the great FOUNDERS could hear him, they would understand his plight and do him justice.
The moon was rising from the east, with a ring as its crown, shining brilliantly against the throne of night. That was what FOUNDER MANASURA became. He had gifted Elwin with Water as his Maht, but also to Lucian, as well. What was the meaning behind such a gift? Why give to someone like Lucian, who would use it for ill? Was there even a purpose to such a gift? He looked away, disappointed.
And from the southwest, stretching to the very heavens like a bridge across the sky, and falling again in the east, glimmered FOUNDER Sera's bridge like a rose of gold. Their world too had a ring, a crown much like the Moon's. But the people were earthbound, and only ever saw a thin curve of the disk; so they called what they saw a bridge instead.
FOUNDER Sera was a FOUNDER of the Art of Earth; she had a brother, FOUNDER Tera, who together worked to join the disparate continents and brought the gifts of writing and crafts to humanity.
Beyond the bridge into the deep teal of coming night, Elwin looked to the numerous stars that studded the sky, eternal and graceful in their repose. He learnt that when FOUNDER ARTAIA rose to the heavens after her passing, her wish to help the peoples of the world turned her eyes into the stars, and her hands into shooting stars that could grant wishes unfulfilled. FOUNDER ARTAIA reigned over Air, and had gifted his father power over its domain.
Yes, perhaps FOUNDER SERA and FOUNDER ARTAIA would hear his prayers, and answer him. Indeed, there was no person whose Maht was Earth and Air that had gone out of their way to torment Elwin.
So to the bridge to the celestial sky and to the stars above Elwin prayed; ladening it with his dream and hope, that perhaps his destiny would change for the better.
***
It was a quiet night, and an exhausting day. Elwin arrived home and climbed the stairs to the third floor of The Marlin, their little refuge in a city that gave no rest. His mother was preparing a roast and bread pudding for the family to eat before the inn itself opened later in the night.
"Welcome back!" said Anna to her son. She knew immediately what had happened from Elwin's bruised nose, bruised from when Lucian had kneed him.
"Him again?" she asked, and Elwin nodded and gave a little sigh. He didn't want to burden his mother any more than the world already did. But for today, he wanted to have some assurance that his beliefs – his conviction for his father – and his own worth – had meaning.
Anna hugged her son deeply, and although Elwin didn't try to show it, she could feel the weight on her son's shoulders as his chest broke into heaves and out came a sorrowful sob. They didn't move for a long time.
Anna fixed her son's eyewrap and parted his hair. No tears flowed from his left eye, and it wrenched her heart as a mother to see her son having faced such affliction in barely his youth. Perhaps it was her own failure. Perhaps she should have convinced Carl to stay. But if anything, she knew Carl would never abandon them without a reason as important as the world, so she steeled her resolve to look at the future, and not the past. The Marlin was bringing in decent money. In a few years, she'd move the family to the Republic of Utopia, Carl's place of origin, so that Elwin and Andre would have a brighter tomorrow.
"Thanks mom," said Elwin, as he sheepishly pulled away and turned to his bedroom.
Elwin was now at the age where he felt a tinge of embarrassment at hugging his mother openly. Of course, he'd never do such a thing in public for fear of being shown as dependent, but in private, there was no one to judge the support between mother and son. In the years that passed, Andre had grown up from a toddler to a young boy, and was slightly older than Elwin had been when Carl left on that fateful day. Andre had marched into the corridor and been quietly observing the pair. Having had to deal with hardship since young, Andre was also precocious and possessed a sense of empathy that children his age did not. Most children were savage and vicious, as Elwin had experienced – but Andre was the exception, and he was blessed to have him as his little brother.
"Brother, no matter what happens, we'll always be together. So let's gather our hands and say huzzah!" encouraged Andre.
Elwin, who was about to walk into his bedroom, retraced his steps. When Andre encourages you, you take the encouragement, he thought. And so Elwin, Andre, and Anna all collated their hands and raised them, shouting, "We can do it!"
But what he could really do other than helping his family, Elwin did not know – he had yet to find a meaning for his name.