Chapter Text
“At first, I never even wanted to play Roarball. I never considered it an option for me. I was too busy dealing with sudden change in my youth to find it interesting. If you can believe it, sweet pea, I was actually a pretty mean kid back in my day.”
“But you’re so nice now! You even bake me cinnamon cookies when papa and mama are gone!”
Zima laughs throatily, the scales on her face rippling. “I’ve changed quite a bit, my darling Anya. So has the game of Roarball… And so has the world.”
“What do you mean, nana?”
“Well… Back when I was younger, we wasn’t really allowed to play Roarball. The schools had just started putting ectos and endos together, you see,” Zima takes her open claws and meshes her fingers together, illustrating the merge to her six-year-old granddaughter. “And Roarball used to be much smaller of a sport, too, much smaller than it is today. So people seemed a bit weary of that sudden change.”
She glances over at the mockups of the stadiums on the shelves that her and Anya built together. “The stadiums were much less advanced, and the only way we could witness the game other than actually being there was on the radio. My parents could never afford a radio, so I never knew much about the game.”
Zima pauses for a second, as if digging deep in her own memory for something.
“Just like with baking, when I did start playing ball, I didn’t enjoy it at first. I thought it was… a waste of my energy. But when I saw it for something I hadn’t seen before, I grew to love it. One day, when I was in elementary school, a close friend showed me a different way of looking at things. That’s when I really started to love the game. Not for just the game itself, sweet pea, but for what it meant to me, my family, and all of ectothermia.”
SIXTY YEARS AGO, MIDTOWN SCORCH VALLEY; SAND DUNES ELEMENTARY
“Alright, class!” The old Mallard duck quacks out. The students quiet down almost instantaneously. The avian adjusts her glasses to sit further up her beak and glances around the classroom, kids of all shapes and sizes looking to her with eager anticipation. “One more riddle before the end of the day. Do you think we can handle one more?”
“Yeah!”
“I can, I can!”
Cheers from all over the room signal a resounding yes. She chuckles, amused. “Alright… I’m covered in plates that shine like steel, yet I’m soft enough that I can peel. I’m cold to the touch and smooth like armor, but I’m also coarse and rough like sandpaper. What am I?”
“A banana!” An aye-aye in the back of the class yells out, laughing at her own joke and shooting a flailing hand to the ceiling. The surrounding kids burst out into cackles at the silly quip, and the duck rolls her eyes.
“Remember, Monica, we raise our hands before talking,” she sighs. A few students raise excited clawed and feathered hands, but she puts up a waving index finger to stop them. “I’ll give you all a minute to think with your friends, what could I be? Your time starts now!”
The bustling elementary schoolers chatter anxiously about the brain teaser, some of the young animals leaning over desks and chairs to check in with what the others are thinking. The Mallard smiles, satisfied with their engagement.
“Does anyone have an answer?” She posits with a smirk. Soon enough, hands start popping up like corn kernels in the microwave. She swirls a finger around before eventually landing on one of her favorite students, seated in the front row.
“Jal, what do you think I am?”
The kakapo puts a finger on his chin, clearly deep in thought. After a moment of his friends attempting to distract him with their own answers, he stands up out of his seat, hands on the desk like he had just unlocked the secret to the universe.
“I know! You’re a reptile, Ms. Sage!”
Ms. Sage smiles. “Exactly correct! I’m a reptile!”
The classroom erupts into applause and cheering, some kids already jumping out of their seats and running to grab their bags from the colorful cubbies lining the perimeter of the room. Some run over to congratulate Jal as Ms. Sage gifts him a lollipop from a secret basket underneath her desk. Jal holds the small sucker in his hands and thanks Ms. Sage vigorously before getting up and heading to gather his things.
In the very back corner of the classroom, one particular student sits alone. She bounces the eraser-side of a pencil off the desk, feeling the rebound of the rubber off the surface, fully focused on how the writing utensil vibrates in her relatively large hand. She puffs air out of her nose idly, completely unaware of her surroundings. A long, spindly tail swishes behind her, golden dots patterning the matte scales like incandescent bulbs on a scoreboard.
She slumps her head down to her elbows, eyes practically glazed over.
“Zizi!”
“GAH!” Zima jolts upwards, surprised by the sudden feeling of a hand on her back. The young monitor lizard flings the pencil out of her hand, watching it with a horrified look as it tumbles and rolls onto the colorful carpet below. She looks back and scowls at the intruder, angry at him for breaching her daydream. “Abbas! Ugh, you scared ze’ scales off me!”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you! Here, lemme—” The fossa named Abbas goes to pick up the pencil, but Zima had already gotten up and grabbed it herself. She points the pencil accusatorially at his face, and the mammal puts his paws up in defense. “Whoa!” He blurts.
“You were curious? Curious of what?” Zima leers at him, lowering her writing weapon. She stands up straight, her height now staggering over her much-smaller classmate. “You almost made me die with your scaring me, so it better be good!” Her words roll off her tongue with a glossy reptilian accent, her vocal cords rumbling with anger.
Abbas gulps, craning his neck upward. The girl is terrifying; she isn’t the biggest in the class by any means, but she’s the only reptile, and her eyes seem to penetrate any soul they gaze upon. He silently accepts his predetermined fate and asks his question with a wince.
“Do you really… uh… peel?”
Zima drops the pencil on the ground again, not realizing her hand is clenching into a fist.
Out on the playground after school, Zima Moroz sits beside Abbas Achebe against a chain-link fence surrounding a small court. The court itself hosts only a tumbleweed and some leftover sand piled up from a past storm. Chainmail nets hang off the hoop’s shoddily constructed rim; across the playground, a few kids roam around the play structures, waiting for their after-school activities to begin or for their parents to pick them up. The sandstorms of summer have long since passed in Scorch Valley, and the climate has become somewhat tolerable and relatively pleasant. The skies were clear today, a rare and welcome sight.
The monitor lizard and fossa stare idly at their fellow schoolmates, watching them swing on the bars, climb up ropes and otherwise entertain themselves, their beaks and maws all yelping and screaming with joy.
Sand Dunes Elementary is one of the first of a few schools in Scorch Valley to begin to integrate— ectotherms and endotherms, all being taught the same curriculum under one roof. It was an odd time for Zima and the world. Being pulled from the underground burrows she was raised in was such a sudden change that she didn’t have time to really process it. Plus, she hated the way the ventilation at this above-ground school blew cold air constantly through the classrooms, making her groggy; the way her feet felt in the uncomfortable shoes they told all the students to wear. She would much rather be sand swimming through the burrow networks to classes, basking in the residual heat of the dunes.
On the first day of classes, she had fallen into torpor in the middle of the front entrance on the way into classes due to the extreme heat outside. While she was asleep, she was mocked by her classmates, who laughed and called her “sleepyhead,” “scalebrain,” and other mean names. Abbas had witnessed this and ran to wake her up, which took some effort and a few tries. After seeing how groggy the monitor was, he ended up dragging her by her arm into the vestibule where she eventually regained control over her metabolism.
The pair made their way to class together, both abhorrently late and embarrassed at the mishap.
A great way to start her new life, Zima figured.
The monitor lizard peels off her jacket, feeling satisfied with the ambient afternoon temperature. A gentle cool wind blows in from the south, blanketing her and her friend in the scent of patchouli, clay soils and sunbaked saffron.
She wasn’t sure why her parents agreed to move her to this school, especially because the other kids looked at her funny, and asked her stupid questions, and sat far away from her. But Zima Moroz soon found something like a friend in a fossa named Abbas Achebe, a young sprout whose amber eyes seemed to be pulled towards the monitor’s black and gold scales.
“A simple yes would have been enough,” Abbas mutters, rubbing his arm with a sour expression on his face. “Now my arm’s gonna hurt all day, and Ms. Sage is mad at the both of us.”
“Ms. Sage made a riddle out of me, why should I care how she feels?” Zima shoots back, leering.
“Because we got detention, Zizi.”
“Detention shmetention. I’m also mad at you. You ask dumb questions. Of course I molt, just like you shed. It’s nothing special,” she grumbles. The monitor lizard crosses her arms, looking away.
“Sorry for being curious…” Abbas says, crossing his arms.
“And you made me drop my pencil out of hand,” Zima tacks on another quip after a second of silence.
“Why do you pick fights with me?” Abbas props himself up and stands, brows furrowed at her. “My dad tells me that people fight because they’re angry with themselves, not the other person. They don’t see eye-to-eye because they’re looking at the wrong things.”
Zima scowls and cranes her long neck up at the boy. “I’m taller than you. And your father is wrong. We’ll never see eye-to-eye. I am meant to be underground; you are meant to be above ground.”
“You’ve been here for five days and you already say that?” Abbas argues, tilting his head.
“I will probably only be here five more. My parents will move me again. I hate it here. It’s too hot, I can’t sleep when I want, the kids are mean. I just… want to be back in ‘ze burrows,” Zima sighs.
Abbas frowns, sensing something is off. More than usual.
The fossa shakes his head. “Follow me.”
He leads her to a small gate to the small Roarball court at the edge of the playground and glances around. After seeing the coast is clear, he unlatches the heavy metal hook from the door and swings it wide, wincing as it lets out a long and arduous creak. Abbas enters and Zima follows, but not before she notices the sign posted beside the gate.
NO ROUGHHOUSING
NO CHEWING GUM
NO FOUL LANGUAGE
NO REPTILES ALLOWED
Her expression sours as she reads the last rule, the text faded from the consistent barrage of dust from who knows how many sandstorms. “I’m not okay in here,” She says solemnly, stopping just before stepping foot in the court.
Abbas looks at her in disbelief before backtracking to re-read the sign. His eyes scan over it once, then twice. He coughs, then smacks the sign with his hand, causing the metal board to rattle loudly on the grate of the fence. “Yes, you are. Roarball is for everyone! Now come on, before someone sees us!” The fossa grabs the monitor lizard by the wrist and tugs her along, and the two find themselves at the center of the court.
On the ground in the corner, Abbas spots a worn-out Roarball sewn from a thick cloth-like fabric.
“Have you ever played Roarball, Zizi?” Abbas says as he jogs over to pick up the ball. He gives it a few bounces as he walks back to the pensive reptile.
The tall monitor lizard shakes her head. “I’m not sure what that is. Is it… a game?”
Abbas nods. “It’s an amazing game! The whole goal is that you get this ball,” he gestures with the ball held tightly in both hands, “into that hoop.” He motions to the chainmail nets, slightly lower than regulation to accommodate for the schoolchildren.
Zima waits in anticipation as if expecting another clause to the premise. When Abbas tilts his head in confusion, she blinks.
“Oh. That’s it?”
“That’s it. No other rules!” The fossa beams for a second before pausing. “Well, there are more rules, but they’re not very fun to talk about. Here, you play it like this!”
Suddenly, the medium-sized feline bounces the slightly-deflated ball around Zima, weaving in and out of her field of view with surprising speed until jumping and sending the ball up in a magnificent arc across the blue sky. Zima follows it with her eyes the whole way down, until—
Clang.
The ball smacks against the rim and falls back down to the floor, bouncing dejectedly away from the pair. Abbas sighs.
“Brick,” he mutters, chuckling to himself. “Maybe if my arm didn’t hurt… But anyways, that’s the kinda stuff you can do while playing Roarball!”
Zima looks down at her friend with a concerned look on her face. She rubs her arm pensively. “I am impressed with your speed. But, I am also, how do you say…”
“Intimidated? By my blazing speed?” Abbas cocks his head, smirking confidently.
“In-ti-di-mated?”
“Close enough.”
“I just worry. I don’t really move so quickly out here in the dry desert... my body gets slow and groggy when it’s hot out. I try to conserve my energy,” she sighs, waving her arms out in front of her to demonstrate how relaxed they are. “I don’t know if running around with ball is very good for me.”
Abbas puts a hand on his chin, deep in thought for a moment. Soon enough, his eyes light up with an idea. “Oh, I know! You are really tall. Why don’t you try dunking it?”
“Dun-king?”
“Yeah! If you need to keep your energy, why don’t you just jump up to the hoop whenever you get the chance? That way you don’t have to worry about running around other players all the time, and you can still score!”
“Can you show me how you mean ‘dunking’?” The lizard looks up at the hoop, waiting for the fossa to move. When he doesn’t, she glances back over at him.
“Uh… No, I can’t. I’m too short. I mean, I don’t have the hops for that yet, but basically you take the ball, dribble it up to the hoop, jump up and send the ball through the hoop with your hands!”
“Okay… I will try.” Zima takes the ball from the fossa’s hands and bounces it once or twice, walking awkwardly up to the hoop. Standing up straight, it’s only two or three feet from her fully extended arm; with a deep breath and a grunt of effort, she jumps up and sends the ball through the hoop with an impressive amount of power for such a young animal.
The entire hoop shakes as the ball rockets back down to the ground with a thump, and Zima turns to face her fossa friend. Abbas stands with his jaw practically on the floor, staring wide-eyed. The feline whistles, impressed.
“Whew. That was actually not that bad.”
“Hey, you two!” A voice suddenly echoes through the courtyard.
“Aw, shoot! Zima, we gotta go, the principal is here!” He calls out to her. Before Zima can think, the pair are running as fast as they can manage through the desert heat out of the playground. Zima hears the roarball bouncing and hitting the cage of the court behind her as her and Abbas disappear towards the outskirts of the schoolyard, taking refuge across the street by a sand dune.
In the blink of an eye, Zima finds herself doing things she never thought were possible for her. Late at night whenever they had the chance, while the breeze was still cool enough to tolerate, young Zima and Abbas would meet at the north end of Midcity and walk together to the elementary school. Once there, they’d climb the fence and pick the lock to the Roarball courts using the thin side of Zima’s claws. The pair would play and train all through the night, the fossa and water monitor’s laughs echoing through the empty schoolyard.
One night in particular, Abbas brought a peculiar device with him that Zima had never heard of before. He called it a “radio.” It was a small rectangular box that had two circles that looked reminiscent of the graters her grandmother would use to thinly grind carrots and onions into a paste for her favorite meal, sorrel soup, which would refresh her during the hot summers here. The young lizard noticed the pang of homesickness washing through her belly, across the keratinized scales lining her abdomen.
They sat beside one another in the caged court, basking in a rare cold breeze. Abbas wiped his forehead with a towel and let out a tired sigh. “I recorded the Roarball game that happened earlier today on my radio. I knew you would want to listen to it, so I brought it with me,” he said with a smile.
Zima looked at him, tilting her head. Her tongue flicked in and out of her mouth in curiosity, and she waited in patient silence while the fossa clicked the box on. The thing hummed in silence for a second, before a loud grating wash of noise made the reptile nearly jump out of her molt in shock.
“Sorry, sorry! It automatically turns up in volume when I turn it on,” Abbas said sheepishly, clicking another button and quieting the onslaught of unintelligible nonsense. Zima had to cover her ears. Soon enough, he manages to get the device to play the saved audio.
“It’s a beautiful night here in Scorch Valley. With temperatures at a cool eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit, smooth dusty winds from the south, and a team that has proven itself worthy of a storm of attention from this year’s ROAR league playoff season, this city’s investment to Roarball has skyrocketed since the professional league was founded, fifteen years ago…”
The pair sat together under the light of a singular streetlamp for what seemed like forever, listening to the broadcast announcer talking in an unfamiliar, posh accent. Occasionally, the announcer would get audibly excited as the game continued to ramp up— Abbas took several glances over towards his reptilian friend, whose claws digging into the ground signaled the passion building inside of her.
As the fourth quarter neared, the air around the two became harsher and colder. Abbas looked to his left to see Zima’s eyes begin to droop. The shivering fossa gasped, looking around frantically. He eventually dug into his bag to find his coat, and draped it over himself and his friend. Soon, he noticed the reptile begin to move again, and she even shifted over to rest her head on his shoulder.
Sharing body heat to stay warm, he thought to himself, recalling a lesson his class had sat through as integrations begun throughout the city, before Zima had shown up.
“It’s the fourth quarter now, only twenty seconds left to go… This crowd is riled up, let me tell you— what’s this? Talon Freidman, tossing the ball over his left wing to a wide-open Nadia van Hermes! The Shivers are a mess on the court; I’ve seen the Sandstorms running this play in practice!”
Abbas and Zima both leaned in, on the edges of their seat. Suddenly, the sound of the crowd takes over the frequency, leaving the two to wait in speculation. Abbas puts up a fist in an attempt to rally. “Come on, come on!” He muttered, totally forgetting he already knew the outcome. Zima put up a fist as well, making sure to keep it underneath the coat to stay warm.
“Oh my days, the Sandstorms have scored! With four seconds left, the Sandstorms just might have secured this game for Scorch Valley! The Shivers are in shambles, the coaches are protesting! I think that— Yes, there’s the buzzer… that’s the game!” The announcer said, audibly disheveled, his voice cracking every which way as the roar of the crowd overtakes the air.
“From dust! We rise!” The fans at the stadium chanted.
“From dust, we rise!” Abbas and Zima joined in, Zima staying in her spot on the floor while Abbas danced around the court. The fossa whooped and hollered and Zima joined in with her own throaty and crackly version, their voices echoing off of the brick walls of the school yard. The two continued to laugh deep into the night, the subtle glow from the white moon illuminating the small city in an ethereal, sandy mist.
The pair eventually depart from the school’s Roarball cage, Zima still wearing the fossa’s coat. She tugged it closer to her shoulders as they made their way towards their rendezvous point, the sun just barely peeking out behind the dunes.
Meet me at my parents’ tea stall in the Limestone district.
I want to show you something.
From, Abbas
P.S: Bring a face covering, there will be a storm later.
Zima Moroz fiddles with the small piece of letter paper in her hand, rereading the surprisingly neat handwriting over and over again. She accidentally loses track of her surroundings and bumps into a much taller boar, who scowls at her as she apologizes profusely and spins away through the crowd.
It’s been months since her and the fossa boy had begun training nearly every night at the Roarball cage at the school. Soon enough, they started to attract attention from other kids on the playground and in the classroom. Zima had been resistant to their newfound interest in her at first, worrying that their intentions were sour. But soon she realized that it was nothing but a simple and genuine curiosity. An ectotherm, interested in playing Roarball?
The world didn’t seem ready for something like that. Ectotherms were sensitive to their environment, fragile, limited only by their biology. At a certain athletic capacity, their potential was kept to the whims of external conditions. After all, what if she were to pass out while playing, or fall into torpor again? Freeze to death in the Shivers’ stadium? Boil alive at the Magmas’ home field?
All were questions that Zima Moroz would have to answer soon. But for now, where was Abbas Achebe? And what did he mean by ‘there will be a storm later’?
The young monitor lizard makes her way through the steady flow of pedestrian bigs and smalls throughout the marketplace. Midcity serves as the market hub district within the grander Scorch Valley metropolitan; sand-caked limestone walls hang over the alleyways in disfigured, asymmetrical shapes that creak and shift with the wind. Torches and lanterns line the walls and overhead, stringing across the streets where hundreds gather every minute of the day in a sardine-packed mosh of bustling activity.
A quick glance around her makes one thing very clear; she has no real idea where she’s going. Is she lost?
Abbas had only mentioned his parents’ stall once or twice in passing conversation, and not much about what to look for. Neon-lit signs radiating with heat pointed arrows in all directions in languages the water monitor has no idea how to read.
If she was able to use the burrowing network underground, she’d likely be able to find her way around much easier. But the dust blowing through the city streets has been battering her eyelids, making it hard for her to navigate. She pulls the crimson silk hood of her ornamental tunic over her head to shield herself from the barrage, choosing a street to pursue at random and strolling quickly. Eyes dart towards her, and she keeps her head low as to not attract too much attention.
“Ectos are still a rare sight outside of the burrows these days, young blossom. Keep to yourself and stay out of trouble, okay?” She recalls her mother’s voice ringing in her mind.
It’d be easier if I wasn’t dragging tail along behind me… Zima replies to her mom in her head, scoffing in silence at the dirt in front of her.
“Psst! Zizi!” A voice calls out from her left. She whips her head around, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise amidst all the voices. Soon enough, her red eyes meet an amber pair poking out of a small doorway.
She smiles at the sight of a familiar face. Abbas throws the hood of his bright blue shawl off his face and beams at her.
“Hey, Aba!”
Abbas holds the wooden handle close to his chest, putting up a bit of a struggle as the green kite dances amidst the intensifying wind. The howling sound of sand and dust whispers in Zima’s ear. She pulls her hood closer to her face as the sky begins to darken.
Zima has never travelled this far beyond the city limits.
The pair had walked for almost a half-hour, chatting about their families and life before they had met one another. Zima learned of Abbas’ family, and his younger sister who had recently passed from a sudden bout of fever. Abbas learned of Zima’s deep connection to the reptilian Burrow networks and all of the friends and family she and her parents left behind to be above ground.
They found themselves atop a large sand dune where Abbas unfurled the package he had been carrying in his arms the entire way out. Unveiling the contents from the thick canvas wrapping, Zima saw a bright green square of thin fabric, with wooden supports and ropes attached to the back. The fossa called it a ‘kite’. At the end of the kite, a wooden handle with small divots where the steerer’s hands are supposed to go freely.
Using the winds of southern Scorch Valley, the evening allowed for the kite to fly without much issue. Abbas showed her the ropes, how to keep a hold on it as the kite soared and dove like a falcon in flight.
The world was peaceful for a little while. Zima laughed in amazement at the tricks that the fossa would make the kite do; loop-di-loops, figure-eights, the like. But then, just as quickly as she noticed the calm of the dunes, the sherbet-esque of the sun beginning to set, there was a certain scent in the air. It carried with the breeze— burnt charcoal, frankincense, Amberwood. Zima recognized it almost immediately.
A sandstorm.
It picked up quicker than she could process. Soon, the world began to creak and whisper words of warning into her ears. She resisted the urge to tell Abbas she thought they should leave, until it became harder and harder to see.
The wind picked up.
“Why are you still doing this?” Zima calls out to her friend. The fossa strains, trying to keep a hold on the stick; he manages to push against the wind, making his way towards her one step at a time. He nearly elbows her as a strong gust blows past.
“I want you to hold onto it!” Abbas yells as the wind only gets louder. “Grab on!”
The monitor lizard glances at him as if he’s crazy, but the insistence behind his eyes holds onto her hesitation and bites at her inhibitions. She sighs, shaking her head and taking hold of the handle, her scaly hands pressing into his furred fingers.
His shawl blows off his head, but he holds fast. Abbas tilts his head down to guard his eyes from the wind. “Don’t fight the wind directly! Use your calm to guide the kite, not your force!”
“How can you expect me to do that?!” Zima screams, perplexed. The sandstorm continues its barrage of debris onto her face and eyes. Luckily, the thick scales around her eyelids serve as somewhat of a barrier from the dust, but Abbas isn’t so lucky. He groans in pain as sand seeps its way into his fur and eyelashes. Somehow, the pair persists, even as Zima questions why she agreed to this in the first place.
The medium cat glances up at her with one eye open. “Trust yourself!”
Trust yourself? What could that possibly mean? Amid a violent sandstorm, Zima can only trust that she wants to run away. But the way the boy looks at her makes her wonder if it’s her heart telling her that, or her mind.
And then, with one swift motion, Abbas lets go of the kite handle. Zima can only watch in horror as he disappears behind a cloud of dust, her eyes not leaving him until he’s fully shrouded behind a wall of beige.
Zima is all alone, wrestling with the wind and the world. The green kite is nowhere to be seen; for all she knows, the fabric could have fallen off the string minutes ago. As the words Abbas called to her resound in her head, she continues to blindly trust herself, shifting atop the sand dune like a figure skater on ice. The wind tosses her and turns her, thrashing her around like a rag doll.
She holds onto the kite like it’s the only thing she has left.
It feels like years until she can open her eyes again.
The wind begins to slow to a simmering whisper. With one eye open now she can barely make out the contour of the dunes below her; glancing up and out onto the horizon, the world is basked in a candle-like glow of the most beautiful purples and oranges.
She finally opens the other one, only to feel the tears begin streaming down her face. But it isn’t sadness she feels.
It’s a kind of accomplishment that she fails to name as she drops to her knees. The young lizard didn’t realize how stressed her body had gotten until her legs begin to shake underneath her.
“Zizi! Are you alright?” Abbas runs up from behind her, putting two hands on her back. Zima looks up at the fossa and hugs his legs, burying her face into the cloth of his thick pants. The string of the kite wraps around the both of them like a boa constrictor, gently circling them until the green kite, tattered and pierced with holes from the storm, falls flatly onto the sand dunes a few feet away.
Zima watches the thing slide a few more feet before she lets out a relieved laugh. “I thought… you were gone.”
“You thought I would leave you? Of course not!” Abbas smiles, kneeling down to her level. The monitor and fossa sit for a second, watching the sun saying its goodbyes to the world beyond the rolling hills of the desert.
“Why would you do that?!” Zima suddenly breaks their silence with a yelp, socking the fossa in the arm and standing up.
“YEOW! Hey, not fair!” Abbas exclaims, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t even give me time to prepare for it.”
“Neither did you! You are a sneaky mammal,” Zima growls, pointing a leering finger at him. “I trusted you, and you just suddenly leave me all by myself?!”
“You trusted yourself! You are still alive, aren’t you?”
“That is… silly. You know why I’m mad.”
“Can you just hear me out for a second?” Abbas looks up at the reptile, a heartfelt explanation clearly brewing underneath his eyes. Zima squints her eyes, suspicious, but eventually she relents. Abbas stands up, brushing off the sand from his knees.
“My father told me once… that flying a kite is like living life. If you flying the kite is you living your life, then the winds are the world. The world will beat you down when the storms come, poke holes in your fabric, toss you around, but you will only continue to fly if you adapt to the breeze. If you move along with what you are given. The people that support you are the ones beside you as you steer the kite from the ground, reminding you to trust yourself in your decisions. At the end of the storm, you will be battered, and bruised, but you will be alive. And you will have flown.”
Abbas says this while looking out solemnly onto the horizon. He shakes his head and a small clump of sand cascades from his headfur, matching with the amber hue of his eyes.
“That’s why I still fly kites, even though we aren’t in Vineland anymore. My family moved here when I was in the first grade. The winds are harsher here, harder to fly in. But I still have hope that the wind will carry my family and I to where we need to go. Where you need to go, Zizi. And I think you might have what it takes to be an amazing Roarball player one day. That is, if you want to be. The world will try to beat you down, but I… I have your back. Always.”
Zima watches the fossa shift in his boots. The mammal had done so much for her already, and his kindness had never truly dawned on her until the pair had braved a literal storm together. Throughout it all, the look in his eyes never shifted intentions; he was the first endotherm that she had learned to trust, fully.
“Maybe only after I get cup of tea from your parent’s stall will I consider playing your game,” Zima says with a smirk.
Abbas’ eyes light up, and his hand goes to rub his arm one more time.
“Sounds like a plan.”