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In Mehr's earliest memory, she is four years old and bathed in light.
The day is bright. The plaza is quiet, mostly. The cold stone bench has warmed under the weight of her skin. Mama has gone to her Very Important Interview, and gave her an apple and left her behind.
(Not forever. Not yet.)
She ate the apple down to her palm ages ago, licking it for good measure, and patience may be beautiful but it's also boring. So Mehr stands up on the bench, balancing on tiptoes to scan the area, then hops down and follows the sound of laughter towards the metal cages on the other side.
Inside, the ground is springy and green, with black bits packed between the blades. When she pokes a finger down, she can't find the bottom, but she can scoop up a handful and feel the sharp corners squish within her fist.
"Look out!"
She ducks just in time. Starlight wrapped in black and white shoots over her head, beauty trailing in its wake. Cross-laced metal rattles on impact, bouncing off and rolling back towards the grown-up - brown eyes and browner hair, as long as Mehr wants to wear hers - running at her. "So sorry about that," she exclaims, kneeling down. "Are you hurt?"
The star is no longer a star but a ball, but to Mehr it is blinding. The grown-up sees her looking, and smiles. "Do you like football?"
"Football."
"Yes-" The grown-up stops, curious squint pointed right at Mehr. Not how other grown-ups look at her, seeing thin clothes and hair too short to catch, tching at the bright, bright ribbon tying the split ends down. Differently.
Eventually, she continues. "Yes, football. It's loads of fun - would you like to try it?"
Mama said to be good and wait in the plaza. But they are still in the plaza; she can see her bench from here. And grown-ups get upset if you tell them no. Mehr nods.
"Great! You look a little younger than the others, but I'll make them swear to be nice," the grown-up says, picking up the ball and jogging over to a group of other kids all wearing green and yellow. When Mehr follows, much slower, she says, "Everyone, this is Mehr! She'll be playing with us today. Say hello."
"I've never seen her before."
"Do you know her, Coach?"
"Hello, Mehr!"
The last person is a boy with sharp eyes set into a round face, who shoves to the front and grabs her hand with both of his before she can get away. "Hello, hello, hello," he chirps, "I'm Macah."
His hands are warm. Hers never are. "Hello."
Spurred on by Macah, the other half-dozen kids introduce themselves all at once. Mehr blinks. Twice.
"Wheesht, you're scaring her!" The grown-up named Coach turns back to Mehr and smiles again, smaller. "You don't want to make her think football is bad, do you? Now go back to dribbling while I get her started."
"Yes, Coach!" The kids scatter; Macah winks at Mehr before scooping up a ball and darting off towards a set of cones.
"Now, Mehr, have you played any ball games before?"
She shakes her head, which doesn't faze Coach at all. "That's okay - it's easy-peasy once you get the hang of it! First off, try giving the ball a biiiig kick, as big as you can!"
She does. The ball is squishier than the black bits on the ground; it makes a sharp twang when her shoe smacks into it, sailing up, up, up into the sky before falling down. It doesn't sparkle but Coach claps her hands like it did, crying, "Oh, well done! That was just lovely, Mehr, excellent power."
Maybe Coach saw something she didn't. "It wasn't bright."
"Nope! You're only learning, so that was very good." Instead of fetching the first ball, Coach taps another towards her. "Want to see if you can send it even further this time?"
Football, Mehr learns, is fun. After she kicks the ball so high it flies over Coach's head she tries doing little kicks to move it back and forth across the ground. It's harder: the ball is big and Mehr's feet are small, and sometimes it doesn't want to behave and sometimes she hits it funny and accidentally knocks it into Macah's head. (Everyone else laughed. She did too.) Fun, though, and better than waiting on her bench for ever. She wishes - in a sudden new feeling, star-sparkles filling her throat - she wishes she could play until the day she dies.
But Mehr was hungry when she started and only gets hungrier as she plays. Eventually she stumbles to her knees instead of chasing after a pass, unable to ignore the gnawing in her gut and the humming in her head. It's so hard to think. She dredges up Mama's instructions after an age, sitting down against a metal fence far away from everyone.
Even that effort is tiring, so she doesn't notice Coach coming over until she asks, "Mehr, sweetheart, are you feeling poorly? Do you need some water?"
"I...I'm..." Never forget your pride, Mama always says after her Very Important Interviews when she looks like she wants to cry. You're better than them. A higher being. Mehr knows that, she does, she just can't find the words to tell the grown-ups that everything is fine right now. Maybe in a minute.
"Mehr?" Coach's face twists up, and Coach kneels down before her, and Coach tries to touch her hair.
(Coach looks nothing like anyone Mehr knows. Nothing like anyone she used to know, either. Coach, she realises way too late, is probably trying to see if she has a bad temperature.
Her eyes burn and someone cries out and none of that matters at all.)
Fuzz fills her ears, packed so tight she hardly notices that the humming is gone. Cross-laced metal digs into her back, right through her cardigan and right through her dress. Sharp corners dig into both of her fists, squeezed so tight the skin stains white.
When Mehr looks, Coach is flat on her back a little bit away. Not bright. Not moving.
She doesn't scream. Screaming is only for if someone tries to take her away. Mama's advice is right again, as Coach groans and props herself up on her elbows after only a little while. "Wow," she wheezes, "I wasn't expecting that! Not when you're still only..."
Wherever Coach is going, she doesn't get there, trailing off into scrunched-up silence. Eventually, she shakes her head and says, "Well, never mind. Are you okay, Mehr?"
Is she? Something feels thin inside her, like when she wrings out their dishcloth and sees water leak through the holes in the fabric. She tells that to Coach and gets a knowing nod. "That'll go right away once you get some food in you! Hmm, at least I think so...that might only be for special moves, not psy-uhm, anyway! I brought potato scones for everyone, they'll perk you up."
That does sound nice, but no. Mehr has her pride to think about. Shaking her head, she parrots, "I don't need charity, thank you."
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Yes." To prove it, she stands up, barely wobbling at all.
Coach stands up too, the scrunchiness in her face somehow twisting even tighter. "Listen, Mehr, I know you're very strong-" lots of grown-ups say that, but Coach doesn't sound like she's saying it in a talking-to-a-baby way, she sounds like she means it, "-but it's really not a good idea to play football on an empty belly. And look, you just knocked me over! No harm done!"
"MEHR!"
However Mehr had wanted to reply, it falls out of her head when she hears Mama's voice. Darting past Coach, she rounds the cage corner and waves. "I'm here!"
"I told you to wait in the plaza, princess. Look at you, you're a mess." Mama is never a mess. Her cheeks are flushed and her chest is heaving, but her Very Important Interview clothes are crisp and neat. "Whatever have you been doing to yourself?"
"I played football. Coach showed me."
"Football?" Mama's face goes from red to white when she sees Coach walking towards them. Her hand lands on Mehr's shoulder, holding tight. "I see."
Coach is undeterred. "Hello there! You must be Mehr's mum. It's so nice to meet you! I'm-"
"I know who you are."
"Oh, you do?"
"I do. Or, rather, it's your husband's people who know who I am, so I educated myself." Mama looks down at Coach's belly, then up with her favourite smile. "I'm surprised that someone in your condition would be involved in dirty work, Mrs. Rune. Shouldn't you be resting?"
Blunt, chipped nails dig into Mehr's shoulder. She doesn't notice, because the humming is back and louder than ever. Coach replies, startled, and Mama speaks, tense, and something blooms in her gut as she locks eyes with Macah across the field where the others have stopped to watch-
Rust is gathering in the crevices where the cage meets the turf, buried too deep to scour away. A bigger boy with sharp eyes set into a round face is standing in a line with a few other kids all wearing green and yellow. Pacing in front of them is a pale, thin man. He is saying I expect you to perform to the best of your ability at all times and he is saying among the subjects your parents have submitted as focuses for this training, discipline and proficiency are paramount and he is saying has led to a cull in your numbers and he is saying your previous coach never took to heart, may she rest in peace.
The boy's hands are behind his back to hide how hard they shake, folded tight into fists. With every syllable that leaves the man's mouth a flicker of energy sparks off the knuckles, brighter and brighter until across the field a heavy metal crate begins to move on its own-
"Mehr! Mehr, are you listening?"
With a gasp, the image breaks. Mehr screws her eyes shut against the sudden light, popping them back open when she hears her name again. "Yes, Mama?"
"We're leaving." Mama hasn't been this angry since before they left the big house, mouth pursed and eyes slitted. "I won't have you scrabbling about with these lesser beings."
For her part, Coach looks stricken, eyes darting from Mehr to Mama and back again. "That's not what I meant, really! Look, I know that Aslei and them aren't doing the best job right now, but keeping Mehr all alone will only make things worse. Football's great for making friends, and it might even show her how to control her-"
"I'll thank you to not lecture me on caring for my daughter, Mrs. Rune," Mama snaps back. One cold, gentle hand folds around Mehr's own. "Now, princess, come along."
"Coming, Mama." Mehr needs to trot to keep up with Mama's pace, heels sharp on the solid ground. "Is something wrong?"
"Not any more, there isn't. And what did I tell you about speaking with strangers? You're better than people like that, princess. You must rise above the chaff. She could betray your name to the bad people, and then you'd be taken away."
"I didn't tell her my-" Mehr starts to argue. Then she stops.
When she sneaks a look over her shoulder, Coach hasn't moved. That same strange feeling from earlier leaks across her face: it lives in the scrunch of her mouth and the weight in her eyes and the tightness of her fists. The only thing Mehr can compare it to is when Mama leaves for one of her Very Important Interviews, or when Macah tried to do a big kick that he already failed at a hundred times.
She doesn't know what it means. Not that it matters, since she never sees Coach again.