Suns of the Division by Alexandria Burnham - Volume 4

A talented young artificer is tasked with preventing emotional damage to his home and wellspring, but meets his match in the city’s most stubbornly miserable citizen.

Tales From Netherün is a free fantasy e-zine available at www.quillandread.com

Moji was fit to burst with happiness. To be still was to deny the shake and shiver of joy. The only time he was quiet was during prayer.

The Arvore thrummed with life this morning. Moji wished he’d met his home when she was still a sapling, but he was fourteen, and the tree was older than the lumbering giants of the deserts, or the sea-dwelling behemoths. Hers was a millennia-long persistent reach for the sun as her deepening embrace thickened in Netherün’s soil. From simple tree to mountain’s envy, the Arvore was taller than many cities were wide, her branches the colossal bark-paved roads that supported entire town districts. No, he did not regret missing her time as a sapling: only delight that his life now overlapped with hers.

Kneeling, forehead pressed to her bark, Moji was momentarily lost in the warmth seeded beneath his skin: a tingling sensation he’d always associated with happiness. It filled him until he couldn’t keep the smile from his lips. He greeted the tree and it greeted him back.

A chime tolled, signalling the end of prayer. Moji sat, ending his conversation with his city, his home. He rocked back on his heels with an excitement that could not be contained. Rubbing furiously at his eyes, he brushed back his golden curls.

‘Rise, diviners,’ the journeyman called to his congregation. ‘It’s time we measure.’

Moji sprang up and his bright yellow robe belled around him. The other diviners rose. They were acolytes of the Division, all around his age, dressed in the same cone-shaped cloaks. Buttoned tight above the shoulders, the distinctive cloaks fanned out, forming a wide circle around their bare feet. With hoods up, they made a parade of triangle silhouettes who bobbed merrily through any crowd. To the city, they were known as diviners. Among themselves, they preferred to be called “suns of the Division”. It was one of Moji’s favourite puns, which said a lot, because he knew a lot of puns.

The suns followed their orange-clad journeyman up the winding steps to the sanctuary. He’d assign their daily tasks, just as his red-cloaked master had commanded him, and above them, the rarely seen white archmasters who were at the centre of the Division. Moji shivered to imagine himself one-day promoted to wear a different colour. It was an honour to serve the Arvore, for the Division’s sole existence was dedicated to keeping their tree happy.

Reaching a natural crevasse, the journeyman waved his congregation into the dim, earthly inlays. Moji was short for his age (he was sure he would grow when the Arvore chose him) but even he had to duck to scramble through the opening. Some moved to collect hand-held lanterns. Moji instead joined a tight circle of chatter.

‘That’s so cool! When did you notice?’ a girl asked in an excited whisper.

‘Just last night,’ a taller boy replied. He showed his arm to the huddle, his cloak pushed back to expose skin. Or what should’ve been skin. At first, Moji thought he was looking at snake scales climbing up the boy’s forearm. But as more lanterns were lit he realised it was bark. The Arvore had bestowed this boy with the honour of sharing her form.

Moji rubbed his forearms beneath his sleeves and felt only the soft, bland skin he’d been born with. Before envy could arise, he squashed it with glee. In this city, and especially within the sanctuary, Moji would project only positive emotions for the Arvore to absorb.

‘That’s amazing,’ Moji said, teetering on his tiptoes for a better look.

The tall boy turned a careful eye on him, then a grin shone from beneath his hood.

‘Moji. You must be so excited for the day you get yours. You talk of nothing else.’

‘I know it will be soon.’ Moji nodded fervently. ‘Yesterday I divined a man who was contemplating his death. He wanted to throw himself from the ocean-point branch.’ His arms whirled to point and emphasize his story. ‘I sat with him and convinced him to live.’

‘That’s incredible, Moji!’ said a girl in the circle. ‘You are a trusted light who can always be shone on Arvore’s darkest citizens.’

Moji grinned. ‘Everyone thinks the sun is too heavy to carry,’ he said with a mock sigh, ‘but really it is very light.’ Moji glowed to hear the other acolytes giggle.

‘Diviners,’ the journeyman called. Acolytes lifted their lanterns to cast soft sunbeams around the inner hollow. They gathered in a large circle and produced their wands.

Moji retrieved his wand from his sleeve �" a fine branch two-fingers thick and the length of his forearm. The Arvore had guided him through the carving of this wand, and its every knot and bump were unique and perfect. It sang in his hand, and the gentle thrum of prayer returned to him. His motions delicate and precise, he raised his wand above his head in unison with the other suns.

Channelling his senses into the wand, he blocked out all distractions, save for the concentrated bliss of absorption. Born naturally sympathetic to emotions, Moji had been recruited young for his destiny with the Division. So young, he had no true recollection of his parents. But all suns were the same. Who needed family when you could commune with the Arvore herself? Moji was complete and wanted for nothing else.

Well, he did want to be a journeyman one day. Then a master, then an archmaster … and he did want to gain his bark …

  The journeyman stood in the centre, poised with a chalk slate. He nodded for the measuring to begin. The tall boy �" with his bark-blessed skin visible for all to see �" was the first to produce a pure light from the tip of his wand. The girl next to him sparked to match.

One by one, wands glowed to drink in the mood of the Arvore, and measure how much harmony she sang with this day. There was no more need for lanterns as the light they generated filled the hollow. They were receptacles, showcasing the Arvore’s goodness level. If every sun shone, the Division could rest easy that this wellspring produced suitable quantities of good.

The light approached his place in the circle and Moji trembled with anticipation. He opened his senses and welcomed the Arvore to absorb his carefully cultivated emotions. Warmth rose from his feet and his skin prickled. An entire day between each measurement felt too long.

The girl beside him wavered. She strained and held her arm up high, but the light from her wand sputtered. They were only two-thirds of the way around the circle! Moji willed her wand to glow, hoping it was only a stutter in her ability to absorb, not in the tree’s output. For the measurement to end here … the Arvore was nowhere near the Division’s base level.

The girl was sweating now. Then she gasped and her arm dropped. Like a burst bubble, the light in the chamber zipped back along the circle as each wand tip winked out.

They were plunged into darkness. An uneasy silence settled over the suns, and the lantern bearers sheepishly retrieved their alternate source of light. Moji felt sick. The light hadn’t reached him. The light had never not reached [i]him[i] before. In all his years as a sun the Arvore had never been this unhappy.

‘Diviners,’ the journeyman called, his tone a masterful suppression of his negative emotions. It was a reminder for all the suns to check themselves, and Moji dredged up his hope. He let it fill him until his smile was genuine. This was something they could fix. They were trained for this. Moji was good at his job and he loved it. He was the very best.

‘You know what to do,’ the journeyman said, nodding to each of the suns. ‘Divine out the negative emotions of Arvoreström. Make those people smile. Go out and do good.’

* * *

Moji set out to do good.

“Do gooders” was another name they’d earned among the city folk. It wasn’t always muttered in the spirit of respect, but Moji didn’t mind. Happiness wasn’t always easy, not for everyone. That was precisely why the Division existed, and why Moji’s work was so important. A tree’s blossoms were only as fruitful as the nutrients of its soil.

He stood in the centre of a bustling track on Sunrise Branch, which reached for the eastern horizon and the far-off Coral Ocean. Wagons were pulled and pushed along the secure rails �" but there was no fear of being bumped or bowled over. The people of Arvoreström always gave the little yellow diviners space, never rustling the edges of their cloak’s circumference.

One million souls lived amongst the Arvore’s sun-washed leaves: leaves that were as large as a ship’s sails. From her wood they crafted shops and homes, in awe of the materials she bestowed. Someone could live their entire life here and never cross every rope bridge, zip-line, nor climb every ladder or winding staircase. Just as someone could never touch every breath of wind. Arvoreström was their great city, grown among the world’s most magnificent living entity.

Protruding halfway up the main trunk, the Sunrise Branch was one of the tree’s thickest limbs. The thicker the limb, the denser the population. He’d have a good chance of finding someone less happy here, and his more intangible senses egged him on.

[i]Time to divine[i]. Moji drew his wand and laid it flat on his palm. He willed that there was no true end to his form; no gap between himself and the bark beneath his feet. Shoeless, a sun was never far from the Arvore. Entering the flow of his city, emotional ripples prodded his skin.

            Love. He was filled with the care and tenderness the Arvore had for all its people. As he divined, he could pick out the feelings of every soul who called this tree home. Their happiness, their gratefulness. With regret, he steered himself out of the flood of love and began to seek its opposite current. The anomalies. The rocks in the stream that upset the flow.

            His wand began to shift on his palm, as if disturbed by wind. Like the needle of a compass it turned in swirling directions. Behind Moji’s closed eyes, he searched every burrow and building in Arvoreström, just as every other sun would be doing now in their assigned districts to find a distressed person.

His wand found exactly that. A source of anguish. Perhaps thirty yards ahead. Stress. Anxiety. Someone was on the verge of tears. Perhaps a mother struggling to juggle young children. Perhaps a worker who’d made a mistake.

            No, it wasn’t enough.

            He’d helped solve these types of sadnesses before. Sometimes offering a helping hand was all it took to have someone smiling again. Stress came and went. That was life. But that kind of help wouldn’t solve the Arvore’s low levels. It was the deeper miseries inside people’s hearts that were poisoning their home �" and these emotions were often difficult for a diviner to latch onto. Often it was easier to sweep the floor clean of loose dirt than it was to notice and scrub away the decades old grime caught between the tiles. This time, Moji needed to go deeper into the current and find someone with an aged and heavy pain.

Beside him a mother tugged her young daughter along. The girl had stopped to point at Moji’s bright yellow cloak, giggling and smiling. Moji returned his brightest grin and the girl giggled harder. But when he met the mother’s eyes, he saw a hardness to her smile. The expression was forced. She gave Moji a reverent bow and hurried her daughter along.

            Prickly with the emotions of the city folk, Moji sensed her trailing unease to have made eye-contact with him. A strange reaction �" the people of the city usually loved their little suns. Perhaps she knew she was upset today and was too busy for a visit. Moji understood that people sometimes felt that way. But her distress was only minor. As long as she was smiling by tomorrow, no diviner would pursue her. Either way, he hoped she would have a good day.

He set his wand to divining once more, determined to find the most discordant heart. Someone the other suns would give up on detecting. Moji would solve this person’s lingering pain and save his home. Nothing terrified him more than witnessing this wellspring sink towards malevolence. For the tree’s pain was his, and her hatred would become his, if it went that far.

Faster and faster his wand spun. With a vibrating halt, it chose a new direction.

A lead weight grew in his chest until he was forced to lift his shoulders just for a sip of air. His mouth went dry and his lips twisted down at the edges. He radiated with resentment. His balance was unsteady and it was as equally precarious as his grip on his self-control. He wanted to yell. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to grab the nearest person and shake them!

            Moji unstuck his feet from the Arvore and jumped out of the current of emotions. He shuddered, to wriggle free from what he’d just been feeling. Someone else’s feelings.

            He’d been close to crying, just now. Which was something he’d never done before. He’d never even faked cried, as they were taught to do to get their way with citizens outside of the Division (just like Elma, who’d been the best at that). No, Moji didn’t like crying because it was selfish, and he wasn’t selfish. Not like this person he could sense now, who’d developed such a vile state for themselves. Didn’t they understand the consequence of their emotions? They were hurting their home.

            Maybe they didn’t know. Luckily, that’s what Moji and the Division were for. He’d explain it all and together they’d fix it, because no one deserved to feel that way. Tomorrow, when they divined again, and the Arvore was stronger than ever, the journeyman and all the suns would be so impressed that Moji had cheered up the saddest person in Arvoreström. He’d be promoted �" maybe he’d even wake up bestowed with bark on his skin.

Moji ran, a grin as wide as his face. He laughed and skipped across the rope bridge to the adjoining branch, his cone-shaped cloak billowing about him.

Someone needed his help and he couldn’t wait. 

* * *

Feet shuffling on the doormat, Moji knocked again.

He stood before a little home, tucked high on an uneven stack of cabins. Whoever was inside: they were going to have the best day. Beneath his cloak, Moji wore his pack that was filled with all the things to aid activities that always cheered people up. But where to start? Would they respond to introspection or distraction? Once he met them, he’d know what would be best.

            He knocked again �" and didn’t stop. Tap tap tap tap …

            Movement on the other side. He heard a series of locks being keyed. Moji jumped back and smoothed out the creases in his cloak. It opened and Moji swept his most gracious bow.

            ‘Greetings, citizen of Arvoreström,’ he said. ‘I am an acolyte of the Division, and on this day, you have been divined. I am here to assist.’ 

            A pair of stark eyes peered from beneath a bird nest of grey curls. The woman, though much older than he, was only slightly taller. But seeing the way she carried her shoulders, her presence could have been mistaken for the size of the Arvore.

            ‘Oh, a lemon,’ she said, not smiling. ‘Wondered when one of you would show.’

            She slammed the door. Moji’s mouth fell open.

            A lemon?

            He knocked again. Tap tap tap tap tap …

            The door opened. Moji bowed.

‘Greetings, citizen of Arvoreström. I am an acolyte of the Division�"’

‘Oh, they do have you well trained, don’t they?’ She was smiling this time, but her teeth and parted lips projected no warmth. This smile would not help the Arvore.

Moji pushed on. ‘That’s right, I’m the best. That’s why I sought you. Only the very best can help you.’

She pressed a hand to her chest. ‘Hearing that makes me feel just awful!’

‘No!’ Moji cried. ‘Don’t feel awful! I’m here to make you feel better!’

‘You are?’ she said, eyes widening.

‘Anything you need. By the end of the day, I guarantee your joy!’

‘Anything?’ She leaned in and whispered, ‘There’s one thing I have always wanted.’

‘What is it?’

‘See the lip of the branch?’ She pointed to the ropeway and he nodded. ‘I’d love nothing more than to watch you toss yourself into the Nether-damned abyss.’

Moji paused. He couldn’t do that, he wouldn’t survive. Surely she …

And the door slammed once more.

Oh! That was rude! She was being rude!

It was okay. Sometimes people were rude �" a side effect of feeling awful. It wasn’t their fault. He raised his hand to knock again, but the door swung open before he could.

‘You’re not going away, are you?’

‘I can’t go away. At the end of today, I must test you and declare your happiness levels welcome among the Arvore.’

‘And what happens if I fail your test, young Lemon?’

‘Oh, that won’t happen. No need to worry about that.’

‘No. It will please me to know. Tell.’

Moji bit his lip. ‘In those cases, I inform my journeyman of the person I’ve been unable to help. But we don’t want that! Because it’s their duty to expel those people from Arvoreström.’

She studied him with her piercing grey eyes. ‘At last, the Division has come to remove me from my home. Are you aware I’ve lived here longer than your little organization has existed, Lemon? And you flitter in with the authority to kick me to the dirt below.’

‘It’ll be okay!’ Moji wanted to give her a hug. ‘There’s no way I’ll let you be expelled.’

‘You genuinely believe that, don’t you?’

She shook her head and returned inside. But this time she didn’t shut the door.

So, Moji skipped over the threshold. He eagerly glanced around, ready to absorb as much detail about her as possible. The more he knew, the better he could support.

She was in the kitchen, in the middle of cooking a meal. That was good! Cooking was one of the ways to help someone feel better. It smelled delicious. A stew? She retrieved a knife to resume chopping onions on the bench. He bounded up beside her with a swish of his robe …

She whirled and held the blade to his neck. Moji squeaked and froze, not daring to move.

‘What would they do to me, you think, if I harmed one of their little leashed sympaths?’ she asked. ‘The Oranges would do more than just expel me, I believe.’ She put down the knife with a sigh.

Moji’s pulse raced. He felt dizzy, like he could fall over. That’d happened so quickly. But it didn’t seem like she actually wanted to hurt him. She was just the kind of person who said those things. He sensed that it’d been a joke … just not a very funny one.

But it was good to know she liked jokes. Moji knew lots of jokes. Shakily he asked, ‘What do you give a sick lemon?’ �" since it appeared to be her favourite fruit. 

‘Does my answer need to be child-friendly?’ she asked, resuming her chopping. She was trying to get another rise out of him �" Moji wasn’t ignorant of these things. He was simply too well trained to take her bait.

‘Lemon-aid!’ he said. She didn’t laugh.

‘I have others! What do you call a cat who eats lemons?’ He answered before she could guess. ‘A sourpuss! And what does the lemon say when it wants a hug? Give me a squeeze!’ He was giggling before he could deliver the punchline.

She still wasn’t laughing. Turning red, Moji cleared his throat and tried a new tact.

‘What’s your name?’

‘I guess we’re doing this. It’s Carrie.’ 

‘It’s amazing to meet you, Carrie! My name is Moji�"’

‘I don’t need your name, Lemon.’

‘Why am I a lemon?’   

She indicated to his bright yellow robes. ‘Lemon. And your keepers are oranges.’

Oh. Now he got it. He liked this game. ‘What are the masters in red?’

‘Apples.’

‘And the archmasters?’

Carrie turned to her benchtop and brought the knife down with a clean chop. The vegetable cleanly halved. ‘Onions,’ she mumbled, her expression darkening.

Moji giggled to ease the tension of her blasphemy. ‘It’s ironic! Because onions make people cry, and archmasters do the opposite!’

‘Tell me, Lemon, who exactly will be responsible for the tears shed when I’m evicted from my home?’

‘That’s never happened to someone I’ve helped!’

It was time to halt this line of thinking. He glided around her bare home, judging Carrie not to be poor, but perhaps she didn’t enjoy the keeping of things. All furniture was strictly functional, as were all objects: a clock, a dustpan, two empty wine bottles, a magnifier. No portraits displayed family or loved ones. The Arvore’s vines crept in through window joins and the skylight. Their breath of greenery was the most joyful part of an otherwise transactional home.

‘What troubles you, Carrie?’

‘Aside from the lemon in my home? Why don’t you tell me: divine it out.’ She snuffed her stove fire and slumped in an armchair, watching Moji carefully beneath her wispy grey curls.

Very well. It shouldn’t be too hard to sense any external causes to her troubles: people often left emotional residue on objects like sugary fingerprints after sweet cakes. Moji retrieved his wand, though he was hesitant to open himself back up to her. Carrie’s emotions hadn’t been a pleasant experience: all the more reason to fix her. He blurred the edges of his being only by a fraction and allowed his wand to twitch on his palm as he moved about the home.

‘You don’t look upset,’ he said, hoping to get her talking.

            ‘What does upset look like?’

‘Most people show their pain. They cry, or their hands can’t keep still.’

Her folded palms were poised and calm. She sat on her armchair as if she were a judge in some high court. ‘Why are you so certain I’m miserable?’ she demanded. ‘I have my home. My health. I am satisfied in my work and my place in the world.’

‘I experienced your feelings. It was horrible. No one deserves to feel that way.’

Remembering it, he shivered.

Kneeling before a cabinet, he wiped off a dust layer and opened it.

‘The Division gives you the authority to snoop through my things, I suppose?’ Carrie muttered. Moji had been drilled to offer the same explanation to these sorts of queries.

‘As artificers of the Division, ours is empath magic. We can sense, locate and feel the emotions of others.’ He waited for his wand to turn. It guided him towards a leather-bound notebook inside the cabinet. He dug it out from the bottom of the stack. 

‘Why not wave your stick, make me happy and be on your way?’ Carrie made a gesture Moji knew was lewd only because he’d seen tavern girls perform it to make each other giggle.

He flushed. ‘I am only an acolyte. We seek and find. It is the masters and archmasters who are capable of manipulating the emotions of others.’

‘Yet they’d still rather evict people from their tree.”  

Moji ignored her comment, distracted by the book he’d opened. It appeared to be a diary. Beautiful handwriting scrawled every aged page, detailing daily activities, wishes, and regrets. It seemed right to handle it reverently. At the end of one entry, he read a name that was not Carrie’s. 

‘Who is Aime?’

Carrie’s answer was to stand, snatch the diary, and wallop him over the head with it.

‘Ow!’ he said. It didn’t hurt, but he hadn’t done anything wrong. As she said, the Division gave him every right to investigate. Especially if she wasn’t forthcoming.

‘Stop wasting time on diagnosis, Lemon. Get to prescription! No Apple or Onion will argue I wasn’t cooperative with your efforts when they come to steal my home.’

Still open to her emotions, Moji caught her resignation and remorse. She didn’t want to leave Arvoreström. It was obvious: Carrie loved the Arvore!

‘You must be hopeful!’ he said, standing. ‘It’s going to be okay. Together we’ll make sure you don’t go anywhere! Maybe I can’t manipulate emotions with nether, but I am trained in every other way to soothe a person’s bad spirits.’ He held her hands reassuringly. She stared at his touch like he’d forgotten to wash his hands after the lavatory.

‘Alright, Lemon. Impress me. Make my troubles go away.’ Her tone made it sound like a bet �" one she was confident she’d win. Moji couldn’t imagine she’d remain miserable just to prove a point. Of course she wanted to stay in her home, and all people wanted to be happy. She just seemed to genuinely doubt Moji could do it. So, he’d prove her wrong and they’d both win!

He bid her sit on the rug with him and asked her to describe what she touched; the coarse rug beneath them; the cool air blowing through the window. With her eyes shut, he asked her to describe the fluffy ball he retrieved from his pack. She called it, “soft and likely to amuse toddlers, like yourself.”

They listened to the rustle of leaves and the cries of distant market spruiking. Clearly cheating and opening her eyes, she stopped Moji before he brought his flute to his lips to play.

But Moji wasn’t deterred. When people didn’t want to talk about their problems, they usually responded to distraction. He helped her clean and rearrange the furniture. This was accompanied by “packing” jokes in anticipation of her eviction. Not wanting her to dwell on that, he guided her through meditations and breathing exercises, before he realised she’d started to nap.  

Carrie sang with him, “the leaves that sway at midnight” but ridiculed her own off-key notes. She mocked her own pink oval drawing that was supposed to be a pig. She complimented Moji’s fish, but told him a “canary would’ve been more appropriate. Or bumblebee.”

She was funny. Her jokes were harmless and they made Moji smile. But she didn’t seem to like that he’d grown to accept the nickname she’d given him. She wanted him to dislike it. The more he smiled, the more that appeared to annoy her. Which was the opposite of what he wanted.

Moji could tell she [i]was[i] trying. Yet, her emotions weren’t shifting. He was terrified of the pit that welled inside of her. He’d never met someone who joked so much, yet resonated so much pain. As the sun passed from the east to western branch, Carrie offered an apology of sorts.

‘No need to waste more energy, little lemon. Your overseers won’t punish you for doing your best. I’d have left the Arvore one day, either by eviction or lowered to the ground in a person-sized box. No point moaning that it’s come so soon.’

Moji’s heart galloped. ‘I won’t give up on you! I still have more things we can do. You’ll try them with me, won’t you?’

With a sigh, she nodded.

Pens and paper, then. Their affirmations list started on rocky ground.

‘I will strive to be as the world wants me to be,’ Carrie said.

‘You can do better!’ he encouraged. ‘More positive, like, “I am worthy of happiness.”’

‘Worthy of happiness, but not a home,’ she said.

‘You are worthy of a home!’ Moji said, hands on hips. ‘That’s why I’m here!’

‘No, you’re here to protect your tree.’

‘It’s the same thing! Making you happy makes the Arvore happy! I just haven’t worked you out yet!’ He was pacing, certain he could do it. He just needed more time.

‘I never asked for your help. Just as I’m sure the Arvore never asked for the Division.’

‘She didn’t need to �" she’s our home. We love her. It’s our duty to protect her, without prompting. We do it because we care.’

‘The Arvore was around for centuries before the Division,’ Carrie said. ‘And she’ll be around for centuries after we’re long gone.’

‘But she’s changing,’ Moji whispered. ‘We cannot let that happen. Don’t you love your home? When I’m sad, I count the things I am grateful for.’ Moji knelt at her feet. ‘You don’t have it so bad. It’ll be worse if you leave. People elsewhere have it so much worse than we do.’

Carrie stared at the blank affirmations page, features tight.

‘Let me test you again,’ he said. ‘Surely we’ve made progress. If I test you now, I can declare your happiness levels suitable to remain in Arvoreström. You’ll see.’

Resigned, Carrie held out her hand for Moji to grasp. He breathed in her emotions, and like poisonous insects they burrowed beneath his skin. Disdain. Weariness. Like a dog, beaten for far too long. Numb to what should have worked. Empty. No love to give.

Moji dragged himself away from Carrie, trembling �" she hadn’t changed at all?

She met his eyes. ‘I felt this way before I met Aime. It never changed, even in her arms. She’s gone and it’s still the same. What you sense is simply how I am, Lemon.’

He shook his head. ‘Then it’s just in your mind! This means you can let it go, like I do! When I have a negative emotion, I breathe it away! Whatever you’re feeling will pass, you have to trust in that. Please, Carrie … you just need to try harder …’

‘I have tried. Believe me.’

And he did. But he refused to accept it. To give up would mean he’d failed. It’d mean Carrie would lose her home, all because he wasn’t good enough, all because the Arvore hadn’t given him bark and never would and that’d be so awful he couldn’t bear it�"

His face was flush, his eyes hot …

Moji pressed his palms to his chest. His breathing stilled. He felt the Arvore’s gentle sway, measured in lifetimes.

‘What are you doing?’ Carrie asked.

‘Exactly what I’m asking you to do,’ he said. ‘I let it go. Because I didn’t want to cry.’

‘Have you ever cried, Lemon?’

He lifted his chin with pride. ‘No, never. And I never will. I’ll never hurt the Arvore.’

Carrie’s expression was as hard as stone.

‘Then the Division has made a little monster of you,’ she said. ‘Diviners of emotion? No, they seek what all men seek. Power. They claim the Arvore’s nether for themselves.’

‘That’s not true! We love the Arvore. It’s people like you who are hurting her! Why can’t everyone just be happy? We have to help, because your emotions are selfish!’ 

Carrie’s gaze weighed him. She stood, and when she spoke, her voice was low.

‘Your organisation would rather see sad people dead and shuffled out of sight than lose grip on their seat of power. You serve evil masters, little lemon. It’s time you wake up to that.’

‘No!’

‘No? Then why don’t you [i]try harder[i] to help me? You’ve failed and I will be the one punished. What is the point of you? You’re useless. Get out of my home, while it is still mine, and leave me to my misery.’

She was crying steady, rolling streaks, as she pointed at the door.

Before he could burst into tears, Moji fled her home.

* * *

Moji wouldn’t cry. Moji wasn’t selfish. He loved the Arvore and offered her only the happiest of emotions. He was a good diviner; the best. So, he’d written down what needed to be recorded. 

Feeling as threadbare as a wrung dishcloth, Moji climbed the steps which coiled the outskirts of the main trunk. He pulled his hood down tight against the wind. It was night, and the soft glow of lanterns swung from ornate hooks lovingly integrated into the bark. He passed the sanctuary and its hanging baskets where Division acolytes made their homes.

But Moji wanted to be alone.

He sought a small crevasse that only he knew of. He’d found it during a storm, when he’d stayed out in the winds too long and had missed the last elevator down. At risk of being blown from his city, Moji had closed his eyes and let the tree guide him to safety.

And she’d answered.

He slid through the gap into his tiny oasis. On hands and knees, he touched his forehead to the bark. Love and welcome pressed back �" like a gentle hug that told him everything was okay. It was hard to believe that the Arvore was as emotionally malnourished as the Division said: but he’d witnessed himself their failure to measure her happiness to the correct levels.

The Arvore was changing, and someone like Carrie would only make it worse. As it was Moji’s duty to prevent that, he’d written and submitted his report. His journeymen would read of his failure and enact next steps at first light. Carrie would lose her home. Sent to the ground, she’d never be allowed to return. That seemed a fate worse than …

All because he wasn’t as good as he thought. No wonder the Arvore hadn’t blessed him with her bark. He didn’t deserve it.

[i]What am I doing?[i] Moji tore himself away from his commune with the tree before any more of his negative emotions could seep through. All his humiliation and guilt �" he was feeding it to her.

With his eyes squeezed shut and his fists shaking in his lap, Moji waited for his emotions to go away. But maybe they wouldn’t. That’s how Carrie had described hers. Always a part of her.

Distant bird song and encroaching warmth told of daybreak. Moji would be humiliated if the other suns sensed his emotions now. They wouldn’t allow him anywhere near the sanctuary in this state. He’d be an embarrassment; little Moji, who always spoke of his bark but would never be good enough to earn it. The right thing, he knew, would be to take his bad emotions far away. That’s why the journeymen evicted citizens, after all. Moji wasn’t better than them: if he couldn’t control his emotions than he needed to leave as well. He’d do it if he truly loved the Arvore.

Moji would do it, because unlike others, he wasn’t selfish.

Not wanting to wake the other sleeping diviners, he climbed from the crevasse and to his hanging basket. Quickly, he removed the happiness tools from his pack and shoved in his barest travel belongings instead. He should leave the wand behind. But couldn’t bring himself to do it.

As sunrise crept above the horizon, and before the other little suns could rise, Moji scurried to the elevator platforms, his yellow hood pulled down low.

Moji asked the bellman operating the elevator pulley to take him all the way to the ground. The man gave him an odd look, but soon obeyed, and down and down they rattled. For one last time, Moji listened to the sounds of waking families inside their teetering cubby houses; smelled their early baking bread; and absorbed the sight of the crisp green leaves when dipped in morning dew.

Moji did not cry. It was the least he could do to thank the Arvore for the unconditional love she’d offered him his entire life.

With a [i]thud[i], the platform settled on the scaffolding at the base of the tree. Moji settled his pack beneath his cone-shaped cloak, grasped the wand in his sleeve, and slowly descended the scaffolding steps. Each footfall descended with a tap, tap, tap.

Holding his breath, he stepped onto soft soil. He stood for a second, wobbling on the uneasy sensation of solid, unmoving ground. If sailors from the floating cities spoke of sea legs, then those who lived in Arvoreström had tree legs. They could spend their entire lives unaware of the Arvore’s sway, until confronted with the hollow sensation of standing on something that wasn’t alive.

He hated it, but he had no choice. He cared too much to stay.

So why couldn’t he make his legs take another step?

‘Lemon?’

At her voice, Moji spun.

Carrie alighted from the elevator. She was saddled with her own packs for travel. An entire life, reduced to what could be carried on her back. Chin high, it was clear she was leaving of her own volition before any Oranges could evict her.

‘Carrie�"’ and his voice broke. He broke. Shuddering gasps choked his attempt to say he was sorry. Sorry that he’d failed to end her sadness; that he’d sought her out; that he’d ever been found by the masters and been born a sympath and taken from his family …

He pressed his hands to his mouth to muffle his cry. It sounded so strange to his ears. An irrational part of him was desperate for someone to help him. Something was terribly wrong with him. Touching his cheeks, his fingers came away wet. His eyes were hot and they stung and his vision was blurry. On his lips he tasted salt.

Carrie’s eyes were wide. She was alarmed by whatever she saw; he could sense it. Whatever disgrace he was making of himself, it had her stunned.

‘Don’t look at me,’ he squeaked, whirling and tugging his yellow hood down so no one could see his face. No one at the base of Arvoreström could be allowed to spread the tale of a crying diviner. He’d undermine the reputation of the entire Division. Why couldn’t he do anything right?

‘Those tears don’t shame you, Lemon,’ Carrie said. She stepped onto the soil beside him. ‘Shed them as autumn sheds its leaves.’

‘No, they’re bad! The Arvore�"’

‘Just as these tears won’t drown you, they won’t drown our tree.’ Carrie knelt, tugged off his hood and brushed back his curls. ‘Where are you going, little one?’

‘Away! I can’t go back. I’ll turn her bad!’

‘You want to know a secret?’ Carrie asked. ‘You don’t have to be happy all the time. Life sees us through the good and the bad. There’s no need to torture ourselves with how we should feel. Sometimes it’s enough just to feel at all. That’s something I’m grateful for. Life has given me a lot of emotions, and I experience all of them. Don’t be ashamed or frightened by what you feel. They are not the enemy, and experiencing them does not mean you have failed. It’s not the Arvore who chases us from our home.’ Carrie spared a look for the expanse of branches above.

What she was saying didn’t make any sense.

‘I just …’ he breathed, interrupted by his own hiccups. His cheeks burned with his inability to string a sentence together in front of her. ‘I just wanted to be good.’

She hugged him. A fierce hug, like one his own mother might have given him, if he could remember her. He hugged back as hard as he could. He was sure he was getting snot on her clothes.

‘You are good, Moji. All of you is good. Emotions do not deserve our value judgements. Nor will they form my judgement of you.’

It was too much. Opening to sensation, he was overwhelmed by kindness and love. It radiated not just from the roots of the Arvore, but from Carrie as well. The last person in all of Netherün who’d reason to be nice to him. Where was her bitterness now? He knew it was there, inside her, but it was not aimed at him.

Carrie stood and straightened her pack.

‘Would you like someone to walk with, Lemon?’ she asked and held out her hand.

The silent tears that welled next were not tainted by his shame or his guilt. These were warm tears. Grateful tears. He gave them freely to the Arvore’s soil.

Moji wrapped his hands in hers and they turned their feet west, to follow the Arvore’s leagues of shadow across hills and forest. Maybe somewhere among them was a tree just as lovely. Maybe they’d even find somewhere new to call home.