"Run through that one more time and we'll call it a night," Swipe called, bringing our extra training session to a close. In the day since learning that we would face Dead Drop, she had formulated some decent new strategies and responses to the known and hypoethetical dangers we might soon face. It was only a start, but we already felt more prepared and less fatalistic. "Drift! Can you stick around for a chat?"
I almost dropped the ball when my name was called. "Er, yeah." I tried not to fixate on the obvious questions and instead made my best attempt at passing to Scaff. Skids leapt up and batted the ball far from Scaff, but Punnt was in place to catch it. Dro tossed it back to me and this time Skids was not quick enough to intercept. Even better, I caught the ball without fumbling it. While passing and receiving was not my primary or even secondary role on the team, I had to be as ready as possible to do whatever was necessary. Mages in every hive would be watching us play. It would be an embarrassment to fail to show such a basic competency. Some players could get away with having no ball skills if they were intensely focused on attacking other players, but that was even further from my role.
"Great." Our coach's reply sounded casual on the surface, but failed to make me worry any less about the impending conversation.
I still found it odd that Swipe's position on the team was 'coach', as to me that word implied something teaching related. Teaching fit in the role of a carer, not a seer. Seers were research focused, not teachers or people managers. Skids had explained to me that the coach's role was to research and develop the team's overall strategy and tactics while the team's carer was usually a medic, but that didn't help me understand why she was called a coach.
The other four members of Cheesy Goodness took their sweaty selves away to shower and change, leaving Swipe and I to pack up and lock away our equipment. I was glad for something manual to do while I was forced to engaged in a personal conversation I expected would be awkward.
My expectation was correct. "I spoke with Skids earlier. About the whole... situation. Sa said you were the one who told sarm where sa is from."
"That's right," I said as I started scrubbing the dirt off one of our practice balls.
"When did you find out?"
I knew lying wouldn't help me. "The day I joined Wonambi hive."
"And when did you tell Skids?" The question sounded almost casual.
"The day I asked to join the team," I said in a smaller voice than before.
Swipe's expression hardened and she's voice grew cold. "You knew for months, yet told no one."
I quickly explained. "Skids and I already discussed my decision to keep the truth from sarm. Sa wasn't happy but did forgive me enough to choose me for the team." We weren't talking again since the 'prioritise occupant' mishap, but that was a seperate issue.
"That's between the two of you. But you never told anyone. Even after Skids kept the truth to sa's self for months."
"Skids told the team a couple of weeks ago. That was sa's choice to make, not mine."
"It's everyone's choice to make, but thall can only make that choice if they have all the facts."
I felt my face contorting into the creases that my mother had regularly cautioned me against. "What's everyone's decision?"
"What kind of person thall want to associate with."
"What kind of person? Anyone who gets to know Skids can see what kind of person sa is." My words were growing increasingly heated as my internal anger built.
"You know what I meant."
"Pretend I don't."
Swipe mouthed the words, barely ennunciating. "A Titan."
"It was common knowledge that Skids was found without any memories or known history. That was always a possibility."
"A possibility is very different from a certainty."
"And it has nothing to do with who Skids is. All your city's tests proved that Skids wasn't born any different to anyone else down here. I'm more different to yall than Skids is, both in upbringing and due to whatever weirdness is in my head."
"People have mostly chosen to overlook your differences, Drift. And the team has chosen to overlook Skids', now that we know. But we were denied that choice in the past. As has every other resident of Wonambi."
I wasn't sure how to argue with that. I didn't like the conclusion, but that line of thought made sense on the surface. All sorts of trouble had befallen me because I didn't know Skids' nature when we first met. Instead of arguing, I turned Swipe's argument back on sheem. "I don't see you running to tell everyone. Why, is it too inconvenient to risk the upcoming championship match?"
"You and Skids put me in a difficult situation by hiding this until now. Keeping the secret a little longer won't make the damage significantly worse when it does come out."
"So you believe people have the right to know, unless it's to your disadvantage." I sighed and shook my head. "You mages really do whatever you can get away with. No clerics, no Codex of Purity, no money. Just a cave full of people who act just civilised enough to keep everything from collapsing. You each do what seems right to everyone else, but only if someone's watching. The clerics may have been completely wrong about magic, but I'm not so sure they were wrong about mages." When I ran out of words I snapped my mouth shut and froze, hardly believing everything I'd said.
Swipe closed an equipment locker a little too hard. "I know you barely understand our ways, so I'll try to overlook everything you just said."
"Um, what?"
"I still can't believe the sheer audacity and irony of your people calling yourselves 'pure'. You consume animals, breed like animals, and let yourselves be ruled like animals. Mages live free."
"Free? Free to do whatever you want, to hurt yourselves and others if you can get away with it."
"Do you really think your people don't try to get away with breaking your so blessed laws?"
"At least we have laws written down so we always know what is right."
"We do what is best for the hive! Not just blindly follow what someone wrote down hundreds of years ago."
"Someone? The Great Maker isn't merely someone! The Great Maker hears all. The Great Maker sees all. The Great Maker knows all!"
"You can take the child out of the sun..." Swipe muttered.
"What?"
"Never mind. Have you ever seen this 'great maker'?"
"Not personally, but I have seen his bright messengers. They saved me from death, spoke to me, and carried me to this very hive. I owe my very life to the will of the Great Maker. And the Codex teaches that any who question the Great Maker's laws are deceivers sent by the first evil, Motlock, to prepare the way for the final evil, Baduk."
Swipe shook she's head as she checked that all our lockers were secure. "Yall really do have some weird views on history. I heard how you think Mortlock corrupted us by giving us magic."
"And I've heard how yall think Mortlock caused destruction by tricking the first Pure into rejecting magic. It's an odd point of similarity and differnce, isn't it?"
"At least we all agree that Mortlock is bad," Swipe said, shrugging.
I thought back to the scrymail I had received from Sente, the wise advisor to the society of traders who had helped me immensely in a time of great peril. It had been signed 'Baduk Sente'. I was still unsure of what to make of that and had no way to reply or find out more. Was the name a coincidence? Was Sente secretly evil? He had shown no signs of being other than a slightly mysterious yet benevolent old man with immense knowledge. Without him, I would be dead and my former home would be erased. Without the ancient relic he gave me, I would also be dead. If I had survived without the relic, I would probably still be working on the design for Project Hexplexer. I still hadn't learned much from the relic's data, but what I had learned had been very significant.
"Drift? Are you still with me?"
"Sorry, I was thinking. Mortlock bad, yes. Is there any connection between Mortlock and the Titans?"
Swipe shrugged. "I've never heard of anything like that. Not that it would surprise me. But as far as I know, the Titans are their own unique brand of strangeness."
"That has no bearing on Skids though. It shouldn't change how anyone sees sarm. Any connection to sa's past is gone. Erased by whatever took sa's memories. Now sa is no different to a mage with no memories. That's not infomation anyone should need to properly judge sarm."
"And yet sa wants to go back."
"That's no one else's business."
"Don't you think someone has a right to know if they are befriending someone who might some day go away to the Titans and not come back? Or worse, who might go to the Titans and come back different?"
"Um... not really? People change. It's what we do. We don't owe it to other people to always stay the same or to warn everyone if we're 'thinking of growing as a person'."
"This is different. Augmentation isn't growth. It's replacement with something cold and dead."
I lifted my wooden arm. "So what?"
"It's far deeper than that. And if you had any sense you'd avoid finding out what that really means."
I shrugged, well aware that my curiosity far outstripped my sensibility. "So... in short, you're warning me that you'll tell everyone where Skids is from, when it becomes less of a disadvantage to you as the coach of Wonambi's most successful chroma team in years."
"That's one way of looking at it."
"I don't see any other way of looking at it. You're upset at not being told sooner but you know that trying to expose the truth now will hurt your fame. You probably won't get any significant favours out of your fame if the secret comes out in a bad way within the next few months. In fact, it's to your advantage if Skids' origin becomes known in a way that most mages can accept or even embrace. Perhaps that's something you should consider. But not right now. Now, we have a chroma match to survive."
Swipe nodded slowly. "That's a bold move, Drift. I can respect that. But you'd really better sort out your latest problem with Skids before the match. Before the next training session, really. You can't properly train together if you can't communicate effectively. And sa can't rely on you if sa doesn't trust you."
"Doesn't trust me? I'd never—"
"Never let Skids be hurt?" Swipe interrupted, anticipating my words. "Isn't that what caused this problem?"
"Oh. Right. But this match is far more dangerous! Winning is secondary to survival."
"Have you talked that over with Skids?"
I didn't need to answer that.
"I thought not. Please do. Before sunrise, if possible." She started walking off the field, leaving me to realise I'd been standing idle for the last few minutes. "And if you can have those hexes you described to us working by next practice, that would be a big help."
"Make up with Skids, make the hexes work. Got it." Done the old way, it would have taken several weeks to go from a design to a working hex. Now that the worst of the work was automated, I was expected to turn a very basic design into something functional in a matter of days or even hours. "There's no impressing some people," I muttered as I looked for an empty washroom. I was looking forward to a long hot shower.
I found the closest washroom that advertised itself as vacant and stepped inside. It was not empty. "Well if it isn't 'Drift He'. You're a difficult hexmage to get hold of. Someone could almost be forgiven for concluding that you are not one of my students."
"Ginnn! Uh, why are you..."
My former favourite teacher stepped past me. "Don't worry, I'm not in a hurry. I'll wait out here and you can enjoy your shower. You can explain why you've been skipping my classes and avoiding me when you're done."
I silently groaned. All chance of enjoying my shower had gone directly down the drain.