In Other Lands

by Sarah Rees Brennan

“I’m a Wavechaser, you know,” Surfer Dude added proudly. “Dale Wavechaser.” “Ha!”

“If you must know, she is the one soul destined for my own, and we are going to be together forever,” he declared loftily. “That’s weird,” Luke told him. “We’re thirteen.”

The value of people does not rest on their ability to hurt others.”

“I am not winning any arguments because I know how to hurt someone. How does that prove that you’re right? How does being stronger or more vicious prove anything, except that all this talk about honor is stupid? Where’s the honor in being better at hurting somebody? Telling me I have to do this is insulting, as if I can’t win any other way. As if I can’t win in a better way.”

Elliot rolled his eyes as he was dragged off to the commander’s rooms, where Commander Rayburn walked in and said, “Oh, the elf’s little ginger boyfriend” in a despairing and, Elliot considered, unprofessional manner. “What have you been doing now?” “Staged a pacifist protest,” said Elliot. “Also, Serene and I have not defined the parameters of our relationship yet, though I have high hopes.” “He staged a pacifist protest by hurling knives all over everywhere,” reported Captain Woodsinger from her place at the door, throwing the commander a snappy salute. “Unusual,” said Commander Rayburn. He sounded very, very tired. Elliot shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”

Nobody will ever love you enough to stay.”

He couldn’t imagine his father going to school and antagonizing everyone in sight, being too short, too smart, too awkward, too unguarded, too wildly unused to company, until it was easier eventually to antagonize people on purpose.

He supposed it didn’t matter if someone left because you weren’t good enough or left because you actually drove them away. The result was the same.

Elliot knew no way, being who he was, to deserve that.

“See, you two are not original souls. Kids at my old school used to hit me all the time, I have collected the data on this subject, and I am in the perfect position to tell you that it has no useful results whatsoever. It just means I’m bleeding as well as annoying.”

the value of someone does not rely on their ability to hurt others,”

Neal said: “What value does he have, exactly?” Luke had to give it some thought, which Elliot found offensive. Eventually, he said: “He’s clever about some things. And he makes up songs.” “No, I don’t,” said Elliot, even more vastly offended. “Yes, you do,” said Luke. “You sang the song to me and Mum.” “That was not my song,” said Elliot. “That song belongs to the Beatles.” Luke rolled his eyes. “Elliot, beetles do not write songs.”

Violence was like that, Elliot had noticed. One move toward it and all at once everything was allowed: anyone could be hurt, out of a mix of pride and anger and stupid disregard for the fact that you could be hurt as easily as someone else.

“The woman goes through the physically taxing and bloody experience of childbirth. A woman’s experience of blood and pain is, naturally, what makes womenkind particularly suited for the battlefield. Whereas men are the softer sex, squeamish about blood in the main. I know it’s the same for human men, Luke was extremely disinclined to discuss my first experience of a woman’s menses.”

I LOVE THE SUBVERSIVENESS

Does it get easier? Elliot thought, looking at her still pale face. Or is it just that you shut doors in your own heart and never open them again for fear of what is behind them?

“The boys are already fighters, which cannot be pleasing to prospective wives,

Elliot loved tattling on people. He thought it was amazing fun, and if people were dumb enough to put Elliot in a position where he could get them into trouble by opening his mouth, they deserved what they got. The code of not telling tales was the usual stuff where stronger people tried to impose their rules on weaker people so they could get away with everything.

They were all so pleased with themselves. They had set this up like a game, they acted like it was all a game, like honor or glory was an acceptable exchange for a life.

“Sorry in advance for my insolence and lack of cooperation in class, but you phrased that question incorrectly,” said Elliot,

Captain Whiteleaf started, suddenly a man finding hope in a hopeless place. “You have a comment about the lesson?”

“Why do you walk inside when nobody’s told you to come in?” asked Luke. “I don’t want to spend my whole life waiting outside closed doors,” said Elliot.

“I’m terrible at feelings, it’s like they’re knives, I don’t really know what to do with them and I end up throwing them with too much force,”

“Luke, you have hardly eaten anything!” said Serene. “I’m not hungry,” said Luke. “Luke, please don’t develop an eating disorder,” Elliot begged. “We do not have any therapists in this world!” “What’s a therapist? I said I’m not hungry!” said Luke. Elliot paused. “Don’t eat any therapists. That’s not what they’re for.”

“Do you love your country?” “What, England?” asked Elliot. “Wow. Am I a poet in 1914?” “What,” said Commander Woodsinger. “What,” said Elliot.

“Oooh, is the elf giving her girlfriend jewelry,” mocked Natalie Lowlands, Adara Cornripe’s best friend, as Elliot slid into the seat next to her. Elliot gave her a big beaming smile and pushed his sleeve down a little to better display the bracelet. “Sorry you’re lonely!”

“Maybe both our societies are messed up, and they each only think one type of person is really a person. And the type of person they think is really a person is allowed to show imperfections and age . . . whereas the type of person they think is an object should show no signs of being a person. We’re socialized to see the imperfections in those objects.”

“I am—I’m serious about you,” Elliot said. “I’m not saying that any of this is easy. And you can—there could be years before you decide what you want. There will be more insults and more misunderstandings. I know that. But I . . . I really love you,” he said. “And I think we have a chance of making it work. If you love me back, enough to work through every difficulty, the way I love you.”

Even if he worked out how to show what he felt, he would only put people off. He knew, from long experience, that he was too much trouble as it was.

He had enjoyed being the nice one, the one who could afford to be kind. It was easy to be generous, when you had something to give. He missed being happy.

Time was passing. He was losing hope and losing ground there, and he did not know what he was doing here. Either way, he would lose.

“There’s something you should know about me, if we’re going to do this,” Elliot told him. “I always do exactly what I want, and I never care what anybody else thinks about it.”

“I really do think you’re a nice kid!” she said. “I’m really not,” Elliot called back up. Alice smiled. “Well, I definitely think you’re going places.” “I definitely am,” said Elliot.

“No, no don’t argue with me,” Elliot told him. “You don’t want to go and do a rash thing like that.

“People are awful everywhere,” she told him. “Not just kids. Everyone. They tell you people outgrow it, but they don’t. Everywhere you go, you see dynamics just like the petty gangs of youth. Which isn’t to say that school is not a very special hell, as people haven’t yet learned to hide how awful they are.”

“You’re not watching,” Luke said crabbily later. “You’re not wrong!” Elliot called back. Luke was doing fine.

Luke looked torn between weeping and punching Elliot. Elliot understood that this was an eternal struggle.

Who did Myra get with?” Luke looked thoughtful. “Something like Paul. Or maybe John.” “George,” Elliot suggested. “Ringo.” “I would obviously have remembered a peculiar name like Ringo,” said Luke.

“There’s a pit where we keep captives at this center of learning for children?” Elliot threw up his hands. “Oh yes, that’s great. That’s normal!”

And he felt unexpectedly and wrenchingly sad: for the sunny boy he’d met his first day in a magic land, the boy who’d been sick the first time he’d killed someone. Now Luke wasn’t even looking at the dead man. Luke had not even flinched. Elliot wondered what this magic land would make them all into, in the end.

He’d forgotten that Luke’s family was here, and that for other people, when you were in trouble, family came to help.

“Nothing. Sorry, Luke’s dad.” Mr Sunborn sat down on the step beside Elliot. He was way too big for the step. Elliot was shunted off to one corner. Sunborns took up all the room at all times. “Michael,” suggested Luke’s dad. “Or Mike.” Elliot considered this. “Nope. Sorry, Luke’s dad. I don’t think I can do it.”

“There isn’t any kind of relationship that’s all problem-free delightful unicorns. You can’t have a relationship without issues and prejudices. The way to be equals is if both people agree to be equals, and treat themselves and each other as equals, despite all that.”

But Elliot didn’t want love to be like that. He loved Serene, and he did not want to catch her in his arms if she stumbled. He wanted to help her to her feet.

He’d already seen someone die yesterday. He’d seen people killed before, and he could bear it. But he did not want to be made into an audience, as if this were a game. He did not approve of anything that was happening, and he would not accept that it was necessary.

He was sure his mother had a story: that there was more to why she had left, why she had come back here, why she had chosen the job she had, why she thought the way she did about the world. He was not going to hear it, though. They were not going to have the bond of shared stories and joined lives. She did not care to listen.

“Wait, Cadet Schafer!” Elliot turned and waited: Commander Woodsinger looked him over, then looked as if she wanted to say something. Her mouth formed a few different, undecided shapes. Eventually, she said: “You always forget to salute.” Elliot hesitated. Then he walked quickly back to her, leaned down, and kissed her on the cheek. “CADET SCHAFER!” “It’s okay,” said Elliot. “You don’t have to tell me that you like me.” He took a step back, saluted, and left, taking the tower steps two at a time.

She didn’t have to tell him, because he could tell. That was what it meant, when people came to find you, when they cared enough to sacrifice for you, when they supported you, when they came back. He could tell when someone cared. And he could tell when someone didn’t.

“You have to promise not to tell Luke,” said Elliot. “I will be the soul of discussion,” Louise promised, her finger to her lips. “Or maybe I mean a different word!”

Eventually, you have to stop waiting for people. If they care about you, they’ll find you when they can: they will show you. And if they don’t . . . after a certain amount of time and effort, isn’t it wasted energy? All light burns out. Best put yours where people will appreciate it and be helped by it, and make it last longer.”

Serene asked sympathetically. “I know you listen to my and Luke’s romantic troubles, and I would be hap—” “About that, I don’t want to listen to those, please stop.”