Tracker: Notebook 2025

February 2025

2/16/25

Ahima

Kharshtha Ahima-kiyoni remembered the first time he'd met Irya several clans gatherings ago in the midautumn before he turned ten. At the time, he'd been both amused and befuddled at Irya's propensity to run around, chatter in his friendly way at kids until they'd become his friends before they really knew how it happened, and despite all his being underfoot in such a crowd, never quite getting hurt.

Of course, that particular faculty of his suddenly made sense.

Ahima vaguely recalled having seen it before once, Irya's arm waving right through a supposedly solid object while he stretched dangerously far overhead for a book on one of his built-in shelves.

"Convenient," Ahima said dryly.

Irya glanced down with a curious expression but kept waving his arm through the bottom of the shelf until he caught on the book he wanted and pulled it through the shelf too.

"Can you make anything like that, so it goes through things?"

"Kind of." Irya tossed the book down on the bed and flopped backward against the pillow. "It's not really making it go through things exactly."

Ahima studied Irya for a long minute, trying to imagine where Irya's contract marks were hidden. He'd never noticed them, though Ahima was fairly certain Irya knew where Ahima's were. "So what is it then?"

Irya frowned. His fingers fiddled with the book a moment, then he sighed, sat up, and draped himself over Ahima's back.

Even though they'd only known each other four years, Ahima knew that Irya actually wasn't much of a cuddler, so he presumed that this wasn't something Irya liked to talk about–or would want him sharing with anyone else.

"It's like your name," Irya said after a moment. "This is the near heaven, but everyone knows there are others."

And wasn't that a startling thought. "You can make things pass through other heavens?"

"Instead of this one. Or this one too, but"–Irya blew out a sigh–"they have to pass through some kind of heaven."

Ahima chewed on that for a long moment. He wasn't sure exactly what about it bothered Irya. "Your head is heavy," he finally said.

"Sorry," Irya answered. And didn't move. At all.

Ahima sighed. "My parents want me to be the next bridge builder of our band."

Ahima was thirteen years old. By all rights, he was far too young to even be thinking about a lifelong sworn duty or whether he was at all well suited for it. But there had never been any question his parents were thinking about it from almost the moment Ahima was born.