Page 5 of Fog of War (Over the Moon)

Gabbie

I sacrificed my sweater and adventure pants to the Muru with great solemnity...

By letting a gaggle of venandi paint strokes of sticky gel all over me and then having a powder fight with Leopha in the middle of a pit that looked like ground zero for a paintball bomb.

I attacked her with oranges, blacks, and yellows, and she came at me with pinks and purples and greens.

It was pandemonium, and by the end we smeared all our colors together in a giggling mess in the middle of the pit, barely able to contain our laughter as we slipped in the wet, pasty grass.

When we crawled our way up the embankment, the sun was setting and the mood had shifted.

Growls and rattles replaced the laughter and banter of the day.

Every venandi glowed with powder now, long skeletal brushstrokes across their ribs, necks, limbs, and faces.

Their mandibles vibrated, and the powder would bloom around them, perfumed with masculine scents that reminded me of campfires and wheat.

A symbol of convergence, maybe.

They stalked the alleys and observed passersby like hunters.

Predators. All vying to be the ultimate winner, to gain territory through their champions.

Fires crackled and the tinkle and snap of coins, totems, and flags died with the wind.

A thick fog tinged pink with the last rays of the sun crept along the ground and swallowed us all to our knees. Well, me to my thighs.

The air was electric as everyone waited. I felt like a spirit walking among grim reapers.

Leopha pointed to the mountain range along the edge of the valley where the sun was setting in an already blackened sky. Like an eclipse, its edges warbled and sputtered.

"Watch."

It sank behind the mountain.

Everyone held their breath, faces painted with fangs and skulls and human eyes upturned to the coming darkness.

Then columns of neon pink light lanced the sky, breaking apart into a spectrum of color as if the crystal veins of the mountains were a thousand prisms. Someone in the crowd ululated, and then an eruption of voices and fists exploded into the air.

The deafening roar vibrated through my chest and into my teeth.

I clapped my hands over my ears but laughed with exhilaration.

Leopha raised her face to the sky, jumping up and down like she was in a mosh pit, her palms clamped on my shoulders with excitement.

A horn rolled through the cacophony and every face snapped towards the sound.

"Come on! We gotta get there fast!" Leopha insisted, pulling me behind her. We took off running down a narrow alley riddled with tent stakes in the Ignarian quadrant. Leopha got frustrated and picked me up like I was a sack of flour.

"Hey!" I yelled, winded.

"Too slow!"

Then she barreled out into an open field with more than a hundred other venandi, right at the front of the pack.

She looked around, then jostled me sideways when she found what she was running for.

Though I couldn't see anything but the grass and her heels as she ran, the glow of a massive holoscreen hovered in the air above us, illuminating the metallic sheen of the golden grass.

"MURU GRACE YOUUUUU." A deep voice boomed across the valley like a Superbowl commentator.

He said more, but half of it echoed too much for me to hear.

And then I spun in the air and was on my feet, my head struggling to keep up, nails clinging to Leopha's fringe to keep the world upright.

Her breathless smile was a thousand watts as she handed me a pot of powder.

"I don't know which color that is, but it'll have to do!" she said, ushering me forward.

Then I finally looked forward.

Twelve venandi stood in groups of threes in the field as the grass brushed their silent, still shadows.

Their eyes pierced the darkness as we got closer, ignoring the fog as it bathed the field.

Tall black stands were rising out of the fog in silent intervals like monolithic tombstones at their backs.

And we marched towards them with enough excitement in Leopha's chittering mouth parts that I wasn't nervous.

In fact, I felt like I was the newest recruit in a cult. Unquestioning. Breathless. Expecting something that would alter my life on a fundamental level.

We approached in silence among a mixed group of venandi, but only the first twelve of us were admitted, the rest waved back by guards in black armor with glowing white stripes along their limbs.

As long as I didn't look back at the crowd of hundreds of silent venandi, I could imagine that we were alone with the champions, thousands of years ago.

War gods preparing the site of a clan war before the start of battle.

They were fearsome, stalwart, and so... beautiful.

They wore simple loin cloths and a pair of sleeves that wrapped around their shoulders and tied at the waist, exposing their plated chests and thighs.

They looked like Mongolian wrestlers in a way.

Powerful. Committed. So wholly inhuman that a tremor of hesitation made my knees weak. I was a lamb and they were wolves.

We started in a line at one group of three, and I immediately caught onto the ceremony.

Each person with a pot of powder was dabbing it onto the champions for luck.

Some left more or less powder, or chose different places to paint different symbols.

They ran their knuckles and fingers across bare, athletic skin and I swallowed hard.

Each person chose only one of the three to paint, so I did the same.

The first trio bowed their heads as I approached, something they hadn't done with the other venandi. I pushed my headdress aside so I could see more clearly and smiled. All three champions had lime green eyes that followed me even as others painted their skin. I chose the one in the middle and dabbed my fingers in my pot of powder as Leopha sprinkled her purple powder over the female champion’s head like fairy dust and moved on.

"The Tetradi clan welcomes you, anima vira. Do you choose me?" he asked. He was emerald green by the light of the mountain's prismatic aura.

I blinked, pushing my glasses up with the back of my hand so I wouldn't dirty them. "Oh, um. Yes."

He smirked, letting his mandibles chitter like a rattlesnake. "The Muru grace us."

"Where would you like my paint?" I asked, holding up my glowing pink fingers for him to see.

His grew brighter, a sign that a venandi was emotional or extremely focused.

Either way, I didn't like it and wanted to get the job done. Such unwavering focus made me nervous. Was I “cute” or stupid? Was I insulting him or doing something wrong? I didn’t want to be humored.

I wanted someone to tell me why he was looking at me like that.

"Bless my groin plates with your fertility, anima vira.”

I bit my lip. No one else had painted a groin plate. I looked down the row of champions as people moved on from painting the Tetradi, a knot building in my chest.

What a presumptuous jer–

"You are here as a guest of Satoris, correct?

" he asked, eyes caressing my arms and hands, my neck.

His chest vibrated and the others standing with him looked up with confusion.

It felt like he was touching me, and it freaked me out.

I'd never heard a venandi make a noise like that, and out here in the dark on a battlefield it just..

. made my hair stand straight up. I resisted the urge to shrink away and dabbed my fingers against the top of his groin plate, as far north of the border as possible.

"Good luck," I hiccupped, turning away. Leopha caught my arm before I could march right out of the field, and I instantly felt safer with my arm tucked into her waist.

"Hey, I know you technically get to choose whoever, but Leonide could use some Muru luck," she whispered, nodding to the next group.

The Satoris trio looked no less intimidating than the Tetradi, but my shoulders relaxed at the sight of Leonide's flustered mandibles.

He kept his eyes from straying towards the other champions, but flexed his fists to control the urge.

I staunchly shoved the Tetradi jerk out of my thoughts and smiled at him.

"You're going to do great," I told him. He huffed a little smile but bowed his head with more deference than in the daylight.

"The Muru grace us," he murmured, stealing a glance at a tall, proud woman in the last clan to his left.

He squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled slowly, steadying himself.

I took a hefty lump of powder from my pot and drew a heart on his chest. It was a common symbol in the union now, so he knew it was a sign of love.

Then I filled it in with pink for good measure.

He sighed a little easier. "Thank you, Gabbie. "

"This is Augora and Gavenidus," Leopha said, introducing me to the other Satoris champions. They both nodded their heads.

"The Muru grace us," Augora greeted. She was severe but not abrasive in her tone. Simply far away and distracted.

"Thank you, anima vira," Gavenidus said. He sounded younger than the other two, his gold coloring a little brighter.

"What does that mean?" I asked, dabbing my fingers again.

"A merchant said that to me too." I decided they should all have hearts so I could tell they were my team.

I swiped one onto Augora's chest after only a moment's hesitation, remembering that venandi women didn't have breasts like human women and that it was okay for me to touch her there just then.

"Oh, um..." From the way his mandibles tightened to his face, I suspected he was blushing.

"It's an honorable title for... for being our good luck charm," Gavenidus explained.

He leaned in, not quite as tall as the others.

"You're the only human that's ever come to a Festival of Souls.

Thanks for being on our team, by the way. "

I blinked at him as he stood up straight again, then drew the last heart on his chest. "You're very welcome. I'm honored to be here."

Augora glanced at Gavenidus with a huff of her slitted nostrils. "It means 'lover's soul'. It's how we address the Muru when we pray."

I nearly dropped my pot. "Oh. Oh boy."

"We know you're not a Muru. But here?" Augora looked up at the sky with bright eyes. "It feels like maybe you could be."

I hugged my pot to my chest. The extra pink that dusted my front was nothing compared to the glowing colors I was already covered in.

My gut reaction was to deny being a Muru, but these champions were about to jump into a harrowing battle that would decide the rest of their lives.

How could I deny them as much luck as I could possibly give them?

If it made Gavenidus feel more confident, then he could call me whatever he wanted.

I waved him down as I took off my headdress (it was heavy anyway) and painted my lips. He bent for me, and I planted a lip print on his upper cheek. His mandibles fluttered in shock, and Augora had to stop him before he slapped his palm over the mark and smeared it.

"Thank you, anima vira,” he breathed.

Leopha slid powder over one of her brother's spires and they butted heads with affection.

"You got this," she told him with sincerity. None of her brattish attitude. They murmured to each other, heads pressed together in a private moment. I had to choose whether to move to the next or wait awkwardly, so I did the former with a nod to Augora.

The next trio were red. Ignarians, for sure. Their coloring was more uniform than any other clan, all the same shade of bloody brawler. Two saw me approaching and bowed their heads, but the last was slow to turn. When they did, their eyes landed on me, and a surprised curse left their lips.

"Shit! No! Idiot," they whisper yelled at themselves. "I mean, the Muru grace us."

Well, choosing my favorite Ignarian was easy.

The other two nudged elbows and said in impossibly deep, highly amused twin voices. Unlike Leopha and Leonide, they were identical. "The Muru grace us."

I smirked and gave a little wave of my glowing pink hand. "Hi."

"Faeste means well, anima vira." One of the twin juggernauts said.

"I apologize. I didn't expect you to be, ah..." They trailed off, clearing their throat. When they looked over my shoulder back at the Satoris clan, I chanced a look too. Gavenidus turned away, accepting the powder of another clanmate and I immediately understood.

So I was a Muru, huh?

"Gavenidus is really kind," I said.

Faeste perked up. "Oh?"

"Have you met before?"

They clicked their mandibles, then thought I might not understand and shook their head like a human for good measure. It was obvious that they'd never seen one in person before, but had maybe studied us in school.

I motioned them down. "Do you like him? Don't be shy."

Faeste swallowed hard enough for me to hear, and when they spoke, their voice was a dry rasp. "Yes."

I painted some powder on my mouth again and left a kiss on Faeste's cheek. They stared at me in awe.

"What was that?"

"Humans sometimes give soldiers a kiss mark for good luck going off to war," I told them with a nod towards Gavenidus's cheek. I couldn't see it in the dark, but venandi had better eyesight than me. "Now you both match."

While Faeste stared slack-jawed at Gavenidus, their clanmates grinned and bowed their heads.

I waved goodbye, feeling mischievous and maybe a little powerful, like a spooky rave Cupid.

Perhaps I needed to make that my back-up costume for future Halloweens.

With a smile and a chuckle lodged in my throat, I made my way to the last clan.