“Listen, I remember asking you all to come up with a name, but it wasn’t that big of a deal, was it?” I asked.
Kelser shrugged. “The elders thought it was a great honor, and we’ve been struggling to come up with something for so long that it kinda just became a big deal.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You know how when you’re really, really annoyed by something, something you can’t quite figure out, and so it starts taking over your head. You think about it all the time. Worry about this answer or that answer, until it becomes this great big deal to you and all involved. Yeah, that’s what happened,” he said.
I rubbed my temple. “That makes no sense.” I sighed. “But whatever. I don’t care. But the name! How did you come up with something like that?”
“What do you mean?” he said. “Oh, you mean why is it so simple? Yeah, we kept fighting over all of the fancy names. Stuff about souls or stars or time or whatever. The Jora kept pushing for it, but most people thought it was a bit much. Oh, and don’t get me started on my tribe. They kept wanting to make the name some sort of praise to you. The Great Teacher’s Heavenly Throne, somebody actually proposed that! And by somebody, I mean my grandfather. And by propose, I mean the whole tribe decided to push for it!”
I cringed. Yeah. Thank god for Kelser and his moderating influence. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh, you’re wondering why we still kept your name in it? Well, because of how close our tribe is to you, our opinion was the most important. At least, that’s what the other tribes seemed to think. And since my tribe was obsessed with naming the city after you, everybody had to agree. Actually, I think most of them would have wanted to name it after you anyway, but the Roja were definitely the most obsessed,” said Kelser.
“Okay, well, I’m flattered but there was really no need to name the city after me. Naming it after the natural landscape would’ve been a better idea. It’s right on the River Teg, and represents the unity of all of the tribes of the double river basin. You could have focused on that stuff instead of my name,” I said, “but that isn’t what I’m talking about either!”
Kelser frowned.
I sighed. I held my head in my hands and started massaging my temples. It was the day after the festival, and most of the tribesmen were hungover, still asleep, or drowsy. Kelser and I had fared the best and were going to the storage hut to bring back some food for everybody else. Dawn had just broken. A bunch of thoughts were filling my head, and there was a lot of other stuff I had to manage right now too.
The festival had gone fairly smoothly after the name was announced. I’d tried to humbly decline the name, but Kelser subtly hinted about how hard they’d argued to arrive at the name, so I’d decided to talk to him about it later instead.
After the name, I’d announced that a year was 365 days long, based on my count, and that we would be making plans based on that number in the future. After that, some of the storytellers had come to tell stories about bygone eras, great heroes and hunters. My favorite had been a storyteller from the Jenin tribe who told a story about a short trickster who ‘stole a great bird’s beak to help him hunt with his short arms,’ which was how the humans learned how to make spears. That sort of story reminded me of folktales from my old world, like the way Anansi the trickster spider stole stories from a god, which was how humans came to possess stories.
Musicians and singers came out next, leading people through popular chants. Folk music, with its easy repeatability and cheerful manner, was a lot of fun to sing along to. And by letting people thump their feet or cheer at different points, the musicians and singers helped get everyone involved, which was amazing.
And we’d rounded out the night with the new artifacts that I had put on an altar in the middle of the pit. First was the raw, uncut diamond, whose splendor was only truly appreciated once I used fire and light magic to show it off to the humans. Second, was a stone tablet with the codified alphabet of the language of the people of the double river basin. I’d been thinking about asking them to give the language a name too, but after hearing what they’d come up with for the city, I figured it might be better to let a name evolve naturally over time instead.
And finally, there was…
“You know, if you’d just told me about the artifacts before the festival, I could’ve told you about the name and you might’ve been able to change it,” said Kelser, with a shrug. “You have nobody to blame but yourself. Maybe next time you’ll trust me a little more!”
I chuckled. “I trusted you to come up with a good name for the city didn’t I? Look where that got me. Anyways, it wasn’t that much of a surprise, was it?”
“Are you kidding me?” said Kelser. “I still don’t know what that thing is!”
“I told you, it’s a heart,” I said.
“But it’s made out of those, those things,” said Kelser, trying to search for a word, “you know. The shiny red things on those powerful monsters’ foreheads. Those red stars!”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “Is that a problem?”
“Yes, of course it’s a problem!” said Kelser. “For starters, why was it so accurate? It looked just like the heart of a human sized monster!”
“No, it looks like a human heart,” I said.
Kelser winced. “How do you know human hearts so well. I swear a few people fainted because of how scary that thing looks. I clutched my own chest. Especially because it beats in rhythm!”
“In rhythm?” I said.
“To my heart!” he said. “It beats in rhythm to my heart! It goes thump when my heart goes thump! I asked everybody else too, and they said the same thing.”
“I doubt that’s true,” I said. “How could every humans heart be beating in sync? You’re imagining things.”
“And it glows!” he said.
“Isn’t that a good thing? Now you’ll never lose it!” I said.
“It’s a terrible thing! It’s frightening! It looks like a human heart, beats with our own heartbeats, and glows like the eyes of a predator hiding in the bushes. Kids are going to be having nightmares about that thing for generations!” he said.
I shrugged. “Can’t be helped, I’m afraid. I had a bunch of those red gemstones saved up, and I wanted to do something with it. They were useless for magic, didn’t react to anything chemically, and weren’t even useful as raw materials for tools or anything. I could’ve used them in a necklace or something, but figured a simple sculpture would be cool. Especially one that would help remind people about anatomy. A symbol for public health and for the poetic importance of heart and compassion! Makes for a brilliant symbolic artifact, in my opinion.”
Kelser wasn’t convinced, but just like with the name, now that it had been announced and unveiled in front of everybody, there was no going back on it. The three artifacts will be a mainstay for summer solstice ceremonies for generations to come!
“But you still haven’t explained it,” I said.
“Explained what?” he said.
“The name!” I said. “How did you come up with a name like that?”
“I told you, it was a process and everybody had their opinions and we wanted to name it after you so—” he said.
“No, I mean the other part of the name. New. Why is it called New Cas City?” I asked.
Kelser frowned. “I thought that would be obvious.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “For it to be the new Cas City, there would have to be an old Cas City, but there is none! Your people don’t even have cities to begin with!” I said.
Kelser’s frown deepened. “… I don’t understand. What is so confusing about describing it as new?”
Now it was my turn to frown. We’d arrived at the food storage and started piling up some food. In the distance, the camps were coming back to life, as the tribesmen groggily woke up. The group of tents and campfires, around which the humans spent all their time while they were at Bek Tepe, couldn’t be described as a city. It wasn’t even really a village, since nobody actually lived here. And yet, they’d come up with a word for a city? No, that was my translation magic at work, I figured. Their must have been a word for a large, fixed settlement in their language, and that word got translated into ‘city’ in English.
Hang on. “What does new mean?” I asked.
“New? It means something that isn’t old. But why do you ask?” he said.
“Because it’s in the name, isn’t it?” I said.
“No, it isn’t,” he said.
“It isn’t?” I said.
“It’s not new Cas City, it’s New Cas City,” he said. “If it was new Cas City, we’d need an old Cas City first… oh, I see why you were asking that before.”
“Right, so this was my translation magic messing things up again,” I said. I had Kelser say the name again in his language with my translation magic turned off, and realized I’d never heard the word that was being translated as ‘new’ before. “What does it mean?”
“It’s kind of hard to describe,” he said. “You know how when the flowers wilt and lose their petals, they leave behind fruits for us to eat. Or how after a fire ravages the forest, new plants will sprout up from beneath the ashes. This word is about that. About a future that sprouts from adversity, revitalized through its struggles, and ready to face what is to come.”
I frowned. I had a hunch some of the words that had been translated there weren’t completely accurate either, but I got the gist of it. “Well, if that’s what it means,” I said as we returned to the now bustling encampment. “Then I think it might be all right after all.”
Drop a heart!