Swallowed up by the sea. [Closed]

[Schottia]

Clonne St. Cellar Bar, New Belfast, Schottia

Kenny Muir screwed up his face as he skidded through the centimetre of piss, which had collected on the floor tiles of the pub toilet. Sat under each urinal was a plastic basin collecting drips falling from the u-bend, but it did little to ward off drunken mishaps. Kenny looked down at his canvas shoes, lifting his feet one at a time to inspect the sole for any impromptu holes that may have developed. For a place like this it really needed to get its standards sorted. And, the place wasn't exactly like the Handon Quayside. But what the fuck could you do? Hold a bloody gun at someone’s head and make them piss straight? He was trying not to breath in too deeply, the combination of disinfectant, urinal cakes, and beery piss, was enough to put you off your drink. Was it fuck, it would take more than that to put him off his, an army couldn't drag him away from his next pint.

It was like this every Friday night at the Clonne St. Cellars, drink after drink after drink after fucking drink. It was like a church for the New Belfast artists. You'd start off at five thirty, go to the student union for one, then hop between the various exhibition openings that night, cashing in on the complimentary booze. By the time they all packed into Cellars at ten, everyone was well on their way. If this was going to church, then their religion was one of self-destruction. But if Kenny had learned one thing in his time at art college, it was that what mattered was who you knew, who you were friends with, who could get you the next show. Looking round the room he realised that half of the people here, he didn't even know what their practice was, what art they made. It was like the Emperor's fucking cloths, it didn't matter a toss! He didn't even know what his own practice was for that matter, and since enrolling on the MFA Programme, that had now become a problem.

He was just so fucking jaded by the whole thing but. It's just like... It's just like why make anything at all? Just to add to the pile of garbage the art world churns out on a daily basis. Kenny just wanted something to amaze him, to come out of nowhere and slap him in the face, not like the shows he had seen tonight. He didn't even care what it was, but he wanted to be blown away by something; something to just come up and slap him in the face. He wanted to go to an exhibition and be like... "What the Fuck!" Actually proper dumbfounded. 'Dumfoonert' as his dad you say.

'Right it's your shot bell-end.' His friend Steve Logan drunkenly thrust a pool cue into his hand as he approached the table.

Kenny and his friends from the Post-Grad Programme had taken over the booth immediately surrounding the pool table in the drab, dingy, underground bar. The smoking ban had not been kind to this place as the smell of tobacco smoke had been replaced by sweat, and backed-up drains. Steve and Kenny were both a similar demographic. Both local boys, both twenty-six, both back at art college because they didn't know what the fuck else to do with themselves. Joining them at the table were a few younger students, most of them international, most of them female; the normal New Belfast Institute of Art clientele.

It was the last couple of weeks of the summer holidays. Summer holidays! What a joke that he even dared to call it that. A 26-year-old having a summer holiday for fucksake. University took six weeks off in Schottia, starting up again on the first of July. Then there would be a new intake, a troop of new students, waiting to have their dreams crushed. Hah! Sounds about right. One of the things Kenny genuinely did like about the college was the fact that all the different years and programmes shared the same open studio spaces; that was where he had made many of his good friends.

'Okay, what colour are we oan?' Asked Kenny holding the cue in one hand so he could gulp down beer from his pint glass. He genuinely couldn't remember.

'Yelley.' Said Steve, before going back to a conversation he was having with one of the girls.

The game off pool was just a distraction now. There was no point in it, not at all. Not one point. Kenny lined up his shot, sinking another ball, leaving himself on the black. The other pair they were taking on still had six balls left on the table. What the fuck? Who was he even playing? Why couldn’t he remember? Standing up, the sloshing feeling in his stomach gave him an idea of why that might be.

Alcohol, the over consumption of it, the over consumption of alcohol.

He was going to have to be careful here, he had the football tomorrow at three and there would be lunch and pints before that too. Christ! He had even told people that he might not drink tonight, what a joke!

He was a joke.

The College had a woman's team who competed in the Super-League. No' a bad team by the way, and it was a good league to watch. However he would have to watch his step, he was crap with a hangover, and he would struggle to get out of bed even for noon.

This was his last pint, he said to himself as he walked round the table, trying to line up the shot, checking that he wouldn't go 'in-off.' This one then home. He could be at the flat by one, couple of glasses of water then bed by half past.

When the Whaling ships had left New Belfast, it had lost an industry and gained an addiction. The sixties had seen huge swaths of the city lose their jobs, and given new ones. This had not prevented the social decline however. People couldn't be forced to go from sailor to classroom assistant over night, from harbour master to barman. People's lives were ripped apart a trodden into the floor. This whole intergenerational disenfranchisement, bread colonies of drinkers, men and women of all ages who would rather sit in the pub than go to their awful jobs that they couldn't get their heads around. Their sad joke jobs, invented to make them feel useful. But it didnae. It made them feel shite.

The irony of all this was that it was this degeneration of the city's sole, which spawned its gentrification. The spaces down by the harbour, left empty for decades were eventually inhabited by artists as studio space and galleries. The cheap house prices and commercial space rental attracted the generally lower income arts community. All this lead to the art college, the NBIA, becoming a hive of creativity, and one of the most progressive institutions in the region. Many of Schottia's greatest artists had passed through those doors, and despite it's proximity to the University of Handon, it regularly attracted more applicants.

Kenny was different somehow, he was the son of a whaler, the grandson of a whale and the great-grandson of a whaler. Embodied in him was the inner tension in the city, the old and the new. The bar itself was in fact a microcosm of this; students at one table, retired whalers at the next. Expensive foreign beers on tap, the walls adorned with whaling and sailing regalia. It was enough to tear any young person in half, how could Kenny ever hope to survive the tumultuous chaos of this duality. A local boy, with a dad struggling to hold down Government Job Scheme work, mother working part time in a supermarket, a football fan, trying to survive in a internationalised and entirely fluxive world like an art community. If the city could survive somehow, then surely he could survive.

Kenny threw the cue down on the table after potting the black... no one cared, least of all him. Steve was sitting at a table drunkenly flirting with one of the girls, and no one else was even holding a cue. Kenny had triumphed, but over whom he did not know, and no one gave a flying fuck.

[Nalaya]

Student Accomodations
New Belfast, Schottia

The mountains were her home. Great, jagged peaks that pierced the sky itself in a joining of heaven and earth had been the core of her childhood. She played among the stones and streams, chasing the snowbirds of Shiimti among the alpine trees that grew in the monastery's untouched valley and watching with awe the few deer that made their homes near the cluster of aged buildings that was Annu, her home town. The skies were a pristine, sapphire blue save for the times when great storms roiled in without a moment's notice, plunging the world into the darkness of howling winds and heavy snows. At night when the storms were no more, a billion billion stars shone down with crystalline clarity among the swirling purples and blues of the Milky Way galaxy's arms. Even as a child, it had taken her breath away.

Then War came to Annu.

Kasadu in her youth had helped construct the mandalas of colored sand that the Igigi made, practically a grain at a time. It was an exercise in patience and attentiveness to detail. Every day, at sunset, the sand would be swept away and obliterate the beauty of her constructions. It was an exercise in fragility and release. If the sand was life and beautiful things, War was the unforgiving broom. She had watched as her world scattered and upended itself. Mere survival became an almost impossible struggle. All through it, she kept to the lessons of the Igigi. Be like water. All things beneath sun and moon change. A thing that is fleeting loses no meaning by its brevity. Cling to the center and the tranquility oneness brings... She had earned her name in those years where Nekelmu walked the world.

Kasadu. She-Who-Overcomes-the-Death-of-Light. It was a good name.

When all was said and done, she had buried her ashes and departed the mountains with glossy eyes and an unequaled ache in her heart. It was as if part of her had been torn away for a very long time, but as she had learned, nothing was forever. Her sense of adventure flourished in Sevan, as did the passion that fueled her chase to capture the ephemeral. Where once she had coaxed grains of sand into interconnected and shifting patterns, now her tools were many. Charcoal against paper, paint against canvas, stain against glass, hands against clay. It was freeing. She had not chosen a medium yet that she favored above all others, as each spoke to her different moods and memories. She tried to model what had been described to her as a child. Not trees, but Tree. Not mountains, but Mountain. The perfect conceptions, the idea that Creation used to sculpt these things into their place amidst the ebb and flow of Life.

Or at least, that was the dream. Perfection was an impossible goal, one that left her standing in the middle of her studio with her lower lip trapped between her teeth in ponderous and frustrated thought. It also didn't pay the rent.

Kasadu had taken it to heart when her roommate had said, "You need to get out more." Maybe Schottia was getting out a little too much, but it was decided. Again the heartsickness came with its close brother, Fear, but this time she knew with far more certainty that she could survive in a world she did not know.

Kasadu was a small figure among the flow of traffic to and from her destination in the halls, dressed in the strange way of her people: bandage-like wrappings covering her whole body beneath normal street clothes—worn and weathered clothes complete with a patch here or there at an elbow or a knee—and she was hooded and shrouded by dark cloth, leaving her face only a suggestion amidst shadow. They were her protection, her fortress. Beneath it all of that was fair, fair skin and light eyes that matched no other people of Nalaya. Her clothing had been crammed into one bag. Brushes, pencils, and boxes of charcoal butted up against a hairbrush, a toothbrush, and a wrapped bar of soap in the other bag. There was very little to her name at this point in time. Most of her possessions were given away in exchange for favors so that she could come to this place and her cash all went to the cost of travel. Uprooting a tree was not an easy task nor a painless one for the tree, she had learned. At least the trains were free, clean, and simple to use. Her grasp of English was still far less fluent than she wanted it to be.

The building here was so new, which meant it was nicer than she had expected. There were fewer helpings of 'character' from previous residents. Yes, one became accustomed to the strange creaks of the floor and the unusual smells that emanated from certain areas of the floor or walls and the little ants marching across the countertop as they soldiered ahead in their quest for sugar cubes dropped a generation ago. That did not mean she liked becoming accustomed to it. She had simply taken it in stride, because after having nothing it was foolish to complain about having anything. Here? She was beginning to realize that she had more at her fingertips here than she could have found in Nalaya. Her homeland and its mountains were beautiful, but they were not everything. Kasadu set her bags down and managed to locate the key to the door in one of her many pockets. Pockets were wonderful things, and so she had added many to the inside of her canvas, military surplus field jacket. Unfortunately, that meant finding things could be a struggle.

This whole city felt...disjointed. That was the only way she could think of it. The divide was as evident as the tensions between ethnicities in her home. There was opportunity and vibrancy here, but it lived alongside a quiet and despairing desperation. It was a study of contrasts: the youth who came from the university, the aged who came from the sea, and the gaps between them. Like black and white, moon and sun, day and night.

She stepped into what would be her room and smiled as she set her bags down on the bed. There was a window that looked out towards the ocean. Kasadu did not grow up on the verge of such a powerful force of nature, but she fell in love with it quickly. Even cold and rocky shores were worth strolling along, hunting for shells and sand-dollars alongside that ever elusive inspiration. This was a world away from her home, as alien as the surface of the moon. Only time would tell if it was more hospitable.

Her phone buzzed with an alarm. It was the single piece of high technology that she owned, some Shalumite smartphone that had probably come to the salesman by way of the grey market. She checked it. Time to go already. Well, she could savor her new place later. There were inductions and introductions to be had. She tucked the phone away and headed out, well aware that there would be an uncomfortable number of eyes on her for her foreign mode of dress. Even in Nalaya, her people often drew attention. Here? She was like an alien.

Still, it was now home.

[Schottia]

Gordon Street, Kirk Preston, New Belfast

Kenny reached over to his bedside table and picked up a glass of water, the glass that permanently sat there. It was the main use of the table, to hold a glass of water in case he had a hangover.

It was Monday morning though, and he wasn't too bad. Just a couple of pints last night at the pub down the road, he had gone home before his Dad anyway. He sat up in bed and looked out into the back garden; judging by the way the sun wasn't fully up it was maybe only six, quarter past. It reminded him of the years between his Masters and finishing up his Undergrad, when he had done a couple of shifts with the fruit and veg van. This is about the time he would have been finishing, crawling back intae his bed as his Mum and Dad were getting up. Fuckin' life that had been! Going tae work pissed as a fart at two in the morning, sorting produce into boxes and hoping you didnae fa' asleep on the wey hame.

The thought of that job still gave him anxiety attacks if he let it, but that was then and this was now. He sometimes wondered if he went back to Art College just to escape that, just to put-off the fate, which awaited him at the end of the tunnel. A fuckin' joke job. A joke of a job. Like what his dad had, like what his big brother had. How dare the fucking council give them jobs; right tae withhold yer ain labour ma erse! What happened to the right to stew in your own fucking juices, to do nothing, to starve if it came to that! Maybe he would take his life into his own hands... Pilfer a fuckin' ship from the harbour and go out and catch a whale; a fuckin' massive fucker of a whale. Really beautiful, decades old, skin shimmering in the sun. He'd harpoon it with his bare hands in an epic battle between man and beast. The whole city would be cheering as hauled the fucker back into port. The fists whale caught in the city in fifty years. There'd be tears in his faither's een. The big tear. But Kenny wouldn’t stop there, he would take the ship round to Handon harbour, and he would drag the thing off the deck. He would haul it all the way through the streets, up the Red Road, to the steps of the old town hall. There he would take a big bloody chunk of it and slam it down on Amy Connell's desk. Maybe she would be so impressed she would propose to him there and then. The brave whaler who single headedly won the heart of the princess. Standing there, fore arms caked in blood and pus. A hero splattered with salt water and whale blubber.

When he got down stairs his Mum was already busy in the kitchen, she had her work clothes on. The poor old woman must have had another seven o'clock start, at her age, what a joke.

'Gootten morgen Kenneth. Haset doo goot gashlafen.' His Mum had been born in the town of Stalker Bay on the North Island, not far from Soessch. She spoke Scots-Deutsch, which was a bastardisation of the original Vyrsarn German, which was spoken on island. It wasn't really much used by anyone these days, it was either English, Scots, or High German. However his Mum was the right side of sixty to have been brought up with it.

'Aye not so bad.' Kenny answered absent mindedly, he understood his mother, but rarely answered her in the language.

'Shall I make enough porridge for ye an'aa?' she switched back to a Scots- English mix.

'Eh yeah, ah'll huve a bowl.' Kenny answered as he now sat flicking through the news articles on his phone. 'Is Dad up yet?' He asked without looking up at his mother fussing around the small, dimly lit kitchen.

'He'll be down the now.' She answered, now in a rush since she had to make porridge for her son too. 'Ah can hear him up and aboot. Listen, darlin, can I leave the dishes for you, I'm in a bit of a rush this morning?'

'Yeah, yeah...' Answered Kenny, but he wasn't listening. 'Eh... actually no. I've got to be at the Uni for eight this morning. I've got an induction tour and stuff.'

'Eh?' It was the first his poor mother had heard of this, he told the woman nothing about his life. It wasn't out of badness, he just didn't think she would care.

'Aye, just showing folk aboot.' He put the phone down on the plastic table cover and accepted a cup of strong instant coffee from his mother. 'They give you fifty pound for doing it, so...'

'Okay, well that's good.' His mother seemed encouraged by the fact that her son might be doing something which resembled normal work. Maybe the days of him parasitically sponging off them while in pursuit of a non-vocational area of study were about to be over. 'So is there a chance of a job out of it?'

'No chance, no. Its just a bit of beer money.' He replied in a way that shattered the small amount of hope in his mother's heart. Beer money too; he couldn't just have said money, he had to downgrade it even further.

'Ha!' Came the cynical sound of his fathers voice from the doorway. 'The price of beer these days, ye'll need mair than that.' The man had only been in their company for a few seconds and the first words that came out of his miserable mouth were bitterness. Poor old Mrs Muir. A disaffected son, and a cynical husband. Kenny had often though that he could come home some day and find the old girl hanging from the staircase, and it would be their fault, the pair of miserable cunts.

Kenny's father already had his high-vis vest on as he went out the back door for a smoke. A sarcastic comment, a smoke, his normal start to the day. The man had already had two heart attacks, and it was no wonder. The way the government had treated him, the joke jobs he had had to endure. Having to live in a town full of artist like Kenny who the man couldn't relate to. It was enough to give you a heart attack, the poor thing was sick of beating; it was trying to put its owner out of his misery. But he couldn't even do that, no, the state had brought him back to life twice. Brought him back so he could work out the rest of his days in a job he hated. It was enough to make you fucking sick - the way his family had been treated.

'It's enough tae make ye fuckin' sick.' Kenny said staring straight forward at the window into the garden.

'Watch yer language at the breakfast table.' His mother tutted and shook her head.

'Well it is!' He protested raising his voice. 'It's just like the world wants you tae be miserable. Like, how they built those flats on the reclaimed land outside the front window. Before you had a nice view of the sea, and now it's modern concrete. It's like, "hang on a fuckin' second, those poor bastards might get ahead of themselves here, they might get a grain of hope in their hearts, we can't have that."

'Kenneth!'

'Well it’s fuckin' true... man.' Kenny pushed his porridge into the middle of the table and got up noisily. 'I bet Amy Connell has a nice view!'

'Kenneth, calm down son!'

'Why can't we have a nice view though? Seriously. Why the fuck not? Is it just so we cannae see the waves coming when this place is swallowed up by the sea?'

New Belfast institute of Art

Kenny arrived at the university early. He had picked up a coffee from the little shop on the corner. He had made the transition now from old New Belfast to Artist New Belfast. He had been to the school office to collect his bright green t-shirt with the university logo on the front. And he was now reading through the timetable of events, meetings, and inductions he would have to take the new students to. Rolling out the welcome mat. A Kenny Muir shape welcome mat, it was so so so funny, that he: Kenny Muir- Kenneth P Muir- was welcoming people to the institution. That was probably a ploy of the university; make sure the first face they see is a miserable one. It would serve to make sure no one got too high above his or her stations.

"At New Belfast Institute of Art we want you to be inspired, but not too inspire. Don't make anything that might actually instil belief in people, which might lift them up to be more than a sum of their parts. Know your place artists, know your FUKIN' PLACE!"

'Okay, everyone on this row, you are with me.' He said as he entered the lecture theatre at the end of a video telling them the ins and outs. 'My name is Kenny, and I'm a Post Graduate student here at the Art College. I've been paid by the college to take you around and show you where everything is.' Inspirational speech Kenny! 'If anyone has any question don't hesitate to ask, and I will do my best.' He walked out of the lecture theatre hoping that they would follow him.

'The campus here is pretty small so it won't take us too long. Eh... yeah. That was the main lecture theatre, that’s where you'll have some talks and, well, lectures.' Haha smooth. 'Eh... and like, every Friday there is a talk from a visiting artist, which is normally pretty good. Eh, Aye, make sure you go tae that. Oops I mean 'to' that.'
Looking round the diverse group of new students, he would guess that most of them struggled with English let alone Scots. But that was fine, it was a small price to pay for diversity. Variety, change, that was what was going to save the city, to save him. Immigration was the very lifeblood of culture, it was the difference between a lively mountain stream, and a stagnant puddle. The state taught you to feel different from these people, but everyone is the same. You can't ever let yourself be scared of new ideas, when you are, that's when you've lost.

'So this is the printmaking studios. The technician here can help you learn screen-printing, lithograph, etching, even letterpress. You should all just do it just because you can, just print the letters of the alphabet or something because its fun to do.' Careful Kenny, careful. Your expressing your own opinions here and they aren't institutionally approved.

'Next this is the dark room. You can actually do, eh... old school photography here, which is cool. The guy that runs it can be a moan, so watch out. Just stand your ground and you'll be fine. I think he is just bitter because digital photography is taking over, and, well if I'm honest, I'd be bitter in his position too.' Right that one was definitely not on the script. Kenny you need to just... Kenny! Ken...

'Any here we are in the studios proper... Erm.... I don't know what to say really. This is where you do what you want. It probably is as simple as that. You'll get a little desk and a bit of wall space. You can bring in an easel if you want, or put up some boards... Eh... That's about it I guess. Yeah. I can take you to registration now.'

Kenny was getting a bit choked up. Emotions from earlier were suffocating him a little. He rubbed his face, realising that he had probably been scowling the whole time he had been conducting the tour. He wasn't scowling at the newcomers, quite the opposite, it was just that scowling was his default. He wanted the best for the new students. He wanted to add more to the tour; to tell them not to respect their tutor too much, to make sure everything they did was fun, and make the most of things.

'So if you have any questions just fire away. Or like, if yous need directions or just any general help I'm happy to help yous.'

It was better that they came to him, Kenny thought. Better than going to the powers that be.

[Nalaya]

New Belfast Institute of Art
New Belfast, Schottia

For Kasadu, there was still an element of wonder to this place. She had not been here long enough to be cynical, though perhaps there was something to be said for her nature not being suited to spawn cynicism. Hope had gotten her through many things. Even though the world was not necessarily as she wished, she found enough beauty in it to warrant optimism. She looked around the campus with wide eyes, soaking in every word that Kenneth said. She could tell from his scowl and his tone that he had not found happiness here. Not everyone could, but she still felt bad. No one deserved misery.

She spent more time watching her guide by halfway through than she did peering around at her new surroundings. The buildings would always be there—well, not always, but likely for her whole lifetime—but her guide would not be. He seemed nice enough, just...embittered? She also knew that there were good odds that she might not see him again, with the business of classes and the hours of loving labor into every project.

When he lead the way towards registration, Kasadu drifted towards the front of the group. Her hood and cowling gave her a nice sort of security against self-consciousness. She was anonymous even though she was distinct. She could have shed her hood in a moment and been someone completely different. Granted, she would be someone easily spotted all the same. In her homeland, the color of her skin, her hair, her eyes all set her apart from the vast majority of Nalayans. Her people were not as significant of a population and they were even rarer in the lowlands.

"Are you alright?" she asked her guide quietly when the others had drifted off and begun to register. She knew there was a good chance she might have invited a bite from him, but it never hurt to ask someone. If she had been feeling in a way where she could only scowl, she imagined she would want someone to check on her. But perhaps he was annoyed with his duty and the inconvenience of strangers like her floundering around so badly that they needed assistance. He was rocky like the crags of the mountains, sharp with disapproval and upset. Kasadu could understand that. For some, it was the best defense against disappointment.

[Schottia]

New Belfast Institute of Art
New Belfast, Schottia

Registration took place in the 1920's sculpture hall, which was a high ceilinged wooden building with more modern skylights built into the roof. The bottom part of the hall was new with smooth plastid boarded walls ready for work to be hung, and the upper half was like the vaulted interior of some medieval wooden church. Despite its ecclesiastic feel, the hall was actually part of an old fish processing plant, and became part of the Art College in the 60's. Even as late as the 80s, the sculpture hall was still rumoured to have had a faint smell of fish guts and seaweed. The stain glass window on the gable-end was actually a recent addition, created by a student in 1991. At even intervals there were university staff, sat at desks ready to take students photo's and issue their cards. The whole place had that low rumble of noise from young people's excitement, and sense of eagerness which was utterly lost on Kenny.

He was now nursing a splitting headache, possibly the result of strong coffee, but it could equally be down to having not had enough. There was a hard pressure on the back of his skull which was hammering down on him, almost blurring his vision. The air outside was thundery, and close, and his head felt like it was trying to explode inwards, collapsing the bones in his head. Kenny hadn't noticed Kasadu, before she spoke. Despite her unusual mode of dress she had a slightness about her and a modesty, which was quite unassuming among the eccentrically dressed wannabe artists jostling to be noticed.

Are you alright -or- y'awright? was incidentally quite a common colloquial greeting in Schottia, rather meaning a quick hello or how are you? While he didn't take her comment to be intrusive, he did mark it as odd given the fact that they had just met. It, to him, seemed over friendly as opposed to ruddiness in anyway.

There was an enormous difference between talking in monologue during an induction tour and talking to someone one on one like this. He rubbed his hand hard over his short cut hair, trying to massage his brain back into life. Or perhaps he was attempting to summon up the last few subverted shreds of common decency with which to converse.

'Yeah, thanks… Eh yerself?' He rummaged around for a bit and managed to find a smile. Kenny wasn't exactly an ignorant person when it came to Tyranian cultures, and ethnicities, however he would have struggled to place the young woman stood before him. There was something in her fairness and her lightly colored eyes, which made him freeze for a second as he took the individual in. In a small way he had taken to her instantly. She seemed neither rich nor imposing, not eccentric or showy. She had a quietness, and a slightness to her which was all at once quite mesmerizing.

'Do you know where it is that yer going?' He added, shaking his head and pulling himself out that train of thought. He looked around checking that no one else was waiting for his attention, from what he could gather most of the other matriculating students had gone off to sort themselves into the appropriate queues. 'What's the first initial of you second name, I can walk you to the table.'

[Nalaya]

New Belfast Institute of Art
New Belfast, Schottia

Kasadu felt the embarrassment starting and was grateful that her cheeks were covered by cloth. She didn't want to show how awkward her English was by trying to use things like personal pronouns. The Imanalov' talked as if outside themselves, which was not conducive to translation. It had taken her enough struggle to learn English's future tense. All that beside the point, she didn't want to be rude either. It would be an interesting balance. "Well," she said in answer to his inquiry into her wellbeing. "This new place is very...interesting?" The last word was quizzical, as if she was testing whether or not she had chosen the right one. "Where to go is not known."

Her other question was her second name. She used only Kasadu when she moved through the world of the Salmat Qaqqadi who were not her people. Did he mean the second name she had been given in her life before the war? It would have to do, she decided. "S, for Sinu. That is second. First is Kasadu," she said. "Thank you very much for your guidance. Would you be kind enough to tell your name?"

Names were immensely important to her people as expressions of the breath of life within them. She felt strange without knowing his since they were speaking, but then again, not everyone introduced themselves at virtually every conversation with a stranger. That was a convention of her people that was not necessarily true in the lowlands. In Nalaya, people tried to accommodate the Imanalov' by being mindful of that when they conversed. Here, no one probably knew what she was, let alone how to deal with her.

She followed Kenneth, feeling a little bit lost but also reassured by the presence of her guide. He seemed nice enough. She generally expected that people were good, though that had gotten her into unpleasant situations before, but nothing that couldn't be resolved peacefully, thankfully. Her natural inclination was to start up a conversation, but she didn't want to seem too intrusive. People liked their distance sometimes and she knew she had likely been overly friendly for the lowlands beyond Nalaya already.

Perhaps he was hungover, like her roommate had usually been back in Sevan. It would explain the general aura of discontent, certainly. Then agan, not everyone could maintain that level of partying lifestyle. She adored Narineh, but her friend was just a little bit too enthusiastic towards alcohol.

Still, he seemed as though he had a good heart. He was helping them all. It never occurred to her that he might be getting paid or being volunteered to do it.

[Schottia]

New Belfast Institute of Art
New Belfast, Schottia

'Interesting!' Exclaimed Kenny, laughing, but not at her. 'Yer no' wrong there!' The place was a fucking mess, that's what it was, a big pile of shite. He guessed she would get used to it, probably even love her time in New Belfast, and so she fuckin' should. That was why you went to University, to learn with an open mind, to let new people and cultures inform your study. There was no reason for a student to leave the city centre, to visit the old whaling communities like Kirk Preston, or Blinalber. Stick to your hipster cafés, trendy bars and restaurants, your artist run exhibition spaces, you would be doing just fine. Just fuckin' fine. Fine was just how you would be fuckin' doing...

'Hi Kasadu.' He said extending a hand for her to shake, hopping that he had pronounced her name right. 'My name is Kenneth, but only my parents call me that.' He grinned at her before looking around for a table marked P-T. 'Kenny is more, eh... Let's say agreeable, in a social context at least.' He indicated with his head for her to follow him, having located the correct table.

'You know, I'm terrible.' He looked at his feet and shook his head slowly, before breaking into a knowing smile. 'Christ man, I give a tour of the college, without introducing myself.'

That was typical of him right enough. Why was he incapable of getting the fundamental things in life right? Why was even a simple conversation like this such a strain for him? He had been playing two different parts for too long. Now he was no longer Kirk Preston resident or Art student, he was some hybrid of both. One moment he had to fit into a round hole, the next minute a square one, and what was worst of all was that he was a triangular peg. Educated out of his class, and too working class to be an academic, he was stuck in a Catch 22.

No wonder he didn't make friends that easily, he wasn't even friendly. You had to be friendly to make friends, it stood to fuckin' reason. It was kind of, well, fuckin' imperative no? Jesus, and he was this poor lassie's first impression on the country. Come on man; don't drag her down into your black hole of misery.

'So where about are you from?' He added at last, making purposeful efforts to soften his demeanour. 'I'm guessing Kasadu Sinu isn't a Scots name. I honestly don't think I've ever heard it before.'

[Nalaya]

New Belfast Institute of Art
New Belfast, Schottia

"A pleasure to meet you, Kenny," Kasadu said with a bow of her head, her tone very much genuine. She enjoyed new people in her life, no matter how briefly they were there. Each one taught her something, even if it was small. Besides, he seemed good at heart even if he was not the happiest man in the world. "One does not always share a name with everyone in the room. Certain names, one does not share at all."

She understood being trapped between worlds, though she didn't know his thoughts to reassure him. Kasadu could never go home again, not because she was exiled or anything of that nature, but because she had changed and it had changed to the point where no longer were they compatible. Nor had Sevan been a home, as she was too tied to the ways of her people. It had left her adrift in its own way, or perhaps just isolated. Her people did not do well disconnected. Perhaps New Belfast would be a place to start over and find a home with connection. She was surrounded by others who shared her passion, so that was a good beginning. She would at least have something to talk about to them that was not heavy. The scars of war would always be a part of her, but they were just that—marks of a wound well healed. A new place meant new beginnings and the renewed, gentle fading of even those scars.

"It is a very nice college," she said, looking over at Kenny. And up. Her people were not big. She only stood at 1.52 meters in her bare feet. The soles of her worn converse did not add to her height in much of an appreciable extent. "But it is...conflicted too. The town."

It took her a moment to decide on how she was going to answer the question that Kenny had posed her. She knew what she was supposed to say, but it was not the answer she wished to give. Every time she was asked, she wanted to describe it as it was. The land of summer, the mountains that pierced heaven itself, the place where sea crashed on desert shores and green growth bloomed among the stones, the place of blood and fire being slowly cleansed by the gentle hands of Time. She could not draw her homeland ever enough in detail to show its nature, nor would she ever be able to explain it. She was no poet in her native tongue, let alone in one she was still learning to grasp.

"Nalaya," she said instead of launching into a long and involved explanation. "From the very high mountains there. It is very different, being here. A new beginning. This is very good. Thank you, Kenny. You are an artist, yes? Perhaps we will see each other in classes. It would be good to see a friendly face."

Her crystalline blue eyes looked up at him. The angle of her head allowed light into her hood, reflecting on alabaster skin and eyes the color of a spring sky. Cloth covered her face from the bridge of her nose down, concealing much of her face, but it was evident that her hair had turned silver prematurely, if the few locks falling into her face were any indication. That early change was very common among her people and not at all among the other peoples of Nalaya.

Now she just needed to register. That would be interesting. Kasadu was not very savvy with paperwork, much to her own dismay. Still, she could muddle through on her own despite the fact that she lacked things like ID numbers from her homeland. The passport had been simple enough to get, though the photo had been challenging. The argument was that it should look like how she really looked on a daily basis...which was hooded and shrouded rather than apparently herself. The other half of the argument insisted that every Imanalov' looking the same on their passports was probably not helpful to customs and immigration anywhere in the world. She had respectfully taken off her hood and the shrouding around her face to appease them. It wasn't exactly forbidden to do so. It was just considered very personal to remove the alhasu or karru in front of someone.

She offered Kenny a grateful bow of her head and said again with all sincerity, "Thank you."

[Schottia]

New Belfast Institute of Art
New Belfast, Schottia

He looked down at Kasadu, still trying to process her as an individual. At 180 centimetres he was easily a whole foot taller than her. Kenny felt like he should somehow know where she was from, but he didn't. He was of a naturally inquisitive disposition...

That's a pile ay crap, he was a nosy cunt.

...but whatever his motives might be, it still filled him with desire to ask her more questions. He almost wanted to cross-examine her, sit her down and bombard her with questions until be was satisfied and she had no doubt lost the will to live. To Kenny, it was as if she was some sort of spirit of the Nalayan mountains she had mentioned, such was the ethereal quality of her fair skin and silvery hair. There was no such quality to Kenny, no such mystique or magic, just a kind of run down everydayness. If he was pale himself, in was only in the way that the colour had been washed out of him. Like a t-shirt put through the washing machine too many times. His freckles were like the last specs of life on a sickly paler of a face.

'Aye, yeah. You too.' He answered as he took his leave from her, even though his response didn't quite fit what she had said. 'I mean... You're a friendly face too. That's what I mean. Not that I can see much of it... Oh, and not that it's a bad thing, that's not what I'm saying.' Kenny took a deep breath and left before he did any more damage. 'Yeah, I'll hopefully see you around pal.' He gave her a smile before turning away and cursing himself.

---

'Take a seat hen.' Said a plump, smug faced, middle-aged woman sat the table marked P-T. 'Just plonk yer'sel down there in front of the camera and we'll get your picture taken for you.'

There was a smug officiousness to the way she spoke. If Kenny had still been there he would have probably stepped in and pulled Kasadu away, saved her from the tyranny of the woman's small minded, unmerited self-satisfaction. She was something that he hated; truly hated. She was the kind of person for whom a tiny bit of power was dangerous, as they used it to make other people feel small. These people should never be allowed a shred of power, they should be forced to exist in such a way that they could not influence anyone, especially not creative people.

'Do you want to leave yer wee hood up there or do you want to take it down.' She said getting the camera-machine ready. 'I bet ye're a really pretty wee girl under all those silly rags.' She continued to fuss around with the equipment. 'And what's yer name hen...'

The Panner, Kirk Preston,
New Belfast, Schottia

The meeting with Kasadu must have played on his mind more that he had been ready for, as it occupied a great deal of his though that day. He had ended up in a bar called the Panner, after walking most of the way home in something of a daze. The name of the pub referred to the saltpans, which Kirk Preton was once famous for, back when collecting salt this way was a lucrative business. After staggering out of the Sculpture hall the amble from the city centre took him close to forty minutes, but he needed the walk. He needed some air.

'Aye, what's the matter wae ye, ye long faced cunt.' Kenny looked up from his pint glass. He had placed a book down besides him on the bar but his mind was busy enough not to require it. He wasn't totally sure how long he had been sitting in the Panner, he just knew it was close to an hour. 'Smile, it might never happen.'

This was all he needed. Micky Robertson a friend of his older brother, was the archetypal pain in the arse. He had that loud swaggering, borderline aggressive demeanour about him that was reminiscing of someone itching for a fight. A few times when they had been little, Micky and Kenny's brother Barry had given him a bit of a doing.

'Alright Micky.' He had no patience for this tonight. 'Ah was just dreaming really.' The key here was surely not rising to any of his antics, not giving the wanker anything to go on. Kenny took a massive gulp of his pint and checked his watch.

'John!' Yelled Micky, trying to locate the barman as he jumped up on the stool next to Kenny, like a dog at a dog-show. 'Ah could'ae hud the takins oot the till and been away wae them!' Was his taunting shot at the barman.

'So how's it going anyway Micky?' Asked Kenny, trying to see if he could keep the conversation as normal as possible. 'Been up tae much man?'

'Fuckin' service in here -- ye cunt.' Said Micky ignoring him, pointing at the whole in the wall he expected John to emerge from. 'What's the cunt even daein' huvin' a fuckin' wank.' He was rocking back and forward on his stool, as if right on the edge of a breakdown.

'Mr Robertson, what can a get ye?' John said eventually entering the bar.

'Pint... lager.' Micky pointed at the tap he wanted and slapped a five pound note down on the bar. He rummaged in his pockets and eventually pulled out a phone and a set of keys, slamming them down on the bar before getting up. 'Ah'm goin' for a pish.'

'Another pint an'aw?' Asked John pointing to Kenny's glass, which he had just finished.

'No man, no.' Kenny shook his head, taking the opportunity with Micky in the toilet to get up and head to the exit door. He didn't even waste any time in putting the book back in his bag, he just carried both out of the building. He had a funny feeling Micky Robertson would be a quick pisser, not the type to waste time washing his hands. 'I'll see you John, eh?'

Well, that was the round hole fucked for the night, he wasn't going to get what he wanted there. He stood in the street for a moment, taking a lung full of warm sea air. He was fucked if he was going back home, he was going to head back into town, see if the square hole was a better fit tonight. To hell with it, he would just drink himself into a stupor and face the consequences tomorrow. Fuck everyone. they could all just get tea fuck.

[Nalaya]

New Belfast Institute of Art
New Belfast, Schottia

Kasadu took a seat as instructed, her thin hands folding in her lap. She took no offense at the smugness of the woman's tone. Sometimes small people needed to stand upon powerful stones to feel tall, as her mother had told her. Everyone else merely made their peace with being short. She did not know what a 'wee hood' was as compared to a regular hood, nor what 'silly rags' had to do with how she dressed, but she could pick out the general meeting. It wasn't terribly charitable, though she assumed the woman had good intentions. "She will leave the hood up," Kasadu said, slipping into her normal mode of speech in English now that she wasn't trying to sound less awkward in front of her fellow student. "Her name is Kasadu."

First person pronouns were often confusing to the Imanalov', at least when they tried to use them. Other people, native speakers of other tongues, could grasp it without problem. But Kasadu was not a person—she was a piece of dreaming spirit bound to flesh, given shape by names, those sacred breaths of life that defined who she was. "We" made far more sense than "I", but that was plural, so her people used "her" or "him" in its place because that at least told people that they were referring to the singular.

Having her picture taken was an experience she had become used to, but it would always feel a little bit odd for reasons she couldn't describe. She was the one supposed to be making pictures, not having them made of her. It made little sense, but it was a feeling. They did not require sense—they just were.

Almost the moment registration was complete, she went straight back to her room, with a definite element of purpose to her step. She wanted to do something that might show a fragment of her homeland, just in case Kenny ever decided to ask her more. It meant hunting down paper and corralling paints before filling a humble paper cup with water. Watercolors were probably her favorite of all the mediums she worked with, though she could never devote herself to them entirely. They had the power to be both light and dark, or anywhere between the two extremes. She could blend and blur with ease, though it took a great deal of time and patience to avoid doing that where she didn't want to.

She sat down by the window where she could look out at the sea in thought, as if her mind could somehow cross the distance and wander the mazed between until she reached where she'd grown up beneath a sapphire sky. Soon she would have paintings of this place, its people, and the ideas that sprang from them in multitudes, but for this moment she would think of what had once been home. Kasadu wasn't certain if it would ease or intensify the ache in the center of her chest.

She carefully started sketching rough outlines across the page. They would be refined gradually over the course of many hours. This would be a long, hard project. She would certainly not complete it in a day or even a week. It would take as long as it would take, as the Igigi might have said. Everything had its time. She knew that it did no good to try and move faster than the river.

---

The Nighttime Streets
New Belfast, Schottia

Her mind was racing with images, preoccupied with work even though her hands had started to cramp up until she couldn't keep chasing the sparks of inspiration across the page with her pencil. It was starting to turn into something, though. That was something to be proud of. Still, since she was too restless to sleep, she knew it would do no good lying in bed. So she had allowed her feet to take her out of her housing and into the streets.

Kasadu never worried about being alone at night, not after everything that had happened. What was there really to fear? Darkness was something she felt made her safer. She was harder to see, harder to track, harder to catch. The burning light of the day had things dangerous enough of its own. Besides, there was a certain serenity that came with night, a peace and quiet that was so hard to cultivate during the business of a day in a city. New Belfast took on a very different air...albeit an air broken up by the occasional drunken holler or vehicle or breaking object. There were plenty of bars in the area she had walked into. She had been headed towards the sea and the shore. It made sense. Sailors seemed to love bars, and it would make sense that their descendants might as well.

She liked alcohol well enough, though the taste of liquors could be nasty. She just didn't like what it did to her. For one thing, she completely lost her grasp of English when intoxicated, which she knew would be problematic here. The other half of her aversion to the bars, at least now, was that she knew no one and out here there was no guarantee of common ground to talk about. As friendly as Kasadu could be, she struggled with just walking up to people that she had nothing apparently in common with. Kenny had been an artist and a fellow student. He also looked like he needed some kind of warmth to his life, and while she was no expert at supplying that, she'd tried to be friendly.

The Nalayan aversion to foreigners had never permeated Imanalov' culture, perhaps because of their isolation from all the bad that non-Nalayans might do. She had more reason to be cautious around the Arusai or Nava'ai than any outsider, although that had never stopped her from being friendly with them before.

Of course, Kasadu's mind was more on the beach now than anything else. She had only made a few trips down to the shore when she lived in Sevan, mostly because she was always busy in the mountain city. Every time she had gone, however, it was wondrous. It was something as massive, encompassing, and powerful as the mountains and their weather. She liked to walk barefoot at the very edge of the waves where they came up on shore and look for shells on the sandy stretches or perch with a sketchpad to watch gulls and little crabs on the rocky outcroppings that jutted into the water. It was something breathtaking to be in awe of, whether at its frothing rage or placid serenity. Even the sound was soothing.

Granted, this was not a beach the way the shores near Sevan had been a beach. Kasadu figured that it was good too, even if in a different way. Here it was alive with people...or would have been during the day. Their echoes lingered unobtrustively now in the night.

She needed a place to be still and quiet. The student accommodations were full of, well, students. Lovely people, but not always the most helpful when it came to quiet contemplation. She regretted that she hadn't brought her sketchpad, but then again, there would be other opportunities to do so. Kasadu supposed that she probably needed some time to just walk and toss stones into the water just to hear the splash, though that would probably have to wait. Perhaps there would even be kindred souls out by the water.

Here it was built up and reclaimed, but a place where water and land met was still a shore, and a shore was still a between-place. Those were places where spirits lived and inspiration flourished. Besides, she would still be able to see and hear the sea. That was what mattered.

[Schottia]

Kirk Preton, New Belfast

Kenny was fucked if he was walking, there was no cunting way he was in the mood for the hour long walk to the part of town he was headed. Walking briskly though, he got himself a street and a half free of the Panner and that twat Micky Robertson, before checking the bus times. Every bus stop in Schottia was fitted out with a bus tracker, upon which the digital display counted down the minutes until each bus arrived. The 23, the bus he needed, was eight minutes away.

"Fucksake man! Get tae Fuck!" Said Kenny out loud spinning around like an angry child. Even this felt like a defeat.

He considered walking along to the next stop, glancing at his watch he decided against it. He was such a fast walker he would end up walking faster than the piece of shit of a bus and he'd just walk all the way into town with a frown on his big pus. By the time he made it in, his legs would be like fuckin' red-hot steel. Naw, that idea could get right tae fuck.

He looked at the tracker again. Seven minutes. He looked at the nearby pub, the Hoppy. He had just about time for a half pint, he was caught in two minds, but since he had started drinking it had taken a hold of him. He had always been the same, since he was fifteen, once he started he just got bored when he stopped. Maybe if he just kept drinking, took up alcoholism he wouldn't be bored anymore, end of story. Take up alcoholism, like it's a sport? Plus he would die sooner; win-fuckin'-win! What is this all about though? He was on his way to get more alcohol, he would just have to wait.

It was uncomfortably warm and humid, not hot and sunny, but very much warm and humid. The Scots didn't get hot and sunny, it was too good for them, it might spoil them. Instead they got muggy, stifling, clammy, breaks in the showers, and warm-and-humid.

An old man reeking ay pish and sweat came and sat on the bench of the bus stop next to Kenny. He was wandered-looking and hunched over. The man was also thin, so much so that Kenny could make out his bones. His rancid greasy clothes hung off him like a bunch of rags. Kenny moved outside of the bus stop.

'Sh... son.' Said the stinking, putrid, old tramp getting up and walking towards him. 'Go'an dae us a favour. Can ye tell us when the next bus tae Coldenmuir is.'

Could the auld bastard no' read? For fucksake man. It was right there on the tracker. Kenny was forced to enter the haze surrounding the man, in order to view the tracker properly. He wasn't sure whether the smell was cat piss or whether the old boy was incontinent.

'Fuckin' - it's aboot an hoor pal.' He said loudly and clearly, as he was sure the man would ask him to repeat otherwise.

The man asked anyway...

'ABOOT AN HOOR!' 'AN HOUR'

Fucksake like. The per auld boy stood stannin' here in this fuckin' heat for a whail hoor. The auld fuck wid just forget afore it fuckin' goat hear. Or fuckin' dee ay the heat.

'Ah'm goan tae see ma son ey.' The old man smiled two rows of false teeth which looked slightly too big for his mouth. 'Him an his wife have hud a bairn.'

Kenny smiled and nodded. The poor old man, What a poor old sod. How could his son let him be in this state, it was fuckin' tragic man, fuckin...

'Here's ma bus pal.' Said Kenny relived that the 23 was trundling now into sight. 'An hoor, at this stop, dinae gow and miss it eh?'

Kenny was choking by the time he got on the bus, delighted to feel its cool air conditioning blowing up and down the gangway. He through himself into one of the double seats and lay back. He pulled his book from his bag, but same as in the pub, be didn't read a page. He still had that wee Nalayan lassie on his mind if he was honest, it was typical of him to be caught up on some fuckin' unattainable woman. Well why the fuck would she want to talk to him? he was a fuckwit. The son of a fuckwit and the brother of a fuckwit. He still lived with his parents although he was pushing thirty. You claim you’re an artist yet you haven’t had a show in a year. You know you'll never get a job so you're pissing taxpayers' money into the pub urinals year after year after fucking year. How in gods name do you think you are going to impress her? What the fuck would you even say if you spoke to her? Just let her be, leave her to make normal friends and find her feet without you poisoning her. You know what to do? You know the answer it's staring you in your malnourished ugly face...

---

Several hours later Kenny spewed the answer into the gutter outside the student union. He was glad it was dark as it minimised the damage. Only one or two of the girls standing outside the bar saw him, so he had limited the possible damage. He coughed and pulled himself upright, before putting a finger to each nostril in turn, blowing long gloopy lengths of half digested crisps out of his nasal passages. There were hot stinging tears running down his cheeks, which burnt his skin, it felt like all the bad was pouring out of him, like he couldn't contain it any longer.

He needed the new term to start up soon, he had too much time on his hands. Too much potential to think about his lot in life and the shitty hand he had been dealt. The Fuckers. He had too many voices in his head all vying for his attention, and without pedagogic tasks to punctuate the rigmarole of being him. The mind numbing battle against insecurity, which on a good day was like hauling corpses up a never-ending staircase, and on a bad day was worse than death.

Something possibly gravity carried him out of the 17th stable courtyard in which the student union was situated. Like all things in New Belfast he began to slip down towards the sea, step by step, meter by meter. The student union was at the top of a steep hill, down from which ran a narrow cobbled path leading to the old harbour. The walk gave him some time to sober up, and some time to unthink. Kenny's entire day felt like a series of bullet points.

As he approached the dockland, his heart rate quickened all of a sudden. Inconspicuously silhouetted against the skyline yet instantly recognisable was the hooded figure of Kasadu. It was as if he had somehow summoned her up, like something he had done had conjured her into being, right here in front of him. As he came down the small narrow side path he stumbled as the ground brought him completely level for the first time since leaving the bar. He was completely sober now; the only reminder of the evening was one of his now common place headaches. Looking over at Kasadu he couldn't work out if she was lonely or by herself by choice. It was unusual for someone to be here by themselves at this time of night, but fuck it, what was his excuse?

'Are you alright?' He asked partly in reference to her question earlier, partly at a loss as to what to say. He cleared his throat, hoping he didn't look like too much of a state. 'I would ask you what brings you here...' He laughed awkwardly '...but I'd be scared you'd ask me the same question.'

[Nalaya]

The Docklands
New Belfast, Schottia

Kasadu had smelled him before she saw him. It was the scent of suffering, alcohol and vomit mixed together. Immediately, she felt a sympathetic pang. It was not good to be so pained, but it did not seem unusual here either. On her walk, she had seen the empty eyes of the hopeless. It was strange to see it outside of war, but she recognized it all the same. Perhaps they needed the sea too for its calming air. At least, she found its constancy reassuring. She was not alarmed too much, though she hadn't expected to see anyone. It was a city and after all, people had every right to be out and about even at this hour.

Then he spoke. It was Kenny. Immediately, Kasadu brightened up and left her solemn, contemplative silence. It was the one face she knew and that was a very fortunate thing indeed. "She is well," Kasadu said as she momentarily forgot about her pronoun problem. "She is here for the sea, the poem in motion. Are you well?" A note of concern added itself to her voice at the last part. He did not look well and it was he who smelled like the dregs of a keg and sickness. She remembered his scowling earlier. Perhaps he did not drink to celebrate, like so many people here did not. Perhaps he felt the same wandering emptiness of a dreaming spirit cast adrift into the mazed between, like bu'idu, what others called ghosts.

It felt like she needed to make conversation, but she hardly knew where to begin. Her thoughs had been too varied and foreign. "There is...she was sketching for a painting, but hands grew weary with the swiftness of a sparrow," she explained. "And there was no one to speak to at this hour, so she came here to the sea. There are no beaches in New Belfast, but the tide still flows and the moon still shines. The stars, the ones that can be seen, are different here, unknown in their beauty that is veiled by city lights. Lights that look like torchbugs dancing and wavering over deep waters." Imanalov' speech was not naturally direct and it preferred comparisons to things that were seen in nature. It was a way of being more specific with conveying feeling. She liked to use imagery to make up for her sometimes lacking vocabulary.

She smiled beneath her shrouding. "You should not feel as if you must tell me why you are here. Sometimes, these things just are what they are." That was one thing she had learned well. It was often better to see something for what it was rather than what it should be. She wasn't very good at actually practicing that teaching, but it was called 'practicing' for a reason and not 'doing'. "But she is glad to have your company. The sea is very big, the city is very big, and she is very small."

It was true that loneliness had begun to set in. She had no roots here yet and that left her feeling a little insecure. Kenny was a little cornerstone, a place to just touch and reassure herself. He meant that she was not completely alone in this strange place that was hundreds of thousands of miles from her home. She would have been lying if she said that she didn't feel like an outsider. Not just in appearance—in speech, in thought, and even in her art itself. She was too philosophical to blend in well with the locals and too grounded in the nature of the worldly to fit comfortably with the monks who had raised her. It was strange to feel so between worlds, fitting into neither neatly. She assumed Kenny knew the feeling too, as an artist in a town of practicality and salt and iron.

[Schottia]

The Docklands
New Belfast, Schottia

It took Kenny a moment to realise that Kasadu didn’t use pronouns in the same way that he did, and at first he was looking around for this mystical third person. It wouldn’t have even surprised him if there had been some invisible individual, veiled by some shroud of his own mental delusion, or in fact consumed by some reptile of the mind. When he worked out that this was however, a product of her speech, it only succeeded in enhancing the mysticism around her as an individual.

He should bring it up, nah that was just fuckin’ rude.

‘I guess I just couldn’t settle.’ He added walking side by side with her. ‘I think I just need the new term to start up again. Having a summer holiday is great when ye’r wee, but that’s when you’re burstin’ wi’ energy an that.’

He paused for a second and looked down at the waves beneath them. The sea around Schottia was cold, and their was nothing inviting about it. It wasn’t like those countries you could visit where the water was like clear crystal, where you could wade out for miles, losing yourself. The Sea of Schottia was cold, turbulent and like a fist of iron. His grandfather talked about life on the whaling ships back in the 30’s where the deck would get so cold that if you touched anything metal, your hand would stick to it. If a man fell overbroad then he would freeze within seconds, if he wasn’t already battered to death by the waves. The water here was a very different deity altogether, a cruel and spiteful warrior who tortured his subjects for amusement.

The water surrounding New Belfast, once the lifeblood of the city was now like angry gnashing jaws keeping the people from breaking free. It’s like one of those horrible twists of fate, where a knight’s castle ends up being his prison. When Kenny really thought about it, the only difference between freedom and imprisonment – between slavery and employment, was context.

‘Nah, ye’r right, there’s no beaches here anymore. Not since they developed the waterfront.’ He shook his head then, forgetting where he was for a second spat down into the water. ‘There used to be a beach in front my house when I was a bairn. No’ a proper, like, sandy beach, but it had all these white stones, none ay them bigger than yer fist.’ He held up his hand in case it needed a demonstration. ‘On a winters day ye’d almost ay thought it was snow, that’s how white they were. There’s still loads of them in oor gairden – garden rather. My mum used to use them kindae like as ornaments and stuff.’

Kenny had to check himself before he went into that rant about the view again. It was one of his favorites, but the problem was nae cunt fuckin’ cared. No’ even his fuckin’ Ma and Daw, and they were the ones most fucked over by it. Fucksake, they were so fuckin’ subservient to the state. Jump and they’d say how fuckin’ high Sir. Anyway… No one cared about the view fi’ his fuckin’ hoose, so why the fuck would Kasadu care.

‘What’s it like?’ He asked turning to her, making a quick mental study of her outfit, contrasting it with his trainers, jeans, and knitted jumper. ‘The bit ay Nalaya that ye’r from.’ He laughed at himself before he even asked the next part. ‘Have ye got a nice view fi’ yer hoose? – Sorry, have you got a nice view from your house? My English just goes out the window when I’ve had anything at all to drink.’

He scrunched is eye up hard. ”EnglishEnglishEnglishEnglish He said internally, trying to drill it in. The poor foreign students probably never understood a word he fuckin’ said. God, was it no’ hellish? Was it no’ fuckin’ hellish man?

‘If you can’t understand me then please just tell me okay.’

[Nalaya]

The Docklands
New Belfast, Schottia

The Nalayan liked the sound of a white stone beach. She had seen beaches where the desert rushed to meet the waves, but never such a thing as he was describing. It was a shame that they had decided to build over it, but it seemed sometimes that this was the way of the world...at least the world beyond Annu and Shiimti. They did not grow the way other places did. Annu simply sent its roots deeper and Shiimti remained a rock in a turbulent world, unchanged and unspoiled. Even the worst of the war had not managed to destroy the Ziana monastery that sat above her home town. It was a different kind of beauty than New Belfast, one that could exist only because it was removed from the world.

Kasadu was comfortable in her clothing, even though it all looked very much well-loved. Her jeans had been worn thin in places, barely short of a rip. There were marks from where she had kept things in her pocket so often that it had shaped the fabric to them, such as boxes of charcoals tucked in her back pockets. Her jeans fit her like a glove after so much wear and they had been nice to begin with. That was when she had first arrived in Tatev and she had been able to go buy foreign clothes were in her size. Finding things up in the mountains that were from the outside world was a difficult task to begin with, more so something that fit. Her people, however, wasted nothing of that fabric that came their way. So often they looked like little scarecrows in their patchwork clothing. She had settled just for a simple long sleeved shirt with the emblem for a Nalayan team on it, a stylized white serpent on a background of blue. Tatev's Chermak Odz would always have a special place in her heart even though it wasn't the city of her birth. Annu was too small to have its own team and so they had leaped onto the bandwagon of their closest neighbor. It was the dark hood and the shrouding across her face, the wrappings of cloth over her body, that set her apart from even other Nalayans.

She laughed when Kenny explained his speech, which was as strange to her as hers no doubt was to him. "She will learn," she assured him. "She can guess from the sounding of the words. But thank you."

At his question, she almost paused in mid step. Should she speak of Sevan, where she most recently lived? No, that was not right. Annu was the place where she was born, the place that had been her home for most of her life, the place that would always occupy a special place in her heart. "She is from Mount Shin'ar in Nalaya. There is a town called Annu, nestled in the cradle of stone between the peaks below Shiimti. This is...was...her home," Kasadu explained. She made a soft humming sound. "Let us see if she remembers the view."

It took her a moment to collect her thoughts before speaking again. "Imagine the tallest spire in the world and you will not have reached the heights of Shin'ar and its brother-peaks. They are great, jagged stones that bridge heaven and earth in a joining of snow-white caps and deep azure. The forests grow thick on the lower slopes, ancient trees with thick branches and deep roots. There is a lake with a surface like glass, in the good weather, at the bottom of the valley that Annu perches on, and thousands of feet above stands Shiimti, the House Where Life is Breathed In. It is a monastery, constructed of grey stone at the very edge of cliffs lost in mist. That was her world."

Kasadu laughed again, this time amused with the situation. For once, she was the one doing most of the talking. It was very strange. Perhaps she was going on too long. "She must apologize, Kenny. It was a long answer to the simplest of questions. The view is good from Annu. Nalaya is a...conflicted land. It cannot decide whether it wishes to be a home of angels or a realm of demons, and so problems arise." It was the simplest way she could think of to explain the harsh juxtaposition she'd seen between beauty and ugliness in her home. Each moment, each person, had both. Perhaps that was why she found New Belfast almost comfortable: it too was a place that could not decide what it wanted to be.

"Have you lived here your whole life, Kenny?" Kasadu asked curiously as she looked at him instead of the waves. "What is it like? It is very strange to her. She still does not know what to expect. Is it beautiful? It seems so."

The young woman knew that she was perhaps being overly inquisitive, but curiosity was an integral part of her nature. And the last question was both difficult and easy at the same time and she knew it. Would she be able to say her homeland was beautiful, knowing it for what it was? In the way that fire was beautiful, yes. It could be warming, delightful, and breathtaking. It could also be an unstoppable maelstrom of destruction immolating everything.

Schottia was different. It seemed gentler, softer edged and somehow less...raw. It beautiful in the way water was beautiful. Again there was a capacity for great harm, but it did not scorch an unwary hand. It could soothe burns and allowed for green growth. Granted, here the growth was grey, not green, but it was still growth. New Belfast felt good. It felt safe. It was a long way away from where she had been burned. She could see room in New Belfast for a great deal of beauty, if someone was willing to pay attention to it. If even a battlefield could have the small blooms of blue mountain flowers, surely a place like his home would have its own.

[Schottia]

The Docklands
New Belfast, Schottia

See, that was a view! No wonder Kasadu was so... Eh... So enchanting! She was immersed in such superlative grandeur. Nature at it's most awe inspiring, sitting alongside the greatest works wrought by man. It was hardly even worth comparing it to the flats, the fuckin' car park, and burger van, which filled the panorama from Kenny's windows. It was nae wonder he didn't paint or draw anymore, what was the point? What was the fuckin' point, ye cunt?

'Yer home sounds awesome then.' He said listening to the description of the mountains, and the cathedral. 'We have mountain and that here, but their nothing like they'm.' He exhaled a laugh, Kasadu's own laughter slowly infecting him. 'But then again it might just be our natural pessimism. Maybe Schottia is nicer than we I think, it could be that I've gotten used to talking everything down.'

He waved away her apologies. 'Please don't be sorry, I guess views are a bit subjective. It probably sums up the difference between us, where you were thinking I meant, like, totally awe-inspiring scenery; I was just thinking of the view from across the road.' He looked her in the eye and smiled. 'So what do you actually see when you open your bedroom curtains in the morning? What is the first thing that you see?'

Kenny had never moved out of his parents' house, never lived anywhere other than Kirk Preston. He had spent too long moping around doing nothing with his life, allowing himself to get more and more insular. He didn't want to be one of those "poor me" types, but nothing good or exciting ever happened to him anymore. The fuckin' horrible truth to it was that it was his own fault. By never taking any risks, by having never put himself out there once in his life, he had managed to make time stand still. His life had just become mind numbingly predictable.

'You think it's beautiful?' He asked shaking his head, not mockingly, just in disbelief as he gazed out over the dark water. 'I suppose I'm maybe a bit habituated to it these days. Like water of the duck's back. It's just, eh, I don't really think about it that way.' He rubbed a hand over the thick stubble on his chin. 'And yeah, I have lived hear my whole life. Other than my brother's stag-weekend in Aragon, I've never even set foot off these islands.' Ironic for a son of a sailor Kenny had always thought.

Aragon had been some fuckin' mess anaw! Pissed before they got on the plane. More whisky on the flight. Straight into a pub the moment they got there. He had woken up the next day with no memory of the night before, in some stranger's bed. In a moment of panic he had just quietly put is clothes back on and left the scene of the crime. Didnae even fuckin' say goodbye. Jesus Christ, no' his finest fuckin' hour that yin! Godsfuckinsake, that really was shite! Kenny cringed with embarrassment even thinning about it.

'How about yersel' Kasadu? It is Kasadu aye? Ah am pronouncing it right? Kah-sah-doo?' Kenny really didn't want to offend the poor lassie. 'Have you moved around much in yer time, or is this the first you've been away fi' Nalaya?'

[Nalaya]

The Docklands
New Belfast, Schottia

Kasadu laughed. "That is what she saw out of her window when she dwelt in the mountains. Now? It is just greyed buildings, black pavement, and a distant square of steel and blue sea. But there is a rose on a trellis that blooms a bright yellow, tended to by a woman with silver hair who lives down the lane. she has yet to speak with the lady of roses."

She pondered Kenny's description of Schottia and New Belfast for a long moment. It was true. Sometimes people became accustomed to beauty to the point where it was almost invisible until pointed out by a fresh set of eyes. She had been that way in Sevan. Too distracted too much of the time to enjoy the Garden City. Maybe she could point it out to him and he could do the same for her. She liked the idea.

"Yes, you say it right," Kasadu assured him. She was in a good mood—melancholy was rare for her, though pensiveness was not—and she was glad to see even the slightest bit of it rubbing off on her new friend. "She has moved within Nalaya a few times. Annu was home no longer after the war, so she went to Yeraskh and was a rootless tree, so she went to Sevan for a time. This is the first that she has been beyond her native soil. So far, it has been very nice. She misses her home, but soon this will be home if she continues to meet good hearts."

She did not attach much negativity to the Long Dark anymore. It was a war, and in war sometimes things happened. That was its nature. Being bitter only prolonged the lives of the shadows. Because of this, she threw the mention of it out lightly and casually, without a second thought. Kasadu had no plan to discuss it, though. She did not know Kenny very well, after all, and some things were not polite to discuss in unfamiliar company. At least outside of Nalaya.

She looked over at Kenny as they walked. Her steps were beginning to head back to the university, mostly because it was late and her restless energy was starting to fade. "Do you paint, Kenny? What medium do you favor? She has not seen your work yet. Someday, though."

[Schottia]

'Fuckin' hell man!' Said Kenny shaking his tired head in disbelief at the revelation regarding Kasadu's view. 'You're one lucky girl, eh? But I'm sure you know that.'

This was the problem with his view, anything would be better in some ways. It wasn't that Schottia was short on views, nice ones, and even spectacular ones. Just a short trip, that's all it would take, an hour up the coast and he would have unspoiled scenery, piece, and quiet. He could always move, get a car and drive to Uni from there. It would be good for him, not just in that the fresh air would do him some good, but also in the way it would get him out from under his parents feet. There had to be better ways to spend your evenings than annoying your mother to tears.

'Paint!' Exclaimed Kenny fit to burst. He was an awful painter, no matter how hard he tried he was terrible at it. 'Ah've no' lifted a brush in years. Nah, I walk. Mostly. But not that I would call masel a walking artist, it's more like Ah'm an artist that walks.' He studied her face before offering a bit more just in case it was required. 'I guess I see it sort of as drawing into the landscape, but there's no real deep rooted meaning to it. Like for example, I walked between all of the churches in Greater New Belfast. It's kind of more about the idea of walking as a form of liberation though, you know like as in freedom. One time I did a walk between the highest point in Schottia to the lowest point. It took me four days and I hand to sleep rough and that. I got arrested at one point for walking though the Handon tunnel.' He laughed at the memory, it was a good one.

'But I really prefer mundane routes. Kind of about getting from A to B. Often the start point and the end point are just a means to an end. Like, for my undergraduate degree show I threw two darts into a map of Schottia and walked between them.'

Why the fuck did he walk? There was something comforting about the idea of having a boring art practice, it suited him down to the ground. He was boring, his practice was boring. Tutors and other artists seemed to like it well enough though, it got him through the course. What was the difference between this walk he had just completed and the walks he did as his art. Intent, he guessed was the answer to that. It was even possible that going on 'a walk' was different from 'walking'. The noun a-walk, you could walk to the start of a-walk. Could a man in a wheel chair go on a walk?

'So what do us do pal?' He turned the question back on her. 'Do you paint much then? Or what sort of work do you make? I must admit I don't know much of the art scene in Nalaya.

[Nalaya]

"She is indeed fortunate," the Imanalov' acknowledged, though she was thinking of things other than her view. She had company despite the fact that she was in a radically different place. That made for a happy Kasadu. "She has made a friend within a day, if she may call you that. This has not happened before."

Kasadu smiled beneath her shrouding at the mention of a Nalayan art scene. Ten years ago, such a thing would have been impossible, let alone heard of. But now? Beauty grew like flowers above a grave. "She paints," the young woman confirmed. "She has tried many paths of art, but the mix of color and water perhaps suits her best."

There was a certain fragility to the nature of watercolors that added to its appeal. They required so much patience, something that she had acquired during her time at Shiimti making mandalas and skipping stones across the glassy surface of the lake. Just little slips of paper with little paintings could mean a whole world, even if they were so easily destroyed by just a few droplets of water or a gust of wind.

"In Nalaya, art for the purpose of art is rare," Kasadu said, tucking her hands in her pockets. "Things are made with care and purpose. Pottery, glassware, stone, metallurgy, fabrics, woods...these are the places in Nalaya where tradition of love crafts its best works. Elegance in function, beauty in design, art in usefulness. She is an odd one out sometimes, because she chases illusionary things, things without utility, things that do not last. It is a pleasure, though, to learn from those others. Even now, she learns from you about walking. She did not know such a thing could be freedom."

Kasadu turned her head to regard Kenny more directly even as she continued forward. "She must admit, walking for art sounds very different...but it sounds right, too. She was taught when she was very young that they who walk in search of things, they walk in beauty." After that frozen road from Annu to Egisnugal, she had thought she would be happy to never walk anywhere again, but times like this one with Kenny reminded her that the experience of a long walk could be enjoyable. It was simply allowing her feet just to carry her where they wished.

The Imanalov' woman laughed. "She learns many things over many years. She was told by her roommate that she repeats such things well. Like a parrot."

[BPSR]

What's this?

[Schottia]

Kenny was somewhat startled by Kasadu's assertion regarding their burgeoning friendship, however he managed to stay polite about it. There was nothing to suggest that they weren't friends, it just wasn't the way things were done in Schottia. The Free Colony was a place where brothers shook hands after a long reunion, and where a palm placed on a friends shoulder was seen as being a bit overly familiar. With that in mind Kenny nodded warmly and curled his lips into the beginnings of a smile, acknowledging that she wasn't barking up the wrong tree. He was determined to give her enough so as she wasn't put off the idea of friendship before it had even begun.

What the fuck was wrong with him and his emotional constipation? In all the long years of his life he had never even told anyone that he loved them. Had there been much in the way of love in his family growing up? That was difficult to say. There was a sort of dependency upon one another, a sense of all being in the same sinking ship. Whether that constituted love was another matter; he would have to sit and think about that one. That would require some thinking liquor.

'Aye, there's definitely something about water colours that I like.' Said Kenny, as he guided then up Keelin Street and away from the path up to Dungary Crescent, which he knew could be a little dodgy at this time of night. 'I like that sort of transparency, and ye kindae have to work quickly. It's not like oil paints, which never dry. I think sometimes introducing an element of challenge to your work is healthy.'

'So there is more in the way of applied arts in Nalaya then?' Kenny asked, turning back towards her a little. He was struggling to work out what in the Imanalov' woman's speech was metaphor and what was actual fact. 'Yeah I think the art scene here took a bit of a different turn in the forties and fifties, there was a sort of movement towards an expressionism, which in turn lead to more conceptual art.' Kenny laughed for a moment. 'We don't have any wars in Schottia, we need something to fill our time with, so we come up with Art and football.'

'So what's yer plan for now?' He asked, making another adjustment to their path in the name of saving time. 'Where about are ye staying in the city? Dae ye have a flat or that? Was it, like, easy enough findin' somewhere to stay here after coming from Nalaya?'

Kenny had no idea what he was still doing out at this time of night. Had he not bumped into Kasadu, he would have probably found some park bench to have a nap on, or even went back to one of the bars down at the harbour. He was now a good hour and a half’s walk from home, and at this time at night the bus he needed was only hourly. Fuck! His mouth was dry, and the pain just behind his eyes was increasing. Stupid bastard, he must be dehydrated as fuck. He was looking around for some small newsagents or service station that might be open at this time of night, but everywhere seemed to be closed up. God, he would have cut off his hand at the wrist for a glass of cold water.

[Nalaya]

Kasadu had come from a world where it was important to tell a friend quickly that they were appreciated, because one might not have that friend for long. War had a way of separating people that way, and permanently so more often than not. Besides, in a world where people were quick to anger and quick to shed blood, it made sense to be as friendly and polite as possible. If nothing else, it served as some protection. Nalayans were less inclined to strike out at a friendly face. It helped that her people were well-regarded by much of her country because of their amiable nature.

"She is staying in the student accommodations. It was not difficult to find a place here, but she has been told that she has simple desires," Kasadu said lightly. She turned her head towards him. "And yes, applied arts. She forgets sometimes the simple ways of saying. Her people talk in images, in description."

It was an understatement if ever there was one. The Imanalov' tended to have a fine attention to the details of the world around them and they constantly turned to that for the sake of making themselves clear. It wasn't enough to say, for example, blue. There were too many shades of it. Blue like the sky, blue like the water, blue like a gemstone, blue like blood in veins beneath pale skin. Maybe that was what conjured up her distinctions of shade in her art.

"Her plan, she thinks, is to go to bed," Kasadu said with a laugh. "Almost we are to her home." It didn't really feel like home yet, but she was confident that it would in time. That was how it always went. When she glanced over, she noticed that he looked uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the drink? She was no expert on the effects of alcohol, though she had nursed her roommate in Sevan through many a hangover. It seemed very unpleasant.

She could feel the tiredness starting to weight down her limbs. Finally, she was settling down enough to sleep. Talking to Kenny had helped. He eased the homesickness a little through distraction, if nothing else. It was good to have someone she could at least chat with about her passion.

[Schottia]

'Yeah-yeah, get yourself tae bed.' Said Kenny, waving away the stupid idea that he could have had the guts to ask her to the pub before the last orders. 'I think a good night's sleep is what the doctor ordered like.' That was a funny one. A good night's fuckin' sleep? He hadn't had one of those in years. It was probably best that he started trying to figure out the best way home though. It was for the best.

'So, like...' He rubbed his face, massaging his heavy eyes. '...so what's, your, eh, sorta timetable then for this week?' He managed to pull himself better upright, he just needed to hold it together for a couple more minutes, he need to leave a good first impression with the young woman. 'I mean, if you want to maybe do something over the next day or two, I mean only if you were, like, wantin' to be shown around or that, we could maybe meet up.'

He knew he was taking a risk, for him it was pretty out of character to extent the hand of friendship like this. It was almost unheard of for him to do anything to put his neck on the line.

'Do you have a mobile number?' Kenny finally added. 'Or we could just arrange to meet somewhere at a certain time, I know pretty much the whole city by heart so just describe something to use as a meeting point if you like.' He added laughing awkwardly.

After he had taken time to say a proper goodbye, Kenny departed and headed of towards the high street where he might get a bus or a taxi home. He was walking slowly now, as there was no rush. Nothing really to be home for, there was no one in particular who would miss him. His mum was used to him coming back late, and sometimes not at all. As an experiment he had once not told anyone that he was going to Lammerton for the week. When he came back home, no one even batted an eyelid, it was as if they hadn't even realised that he wasn’t there.

Constitution Street was a long, lonely path to walk at this time at night. He joined it half way, just before the turn off to New Belfast crematorium. This street always reminded him of the time when his grandfather died. Not the cremation itself, but the evening after he had heard the news. Kenny and his Grandfather were close, closer than he was with any of his other family members. Upon hearing the news all he could think to do was walk, one foot in front of the other. Eventually his footsteps had led him to the city centre and Constitution Street. It had been a bitterly cold night, and in an attempt to get out of the biting frost he had sought refuge in a small bar, with no name above the door. There in the corner, with a whisky and a pint of lager, he had finally found it in him to cry.

Looking at the same bar now, Kenny actually felt a little better. He was still thirsty, he could go in and order a drink of water. He considered it for a good while before marching solidly towards the door. He checked his watch. Who was the stupid cunt kidding, there was more than enough time for another two pints before the pub closed.

[Nalaya]

"She would like to meet up. New Belfast is a wide place, and made better by a familiar face," Kasadu said pleasantly. She pulled out a small notebook from her coat pocket and scrawled her phone number on a page before tearing it out and presenting it to Kenny. She didn't have very many people she had given it out to, but she trusted that he was a good person who wouldn't harass her or cause problems. Kasadu trusted most people, probably more than was advisable, but so far she hadn't been seriously hurt by it. A broken heart here, a bruised feeling there, but nothing that didn't heal.

After their goodbyes, Kasadu headed back the short distance to her door and climbed the steps up, unlocking her door to step in. Everything was as she had left it, a sort of well-contained mess at her desk with the rest of the room in order. She changed into pajamas and crawled into bed, leaving her hood on the bedside table. She combed her fingers through her silver hair as she laid her head on the pillow. Her blue-grey eyes focused on the ceiling for a few minutes before she was finally ready to sleep.

Her dreams were abstract, swirling things like the mandalas of her home. Kaleidoscopes of memories that bled one into the other. Most frequently they featured Erset La Tari and all the things that had happened there. But other times they were of lighter, happier things: colors and lights, singing birds, strains of ethereal music, and friends new and old. This was where her inspiration came from. In dreams, one could see things as they really were, she had been told. That was why living things were dreaming flesh—they could experience.

Morning came early for her, right about the time that the sun was just peeking over the horizon. Kasadu rose without really thinking and began the process of undoing her alhasu before bathing. It was a meditative time to unwrap the bindings that were her second skin. She dropped that set into her laundry bag and pulled out a fresh roll of the linen cloth. After a thorough bath, she rewound the wrapping, giving her an almost mummy-like appearance. Save for her face, fingers, and toes. Then she pulled on clothes over the top, completing her disguise in the world. She pulled up her hood, ready for the day.

Breakfast was thick Nalayan coffee with honey and a healthy spread of cheeses, eggs, breads, some jams, and some cubed fresh fruit. She wasn't quite ready to experiment with cooking local food, since it was so different from anything she was used to. She liked to spend time in her kitchen, tiny as it was, but she was a bit timid about cooking. She preferred to do what she knew.

Fortified for the day, she grabbed her bag filled with art supplies and notebooks. It was a little heavy, but she was used to the weight and found it a bit comforting. Kasadu checked her phone just in case Kenny had called, then headed off to classes with a spring in her step. This was a new world and one that she was going to enjoy if at all possible.

[Schottia]

Gordon Street, Kirkpreston

The morning hit Kenny like a blunt instrument. It was like a splintering, jarring, biting feeling, where the bones in his head seemed to be pulling in all directions. He was cursing going intae that fuckin' pub! Why-o-fuckin-why did he no' just go hame when she did. Being horizontal was painful, but he reckoned vertical would be a whole world worse. What was the fuckin' time anyway? The alarm clock would have been long gone, he would have slept through the thing again. Useless piece of crap he had gotten used to the sound, loud as it was, and his brain could almost blank it out at will. He reached for his phone pulling it in front of his face, staring at it through his eyelashes to act as some sort of screen against its manufactured brightness. Shit, it wasn't even six! It was an hour before his alarm was due to even go off.

Perhaps he had finally broken himself. Maybe this was the first sign of him on the way out. It would be a heart attack and then death, he wasn't even going to reach 30. He pulled himself out of bed, and gripping the banister tightly descended the stairs, his sweating palm sliding down the worn painted surface of the wood as he reached the bottom. This was his problem. The sweating. The chronic water-loss he experienced every time he had been drinking. On occasion he had actually sweated through the duvet itself.

'Morgen.' Said his mother who was already up, but Kenny didn't answer. 'Yer looking awfae pale.'

Kenny walked up to the tap and poured himself a mug of water, lifting the vessel from a wonky mug-tree. He downed it in three gulps then filled it and did it again, filled it and did it again. 'Fuck.'

'What time did ye get back last night then, ye dirty stop-out?' She was standing in her work close, hands on her hips. 'Well?'

Kenny took a long time to answer, first he filled the kettle and turned it on. 'No' late.' Was all he answered.

'Well ye were hame aifter ah went tae ma bed...'

'Aye, well no' long after.' Kenny stood there, dumping heaped spoonfuls of instant coffee into his mug in preparation, for a foul wake up. The immediate hard shock of the morning was gone, but he wasn't close to being out of the woods yet.

'And ye'r up early.' His mother had a habit of crushing him with questions. 'When is it that yer university starts up again?'

'Today! ...mum.' Kenny placed his head on the palms of his hands, he didn't mean to mean to speak so abruptly, but he was struggling to process answers. 'I'm sorry mum. College starts today.' He wiped some of the cold sweat from his brow and smiled at her, in way of an apology ' Have you heard any thing from Barry and Nicola lately?' He knew the topic of his brother and sister in law was one his mum would enjoy. She was a family person, and the thought of one of her sons settling down and getting married was the jewel in her crown.

'No, not since yesterday morning.' She replied as if it was a long time, Kenny hadn't spoken to his brother in fuckin' weeks. 'When was the last time you saw the pair ey them?' His mum added.

'Och, I dunno mum, I saw them recently.' He lied.

'Well that's no' often enough young lad. They're coming roond for their tea at the weekend, Ah'm hopin' ye'll be there?'

'Yeah yeah yeah.' Kenny answered nodding his head as he poured the think artificial tasting black coffee. He would make a point of being out this weekend if there was any way he could manage it. For some reason, he could picture a bar stool with his name on it.

New Belfast Institute of The Arts

The day didn't really get much better, in fact it never really started, he know he would have to wait until tomorrow to come out of this black shitty cloud. He sat at his bare desk in the studio head tilted back, mouth slightly open. There wasn't a sheet of paper in front of him or so much as a pen or pencil. What was his fucking plan? Sit there until it was a respectable time to go home? The sounded like the best idea in all honesty.

To his left Steve and some of the others had bought some beers to celebrate Uni starting back up. There was already a recycling box full of cans developing, sitting between them. Normally Kenny would be the first to join in, but there was no way he could face it today. Nae fuckin' wey in hell.

'Kenny is starting to look tempted...' Said Morag, one of the girls in the group of drinkers. Where she got that idea from he had no clue.

'No, I'm afraid I'm not Mo.' Kenny said dragging himself to his feet, having a drink from a two-litre bottle of water he had been carrying around all day. 'I'm turning over a new slate for a new year. I'm actually going to buckle down and dae some work an that.'

'Aye right, yer just still hung over fae last night ye daft cunt!' Steve put in. 'Yer only ever this fuckin' philosophical when yer hung over.'

Kenny smiled back. 'Listen guys I've just got some shit tae dae, Ah'll see yous in a bit eh?' He took his leave form the studio. Besides the smell of beer turning his stomach, he was aware that his abstinence was upsetting the drinkers.

Earlier on he had contacted Kasadu about the prospect of meeting for lunch. He was lucky he hadn't lost the scrap of paper with her number. He had tried to put it in his phone twice and failed both times, towards the end of last night his fingers had given up on him completely. He also wanted to make a quiet exit. The only place his limited imagination could come up with was the college canteen, and he knew that if Steve, Morag, or the others saw him sitting with a girl, they would give him buckets loads of stick for it.

The Canteen

The canteen was busy, but mostly with first year students. All of the subsequent years had already worked out that the food was shit and had gone elsewhere. All food in Schottic university canteens was cheep at least, and prices were around one pound fifty for a plate of food, desert, and a hot drink. However the coffee was shit too. The tea was shit, but to a lesser extent; it was still pretty shit though.

'Aye, eh, sorry for like, bringin' ye here.' Kenny apologised rubbing his head with embarrassment. 'The food is pretty shit sometimes, but at least it's cheap.' He laughed awkwardly. Kasadu seemed to him to be such a quiet gentle soul, that his crude basic humour had no place around her; it always left him scrambling for things to say. It was so shit that you had to fill silence all the time, that he needed to fill silence all the time. He would have just liked to be in her company, but somehow that wasn't enough. No. He had to cross-examine the poor wee lassie; asking question after question, trying to squeeze factoids out of her. At least she came from a fascinating part of the world, he was actually jealous!

'So how did your morning go?' He asked as he showed her where to collect the trays from. 'Did you get much painting done?' Kenny heaped some carrot and potatoes mash onto his plate. 'Sometimes they can get a bit shirty with you at the till, when you give yersel' too big a portion. They want to charge ye a bit more.' He added in way of a warning.

The canteen was long room, which occupied most of the second floor. All the way along one wall were glass windows, which looked out onto the old industrial estate, not much of a view, but by all accounts the area was due for a facelift. Kenny had heard rumours that they were going to be building an arts complex along with bars, and restaurants, no doubt the students would be the prime targets.

Kenny stared down at the heap of mash on his plate, it was like something his mum would eat. All it needed in accompaniment was a bit of breaded whiting.

'Fuck this.' He said turning to Kasadu. His poor stomach had had enough. 'Do you want to go to the cafe over the road? I actually can't even look at this stuff.'

[Nalaya]

The Canteen

Coffee to a Nalayan was almost something of religious significance. It was often called jokingly the lubricant of society in her homeland, but in that joke there was plenty of truth. People's whole social lives could hinge around little cups of coffee in the heat of the afternoon. Perhaps that was why Kasadu was so baffled that what had been labeled coffee looked suspiciously like an industrial solvent and smelled like the desiccated, bitter imagining of coffee beans. To her, this might as well have been the result of someone describing coffee over the phone to someone who had never had it. She blinked down at it with puzzlement and a bit of suspicion. Really, she should have known what she was getting herself into when she realized it was coming out of a giant machine. Still, no wonder so many people looked so joyless. Poor Kenny. Had he had to drink this his whole life? Did this even constitute coffee? She thought about taking about twenty of those honey packets and squeezing them into this cup, but she doubted even that would save it. The aromatic oils had clearly evaporated off long ago and the beans themselves had been ground and then boiled into submission. This was a husk of true coffee. Maybe, Kasadu supposed, it would be better to bury it and place flowers over the top than to drink it.

The hooded young woman took the cup with her anyway, more out of obligation than a real desire to drink it.

She wasn't certain she would get used to the food for a long time either. The canteen cooks had probably looked at spices from across the room as they made the food, but she was fairly certain that was their only contribution. She would eat it and be glad for not having an empty stomach, but she wasn't going to be writing home about it. Its main crime was blandness. Maybe if she put a lot of pepper on it?

Still, she got to eat with a friend. That was enough to be grateful for. "Morning was good," Kasadu said brightly as she picked up her tray. "She has not started on the painting yet, but the sketching comes well. The lines become clearer with each pass of the pencil." She looked up at him when he mentioned the portion size problems and said almost seriously, "She will object if they become 'shirty'." There was a definite genuine humor behind it. "She likes the way you speak."

She pulled down the shrouding across the lower half of her face, revealing alabaster skin that was so much at odds with the lowland Nalayan brown. Her people rarely fit the mental image of what a Nalayan should look like, probably because they were never really on television or in movies. There weren't a huge number of them and they didn't usually live in non-remote areas. It made them a largely invisible minority, which was both bad and good.

When Kenny offered to go to the cafe across the street, Kasadu felt a relief course through her body. Maybe they had something closer to real coffee. The mash on her plate, in its various shades of brown, was not looking that appealing either. Besides, there wasn't enough pepper and she wasn't certain she could make liberal use of what she did have without triggering a sneezing fit from someone. "The cafe sounds wise," she said with a smile, pulling her shrouding back up. "How has your morning been?"

She didn't mind setting her plate away for clean up even though the food was still on it, though part of her felt a sort of residual guilt and anxiety over not bolting it down immediately. She tended to view most meals as if they might be her last for a while, even though that was far less true these days. She had money in her pocket, though, so she knew it would be okay. If she somehow managed to mess up and run out of money? That would be okay. She knew how to breathe through hits. She poured out the coffee with a small, good-humored prayer for a better life for it. What was the Christian phrase? "Ashes to ashes, grounds to grounds," she pronounced softly with a smile, amused.

After that, she was quick to follow Kenny. "She has not actually been to the cafe. She has only seen it. Is it good?" she asked curiously as they walked, chin tilted up as she looked up at her guide and friend.