Lio
Unity
15 years agoThey kept the cryo pod on the bridge, but let me sleep in her quarters. Compared to the rest of the ship, the room felt fit for royalty. The room was ventilated, the chlorine swapped for oxygen. The cot felt like an actual bed, large and spacious but most of all, soft. I spent weeks in that room. It was the only place on the ship I could be without having to wear a suit. I read books, I watched the logs mom kept over the years hoping it would feel the same as having her there, I read what few books mom managed to save from earth… I cried. We searched for a while, but when the crew decided mom couldn't be saved with their effort alone, they dumped me on Safeharbor, our rusty home away from home. I was just a little girl when mom left. The crew of The Sea of Names became my new family. I know better now, but for a while I felt like they abandoned me too. Everyone always leaves. They let me take whatever I wanted when it was time to leave. I took three things, each displayed prominently next to mom's cot. They seemed important to her. The first was a coin, silver though I later found it was made of nickel. It had a face on one side, an eagle on the other. When I asked Victoria about it she chuckled. "Pocket change," she replied. "We left earth with nothing but duffle bags and the clothes on our backs." The second was a white cube, one with small black pips arranged on each side. The number of pips began with one and increased by one with every side. Six sides... six pips. Finally, I claimed a small wooden chess piece, a queen. I knew the rules but never cared for the game. I always favored the queen. Even now I can't help but relate to her. So much power, the strongest piece on the board, and yet she's always at risk. The queen is vulnerable, fragile, and all everyone else wants to do is remove her from the board, or use her for their own ends. Then you consider how they always seem ready to give her away when the time is right. Yeah… that hit me hard.
Fraeia sits across from me at the table. They eye the board on the screen between us and ponder their moves carefully. They then let out a long sigh. I look up and quickly force the words out, "I know. Chess is boring." "Not at all. It's…" their eyes drop and return to mine, a frown forming on their face. "I already know I'm going to win." "What? How?" They gesture to the board, pointing to various pieces before giving a reply, "There are so many ways it could go, but some are more likely than others. I move the knight here," they pause and point to the space on the board, "and you're going to defend the pawn. It would be unwise to do anything else. At that point, it's only a matter of how long it takes." "You just learned how to play and you're already that good?" I ask. "It's a wonderful game," they reply, "for humans. It's designed to develop and challenge what the lebha already mastered: possibilities, behavioral prediction, thinking ahead..." "So playing against you would be like playing against the computer." They nod. "And if two of my kind were to play one another, it would always end in a draw." I shield my eyes and glance at the screen."Sorry." "Don't be." They lean back in their chair, fidgeting with their fingers. "We're different. There are bound to be clashes." "I just wish we had a better way of passing the time." "We need another hour before we can warp again. Life support wouldn't last." I fight the urge to apologize. The ship wasn't designed to have more than one crew member. I decide to change the subject, "Do the Eden have games?" "Not-" they pause, their head turning to the side with a slight tilt. They smile and nod before speaking, "let me check my things. I'm sure I still have them." They leave for their quarters and come back with a rectangular stone box no bigger than their hand. They set it down on the table and open it to reveal two rows of 6 stones. They're small, made of black metal, and the symbols etched into their ten sides look remarkably familiar. I stand up from the table and rush to my quarters. "Wait a second." I come back with the small cube I took from mom's room all those years ago. When they see it, they chuckle. "I guess we are more alike than I thought." "What are those?" "Well," they begin, slowly removing each stone and dividing them between us. "We call it Lio."
"How do you Play?"
- The players cast their stones.
- The players remove any stones that match a stone casted by the opponent.
- The players look at each other's stones and select which of their stones they'd like to change, then recast them.
- Players compare the results, removing stones that are countered. They do this until one player runs out of stones to cast. The player with more stones left at the end wins the round.
Sigils
The Birth of the First Gods
"It's…" I pause as I consider their words. "It's beautiful." "I agree. Thank you for this." They reply. I look up and tilt my head, "What did I do?" "I haven't played in a long time. These stones were more of a… what's the word? A trinket of sentimental value?" "A reminder of the past? A memento." I reply. They laugh and nod. "Memento. That's a lovely word." "I can't imagine what that must have been like, literal gods bursting from a black hole." I add. "Do humans remember their gods?" I think for a moment and a memory stirs, an old, dusty thing from way back when. My eyes go wide. "You're going to love this. My father told me so many stories about our mythology. I remember one in particular, a goddess humans worshiped back on earth. She was a goddess of beauty, fertility, and magic. She was a goddess of love and also a goddess of war." We hear the chime from the cockpit. With life support restored, we can warp without fear of running out of air. We both stand up from the table and Fraeia says, "She sounds fearsome. What did they call her?" My smile stretches from ear to ear as I reply, "It may not mean the same thing or be spelled the same but... Her name was Freya."
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
It's always the odd things we remember people by. In my head I've always pronounced Fraeia as Freya, since you first introduced her, But you still managed to surprise me in the end of this article. a good surprise.
Thanks so much! I'm glad it was still a surprise. I was actually worried about that.