The Awakened Kingdom
by N. K. Jemisin
(a sequel novella to the Inheritance Trilogy)
I am born! Hello!
Many things happen.
The end!
Hello again! How are you? I am fine. I have learned more about Proper Ways from Papa Tempa. Papa said that what I did before was not the Proper Way to tell a story, so I will do it over. I do not like the way he says I should tell it, though. That is BORING. I want to make you feel like I feel! So I will talk like I thinked when stuff was happening, and I will start from the very beginning, when my thinking was not so good because I was extra new.
I am glad you are with me. You are new, too, and now we can be new together! We have much to learn, everyone says, but I have learned a great deal already! I will share it with you. See, here is what I learned today: how to speak to others without making them angry and how to run if I do make them angry and how not to blur myself into another so that both of us are lost and how to come close to MAELSTROM without dissolution and how to name all the names of all the pieces of EXISTENCE. I learned that besides Maelstrom and existence there is also NOTHINGNESS and it goes on for a long long way. Forever! It is not safe to go there, says Naha. She took me to the edge of the gods’ realm and showed me. It is very scary, but then so is Naha.
Do you know Naha? And Papa Tempa and Mama Yeine? You should know them! They encompass all the fullness of existence that the soul can grasp. I will take you to meet them. They will like you, you’ll see!
Hello! Mama Yeine says I do not have to say hello every time I see someone I already know.
Also, Papa Tempa tells me I am doing a wrong thing again. I am supposed to respect TIME, because that is a thing he has made for the place where mortals live, and you come from there. You might forget this if I tell it to you now, so I will tell it to you later and you will remember it when you reach now. That will happen in the gods’ realm, when you go there, which is where you are now, so don’t forget!
I do not know why you are confused. I explained it fine. OK! Now I will tell my story.
Imagine that you have just been born.
It is very confusing. (Not like time. Time is easy.) There is a lot of pain and messiness and then suddenly everything is new and different and cold and bright! And then something says Be and there you are. And while you lie there screaming there are hands that touch you, and warmth that folds around you, and there are voices, and they are familiar because you have heard them since long before your birth. So you are comforted.
But you scream again because the world blurs and that is when suddenly you discover words like agoraphobia and vertigo and you and other. You do not want to learn these words, but you have no choice! You know world, too, which you sort of knew before, except it once meant something entirely different. Once world was warm and dark and close. Now world is different, and you must start all over again learning how it works. This is not fair, but world—the world—is often unfair.
And then a really bad thing happens.
You were wanted! Mama and Papa and Naha wanted you lots. You know this, and you know there is a space carved into existence which is shaped like a godling, and that godling is supposed to be you! The hole was left when Biggest Sibling went away. By that I mean, he died. His name was Sieh. Now imagine you are supposed to be Sieh! Well, not really. Sieh is dead. But you were made to fill the hole he left behind—to be the Trickster and the wind, mischief and cruelty, the cat and the boy and the cranky old man. Imagine the Three have shaped you so, so carefully to match the hole. You will be different from Sieh-that-was, but you will be important in the same way. You will be powerful in the same way. The planets will follow you and the mortals will tell tales of you and you will steal all the suns, but only keep the ones that want to be your friend. Without a Trickster the universe will not end, but it will be a much duller place.
But when you are born, things are… different. Wrong. You do not feel quite of caprice and wind and man-ness. You try these things, and because you are a god things happen, but they are not the things that should happen, and they do not nourish you. They do not inform you. You are something steadier than caprice. Heavier than wind. And when you curl yourself into various shapes, it is woman-ness that calls to you, except when you make shapes that do not have woman-ness. (Like amoebas. I like being an amoeba! Glurgle glurgle squishchomp.)
You are not what your parents want you to be.
You are not what you want to be, because you love them, your parents, and you want to make them happy, and you just… can’t. In fact, now you have no idea what you should be, instead. You are incomplete.
It is. It is very. Sad. I was very sad.
But then something changed and I got mad. Because it was so unfair. I did everything right. I was born, and everything! Life should have been perfect for me and suddenly it was not and everything was just, just awful.
So I went around for a while, mad. I made hells and kicked them and did not feel any better so I let them fade away. I asked Mama to help me make some life to kick instead, and she looked at me in a scary way and said that life was not mine to play with. She gave me some knowledge to study, though, and that made me bigger which is why I am not talking in quite so many exclamations now. But once I had learned it I was bored again and mad again so I went off looking for something else to do.
I talked to some siblings. Some of them did not want to talk to me but others did. One called the Dreamer told me that he had not been able to find himself for a long, long time—so long that he gave up trying, and thought it would never happen, and resolved to just be sad and empty forever. But then it happened. “It will happen,” he said, which made me feel better. I asked him how he’d made himself be less empty during that long time, and he said he had filled the emptiness with other people’s love for a little while. “But without love of the self, others’ love will never be enough.” I didn’t understand that part so I just nodded and went away.
Then I tried to talk to Spider Manysighted, and she just laughed and threw webs around me and talked gibberish and I almost died! I went away before I could. I don’t think I like her much.
Then I talked to Ral the Dragon, which was hard because all it does is spit fire and roar. So I tried spitting fire and roaring along with it, and it didn’t spit any fire at me, so I guess that was OK.
When I was done I felt even more better, but I was still mad. So finally I went to the wall of torn stars which is at the edge of the Maelstrom, and I just sat there and felt bad for a while.
And I thought: This is so unfair! I should be Sieh!
And then I thought: Why can’t I be Sieh?
And then I thought, ooh, I thought: Maybe I can make me be Sieh.
Oooooh!
There isn’t any rule against it. It’s what the Three wanted, and it’s important to obey them, isn’t it? Nobody said I couldn’t.
So I went back to Spider and I played a trick. I tied her realm to Ral the Dragon’s and ran away before either of them could see what I’d done. They started fighting! And I tried to laugh at them, to feel proud of what I had done, because it was good mischief! And that is what Sieh would have done.
Except… it wasn’t funny. Spider had been mean to me, but Ral had been nice, and… I didn’t like being mean.