#WarOfShallows
## War of Shallows 001: North Eis
On the evening before the Tail Moon, the sky darkened to an electric blue, translucent as glass.
Stars from other worlds remained visible above Pila Land even in daylight, but at this hour they seemed close enough to break loose and fall. Their light gathered in hard, glittering edges. Radiv lay back on the riverbank and studied them with the concentration of someone hoping to be noticed studying them.
He raised one arm.
"North Eis looks bigger today. Almost as big as one of the Tail Moon's bones."
Juva sat beside him on a slab of river rock, trailing the sole of one wooden shoe through the current. The river divided around it.
"Since when are you interested in the sky?"
"Since always."
"That's a very recent always."
Radiv lowered his arm and looked at her. His hair had taken the muted green of the grass behind him, although one dark streak remained above his forehead where he had been lying against the earth.
"I can name more stars than you can count, you ugly lump of Pila."
"Of course you can. Anybody can name stars. Stars are named by idiots and after idiots. You have natural advantages."
Juva's laugh crossed the river. It struck the opposite bank and came back thinner, as if someone hidden among the reeds had joined her.
Radiv watched her laugh with an expression of patient injury. Juva knew that expression. It usually meant he was planning something childish, violent or both.
She turned back to the sky anyway.
North Eis did look larger that evening.
It occupied a pale space beyond the scattered stars, bright but not sharp, like a light seen through layers of frozen water. To Radiv it was another faraway thing he could tame with a name. Juva could not look at it that way. Even from the riverbank she felt a pressure behind its brightness, an immeasurable gathering she had no words for.
Radiv sat up.
"You don't even know which one I mean."
"I know which one."
"Then say its proper name."
"North Eis."
"That's what I said."
"No. You said it like you discovered it."
He rubbed his chin and considered this accusation with great seriousness.
"Perhaps I did. It may have been waiting all this time for someone qualified to notice it."
Juva looked at her brother. He was older than she was and two feet shorter, a fact she considered useful whenever he became pleased with himself.
"You noticed a bright object in a dark sky. Vantack will be proud. We should carve the achievement into Sky Roof."
Radiv's eyes narrowed.
Juva smiled and faced the stars again.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"You're looking at it strangely."
"I am looking at it."
"That's what strangely means when you do it."
She let the insult pass. Drawing her foot from the river, she watched the last rings travel across the reflected sky.
"Come here," she said.
Radiv glanced at her hands before moving. "Why?"
Juva pointed at North Eis.
"Because you have named it. Now look again."