How the fuck does one write as a psychic?

It's too bright outside. Light keeps bouncing—reflecting, Asha—reflecting off all the materials they have used to build. It wasn't this much of a problem when we were inside the ship. Inside it was darker, and cool, and the artificial lights glared, but they didn't burn like the sun does now. Most of the time it was dark. Looking at the sky from my old home, it had never occured to me that something so full of light would be pitch black. The metal of the ship is smooth under my fingers and feels strong. The plastics don't feel strong.

“I don't trust plastic,” I say to Nanda. People stare. Suddenly I want to cut my hair and change my clothes and why is my skin so dark? It shouldn't be that dark if I want to belong I obviously am not from here and why can no one understand me when I talk? He grabs my hands in his and makes me look into his eyes. His eyes are brown, not blue. They don't stand out like mine do. No one stares at him.

“Shhhhh.” It is a soft noise, but I feel my breathing slow. He is calm, so I am too. Or I try, but the light is really too bright and I can't figure out why no one else is bothered by it bouncing everywhere, off the metal and concrete and into eyes, how can they see with all this light?

“Asha,” he says again, and his hands grip mine more tightly. “We have to get in line now. Please stop staring.” His words sound forced. He's not talking for me.

“Why are you talking to me in this language?” I ask him in Kiranese. My accent must not be right because the people behind me are annoyed. No, that's not it. They want me to move because I am in the door and I am blocking the steps and I should just go back to my rock if I can't handle how different things are here. I hit Nanda across the face, then start to cry.

“Come on, Asha. We're almost there. We have to get in line.”

Everything is swimming. People's faces are washed out and they all look the same. I can't focus. I'm dizzy. He catches me as I pitch forward.

“They're too angry,” I explain. “I can't. I can't. Nanda, please.”

Suddenly there is understanding. I feel a hand on my shoulder. He is twenty-three and from Newearth and thinks my eyes are pretty.

“You seem to have your hands full,” he says to Nanda. His accent is thick and I don't understand the words.

“She's usually fine. I'm not sure why she's so bad right now.”

“Oh come on. It's obvious the poor girl is scared. Why don't you give her a breather?”

Nanda stiffens against me. They don't like each other. “I am trying to get her out of the way.”

He rolls his eyes. “Burn them, they can move around her.” His voice gets louder. “Guys, guys!

Hey! She's a Type Three! Yeah, that's right, feel guilty. You're all making it worse, so just get moving and give her some room, hey?”

My eyes are closed and that's why I can't see. I open them and sit down in the dirt next to the shuttle. Nanda is anxious that I am drawing attention to myself, but the stranger sits down too. He is comfortable. I feel suddenly ill. My heart isn't beating right.

“I can't understand a word you're saying,” I mutter to the blonde. My words confuse him. I must have used the wrong language.

“She know any Kiranese?” he asks Nanda, who is standing behind me in case I forget to keep sitting.

“Some,” he replies. “She's just a little scattered. Give her a minute.”

The air smells good here, much cleaner than at the station we landed at initially. Plants live here. The sky has no haze, and the clouds are coming in thickly. It will storm soon. My head hits Nanda's legs and I flush as I realize I forgot to hold myself up. Hands on my face, and the blonde comes back into focus. He's holding me still and looking into my eyes. His are hazel. His skin has spots. I've never seen a spotted human.

“You're a handful, aren't you?”

I focus on his spots. Freckles. Where did Nanda learn that word?

“Hey, you in there.”

I blink. He's a person. “Hello,” I say, and I know I said it right because they both understand.

“What's your name, little one?”

Name, name. I have to think. No more clouds. “I...”

“Her name is Asha,” Nanda says. I sigh in relief.

“No. She's gotta learn to do this for herself, you know. I know you want to help, but let her be the one that talks to me.”

Now there are hands on my shoulders, pulling me back to my feet. By the time I tear my eyes away from his freckles they are gone, but Nanda has not moved so it must be the tall blonde. I have to tilt my head back or I am staring at his chest.

“You have a nice shirt,” I tell him, and he laughs, but I can't figure out why Nanda is embarrassed.

“Thank you! You'll get one just like it if we can get you into a line.” His smile makes me trust him. Something in what he says is bothering me. I need to be able to think.

“What...what are you called?” It's not quite right, but Nanda isn't helping and I don't know why.

“My name is Keven.”

He snaps into focus, suddenly, and I am able to stand on my own. Line! We were at the University, and we needed to check in to receive class, Teacher, and dorm assignments. I've held Nanda up.

“I hope I haven't made you late, Keven,” I stammer.

“Not at all. I'm in my third year. Just here to help out. Feeling any better?”

I nod and take the chance to get a good look at his face. His features are so much stronger than I am used to. Nanda doesn't like them, but then again, Nanda is jealous and insulted that he cut in.

“Yes, I am. I don't...I don't do well in crowds.”

“That's why you're here. They can fix that, you know. They can fix anything.”

“That is what I am afraid of,” Nanda mutters. His hand reaches for my elbow. It is time to go. Keven reaches for my shoulder to give me a goodbye pat and I flinch away.

“Whoa, which one of you was that?”

“I...I don't know,” I stammer.

“I was just trying to help.” He's getting taller. Nanda's cheek is already burning from where I hit him, and I don't want it to get worse.

“Can we, can we go Nanda?” His hand on my elbow is infuriating, and I can't figure out why it should be. What am I, his pet? Wait, no. That's not me. My knees buckle and I am almost back at the dirt when Nanda's arms encircle me. He presses his lips to my ear and begins to speak in a language I do understand, but I don't listen to the words because I don't need them to soothe me.

“Some help you are,” I hear Nanda say, but everything is too bright again, and I can't get my body to move right. How can I be holding me, falling, and looking at myself all at once?

“No, no, no,” a girl's voice says, and after a full ten seconds I realize it's me. My right hand arcs out and hits Keven square in the chest. Nanda lets go, and I stumble forward, following with my left.

Like that, the rage goes away, and I am back in the dirt. I stand up slowly and brush myself off. I'm not going to be fit to be seen by the time I actually get to the line.

“How did you do that?” I look up at the blonde, who is grinning down at me. I can't feel his amusement, so I am forced to rely on his face. I don't like this, but I can think now, at least.

“Training,” was his one-word reply. Nanda understands it before I do, so I get the strange echo of the Kiranese overlapped with our own dialect. It makes my head hurt.

“It was...nice...meeting you,” I tell him, but I can't tell if he knows I am telling the truth.

“Same here! I'll come check in on you in a week or two, see how you've settled in. Both of you,” he adds, as Nanda glares up at him. They give each other curt nods and then I am being guided back up the path toward the place where we need to line up. The grass crunches under my feet in places, but it has mostly been worn away.

“Like a deer trail,” I mutter, and Nanda agrees. The air is too hot, and I am beginning to wish I had agreed to put on their strange clothing. I wanted to feel comfortable, and instead I feel stuffy and everyone stares.

“They would stare anyway,” Nanda tells me, and I am forced to agree. We do stand out. Everyone is so much taller, and paler. Changing into their clothes would only make us stand out more because then we'd be trying to say we belonged.

“Asha, the buildings. Look!” His excitement forces me to look up from my sandals, and I stop walking when I see what he sees.

“They get that tall?” As far as I can see, tall, slender buildings of white stone rise from among the trees. Sections of them are open so we can see inside, where students sit in rows and wish they were somewhere else. Some of them are covered, but the covering is clear. It is unlike anything I have ever seen.

“Glass,” Nanda mutters in Kiranese.

“Where did you learn all these words?”

“On the plane flight. While you slept, I listened.”

“I wish I had been able to, but everyone was too loud and the shot they gave me made me sleepy.”

“It was supposed to. They were worried you would panic.”

“Thank you for being angry.”

He pauses. We see the line, but he wants to ask me a question before we get back around all those other strangers.

“Do you really think you'll be happy here?” Nanda has already decided he won't, and I can't understand why. But he didn't want to leave in the first place, and I so I don't really know why he is here at all.

I sigh. “Do you really want me to stay this useless? I know how frustrating it is to take care of me all the time.”

“I like it.”

“I don't.” I walk over toward the line and stay focused on the grass. Grass doesn't think. It's not working because someone is staring and wondering what could possibly be so interesting about the lawn. My eyes meet his and he looks away quickly. He's a poor Type One, or less, and doesn't understand how hard it is to think. It's a shame, since I'm so pretty, that I'm so damaged.

Damaged?

“Nonono,” Nanda says, pulling me to him. I push my face into his shoulder and try to get rid of all the people in my head, crowding in, and giving me all those opinions that aren't mine. “Here, focus on me. Tell me about your brother. Show me your favorite memory of him.” And like that, Mani is alive again.

“Excuse me, miss?” says the redhead at the table. She's staring at a machine and entering a password so she can pull up my name in their database. I'll have to figure out what that word means later. She thinks the password so loudly that I am sure I'll never be able to forget it. There's something I am supposed to say, clealry, since the people in the line behind me are waiting.

“Yes?”

She smiles, clearly relieved that I speak Kiranese. “Your name, please?”

“Asha.”

“Last name?”

“I...don't...”

Nanda cuts in. “Sudra.” I flinch, and he runs his hand over my back reassuringly. They had to have a last name, after all. She is satisfied, and exclaims brightly. “Ah! There you are!” I am amazed at how adept she is at showing enthusiasm she doesn't really feel.

“You'll be bunking with the other Natives. Here's you-”

“No, no!” I am yelling, and Nanda cannot make me quiet. “Can't you put me somewhere else?” It is Kiranese. Where did I learn so much Kiranese?

“I...don't you want to live with them?”

“It would most likely be easier for her if she didn't,” said Nanda over my shoulder. “There are some...cultural issues at work here.”

I bring my eyes up to the girl behind the desk, and she has a sudden flash of understanding when she sees how blue they are. Even here, they know what a disgrace it is that I am a half-breed. At least it is working in my favor. She scrolls furiously and stares at her screen.

“There is space in a second-year dorm, if you'd like it,” she offers at last.

“That is fine.”

“No, that's not fine. Why is she getting preferential treatment?” I don't know what the words mean, but the girl behind the desk does, and so we get angry at the same time.

“Reid, why are you even here?”

“Just walking by and overheard the conversation.”

I turn and look up at him. Something is not quite right. He has wavy black hair, pale skin, and green eyes. Once I am used to this place, I think he might be attractive. Except...

He makes eye contact and smiles at me, but I do not feel it.

“Hello.” The word is flat.

“You have no emotion,” I say, and am surprised when everyone begins to laugh. Nanda looks around, confused. The man's cheeks tinge with the faintest red.

“Have we met?”

I shake my head. The laughter increases.

“An empath, then. Type Three.”

“Yes.”

“Been having fun hopping in and out of people's heads all day?”

I stare at him for a minute, working out what he is trying to say. “No, actually.”

“I thought that's what you people do.” A hint of stress on the last word.

“It is.”

“So why don't you enjoy it?”

“Do you enjoy what you do? And what do you do? I can't tell.”

Reid's face grows redder, and everyone around me is laughing. Nanda grabs my shoulder and tries to turn me back to the blonde girl, but I keep my focus on Reid.

“I'm sorry, what did I say that was funny?”

“Nothing at all,” he replied. More laughter from the crowd. I am suddenly giggling, too, and Nanda is tugging harder. When he sees me laugh, the dark-haired man turns on his heel and walks off quickly.

“Why does everyone like me now?” I ask Nanda, but I ask it in Kiranese by accident, and everyone that hears me laughs harder.

“Let's just get you to your room. I take it you'll both want in the dorm?” she asks Nanda, who nods. “Alright. Here is your keycard and wristband. The screen shows a map of campus. Follow it to the flashing dot and you'll be at the dorms. Your Teachers will be by tonight to introduce themselves, so feel free to relax!” She is still giggling as Nanda leads me away.

“What did I do?” I ask Nanda.

“Why were you provoking him?”

“Provoking who?”

“The dark-haired man.” Nanda kicks a rock off the path.

“I wasn't!”

“You made him angry!”

“I couldn't feel him getting angry! How was I supposed to know?”

“Use your eyes, Asha!” He snapped, gesturing at my face. My breathing gets irregular again and I am back down in the grass before I realise that I am crying.

“Oh, no. Nonono, I'm sorry. Asha, no. Don't cry. It doesn't matter. Come here.” He's helping me up but he's still angry at me and his face hurts from where I hit him earlier. I'm crying so hard I can't even see and I don't know why.

“I'm so tired, Nanda.”

“Come on, let's get you to your room. I'll make sure any students that come by to meet you do it tomorrow, okay? You can have the whole night alone, just you and me.”

He helps me navigate to the second floor and undresses me with the door shut. He folds my clothes, rubbing grains of dirt off the leather as he does so, and I feel the bedclothes. Smooth, not at all like dirt under the fingers. My skin has never felt something this soft that wasn't alive. It envelops me and drags me off to sleep. For those few seconds before I slip into unconsciousness, I am actually alone.

Those few seconds always terrify me.