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Occupied Territory: MoonSide
20th Day of Month 6, Year 1628 DG
Alba steps toward the stone gateway, and Unisa follows hesitantly. Alarm bubbles in Unisa’s chest from the Ambassador’s shift in energy.
Beyond the gates, Unisa’s eyes are drawn to massive walls on opposing sides, narrowing the village between them. The walls are rooted in stone but covered in dark, powerful metal.
Ore.
With every step further into the village, the uneasiness grows. A mix of tension, discomfort, and helplessness envelops Unisa, as if she knows someone near her is in danger but can’t identify who it is, or how to help them.
The village contrasts heavily with what she’s learned of MoonSide from the Prime and those who’ve ventured beyond the city. Their words depict a utopia, free of violence and hardship, under the diligent guardianship of SunSide’s forces.
Illustrations coat every inch of the walls; the colors remind Unisa of artists she knows back home. For them, art is a medium of pleasure, creativity. The images here are certainly creative, but they’re entirely void of pleasure.
Violence. Bloodshed. Bravers brandishing weapons. The MegaFather with blood pouring from his eyes. Slogans filled with desperation, yearning for hope and salvation. Unisa turns her head away, attempting to ignore it, but there is no ignoring it.
It’s everywhere.
Her eyes fall on a pile of rubble only a few feet from her. A mass of broken stone and clay around frayed furniture and a shattered bathtub. This was once someone’s home.
At the very top of the pile is a Doruh man holding a white sack with crimson blotches seeping through. He lifts a dusty object from beneath stone and places it into the sack. It takes a few seconds for Unisa’s mind to register what the item is, but when it does, she begins to feel her stomach return whatever she’s eaten.
An arm. No longer connected to a body. One end hosts bloody fingers, the other is only torn tissue and broken bone. The scent of fresh decay fills her nostrils, and her stomach churns harder. She drops to one knee as steaming acid works its way up her throat. She takes a deep breath to steady herself, but she fails, and the liquid projects out of her mouth and nose onto the dry ground.
Her eyes well up as a heavy arm wraps around her shoulders and helps her to her feet. She turns to see Alba leading her through a crowd of perplexed Doruh citizens.
“I don’t understand,” Unisa mumbles. “There’s a limb. Someone is dead under that rock and the body parts are being collected in a plain sack?”
“Likely a family member, Uni,” Alba responds, leading Unisa steadily to two wooden stools outside of a juicery. “Collecting the parts to give them a proper burial.” She withdraws a flask of water from her bag and hands it to Unisa. “Drink.”
Unisa takes a long sip and a deep breath before continuing. “He’s gathering a family member’s body parts?” Her eyes find the walls again. “Where is the safety and prosperity the Bravers brought with them from SunSide? Where is the haven won during the Uprisings?”
Alba shakes her head. She speaks slowly and repeats her words from the night before. “The Bravers here represent the true face of SunSide. A face the Library has helped mask for centuries.”
Brutal reality drops onto Unisa’s shoulders like an imploded building. Alba and Hassan were telling the truth.
She forces out the singular response her tongue can form. “Why?”
“Because the Primes have always protected their allies. The MegaParents.”
Unisa’s breath catches in her throat. “No, no, no, no...” She repeats it until her throat goes dry and her eyes grow wet. Alba stands and pulls Unisa’s face into her chest, holding her the way one would hold a child who is suffering a bad dream.
The angi lifts her arms and wraps them around Alba. The last time she remembers being held like this was the day her parents left her at the Library. It hadn’t been her mother who had held her until she had stopped crying, it had been Ora.
“I’m sorry, Uni,” Alba says after a few moments. “I know this is a lot, but we have to keep moving. Our schedule doesn’t account for rest here.”
Unisa unwraps from the embrace. The image of the torn limb, and all that it represents in the fracture of her cognizance, still swirls in her mind. She takes another sip of water and looks out into the crowd of Doruh continuing their daily business.
Her attention is captured by a crowd of young boys and girls. The oldest is around ten. The youngest is around the same age Unisa was when she arrived in the Library. Some of them share a resemblance to one another.
Perhaps they’re siblings.
They all display the same stunning smiles. Pure childhood joy, as they play with a red ball. They kick it around and chase it, laughing.
And then the scene changes. It erodes and perverts and degrades. Unisa has never experienced an escalation like it before.
The red ball is kicked, harder than intended. It soars through the air and one of the young boys runs after it. He still has his smile. Pure joy.
The ball lands on an unexpected target—the top of a Braver’s head. It was a mistake. The child recognizes it, and his smile fades. Unisa’s heart drops. Her eyes widen as she rises from her seat. Alba looks out through the crowd to find the scene on which Unisa’s focus is transfixed.
The Braver looks down at the ball, then at the child, and then back at the ball. He’s holding a spear made of ore. Solid metal. Hard, sharp, dangerous. He lifts it high, then brings it down quickly.
Pop. The ball is dead. Punctured, the air leaving its body.
Tears well up in the young boy’s eyes. They’re filled with hatred and anger. His friends, or siblings, call his name from behind him. He balls up his fists and charges.
Little punches hit the Braver. Another mistake of youth and inexperience. The Braver grabs the boy’s shirt, lifts him off the ground, and tosses him aside. Like garbage. The boy rolls along the ground. Blood drips from his elbows, knees, and face.
Unisa cries out to the Braver, but Alba’s hand wraps around her wrist, holding her back. The former Gatekeeper turns around to look at her, and Alba silently shakes her head.
The boy cries harder now. Anger, humiliation, anguish. There’s only one thing a young Doruh boy can think of doing. He shifts. The boy becomes a lamb. His fleece is a pristine white.
He’s a child. Not a sheep, but a lamb. He charges the Braver, butting his small head into the Braver’s leg. He doesn’t even reach the faerie’s hip. The Braver stumbles for a moment from the impact, but then quickly regains his footing.
Anywhere else, the young boy would’ve been scolded for hitting the Braver. He would’ve been punished with a loss of free time. Or with prohibition from shifting for a month. Or even with a spanking from a parent.
But this is MoonSide.
The Braver doesn’t waste any time. He’s holding the spear made of ore. Solid metal. Hard, sharp. Dangerous. He lifts it high, then brings it quickly down. Unisa tries to take another step forward, to stop the Braver, but Alba’s grip is unnaturally tight.
Unisa is frozen. Every muscle in her body cries out for her to run forth, but she can’t move. Time stands still.
The ore spear pierces the lamb’s side. The attack is precise. Calculated. Left side of his body, low and toward the front. It cuts through skin and punctures his heart.
His friends, his potential siblings, scream for him. The grief on their faces is gut-wrenching. Some of them drop to their knees and cry out to the Twins for mercy. For salvation.
The lamb becomes the boy again. Bleeding out on the ground. Horror and shock on his face. A wide wound over his heart. Unisa tries to take another step toward him. To hold him and love him.
Alba’s grip tightens further. The boy lies on his stomach, back exposed, Braver standing over him holding a spear made of ore. Solid metal. Hard, sharp. Dangerous. He lifts it high, then brings it quickly down.
Pop. The boy is dead. Punctured, the air leaving his body.
Unisa drops to her knees. She can’t breathe. Air has been sucked out of the atmosphere. She puts her hands on the ground in front of her and nearly doubles over. She vomits again. This time, Alba kneels beside her and rubs her back.
Unisa’s world fractures around her. The solid turns liquid, as everything she believed, everything she was certain of, melts into a puddle of duplicity. She’s been complicit in glorifying the villains of centuries-old falsehoods.
She’s been on the wrong side of history.
The boy’s friends are inconsolable. The Braver calls two of his cohorts over. They carry the boy’s body away. Unisa hears them refer to the boy as “another one.”
Just another casualty of the occupation. A casualty of a settler kingdom that doesn’t value the land, or the people, on which they’ve encroached.
Unisa recounts history as it is etched into her mind. Her years upon years of devotion to names and dates and places all come barreling into her mind at once. It hits her harder now than ever; everything she’s devoted herself to is a lie. This boy’s blood is on the Library’s hands, too. On Alba’s hands. On the Prime’s hands.
On Unisa’s hands.
What started as innocent childhood folly turned violent and deadly in an instant. Doruh life is meaningless to the faeries. This isn’t the story of triumph and liberation written in the history books. This isn’t what the Alphocracy envisioned for its people.
Alba tries to hand Unisa the water again but the angi’s limbs revolt as the boy’s face makes rounds in her mind. A face covered in blood.
Alba places her hands on Unisa’s cheeks and stares deeply into her eyes.
“Unisa,” she says, but the angi cannot focus. “Uni. We have to go.”
Time is a blur as Alba supports Unisa. She wraps her arms around Unisa to help her rise to her feet, and then they continue walking. When they’re a safe distance from the scene of the murder, Alba helps Unisa sit on a stone bench outside of a tea house with a sign in the window that reads “Sultana’s Chai Palace.”
Unisa puts her head in her hands, trying to reconcile the discrepancy between everything she’s been taught, and all she’s seen. Everything she believed, and everything that exists.
Her voice trembles. “Why are the faeries doing this?”
Alba sighs. “The faeries believe MoonSide belongs to them.”
“But, it doesn’t. The teri lived here and they became the Doruh. It’s always been their land.”
“The faeries disagree with that sentiment. They believe the Four created SunSide and MoonSide together, as one kingdom encompassing the mountain range, and then bequeathed that kingdom to the faeries. Just as they claim SunSide’s land, they claim MoonSide’s with it, and have used this ideology to sustain support from the theocracy.”
Unisa’s tone changes from frantic to enraged. “Governments shouldn’t be able to weaponize theology to tear civilians from their homes and cause all this devastation. Their beliefs are their own, and don’t justify violence against those who already live here. Why is none of this recorded in the Library?”
“Because everything in the Library is written in pen and ink.” Her tone hardens. “Real history is written with weapons and blood.”
She lifts a finger to point toward the scene they just witnessed. “That is the truth. The truth of the Doruh, the nymphs, and the pixies. It’s raw and honest, and hasn’t yet been washed and cleaned to make villains look like heroes.”
Unisa shakes her head. It still doesn’t seem possible. “All of the Ambassadors, the Supremes, the Prime. They all know this is happening. How do the lies thrive?”
Alba pauses before she responds. “Narratives remain afloat on vessels of psychological coercion. You don’t need a physical door to imprison thoughts and perspectives.”
“What about the refugees and exiles we take into our city? They’ve seen this and their thoughts aren’t imprisoned.”
Alba casts her gaze to the ground. “Their voices are. Vows of silence and obedience in exchange for a chance at survival.”
Her forehead creases, as if she’s trying to recall a long-lost thought or memory. “Since the alliance of the Primes and the MegaParents began, they’ve been painting their ideologies on the inside of everyone’s eyelids, Uni. They can open their eyes at any time, but why would they, when they believe they’ve already seen it all?”
Anger thrusts its way into Unisa’s heart. “But you’ve opened your eyes. So has Hassan. And I’m sure more have seen this and realized the truth. Why has nothing been done? Why can’t we help the Doruh and nymphs and pixies?”
Alba sighs. “Sometimes there is no helping. This has been going on so long. It isn’t our fight to get involved in. That’s not our duty.”
Unisa’s heart shatters. Isn't it? Isn’t everyone who bears witness responsible for helping?
Bravers are openly violent. But she didn’t understand true cruelty until she saw witnesses turning their backs on oppressed people. On violent situations.
On murdered children.
She didn’t understand true cruelty until she saw bystanders choosing ignorance. Or worse, neutrality. When people, hungry for help, cry out, and those with aid let them starve; that is true cruelty.
Unisa and Alba sit quietly for what feels like an eternity. The Gatekeeper watches the Doruh citizens walk by on the road and in and out of the chai house. She observes the homeless huddled by fires, only feet away from walls behind which settler faeries enjoy wealth, food, and resources.
The child. The lamb. His cold eyes, his bloody face, reverberate in her thoughts. She can’t close her eyes without seeing him. She tries to picture his smile. She tries to hear his laugh, but all she hears are the other children’s screams and cries.
Alba stands abruptly. “We have to go. I’m sorry, but we’re not going to make it to Arlun by nightfall if we sit here too long.”
“No,” Unisa responds harshly. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me everything. The Library, the Prime, MoonSide, SunSide. I want to know everything you know.”
Alba looks up at the positions of the suns. “Uni, it’s barely midday. That conversation will take until nightfall.”
“Then find us somewhere to stay tonight. Here. We can head out in the morning after we’ve talked.” She speaks her next words with a certainty and a confidence she hasn’t felt since she left the Library’s gates. “No more lies, Alba. Please.”
Alba hesitates but, seeing Unisa’s resolve, she simply nods and walks away.
Unisa knows the journey is stalled because of her. But she doesn’t care. She doesn’t want to leave the boy. He’s still here. Somewhere.
Where is he? They carried him away. Do his parents know what has happened to him? How will they find out? When will they find out? Will the Bravers come to their door and tell them? Or will they have to find out from the boy’s friends? Will they be able to mourn him? Say goodbye? He isn’t just a number. He isn’t just another casualty to add to the list.
She sits and stares blankly, completely numb. An echo of Alba’s words slams her eardrums.
“Welcome to MoonSide, Uni.”