We Protect Our Own

Two hours crept by. Hila had retreated to the kitchen, her place for busying her hands in search of solace. The house had grown quiet, the only sounds an occasional clattering of dishes. Sayun knelt beside her bed, and with care drew out a wooden box from underneath. Her fingers worked the clasp and upon its opening, she searched the folds of her clothing before withdrawing a small stone and placing it gently atop a pile of others resting in the box.

The sound of pattering steps drew Sayun’s gaze. Apyang had entered the room, Nawi at her heels. Her sister leant over her as Sayun ran loving fingers over each rock, feeling its smoothness and jaggedness and every imperfection she now knew at a touch. Nawi wrapped his body around her arm as he was wont to do and reached stubby fingers toward her collection. She laughed softly and gave him a stone to hold.

“I’m sure your rocks have gotten smaller from your constant rubbing,” Apyang said. “Why do you have to bring one back every time you go outside?”

“I like rocks.” Nawi fingered the one in his hand. “They pretty.”

Sayun closed the box and returned it to its place. “You may keep that one,” she said to her brother. “And I think collecting these stones is far more wholesome than eating dirt. Choose, little gremlin, which sister you would like to emulate when you are grown: the lady whose worst offense is keeping rocks under the bed, or the one who behaves no better than a common beast.”

“That was only once, and I was four!” Apyang protested, her voice morphing into a shrill whine in uncanny resemblance to their mother.

“Yes, I’m certain it was just the once.” Sayun laughed and struggled to her feet, turning to leave.

“I want Yuni.” Nawi slipped a hand in Sayun’s. “Apyang doesn’t share sweets. I will share.” He was rewarded with a kiss on his cheek as Apyang glared at them.

“Laugh if you will. I won’t tell you something very important.” 

“Then tell me. It is clear you want to.”

“Not until you beg my pardon for insulting me. In writing.”

“I don’t care then.” Sayun turned away once more and started out to the parlor.

“I want to know. I want to know!” cried Nawi. He ran to Apyang. “Tell me. I won’t tell Yuni.”

Apyang picked him up and flung him in the air as Sayun shook her head, laughing at the fickleness of children.

“Good boy,” Apyang said with a smirk toward her elder sister as she lowered the giggling boy to the floor. “Then you shall know that Papi sent word for our dear Sayun to join them in the council chamber this instant.”

Sayun stared at her in disbelief, and left them. As she shut their front door behind her, she heard Apyang shout, “I still want an apology!” Rolling her eyes, Sayun began the descent through the small tunnel until it connected to the main road running through the heart of the village.

The atmosphere of chaos that had greeted Sayun when she had returned hours before had subsided. People returning home for the midday meal perhaps accounted for it. And yet a dull hum rippled through the thick earth separating each dwelling from the other; Sayun knew the emotional upheaval had not yet been quelled. She felt it merely waited, waited for news that would wreak havoc unto their streets, overturn the serenity of their simple lives. The lamps in the ceiling cast shadows that danced eerily across the walls. She had never truly paid much mind to these surroundings. Now they appeared to her ominous, flickering with warnings of something she could not name.

The council chamber lay at the center of the tunnel network, separated from other caverns by a wide swath of open space for gatherings. Truthfully, the council itself did little beyond assigning roles for the community and intervening in petty crimes, as Sayun had personally experienced.

The door to the council was the only one adorned with ornamentation: two scrolls of looping letters in ancient language carved into the wood, preserved through the generations and recreated whenever the planking began to age. Each year during the Festival, the council elders took fresh ink to the faded corners, coloring it anew until it shone vibrant. Though memory of these letters have long been lost, the words they composed had been passed down and committed to memory of each young child born into their fold. At their feet across the bottom of the door, letters in their own modern tongue read, “We Remember.”

Sayun paused at the doorway, staring at the familiar words. She sighed before knocking upon the door, taking care not to brush against indents of the carvings, and without waiting for an answer, pushed it open and passed into the chamber.

“Ah yes, Sayun, come in,” a low voice said.

Sayun bowed and drew forward. A row of five elders sat in a curving line in the center of the room. Sayun saw her father standing to the side, his expression unreadable. Before the elders crouched three figures: what appeared to her a family of father, mother, and daughter. The girl looked little older than Apyang, and Sayun felt a pang of sympathy for the fear they could not hide behind bowed faces, for their bodies trembled.

“The council have need of your gift, young one.” One of the Council spoke. Brodi, she knew him to be, for it was he who delivered the punishment for the cutting of Yabu’s hair. She smiled at the memory, and agreed with her mother then — Yabu had indeed earned her retribution; for too long had she scorned Sayun for what she deemed her strangeness.

Sayun did not speak, but waited in silence.

“Lay your hands on these people and tell us why they have come.”

“Have they not themselves told you?” Sayun asked, unable to keep a note of skepticism from her tone.

“We would have you confirm their words.”

Sayun raised an eyebrow. She felt vaguely that to use her in such a way was an overstepping of the council’s authority, but her eyes met her father’s, and she saw him give a nearly imperceptible shake of the head before closing his eyes, looking away. She sighed; Rudao did not deem this matter worthy of a fight, and she, too, found curiosity gnawing at her besides.

She knelt by the young girl, who lifted her head.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m Sayun. What is your name?” she said gently.

“Carlin,” the girl whispered.

“Carlin, would you give me your hands? I will place mine on them and it will allow me to see what you have seen. It will not hurt, but I must warn you the memories may be distressing.”

The young girl glanced at her parents, who nodded with their heads still bowed. She did as Sayun said and laid out her palms before her. Sayun saw thin lines flourishing across her small hands and wondered. Such dark yet intricate markings on so young a girl. They did not appear to be inked into the skin, as some Oron tribes do, but as though just below the surface—as veins are.

Pulling off her gloves, Sayun set them beside her knees, and hovered her bare hands atop Carlin’s, her own fingers now trembling, too. “Now think of what happened that brought you here,” she said, lowering her palms to touch the girl’s.

Fire. The scent of heavy smoke permeated the air. Bright red flames burned Sayun’s eyes when she opened them to the memories now laid bare to her mind. She looked up and could not see the sky above her, only a thick, black haze. She tasted an acidic bitterness on her tongue — ash, and blood from chewing the inside of her cheek. The sound of screams, distant and near, rang in her ears. Her heart drummed against her chest, but she could not will herself to move. As she looked around, taking in her surroundings, her eyes fell on a rag doll, scorched with only half a face and shoulder. The rest had been burned away. Beside it lay a child’s body, still half dressed with a shoe lying unworn at the threshold of his house; his throat had been cut. Sick rose in Carlin’s throat as she turned and retched, but nothing came forth. In the distance, soldiers ran after the fleeing villagers, cutting them down as they fled.

This had been her home.

“Carlin, why are you standing there? Run!” The sound of her mother’s voice forced her out of her frozen shock. She felt herself pulled forward by her parents, each holding one hand, knapsacks in the other. Her limbs would not cooperate, but felt heavy as lead as they dragged her with them. Yes, they had hidden beneath the floorboards when the soldiers had come. But they could not escape the flames. They had stayed as long as they could until the fire forced them out into the street. By then the soldiers had moved on. They seemed to care little for stragglers, but meant only to set as much of the village aflame as they could. Even survivors would have no choice but to submit once their homes had faded to smoke and ashes.

They ran, the three of them, not in the direction of their neighbors, but towards the mountains far behind the village.

“The trees will hide us,” her father panted.

Sayun pulled her hands away, her breath coming in quick pants as though she ran for her life still, through flame and shadows. The sight and smells of destruction lingered in her mind; it seemed to her as though falling ash still clung to her skin. This family had fled their home, in a desperate bid that old legends would prove true—that a people still dwelt in the mountains, hidden from the world. They had wandered the wilderness, living off the little they could salvage before their escape. What a wonder it was that they had not starved, and by some ironic stroke of fortune had not been attacked in winter when the harsh snows would surely have killed them swiftly.

Carlin stared at her as in a daze, tears forming in her eyes. Sayun had felt all she had felt as though she herself had stood in that place; the taste of ashes and dry paper lingered still in her mouth, but the girl had been made to revisit painful memories at the bidding of strangers whose mercy even Sayun had no assurance of.

“Well?” Brodi said with impatience.

“They escaped their village as soldiers attacked. Everything burned.” Sayun’s voice was a rasp. How she hated this. “People were slaughtered as they fled, but this family escaped to the mountains, here.”

The council members looked at one another. 

“Thank you, Sayun. You may leave.”

Sayun wished to stay and hear the deliberations. Her heart still pounded as though fear held her captive still. Yet she knew as she was not part of the council, she had no choice but to follow their command. She glanced once more at the family clinging to one another, feeling an ache for them for what she had seen through their eyes.