Sister of the Sikku

There weren't always Dragons in the valley. There are few alive who remember a time before the Awakening, when our streets were free of the Thunders of soldiers who walk among us now. We lived in soulless slumber then, with no need for patrols, or swords, to keep us at heel. We lived under the Diffraction, and our enslavement was absolute.

I remember walking the streets as a child, long before we knew of the people who rule over us: those we call Dragons, by the red of their armor, and the crest of the Great Beast on their flags. In those days, the only power we knew was the Watcher of the Valley, a statue of the Great Beast himself, Ušhumgal, who we thought to be our protector. I have no knowledge of a time before Ušhumgal. I was one of thousands of Servers, unremarkable in a sea of gray, as we converged daily to the commons for the morning solemnity, in the heart of the valley that rested at his feet.

Faithful are those who Serve and walk in the light of Ušhumgal.

Every morning we walked to the commons to receive the solemnity, and the Diffraction of sacred light from the statue that stood high on the mountain, above us all. From the city we walked to the mines, the fields, and the quarry, to spend our day in Service, and I walked home each sundown with my hands hidden in the folds of my tunic, to cover the red that swelled from broken blisters. The color of Ušhumgal is sacred, and our daily Diffraction was the only allowance of red in our lives; anything more was a sign of something wasteful, something broken, a harbinger of death in the Valley. We did what we could to respect the gift we were given. We spoke slowly, and quietly, to keep the red of our mouths hidden. We Served carefully, and steadfastly, to keep the red of life safely inside us where it belonged. Aggression was not a concept we knew, and the Diffraction maintained our deference.

Diffraction is the balance of life, and an excess of life will surely lead to death.

A shuffling mass of the steadfast and faithful, we received our Diffraction from the Al-Ušhumgal on the mountain, who protected us. Looming on a precipice in sharp cuts of metal and stone, he sat; braced with his serpentine back to the rise of the sun, the statue of the Great Beast was ever still, and ever watching. The beam of crimson that shone from his eyes spilled across our faces in a cold wave of light, a red diffraction of the rising sun that pierced my eyelids in a silent benediction of life. Each morning, with the life inside us properly sustained, we would turn and walk again to the Service sectors.

I find it difficult to describe the light of Ušhumgal to someone who has never received it. How does one recount a feeling from a time when feeling itself was unknown? The Diffraction was a gift, and a need; the sustenance of life itself. Even a cage can feel like home if it is all you have known. Some days, I wonder if I have Awoken after all, or am still claimed by the slumber of my youth.

‘Dsuena,’ I pray, 'know that you are Awake! Know that you are free.’

Blessed are those who Serve, for the joy they shall receive is plentiful.

I didn’t know what joy was, or if I had ever received it. Through all the days of my small life of walking and Serving, I remember that solemnity the best, echoing clearly throughout the valley as the sun began to rise. That was the day that everything changed.

As the echoing words from the distant mountain faded around us, we closed our eyes and lifted our faces to the East, and the ever watching Al-Ušhumgal. The warmth of the sun moved slowly from my eyes to my shoulders as it rose, breaking the darkness in a hot rush of orange, and flashes of yellow. But there was no red. I opened my eyes and saw the rubble of stone and metal that had spilled down the face of the mountain during the cover of night. The Watcher lay in darkness, fallen below the cusp of the slowly rising sun, shattered into a hundred pieces among the remnants of the rock face that had collapsed beneath it.

Slowly, the crowd began to walk toward the Serving sectors; bereft of Diffraction, but sure in their faith. My father turned from me to walk among them, and I followed carefully behind, fearful of what a day without Diffraction might do to us. My fear was the first true feeling I remember having, as we shook ourselves unknowingly from slumber. I did not recognize it as such at the time.

That evening was the first time I ever saw someone break their walk, and run.

The runner looked like us. Her hair curled in dusty waves, and she dressed in layers of gray, like us. Had we spoken, she would have sounded like us, but, as the crowds parted and she stumbled across my path, I knew that she was like no one I had ever seen. A shiver seemed to spread through the masses as she stepped forward, and the people stepped away from her. I stared at the growing green light that cracked in beams from beneath the soil and scars on her palms. She turned a slow circle, watching us in confusion as clouds gathered darkly in the sky above, and a gentle rain patterned the dirt from the heads of those nearest to her. She gasped for air as the water fell harder, and I saw her hands, clasped tightly in her shirt, begin to burn with color.

I can still remember the way the green light reflected in her eyes, like a sinuous flame. Deep in my chest, I could feel a growing weight that crushed me against the restless wall of people; I saw it there in her eyes, heavy like the pull of my father’s hand on my shoulder as he clutched me closer. The woman stared at me, shaking her head against the weight of all that unknown fear, and then she turned, and ran.

As the first Thunder of soldiers from the mountains converged on the commons, I mistook the sound of their armor as the pounding of her feet as she ran, small though she was. I saw a glimpse of their hard, angry faces before I was knocked to my knees by the cowering crowd. The red boots of the Dragons rushed past us, and I closed my eyes as tightly as I could against the onslaught of sacred color.

I heard the woman scream as they overcame her and, not knowing what else to picture, I imagined her shifting to flight like a raven, her mouth open and red against the sky, as I trembled in my father’s arms. So tightly closed were my eyes, I did not see my father’s hands begin to shine with a light of his own.

Many will say it is a gift, this Dominion of light, bestowed upon us by the Great Beast to further our Service to him; do not believe this lie! Dominion is our true sacred rite, that which the Diffraction had suppressed in our people since beyond a time of remembrance. Know that you are awake, people of the City of the Watcher; know that you are free.

In days to come, I would learn that my father’s Dominion had shone golden, like the sun, called forth by a need to heal in the face of the violence that he sheltered me from that day.

He, and she, were only the first of many to die at the hands of angry soldiers dressed in red.

The Dragons had descended upon us, and the Awakening had begun.

-Epistles of the Occult of Dsuena, 72nd Year of Awakening