The Heart of Westeros.

You wish you couldn’t hear it…

But everyone could.

There was absolute, no escape from it.

And today…. Today was the most horrid I have ever seen it in my short, young years. Sure, I had been given a front row seat amongst the other juveniles, we each desperately held onto the contents in our stomachs as we watched terrified.

We were..… We are, considered Rebels.

All detained in a line on our knees for the next sickening splay to fill our nostrils. The smell was enough to make anyone faint and with a hard smack to the ground, I watched as two rebels amongst our group, smashed their faces on the limestone court. The sight we were spectating was enough to wish your own existence away and with another splay from the executioner, I felt the blood of our brothers burn the inside of my nostrils, again.

It was a front row seat alright, but that duplicity isn’t what made this day most horrid. It wasn’t the six convicted or the four already dead, hanging outlaws, they had just been skinned in the high temple court.

What made this day the most horrid I have ever seen it, was because my only brother was up next, to which I had this dreadful front row seat.

Knee deep in shit is what it felt like to be detained here, unable to unshackle myself or help my brother as he walked the blood filed limestone court to his beckoning injustice.

Our eyes locked and every bit of my heart and soul crumbled as he gave me his last dashing smile, his head nod towards me as if to say well done brother.

I panicked searching, I took note of every Dunaider bystander in the court, there was no ally in sight as my pleading eyes scanned every direction. I watched all their faces contort like a mob of Poisoned spectators. Many hid in the Shadows of Market to which I also knew the children were under the stores. This was Westeros after all and citizens of all age are made to attend by decree of King West and so here they all are, thousands upon thousands lined the right bank of Lily Dale Court.

The name came after the Lillies that lived in the water ponds, architecture that intricately decorated the walls and floors of the entire Limestone Court. The Place, meant to be a ground of solace where community collectively connected , instead was used as a platform for repression, segregation and monopolising its citizens. Not that any of the elitist consider us Dunaiders as an equal as they sit like Kings & Queens in the front left side of the court. Drowning with sneers for faces and jewels for clothes , I spat the blood of my brothers in their direction. The fistful blow to the face I coped was not enough to take my pain away , three steps away to his death my brother continued his walk.

Flashback :

“ Can you hear them Domy?” Im a 7 year old in the South bank of Lily Dale court, my eldest brother Rumy is asking me if I can hear the Dunaiders screams still as he covers my ears with his two hands.

“No Rumy, I can only smell them.” I replied. Rumy pulled my body and head into his lap harder, holding me what felt like days as we waited for our father.

He never returned, it was just Rumy and I after that day.

I lifted my own face grinning from ear to ear,

“is that all you’ve got little bitch?” I spat the rest of my blood into the Guards face, pushing the memory out of my head.

My broad shoulders rolled back into their confident position. Juvenile i may still be but manhood had welcomed me & Rumy like a god given blessing.

We grew fast and strong in the slums, learning early on in our life how to survive living on the streets of Westeros. I flashed my bloodstained teeth and honestly wanted his next blow to be harder, his punch had felt like the summer of Rumys 18th birthday, it was a golden Friday evening and we always trained with soft punches for our warm ups. Essential to train when living as a Dunaider, especially if you had fallen even further down the colony than the average household.

So for us, it became a nonnegotiable.

We trained harder and longer than any of our fellow brothers and in return we had developed muscles that rippled along our entire bodies because of it. Rumy was always the stockier version of us two, but if it weren’t because of the height difference, we could have passed as twins.

We both got our mothers straight nose and strong cheek bones, but photos and distant memories were all we knew of her. We carried with us parts from our father too, his strong jaw fit our faces well and we never shaved the hair that grew along it. The ocean blue eyes we received from him stood stark in contrast against our black facial hair. Every single Dunaider had long hair that was braided , each braid had its meanings and each token within the braids had there symbols. It was Dunaider tradition, one we adorned with pride having numerous braids and tokens that travelled all the way down past our backs. Backs we always laced with knifes.

That usual quite mundane Friday was how Rumy and I spent numerous times in the Dunes of Westeros, his birthday made it no different. Each Friday we patiently waited for the Black Midnight gates to creep open, for all Dunaider travellers were coming over into Westeros. They were seeking water or refuge to avoid the forever plaguing sand storms that doused the Nation.

We’d watch and scout each traveler coming through, this place was the only home we had known and now it would be there’s too, its stories were what made this place a legend. So many stories of Westeros had we heard over our years in the taverns, amongst the markets at Court , even each Dunaider Sand rider had there own twists and each traveller seeking refuge would have their own tale to tell too.

It was mostly told as an ancient civilised city that was built from the innocent blood of Dune children, just like the tears their mothers and for-mothers had cried filed the Lily Dale court pools. The Nation was built by man, for man and Westeros at its capital was something entirely different to your core, you smelt the children whenever the gates opened. You heard the cries of the mothers whenever you stepped into Lily Dale Court.

The elite say it’s the capital that never sleeps, the only capital in the Nation of Dunes is Westeros.

A one stop shop to come collect fresh drinking water. In the morning you’ll find that the glad iron heart shaped gates close, it takes about 10 minutes for the mechanical chains to pull them shut. They are the only opening inside the whole capital which is just sitting in one big metal dome. When you’ve lived here all your life, you begin to question if it’s keeping you in or out, especially as we watched on each Friday evening every refugee come in and never leave. Rumy was scouting, we looked for begotten refugees, the ones who just wouldn’t make it here. Each Friday would bring in around two to three new recruits and the Big Ale was always our first stop of welcoming.

There are always stories being told in the Tavern (Big Ale) about our Heart shaped gates, Its supposedly so we are safe from the sun. A sun we are never allowed to see or discover , because it doesn’t exist in the way civilisation knew it anymore.

That is why the gates close every dawn and only open after dusk.

The Earth is one Nation now, one big Sand Dune, when the moon is full, you can see the dunes for miles.

It was the King of Westeros who created the Dome, his heroic’s spread throughout the Nation for his brilliance in salvaging water. Without King Westeros , there would be no people, there would be no civilisation and so he became known as the legendary West.

You’ll always hear them chant his name after each story told in the tavern.

“ West! West! West!”

Each drunk Dunaider would then return back to their hovel and come again late dusk to tell another story, each one would emerge great secrets about our capital, its mysterious appearance and the hero who saved us all from the Dunes.

King West.

However, Dunaiders like ourselves are despised by the elitist and it is well known in all the stories you ever hear at Lily Dale Court.

We Dunaider’s are the cause of the Dome according to the elitist, they spread numerous stories about a time of grass, a green plant that covered the land, that could grow tall and could feed millions of animals all across the Nation.

Animals that went extinct when the Dunaider’s caused the curse upon the land. The curse that made the sun turn cities to ash, oceans to dirt and rain into sand.

Creating the Dunes.

For miles upon miles outside Westeros is the Dunaider waste land, consisting of Dunes upon dunes spread across the entire Nation now. The only animals left were that of the reptilian kind, they and us were the only survivors of the great apocalypse. A day that changed the world and Created King West and the begotten city, Westeros.

Rumy and I had heard it all within our years here living in the city, our home.

He got me through everything, he taught me all I had ever known. He had laughed at me when I first broke my nose on the sand rider and had supported me when I had blown all our money in Big Ale on a stitched up reptilian fight. He is the reason I am who I am and he was about to be executed because of King West.

The great King of Westeros had decreed it so, that any man that had not gone through the tribunal waters in the east dome had committed treachery and the longer the time elapsed the further cruelty of execution.

Rumy had just turned 20 and next week I will turn 18.

We didn’t know anyone who had come back from the tribunal waters, so when Rumy turned 18 & I hadn’t even reached my 16th birthday yet. I didn’t want him to go as much as he didn’t want me to leave and for his 18th birthday, we instead chose to keep our lives here the same. We had accomplished being off grid for this long, we didn’t think we’d get caught or of how dire the consequences could be, until now.

The tribunal waters were another story, one that was hardly ever told because no one knew of anyone who’d come back.

The executioner addressed the mass

“ Ruminoplous Clarke , born 1st of the 10th in the sand of 1010. The Sand is 1030 , you have disgraced your nation and committed treachery against your king for your desertion. In doing so you now face your execution.”

I couldn’t breath, it wasn’t because of the blood filing my nostrils. It wasn’t from the tears spilling down my face and it wasn’t from the words of the executioner.

I couldn’t breath because there among the masses, I saw him and I knew it was him.

For he wore the heart locket, the heart that was just as identical as the heart on the gates of Westeros. I knew that locket anywhere, it was our mothers last token and my last memory of her was that to which she had given her love to him, my father, within that locket.

He smiled so broadly at me and opened the heart locket, sunlight blinded the entire court.

To be continued.