Revolutions

159 - Haesan

It was Yachaman's idea, if I'm being honest. A ceremony to honor the fallen, to weave the broken threads of Pachil into something whole again. She said it with her usual bluntness, as though it were obvious. You want unity? Start by showing the people you care about their dead.

Now I stand before the crowd, who gaze at me expectantly. They're a patchwork of Pachil's fractured state. The Tapeu nobles sit closest with impeccable postures, wearing vibrant tunics in orange and red that are stiff with embroidery. A row of Qantua warriors stands apart, their expressions carved from stone. Tired glances exchanged, the slump of a shoulder here and there betraying the exhaustion beneath their stoic fronts. Among them, I catch a fleeting glance of unease—a young warrior clutching his spear too tightly, his gaze darting between me and the brazier. Scattered among the common folk, the Aimue farmers who fought alongside warriors wear simpler garments, their hands calloused from work, their faces lined with grief.

At the center of what was once a bustling marketplace square, a brazier burns steadily. It's fed with cedar, copal resin, and bundles of sage, mingling with the ever-present tang of damp stone, ash, and something metallic, like old blood soaked too deeply into the land to be washed away. Somewhere, faintly, I catch the distant clatter of tools against stone—those who labor even now to rebuild, unyielding like the mountains that cradle this city.

In this moment, there's a quiet I'm not used to. Not the peaceful kind, but the strained silence of a city that's waiting to see if we will allow it to crumble completely or cause it to rise once more. Where once stalls brimmed with color—vendors hawking golden papayas, smoked chilies, carved obsidian figurines, painted gourds, jade jewelry, feathered fans, woven tapestries, and garlands of fragrant marigolds—the square is now stripped bare, its only adornments are the marks left by battle. Scorch marks streak the walls, and uneven rubble still lines the edges of the square, piled as though waiting to be carted away.

For all its ruin, though, there's something stubbornly alive about Qapauma. The people here—those who've stayed, those who've returned, those who've fought and lost and keep fighting—have begun to stitch their home back together. I see it in the small things: patches of clean, repaired fabric on otherwise tattered clothes, children's toys carved anew from scraps of wood, the faint green of saplings planted near the square's edge. Where the cracked flagstones that spiderweb beneath our feet once told only of ruin and bloodshed, they now glimmer faintly beneath the glow of torchlight, meticulously cleaned and adorned with symbols etched in white ash. These glyphs—borrowed from the Aimue, the Qiapu, and even fragments of Tuatiu tradition, among other factions—spiral outward from the central brazier. Their patterns are intricate and deliberate, telling stories of battle and rebirth.

Around the square, the people of Qapauma stand in hushed reverence. Some hold small tokens: woven armbands, clay figurines, carved stones—all made as offerings to their loved ones. Chosen from among the surviving elders of various factions, the ceremonial attendants move through the crowd, collecting these offerings with solemnity. Each is carefully placed into the fire, and the flames crackle as they consume the gifts meant to guide the spirits of the dead to their next journey.

The ceremonial attendants are dressed in garments that blend Aimue and Tapeu designs—feathered capes in deep indigo, accented with saffron red trim. They wear headdresses adorned with quetzal feathers, moving measuredly and deliberately as they approach the brazier in procession. Each attendant carries a bundle of offerings bound in bright cloth, and I note how the vivid colors are a stark contrast to the muted tones of the general crowd's attire. As they approach the brazier, they pause, chanting softly in Merchant's Tongue—a prayer of unity, though its cadence is borrowed from the Aimue's burial songs.

This was Yachaman's doing, her way of preserving Aimue tradition while allowing it to evolve. But I made my own changes. At her suggestion, I had the ashes of the previous fires scattered into the land surrounding the square, planting saplings that now stand in a ring around us. These trees are young, but rooted deeply, representing a future that could grow from the ashes of our past—a metaphor I hoped the people would understand.