Shattered Into Ash

Shattered To Where You Belong

Nathaniel:

I had a dream last night. Not quite a dream, but a memory. I fell sleep clutching my knees to my chest, with my ears ringing from the commotion of the village. Everyone was failing and there was nothing I wanted to do. I fell into sleep in the uncomfortably tight position and I was filled with a memory of when I was six years old and my brothers Mike and Luke were showing me around the planet.

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"Nathaniel, come quick!" Luke shouted at me. "You are six years old now, and I think it is time you knew what Malison has for you."

The students at the elementary school were practicing music, art and dance. No new styles, just old ones. That's all the Zodiacs promoted, old styles and traditions.

"Nathaniel, there is so much to do!" Luke grabbed my hand, jerking me down the road.

I looked around at the workers in the fields, mending the crops. I was too young to understand any of this.

"We trade with our allies in the galaxy." Luke pulls me along, Mike follows us. "Fishermen go out to the sea to get this, to trade with a planet," he held up a flower coral thing that was bright red. "That planet gives us magic for what we need to help us rule the galaxy, making us the superpower of the universe."

"I wanna see!" I laughed, running from Mike and Luke.

Mike picked me up, placing me on his high shoulder.

"Don't run away." Mike said. "Our people will need a leader, a member from the Zodiac family to show that courage lies within us."

"And you're the one." Luke tapped me on the nose. "There will come a day when you will want to say right where you are. But then you will kick it up a notch and leave to become someone greater."

Mike and Luke were my eldest brothers. Mike had blond hair and blue eyes, he was very strong and could carry me everywhere. Luke had black hair and green eyes, he was very smart and talked a lot. Both of them were sixteen. I was a mixture of my two brothers, brown hair and blue eyes, I was neither strong nor smart. I was just happy with where I was.

"Nathaniel, look at our wheat." Luke pointed out into the field, picking up a piece from the ground. "Look at the ground, the water, the sunlight. The galaxy is giving us all we need to survive."

Ames, my other brother, jumped in between Mike and Luke. He was small like me, but he liked to boast about everything he did. He was fourteen years old. I didn't know where he came from, he was just always there when one least expected him.

"Nathaniel!" Ames smiled. "Look at all that wheat, from which we make pasta and flour. We make baskets from the stalks to carry the seeds to be planted for the next season. We use the twigs to make fires to light the ovens to cook our bread. It's a cycle that will never end."

"Why can't I leave?" I asked. "I don't want to be-"

"Because you must give to this planet all it has given to you." Luke told me. "You will be the best General Malison has ever seen."

"We don't go anywhere we are not needed." Mike said. "We stay here, where it is safe. You will be okay here, you will be happy right here."

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My other brother was Azun. I didn't know him that well, until I wandered off from Mike, Luke and Ames, just to try and get away from the pressure they had been building on my shoulders. I just wanted to go play.

I ran off into the woods behind my house, and found Azun sitting by a stream playing in the dirt like a weirdo. Mike, Luke and Ames had all told me to stay away from that one, he wasn't a good influence, they said.

"Nathaniel." He smiled at me. He had black hair and silver eyes. He just turned fifteen.

"Whatcha doing?" I asked, wondering why he would just sit by the water running his fingers through dust and bugs.

"I come here to relax." Azun said. "I love the water and how it works, it flows where it is driven to go. No one forces the water to go another way. I sit here and listen to the stream flowing down each rock." He threw a stick into the stream. "I like to think of myself as the water, just going with what I got."

"What does that mean?"

"Nathaniel, sit with me and you will learn."

I sat beside him, crossing my legs, listening to the water like Azun asked me to do.

I wouldn't discover much later that I didn't want to be a leader. I wanted to be a doctor. And nobody should force me to be something I don't want to be.

"Mike and Luke think I am useless." Azun told me. "Because of my power over dirt. But let me tell you something, Nathaniel. You're destined to be who you become. You must take what you got and make the best of every situation."

Azun waved his hand around, the dust bended to his will, turning like a tornado through the air and around his hand. He tapped the ground and a flower blossomed up from the dust.

"I see." I laughed.

"You are a lot like mother, back when she was alive last year." Azun looked at me and smiled. "You look exactly like her. Now pay attention to what Dad says. If he tells you to do something, you do it. But if you hear the wind calling you, go to it. Because that wind calling to you, is the voice inside of you, something no one can take away, because it is who you are."

I tilted my head, confused by my brother's words.

Words that didn't apply to me till years later.

"Luke is like Dad." Azun stood up and we walked back home. "He is stubborn and full of himself. Ames and Mike are the same way. This family is torn into two. Mike, Luke and Ames against Vestry, Dustan and I. You must decide who you want to follow, you don't have to right now. Make a list inside your head, decide where you belong."

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Mike taught me to make baskets from wheat stalks. I tasted the delicious pasta, made by the workers on Malison. Azun and I sang traditional songs as we played in the water. Luke dragged me away. He said it was because there were mouths to feed and we must hurry before we get a revolution.

Making a difference means nothing if it's only inside you, you need to go out and make the highlights in the news.

The planet believed in me. The people trusted me. This planet gave me what I needed and I can't leave to become something else, not a doctor, I will have to be a leader someday. But this is not who I am...

So, I must stay here, at home for the people. When I re-think of my future, all I thought of were Azun's words to me. I really wanted to be a doctor. Luke couldn't change my opinion. If I wanted to be a doctor, he couldn't make me not do that.

I would go my own way.

I spent my time with Azun. He taught me principles in parables. He told me stories with meanings, taught me how to tie my shoes. I had Azun to guide me where I want to go. We would build my future together, right here where we are. Because every path led me back to where I wanted to go. I could find happiness where I was going, I'd have happiness where I was.

With Azun.