Aelburn (WATTY'S 2020)

.one.°°

"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do."

Potter Stewart

November 30th, 2199

WILLOW

Sunshine on my skin and a crisp, cool breeze was a sensation I wasn't able to say I was familiar with living in the sewage system of Aelburn, though the moments I could escape to the top were the times I felt the most free. Hearing the chirping of birds and the hoots of the owls when the sun disappeared were my solace, Guen often telling me the reason I was covered in freckles was to prove my adoration for the outside. My sister was the same, often times more so than I when she'd press her entire, lanky body against the gate and stretch her arm out as far as possible, wanting the sun to dance across her chocolate skin the way it did across the forest floor.

I stood that first day back in Gardenia behind the gates, my hands pressed against it as the raindrops that pelted the ground sent small splashes of water to dampen my torn and beaten black boots, the knees of my handsewn, black jeans torn just enough for the cool water to drip down my skin, cleaning off the months of dirt that had built up on my kneecaps and calves. We'd finished our week long trek from Rainier this afternoon and instead of assisting in setting up camp, I'd wanted to see the outside. I knew it wouldn't be much different from last year--most of Gardenia was decorated in trees and greenery--though the smell of a fresh rain here was nothing like Rainier.

Footsteps behind me made me turn, almost immediately prepared to spew out a makeshift apology before my sister's face appeared, making my shoulders relax.

"Of course you're up here, exactly where Guen said you'd be." Lavender's voice was filled with faux surprise and I offered her a sheepish smile. "Do you not remember how much of a pain in the ass those tents are to put up?"

"I do."

"And yet, you still made me put ours up by myself."

"Guen didn't help you?"

"Guen's still working damage control with everyone. A lot of us are still mourning Elder Narsean, you know."

I sighed at the name of our deceased leader who'd passed only two weeks ago, being our main reasoning for leaving Rainier in the first place. When anyone in our group died, we'd hold a service, wrap them in cloth and take them to the entrance of the sewer before voyaging to our next temporary home, leaving our dead behind for the Eisiau above to discard of. They would be memorialized on our skin, small horizontal cuts on our arms to remember our lost loved ones, the pain from our blades supposed to signify the eternal pain in our hearts.

Morbid, right?

I'd placed my mark for Elder Narsean just above the heel of my palm on the inside of my wrist, joining the tens of hundreds that resided on my skin. We, the Diangen, had once been a mighty group of five-hundred up until most of the sewer entrances had been blown to bits when I was eight years old and abnormally vicious men called the L'all had ravaged our numbers down to the mere fifty we still had. Guen had explained to me that the L'all were these people called super soldiers, trained from basically birth to be an unstoppable wall of war, destruction and fear. They felt no pain, no empathy. Absolutely nothing as they killed and killed, no man, woman or child safe from their tyranny. The entrances that remained had been almost completely claimed by the elements, the gate I stood at covered in moss as tree branches grasped for those of us who lived below.