Chapter 1 - "How do I meet him?"

And so, Ato was motherless. It was a rarer thing in those days, to be motherless, and even rarer still, to have no extended family, to have a father who had come from one of those villages wiped from the earth. In that way, Ato was born already a bit unlucky, and he could feel it—like when his father left to work the fields, and one of a rotating set of strangers arrived to care for him, newborn in tow, always a bit more concerned with their child than him. They were often content to forget him, as he walked to the choco coop, and played with the fat round birds all day. Ato was unlucky, and so learned young to forget it, to smile until he no longer remembered what had made him sad.
And then, he came upon his fourth year, and began to work.

"Hold the basket still, Ato-ti." Ato and his father were in the fields, Ato standing while his father knelt, surrounded by stalks of harin almost as tall as Ato's father. His father held the stalks tightly in his hand while he carried a sickle in the other, cutting the golden plant slightly above the ground, before picking the stalks up and placing them in the woven basket Ato held, a basket almost as big as Ato was. Ato struggled to hold the basket as it grew taut with the weight of harin; he found his small body sweating from heat and fatigue, big beads of water snaking lines down his brown skin, from beneath the white ribbons woven around his body. He felt himself grow weary, and—as he did most days—he tried his best to ignore it by distracting himself.
He let his eyes wander, towards the cloudless blue sky that stretched on forever, where he could see a faint black spot drifting through the air, and towards the fields of crop and grass that surrounded them, peopled with large shaggy white dogs, and villagers harvesting or resting. Ato's attention drifted towards the village, with it's red and yellow square homes, and, off in the distance, the five great pillars. They were different from the homes of Pilalde—pure white, standing taller than anything Ato had ever seen, their crumbling tops piercing into the air as if holding the sky up. They were unadorned, save for some large white ribbons that the mages periodically replaced, which stirred in the same gentle breeze that tickled Ato's wet face, and that played at the chimes that hung from his clothing.

Ato’s eyes caught movement from the edge of his vision, and he looked to see the daily procession of people that flowed through the village: two older men, one with a mage's staff and the other with an axe, walking next to each other, each with a line of people of all ages trailing behind them. They walked towards the center of the village, where the tree—the only one Ato had ever seen—stood, it's thick trunk wrapped in ribbons beneath a large shade of bright green leaves. Ato, as most days, found his eyes transfixed on the group: how each person held a staff or weapon, and the variety of each staff or weapon—how some staffs held golden bells while others hung silver chimes, and how some of the warriors held tall spears or axes or long curved swords, each wrapped in red ribbons with a few chimes hanging somewhere. Ato looked at each person in the line, their faces serene and still as they walked silently behind their masters, their weapons or staffs held careful and motionless at their side, so still that not a single chime or bell sounded, save for a gust of wind. Ato's eyes drifted to a person in the procession, walking in the warriors' line.
A boy older than him, somewhere around his eighth year, carrying a curved sword. Unlike the others, he was not facing ahead dutifully, instead staring at Ato, a look of disgust in his eyes. Ato had rarely seen any expression more aggressive than frustration, and so found himself transfixed. He stared back at the boy, at his ribbons marked with red and his long flowing cloak of white, and his sword that he held at his side in it's scabbard, it's long thin length trailing behind him. Ato felt awe and fear all at once. His hands, dripping in sweat, slipped from the heavy basket, letting it fall to the ground, spilling harin. His father let out a soft groan and cursed.

Ato turned towards the mess and yelped. "Apologies!" He knelt down in the dirt, gathering harin in his tiny hands and placing them in the basket. His father knelt down silently beside him to help, and once they finished, turned to him.
"You seem in need of rest, Ato-ti. Go and play with the others." Ato bowed his head in thanks, then looked up at his father.
"Apa...who is that boy?" He pointed towards the line, now almost too far away to see clearly. His father turned towards the procession, his eyes narrowing as he tried to make out the figures.
"I can't see them. What did he look like?"
"He had really fancy ribbons, apa, and a long cloak...and a sword, apa!" His father's brow furrowed.
"Many of those people have those, Ato-ti." Ato struggled to think of some other feature that would identify the boy.
"He was looking at me very angry, like you looked at me when I dropped an egg yesterday, but much worse."

Ato's father paused in thought, before look of realization crossed his brow. "How old was he?" Ato tilted his head as he thought on the question.
"Maybe eight...or nine?" Ato's father was silent a moment—then, he grunted as he picked up the basket.
"That was your brother."
"Brother?" Ato looked at his father in confusion.
"Yes... Before I married your mother, she had a child with another man." Ato couldn't quite understand the meaning of such details; he struggled to put them together in his mind—a father other than his own, who had a son that was his brother, but not his father's son...
"Why have I not met him?" His father's brow wrinkled, the ends of his mouth pulling down slightly as he looked at the tree, where the warriors and mages sat in silence.
"He...does not like us." Ato's father was silent. He looked at Ato, as if expecting that to be enough for him.
"Why?"

A quiet moment passed, before Ato's father answered. "Everyone has a different type of sadness, Ato-ti, and a different way of being. You never knew your mother..." His father placed a hand on his head, tussling his hair. "...But your brother did. And it pains him everyday, in a different way than you are pained."
Ato looked at the tree with his father, staring at the small form that was his brother. "Apa..."
"…Yes?"
"How can I meet him?"