Lyra ~ Finding your roots can really broaden your worldview

I felt like a part of me died when the light started flickering, the sign that we had overexerted the field.

We used the village’s light to fight, but in doing so, we had burnt out the fuel that allowed us to live in the first place. With no light, the veils that surrounded the village expanded freely, until all that was left were scattered burnt houses, separated by veils of darkness that now seeped freely into the places we used to live in.

The bastards that came to capture us all stole the remaining lightstones we had at the village center. After taking them, everything else fell after. I had the hope that maybe if we recovered them there was a chance of getting my home back…

But my home was being kidnapped too, as they took my mother, and everyone else they didn’t kill with them.

If I wanted to get my home back, I first had to kill every single one of those bastards.

And I would do so gladly.

They moved as a group through the middling lands. None of them resisted, none of them tried to escape. It was meaningless after all. Being kidnapped was the preferable option as long as it meant that they were going to return to a light barrier.

But even then, why didn’t they even try to do anything?!

Seeing my mother follow the instructions of the Nochians revulsed me. Not only because she’s being kidnapped, but because she doesn’t do anything about it! Where is the fight spirit she always told me to keep? Did she forget all about it?!

I grumbled, looking at them from a distance. I could barely see them now, as I was forced to keep my distance to avoid being spotted. They probably were wary of any surprise attacks so I could not risk it. If they had done a simple head count, then they surely had noted my absence and were prepared to catch me if I tried to go and attack them.

And even if I did attack them… going to Nochightdad is still probably the best option we had. Any light field is better than not having one, and without clear idea of where to go, we would end up back in their claws even if we didn’t want to.

So, I waited. Looking at them from afar, making sure I was not seen. As much as it pained me, I stalked them from the distance, hoping that once we arrived, I would be able to find a chance to help them all.

While we walked, I could see the moving veils traversing the fields. They looked as if they were alive, as if they were more than accumulations of darkness that flowed in the same way that rivers or the wind flow through the fields. The idea of being unknowingly trapped in one of them scared me deeply. The moving ones were the most dangerous ones, and the reason why light barriers are so fundamental to live.

After several hours of travel, we finally reached Nochightdad.

From afar, I saw a multitude of people waiting in the city border, looking out for the group that was now arriving.

That welcoming group had more people in it than my entire village had all around. Thinking about it… was deeply unsettling for me, for some reason.

When the soldiers brought the people in, I worried about how the people from the city would receive them, but to my enormous surprise. They seemed to be… warm?

Only when I noticed the warmth they received them with I noticed the variety of the people in the welcoming group. There were men, women and children. Some of them even jumped into the arms of the soldiers that returned from the battle that survived during the siege and destruction of my home.

A part of me was angry, what right did they have to happily return home when they had killed and kidnapped the people I cared about the most?

But as much as I hated them with all my guts, seeing them returning to their families made it hard to stay angry at them, at least, in that very moment.

The families reuniting was one thing, but why were so warm in receiving the people from my village?

Why were there groups of people that went out of the way to talk to them, to receive them? I could see some of them hugging, crying, as if they had not seen each other for a long, long time.

Why did some others look so angry about it? Why did they seem to look for specific people to go and scream, to discuss, to even start fighting with their very fists.

Several soldiers had to go out of their way to break out the fights that had started.

After several minutes of this strange welcome, they finally entered the city. I lost track of them there, I could not go closer without risking being seen. I guessed that they would probably be taken into a prison or something like that. I would find it later, I promised myself I would.

Before I rose to snoop around and find a less guarded entrance, I managed to distinguish a very familiar figure in the crowd.

My mother had stopped, being the last from the group now, as she was now talking with a very burly man.

The man had what I could only describe as a face made out of rock. He had an uniform, similar to my mother’s, and seemed to enter a very heated discussion with her as soon as they got separated from the main group. After a while, my mother walked away, following the group inside the city.

I remember her descriptions of him from the time I asked, when I was very little. But in a way, I did not want to believe it at all. Could he be…

No, I have no time to think about that now. I had to find a way into the city.

I went around, and waited. I noticed that all entrances to the city were guarded, but after a few hours, I found one of the look-outs in a watchtower to be sleeping. A prime opportunity for me to get in unnoticed, I figured.

When I entered, looking around me was a shock. I figured it would be just like the village, simply bigger and with more houses. That was a naive idea, as I looked around me trying to understand why it all was so different. Why were the houses made of rock? Why were they so big?

Why did people look so happy?

I felt like my head was a whirlpool, thoughts moving in all directions but without finding a way to go. I felt alone, wondering what this place was, and what was its relation to the place I called home.

No, those questions can wait. First I have to quell the fire inside me, and to do so, first I have to find the prison they took all my people into.

With this determination, I looked around the streets, starting a personal search in a place that felt more and more otherworldly the more I looked around.