“Keep in mind that this story is the result of my having put things together from fragments of information, mostly from overheard conversations and journals a few of my relatives kept in Baalphorian,” Olivier told Emilia after she had reached her presence around them, locking his words behind a second barrier of privacy—some skill that The Black Knot used when there was a risk of Free Coloniers listening in, as {A Private Moment} could only alter and lock the memories of people with Censors installed.
It was nice of her to do so, the silverstrain having clearly read something in his words, tone, the tension of his body, that indicated that more than even the secret of his Grey Sands heritage, the mythical reason
why
his paternal ancestors had fled their home was something that couldn’t get out, no matter what. Even he had never been explicitly told the story he was about to tell Emilia. It was a story more myth than fact, centuries removed as it was, but Olivier felt an itch over his soul, demanding he keep it from the ears of unknown parties.
Perhaps that desire to keep it secret was due to the content of the story—the echoes of manipulations and danger that wove through it—but especially within the unknown as this place was, the extra obfuscation of her skill was appreciated. Apparently, on top of effectively blacking out the memory of any
unapproved people
within its sphere of influence—regardless of whether they had Censors or not—it also blocked eavesdropping via a variety of more sophisticated skills, core abilities, and electronic devices. {A Private Moment} protected from some of that, but is focused more on blocking the ability of those within it from speaking of—or sometimes even remembering—what had happened while it was active, and for most situations, that was enough. For the story he was about to tell, it hadn’t felt like enough. Now, it felt like enough, for this story that needed to be protected.
“This story is dangerous. To speak it in the wrong company is to bring ruin upon the entirety of humanity,”
something seemed to say of this story—the aether? Olivier had no idea; as much as he had felt so many mysterious instincts throughout his life, until meeting Emilia—until feeling all the echoes of the aether’s will surrounding her—this feeling about his paternal history was the strongest he had ever felt.
Eternal. Unending, yet ending… soon? Soon and yet not?
Shaking himself—and making a note to contact Halen and ask if his family had raised him to believe in such things as well, and if there was anything about their shared heritage Halen was willing to tell him—Olivier began to tell his story, shifting the words into something as lyrical as he could manage, in hopes that maybe that would keep Emilia from interrupting.
The exact Mjuna to whom this story is attributed is unknown, their name lost to the sands of time, which eat upon the memories of the aether itself—each gust of wind washing them across borders that exist only in the minds of men, into the waters of the oceans, bays, rivers; into wells from which humanity pulls its cooling vapours, unknowingly consuming the past with every desperate gulp in the sweltering heat of summer.
It was, unsurprisingly, here that Emilia interrupted Olivier. “I thought you said you couldn’t read Grey Sander? I didn’t think any books had been translated, and that is definitely Grey Sander style prose.”
“It is. Even their legal documents are very flowery. Would you prefer I tell it Baalphorian style?”
“As in, straight to the point, unless we’re discussing how glorious we are? No thanks. Go back to your attempts at emulating Grey Sander literature. Seriously, though! I’m so~ teaching you Grey Sander, if only so I can make you read the most flowery things I’ve ever read, and you can compare it to your most flowery legal documents.”
Olivier was about to go back to his story when, unsurprisingly, Emilia had to interrupt again to ask if his older relatives had spoked like that, as many of the older Grey Sanders she knew tended to speak more descriptively—a few of them she even accused of being
painful to listen to.
After agreeing to eventually tell her a few stories of his aunt, who had been exceptionally close with his paternal great-uncle—who was apparently known for his flowery prose—and written the journals he’d gleaned much of his story from in flowery Baalphorian, Emilia allowed him to return to his story, promising that she would be good and listen. Olivier wasn’t holding his breath.
What is known of our Mjuna ancestor is that he was an unfortunate bureaucrat in a time of great strife not just with the nation’s northern neighbours but with those to the southeast as well. While war and conflict bubbled between the Grey Sands and Baalphoria, a torrent of malevolence suffusing the aether and Bay of Jibur until a single drop of tension would bring about an inevitable overflow, the Sever of Mitine Dyn was searching for something.
It is said that the Sever of Mitine Dyn can see the future, written within the very fabric of the universe. Each of the Sever—only ever one, and yet their line eternal and unbreaking—sees the same future. The same future has a thousand potentials—two splits of fate, of destruction or rebirth—and each of the Severs’ spinning minds and blank eyes seek to bring about a different change. They pluck at the fibres of the aethernet, seeking the future they deem best. At the time of this Mjuna of whom we speak, they seek the one who will bring the one to whom the aether with bend to save into being; not this generation—not this child still growing within their mother’s womb—nor even the next, nor the next even after. Generations on, a flowing of destiny, until it all collides in fire and acid and blood, the world ripped under the weight of grief for their gentle, self-sacrificing soul.
The Sever of Mitine Dyn, they seek the soul whose survival our world depends on; their seed, meant to create more life still—life that will save humanity through their own seed-eggs, through that child, the next, perhaps even the next, the next, the next. It is unknown what the Sever seeks this soul for. To snuff out their life before they can further the line of ancestors for that gentle child of the aether and destiny. To keep them safe and be sure that child comes to be; our world depends on that child, so many centuries removed from that day when the Mjuna learned of the Sever’s seeking—of their target: the Mjuna themself.
To leave the Grey Sands is to relinquish all claim and attachment to our religion, family, culture—to our name itself, whispered here and there but never to grace papers again. Yet, what is one to do when the Sever’s eyes bear down on them, all seeing, all consuming?
To run and abandon. To seek refuge where even the Sever fears the all-seeing eyes of the monsters of the sky, its beginnings long forgotten but always feared.
It was here that Olivier was forced to interrupt himself so he could clarify to Emilia that
monsters of the sky
was a term he had found in some of the oldest of his family’s translations, and seemed to be a reference to the OIC System.
“It’s difficult to tell, given I don’t speak the language, but later on, the documents changed to using
the OIC System
, or occasionally,
the aether cursed soul system.
”
“Weird.”
“Yes. A few of the documents from around when they transitioned terms use a combination, so I assume they all refer to the OIC.”
“Any ideas why those terms?”
“No. I have found there is a general lack of proper nouns in the legal documents, and from my aunt’s notes, it seems the same place or thing can be referred to quite differently, seemingly on the whims of speaker.”
Emilia nodded, agreeing with his assessment and saying something about how, after spending so much time in the Grey Sands—which apparently was nothing compared to the amount of time she’d spent in Dion—she had the sense that something in Grey Sander religion lent to the idea that everything had a true name, and that when the thing itself couldn’t give that name, they avoided calling it anything official.
“People who are younger use more terms from other languages, and I generally get the feeling the older someone is less than happy about that?” Against him, Emilia shrugged and told him that the Grey Sanders were so secretive about their religion that even gleaning information could be difficult. “Their words for the OIC System, though… I’ve never heard those before. I soooo want to read your documents now, to see if there’s a reason for the wording in anything…”
Given how many of the documents had never been translated, Olivier had no idea. They might have mostly been legal documents, but the whole language barrier thing meant there could very well be religious and historical texts in there that Grey Sanders would kill to remove from their possession, and there was no one alive—except perhaps his aunt, who was not a lawyer and had therefore been effectively banned from the bunker where the documents were stored once his parents married, and had eventually disappeared into northern Baalphoria when he was a teen—who knew about the documents and could translate them.
Not until Emilia.
While the Mjuna worried for their future, the Sever’s Gloriana and their gloria increasingly shifting between their two nations, seeking the one on whom the future of the planet relied, yet more troubles came his way. They say that one problem makes way for more while the mind questions. Once answers are found, the aether gives leave to her believers to find their way without true difficulty, only difficulties meant to guide her beloved friend’s way to be found. Without intention bringing forth the manifestations of the aether’s will, the aether will have her way with her followers.
And so it was that the Mjuna found himself surrounded by boxes of documents—the history of our nation, our lives, our very souls—while the cruel souls of the north bore down on the nation; a war lost before it could even begin, their power snapping the bones and will of our people until all that was left was our unwavering refusal to let them snuff us out, despite their undying efforts, pulling at our long-lost brethren even now.
In these moments, the Mjuna felt the pull of the aether. “Gather the boxes—save your culture; not now, but in the far off future, the one your progeny will save from shattering—and seek comfort with the evils of the north. They will give you safety at the cost of yourself. Buy safety with your beliefs and culture—with the sands engrained in your souls since before birth itself. Pay with the currency of a relinquishing for your children, grandchildren, and every great generation that follows. Pay now for the future of a thousand years, broken by the perversion—beautiful, intricate, corruptible—of the monster of the sky’s thousand, ten thousand, million minds.”
Once again, Olivier let Emilia know that this—the implication that the OIC was composed of many
minds
—was another thing that had come out of his family’s legal documents, as were many of the descriptions of the aether—including the use of female pronouns—and how it viewed the various people of their world. “A lot of the story and its descriptions are at least inspired by the translations I’ve read. The length of court cases in the Grey Sands is far longer than anything in Baalphoria would ever be. It is actually something of an issue.”
“Oh?”
Humming, Olivier gave Emilia a short summary of how courts in Baalphoria were terrible at entertaining cases where Grey Sanders were involved. “Much of the time, they attempt to kick the cases back into the Grey Sands, if they can. Any time a Grey Sander is questioned, it goes three or four times longer than it would with a Baalphorian, and few Baalphorian judges have the patience for it. In the cases where they can’t move the jurisdiction—which is most of the time, although there are some recent laws meant to move cases into special Grey Sander courts that still follow the original jurisdiction’s laws, although that’s always… messy—”
“I can imagine. Even teachers redirecting punishment for bad behaviour to parents can create conflict and resentment between everyone.”
“—but most Baalphorian judges are known for repeatedly cutting Grey Sanders off and causing a fuss. It has resulted in cases with Grey Sanders disproportionately favouring the other party.”
“Well, that seems unfair! No wonder there are so few Grey Sanders in Baalphoria, if the court system is so biased! Jinkai and the Dunnery of Rwun are a bit like that for most foreigners—and poor people, in the case of Jinkai; don’t know too much about the Dunnery of Rwun. Neither are the sort of places Baalphorians should visit. I mean! In Jinkai, there are cases of the rich purposefully running people over and then suing them for damages to their vehicles! And they have some pretty sketchy indentured servitude laws there! There was even a case a few years ago where a Baalphorian was randomly punched by a Jinkaiden and then sued for medical bills when the bitch broke a finger! Oh, fuck! Please tell me we aren’t going to Jinkai?”
“We are not going to Jinkai. As much as their justice system is fascinating, it is not safe enough to bring anyone near.”
“Thank fuck.”
And so it was that the Mjuna gathered the boxes of the past for the far and yet surprisingly near future, and ran, his wife and their yet-unborn child clutched to their side. As oft happens when finally choosing a path—especially when it is a path the universe itself approves of, for the aether does not wish to be destroyed under the oppression of the future that the Mjuna’s yet-to-be-conceived descendant will act as one of but a thousand puzzle pieces in shattering—the Mjuna and his family were dragged into its flow. Step by step, our ancestors moved through the nation as it broke under our oppressors and yet refused to do more than shift its gaze aside; aside, but never down, for our lost brethren refused to break for the safety of the north.
On and on the Mjuna went, picking up pieces of the puzzle as he went. Another family here, brought to our northern neighbours alongside him. Other family members, tagging along as strife ripped our nation apart—landmarks shattering, crashing down and splattering lifeblood over the sands only to be washed away by tears and rain and the aether itself.
On and on he went, until finally, his feet left the sands of our past. On and on the Mjuna went, passing through cursed land—yet another catalyst for the far future—dodging the Sever and their Glorianas’ unblinking, sightless eyes, until finally, his feet shifted over the land of our family’s future.
.
!
Arc 9 | Chapter 343: To Steal a Life(time’s Worth of Knowledge)
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