The Long Way Home

We raise our eyes to the mountain once more. Fire is in the sky, performing a symphony of frost and flame. A dragon, it is called. It has not yet come down to hunt us. In our hearts, we fear it. In our minds, we are wary, our hands reaching for our swords. But it is not our slave master. In that, it is better than the Zebak.

And so our gazes return downwards. To the earth we till. To the foundations of our homes we build. To the bukshah in the field we tend – they have accepted us, without ever needing the lessons the Zebak gave us. This valley is bountiful, nothing like the desert from whence we came.

Here, we are free.

Here, things can grow.

We tame the land, though it could be called tame already. Bountiful remains the earth. Fire remains in the sky, but no fury follows. The sword is kept, but set aside for the plough. Through our efforts, we are blessed. The war is over. We have won.

But what of the future?

A new generation is born. They will call this land home, having known nothing else. Not the touch of the whip, or the sundering of flesh by the blade. They will live in ignorance, free from war. Of salt's caress, and of the harsh voices of Zebak slave masters. They will never know conflict. And for that, they have my envy. Almost as much as my love.

And yet I wonder…

What of us? We, the first, as few as we are. What of those left behind, still in Zebak hands? We call ourselves warriors, even as our only foe is winter. What of the healers, the storytellers? Our other half, left behind? We have become farmers, tenders of the herd, and yet tradition is held, if not employed. The Maris and Travellers are called friends. We call ourselves our own people. History is remembered, yet lost as well.

Will nature provide for us that which was sundered? What if nature fails?

I can only watch and wonder.

Such is liberation.

And now, at last, I near the end. Last of the first. Wisdom to the new. The orchard, the field, the village. Rin, it is called. A good name. An old name. As old as the bones that carry this weathered body.

I feel as if I know this land. Longer than even I have walked it. Our people, same but different. Like something out of a dream – a promise made before our freedom. Idea that came from before our slavery. We have always been slaves to the Zebak – we have nothing else. And yet…

We have a healer now. Outcast. Hermit. An oddity among those who call themselves warriors, even as the reality of the world dictates other tasks. But she is useful. Even respected by some, however few. Black bukshah are outcasts within us, no different than those of the literal kind. Oddities, among the white. I can only hope the colours change. To be not black or white, but more akin to the rainbow that pierces the clouds, as surely as the fire of the dragon. Forgotten by some. Called guardian by others. But otherwise unknown.

My time grows short. The village, the dragon, the bukshah. All shall endure beyond me. Perhaps beyond any of us. Perhaps, one day, new tales will be told. Perhaps, in time, things will change.

But at last, I feel as if I am home. At last, I have reached journey's end.

A journey longer than I ever could have imagined.