Grounders.
Was that really how they referred to us? As "grounders"? How about "earth inhabitants"? Or "earth people"? Did they think they were entitled to referring to themselves as earthlings now? It was not as if they were like us, having lived so long in the stars. Where had they even come from? Why were they here? To take over our land? Did the stars make them so greedy as to want to steal all our vegetation, so savage as to want to kill all our people.
"It's ridiculous," I muttered as I angrily folded the thick furs from winter to stuff them in the chest against the wall. "Lincoln, you have to reali-"
"They aren't that different."
I looked up, eyes widening slowly as I took in the full sight of my half-brother. He was older than me by a few years, as our mother had been paired with my father after his father became sick and died without any other children aside from Lincoln. Now here he stood in my doorway, telling me about the "star people" that had landed in the woods not far from where my own home was. It was land we did not often venture to in the winter months, as it was too far away and darkness settled in much earlier during the colder times during the year. We had been planning to set up a post exactly where the people from the sky had crashed, but clearly that was not going to be happening until they were gone.
"They look like us," Lincoln began to explain, pulling his notebook from his pocket as he walked forward.
"Look like us?" I scoffed. "Physical similarity doesn't mean mental similarity. Honestly, Lincoln, you're a smart man, why would you-"
Yet again I was cut off as he thrust the notebook toward me to look at sketches he had made of one of the girl's in the camp. She was pretty, and young, around the same age if not a bit older than me. Her dark hair encased a youthful and free face. I snapped the notebook shut, throwing it back toward Lincoln as I turned to finish folding the rest of the winter furs. I was so accustomed to trusting my brother with everything, all my thoughts, and he often agreed. Yet, here he was, defending these people that had intruded on our planet, on our home.
"They'll die," I said with certainty as I slammed the chest shut.
"Not if we make peace with them. They aren't all bad."
"They won't need us around to die. They don't know the land like we do. They haven't spent the past century evolving." I looked at Lincoln, pointing at his notebook. "That girl...her pretty little face will be burned off when the Fog comes."
"If we make peace with them we can teach them how to survive."
I laughed dryly, shaking my head. "They can't survive. They're practically grown adults. Do any of them have scars on their skin? Have any of them ever been in a war? A fight even? They aren't tough enough to survive."
"They're the same as us, Kali!"
"No!" I slammed my hand down on the top of the chest. "Lincoln, listen to me! Those people are not worth protecting!"
"Yes, they are!" His voice echoed around the small room, hanging in the air long enough for each of us to take a breath.
"They haven't even been here half a fortnight," I reminded him. "You can't decide if they're worth our protection in that time."
"And you can't decide they're not."
I turned my eyes up to his for a moment before he spun on his heels and walked to the ladder, hoisting himself up and out of the room in a few easy motions. I turned to lean my forearms on the chest, taking deep breaths to steady myself. Lincoln and I had never argued that much, despite any differences we had. He could have been a great warrior, but instead he chose to shadow healers and learn their ways or draw pictures of flowers and leaves and people. I picked up my dagger made out of the sharpened rib bone of one of the first animals I ever killed and began to twirl it between my two hands as I paced the room.
Lincoln was going to try to find his way into the camp, I knew he was. The fallout was going to be awful, there were no other possibilities, but he was still going to follow through anyway. They could kill him if they really tried. They could kill all of us, if they had the technology with them that kept them alive and safe for all those years among the stars. Perhaps they were worth making peace with, but I was far harder to convince of that than Lincoln was. I needed proof before my eyes that these humans from the sky were worthy of living on earth. If their ancestors were worthy all those generations ago, perhaps the new arrivals were too. Only time would tell.
