Reclaimation
The salty winds had brushed up against the shores once again. The dead silence of the lands had cued in the Eonians that their home had been pillaged..That, and the scorch marks along the trees, and the jagged cuts that had made their way through the underbrush.
In silence, the trio stepped forward into the woods, following the path of the invaders. Their breathing was silenced upon seeing the opening to what Eonigia had called her heart. Cots, chests, and pickaxes lie around the heart of the cavern, a brilliant forest-green crystal, which pulsed with the dimming soul of Eonigia.
In the hammocks hung from stalactites rested these hated invaders, asleep with hats over their eyes. Their lantern was dimming as the candle threatened to fizzle out entirely, the wick bending back into the wax below.
The silent flurry of blows turned the soft green moss underfoot a deep shade of crimson. There were no screams, instead only the scent of smoke, and the clattering sound of pickaxes lifting from the damaged stone walls of the cavern.
This was not the first invasion of Eonigia, but it was the most damning for the outside world. Many Eonians would return after the trio had sent a signal flare to call them home.
The other attacks would be warded off with greater vigor, reverence even as blood spilled upon the sands of the island.
Shipfuls of pirates, nations on conquest, religious missionaries, none were welcome on the island if it threatened the Eonian way of life, if it threatened Eonigia.
To fight for the island, to protect her from all harm is our honorable task and our thanks to her for keeping us whole, healthy and happy. Our home is worth defending, simply because she is ours, and we are hers. Much like mother and child, one day, the child will grow to defend their Mother from all that would seek to harm her blessed heart.
That's how the story goes at least. There are so many tales of wars fought in the name of protecting Eonigia, so many I have to wonder if we ever made a mistake in fighting first. Yaldaboath says it's impossible not to have made a mistake, and I'm inclined to agree.
I was able to get in touch with someone who fought in one of these wars, about a hundred years before my time.
In their memory, they said that those seeking refuge on the island meant no immediate harm. Many Eonians, by virtue of distrusting strangers on the island to begin with, given our usual seclusion from the rest of the world, disagreed.
The thought was that they were lying from the outset, according to Cixin, (see-chin), and that these strangers would strike under the cover of night. So a night watch was established, ordered to keep an eye over all those who were strangers on the island, and to blow the horn should any strange or alarming circumstances arise.
Cixin had only heard the horn blow, nothing of whether or not the behaviors were verified or even investigated by any of the tribe that night. All they knew was that they were tasked with fighting, and so, they fought, joining the fray as it broke out on the beach.
They seemed distant when they finished describing the bloodbath. I let them sit with the silence for a moment, hoping maybe they would tell me more about the incident.
Cixin told me it was the shortest war that could have ever been fought, ending before the sun entirely rose above the horizon, having started when the first rays of daylight were breaking over the waves.
I had heard of the Blood Daybreak Battle well before this in history books, but it was described as glorious, and a noteworthy win on the side of Eonians as a whole. But hearing it from someone who was there, Cixin made it clear there was nothing to be proud of that morning. Many of the strangers were still asleep, and almost all only had a knife and match kit on their person, plus some personal artefacts that couldn't have possibly been used to harm anyone.
The most Eonians at that time had to worry about with the strangers, was litter, biodegradable, leathery, litter.
They laughed almost bitterly when I asked about why it was described as such a glorious battle. Cixin reminded me that it is the Winners who write history, not the survivors. I suppose that is true, but I had honestly thought that as a whole, we had all gotten much better about seeing spats from both sides.
"If you genuinely think that the way we write history has changed, you forgot where we learnt to write came from," Cixin scolded me, "The young always forget that their world is built first by those before them, and forget more often that the old could only learn from the past themselves."
I reminded them that patterns of bad behaviors can break, after all, we had broken it with our isolationist ideals. They swore at me, saying that I still shied away from strangers on the street, and asked me if I would willingly let someone I wasn't already friendly with, or hadn't met through my parents, into my home.
I didn't answer them..
But suppose they have a point, that we are still wary of strangers, of people we don't know and who we cannot determine the intentions of. That does not make us as xenophobic as we once were. Progress cannot skyrocket from one group to the next, and is only maintained through gradual, small changes. That's the way I learned how to open up with my thoughts, after all, small gradual things. Speaking my mind on coffee led me to speaking my mind on art, then to discuss more with teachers about our current world, and then to affirm my beliefs when I'm challenged.
Though, it doesn't feel like I've done such a great job here, after Cixin swore at me, I feel less and less confident in my understanding of other stories. Regardless, I will write them, and talk about them, but I cannot possibly claim that I am the final authority on them. Far be it from me to claim I'm perfect, or expect perfection from others.
That leads me to another thought. There are times where Eonigia was genuinely threatened that we missed. The lack of fires to clear out the underbrush was one of them, everyone seemed unbothered except her until she pointed it out. And we're supposed to pride ourselves on being good heralds to our home? The more I think about instances like those, the more I begin to doubt that we were ever meant to stay.
And what would that mean for Xarin? He's trying so hard to be a good home for everyone else, but others haven't been good heralds to him either. It's disadvantageous for him to continue to shelter them if they perpetuate the old ways, forcing him to see himself as nothing more than their keeper.
People are already making up stories about him too, for Eonians who weren't there when we were born. They spread rumours like false prophets, screaming at the top of their lungs that his existence is some kind of bad omen. I can't stand it, and I correct them every time, yet they still keep screaming. Screaming on and on about how he killed Eonigia to get his position, how he was the dark spirit that had corrupted their brothers and sisters with the Blight.
Why do people make up such cruel stories when the truth is already so horrifying? And it's resulted in very real consequences for us both. People have threatened Xarin great harm, they've threatened me with a witch trial because I stand by my little brother.
It's seriously demented that they believe so many things are wrong with us just because we came after Eonigia. It scares me to think that this pattern has simply stuck with us because we refuse to learn from our past, and we refuse to re-evaluate past stories that we've been taught with since birth.
That's another reason why I wanted to write these stories down and do this blog type thing. It's a space where I can write down and evaluate the details of our past for myself, deconstruct what makes it so daunting and maybe even give myself a path forward to doing the right thing.
The persistent idea that we reclaimed our land time and again from those who would seek to threaten us with homelessness just doesn't sit right with me, especially considering experiences like Cixin's, and who knows how many other fighters' when it came to these efforts to protect our home.
The suspicious activity being unverified in so many stories, so many people talking about how these were clever victories under the dark of night, and details that just don't add up to danger when looked at in context. What kind of fear have we been breeding between one another in order to give the illusion of a unified community dedicated to protecting their own?
Eonians have been disowned by their families before, forced off the island because their elders didn't approve of what they were doing, the questions they were asking, or the ideas for improvement they had. Sushui's (sue-sh-we) Banishment is the pinnacle story for outcasting our own people!
I should write that one down, now that I think about it. It's longer than most other tales we're told, likely because it's the most recent one that hasn't been written down. My mother refused to speak of it because she knew what Sushui had been through personally. She was only allowed to return with the caveat that she dress like a proper princess and never speak of her experiences on the mainland while my grandmother was Queen.
But the idea remains that we defend ourselves from those unlike us, and that's what perturbs me now.
If there is no difference between us, then how are we still growing? Is it because there are no disagreements between Eonians that we have stagnated and are dying out? How are we still learning if there is no new input from when we were created? What do we really feed off of if we only rely upon one another's experiences? Is that what created the corrupted code responsible for the Blight?
Oh sweet stars I also just realized the implications for inbreeding all those years ago. That could also explain a few issues...
The reality of the matter still stands though, we're a xenophobic society.
Have I treated someone poorly because of this? Is that what Xarin meant when he said I didn't understand? I did see his message he left on one of the stories I evaluated, and for a moment I didn't get it. But reflecting upon it all so far, the unwillingness to learn from the young, from others, this insistence that we are always threatened by a world around us we hardly understand, sheltered on an island that takes care of our every need.
There's no way that hasn't negatively impacted us as a learning species. We're meant to adapt to a world much different to our own, yet have been so averse to change because we got so comfortable.
What do you do with that? What can you do with that? I guess realization is just the first step, but where do you go from there? Is it just as simple as now moving forward to do the "right" thing? What would the right thing even be in this scenario? What I've learned about right and wrong has been so deeply ingrained in Eonian culture, in our stories, that finding what's genuinely right would—
It would mean I have to step out of my own bubble, challenging, but possible since this campus is pretty huge.
