- Hulius Sezero, Il Trajedio
As the cruiser was launching from Mazih’s annual pilgrimage of indulgence to Beorazzo, the Kyser explored his domain from the materializing window. The spires of the zokar in the capital passed their red light on from their Sol in an act of desperation, or perhaps selflessness spreading the photons down to the ground that it considered less appealing to the eye. In an act of rebellion, it decided to append Mazih’s eyes to its list of what it considered less appealing, giving charity to the Kyser.
Some of the children had congregated to see the cruiser launch. Their teachers had sometimes decided to let them out for such occasions, depending on the mood of the waves of audio reports that day. One child had brought a makeshift crown and began prancing around the group, teasing their friends to take it off of him. Fortunately for him that generation had not yet learned how to be a usurper of thrones. Not yet at least.
Exactly five minutes after the planet purportedly felt the grief of the absence of its self-proclaimed guardian, the Celuvos began to offer their sacrifices to him for their cardinal sin of having existed outside Ymvero before its founding. Though instead of sending the offerings into the sky as ashes, a strategy deemed far too inefficient, the hopeful gifts were instead flown by market ships into the stars. The magnificence of the Ymvero’s splendor meant that even though these of course knowingly wholeheartedly given shipments may not have had Mazih in mind when entering into their Beorazzo port their intention was welcomed. The offerings arrived on the Kyser’s dish, a Lovuno and a few slices of Rugas.
Mazih began plucking at the Rugases with his own metal machinery. This instance was unique. Very rarely would the Kyser himself be the one operating the technology poking at the Celuvos’ products for their nutritional value. Ancient beasts of bureaucracy were unleased out of the cage of the Ymvero’s best thinkers eons ago for that purpose. The smell of ores and oils were as fragrant as the Luvono now entering Mazih’s mouth. It tasted well. It could not compare to his Madra's, however.
Truth to be told, the Ymvero did not have the faintest idea how these vessels functioned. Professors at the University of Javenyord were rumored to be studying the intricacies of this travel. Khorusa had no idea how this had become a rumor as their progress had been nonexistent, flying outside the window along with their will to continue and the very sacred technological birds they were studying. She would have been more pleased had an unfortunate test caused a major diplomatic incident that brought that project out into the public view. At least then the attention would have been earned. At the current moment, plans were being written up to transfer control of the documents of those experiments to the Institute. Perhaps they would earn the attention of the Ymvero. Through either the aforementioned method or a breakthrough. Khorusa chuckled as she realized the former was much more likely.
As Beorazzo faded into the nothingness of matters beneath the Kyser’s current realm of attention it also faded out of his mental map of thoughts to queue. Except for the singing he had heard on the planet. He would never forget those graceful tunes, flying between tones like a bird of prey, at times darting with tremendous speed to catch the mind of listeners. Not bearing to abandon that part of the planet for the foreseeable future he had instead hired that man into his personal entourage to use his vocal cords in service for the Ymvero. He had not had a family neither community, so such was a great deal. Mazih could not quite recall his name however, was it Yuhen, was it Cuvin?
Yuhen had begun to explore the cruiser’s inner walls, sliding his fingers across the material he could not quite pick out. Those fingers were much better suited to their home of the flukhi.
“You’ll perish Mazih!”
- Molto khi Hosariolini
Molto had been raised in the agriculture portion of Hisari, his lineage descending from aristocratic origins in Cazori farming. For centuries they had administrated their plot of 500,000 farmers with what they called a commonality with the common man. After all their skin bathed under the orange sun, yet one’s was battered by choice.
The aristocrats had always romanticized the concept of choice, the choice of information and the political choices which while underlined in red ink were seen as equal in mental fatigue to a thousand Cazori’s being harvested.
Such nobles assumed that their constituents would never be able to imagine the true weight of their struggles. As later generations began to ship their successors off to the College of Kalmeni, it was not the first point in their history where they had sent significant numbers of humanity outside of their realm. Quite a large portion of their wealth had been gathered during the Time of the Troubles. And yet as their Duechi of the time Meldizoc rationalized the new sonic technology they had been given in return helped them expand their lands to their extent. That war against their Volartino neighbours with which they had feuded with since their dynasties had begun ended bloodlessly, save for the screams of the Volartino troops sent into the atmosphere.
At that point it could not have been the Hosariolini that killed them. To speak as such would be of the utmost disrespect, to discount the supreme efforts made by the waves of both sound and radiation that contributed to their demises. That partnership had been greater than any that Volartino diplomats could ever hope to achieve. Maybe they were jetissoned up there as a learning experience. Such a favor they were being done.
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The appendage of the dynasty of Hosariolini fails to translate nicely into signature form, most notably because of the H and abundance of short characters. In that latter their genealogy shared a commonality with their title.
Over the eons their luck, once placed in quantity among the number of stars, began to deplete. Long after the Time of the Troubles the luxury of wealth they had traded their comrades for had run dry. As a more pressing issue a new virus had recently spread throughout their planet and had taken the lives of many of their constituents. At some point even the Duechi’s nephew had succumbed to it, yet when it came for his wife that same guild that had paid them during the Time of the Troubles supplemented them with their private doctors and physicians.
Their treaties with Ymvero administrators began with a few crop shipments a year. Then under Musoc the Pious they had negotiated a mutual defense treaty with the Ymvero. Of course, the Hosariolini had little to offer to the Ymvero in terms of military might, the mutual clause was more apt at describing a mutual pride. Giving the illusion of equality within the agreement was more important than the promise of a defense that they knew they could never produce. After a few decades the treaties on bureaucratic mergers trickled in. Yet again the language of mutuality and common agreements came into play. From the dialect of treatalease spoken by those Ymveri diplomats that had visited one could assume that Musoc would himself have a role in governing the Ymvero. That Duechi was already licking his fingers at the remembrance of all the Cazori pies at stake, leaving genetic evidence on the well-preserved paper hung in the Museo outside the palais. Mysteriously Molto seemed to wince when walking within building, yet unfortunately the Museo curators and artifacts held an immunity his ancestral lands no longer did.
“Bring me to Kulosos,
Let my eyes see Yalisos,
Watch my heart ponder on Vorosos,
And listen to my soul love Bilosos”
- Bolikari Folk Poem
As Mazih’s return journey continued, he often requested that he be given access to the onboard telescope and allow his eyes freedom from their temporary natural prison to promenade among the stars.
A spin on Kulosos, a jump above Yalisos, a landing on Vorosos, and finally a split on Bilosos. The cosmic choreography never bored the Kyser, and yet his eyes performed it as if they had found their love in the darkness every night. Their movements were like those of a seasoned Hisari dance whose passion had first been found at a sleepless night. The light they saw to prance on was as ancient to them as a Roman colosseum the Hisari’s feet might grace.
Zikkero came to address him of the ever-current state of affairs. His heavy footwear and purported fame caused many to be surprised by his wiry frame when meeting him.
“Kyser, if you would look at these maps for a moment-”
“Zikkero, have you ever gone planet-gazing? I’ve heard its wondrous, watching all those lights of people’s homes simply attempting to go through Nuyos’ temporary abandonment.”
“It is very imminent that-”
“Glorious how the clouds proclaim themselves to the whole universe eh? Waves of the air of sorts. Akin to ships on wings. I would like to requisition one of those.”
“Sir it is your duty to-”
“Duty eh? Is it not Nuyos’ duty to light our Ymvero and yet they instead light our rivals for a time. The waves are much more loyal though. They stay by the side of the coastal polities. Through their lifetime never leaving, like a cat.”
Zikkero’s tired eyes began also to look outside. Perhaps if they too took a stroll among the stars they would see the same voice Mazih let stroll through his lips. Or maybe the rippling waves of light would be sympathetic to his own folds in his eyelids. He too began looking out into the cosmos for comfort, for a moment.
Producing a map from his back pocket, he lay it out onto the center table. His nimble fingers began quickly laying out the silver tokens that represented the Ymveri troops. The Kyser began to wonder concurrently whether this same carefree plotting of images of his people would be how they were lead to their deaths. He had always dreamed he would lead them like Nuyos, commanding waves of soldiers with his own gravity. Only recently did he reconcile it was not his gravity that would lead them.
Zikkero meanwhile took pride in the grace with which the small silver tokens, the democratic representatives of thousands of Ymveri lives. They had never necessarily voted for that precious metal on a ballot. That would be barbaric. Instead, they lent a bit of their choice to the Celuvos as a gracious donation. The Celuvos exported silver, marking it down on trade sheets with a pen of shovels and pickaxes. Thus, silver was their representative.
The man himself had played with these tokens since he was a boy, an avid fan of games that did not require his mind to remain constrained to the physical realm. His asthma had made sure of that. Army men played out a life of adventure for him. Dreams of the ancient empires of Gracio Brittania and the Muhahsin dynasty had kept up his sleepless nights. The cards of dynasty had kept him company while looking out into the stars. The cards sometimes returned to him in Mazih himself. His tokens had stayed with him since the beginning of his conscious life. Whether they stood to remain his to control until the end remained a pique uncertainty.
Mazih finally decided to return his mental function to reality and pointed at a particular figure on the table. The small bronze caricature of a planet should have bowed down, cowering in fear that the Kyser had decided to lend it the attention in his eyes. It did not. Thus the Kyser’s fingers accidentally pushed it over in the process clumsily. Or perhaps a few of his nerves had decided to deal with the disrespect themselves. Zikkero lifted his eyes to display the increasing incredulousness with which his fatigue grew.
Yuhen meanwhile had been showing off his native Beorazzo dress to the stars. It had in and of itself been an homage to its own star, with the streaks of a fire painted on to it. Thinking back to that star who had watched him grow up he hoped the celestial would not mind. Perhaps Yalisos would see his seeming rise as a proud father. Though Kulosos had guarded the birthplace of the Ymvero itself, Yalisos took its pride in Beorazzo. He had never before had the opportunity to meet them so intimately, being brought up from the rest of his peoples to see them. The fire itself was an inspiration from them, a little spark of the star’s own life.