Ald bared his teeth at the sky. Cursed should have been the heavens, because the rain was nowhere to be seen. While winter withered, so soon spring sprouted. Spring in demographical drought. Another one where not a single baby had fallen from the skies, safe and comfortable in their fluff cradles or cocoons. This was the third year in a row like this, the third year where Felsia had not been blessed with new citizens. No babies landing on the awaiting arms of their loving citizens, what a sorry way to receive the spring. The last litter to fall had already lost their white thin fuzz, remainders from the cocoon or reminders of the Mother, revealing their short, rough copper manes, perfect matches of their irises.

That’s why Ald bared his teeth at the sky.

After a few moments, he noticed the stare of his little sister. He had caught her atop the city walls during the last big storm, and, for the next two years, his life had been elation and hard work as he cared for the baby. She had become the nexus of his life, and, by her third birthday, she was starting to speak fluidly and become less picky with her diet.

She smiled with innocence as she munched on a golden fruit, “Brother, won’t it rain today?”

He crouched to look her in the eyes. “It doesn’t seem so. Sometimes the rains get delayed by up to a week. Not even the goddess is perfect.”

“But if it doesn’t rain, can the year end?”

“Time cares not about these little delays, Kali. The years go by as they always did. Will you help me with the orchard today? The trees need water all the same.”

“I will. Do you reckon it will rain tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” he lied, not to kill her hope. Of course it wouldn’t. He suspected something terrible had happened behind the scenes, so to speak. “But if it doesn’t rain this week, maybe I can talk to our big brothers in the council. I may be only a farmer and a blacksmith, yet that’s the kind of siblings they would never want to upset.”

“Why?”

“Do you live without eating? Do you eat without knives, Kali?”

She shook her head immediately.

“Neither do they.”

“Will you tell them I want to see babies?” she finally asked the question that burned her entrails, or at least one tangent to it.

He stood and gave a little tap to her forehead with the back of his index and middle fingers. “Count on it. Now help me with the orchard, the trees are thirsty.”

And together, by the hand they walked the way back down the top of the great white wall that surrounded Felsia, Kali practically prancing down the spiral staircase, then taking a stroll along Ald’s field below —unplanted, as the cold of the last winter night had just began to leave the ground—, making their way to the orchard as she sang, as he hoped the sages of the council would, at least, have the mercy of lying to him, of telling him that nothing had happened to Mother. To rekindle the hope not because they had the truth, but because they had authority. Yet he prayed it rained finally, because nobody wanted to take their complaints to the sages. It was a laborious task, their stares inspired shame to whomever dared question them. Sure, they listened, but they were the eldest of brothers, but they were, in a sense, his equals, and at least just as worried about the drought. But they were the sages, they were, and thus he didn’t want to consult with them. It better rained soon.

Sitting around the oval table, carved out of golden wood, the sages of Felsia had gathered. Tall and thin, the leader of the council stood from his bone-colored chair. He cleared his throat and looked at his brothers and sisters, who calmly waited for the session to begin.

“Esteemed siblings, during decades we have guided the younglings, seen that they grow into respectable members of this, our society. And now that we, chosen few, are on the top of the pyramid, in a way that our ancestors couldn’t predict or even conceive, we are faced with the sad reality of there being a shortage of blocks. The base is eroded with each passing day, and we have nothing to rebuild it with. Three years have passed since the last birth, almost eight hundred and fifty days has the youngest of Felsians lived. We must act, or irreversible damage will be done to our society,” he discoursed, and everyone listened intently.

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“And what do you propose, Milod? We were companions in Mother’s womb, we have seen history unravel just as much as you have. We have seen mother give birth so many times that all our counts are different. If you, wisest and smartest of us all, have no ideas, why do you expect us to come up with them?” said Radel, whose red hairs were intermingled with black threads here and there, a sign of his advanced age.

“We all have had different roles in society. Medics, architects, researchers, farmers, artists… and Gleur. I expect that, from such a varied gathering of minds, a solution could arise,” Answered Milod, trying to not address Gleur with his gaze, before his lips shut tight due to consternation.

“Your disdain for war veterans has no end. Even when we are facing the prospect of extinction you despise my profession,” said Gleur, calmly, playing with his wide thumbs.

“You have killed children, Gleur.”

“Misshapen ones. Would you rather let our sins live among us? There is a reason the ones before us erected a wall, and that was to keep the children of the Felsians out. Be them adults or children of our siblings most wild and reckless, The Ratchet of Horror only spins towards perversity. I have seen what lurks far from the walls, and it is not Felsian anymore, even if it descends from us. Of course, Milod, you could always tell our people to reproduce to solve our demographical issue, if you don’t believe irreversible degeneration to be an issue…” he proposed, smirking.

“Gleur is right, leaving the city in the hands of our descendants is not an option. Only among siblings can we live. Only Mother engenders pure beings,” added Ral, the engineer.

“Pure? We are anything except pure,” snarked Mirn, a recognized naturalist. “We Felsians are the first tooth in the civilization-deleting ratchet Gleur spoke about. Were we pure, our children would be Felsians, like the pups of dogs are dogs, the calves of oxen are oxen, and the seeds of some trees engender those same trees. We carry mother’s sin, the one she commits when she embraces her firstborn to engender us once and again. Our children may look still like us, but they lack mother’s divinity, only her corruption we can inherit to them.”

Gleur stood from his chair, standing even taller than Milod, and far bulkier. “And when you go far enough in the chain, they return to being beasts without sapience, with no love nor hatred in their hearts. I share more in common with an alligator than with the far removed misshapen, even if one of them were to be my direct descendant.”

Milod’s white nails drummed against the table’s wood. Lack of rain meant lack of civilization. How many years could they survive without new blood? Ten, maybe twenty before the point of no return. Soon people would begin to mate, to birth misshapens in an attempt to fill the void left by the absence of new siblings. He couldn’t order to castrate them, that would anger both his siblings and the gods.

“What reasons could Mother have to stop birthing us?” he wondered aloud.

Mirn raised his hand and, seeing no one else was taking the turn, began speaking, “Well, females of many animals, if not all, are born with a limited number of eggs that mature as they age. Once they run out, they do so for good. Maybe both the animals and Mother share the same weakness.”

“Sacrilege! For being a researcher, you are also pretty Foolish. Statistics of the last rain shows it was as abundant in infants as every other one. I won’t buy that mother had the exact number of eggs to produce one last normal rain and then, nothing else. It wshould have been a gradual waning, or a last smaller litter, at least,” argued Gleur.

“Gleur is right, Milod, it’s extremely unlikely for that to be the reason. Given we are already with the water up to the neck, why not ask Father directly? Maybe they fought, maybe they are taking a time to rest…” went on Radel, prodigious artist and writer.

Milod slapped the table with both hands.

“Unacceptable! In our longest month, summoning Father is unacceptable! Or are you all volunteers to be part of the twenty-six sacrifices? Suggest that again, Radel, and I am initiating a vote to ban you from the next meeting.

“Calm down, Milod.” He scratched his chin, and then continued, “Given that at this age I don’t fear your sanctions for speaking up anymore, I’ll say it: Father doesn’t care about the purity, so to speak, of the sacrifices. He eats the misshapen just as fast and as content as he can eat our brothers. Or, everyone, how else did you think I won so many battles? Take battle prisoners, sacrifice them to Father, and ask him for intelligence on their positions and strategies in exchange for the feast. Infallible strategy, if you ask me.” He gloated as he remembered the days where he would set a dozen or two of misshapens to be eaten by the white, sharp teethed beast they called Father.

Milod held a killing stare to the former general of his army. He dug his nails in the table and breathed deeply. Maybe if they were far removed enough…

“How… similar to us do the misshapen have to be for the ritual to work, Gleur?” he said, stashing his anger away.

“I have offered some that have not even cleared the bar of having two eyes, and some that had more finger than teeth, in any sense you want to interpret that. Six limbs, three dozen, none, it makes no difference. As long as they descend from him, Father will accept the tributes.”

“You see? We are the same in his eyes. Our progenitor recognizes us as equals,” said the naturalist.

“Our progenitor eats his own offspring,” said Milod.

A decrepit, almost skeletal man that had only played with his black beard until then spoke. “Offspring, and siblings, we are both. Maybe he fears we will steal Mother…”

“Shut your trap, Larud, It’s no time for your bad jokes,” said Gleur, and it was the first time in that day Milod agreed with him on something.

“Then, let us vote, brothers: Who is for capturing feral misshapen ones and using them as tribute to summon our father and seek answers?”

And, like they hadn’t in years, the hands of everyone present rose in a single, coordinated movement.