Below the mountain that marked the end of their world, Airya enjoyed the light wind dancing around her almost as much as she enjoyed being surrounded by other children with yellow eyes. Their world, her world, Ausrine, crept into a safe darkness with no sun as the leaves shimmered a sweet goodnight on the trees scattered along the mountains. Owls were perched on branches watching the yellowed-eyed children dance and make their own music. They had to enjoy being the only birds inhabiting their lost world.
As the older children drummed on the rocks with their sticks, Airya stopped dancing and looked up to her friend Jackison. He smiled sweetly at her, his short brown hair swaying against his face. She didn’t know how old he was. No one knew how old they really were in Ausrine. They only knew what aged-like bodies they were in. Jackison’s body was older than her own because of how much taller he was. She looked down at her small hands. Her mom had told her that she looked about six. Her long hair tickled her elbows as her brown waves begged her to twirl so they could float in the wind. It was interesting to hear how parents could put a rounded number to their bodies just by looking at them. Her parents had said it was because where they were from, bodies aged on their own, unlike they did in Ausrine.
“What’s wrong, Princess?” Jackison asked. His yellow eyes twinkled with fun and giddiness.
She ignored him and went to sit in the circle with the other kids who were watching the others continue to beat to a song on the stone. As soon as she sat, though, many pairs of yellow eyes turned to her to make sure she was alright. When she smiled, they grinned back and then focused on the music produced by little hands on rocks. There were bigger and smaller kids all around them, varying in size and intelligence, but all had the same profound yellow eyes giving them the name she knew their people were known as.
The Yellow Eyes.
Their world grew even darker, warning them that they should head home for bed soon. Airya sighed and looked up at the mountain they were all against. It was so tall that no one could see the top of it. It surrounded the villages and the two rivers that disappeared under it as if the rivers still flowed beneath its depth. She studied how the mountains were jagged and broken. Carved into long ago by the Solocs to build the temple she lived in now and the home structures that filled up their small kingdom.
Airya stretched her arms up, letting herself pretend she could reach the top of the mountains, and yawned, “I’m going to head back now.”
She stood up and straightened out her dress made from rat skin and owl feathers. More yellow eyes turned to watch her in the dark.
“Goodnight, Princess,” she heard Jackison say.
Lilla, her friend who was aged to five and who was only a little shorter than Airya, was in front of her sticking her tongue out at Jackison. Her friend knew that Airya wasn’t a fan of being called Princess at all. Airya wanted to laugh at Lilla’s nerve.
Giving Jackison a nod, Airya turned to leave. Lilla followed close behind her. Although she hated Jackison and others calling her Princess, she was used to the formal gesture. Too many times, she had heard from the children about how their moms and dads told them that her parents were amazing for bringing them into paradise. That act made her mom and dad Queen and King of the Molok Kingdom, which made her a princess. Only a few of her friends called her Airya, like Lilla, if she could even call them friends. In their life, they never knew if one of their previous friends would look, act, or think like an entirely different person from one day to the next. It all depended on the aging spear. A spear that the other parents had to ask the King or Queen for permission to use to age their children. With it, so many children could change drastically within a day. Not only growing taller but able to comprehend so much more in their bigger bodies.
The wind picked up Lilla’s blonde hair and grazed Airya’s cheek before Lilla smiled at her, “Please, let me go with you. Please. To make sure you go home safe.”
Airya looked to the grassy plain ahead of them that led to the temple, “I’ll be safe. You don’t need to come.” She looked at the increasingly darkening sky, “You should go home too.”
“But I want to go with you,” Lilla whined, grabbing hold of Airya’s hand. “I rarely get to go to the temple. My parents say you are so busy and they still won’t age me there. I want to go with you. This once, Airya. Please!”
Ariya bit her lip and looked into Lilla’s desperate yellow eyes. They craved an adventure, watering to show Airya their need. She wanted to give in, but she knew her mom would be upset if she brought one of the children to the temple so late at night instead of sending her home.
“I’m sorry, Lilla, but I don’t want to get in trouble.”
Sticking out her bottom lip, Lilla sighed, “Fine, Princess,” then she started off in the other direction toward the homes the temple looked down upon.
At first, Airya felt terrible, but she decided to shake it off. She knew she had done the right thing.
The grass brushed and tickled her bare feet as she walked home. It made her smile. According to her parents, all the Yellow Eyes were lucky to live as they did. They were from someplace where people got old unwillingly and passed from their land so young. Airya couldn’t imagine that. Here everyone lived forever. They had all the time in the world.
The small lake where she had learned to swim glistened next to her as she passed it, twinkling a silent song wanting her to jump in and play. She shook her head at it, knowing that her mother would not be pleased if she came back soaked, and instead followed the river to get back to the temple.
Her heart stopped when there was scuffling. Pivoting, she looked behind her, willing her eyes to let her see clearly in the night. She knew she shouldn't be scared and that she was crazy for thinking that someone might be after her. But too many times, she had too many close calls when it came to getting extremely hurt. Like that one time, she had sworn she had been pushed deeper into the lake. It had been a day that she had decided to swim away from the other children, and when she had come up for air, she couldn’t. Something had been holding her down. Thankfully, one of the kids had noticed her and pulled her out.
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In the distance was a small figure waddling away too wide to be one of the kids. She sighed, but not out of relief. It was a Soloc, one of the creatures that had occupied this world first before the Yellow Eyes had come. The Solocs were all short and stumpy with big heads, thick torsos, and bulky muscular arms and legs. They rarely came around the Molok Kingdom where her people lived. But when they did and when she saw one, they looked at her with complete disgust, which confused her. She watched the Soloc waddle away until she knew it was gone.
Something pricked the bottom of her foot. She gasped out in pain and pulled her foot away from the ground. She was bleeding. Somehow, sharp rocks were buried, sticking out of the ground in various spots in front of her. If she had been running home like she normally did, she would have fallen and hurt herself.
She looked behind her to the Soloc figure, now lost in the dark. She couldn't imagine why a Soloc would do something like this. It seemed childish. Maybe one of the children had done it. She would have to ask a few of them when she saw them next if she remembered, but for now, she would need to watch her step.
Picking up her rigid feathered dress away from her knees, she tip-toed around the sharp rocks embedded in the grass. Luckily her eyesight worked very well in the dark. Once she was sure there were no more pointed rocks in her path, she let her dress fall heavy against her legs and quickened her pace.
She stepped onto one of the steps that led up into the dark temple. She kept to one side of the steps to avoid the river that flowed in between. Reaching the top opening between two giant pillars, she walked to the bridge connecting the two stairways to reach the other side of the temple.
The river flowed quietly, surrounded by the stone. Beautiful plants called swalak glowed neon green and light pink on the edges of the river underneath. Airya sat down on the worn flat stone that was placed around the parts of the river that ran through the temple. Seeing that the dead rats that had been forced on sticks and placed in the water were not boiled or cooked, she doused her feet quickly to clean off her cut, letting the river wash the pain away. Just as she pulled them out of the water, the river began to boil. She smirked at herself for being just in time.
"Airya! What beyond my eyes are you doing!?"
Airya winced, her feet dripping in the air directly above the boiling water.
Her mom’s arms pressed under hers as she was dragged away from the water.
"You know that at night the river boils! Are you wanting to eat your feet for breakfast?" her mom scolded.
Airya pushed her mother's hands off of her and turned to face her.
Everyone called her Queen Eos and acted like she was a goddess, but all Airya saw of her was a very tall tired mom with a small mouth usually flattened in judging concern. Her short brown hair that went right behind her ears covered a long thin face with small eyes the same color as Airya's. She had her arms crossed, waiting for Airya to answer.
"Mom, I hurt myself. I was cleaning it off," she balanced herself and lifted her foot so her mother could see.
Worry replaced judgment in her mother's eyes, "How did you do that?" She bent down to look closer, almost putting her nose against Airya's foot.
“There were rocks pushed into the ground in the grass on the way here and I didn't see them.”
Her mom put Airya's foot down and stood up, making Airya have to tilt her head up to see her face, "It will heal just fine," she wrapped her arm around Airya's shoulders, her mother's long feathered tunic brushing her cheek, "We got to get you to bed. It will heal better with sleep."
Tiredness tugged at Airya's eyes as she walked across the main temple room into one of the few side rooms that belonged to her. In the corner was a small bed crafted from the white-barked trees near the mountain with a rat skinned feathered blanket to match her dress on top of it. She remembered when she was young, going along the field and collecting the feathers the owls had dropped for their people to make such things.
On the other side of the room was a small table with some of her favorite stones she had found on it.
Removing the dress from her daughter, her mom held out a much lighter dirty-white dress made out of the same bark as her bed, but boiled and rolled for longer periods of time to make the bark more of a thin, durable material. Airya lifted her arms and let it drape over her, the softened bark rough and scratchy on her skin. Then she crawled into bed and let her mom cover her up.
Sleep was calling her name, but a question called to her louder, throbbing in her head to the tune of her injured foot.
"Mom, why do the Solocs look at us like we’re gross all the time?"
"That’s something that will be explained to you when you are older," her mom dismissed her.
"But I want to understand. It makes me sad."
Her mom sighed and looked off into the corner of the room for a long while before finally breaking the silence, "Ok.”
Airya tried to sit up, but her mom shook her head and patted her stomach to keep her lying down.
"Long ago, according to Stilk, there were two Gods who ruled this world. They were in the form of giant owls. They were called the Strigiformes."
"Are those the giant owls carved into the pillars on the temple?"
Her mom nodded, " Yes. One day the Solocs were born out of the Strigiformes’ eggs. After, the Solocs taught themselves how to make clothing to protect themselves against the pecking and prodding of their Gods, and they learned to carve, mimicking how the Strigiformes carved the mountains with their beaks to keep them sharp. The Solocs built this temple as a special place for the Strigiformes around this river so they could drink from it when their Gods needed. They also made little rooms like the one we are in now for some of the Solocs to stay in to take care of the Strigiformes whenever it was needed," she smiled, moving her hand in a sweeping motion to encompass the room. Airya looked around at the bare stone walls and the wide opening that led into the temple itself, "They also built the little town our people live in right under the temple."
"What happened to the Strigiformes?" Airya asked, yawning.
"Well, Stilk said that they ate all the big prey that was here until there were none left, except for the rats, so then they grew hungry, starved, and then passed away."
"But you said no one dies here!"
"No one does now and no one has since then. It seems like death in the natural sense just ceased when they had died. Even when we came, we found that you can grow hungry and starve here, but you will never reach death….” She paused, “It’s bedtime now."
"You didn't tell me why they look at us like they do."
Her mom's shoulders fell a little. She took another moment of silence before she continued, "I don't know, Airya. We came, and they moved away to build another little town by the second river that they call Atta. I imagine that they were frightened of us and just wanted to be away from us, so we made our homes here because there was nowhere else. We aren't strong like they are to be able to build what they can and to do with the stone what they are able do. With them gone, we settled, and maybe now they second guess their decision to leave."
Airya was confused but nodded, thinking that her mom’s answer might have made sense to her if she was aged older, "What about Stilk? Why does he stay?"
He was the only Soloc who also lived in the temple. Her parents liked him and talked to him daily, but he was rude to Airya. Even though her mom had taught him how to communicate with them, he tried to avoid Airya.
"To watch over the temple. He didn't want to leave it, and we weren't going to force him away," she looked to the opening of the room, "No more questions. It’s time to sleep." She bent down and kissed Airya's head gently before leaving the room. Airya watched her go and disappear in the dark of the doorway. She sighed and closed her eyes. If she were Stilk, she would also want to stay in her original home, but why did the others leave, and why did Stilk choose to live away from his people all alone?
She fell asleep with her mind full of more questions than before.