Starlight (Tentative Title)
an excerpt

Prologue
Tian

It's a rarity when I dream, but when I do, it's always the same. I'm five years old, my jet black hair done up in pigtails, and I'm running. I never know what I'm running towards at first, or what I'm running from, it's different every time. Sometimes I end up in my mother's arms, sometimes my father's, and sometimes I'm just running away from the horse that's about to run me down. Usually there's a fire, and there's always the sense of fear. The dream always ends with a black face all done up with warpaint grinning an insane grin at me as he pulls me from whomever I'm trying to hold on to.

The man will mutter something in a foreign tongue as he looks me over. I squirm to try and get away. He shouts to another man holding chains as he drags me further from my mother, my father, and my home. I scream, I cry, it doesn't seem to matter what I do, I keep getting carried away from them.

I always wake up in a sweat, and I always wake up crying and disoriented. Then I remember: I'm at school, far from home, and alone.

Thole

I tend to have dreams of that night. The night we took the Calith. It was horrifying, but we were ordered by the Judge to do it. There was screaming, both in our native Amarat language, and their savage, foreign tongue. There was fire. They didn't understand what we were doing, and neither did we. Why were we there? Why were we taking their children? They didn't know we were trying to help, we were trying to save them. At least, that's what the Judge told us. And, of course, we had no choice but to believe him. He is the leader of the Solati family after all, and they rule us, body and mind.

That night, we took them quietly at first, but then that jackass L'arat dropped his lamp and managed to light one of the houses at first. They were only made of straw, no wonder they lit up so fast. The village was screaming in no time. I can still hear them you know: terrified at first about the fire, then realizing men in armor were there and that we were taking their children. We were trying to get them to co-operate, trying to tell them that their elder had made an agreement with the Judge, but they couldn't understand, so we had to go by force. I never understood why we had to go by night anyway, I suppose it was to make it easier on the children. Instead, we probably scarred them for life.

Tian

I remember when they came, all black and covered in bright war paint, like they were mocking our culture as they came to destroy it. They proclaimed us savages and took our lands. We didn't understand them, and we couldn't fight back.

I was five at the time, but I still remember crying as I was taken away.