- JUST VILETTA -

At first, she couldn’t stop crying. She wept a lot. Every day. Every night. During her lessons, sometimes. She’d turn away from the kids. It would torment her when she walked back. She could never escape her life. Her Scopic fate -the disease, the madness, the lies.

She also saw she would not have the right to a common person’s misery either. She had to bite her lips. Live like the others and pretend to accept all those pillars of tradition she’d seed being torn to pieces right in front of her. If she didn’t, if she stepped even slightly out of line, an even worse fate awaited her, in our small, rural town.

Ridicule.

That was why no one could ever see her doing anything. No move that would make her stand apart from the rest of her family.

Slowly, she began soul searching. Day by day, she built an idea withing her. She explored and embraced it. Each tear was a thought. Each night, a realisation. Everyone had something in this world. Something to give them happiness. A secret hope, some love, at least self-delusion. She had nothing.

So, there wasn’t in this world a creature as much an orphan as she was.

Irredeemable as a Scopic, worthless as a human, with no one in the world but herself. No great mind, no special talent, and a terrified soul. Tied between a thousand ropes that, she knew, was neither allowed to, nor capable enough to cut. Her fate

A fate she could do nothing about. She couldn’t change, or sweeten it. Neither escape, nor reverse it. Unable to trick herself into accepting it. It was manifesting before her as a mirror image of herself. And she could do nothing but stare in its eyes.

The desperation was complete. The realisation was complete.

It was from this exact realisation she then attached, both her existence, and the excuse for her existence. She sucked every last drop of that poison of pride. It was now her right. She could look now at both her life and her fate with “that fearless pride of an eternal orphan” as our poets would say.

Around that time, the revolution had begun taking a more solid form. And during those days, when we first began fighting the Dolvetians, the people in Riviella, our people, were suffering. They were starving, they were cold, and afraid for their loved ones who had taken arms against our oppressors. Every day, another one was dead. Every day, another house was mourning.

-

(If allowed, I would like to, once again, get personal for a moment.

For all the promises of bread, land and freedom we made before starting our fight; it is also important to acknowledge all the sacrifices our people made, and continue to make to this day. All of them so our common dream can become a reality. Yet I feel all those we’ve lost, those who’ve given their life for our Pelagia, are in danger of being forgotten before our revolution is even successful.

It is unfortunate, but the lovers of history more often than not describe wars in terms of Kinds and dynasties, wimps of the Gods or strokes of brilliance by generals. I recognise these words may sound disrespectful, especially coming from a man ordained by the Faith. Yet it is neither Gods nor Kings who climb walls and mountains, starve during sieges, or get killed in battles. That is the common soldier. The citizen. The father. The mother. The children.

All these people history often overlooks. Yet they are, in my experience, way more important than any general or King. I too have been guilty of overlooking them for many years. One of the reasons for me writing down these stories, is to try and somewhat mitigate this mistake while I still have the time. I owe it to them. To little Viletta.

Please excuse my rambling. Although I find it to be somewhat relevant to the story, it will not happen again.)

-

When the fighting became more widespread, the great despair firmly grabbed most people in Riviella. Viletta noticed. At first she was kind of surprised. She began seeing those unknown bystanders, whom she’d never paid attention to before, as people a bit more close to her. They also had problems, and pain and tears.

This realisation bothered her a little. She saw it as a violation of her sacred ground of lonely desperation. But she wasn’t like them. She didn’t want companions in sadness. Her suffering, her pain, she felt was different. Permanent. Their martyrdom was a temporary one. Their tears were unworthy compared to hers. Tears of fear, not sadness.

She wanted to be alone again, like before. With no fear. No hope. Like before.

The wave of despair did not retreat however. It grew larger. It began circling around her. It came from everywhere. Every day. The little kids she’d teach would bring its echo to her, through their frightened cries. Many of them had cousins, fathers and brothers who had already taken the baptism of fire. Some had died from hunger, or in battle, or had been arrested by the Dolvetians.

Others were simply lost. Forever gone, with no warning. And the kids wouldn’t say where they went. Except to her. They trusted her. They wanted, needed, to tell her.

“Yes Viletta,… my dad told me…”

She was still so young, they didn’t call her teacher. Just Viletta.

They’d tell her about their homes, where there was no bread now, no fire. About the Dolvetians and their abductions and their killings. They’d killed yesterday, they were killing today, and they would kill again tomorrow.

And of the other “bad people”. Those stealing, or hoarding food in basements and warehouses. They’d give them some in exchange for everything they had. From their hunger they’d made great fortunes.

About the rich and powerful, who supported the Belir. About those who’d refused to kneel and look away. Those up in the mountains, or here in town, who constantly fought the Dolvetians. Openly or in secret.

Despot Mavier constantly declared they had to find them and kill them on-site. And Crassus, still commanding his Cavalleria, was furious; calling out all those “pebbles” who’d dared lift their heads and look up, look him straight in the eye. He’d now taken complete control over the town’s forces, pushing Belir Alleth to the side. Now, he was even more ruthless, arresting and killing everyone and anyone he suspected was supporting the revolution.

The kids knew everything. All the secret oaths of the revolutionaries. All the Warchiefs. All the songs. And they also lived with the hope something better would arise from the ashes of war.

Viletta would listen all these things they’d tell her and smile. With bitterness in the beginning. Then she started to respond. If they were scared, she would comfort them. Tell them something to give them courage. Something they wanted to hear. If one was very sad, she’d take them aside and calm them down. She felt their little hearts beating close to hers.

If, on the other hand, they were happy and making fun of the Dolvetians, she felt she had to be by their side as well. And one day, she’d even told them she had the same hope they had. That the Dolvetians would someday finally be defeated. Leave their lands, go away forever, and then…

That day she returned home visibly upset. She went up in her room without a word. In that small room where she’d first discovered her martyrdom. She sat down and crossed her hands. Crossed her hands and for the first time, she thought about the martyrdom of others. All others, everywhere in the world. About their present and their past.

She had hear in the Temple, when Despot Mavier was reading the “Book of Yi”, that Ereva would offer relief to everyone through death. But this was the only thing she’d offer. Only in death one could find peace. So she’d only think about one thing. Death. About death.

But tonight, she also thought about hope. How it grows and blossoms, and becomes strength. Will, for someone to keep pushing themselves. And thought if she, also, had a small piece of hope. A little pebble to add to the lager hope of the others. Nonsense. It kept bugging her though…