What turned out to be an exceedingly large ward house was painfully lack-luster to the rest of the world outside. Empty rooms, dark corridors without windows, and the stale, almost stagnate odor of old water hung in the air, making exploration rather unpleasant at best.

But for Saki, she had amused herself with less, before.

She wandered along old stone corridors, careful to not set foot outside, as her father had requested, careful not to disturb any further residents within the building. Her bright gaze traced the walls, taking in every indent and fissure that marked the walls. Her fingers grazed along the grooves between slabs in the walls, and her doeskin wrapped feet tapped against the floor dully. It was much like she was the only person in the world at that moment, and it was disorientating.

The faint sound of voices echoed on the stale air as Saki reached a dark corridor towards the back of the empty building, drawing her gaze away from the blemishes of time-worn stone.

There were many voices, so many that it formed a distant, disorientating hum that hung on the air, like the rushing of crashing water. It drew Saki's curiosity, enough so that she detoured from her third lap of the building to wander down into the dark corridor that seemed to descend underground.

Marches of footsteps soon mixed in with the growing chorus of voices, blending and churning like a discordant symphony of unease. They reverberated through the silence in harrowing waves, smothering her thoughts from her grasp with the growing volume. They were as oppressive as they were deafening, crashing into each other with such violence that Saki could not hope to discern one word from the next.

At least until she found a lone ray of light filtering in through a hole in the wall, illuminating a small halo of light spanning from the space where the ceiling and the wall connect. Beneath it through the faint glow of the light, Saki could see a stack of old wooden barrels against the wall beneath the opening and a series of small crates adorned with various old cushions of varying colours and shades.

The voices were almost deafening here, their words a chaotic cacophony against Saki's ears. And yet, her curiosity brought Saki to carefully climb up onto the highest barrel and peer up through what she soon realized was an old storm grate affixed with both old iron bars and damaged by water-worn trails.

The scene outside was not what Saki had expected to see as she leaned up on the balls of her feet to level her eyes with the bottom of the opening.

A great sea of feet were what the girl immediately noticed, clad in leather sippers and woolen socks, and the once-been vibrant clothes of the people were dulled down to varying shades of soot and dust. The light outside was bright, with the pristine blues peeking through between the masses of people filling what was one of the main streets bordering a large, central marketplace.

However, the booming sound of a voice on the air, more pristine and clear than the rest was the one sign that this was not a typical market day.

'These people as you call them, they aren't of our morals! Our beliefs!' The voice boomed over the masses, silencing them for just a brief second. 'Our people suffer at their hands for their misdeeds! It is our duty to correct the wrong and bring them back to the enlightened road!'

A rowdy cheer rung through the area, so loud Saki had to clasp her hands over her ears to stifle the noise.

And should they reject the true right of the world, we will drag them back to the light by force!'

A booming chorus of voices ricocheted through the area, louder still as the people outside the drainage grate seemed to shuffle aside, enough for Saki to lean up and get a clearer glimpse of the scene outside.

Standing at the front of the masses as if a beckoning performer atop a stage, several large, burly forms of men dressed in lavender and gray robes stood motionless with lit torches in their left hands, a ceramic depiction of the same milkweed cross that many of the soldiers wore held in their right. And before the seven forms with their robes pulled up to hide away their faces, a tall and remarkably eerie form clad in all white stood at the forefront, wearing a white mask with a long, bird-like beak.

Beckoning towards the crowds with arms held wide open as they spoke to the masses.

As if they were welcoming their woes without concern. Without doubt.

'Will you let them whisper lies into your child's ear? Steal from you before you act? Wait for them to try and kill you before you cast them back from whence they came?! These charred demons of the desert claim these lands as their own and fight back against right! What say you to this injustice?! NO!' The roar of the crowd prompted the masked man to continue. 'It's our holy plight to rid the world of the scourge of unbelievers and faithless, the demons in the guise of humans that continue to gnaw at the backs of our minds and spill false truths into our ears!'

Shrieks of "heretics" and "demons" rung through the air amid the rallying of the men before the masses, and Saki knew for a fact that this wasn't good, even if she didn't understand half of the words that were called out. She could understand hate, and knew that the roaring mass of people above were engulfed in hate and anger.

'Let us draw a line before us now! Let us turn our ears dull and our hearts immovable to the whims of demons! We will make a declaration of war against these vile spawn today!'

With a dramatic turn away from the crowds rallying in the streets, the masked preacher appeared to disappear for a second.

And then the shouts and shrieks grew deafening as the people in the streets swelled with anger.

'We declare our stance to the demons by sending their own twisted children back to the fires from whence they came!'

The anger swelled to an even louder, more furious state, until Saki could hear nothing but screams from past her tiny hands clasped over her ears. But she saw the seven other, robed men with torches turned away, raising the flames above their heads as they disappeared out of Saki's limited sight.

Just then, terrified cries swelled in the crowd, loud enough for Saki to hear. Just barely loud enough for the girl to realize exactly what this was.

This was a public execution. A burning.

And as cheers ricocheted through the streets like deafening hail, Saki knew those flames had been lit.

Before Saki could yell out, before the tears building up had managed to shed, large hands had grabbed the tiny girl by the middle and lifted her right off the stack of barrels before she even realized there was somebody else here in the dark corridor. A terrified squeak escaped the distraught girl as she tried to wriggle herself free, before she heard her father's hushed voice commanding her attention.

'Calm yourself, Saki.' The large, bear-like man told her with a small chuckle. 'I told you I would come find you as soon as I had finished talking with those gentlemen.'

'Da!' Saki cried out as she managed to look back at her father with tearful eyes. 'Th-the scary people are hurting them!'

Marius cast a brief glance towards the drainage grate before he looked back at Saki's distraught face.

'They're going to be fine, Saki.' Marius told her as he then tucked the small girl against his side. 'You'll see.'

'But--' Saki had begun to protest, but found herself instead promptly drawn away from any argument with her father.

Screams from the crowd rung through the area, flooding the corridor with the cacophony of terror as creaking and groaning wood gave way to the crashing of fleeing feet and collapsing buildings.

Chunks of stone, smoldering wood and kindling flew past the lone grate Saki had been spying through this whole time, scattering the crowds as far away from the wayward debris as they could go. Shouting calls for guards rung through the air as forms in both tattered rags and familiar makeshift cloaks ran through the fire and debris without care for its painful inflictions, without concern for where they were going.

Anywhere was better than here.

'See?' Marius called Saki's attention back towards him. 'They are fine. They're going to get out of the city and fall back to one of our other hideouts.'

'Did... the people in that room do something?' Saki couldn't help but ask, quietly, given the state of chaos that was taking place just on the other side of that grate.

'Yes, I guess you could say that.' Marius agreed. He seemed to let out a weary breath as he shifted to sit down on one of the cushioned crates, shifting Saki to sit on his lap before continuing on. 'I guess you're old enough to learn about this. Waving it off as a big old joke isn't going to cut it, anymore.'

There was an obvious grimace written clearly across Marius' face as he looked back up at the grate, where the burning embers continued to glow like an ensuing threat.

'This is the heart of Calliandra, what we now call "Asclepia", Saki. The royal city, Acacia.' He told her gently, sweeping his free hand over her face to try and rid her of some of the tears and ash clay that had remained clung to her face in spite of her earlier slumber. 'The House of Kyanite stole these lands from our people by murdering our monarchs, and they ensure to keep it by destroying every descendant of our people so that their own can move in and take our place.'

Saki's brow furrowed slightly in response to that.

'Is that those people in the funny clothes?' She couldn't hep but ask.

'Are they Kyanite?' Marius asked, only to earn a prompt nod in response. 'That's right. Anyone wearing those clothes, or marked with milkweed flowers is from the House of Kyanite. Or at least they work for them.'

'Why do they want our home?' Saki asked. 'Why can't they go home?'

Marius seemed to almost wince at the questions.

'I don't know, Saki. We all want to know that, but we can't ask them.' He explained as he set a heavy hand atop Saki's head.

'Why not?'

'How do I explain this...?' Her father spoke slowly, before he let out a weary breath. 'I guess they are like an old mean dog. They want a bigger, better home, so they go around chasing all the other animals away.'

Saki frowned petulantly.

'I don't like dogs.' She muttered.

'Neither do I.' Marius agreed. 'So right now, I'm working with a lot of people to rescue our people from Kyanite. To stop those people from hurting anyone else.'

So, it was those men in the meeting who had intervened with the public execution outside, then?

'But what matters right now Saki is this; You can't let them know you're here. You can't talk with them. They don't want to listen. They are that filled with hate that they want to hurt us, even if we've done nothing wrong.'

'But, why?' Saki asked. 'This is home, yes?'

Marius cast her a wry smile as he ruffled her hair briefly.

'For your Mother and I, yes. This is home.' Marius explained with a small chuckle and a brief glance toward the grate. 'But for you, Saki, this isn't home.'

It's... not?

'You were born in a country so very far away from here, and every day your mother and I are both regretful that we left that peaceful country to return here.'

'Is that why I have a funny name?' Saki couldn't help but ask.

'It is.' Marius agreed with a smile. 'You were born on a night with a red sky and orange moon, named after an old friend of your mother's who had passed away that day a year earlier. Saki was her name, and we gave you an extra name in honor of the fact that you are a child of a different country.'

'I don't understand...' Saki groaned out with a pout.

And of course, Marius just laughed, soft enough that nobody else other than Saki could hear him.

'You will, when you're older.' Her father told her. 'All you need to remember is that while your Mother and I are children of Calliandra, you are a child of Clarines. If anything were to happen to us, remember that Clarines is your home, and where you should go when this country falls to pieces.'

--=[Submitted May 29th 2019, with 2160 words in total :)]=--