Isla Korvo, Neian home planet Sacrez

Althea Nari was, for possibly the first time in her life, thankful for her Neian skin. A blush was nigh impossible to detect against a backdrop of evening-sky cerulean, so the rest of her class could not tell just how vexed she was. It was Anu'l, the first day of the Neian New Year, and her parents had insisted that she wear the traditional Enna robes to school. Althea had felt quite queenly in the creamed silk at home, even going so far as to weave ivy through her cinnamony hair, but now that she was the subject of quiet, amused stares from fourteen other judgemental sixteen year-olds, Althea felt waves of hot embarrassment and shame wash over her.

It was hard enough being the only Neian girl in her class without looking like a freak, too.

Taking her place at a cold metal bench, Althea craned her neck toward the smartscreen and pretended not to hear her classmates' snide comments. Her face burned some more, and she wished she could be as proud of her heritage as her parents; quite a task, considering the Akhari who had invaded nearly six centuries ago had been quick to label the Neians as barbarians and write their customs off as ignorant superstition.

The Galactic History teacher strode in just then. Sal Moren was painfully tall and painfully thin, and had on his customary expression of distaste. He activated his holoscreen, and Althea cursed under her breath. Today's lesson was on Neian history and the Akhari colonisation. Go figure.

"Samon Akhari, aboard the Halcyon, arrived at this planet on the fifth day of Mortis, roughly six hundred years ago," Moren began, and Althea cringed at what was coming next.

"After wandering the Coslin Plains for days in search of ship fuel, he chanced upon the coastal settlement of Arkon, today known as Isla Korvo, and found a primitive race that lived as hunters and foragers. They attacked him viciously, and he barely escaped with his life." Holograms of crude-looking Neians chased a virtual Akhari man around the classroom, and the class laughed.

Althea felt wretched in her robes. How did her father expect her to be proud of coming from a long line of knife-toting maniacs?

"Samon travelled across the planet. By the time a rescue ship, the Arduous, arrived in the outer rim nearly six years later, he had amassed vast knowledge of the land and its potential. The Akhari peacefully took over Isla Korvo, and gave the Neians the order and structure which their society so lacked."

"It seems one of our students has dressed up in the Old Neian way today," Moren added, smiling none too kindly at Althea. "Such charming customs. I believe the Old Neians sacrificed one of their own to the god of stars every New Year, yes?"

The class snickered, and Althea felt her ears ring. Something snapped inside her, so loud that she was surprised no one else heard it. She packed her satchel and got up, then smiled serenely at Moren.

"They sacrificed Akhari, too," she said quietly, and left the class.

Only in the corridor did Althea realise what she had just done. She wanted to sink to the floor and cry, but she would not be caught dead doing that in this god-awful school. She wondered whether she could feign an illness and leave. The door of her classroom swung open behind her, and she bolted down the corridor, afraid that she would be asked to go back inside.

"Althea, wait!"

Althea stopped in her tracks and whipped around. It was Zorev, the only other Neian in her class, and the son of her father's colleague. He ran up to her, slipping on the tiled floors in his haste.

"That was badass," he said with an infectious grin, skidding to a halt in front of her.

"It did feel pretty good," Althea replied, reluctantly returning his grin.

"I figured you might want to cut class. I know a way," Zorev continued cheerfully, and headed down a seedy looking tunnel hidden behind a supplies closet. After a moment's hesitation, Althea followed him. She didn't know him very well, but his dark blue eyes had a steadiness about them that made her trust him. Besides, anything was better than wandering the dark, smelly corridors of the subterranean school indefinitely.

Althea wrinkled her nose as they went deeper into the dark passage. The walls changed from grey linoleum to slick black rock with an array of emerald green mosses. They were truly in the bowels now.

"This place smells like dead quoks were deep fried and left to rot again," Althea said mildly.

"It's an abandoned maintenance shaft that the school forgot to close up," Zorev replied with a laugh. "Bear with it for a few minutes more, and we'll be out on the surface."

"You don't plan on going back to class today either, do you?" Althea asked shrewdly.

"Gods, no. I swear, Moren gets more punchable by the day," Zorev said, twisting and untwisting his hands. Althea smiled, then let out a sigh of relief as the passage sloped upward. Being this deep underground made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. She hiked up her robes and the pair hurried along, finally emerging onto the schoolyard under the harsh Isla Korvo sun.

They let themselves out the front gate, where an automaton coolly informed them that attendance would be docked for one Althea Nari and Zorev Kerkon. Althea couldn't help laughing out loud. She had never cut class before, though Zorev seemed to be an old hand at it. He thanked the automaton in a pompous Akhari accent, causing Althea to laugh harder.

"So, where are you going now?" Althea asked, once her giggles had subsided.

"My father's lab," Zorev replied. "Your father will be there too. You can come with me, if you'd like."

Althea considered this. She had planned on going back home to her mother and taking a nap, but going on an adventure with Zorev sounded far more interesting.

"I'll come," she said happily. They boarded a crowded hoverwyrm which sailed past the skyscrapers and highrises of the inner city, before dropping them off in a crowded square in Gangen, or the outer city. Here, twisting alleys wove in and out of each other, a complicated cross stitch of cobbled roads with strange shops and crowded townhouses on either side. There was laughter and music everywhere, and very rarely, snatches of Old Neian could be heard, lilting and sweet.

Althea inhaled the scent of fresh-baked catcha buns. It felt good to be home in the morning, for this was the time when street vendors were busiest, stirring and frying and baking in preparation for the lunch hour. And it was Anu'l today, too. Festivities were in full swing in the square, where Zamani dancers paid homage to the sun, their crimson skirts covered in artificial flames.

Zamani dancers hadn't been seen in nearly two hundred years. The Akhari had wiped out any traces of Neian culture, and as successive generations had moved to Akharin cities to work, they had forgotten the songs of their past. It didn't help that the Neian children had been taught to hate their 'barbarian' ancestors, and everything associated with them.

Althea swelled with pride. It was her father who had traced the last Zamani dancer to her home in the Corruva mountains and begged her to come out of retirement, to train a new generation of dancers in time for the next Anu'l. He was one of the last people who believed in preserving his Neian roots, and he had taught Althea all he knew about the Old Neians.

The lab where Zorev and Althea's fathers worked was under an old grain warehouse just off the square. The pair descended a dark stairwell, coming face to face with a heavy steel door secured with industry grade bolts.

"Cririn, it's me," Zorev said into a microphone built into the wall, and Althea marvelled at his usage of the Old Neian word for father. Despite her parents' repeated attempts to teach her, Althea had never quite gotten the hang of the language. Besides, it hadn't been properly spoken by the Neian populace in well over three centuries.

There was a click, and the bolts slid apart with a whoosh. The door opened, revealing a man in his late forties with his son's lanky frame and thatch of curly hair. Ansel Kerkon had a rather stern face, but a humorous tilt to his mouth. Another man appeared, this one with his daughter's cinnamony hair and smiling eyes.

"Thea!" Rossen Nari exclaimed. "What are you doing here? Are you alright?"

"Fine, father," Althea said with a grin. "I, ah..." she trailed off, uncertain what to say next.

"She sassed our history teacher and walked out," Zorev said. "He deserved it, though. He was being an absolute idiot."

Rossen looked proud, while Ansel sighed. "That still doesn't explain why you're here," he told his son sternly.

"Helping out a fellow troublemaker," Zorev said peaceably, and his father looked simultaneously exasperated and amused.

"Come in, both of you. It's Anu'l, it should've been a public holiday anyway," he said.

Althea and Zorev exchanged a grin and entered the lab. Althea had practically grown up here. She hoisted herself up onto her favourite counter, swinging her legs like she used to do when she had been a child. Her father appeared beside her.

"What did the history teacher say?" He asked, sounding concerned. "Do I need to go to the school and yell at him?"

"He made fun of the Enna robes," Althea said quietly.

"I'm proud of you for standing up for who you are, Thea," he replied, and the pride in his voice was enough to make her forget all the embarrassment and shame she had felt in history class.

"Since you're here, would you like to see what we've been working on?" Ansel asked, smiling at her and Zorev. They nodded enthusiastically, and followed him into an inner antechamber, where a strange device sat upon a stool.

It was like a lopsided black cube, with a glinting lens and an array of delicate bronze dials attached to it. A camera, Althea realised wonderingly. Antennae like a butterfly's protruded from the top of the camera, swaying gently.

"Trial number 182," Ansel said, writing it down in a faded Takhri-skin journal. "Staining solution is diamine and solvated zinc sulphide. Film is silver bromide and copper trace. Time attempted is quarter past high eleven. Subject is the pre-Akhari coastal settlement Akron."

Rossen turned a few dials on the camera anticlockwise through precise angles.

"Pre-Akhari?" Althea asked, a furrow in her brow. "Subject of what?" Zorev added, looking fascinated.

"We've been working on a camera that can film the past," Ansel said, and the pair's eyes widened.

"How is that even possible?" Althea asked in wonder.

"We discovered a new spectrum of cosmic light rays originating from deep space which travel in time loops. When we tried to get a rudimentary image from it, we discovered that the image was of an Akhari outpost from four hundred years ago. So we built a camera to detect these rays and focus them according to the timeline which they're from."

"That's insane," Zorev said, sounding impressed. "But why are you trying to film pre-Akhari settlements anyway?"

"It's based entirely off an Old Neian song my mother used to sing. The ballad of Areil from Harmon," Rossen said cheerily.

Zorev looked mildly skeptical, which Althea felt. Harmon was a land from legend, home of gods and monsters alike. It had obviously never existed. Unless..?

"I translated the lyrics. It took me years to build a working compendium of Old Neian. It was a small detail that caught my eye. The sixth verse mentions that Areil passed an Alker, which roughly describes an aqueduct."

Althea's father's eyes shone with hope and excitement.

"But the song was written all the way before Akhari times, when our people lived as hunters and foragers. Such systems for water collection and delivery were far too advanced for the basic civilisation that the Akhari have led us to believe existed before they invaded."

"Could be a mistranslation," Zorev pointed out sensibly.

"Or it could mean that the Akhari lied to us. Destroyed all traces of whatever civilisation the Neians had before," Althea said quietly, her heart beating fast. For so long, she had been made to believe that the Neians owed everything to the Akhari. Like they were some sort of saviors that had rid them of their savagery.

But history was written by the winners, after all.

"So the camera will film the time before the Akhari invasion. If you're right, what would that mean?" Zorev asked, sounding hopeful and not a little afraid.

"Revolution," his father replied, and turned the camera on.

The four of them stood well away from the camera. It began to hum on the stool, the antennae oscillating quickly. The lens swivelled about, and the antennae whipped back and forth in a frenzy .There was a flash of bright white light, and then everything went still.

Ansel darted forward, popping a small hatch on the side of the camera. He used a pair of steel tweezers to extract a spool of film from the slot. Rossen was ready with a dish of some foul-smelling liquid, which the film was quickly lowered into.

"Did it work?" Althea asked excitedly, jumping up and down like a rabbit on a sugar rush.

"We'll know in a minute," her father replied. He was nervous, because his gut was telling him that trial 182 would result in the first set of clear pictures, and what they contained could possibly change the world as they knew it. Perhaps his daughter would be his luck.

They were quiet as they waited. Althea's heart was going a million miles an hour, so she went to stand by her father. He smiled at her, just as a buzzer in his pocket went off. He and Ansel exchanged a significant look.

It was time.

Rossen gently lifted the spool of film out, and laid it out flat on a clear glass plate. A bright lamp was switched on, and the four of them crowded around.

Zorev sucked in a breath sharply, and Althea wondered if she was dreaming. Ansel was speechless, and Rossen had tears of joy in his eyes.

Before them was a set of six pictures, each displaying the same thing: a glittering city at the base of a verdant hill. Golden turrets rose from within the city walls to pierce the sky, and what looked to be a sleek hoverwyrm circled the central turret. Harmon city, impossible no longer.

Althea hugged her father tightly. "You were right!" She cried, doing a happy jig. "You were right all along!" He could only laugh, for everything he was thinking was too grand to be put into words.

Zorev cheered loudly. He was proud, so proud. He had spent seventeen years feeling ashamed of who he was; of his Neian ancestry, his cerulean skin, his father who insisted on speaking in Old Neian. He felt that shame crumble to dust now, insignificant in the face of this revolutionary discovery.

"Quick, we must get these pictures onto a computer," Ansel said, grinning, and Althea's father handed him a device that looked like a handheld scanner. He passed it over the film, and transferred the precious file to the lab computer.

Zorev booted up the lab computer, and pulled up the pictures on an advanced image-editing application. Althea's father could hardly look away from the pictures on the screen.

Harmon looked even more beautiful on a big screen. It was clearly the home of advanced, evolved civilisation. Rossen was pointing out all the ingenious Neian innovation he could see like a thrilled schoolboy: advanced astronomical clocks fixed to the turrets, hoverwyrms that flew higher than any that existed at present, a complex system of aqueducts that the current one was modeled after...

"The Akhari stole all of our inventions from us, didn't they?" Althea said, sparks of anger igniting in her chest like dry wood. "And they convinced us that we were nothing. How did we forget about Harmon?"

"They must've burnt all of our libraries and historical records down to the ground, or razed Harmon. Not a peaceful takeover then, but a bloody massacre," Zorev said, sounding as angry as Althea felt.

Their fathers nodded. "It's been six centuries. A lot can be forgotten in that time," Zorev's father said quietly.

"But with this camera, we can remember all of it." Rossen's smile was hopeful. He could see a new world just past the horizon.

"'We can learn from our ancestors. Bring back their lost innovations. We'll be Neians again!"

"When do we begin?" Althea asked, setting her traditional ivy coronet straight on her hair.

"Now," her father replied, and looked to the pictures once more.

One year later

Althea slipped her hand into Zorev's. He smiled at her, exhausted but victorious. They were home.

The sky shone bright blue, and the turrets of newly built Harmon city glinted in the sunlight. Althea shut her eyes and smiled, delighting in the way the sunshine felt on her skin. Clearer and warmer and more golden, somehow.

"They're expecting us," Zorev said lightly. "We should go."

"I can hardly believe this is happening," Althea said dreamily. "I'm filled up to the brim with wonder."

Zorev kissed her gently. "It's real," he said. "Nen tianmey aver, Thea,"' he added softly. Let us wonder together.

"Aryn," she replied. Always. Old Neian was a language made for love and starlight, after all.

The pair started down the hill, framed by wavy, verdant grass,and the sparkling city in the distance. They had each other and they had hope. Everything was going to be alright.