Naliette Vasukris

Character
Alex
Lumenshard Team

Iam called Naliette, as my mother was before me, of the Vasukris family. We tended to the Kastellon orchards for seven generations, but mine was to be the last.

When the payments were first delayed, what seems like ages ago now, my family wasn’t too worried; we simply kept tending the trees, certain the great house would not abandon us. We had food stocks to rely on in case of hardship, and merchants were still coming through. It wasn’t quite harvest season, and there was yet no reason to suspect anything.

The second month without payment, some in town started to worry. The regular check-in before the harvest season didn’t occur, and we otherwise had no word from House Kastellon. Food was no issue, but no winds come from stilled skies, and people started to become upset. There had always been those who thought we could run the orchard and its cideries ourselves - and who thought the nobles weren’t paying us enough for our labor and dedication.

Now, those voices had reason to grow louder.

The famed Urasserian apple orchards, before the scouring

Another month passed, and the harvest season was upon us. Merchants failed to arrive on schedule, and hunters could not find as much game as usual. The majority was still unfazed, starting the harvest. After all, the seasons would not wait for the Orator Court - the Chorus, or whatever they’ve taken to calling themselves since - to sort things out. The fruit would spoil on the ground if left to itself.

My father, a hunter in our western town of Urasser, shared news as he sat us down to dinner one night.

“Some of the more vocal townsfolk are starting to talk of rebellion. Nothing but hot air for now, but my instinct tells me there is something more going on. Listen to those around you, and let me know of anyone who talks of rising up. Understood?”

My sister and I nodded, though our mother was slower to do so. “Good girls,” said our father, with his characteristic smile. Oh, how his words had echoed as I struggled to sleep, mind racing at the possibility.

Two weeks more without word from House Kastellon; the local representative packed her things and left town in the night, like a thief. Those voices who had been few were now many, even as we began the cider-making. It was a duty of generations, so deeply ingrained that even the dissenters could not help but join in. Soon though, we would need to ration food, as our summer stockpiles were beginning to run out. My father would bring back rabbits he managed to hide in his gambeson, but not all were so lucky. Arguments broke out in the streets about what to do, and our parents began insisting we stay indoors after dinnertime.

Just as harvest season was ending, the Kastellons finally sent their messengers. A small unit of soldiers arrived in Urasser, not with news or payment but with a proclamation now seared into my memory:

“Certain members of the town of Urasser stand accused of: the intimidation of represented merchants; the unprovoked murder of a Kastellon inspector; and, the theft of House property, from both its fields and its natural reserves. If the guilty among you do not step forward voluntarily, the soldiers assembled have been ordered to search your homes, question all residents, and apply appropriate punishment evenly to the entire town. Who among you are the perpetrators?”

I still remember the look on my father’s face, as confusion and anger grew among the assembled. The village speaker, old Madam Gareau, approached the soldiers.

“No inspector ever reached us! We’ve waited the entire season without pay and yet still we remain faithful to the Kastellons, even as their representative abandoned us, and them. Who makes these accusations? We demand to know!”

This uprising was just the beginning

The soldiers shifted uneasily, looking between the townsfolk and each other - their leader might have responded, but our neighbors never gave him the chance. They began shouting at him, and then each other - individual voices barely distinguishable above the din. One phrase, though, began singularly and spread into a chant. “Vogiure!”, they said. “Vogiure folutemmur!” It was one I had heard my mother sometimes say.

She knelt next to my sister and I, a tense smile unable to fill her face as it usually did. Fear had begun to overtake me.

“I need you both to go home, and wait for me and your father, ok?”

In tears, although I did not know why, I took my sister’s hand and ran us both home. I looked back only once, but the crowd had already closed around my parents, blocking my view. What happened next I wasn’t privy to, but I heard the sounds of gunfire, and screaming, and more chanting. And then, my father came home - without my mother. He hugged my sister and I, and cried with us in a way I had never seen before, or since.

“We have to leave. Some of… some of our neighbors, they… they started a rebellion. The soldiers killed some of them. Your mother… she won’t be coming with us.”

After that, my memory is hazy. But seemingly in the next moment, he was pushing us to gather our things. We quickly grabbed as much as we could carry in the satchels we had used for fruit picking. As we slipped out of our house and away from town, we could still hear the chaos unfolding into the night. “Vogiure folutemmur!” Vogiure folutemmur!”

My father spat in disgust, without slowing down. “Voices of the persecuted? Voices of the foolish, more like. They’ll lose everything chasing their freedom. Everything…”

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