Unia: Echo of Harmony

The scorching sun is blazing overhead, an unrelenting sentinel in the sky, its rays piercing the dusty air of the village square where the boy now stood. On any other day at this hour, he would have been nestled in the cool shadows of his home, lost in the gentle embrace of a midday nap. But this day is far from ordinary.

Earlier, as the boy and his family were poised on the edge of rest, their quiet was shattered by the abrupt arrival of a neighbor. The man spoke rapidly, his words a torrent that flooded their modest dwelling. The boy caught only fragments, but one phrase resonated with clarity—the directive from a city official that all villagers must assemble.

At first, curiosity piqued the boy's interest, a spark kindled by the rarity of such visits. But as he watched his father's face, the lines deepening, eyes clouding with a rare flicker of concern, the boy's excitement waned, eclipsed by a burgeoning sense of disturbance.

Now, here in the heart of their village, the boy clung to his father’s leg, his small hand gripping the fabric of his trousers as if to anchor himself amidst the sea of gathered villagers. The square, typically a hive of banter and bartering, was thick with an unusual silence peppered with hushed murmurs and coughs. His mother, frail from the unknown disease, remained at home in bed, her absence from the square a hollow space at his side.

Yet amidst the swell of uncertainty, the boy found a measure of distraction in the undercurrent of voices that filled the square. His spirit was consumed by an insatiable curiosity, a thirst for the hidden meanings that danced within the murmurs and occasional shouts of grown men and women. Though the subtleties of their words often eluded him, swept away on tides too complex for his tender years, he listened with the fervor of a scholar, each snippet a puzzle piece to be turned and examined in the growing complexity of his mind.

His world, small and untouched by the broader concerns that furrowed the brows of his elders, is slowly expanding before his eyes, each anxious glance and wry smile a lesson in the human tapestry of emotion. He is still young, and the roots of understanding had yet to burrow deep into the soil of worldly knowledge, yet he felt—deep in the marrow of his bones—the infectious pulse of the crowd’s anxiety.

Too young to fully comprehend the causes of the villagers' unrest, he nonetheless absorbed the prevailing moods, and the furrows of worry and whispers of discontent shaped his expression into a reflection of those around him—a small mirror, mimicking the darkening frowns that lined the faces of his elders.

"Again, are they raisin' taxes...?" grumbled a disgruntled, hoarse voice, its rasp suddenly devolving into a vigorous cough. The unexpected sound riveted the boy's attention, drawing his eyes to the source—a familiar neighbor known as Álvaro. The man's abrupt gesticulations, followed by his cough, sent a freshly baked loaf of bread tumbling from his basket to the dust below.

Though the boy scarcely knew Álvaro beyond brief encounters, he recognized him as the father of Raquel, a girl seven winters his senior who once frequented his childish games. Of late, however, the innocence of shared games had yielded to the inevitable passage of time, and he found Raquel ensconced increasingly amidst a circle of maidens, her peers, each step further weaving Raquel into the tapestry of burgeoning youth.

One sultry afternoon, as the sun played hide and seek with the clouds, the young boy had chanced upon Raquel and her companions beneath the old willow tree. Their voices, woven with dreams and draped in the secrecy of youthful ambition, floated on the breeze. Raquel, with a sparkle in her eyes and dreams of adventure dancing in her heart, declared, "My dream? Marry a knight, have his baby, and live in the city together."

At present, Raquel stood aloof, a single daisy held delicately in her slender fingers. Her world seemed to contract to just her and the flower, as she plucked its petals one by one, each dismissed to the whim of the wind with a soft chant, "Loves me, loves me not." Her voice, a gentle contrast to the coarse murmurings and restless unease that pervaded the gathering, seemed to weave a quiet spell in the afternoon air. The boy observed her from the fringes, his lips curling into an involuntary, skeptical smile. "What a silly dream," he mused silently, unable to grasp her youthful longings for chivalric love and the grandeur of distant courts, so at odds with the harsh realities of their rustic lives.

As Raquel delicately played with the fate of the daisy's petals, Alvaro's cough, blowing dust from a recently dropped loaf of bread, rose to a hoarse crescendo, suddenly drawing the worried glances of his daughter and the boy back to the unfolding drama.

His wife watched with a blend of frustration and concern. Her exasperation spilled over as she muttered, "Qué desastre," while her eyes shifted from her cough-wracked husband to Carlos, seeking some semblance of stability.

"Carlos, what you think? Why's the city's messenger callin' us like this?" she asked, her voice laced with a faint trace of anger.

Carlos, standing firm like a bastion amidst the growing unrest, placed a reassuring hand on his son’s back. "Whatever it is, we'll live," he declared with a conviction that seemed to anchor the swirling fears around them.

"Right, Miguel?" he looked down at his son, seeking to fortify the boy with his own resolve.

"Yes, papá," Miguel murmured, his small hand tightening about his father's leg, a bastion of childish trust in the towering strength beside him.

"And what if it's true, what they're saying? That Aelithra's gone for good?" ventured Miguel's older brother, his voice a blend of curiosity and doubt. Miguel, though the younger, often marveled at his brother's capacity for folly. “That’s silly. Celestials don't die," the child mused.

"Fool!" Carlos cut off with a sternness that brooked no argument, his hand coming down sharply on the back of his elder son's head—a rebuke as solid as the earth beneath their feet. Miguel winced sympathetically: he knew all too well the weight of his father's stern hand.

"Don’t grow up to be a fool like your brother, you hear, Miguel?” Carlos's words were tinged with a mocking severity as he gazed down at his younger son. Miguel nodded, his eyes wide with the earnestness of youth that feared the sting of his father's disapproval more than any ghostly tale.

"Papá, but they say..." the older son tried again, his voice a cautious thread beneath the looming threat of another reprimand.

"Enough!" The boys' father interjected firmly, his tone final. "We're just running around on the ground, and they? Sent by God, they are. They can’t die." The man’s gaze then drifted across the gathered crowd to settle on Álvaro, who coughed violently a few paces away.

"People gettin' sick. One even died. Hope it gets better," Carlos murmured. Miguel followed his father's gaze, his eyes settling on a man wracked with a cough as harsh and grating as his mother's. The man's painful, barking cough cut through the subdued murmur of conversations around them.

Soon, the murmured discussions among the assembled throng dwindled to a hush as a figure in a sumptuous suit, the likes of which the child had never beheld, approached the wooden tribune at the square's center. His attire was a stark contrast to the simple garb of the villagers, each fold of fabric whispering of realms beyond their simple means, realms where silk and velvet might brush against the cobbles of vast cities, untouched by the dust of the countryside. With a haughty air, the messenger ascended the steps to the platform, his presence commanding silence from the crowd.

"Fancy messenger this time… guards and all," Carlos muttered under his breath, his tone laced with disdain. Around them, the whispers of the villagers lowered to hushed tones, their words imbued with suspicion and a noticeable measure of envy.

"Listen up, commoners! The voice of the King speaks!" boomed an emissary from the tribune, his voice cutting through the air like a sword through silk. At his call, the square descended into a profound silence, the earlier whisperings extinguished. Only the occasional coughs echoed through the crowd from different corners of the square.

The messenger, a figure as imposing as his attire, unrolled a heavy scroll, his fingers deft in their task. With a voice that carried the weight of mountains, he intoned, "With a heavy heart, your King announces that her grace Aelithra, the star that for many years protected the Golden Alley and our beloved home, the Valoria del Sol Kingdom, has left this world." The words fell upon the crowd like a hammer on an anvil, sparking instant tumult.

"¡Mientes!" "¡Mentiroso!" “Liar!” Voices erupted from the crowd, a cacophony of denial and anger, unwilling or unable to accept the gravity of the truth.

Miguel turned to his father, seeking some sign of reassurance. But Carlos stood agape, his rugged features slack with shock, his eyes mirroring the raw, undiluted despair of one who had just learned of their goddess's death.

"Silencio, you beggars!" the resplendent figure commanded from his elevated stance, the authority in his tone bolstered by the rhythmic clatter of spears as the guards flanking him struck their weapons against the wooden stage, emphasizing his command with a calculated display of force.

The threatening sound quelled the rising storm of protests, drawing a reluctant and heavy quietude back over the square. The figure resumed his oration from atop the wooden stage, his tone now stripped of its earlier pomp and adopting a sincerity that resonated oddly with his previous hauteur. "May her majesty Aelithra rest in peace," he intoned with a gentleness that seemed to smooth the sharp edges of the villagers’ grief.

The air was thick with sorrow, the square a sea of somber faces; somewhere from within that mass, a solitary cry punctuated the quiet, a raw expression of loss that echoed briefly before succumbing to the pervasive silence.

However, the stillness was soon broken again by the messenger's voice, this time imbued with a solemn promise. "Nevertheless, we are not forgotten! Heaven has not forgotten us!" he proclaimed, his voice swelling with fervor. "One of the Heavenly, his majesty Diurnix, has promised that from now on, he will take care of us and show us, los mortales, the true path!"

A shared exhale swept among the crowd, their faces lifting from despair to tentative hope. Joyful exclamations mixed with loud coughs filled the square, a stark contrast to the previous moments of mourning.

Miguel, his heart heavy with resentment, looked up and caught the jubilant expression on his older brother's face—a smile that, even after fifteen years, still sparked indignation in Miguel as vividly as if no time had passed at all.

"What's there to be happy about?" Miguel's murmured question hung in the air, mingling with the past memories that swirled around him like a shroud. It was a whisper from the past, carrying with it the echoes of a day when hope and sorrow had intertwined beneath the unforgiving sun of the village square.

"What did you say?" Rigel's voice, sharp and clear, sliced through Miguel’s dense fog of reminiscences, abruptly pulling him back to the present. The harsh sunrays of the past dimmed, replaced by the cool, dark embrace of the night that now surrounded him.

His gaze, recently clouded by distant memories, cleared as he surveyed his surroundings: the rustling leaves, the cool night air, and the moon, a pale sentinel in the heavens, cast its silvery beams across the path, signaling the dawn that flirted with the horizon through whispers of light — all starkly contrasting with the vivid daylight of his recollections. "Oh, I'm sorry… it’s nothing," Miguel responded, adding a warm, awkward smile to mask his embarrassment.