Dreer

I looked forward, in my seventeenth year, to deepening my studies at Kiirka Academy. But what happened instead is that a contingent of shadow-touched, other-dimensional colonizers invaded our city of Kaja. Those of us who would not become thralls, surrendering our ancient culture and traditions--our sapience and our faith and our lifeblood--to the domination of these beings we quickly came to know as the Ku; those of us who refused to surrender our lives either fled or died. Many of my friends and family died. We had to leave them, without benefit of burning, where they fell. Many places in my body are still numb to this reality.
I have grieved, and I have grieved, and I have only begun to grieve. I am young, and I will never have time enough in this life or any other to fully express my grief and rage. 
As Kaja fell into alien hands and became unrecognizable to us, we were pushed out by the thousands, then led southward by our own knowledge of the desert and the larger world. As we traveled, we fed each other with rumors that spoke of welcoming cities on the northern edges of distant Rumorring. These rumors became hope. This hope bolstered our lifeblood, which ran so cold with the violence of dispossession that it failed many of us. Even as we fled, we buried each other. I left my sister, Peshira, and my friends Varniina, and Topas, and Ankhen, and Shoryn, and Nidar, and my uncles Ryu and Kildiiru and Masiit, and my cousins Biirin, Maat, Vassiilla, and Pendryn--all of them, we had to lay to rest under the shifting sands of a seemingly endless desert. 
The desert does not forgive those who trespass through her, and this is as Taniik wills. And although I pray, many times each day, that Taniik strengthens my heart to endure and forgive, endure and forgive, endure and forgive; forgive me, Taniik, but I doubt I will have the strength of heart to forgive these alien Ku for their trespasses against us. And I begin to learn from, and crave learning from, the desert. Forgiveness is too much.
After an indeterminate number of days, putting our faith in the southward-pointing needles of compasses, our company of refugees arrived in the South Red Desert at the ancient volcano of Scorch. We encamped, resting for one precious day in the cooling shadows, hunting rodents and other small beasts, and replenishing our water at the oases pooled at Scorch's feet. Here our company split, fractured into two smaller bands by a choice of destination. We would either go westward and south, into the Vast Amber, with the aim of reaching the city of Dreer on the Blackember Plateau by way of the Dragonwall Road; or travel the more difficult, but shorter, way across the ghostly, haunted Slag Dunes to the city of Durbhan.
My family chose the smooth glass of the Vast Amber and the promise of the road. Our journey had been long and had made us too familiar with loss and death. The thought of seeing ghosts, trapped for eternity in the ever-eroding glass hills of an ancient eruption, broke our hearts afresh. We chose the smooth glass of the Vast Amber and the promise of Dragonwall Road.
The ancient draconic sigils clawed into the Dragonwall hold tangible power; magical force emenates outward and suffuses the area, and the road is saturated with this energy. Made of black volcanic tile and glass, this road absorbs the heat of the sun. The energy flowing outward from the sigils of the Dragonwall mingled with the odd, welcome humidity of mist that fell over the desert here. This was mist from the primordial waters of the Sea of All Things, the holy locus of Ekeurra's emergence into the ancient world; the combination of this mist and the draconic power of the mountain wall did much to revive my spirit. Still burdened by too much grief--always burdened, now, always--some new faith began to stir in me.
And then there was Blackember. If this city of Dreer, its smooth black walls as yet unseen, hidden by the immense height of the cliff face, was to be our new home, perched for whatever gods-forsaken reason on a clearly shadow-touched plateau of midnight stone--if this was the end of our journey, for now, then I was going to need every mote of faith I'd received from the Dragonwall, the sun, and the timeless mist of the sea.
The welcome we received at Dreer was abrupt, scant. It left much to be desired. Hundreds of families of our kin, and the strangers among us felt like our own family after all we had been through; thousands of people were crowded into tents and makeshift stone structures. As a people, we were pinched between the narrow course of the East Gate and the thick, high black and curving east wall of the city. Dreer. Aptly named, Dreer welcomed us with cold: cold meals, cold air and rain, and a cold and militant force guarding the city from our arrival.
Still, we stayed. After what, a month, in the desert, the cold rain and bread scraps and rationed blankets and clothes and basic items of everyday living we received with gratitude. These basic pieces of life were welcome gifts, after all, after so much death and struggle.
We stay still. We have been here how long? Many weeks now. We are a proud people, and side-by-side with our gratitude, this welcome is not what we had hoped. This welcome is harsh.
Let us in. Please, let us in. By all the gods, have mercy. Let us in.

Type

City