MEMORY FRAGMENT

Order of the Seven Stars’ 121st Monastery, 16 years ago

Months of vigilance and suspicion proved to be no match for a warm bed. Despite Palag’s attempts, he was asleep moments after touching the sheets. When he woke up, it was already dawn. There was a tray of food placed on a stool nearby.

It had been so long that Palag had slept in a single room that he couldn’t distinguish it from a dream. The thought filled him with dread that he’d suddenly wake up in the middle of a pile of mud in the wilderness. For over a minute, the fury remained there, staring at the wooden tray, waiting for him to wake up. A loud rumble in his stomach broke the silence, showing him that everything was quite real.

Not waiting for further proof, he rushed to the tray, wolfing down what food there was. The Order had only given him a small bowl of thin soup and a bit of bread, though far more than he was used to. It wasn’t cold, nor did it have the taste of rot and dirt that usually accompanied what scraps he’d find in the wilderness.

The door to the room opened.

“Are you done?” The older boy from yesterday asked.

Palag looked at the tray. There was only a bit of bread left. Showing it in his mouth, he nodded.

“Leave that and come with me,” the other said. He was in his mid-teams, which made him practically grown from Palag’s point of view. Even so, he seemed rather soft. There were no scars or scratches on his hands and face. The boy probably had never seen what war and misery were like, spending all his time in the comfort of the monastery. In the grand scope of things, Palag had no right to hate or envy him for it, but he did very much.

The two made their way to the other side of the complex, to a small pond. A small group of people stood there, washing clothes with water from a nearby well. The water wasn’t as filthy as what Palag has seen, though was by no means clear.

“Take off your clothes, then wash up,” the older boy said.

“Why?” Palag took a step back. He had just put on the clothes last night. They were brand new and quite clean, as far as he was concerned.

“Because we don’t need to get the monastery full of nasty critters. You didn’t think we gave you your own room just like that?”

“That’s not my room?”

“That’s a visitor's room. All new arrivals get them. After you’re done, it gets cleaned and ready for the next to join.”

“But… an entire room?”

“There are several buildings full of rooms that are for visitors,” the teen laughed. “It’s rare that furies use them. Most of your kind that come here were crazy clean.”

Palag looked away. Even now, months after being forced to live on the ground, he was disgusted by dirt. Without it, though, he was a lot more noticeable. The grime on his body had been a shield, one that he felt reluctant to remove.

“We don’t have all day.” The older boy crossed his arms.

Unable to see a way out, the fury complied. Using his air magic for the first time in weeks, he removed his clothes, then went on to strip all the dirt off his skin. Not a single drop of water was used—there was no reason for it. Half way through, Palag glanced about, fearful of the creation he might get. None of the people nearby bothered to look preoccupied with their own chores.

“Done?” the teen asked.

Palag nodded.

“Get some clothes from there.” The other pointed at a nearby washing line. “You can try them, right?”

The fury nodded again. A fresh set of clothes was taken from the line, gracefully sliding onto him. Using air currents, Palag held the trousers still, while lifting himself in the air, then floating into them. The last time he remembered getting dressed like this was back in his cloud home, before the war. The memory brought a faint smile, one that he quickly wiped off.

“What are we doing now?” he asked. The men from the previous day had mentioned something about helping out and doing chores.

“Now, we take you to your permanent room.”

As it turned out soon enough, the “room” was shared with twenty others, all boys roughly of the same age. There were a handful of furies present, but they were treated no differently than the humans.

Such a waste of space, Palag thought.

They could have hung a few hammocks from the ceiling and have the furies sleep there. That would have allowed for twice as many people. On the other hand, having a bit of extra space was nice.

“Which is mine?” Palag asked more eagerly than he would have liked.

The older boy pointed at an empty bed in the far end. “Today you have just one task,” he said. “Get accustomed to your room and get to know your roommates.”

The task sounded as strange as it was unappealing. Palag had no intention of sharing any information about himself, nor did he want to learn anything about anyone else. The moment the teen left, he sat on his bed, demonstratively, almost as if daring anyone to approach him. No one did. Instead, they continued doing what they were doing, as if he wasn’t there. They weren’t rube about it. They didn’t ignore him, and another fury even brought his food when everyone except Palag came back from having lunch. No one would start a conversation with him, though, making it clear that it was upon him to take the first step. After a few more hours, he did.

After all that time, he decided to ask someone’s name. He did so in the hopes that the others would refuse to share it, thus putting an end to Palag’s attempts at socializing. At least then he’d be able to tell the teen, or anyone else from the Order, that he’d tried his best. To his surprise, he received an answer. To his further surprise, Palag responded by sharing his own name. At that moment, it was as if a dam had broken. All the conversations bottled up within him for the last two years rushed to get out.

Palag would spend hours talking about what he’d been through, not only during the war, but before that. Often, he wouldn’t even wait to be asked a question, jumping from tangent to tangent. Only by evening did he stop, joining the rest of the dining hall—a large building in the heart of the monastery. Eating was done in silence, according to the Order’s rules. Afterwards, the conversations continued. For the first time in a very long time, Palag felt as if he were home. Still, in a corner of his mind, a small voice remained, warning him that something wasn’t right. He had gotten accustomed to things far too quickly. However, when provided with warmth and comfort he had lacked for years, he brushed those concerns aside.

Life in the monastery was as simple as could be expected. Palag, along with the other boys his age, was responsible for minor menial tasks. None of them were particularly difficult or exhausting, just cumbersome.

After a few days, Palag had grown accustomed to everything to such a degree that he’d thought he’d been there for years. The tasks were clear, the food abundant, he had come to know most of the people within the monastery. He’d even been able to learn reading and writing at a remarkably fast rate—far faster than he thought himself capable of. It seemed like bliss, far better than anything he’d experienced even when in the clouds. And yet, even in this ideal environment, there were questions that kept bothering him. One day, Palag finally built up the courage to ask them.

“Why aren’t we allowed to go outside?” He approached one of the clerics.

The man smiled. He was a lot older than anyone else and tended to have a far more relaxed attitude. The fury hadn’t seen him get upset once, even where there was a reason for him to be.

“Who says you’re not allowed?” The old man smiled.

Palag opened his mouth to answer, but found that he couldn’t. He knew that he shouldn’t go outside the monastery, but couldn’t remember anyone actually telling him.

“You can leave anytime you want to,” the cleric continued. “The question is, do you really want to?”

That was a good point. There was no reason to go outside. There was only pain, danger, and death in the wilderness. In the monastery, on the other hand, he was always fed, clothed, he had a purpose and a place to sleep… he had friends.

“I can take you out, if you want. Or you can ask anyone else. The only reason that they haven’t let you is because they didn’t know you wanted to.”

“But why are the gates closed and guarded?”

“They’re closed to keep people from coming in, not you going out.”

“Does that mean you can leave if you want to?”

The man let out a quiet laugh.

“You’re not going easy on me, are you? Yes, I suppose I can, but only as long as it’s the Moon’s will.” The man looked up. There were four Moons in the sky, barely visible in the noon sky. “Some are called to stay, others are called to leave. Some, like you, are yet to be called to do anything. If it happens, you’ll know.”

“Is that why people leave every day?”

That was another strange thing that Palag had discovered. Strictly speaking, he had never seen anyone from his room leave. Every morning there’d be a few empty beds that were filled up by children freshly brought to the monastery. He’d even discussed it with a few of the others, but they were as clueless as he was.

“The Moons know best.” The cleric nodded. “That’s why they take good care of us. Tell me, have you seen anyone planting food in the monastery?”

“No…”

“Then where does it come from? There are a lot of people and they eat three times per day, and yet the food never ends.”

“The Moons bring it?”

“No.” The man laughed so loudly that Palag thought he’d cause a scene. And yet, no one in the vicinity seemed to care. “No, it’s not the Moons. People bring the food, people following the Moon’s will. That’s the great difference between those who serve the Moons and everyone else. The people outside follow their own paths. The Order follows the path of the Moons, ensuring that everyone in the world is taken care of. Or, at least, as many as possible.”

That explained why they had gone out of their way to find Palag and children like him, taking them to safety.

“Can I follow the Moons?” the fury asked.

The cleric didn’t answer. Patting Palag on the head, he slowly walked away. From that day on, the question grew. Soon Palag found that he no longer found joy in the simple way of life he’d been leading. He was no longer content doing small tasks. He wanted to do more to help the world and everyone in it.

Several times he’d ask a member of the Order how he could become closer to the Moons. Each time, they’d tell him not to worry about such things and continue with his chores. Then—a week later—the unexpected happened. When the fury approached a cleric with his usual question, he wasn’t turned away. Instead, the woman took him by the hand and went straight to the stone building in the middle of the monastery.

Palag didn’t know anything about that building other than he wasn’t allowed inside. Now he was going to find out.