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Entry 4 -- Sister Asiya

I am Asiya, called Choden in Hazen, Tashi among the drokpa, named

Lobsang by the lama after the eighty-second of his name, and this

is my story. I give it to the stars that you might know me and

know our plight. If I succeed, let this be my testament. If

I fail, may my words carry the mantel to your shoulders. The Jinn

are enemies of all life. They are your enemy, my sisters.

My village in the southern mountains of Hazen's Emirat continent

was called Shannan Karpek. We were far from the influence of the

emir and lived the old ways. My brother inherited our farm when

our bubākō passed. He was a devout child and grew to become an

honest man I was proud of, my Utkrishta. He met a muslima while

trading and they were to be married with the next harvest

celebration. This was not unknown in Shannan Karpek where we all

understood the Buddha and Allah as the faces of a coin. I was

proud of my brother, as were my sisters and our cousins.

Through all of this I was a herdswoman, a shepherdess, and my kyr

were lush and beautiful. I was too young still to be married, but

already I knew my passion in flesh was not for men. This also was

not unknown in Shannan Karpek. My brother loved me, as did my

sisters and our cousins.

The season of growing and birth was upon the land when the Jinn

came to Hazen. We saw nothing of this at first being so far from

the cities and star ports. Even when word reached us of the

fighting and the dying, our elders spoke with sadness about these

things happening far away. The Jinn had no reason to come to

Shannan Karpek, no reason to take our kyr and our wheat. They flew

in cities among the stars. They ate stardust and the light. They

could create wonders and destroy cities with ease. We were safe.

My brother's cry woke me in the night. It was sharp and high, the

sound he made as a child waking from a nightmare. But he was not

a child any longer and my fear grew. So quickly roused from sleep,

perhaps I still had something of the dream upon my eyes, or

perhaps I knew something terrible had come deep in my heart.

I know that I was a coward then, whatever the reason. My brother

cried out and I froze. I did not go to him. When other voices

began to join his, when the village was filled with screaming,

I did not go to them. I hid.

I crawled first beneath my bedding, and then into a corner of

a storage cellar under our flooring. From my hiding place,

I listened to the suffering of my family and friends. I listened

as they were gathered up and torn apart, one after another. Men

torn to shreds, women in pieces, even the children. My people were

butchered like kyr at market. The screams. The endless screams. My

people took days to die while I hid. Between sobbing I ate stored

goods in the crawlspace under my hut. I stayed in fear and shame,

lying in pools of my own waste waiting for those screams to end.

My shame. It knows no limits.

The Jinn are not like us, sisters. They do not have hearts of men,

though they may look like men when they choose. They are not

created as we are, called toward goodness and family. They do not

battle and war to preserve what they have or even for conquest of

land and goods that they need. They do not make war, they make

havoc and pain. They butchered us in the mountains, they butchered

us in the cities. They left one village untouched for every twenty

ruined, driven into dust. That village they visited and gifted the

meat. Those poor, poor people. They... they were forced to accept

our meat.

The Jinn knows our ways and our customs. They know our souls and

they know how to injure us there at the core of our faith. They do

not seek to kill us, they want us broken. They watch as we rot

from the inside.

I am a coward who survived the massacre of Shannan Karpek, who

survived the ruin of the Emirat, who survived the consumption of

Hazen. There are others who lived, but none of them survived. I am

alone in my shame and honor.

These women with me share that burden. We are what happens when

the pick strikes a stone in the field. The earth may be tilled

again and again. Then, with a suddenness that can only come to

those who are assured of their control, a piece of flint. The

sparks will fly soon. They will seem small in the vastness of

space and time, but we have a secret.

We know the Jinn. We now know their ways and customs. We know

their souls, or lack thereof. We do not seek to kill them. We will

break them so fully that their rot will consume them.

I have no life remaining but the one they gave me that night in

Shannan Karpek. I have no path left but the one they set me upon.

All of our Gods have seen what will come. The Jinn have none to

warn them, so I will do it myself.

I have shared with you in the clear. I do not hide my story from

the Jinn or from my sisters. It will not save them from what is to

come. Let them burn with my words upon their lips.

To my sisters--

EMAHO

No-tsar sang-gyä nang-wa ta-yä dang

yä-su jo-wo tug-je chen-po dang

yön-du sem-pa tug-chen tob-nam-la

sang-gyä chang-sem pag-me kor-gi-kor.

De-kyi no-tsar pag-du me-pa-yi

de-wa-chen-she-cha-wä shin-kam-der

dag-ni di-nä tse-pö-jur-ma-tag

kye-wa shen-kyi bar-ma chö-pa-ru.

De-ru kye-nä nang-tä shäl-tong shog

de-kä dag-ki mön-lam tab-pa-di

chog-chu’i sang-gyä chang-sem tam-chä-kyi

geg-me trub-par chin-ji-lab-tu-sol.

TAYATA BENTSA DRI AWA BODHA NA YE SOHA

Asiya

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