Yitris

   Yitris had always been a very special place to leave. The few people that lived there, never left but they lived in one of the best places in the world because it was located in a remote area where no one would go bother them, whether they wanted it or not. Its location in the middle of the desert, made it only possible for the best explorers to reach the city and know its citizens and also, their queen.

 Queen Alina was more than fifty years old and she had been working for her people for at least thirty years. She lived in the top house of the city but her home was not really different than other peoples home. It was only above all others house, all built on top of very high trees in the middle of the green valley, hidden in the desert. It was a very good place to hide but also a very good place to feel free from everything.

 There were less than a thousand people living in Yitris but hey all had access to good doctors, to the only school that was directly handled by the Queen and also to food, that never really lacked in any of the people’s tables. Everyone had to have, at least, some bread and fruit to eat. Only half of the population actually ate animal meat and they were very good at using every single part of the animal’s body in order not to kill something and then waste it all because they only wanted some of the meat.

 People were very trusting and, also, always seemed to be happy. No person of Yitris yelled, unless they were really angry and it was only for one second. The Queen, of course, set the example for the rest, always been gracious when she did her daily tour around her small kingdom. She went from her place, to the jungle floor. There, several people had settled, specially the ones that were hunters or farmers.

 There was a small piece of the terrain that had almost no trees and that had been specially done by the people with the permission of the Queen, because they didn’t have anywhere to grow things like corn and wheat and they also needed land to build mills and kitchens where they would make the bread and so on. So she authorized a rather small piece of land to be used for that purpose. It was so small; it was always the first place to be hit by sandstorms, when they occurred.

 The desert was mostly benevolent, protecting them from the outside. But it’s sand was sometimes the worst thing for them because it could almost destroy everything that they had build. But they endured because it was because of that sand, because of the endless desert, that they had always been protected from exterior influence. Only a handful of people had made it to Yitris and all of them had died there, whether from exhaustion or because they had chosen not to go back to their lands.

 That was until Jack Freeman, a English explorer, and two of his men wondered into the desert and stumbled upon Yitris after a particularly strong sandstorm. The locals were cleaning their homes when they saw the men approach. It was the first time for many to see a foreigner and that’s why so many did not seem to remember that they always had to notify this to the Queen. She only knew about these knew visitors when they decided to ask for a leader and the people, shy but interested, indicated her home.

 She didn’t like, at all, to have people enter her house without permission as they did. Alina knew nothing about manners in the exterior world, but she imagined England and all other lands must have been really awful places if all people did that to their neighbors. They communicated with hand gestures and body language because both of their languages were highly incompatible. Even so, the English sometimes yelled things in their language, as if the people of Yitris had to understand them.

 The Queen, trying to be as generous as she could, decided to invite them for dinner. She had all the best food prepared for them and every single person in the small country, which only consisted of a deep valley, was able to come and greet the strangers in person. Those men ate differently and seemed to have a second skin that made them smell funny. That’s what most of the people thought of them.

 The English, however, thought the people of Yitris were nice but also very strange. They thought it was very weird that a valley like that existed in the middle of the desert. They had been looking for another settlement, an oasis that they had to check thoroughly because it seemed to be located on top of an oil reserve. That’s the kind of explorers they were. Not adventurous men working in mankind’s behalf but just some guys working to get some money like many others.

 When, after the party, they decided to leave, the Queen denied this and insisted on them sleeping on a house that they would give them to be alone and to rest. No one would be there, just them. They took them by a series of stairs and bridges to a lower level where a big house, normally used for storage, had been cleaned and three beds made of thick leaves had been set as well as some more food and water on a table in the middle of the circular home.

 The locals left them alone and the foreigners decided to leave as soon as they could the next day. They agreed that the people of Yitris were very nice but they also thought that they had some work to do and that they couldn’t let down the company for which they worked. Oil was important.

 When they attempted to leave the next day, a group of locals decided to take them, instead, to the mills and fields in the border between the valley and the desert. The men looked at the sand with insistence but the people did not realize that they wanted to leave. Even at the end of the tour, when the English did all signals for them to know they had to go back to the desert, the people appeared not to understand or at least it seemed like they had no answer for that.

 The English had arrived with an exhausted horse and some bags of objects and they went straight to the Queen’s home and demanded their things to be brought to them immediately. Again, she was very bothered by them entering like if it was their home but she decided not to say anything. Instead, she told her aides to bring the objects and, as they did, she told the English with mimic that their horse did not existed anymore.

 She imitated a four-legged animal and then passed a finger over her throat. They understood that immediately and one of the men launch itself at her in rage but two locals grabbed him and stopped his attack. He was yelling and crying and having all sorts of emotions that the people there did not really exhibit on a daily basis. Even for the men holding him, it was interesting to see how foreigners used their feelings.

 They released him and the Queen then spoke in broken English. They were very surprised. She explained that the horse had been killed because in their land, animals were not used for work. Besides, the creature they had brought in was exhausted and wouldn’t have survived another trip. That’s why they had decided to kill it and use its meat and insides in different things in order not to waste anything.

 The man crying didn’t really hear any of this but his leader did. He demanded her to explain what that meant and when they would be able to leave, as they had important matters to attend.

 Queen Alina simply said that the horse was in all that they had eaten fast and happily the day before They had eaten all of his meat and the organs had been stored for further usage in soups for the people of the valley.  They expect it to be very nutritious. As for the bones, they could use them to make weapons or instruments for working on the fields.

 The second question was easier to answer: they couldn’t leave because no one left the valley. They couldn’t afford anyone leaving and telling the world of their existence. So, smiling, she insisted on them going back to their assigned home and settling in. They would soon learn their ways and will be integrated in no time, been able to enjoy all that life had to offer in Yitris.

 The English men complied but not because they agreed but because they knew when to stop fighting. In their minds, Queen Alina was now an enemy and Yitris had to come out to the world and be destroyed. Only because of a horse and the secret of its existence.

The Land of Always Sun

   The tribe of the Jaqqaras had one principal concept, one that governed their entire idea of religion, society and politics. It was a simple notion that, against all odds, had helped them survive wars, harsh weather and even almost total extinction. The tribe believed that a land nicknamed by them the Land of Always Sun, laid beyond the horizon and that it was a perfect place, where everything was just and possible. They had adored this place for centuries and would honor it at least once a day. It was the cornerstone of their belief system and many viewed it more important than their god, who was very similar to all the other gods of all other religions. The place was the one who got all the temples and all praising and the one people thought before going to bed.

 The Jaqqaras lived in a steep valley, not far from the ocean where they sailed to catch fish for the community. The thing was that the Jaqqaras where very territorial, even between themselves. Envy was always present and no one could give someone else a gift without upsetting someone in the village. This sounds like a very dire, even dangerous situation, but it was exactly like that. The tribe was not confrontational but rather passive, choosing the words before actually hurting someone physically. They just thought their world was flawed and that there was no point in trying to fix it because that proved impossible. They rather lived as they could and at night they would praise the Land of Always Sun, often by prayer but also with drawings and cultural demonstrations.

 People would gather once a week, often on Sundays, to celebrate what was traditionally called the Forever festival. It wasn’t a big thing because the Jaqqaras were not many and lacked manual skills but they would all gather in their main town’s square and would perform different pieces in honor of the Land of Always Sun. There were dances and poetry and reading of beautiful literature. The children showed their drawings and the elderly shared their experiences, often-incredible tales about how when they were young they thought they had seen the Promised Land. The elderly were actually very respected as it was thought that when a Jaqqara died, his soul would travel across the sea to the Land of Always Sun and live free and happy for the rest of Time.

 The Festival was actually the only happy time or uniting time in the life of the Jaqqara people. Nothing else made them feel fulfilled as human beings, not even love or any other feeling. If a person from another part of the world would visit them, they would think that the Jaqqara were just lazy people who would rather believe in a perfect world than make their own And there had been some that had tried to change their community for the better but all those attempts failed because they were seen as disrespectful towards the Land of Always Sun and that was practically heresy.

 Those who believed that perfect world could be achieved in their actual lifetimes were often expelled from the community, thrown out of the main valley and every possession linking them to the tribe would be taken away from them. It hadn’t been unheard of that someone had been expelled and it was always the worst for their families, because they had to stay behind with the shame of having someone in their family that did not believe in the most essential piece of their beliefs. It was always hard for them at first, both the family and the expelled, but the wounds always healed fast. The person outside would find what they were looking for and the family would forget about said person.

 It had to be noted that the Jaqqara people were practical and never complicated themselves with nonsense. They didn’t like their lives to be disturbed because they preferred to be thinking about how perfect to World Beyond was. Most of them believed every person had a chance there. They all had beautiful grand houses and beauty was the norm. In the Land of Always Sun, everyone always had enough food for the day and they didn’t have to struggle with fishing or hunting. Food would just be there for the taking. They would also have money to trade stuff and stuff to trade and every single thing they could ever want would be just there, waiting for them to grab them.

 Beauty was actually a big deal in the tribe and people who were considered beautiful were the ones who often had more power than the rest. As in any other tribe, there were chieftains but the Jaqqara didn’t think their god chose them or anything like that. They actually chose them in a voting based on their looks. Of course, not everyone had the same criteria when choosing who was the most beautiful man or woman but they were always happy with the results and no one had ever contested any of the winners. They chose a man and a woman that would rule together. They would have to marry and would have to end any prior marriages to rule the tribe. People viewed this as an honor and if someone had to separate because of it, they would do it gladly and without resentment.

 Another big belief of the Jaqqara was that there was no use in doing any big things in the world, meaning that exploring of their region or of the sea was pointless. They would build houses in the place they needed and that was it. Some were healers and learned that trade but there was not other thing people could actually decide to learn or to pursue. They were all villagers who went fishing in the morning and that took care of some crops in the afternoon. They had reserves in land to eat when the fish was bad or to accompany fish when the Festival came, when they would eat more and make a little less boring.

 That was all their life and most of them were happy about it. But one thing that always happened was suicide. Seeing their belief system, it came as no surprise that many people just killed themselves in order to get to the Land of Always Sun faster. They would do it because they thought it was just stupid to live this silly life if they could be having a grandiose one with all the food they could have and beauty and all the fun and happiness in the world. For those who did it, often in the woods or in a boat in the middle of the water, it made perfect sense and it felt to them that that was the real meaning of their belief. And the rest of the tribe had nothing to say about it because, for them, suicide was not something bad at all.

 Most agreed that it was a natural means of control of the population, so they didn’t really say much about it. What they did say was that people who killed themselves to get to the Land of Always Sun, were just taking a shortcut and that their god, and this was the only real function he had, would most likely decide to put them in a special part of the land where they would be less happy than other. Actually, a full life of living in this flawed world would give a person all validity to have every single thing they wanted in the other life. In few words, they had earned it. A person that committed suicide hadn’t earned it yet so they wouldn’t really get the same treatment. Nevertheless, it kept happening.

 The Jaqqara lived in such a remote region that hey were never discovered by anyone else and that also meant that no other person had contaminated their conception of the world. Although some believed the first people of the tribe had come in canoes from the southern part of the world, no one knew for sure and that most have been at least a thousand years ago so it didn’t make any difference to them. They had decided to believe in that land and many even thought it was all a lie. But it was their lie and it kept them going, it kept them from destroying everyone else and everything in their sight. Those beliefs made them feel less alone and less small in a word that seemed enormous, especially when they were fishing.

 They were not pacifists or warmongers. They had just decided to live together and do what was necessary to survive and just live like that, with no other worries or problems. They thought it was unnecessary to complicate things because the best life one could live was one that could be honored when they died and their god decided what kind of life they would have in the Land of Always Sun. Because that was their beacon, that was the lighthouse that lit their lives and made them who they were. The thought of a place where they could be with whoever they wanted, where they could eat as much and whatever they wanted and where they could be who they were, was just to powerful and too beautiful to ignore.