The roads leading away from the old city are finally quiet as I walk in their darkness, away from the violence and bloodshed that the city has brought to us once more. We, the ones who guard the water that everyone wants no matter the cost to others.

And, no matter the cost to themselves.

My lessons have taught me desperation can trick us into self-destruction, if not checked. Which is ironic, because those who act in desperation by attacking us believe that if they destroy us, they will preserve themselves. They only destroy themselves in their violence.

I have learned this lesson from what I have witnessed and from those who taught me, like my mother from when I was a child, and my sister Athena.

And of course Asher, who passed away long ago.

I’m glad that the floods have receded so that I can leave the cold metal and concrete of what used to be the city, with its the dank creepy tunnels that we use to make our escape from those who attack us. Now, I can go where I feel free, in the fields and woods I call home.

If it were completely up to me, I would never leave the fields, even in the worst of the floods. There is a part of me that would rather die of exposure, and hypothermia, and the other conditions that might occur in the times when the water rises and seeps into the soil and into the roots of the trees I love so much.

If anything, I’m grateful to breathe the fresh cold air that the wide open streets give me, not the rancid staleness of confinement the city brings, even in the aftermath of its long decay that I never saw the beginning of.

The beginning, when the war arrived that changed everything.

When I get to the fields, I look forward to meeting up with my sister Athena. I intend that she will be at our designated meeting place when I get there, the one we go to in times like these, when those who wish to displace of us of the waters will kill us to take what they believe is theirs and dispose of us in the process. It is the place with the sacred star of seven spikes, the one that has been there all my life.

I carry the intention in my mind the intention that Athena is safe, and that she will survive. Then, missing her for a moment will be worth it.

My sister Athena is one of our soldiers, and she stayed behind to defend the water from those who not only would kill us to conquer the water, but to actually destroy it.

It’s so strange that anyone would think to poison the very thing that would keep them alive. Why anyone would kill to the point that the weapon they use only turns on them, I don’t understand. Athena and the older ones have suggested to me that the fact I don’t understand this behavior is actually a good thing.

I’m glad for this, because life seems like such a gift I really can never see any reason to destroy it, other than the times I take the lives of animals to eat, or those who die so that their spirits can live free.

Destroying water? What does that bring to anyone or anything, but death?

This is the worst kind of slavery to be in bondage to, in believing that indulging in bloodlust brings freedom, and that destruction will bring victory. I’m glad that I know this, and remember it well from the lessons that were so graciously given to me.

I am thankful, because I am free.