The Oban war had happened long before her blooming, and she knew little about it. Still, as she had passed through Neued and Oba and Matori, she had seen it's remains. Slavery still had it's echos in the desert lands.

The Obans had sought to tame Tendaji, and they had failed. Earthling and Alkidike had come together and stood against the Obans. They had fought a huge enemy with better weapons and beasts of war, and the Obans had been the ones tamed instead. It was a testament to the dangerous and terrifying power of earthlings, the foul potency they possessed.

Kiunyki could see that this had happened in Sauti, too. She and her sisters had been led by two Mystics, blessed by Aisha and seers of the truth, born to lead the Alkidike. They'd had Aisha on their side. They had had strength and training on their side. But an alliance had come together against them, this superior force in ability and righteousness if not in number. And they, the earthlings and their own Sisters, had crushed the forces of the Matron beneath their feet. Of course, they were not the Obans; the Exiles would not be tamed. But they were exiled to a hellish land, away from the homeland they had fought for, cast out by their Sisters forever.

Had it just been their own Sisters opposing them, the Exiles – Kiunyki refused to call them Extremists because she did not think that their view was extreme, just right – would have won. They had the truth on their side, after all, and no Sister could truly fight a Sister for long. They were family, after all. Eventually, the sisters fighting them would have understood the truth and joined them.

But, with the earthlings on the field, this mutual understanding through combat was suppressed. Magic rained down on them and monsters leapt into the fray. Death had stalked their path, and Kiki had learned the horror of war. Of what Earthlings could do.

Kiunyki wished that the other Exiles – she considered herself one of them, even if they acted otherwise – would not dismiss the earthlings so. They called them vermin, worthless, and weak. And yet, the Earthlings had crushed them in battle and driven them away. Yes, they had allied with Sisters to do it, but that was the true nature of their power. Not just numbers, not just battle competency, but persuasion. They had turned their Sisters against them.

Just as they had turned her mother. Just as they had killed her mother. Kiki gripped her blades tightly, rage filling her with a familiar heat. Her mother had trusted the Earthlings, loved them even, and then she had gone into the woods with one of them and never come back. Earthlings were not to be underestimated. They were not to be trusted. They were a menace to be approached and destroyed with care and caution, not brashness or bullheadedness. Do do otherwise invited disaster, and the Exiles could not afford disaster. They were so few in number, and death was easy to come by here in this seeping place. One mistake, against the Earthlings or the land, and Yael would crush you.

Kiunyki could not voice her thoughts here. The Exiles looked on philosophy as weakness, and any acknowledgment of Earthling strength as blasphemy. Kiunyki had been among them for months and she still walked on eggshells. They had beaten her and turned their blades to her throat, these people she called her Sisters. She could not tell them how foolish they were. They would kill her, and that would be pointless.

But she could use her knowledge to protect them, and to record events so that they would not forget the lessons of the past. Her mother had been very fond of religious scrolls, had read them out loud to Kiki so that they could share the moment together. Kiki had not understood what her mother saw in those texts, but she understood their purpose.

One day, her writings might be all that the future Elaria would know. There was a good chance that other writings would appear, in the Matron's hand, calling for disgust towards Aisha's children and disregard of Earthling scum, but if Kiki's writings remained, they would tell the truth – of heartbreak and pain, of fear and hope, of wariness and careful, precise strikes. The future Exiles – the Elaria of the new generations – would have this at hand, and it would save their lives.

Because war was not glory. War was hell, and in it, they could not be thinking about mindless slaughter of vermin. They needed to be ready for anything the Earthlings threw at them. And they were, truly, capable of anything.