The Twelfth Sun

i ♦The Fourth Sun♦

Ilya sat and ate with them tonight. This was strange. Stranger yet that made them ignore this rare feat, the first time in eternity was the girl sitting at the end of the table, munching on her bread talking to the youngest of them which was all the stranger yet, for the youngest never spoke. 

The cool floors, the pillow cushions, the stretched dinner table, the food growing scarcer- Yahya knew. He was obligated to oversee that all provision to each house still showed up the same, each day. And it had. Until tonight. One single fruit gone. And he foresaw doom as his brothers gawked, unassumingly, at the trio. Wasted food dropping half chewed on their plates as their jaw opened in surprise as one by one trickled in, downcast eyes ready to eat and go to their rooms before they were nudged to look up. 

It was Yunus, his twin who had nudged him. Yunus and Yahya who shared the bedrooms closest to one another. For Yunus, adventrous, wild afro haired, ziplining, backflip off of roofs, monkey climbing, impulsive, reckless and crinkle eyed from all the laughing, Yunus who kept him sane, dragging him out of his room from time to time when he needed some time to stretch his aching hunched back. Where his brother was black like soot, Yahya was white like snow, purple eyes, an a white afro round like a cloud, big lips, a teethy smile when he grinned. Yin and yang, it was called, Yahya had read in one of those books in his fathers library. For where Yunus was all heart, Yahya was all brain. 

"What do you think, Yahya?" This was Ilyas asking him and Yahya having spaced out was saved by Yunus as he slapped his back, painfully and teasingly said. "You know you cant just put him on the spot like that, Ly. Of course, Yahya cant..."

Hinting at the question being asked. Yahya nodded instinctively but changed the subject.

"You have broken the curse. Now what will you do with the missing food?"

Silence befell the table. Ilyas, Blue eyed, black haired, chiseled jaw Ilyas, handsome and soft spoken Ilyas who spent his nights painting, canvases and the cheeks of his Layla with kisses crushed flowers, held his blink. "Brother, not now."

"We're lying. To her."

And the girl, Natja her name was, Savior, Yunus had husses in his ear, as Yahya nodded, knowing they'd read the same books. Savior? From what? The curse had saved them, desert stretched for miles around them and Yahya has read Kabarus history, the books brimmed to the brink with the story that set off the last days of cyclical days and thrust them into the illogical eternity. He knew what some of his brothers felt, tired, insane, angry at the prison their palace had become but Yahya and at stretch Yunus, knew what the alternative was.

Long ago, when their father was still young, Kabarus walls had been opened to the world's nations. Snow haired thieves and soot handed bedouins traded spices with them, and in return, they received roots and medicine unfound in the sand and the savannahs. It was a amicable union. Nations as arrayed as species floated in perfect symbiosis. But that all ceased, once the kingdom of Teheran attacked. The reason? A torn page of a history book. He didn't know. But he knew how they looked like. White skin, pale eyes, and dipping their fingers in places that they have nothing to do with. Yunus would laugh if he'd told him, for Yahya himself was white, born an albino with traits which garnered unwanted attention from his otherwise black and brown skinned people.

"You mistake yourself."

"I speak the truth."

"Yahya."

"Ilyas."

Natja puts down her bone. And says, "I did not mean to waste so much. I haven't eaten in-"

"One more mouth too feed means one less mouth to feed. We aren't running on infinite resources here."

"Have I done something to offend you?"

"Tell her."

"Yahya."

"Ilyas, tell her or i will."

"Its too early."

"And it will be too late once they come."

"Yahya its a story!"

"And yet she is here!"

"And so are you!" Ilyas suddenly exclaims. And Yahya feels the words. The whiteness of his skin. The stake contrast to his brothers black and brown, the error in the system. The outsider. It Pierces him like an arrow to his heart. He gets up as Yunus calls from behind him, "that was cruel Ilyas."

"Teach him to keep his mouth shut."

And Yunus lunges for Ilyas as Talib holds him back. Gaton enters as he slips out of the dinner room. And Yarrow finally speaks, "I think, it is time to tell her."

"We don't know her."

"And she doesn't know us."

"I can wait." Natja suddenly says. "I don't want to bother. It seems I've done something to offend you. I promise you. That was never my intention. I've regained my memory, I know my name and I know where I come from... Teheran."

It is Yunus that sighs as the brothers disperse, trickling out one by one, angry and clenched fisted as Yarrow and Ilyas stay, "Yahya is right. There is something wrong with her. With this whole thing."