Cielo

We must turn back!

She cannot hold much longer!

The flares are catching on!

The ion sails are tearing!

She’s being torn from her axiom!

Father!

Father!

Father!

When the flare storm passed and the star dust settled, all that remained of the crew were four. The air ship Lysander was brutally abused by the solar currents that slipped viciously through the small planet’s failing atmosphere. Her stern battered; her rudder shot; her ion thrusters and celudiate core, stained with the scorch marks of a falling sun. A grey haze sifted across the terrain’s barren wastelands. Freezing drizzles of a mixture of snow and rain danced on the cielo. Curious, thought Thomas afterwards, curious how so small a rock had caused so great a pain.

“Damn it, Nephenee! Where’s The Captain, girl?”

Thomas looked over across the wreckage to the voice, which came from a weightier man than most. But he was a braver man than most. Although he might not look it, Clanner was the best mechanic this side of the Adriant Spheres. Tall, thick, loyal, and covered with the soot of his precious mechanical creations. No one could neither build nor tinker like Clanner.

Except his daughter, Nephenee, who was nothing like her father. She was pushing aside wood, metal, and debris, searching for The Captain. Small as she was, she was the only one who could keep up with her father in the belly of the ship. While he bore a thinning, grey and black mane, her short, oil baptized, blonde hair was the prize of the crew. No one else sported as young, attractive, and good as Nephenee as the Lysander.

“Ngghuh! I can’t find him da’!”

Thomas, The Captain’s only son, with ears ringing from the magnetic discharges of the flares meeting the engine, stood in the raw wake of the storm’s rage.

“He’s here! Over here! Thomas!”

They followed the gruff voice which belonged to Able, the aged general whose men were laid to waste around him. His eyes held memories too dark and terrible to retell, but his scars and white hair showed his courage and his wisdom. Thomas did not know which was blood and which was his uniform.

They gathered around the man, The Captain. His eyes had already begun to glaze over and his twitches had calmed. The five splintered iron shards pierced his chest, side and legs. His belly was slit and his intenseness has slipped out onto his lap. He was already pale and cold.

Holding out his hand, The Captain called out, “Thomas. Son! Thomas!”

The boy, now man, knowing this would be the last time he and his father would be together this side of the Barriers of Life, collapsed next to his ancestor. The Captain’s vision had left, and his breathing was shallowing. placing his hand on his son, he spoke loud enough for all to hear.

“She is your’s, Thomas. The Lysander is your’s. You know what to do. So, have the stones and calm to do so.” He rested his hand on Thomas’ tear laced cheek. “You’re mother would be proud of the man you’ve become. I know that I am. Look to the cielo, Thomas. Let her speak to you. Listen...listen to...cielo.”

The Captain’s hand fell to the deck of his once ship. Thomas remained knelt for a few moments more. Then, reaching over, he removed his father’s sword, and cut a line across his own cheek, where a now painful memory had once rested, as a reminder of his inheritance and responsibility. Sheathing the sword, Thomas strapped the blade onto his hip, and stood, looking down on the once father and Captain.

They pulled out the shards and sewed The Captain as best as they could. Gathering the rest of the dead crew. they lined them up against the railing of the air ship. Their clothes were removed, and their belonging stored for future use. Able could hear Clanner hushing his daughter from tears and whimpering. Nephenee, who had never seen dead men had to grow on that day, and she grew well, her father would say.

As custom in the Valkyrie Militia, Able removed The Captain’s ring and greaves, the signets of his commission and order and bestowed them on Thomas. The greaves and ring adjusted to fit the new Captain. Able saluted, turned and went to pay his respects to his valiant dead. Thomas let the weight of the greaves and ring rest and settle on his being- the weight of responsibility and tradition, of calling and joy, of duty and pleasure.

They then heaved the corpses over the side of the airship, letting the bodies fall through the atmosphere to land where they did not belong. Thirty-seven total lost in the storm- young, married, fathers and sons, all dissipated in a foolish king’s pursuit of glory.

When they reached The Captain, Thomas halted the procession. He approached the body and stared at it, trying to see what little resemblance was left of his once father. His skin was taut and icy, but still, Thomas could smell the rum from his lips and the ivory on his fingers. As memories played in his mind, Thomas struck the figure across the face. Unsatisfied, he struck it again, and again, and again, until the pigmentation started to bruise and tear. His knuckles bleeding, his eyes red with anger, Thomas gave out a long wail of years of bitterness and hurt.

“You dastard! You knew this would happen. You knew and you still went in. You damned old man. How could you do this? How could you?”

Nephenee started forward to comfort her friend, but her father grabbed her arm and held her back. Shaking his head he whispered, “ The Captain left behind a broken family, a wounded child, and an empty legacy. Thomas has to decide what to do now. To embrace his anger and hurt, or let the cielo blow his pain away.” Nephenee looked to her father. “I do not understand. Why must he chose now?”

Clanner scratched his thick side burns. “Because Neph, when a man loses his father, something stirs in him. Something fierce. Terrible and great. Yet, no man can decide for another man what he is to do about it. This...stirring awakens his heart. He now sees his father will not be there to correct him, to lead him, to catch him. He is now orphaned.”

Nephenee nodded. “Like what I felt when mother-”

“Like what you felt with mother,” finished Clanner.

She turned her eyes back to Thomas, who was still talking to the lifeless figure. She understood the pain and so did her father. Her eyes fell upon Able. She had heard stories about how he had been forced to kill his father and mother in front of their family because of their rebellion towards the king. Able merely stared ahead, watching his new command. She realized it was silent, and her gazed returned to Thomas.

Thomas had run out of words. He could not remember the last time his father had held him, loved him, trusted him. And now, his father was gone. His fists shook, half in pain, half in anger.

And then it happened. Clanner would tell it as though a shaft of light burst through the grey, culminating clouds, and shown on young Thomas. Thomas, Clanner would say, lifted up his eyes to the heavens, and the heaviness was gone. The anger, bitterness, and resentment fell from the master’s shoulders. His brown hair began to rustle, as the cielo blew throw the follicles. The man’s blue turner coat became more vibrant and his spirit strengthened. With a smile in his eyes, Clanner relishes being able to say that he saw when Thomas the Swift felt cielo for the first time. The light, however, did not last, and the cielo did not remain, but it awoke from within Thomas a spark. But still, it was there, nevertheless. 


Thomas stepped forward and heaved his fathers body over the side on his own. He stared out into the distance, the unclear mysterious beyond for a few moments, touched the hilt of his father’s now his sword, shifted the greaves, then called out, “What would you have me do?”

Snapping into attention, Able replied, “Captain, with permission, I request we abandon the rule and commission of the King and find a new home.”

Thomas walked over to the three. “You would have me rebel against King and country, to be hunted and counted for the remainder of our days, seeking to do what exactly?”

“Help others, Captain.”

Thomas looked at Nephenee, with surprise. “Help others? How?”

“Defend the defenseless. Protect the unprotected. Serve the unservable.”

“Why?”

The question hung like thickness in the air.

“Because it is right. Captain.”

Thomas moved to Clanner. “Because it is right. Hm. Well then, better fix this damn bird if we are to help others.”

Saluting, the three replied “Aye,” and set to work repairing an irreparable ship, fleeing an inescapable tyrannical King and seeking to do what they truly signed up for: building a better kingdom.