Challenge 26: Happy Colonialism Turkey Day!

[IsabellaRose]

THE CHALLENGE

For this challenge, you have two choices:

1. Write about colonists meeting the indigenous people in the land they're colonizing
   OR
2. Write something where the first sentence starts with the words "I'm thankful for" or ends with the sentence "That's what I'm thankful for."

Deadline

• Midnight (EST) Thursday, 30 Nov, 2023

Limits

• 1 entry per person
• ~2,000 words max per entry

Prizes

• 1st Place: 4,000 EcchiCredits
• 2nd Place: 2,000 EcchiCredits
• 3rd Place: 1,000 EcchiCredits

Edited November 18, 2023 by IsabellaRose
edited to correct the number of choices

[SataiRolePlayingGuy]

Sorcery was forbidden. Sorcery is evil. Sorcery is sin. That was what Zorn heard all his life. His people were tormented for it. They went to war with the gods themselves. They fought across the world, all the way to the gods' home on Earth. That land was destroyed by the power released by both sides. The gods abandoned the world. But they would not have left until all the sorcerers were dead. A last of wrath. Zorn and his people had to resort to desperate act, to call open all their power, and make a sacrifice of all their women. The power of men and women were different. And they were calling on the aid of other powers. Different from the gods. Rivals in power, but alien. Perhaps gods of other peoples. The women knew what was asked of them, let it happen so their people could survive. Hopefully they would find other women to rebuild their population.

When the event was over, they had disappeared from the world. Found themselves in another realm. Similar to Earth, but different. The magical energies surrounded them to almost overwhelming degrees. The sky almost glowed. The sun and moon appeared like massive gems in the sky.

The sorcerers drew upon the power of the land. It made them even stronger. Zorn and other leaders felt almost like gods. Indeed back on Earth they almost rivaled the gods. They lost the war, but it was closer than the gods would dare to admit. Small as they were in population, they did not immediately take a great territory. Focused instead on building a great city. Vast towers and great mansions made of gold, silver and gems, reinforced by magic. It stood out in a seemingly empty land. They were not alone, though.

Eventually they came. A leader made their way to Zorn's tower in the middle of the city. Long silver hair, dark purple skin, glowing red eyes, vast golden glowing wings. A woman's figure...naked...four breasts, in two pairs, one above the other. Her voice echoed, almost sung, had an inherent power. "Welcome, child of the mortal world. You have made yourself a place in our home."

Zorn was cautious, diplomatic. He sensed great power in this being. He also needed to learn more. "My name is Zorn. We apologize if we have trespassed. But our survival required an escape to unknown lands. What should I call you, your people, this place?"

The figure smiled. "We know your past. The war against the false gods. Treacherous children of their betters. You may call me Shuruka. You could call my people...fairies, or fae if like. We are the children of the true rulers of the universe, who brought you here."

That was interesting. The sorcerers were vaguely aware of such beings, made deals with them, drew upon their power. But never made direct contact with them. "You honor me with this visit, Shuruka, but is their a greater purpose to it?" The fairly laughed an unearthly laugh. "I am here to make to make a deal with you personally. And my people with yours. This world can be yours. Eventually you can reclaim your own. Your false gods have invaded this world with their angels. We ask your help to remove them."

"A deal goes both ways. You offer the world, but what do you offer us to begin a fight with those who broke us?

"I offer what you need most. I give myself to you. In your words, in your human ways, treat me as your wife. My true name is Varvanna." A true name was power, especially when magic was involved. This fairy just gave herself to him. Gave him power that could easily be abused if he chose. "This is the wish of our gods. We will give wives to all your people...come, make it official." She laid on his bed as she said this. He disrobed and followed her, had his way with her. After the night was over, she admitted fairly sex tended to be much more ritualized. She was quite pleased by his passion. That was the beginning.

It was the next day, she informed him, she already carried his child. "A sorcerer like you deserves much more than a human child. Your child...your daughter. I can already feel her presence, speak to her soul. When you return to your world, it will be as a father and leader of something more than human. Do not mourn the loss of your women. They did what they needed to. The true gods have a purpose for them, though they may not reveal it."

This was all planned? It seemed unnecessary. Zorn could have taken his wife even if they remained. But he did what he had to, would go from here. "Will your people accept this? You offer us a world, your people. For us to rule."

"We are very powerful. But so are you. You will rule us, but in the long run. Our people will be one. It is a people who are neither human nor angel, who will return to your world. Conquer the heaves themselves. Your gods will be broken. To be used as you wish."

As the days passed, more and more fairies showed up. Every sorcerer was given an new wife. There were men among the fairies as well. They seemed not completely comfortable with the decision, but considered it necessary. They taught the sorcerers to truly harness the magic of the world, to learn about the people and it's ways. The city was given to the humans, but they were advised not to leave it until they were ready to fight. To avoid the notice of the angels and their gods.

They did not move immediately. Some years were spent, creating a new generation of human/fairy hybrids. Training them in their power. When they had grown strong, they made their way out. Having kept to one city, the angels had noticed their old enemy sneak into this world. The army came down on the angels with almost divine wrath. There were also pure fairies among the army. They broke the angels' connection to the gods before the attack. Destroyed all who would not swear loyalty to the fairies. Forced to go through rituals that marked them as fallen. The women were made concubines of the sorcerers, who used them to pent their anger over the old war.

Gradually it was as promised. More and more of the world fell in their hands. Zorn declared himself champion of the fairy gods, a priest-emperor and his wife backed him up. Someday they would return to Earth, but for now, he was happy to continue claiming this world and his power.

The humans became the rulers. The children of human and fairy near equals. The fairies obedient but mostly free. The angels made into a lower class. One subject to many magical experiments. Some were broken, gradually shifted from angel to demon. Some of the concubines had their souls eventually destroyed. Their bodies used to call back the souls of the women who had sacrificed themselves. Most became second wives to the sorcerers. Adding children that mixed angel and human to their army, something more than ordinary angel but less than fairy.

Eventually it was made official, with a great ceremony. An offering of thanks to the beings who brought them here. Zorn declared the families of the sorcerers to be a new nobility, someday to be new gods as they harnessed their power. The fairies who had not married into the sorcerers' families declared a protected class. With many rights, but still to show respect and obedience to the sorcerers' families. The angels and demon declared to have the fate to serve, except for those who held the souls of the old sorceresses, who were declared priests of the new gods they sacrificed themselves for. This was the new order, the new world that was created. A world that was human, yet not. All too familiar, yet full of magic. The world of a man and people who eventually return to fight the gods again.

[IsabellaRose]

Most of the ships had been lost in the crossing, only a handful had made it to the shores of the New World to spill out their starving, bedraggled occupants onto our verdant shores. We only found out later that there could have been so many more of them, a full-scale invasion. Even the few who made it were too many. They devoured the fruit of the land, felled the jhada trees and chopped them into bits to build shelter and burn for heat. They killed the graceful, four-legged kalavita and ate them. Ate them! They decorated the entryways to their shelters with the skulls and horns of the kalavita, used the bones to make weapons, the sinew as bowstrings, We did not know what to expect when they landed, but the consumption of flesh was one step too far, and we were forced to act.

We were one with the land, our form matching our affinity for aspects of nature. They were separate from the land, different. Perhaps they were like us and their homeland was a pink and fleshy place. But here, in the lush greens of foliage, the deep browns of the soil, here they stood out like an infection. 

We were selected as the closest to looking like them and we sang the songs of growing and shaping, making ourselves become more like them, our faces and bodies shaped by their thoughts to meet their ideal of perfection of form. The shaping takes time, and once we were ready, we approached. We were bipeds now, like them, two arms, two legs, no tails or horns. We came forward and as we did we sang the songs of peace and brotherhood. If only we had known. 

They were frightened when we approached, tall, slender, looking similar yet still so different from them. They reacted with fear despite the songs, threatening with knives and spears. We begged through our song for them to leave the land in peace. We explained in the melodies of nature how we live with the land, cause no harm, wound no thing. They seemed to understand, and we shared with them the secret of the annasa'gane, the song of sustenance, where your need is expressed to nature and nature gives what is available and needed. They watched the lauki grow from the earth, open its petals, and offer its milk. We drank, they drank. It seemed as if they were learning.

We shared the song of shaping and growing. We started by singing the land to form small things like a pool to bathe, and calling up the utility of the land, like bring aga-stones to the surface for heat. Soon, we sang a shelter into being, watched as the mighty jhada branches came together above the earth, wove their limbs into walls and floors, and opened the newly built shelter to the fleshy ones. They seemed to understand. It took time, but they learned the songs, learned the way of the eka-nirmiti, the together-growing, and soon their village was thriving.

We spent time with them, learned to know them as individuals, which they were, disconnected ones, alone and separated from their others. It was a baffling truth we found difficult to accept, but it helped to explain why they did not understand. They were discontinuous, separate, not a part of the natural world. This should have told us all we needed to know, but we foolishly taught them. How were we to know? We had never experienced anything disconnected. But then they showed their true colors.

With the song of shaping they imposed their will upon the land. The jhada trees did not grow to form what was needed, they were twisted to the intent of the fleshlings. Their songs became chants, shouts, incantations forcing their will upon the land, making weapons, defenses against things that would not have attacked them had they simply remained in harmony with nature. When we objected, they turned our songs on us, reshaping us. At first it was to prevent us from harming them, but when they realized that they could shape us as they saw fit, they molded us into tools, servants, slaves. Our forms were fashioned to carry, to lift, to accomplish tasks for the fleshings. But it got even worse.

In their twisted need to dominate our world, they sculpted some of us into the forms of their ideal mates, sang our identities away until we wanted no more than to please them. We waited on them hand and foot, knelt to their mastery, were assaulted by their sexual organs, our defiance whittled way by their song, our will fashioned to mimic their own. We wanted them to use us, forgot the songs of the world, and learned only the songs and movements of pleasing flesh, of hedonistic delight. We lost ourselves in this sexual spectacle, and we enjoyed it. We were hewn into individual sexual beings, awakened to the indulgent delectations of flesh. Their seed pumped into us over and over was merged with our form by the songs of creation, and soon we, too, took on their otherworldly appearance. We were no longer a part of the world, we were separate, distinct beings disconnected from the song of creation. Even their powerful command of our songs could no longer touch us as we were no longer of our own world. But our new forms had been shaped into their sexual ideals. Now we were vesya, sexual slaves to the tribes of fleshlings, half fleshling, half of our own world, belonging to neither.

I am called Sundara. I remember when I was of the earth, but it is faint, and seems unimportant, for now I am a servant of the Reksa, the new rulers of this land. My body is pleasing to the men of this world. My legs are long and thin, my curves are luscious, my hips inviting, my breasts high and firm. My face was molded into their ideal of beauty, a mockery of what I once was, but now the only thing I want to be. I want to be attractive, I want to be wanted. I desire the touch of men, I crave the taste of their flesh, their seed. For their pleasure I have warm, wet, constricting holes, the insides of which undulate and convulse in response to their thrusts. I am purpose made to please them, and it is the only thing I desire.

They built ships to sail to other lands. They established trade with kingdoms outside their homeland. My sisters and I are being sent to the island city of Janjibara, a port city, a trade city. The sultan and imperialists who fight for control of the lands nearby consider the island city neutral territory. It is said I will earn much for the Reksa when I go to work in the vesyahana, the house of the vesya, a place for sexual liaisons. The men of the sultan as well as the men of the imperialists will pay well for a night with one such as me. I am content, for I will fulfill my purpose and bring much honor and riches to the Reksa. 

[IsabellaRose]

No need for a poll. @SataiRolePlayingGuy was the only valid entry (mine don't count!) so he's first place and takes the prize.