Hello, Nothing Weird Here, Just Talking To The Wheat Fields!

Lito 's POV: The sun blazes above me with no mercy, causing my face to settle into a permanent grimace as I work and ignore the stinging in my hands as my callouses threaten to bloom red pools of blood. Sweat slides down my back as I step and swing my scythe to the right as I walk. The cut grain settles in a neat pile to my left that the women will come and pick up later.

A bell rings out among the stillness of the grain billowing in the breeze, signaling for our break time. Even as I settle on the crushed grain below me and sweat slides down my face and neck, leading to my chest and back, I still feel as if I could go for hours in the sun. The sun burns above me and the clouds seem to offer no sympathy for us below as they never near the ball of fire, yet the sun seems to seep past my skin and settle into my bones, fueling my spirit. I watch as the other workers that seem like ants we are set so far apart, disappear below the golden crashing waves. I run my hand through my hair pushing it back from my face, but it does nothing as it settles back to its unruliness. I sigh and leave it alone. I let my gaze wander around the fields and settle on the shadowy land to the far left. It lies past the fields and even farther past the town where it seems to lie and beckon the children of the Day Sky Kingdom to go in and never return. I remember as a young boy being dared by my friends to go in and see if I came back out but I refused and was mocked for it. The mocking stopped however when he threatened to toss Cyrus over the line between the towns and see how he liked it. A grin broke across my face as I remembered no one mentioned the dare ever again. I return my attention once again to see that the shapes of houses can barely be made laying against the side of the mountain that it was built upon. Sometimes a bright white ball hangs from the sky and offers a source of light to the people below, though they never seem to need it. Lanterns can be seen, but you almost have to squint to make them out as the darkness seems to swallow them.

Sometimes deep in his thoughts, hidden away from others, he wonders what it would be like to live in the Moon Pearl Kingdom. Don't be absurd. Don't you recall what the townspeople say they look like? His friend, Baskara, had gone with his father to help him load crates onto the boats on market day when one of the boats sprung a leak, and he and his father had to go and rescue it. A boat from the Moon Pearl Kingdom was loaded up with two of their own and sent to help. They met between the dark and light and that's when his friend Baskara saw.

"A man and woman were on the boat we met up with and you wouldn't believe the color of their hair!!" Baskara exclaimed.

Lito furrowed his brow as he asked, "What was wrong with it?"

"The woman's hair was a brown so dark it was almost black and the man was young yet he had deep gray hair like silver!"

"That's not possible. Hair only ranges from varying shades of blonde, light brown, and red."

"That's what I thought too but apparently over there it isn't, " he lowered his voice as a man passed them. "But that wasn't the weirdest thing. Their skin, Lito.....it was white like milk."

"No way, you have to be making that up."

"No, my friend, I swear on the reign of Queen Elaine that I am not. They didn't look sick or anything like that but it was like the color of parchment compared to our dark skin. Even though you don't burn like most of us from the sun your skin was far darker than theirs."

"Why do you think that is?" he asked.

"I think, " his voice lowered even more as he said, "that because they see no light that the darker color of their skins has bled off."

"There's no way that's why they have light skin."

"Maybe, maybe not, all I know is that they are not normal like you and me."

"But they are human just like us, right?" He thought at the time. "They bleed blood just as we do so what makes us so different other than we live in a world of day and they a world of night."

"The women cook and bear children just as ours do and their men may not labor in fields like ours but they still work for their families, so what's the difference."

The more he thought about it the more he couldn't help but wonder until he barely registered that break time was signaled over by the sound of another ringing bell and he was brought back to his feet to continue working. His feet walked, and his arms swung out of habit, but his mind was far away to the town cast in shadow. Before he knew it the final bell signaling the end of the workday sounded pulling him from his trance. He stilled his scythe and went to the shed built in his section of the field to put it away. He grabbed his knapsack that held his clean tunic to change into and started walking in the direction of the Moon Pearl Kingdom. Just one look that's all. Just to put my curious mind to rest. One glimpse of what lies behind the shadowy curtain then I'll leave and head home. Besides, even the rolling fields seem to agree with my destination. It was a bit odd he mused to himself as the wind drove the grain towards the river that separated the two towns and was insistently pushing against the back of his calves as if he was going too slow. "Want me to hurry it up?" he said grinning at the fields that lied beyond him. Oddly enough the wind seemed to get stronger as he spoke and worked its way through the fields working them into a frenzy. "All right then, let's go!" and he began to run.