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When I asked a local what the singing meant, they told me it didn’t mean anything. They weren’t words but sounds that conveyed their emotions far more accurately than words ever could.
Every day when they buried those bodies, the song was different.
The headstones were marked with the same word, a word I later learned meant “sibling.”
It was a dark day in Titan history and I wondered why I had to be present for it.
It was then I began to hear angry whispers of revenge. The tribe, like all Titans, was a warrior race. They were peaceful unless threatened. The warriors—both male and female—reached for their weapons.
They were primitive weapons for the most part, although the chief carried a blaster pistol that looked like something from a science fiction movie in his large hands. The chief was angry like the others but he refused to allow the Titans and his people to head into battle.
He pointed to the thatch of wood perched upon Emperor’s Peak that he referred to as the “beacon.”
“The beacon is not lit,” he said. “We cannot attack. We must wait until it is lit.”
The Warriors were angry but they heeded their chief’s words. They put down their weapons and washed the war paint from their faces and arms.
But that look in their eyes, that angry, defiant look, remained the same.
When the beacon was lit—if it ever was—the Titans would be quick to gather their weapons and attack.
And I would join them in their march to the city. I might not be much of a fighter but I would help them patch up their injured during the battle. The chief told me these Changeling creatures were the ones responsible for me being abducted in the first place.
They were the reason I was so far from home.
Once the war was over, I would jump on the nearest interstellar ship and return to Earth. I just didn’t belong here.
There was a lot of talk about something referred to as their “Emperor’s Army” too. As far as I could make out, it was a place where Titans pulled back to in times of war. They joined with all Titan survivors so they could mount an effective attack on their enemy.
A young warrior called Okem told me about it.
“The Emperor’s Army changes location each year,” he said. “The chiefs across the planet meet and decide where the Emperor’s Army will be. None of the elected officials or even the emperor himself knows where that location is. It’s so we the people can fight against any invasive force that threatens us without need of leadership from above.”
Of all the places I could have wound up, why did it have to be here? Or even if it was here in the middle of the forest, why did it have to be right in the middle of a freaking intergalactic war?!
It was mid-morning the next day when Fiath awoke again. He mumbled words in his sleep that I couldn’t make out. He seemed surprised to find himself in the medical center.
I placed a hand on his shoulder and eased him back down.
“Sh,” I said. “Take it easy. You’re okay now.”
He relaxed and smacked his lips.
“Did you have a bad dream?” I said.
“Not a dream,” he said. “A memory. How I ended up like this.”
“Soon, it’ll be nothing but a distant memory. Then you can forget all about it.”
“I doubt I’ll ever forget what happened.”
It was the same with every Titan, injured or otherwise. They found it hard to believe they might now live in a world without their emperor. They’d always had an emperor. The title was passed from one Titan to another through the ages. An unbroken line that reached back to their earliest times. He’d always been there to take care of them and lead them through difficult times.
I decided to change the subject.
“So, what did you do in the city?” I said.
“This and that,” Fiath said. “Nothing exciting. How about you? Have you always been a nurse?”
