the mother’s keepers
Edward Willett
I was twelve years old when the Krollians invaded for the first time.
We heard of the attack the way we Keepers heard of all doings on the surface: as rumours, running through the corridors of the Mother’s House like the rivulets of water that sometimes found their way through cracks in the walls despite our best efforts.
“Praella, did you hear? The Krollian monsters have attacked us,” my best friend, Melka, whispered to me as we waited to carry our blocks of biosugar into the refining chamber. Her headruff, normally erect with the vibrant force of her bubbly personality, lay flat against her narrow skull, and her normally iridescent pre-pubescent scales had shifted to near-black. “I heard it from Pillory, who heard it from Fanella, who heard it dire
