#joyjaa

For a while I couldn’t get a word out of my mouth. What? How could that be? It was impossible! ”That has to be an exaggeration, someone wants to frame them!” The report had to be written by some anti-kini arsehole! Someone wanted to look bad, no, horrible, to justify some new law that would finally allow humans to kill kinis! That report was nothing but lies all the way through! Once I went to the scene everything would be settled, the whole thing would be revealed as the frame job it was! ”I’m going there to set this straight!” I declared and got up. Ritidia grabbed my arm before I got out the door, eyes tired and wet. ”It’s best to wait a few days, the kinis are still agitated.” ”But -” I started, and quieted. I didn’t know how to continue. It was true that the kinis could get a little aggressive, but not like this. How could anyone believe they would do something like this? I sat back down, numb with despair. How was I going to continue my job? The people already disliked me, and they believed any hateful lie told about the kinis. I could show them as much evidence to the contrary as I wanted, they would never side with me. Not even Ritidia. I thought of Jotiri. His family lived in one of the farms nearest to the forest. ”Does the report tell the victims’ names?” Ritidia handed me the lying paper. Survivors: Afra, Aulu, Takaho, Denasi, Geauda, Kera, Jessi, Umin, and Nemin. Wounded: Aejon and Riio. Dead:  Adi, Piikon, Bellekrig, Daslej, Sessan, Sukara, Teriminka, Karmin, Kaoratsil, Hana, Heiratsil, Hitagi, Nef, Ubume, and Ruimin. Oh, Jotiri… How could I ever tell him? How could I ever ask him to take me to the border again? His whole family… Where was he? I knew he was at the palace, because I was meant to have a meeting with Joyjaa in the afternoon. The report had come in later than him. ”Find Jotiri for me”, I pleaded Ritidia. She found him Kika’s room. He had already been told. He was crying against Famfara’s chest. Ritidia must have told her, and as his friend, she had broken the news and offered a shoulder. Jotiri didn’t even acknowledge me, and Famfara waved me to leave. She was right, I was the last person he wanted to see right then. Once he recovered, he would likely resign. In his eyes, I had caused the tragedy because I didn’t keep the kinis in a tight iron leash. He would hit me just for suggesting that maybe something about the report wasn’t the gospel truth.

I was right. Jotiri handed in his letter of resignation the same evening. The next day I borrowed Kitiri from Kinati, and declared I would go to the forest. Ritidia saw I wouldn’t back down no matter how many warnings she threw my way, and called Famfara so they could both accompany and shield me. On the way she called for Joyjaa, who never let her know whether he would be seeing us or not. We first toured the farms, which to my disbelief had been thrashed just the way the report had said. All the bodies had been cleared away, but little had been done about the blood. When we got to the forest’s edge, I felt sick enough to throw up, but also furious. Even if the report had been exaggerated, most of it was true – 15 dead! Joyjaa was already waiting for us, leaning casually against a tree with a bored expression, braiding his hair. Ritidia spoke to him a freezingly polite tone and round-about words. ”Our greeting. We are the first tunasa Rititia and her entourage, second tunasa Ritidia, and our bodyguards. We humbly ask for audience with the ruler of the kini people.” ”Here he is, I suppose. What are the ladies after?” Kitiri gasped at the informal language directed at the royal family, but Famfara quietly reminded her to stay calm. ”The farms near the border of the forest were attacked the previous night. Livestock and buildings have been laid to waste, and humans have been killed. We have come to investigate the matter.” Joyjaa rolled his eyes at the formal wording. ”So go ahead.” ”We have investigated the farms that were attacked and interviewed some of the survivors, and would like to know whether a member of the kini people might have heard about, or witnessed, some of the events of that night, and if so, would like to speak with them to assure an impartial evaluation of the matter.” ”I did. Whatever you’ve heard about it is probably true.” I stood there stunned in silence, and even Ritidia didn’t know how to react to such a blunt confession of mass murder. Joyjaa dug dirt from under his fingernails, utterly unaffected by everything. ”...would you mind elaborating?” I finally asked, hoping in vain to hear something to wake me from this nightmare. ”On that particular night in question a most dreadful event took place-” Joyjaa said, mocking Ritidia’s formal speech, ”-where one of the farmers was about to blow out Klovi’s brain. We answered to the fire. The border was not crossed, so you skip along home now.” ”Skip along – you just confessed to 15 murders! We can’t exactly let that be!” ”The border was not crossed, so you can. The treaty wasn’t violated.” ”15 murders!” I repeated to the maniac. ”How is that not a violation of the treaty?!” ”Looks like the ambassador isn’t up on her duties. The treaty only says that no one is allowed to cross the border, nothing else. So it was not violated.” Helpless, I looked to Ritidia, who nodded her head in shame. ”Everything else is unspoken rules. In theory, nothing stops anyone from killing anyone.” This could not be true. This was the stupidest, least thought out, rushed, unfair and generally the worst treaty in the history of the multiverse! What kind of treaty doesn’t forbid mass murder? Once I died, I would search out the makers of this so called treaty in the afterlife and personally strangle them to second death with my bare hands! I’d borrow a cannon from the army and – wait, there was a thought. The kinis didn’t have firearms, so they had to get up close and personal to kill. ”You burned four farms to the ground, pray tell me how you managed that without setting foot outside the forest?” Ha! Squirm your way out of this one, Joyjaa! That would prove they had crossed the border and we could bring them to court! But… he only scoffed and pointed to the closest half-standing barn, half a kilometre away down the distant slope, which spontaneously caught on fire. The he did the same to our buggy. Our conversation ended there.

Later Ritidia explained that the treaty had been prepared in extreme hurry and it really did only say that no kini or human was allowed to cross the edge of the forest. These murder sprees happened with regrettable frequency, which wasn’t saying much because in my opinion any frequency was regrettable! The humans couldn’t touch the murderers because the kinis’ strong magic allowed them to hit from afar, so they never needed to cross the border when they felt like payback was in order. That was why most of the farms were deserted, and the government had resorted to paying a substantial compensation as incentive to populate one of the most fertile territories in the country.

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