Episode 12: Interlude (A Certain Island’s Inhabitants)
“Hey, can you see it? The Bird Star’s out again.”
“Oh, oh, it’s shining bright again today.”
The man pointed towards a particularly dazzling star, emitting a sparkling light.
The time was around the first hour of the evening. The sun would set in about an hour, but the sky was still bright. In the southern sky, far away, the solitary Bird Star shone.
The Bird Star had suddenly become visible a few days ago. Since then, it had appeared regularly at this time.
At first, there was a commotion, with some wondering if an unknown monster had appeared, but after three days, with no sign of it approaching, no one paid any attention to it anymore. Rather, it was appreciated as a good time signal, as it began to shine shortly before the hour bell rang.
“Still, I wonder what it’s doing up there.”
“Who knows? Maybe it’s patrolling?”
The Bird Star was moving slowly. Its location varied from day to day, but it seemed to be circling roughly the same area.
Only during this time, when the sunlight hit it at an angle, its body must have been reflecting the light. The islanders speculated about its true form, suggesting it might be a feathered serpent with a wet body or a dragon covered in hard scales, but unfortunately, there was no way to confirm it.
They had heard that in some distant country, people went fishing in ships hundreds of nautical miles away, but no one on this island owned such a large ship. They could only go out a dozen nautical miles at most, and even if they got that close, they wouldn’t be able to visually identify the Bird Star’s true form.
“I’ve heard tell that there’s some rock or island way out there.”
“That’s just drunken rambling.”
Several years ago, a battered Wrecked Ship had drifted to this island. They couldn’t communicate well, and the sailors were too weak from their long ordeal to provide much information, but they did learn that they had come from a continent far to the south. They had been navigating using a map of an unknown island and relying on constellations they had never heard of. After the shipwreck, they had wandered far north of their intended course, according to their Sea Chart, and finally reached this island.
Incidentally, once they regained their strength, they were transferred to the northern continent. The islanders were amazed that they showed no reaction when boarding a ship that turned a water wheel and moved without wind (a Paddle Steamer), but they never heard anything about them after that. The castaways were just a source of amusement for the islanders for a few months.
“But there’s definitely a big island to the south, right?”
While talking about such things, they gazed at the Bird Star, and eventually, its glow disappeared due to the changing angle of the sunlight.
“Well, time to wrap things up.”
“Aye, it is.”
The Bird Star disappeared, and the islanders began to tidy up their work, and soon the hour bell began to ring.
And so, the island’s day ended without incident.
One month later, the Southern Islands, invaded by a continental nation from the north, would see their history come to an end in a short period of time.