The Trickle of Reports

The authorities noticed, of course. Not at first. The changes were too small, too subtle to register on their grand, Archipelago-wide monitoring systems. But the reports from teachers and parents began to trickle in, tales of strange new games, of songs sung slightly off-key, of a pervasive, low-level weirdness that was slowly seeping into the culture of the children. The Weaver-Heretic council convened again, their alliance already strained by this new, insidious threat. They had built a perfect cage, a story with no room for questions. But they had not anticipated a rebellion that would be fought not in the grand forums, but in the playground, not with grand pronouncements, but with a child’s off-key song.