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starcatonthemoon · 3 months ago

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🌍✨ A Voice from Gaza: Fighting for Hope ❤️‍🩹

Hi, my name is Mosab , and I’m from Gaza. Life here has been harder than I could ever imagine, but today I’m sharing my story with hope in my heart, because your kindness has already given us so much strength.

This journey hasn’t been easy. The war has taken 25 family members from us—25 beautiful souls we loved deeply. Their laughter, their presence, their love… all of it is gone, leaving behind memories that are both precious and painful. Every day, I carry the weight of their loss, but I also carry their spirit, which gives me the strength to keep going.

Our Journey So Far

When I first reached out, I couldn’t have imagined we’d make it this far. Your support has been a light in these difficult times, and we are so deeply grateful for every single contribution.

But the road ahead is still challenging. Every day, we’re reminded of how much we’ve lost and how much we still need to rebuild.

Here’s what life in Gaza looks like for my family right now:

🏠 Safety: The uncertainty of tomorrow weighs heavily on us.

😢 Loss: The absence of the 25 family members we’ve lost is a pain we carry every moment.

💔 Dreams on Hold: The future feels so far away when survival takes all our strength.

How You Can Help Us Cross the Finish Line Even the smallest act of kindness can make a difference:

$5 may seem small, but for us, it’s a little relief, a moment of comfort, and a reminder that kindness still exists. ❤️

Can’t donate? Reblog this post to help us reach someone who can. Every share matters more than you know.

✅️ Vetted by @gazavetters ( #309 ) ✅️

Why Your Support Matters Your kindness isn’t just about helping us meet our goal—it’s about reminding us that we’re not alone in this fight. It’s about hope. It’s about survival. And it’s about giving my family a chance to rebuild our lives, even in the face of unimaginable loss.

Thank you for helping us get this far. Your generosity and compassion have already brought us closer to a better tomorrow, and for that, I’m endlessly grateful.

With all my love and gratitude,

Mosab and Family ❤️

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starcatonthemoon · 3 months ago

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The work of my beautifull and talented sister its realy good

The mercenary does not speak unless absolutely necesery.

She does not speak when the guards anounce her as a messenger from my kingdom. She walks into the trone room with her head held low, covered in dust from her journey, dressed in a simple black tunic, pants and a cloak, all made from hemp cloth and faded from years of use. No one at the court is worried that the pin holding her cloak together is solid diamond set in gold,carved into the shape of a Phoenix bird. They think its the heraldry of the noble she serves. When she reached the bottom of the pulpit whit the throne she kneels and she keeps her eyes on the floor as was proper. But the way she caries herself and the tension in her back and arms reminded me to much of a wolf. Stalking and crouching.

She wordlesly offers the ornate roll of parchment with the message along with a golden dove statue with white feathers tied to its leg. A gift signaling peacful intentions. The king personaly takes the gift and the message from her hands and orders that she remains kneeling where she is while he composes an answer.

The first time I hear her make a sound is when upon the king's orders the guard captain shoots her in the head. ( Not with a crosbow but with the strange handheld metal device that the king bought from a silk merchant a few weeks after he captured me.) She lets out a short pained groan and crumples to the floor. The blood that pools around her head is too dark to belong to a human and it smells strangely sweet. I am barely suprised when she gets up.

The intricate muscles responsible for moving the face are partialy explosed around the crater the weapon left. She spat blood on the ground and glared at the king. He demands to know who she is, what busines does she have with him. Her mouth contorted into something halfway between a grin and a snarl, razor sharp canines and black gums glistening in the light of the chandelair

I tamp the urge to run to my captor and plaster my hand over his mouth when he starts yelling profanities at her between ordering, a full blooded fey like my mother to answer for her actions. (That is bleeding on the floor after she was wounded and doing as she pleases by acting as a messenger.) I know by then that he will die today.

I first hear her voice when, after five minutes of relentles acusations end with the mercenary remaining silent and eerily unmoving, the king pushes me down the stairs with the order to wake her from whatever trance she is in. I offer her the last vial of pepermint oil I have for the season and she utters a single word, my true name.

Not the false one the king uses when talking about me, not even the one I am called by those who know and love me. Softly, kindly, in perfect high fey pronunciation she whispers the name only my mother knows. For a moment the rigidness of her form falls away. She takes the pin from her cloak,drops it into my still outstreched palm and closes my fingers around it.

There is a thundering sound as the weapon goes off again. The merchenary is taller than me by a head her heart the same height as my shoulder. Pain explodes trough my back as iron amunition bends iron armor and both bite into my flesh. The guard captain shouts, orders at me to return to my post and the mercenary to answer. She at last, complies. In the kingdom's native language but a voice thats too sharp and many pitched, it echoes off the walls and sounds like an entire army yelling. A list of just acusations and declaration of her intent.

The wave of fleeing crowd breaks on the sealed door. She declares the room a jury, herself the judge and executioner. They call the woman with my name in her mouth Harbringer, the king a beloved ruler kind to all and plead for her to go away. She denies.

Her eyes row over the crowd for long enough that people finish clawing at the door and busy themselves with competing for spots as far away from the Mercenary as possible. Unbothered, she beckon her first witness closer. The maid with the kind smile and poxmarks who smugeled me tea with mint for a month after the king forced me into a suit of iron armor. She does not talk now either, but it is not needed. Half her cape draped over the maid's shoulder like the wing of a hawk over her young and a slight tilt of her head as prompting to tell the truth. Her movements remain tense and purposeful troghout and her mouth is set in a hard line but her eyes change, and she looks almost mornful.

The maid's name is Anne. She talks about the lake of blood she washed of the throne rooms floor the day after our group of messangers arrived, the piles upun piles of bloodsoaked clothes she was ordered to burn troghout the years, shows her the patchwork of lashmarks on her palms she recived as a reward for helping me.

It blurs after that. The searing pulse of the iron lodged in my ribs is the beat to whic the trial is set. I sit down at the bottom of the stairs. The mercenary stands guard beside me and calls the people closer with a jerk of her head, a sweap of her arm, a jab of her finger. Sometimes she goes and fetches them herself, from the stables and the kitchen, from the hiden corner of the castle they were scrubbing clean.I recognize some of them.

There is the cook, Anne's mother, who talked to me and cried with me when she had to shear of my hair.

The stabel boys who filed down my teeth and offered me a bottle of rum to wash down the pain.

The gardener who showed me the willow tree they buried my companions under.

The man who saved me a braid of my horses mane when they were ordered to butcher to conceal that I ever arived here.

The blacksmith who forged the manackels closed around my limbs and gave me the last hug I can remember.

The jail custodian who shared half of his own portions with me every night once I started to waste away from the iron.

There are others I can not recognize despite my best efforts. There are tears and bitter laughing and the ever swelling hunger for air in my lungs. They tell her about the year I spent here, and the open secrets of the court and kingdom

Her face is a stone mask of stoic anger troghout but the glint in her eye grows more and more vicious with each sentence until the point where it would have surely set something on fire if she did not control it.

At last she leads the king's mesenger (who has less fay blood than me, but still enough for his name to be his most well kept secret, and no doubt enough to sense the bloodpacts that binds most of the peasents in this kingdom to one nobel or another.) to the window and points at the fields in the distance, as if she wanted him to bring some of the people working them to her and not confirmation of her own suspicion. She is told the serfs are bound by an oath of blood and must go to the king's field every other day and work from dusk until dawn aside from an hour long break when the sun is highest. Then, for the final time that day, she speaks to ask her questions.

The messenger answers her first question as she wallks back to the midel of the room

"There are no expections to this rule unless granted by the pacts holder. It is this way in almost all territories of this kingdom."

Her claws and teeth sharpen and stretch into their true form when he answers the second.

"The names of nobels better than this would indeed be a shorter list my lady. None of them are here today"

The messenger glances at the other witneses and after a moments consideration he ads, unprompted.

"Me and the servants of this castle are more than familiar with the conduct of the nobels present. If you allow it, we will help you judge."

The Mercenary glances at me then at the king who is clinging to his throne like it could protect him from anything at all. I nod and all hell breaks loose.

In less than a moment she is up all 25 of the tall stone stairs with her claws sunk into my captor's chest. Most of the aristocrats slip into a frenzy. Some of them try to attack the servants or each other, few of them the king and most of them run towards me. Cursing me for bringing the reaper on their heads, thinking in twisted irrational desperation that if they destroy me this nightmare ends. I am paralized from the sight and smell of blood and the waves of murderous anger wash over me . She jumps into the fray and pulls me away from the tangeled mass of clawing hands and kicking feet.

The room is bursting from the sounds of screams and breaking bones, the whirlwind of crazed humans and the oppresive stench of blood. When I can not imediatly regain my balance the Mercenary tucks me away in a corner.

Its interesting to watch the way she works.

Her movements remain rigid and harsh at large but her hands twitch ever so slightly as she removes any piece of iron she can off my body. She does not attempt to break the four wide rings snug against the skin of my forearms and lower legs. Her stoic expresion slips for a second time then, into an expresion so far removed from humanoid my hazed mind can not comprehend it in contrast to the mostly human face I saw up until then.

My last clear memories of that day.

The apologetic gesture of her hand befor she forced me to swallow the entire vial of peppermint extract.

Caloused fingertips closing my eyes and draping a warm black cape over my head. The distant voice of Anne promising to watch me while she fights. I am gathered in her lap and she humms a song I do not know to drown out the cachaphony of the carnage so close and so far.

Shouts about an estranged younger sibling... Softer and stedier hands for ruling this country... lulling me into dreamles unconsciousnes as the ache in my torso grows fiercer and fiercer with each passing heartbeat.

I wake up. It is dusk.

We are walking away from the castle. The Mercenarie is carrying me in her arms.

Anne and her mother are a few feet ahead of us. They are leading two horses each.

A tightly rolled pice of paper is nudges into my hand as soon as my rescuer notices I am awake.

It is a contract between my parents and the Mercenarie concerning her promise to take whatever is left of me back home to them, if at all possible.

She shifts me around in her hands a bit and gently jabs at the word Mercenarie. Then at her own chest.

"Is that how I should call you?"

She nods and I can see the faintes shadow of a smile on her face.

The sun, even setting, is warm and the chilling strings of tension weaved through every fiber of me , that for the past year become the price of my survival, become the only thing holding my withered form together, melt and I feel calm.

At last I can rest.

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