Crystal Coast Free Press

Matron “Briefly Hospitalized” While Visiting Tears of the Moon

QÓVAKÕL NATIONAL PARK— Her Most Esteemed Beneficence the Matron, on her first ever visit to the sacred islands of the Tears of the Moon, was “briefly hospitalized after suddenly losing consciousness, that is to say, fainting,” reported Attending Physician to the Elders Dr. Luigi Gauckmeisser on Friday. He was quick to assure that “the Matron very quickly regained consciousness and was perfectly fine after spending no more than 15 minutes in bed.”

Dr. Gauckmeisser said it was “almost certainly” a case of dehydration and perhaps stress “caused by the relatively exhausting, long, and uncomfortable nature of travel to a place as remote as Qóvakõl.” The park, the site of a meteor impact 2,022 years ago—January 1st, 1 CE precisely—that has been considered a holy place in Akronism since its earliest days, is located in the middle of a rainforest several dozen kilometers from the nearest inhabited settlement (the village of Kenqóv, 68 kilometers away, population 421) and can only be reached by off-road vehicle. The “hospital” at the park is a modular metallic one-room structure stocked with first aid supplies that is unstaffed—the Matron had, with good foresight, chosen to bring her doctor with her just in case of an event like this.

“As can happen to anyone of any age for, really, just about any reason, the Matron fainted for a few moments today, but experienced absolutely no lasting side-effects and has in fact gone back to Qóvakõl to enjoy her visit to what she has asked me to report is ‘one of the most beautiful sites on Urth,’” said Mevra Tanštoran, Secretary to the Matron. Ms. Tanštoran declined to say why the Matron had decided to visit the park, but noted “the national park is public and open to anyone who lives in the Tavari Union to visit any time they like, and it’s a real gem of our young country.” There does exist an Akronist monastery near the site of the crater that is, under the statutes of the Church, an official residence of the Elders and “holy place,” but there has been no monastic presence there since the 16th century. The current Matron is the first to visit the site since Her Most Esteemed Beneficence Ražara Amat, the 32nd Matron, in 1947.

The Tears of the Moon were transferred from Tavaris to Acronis in the Ranat Accords that settled the borders of the two countries after the highly disputed independence referendum of 27 February 2022 generated far more controversy than it did any political goodwill. The islands, despite being thousands of square kilometers, are home to less than a thousand people in total. Among the people who live on the islands, the referendum vote was in favor of independence by 85% to 15%, but because the vote was counted by province, the island residents were overwhelmingly outvoted by mainland Nandrat and Zinia province voters who chose to remain in the Kingdom of Tavaris. The islands’ population is almost completely Akronist, due in large part to the traditionalist Tavari belief—made explicit in the text of the Tavat Avati, written by the first Tavari King, Utor I—that the islands are “ground upon which no living foot should ever tread” and therefore off-limits. The differing Akronist belief that the islands are sacred but should be open to visitors was one of the first sources of inter-religious conflict in the early decades of the Church of Akrona.