01-05-2025, 03:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-05-2025, 03:36 PM by Aiesha. Edited 2 times in total.)
When was the last time she was happy?
It could be difficult to navigate her emotions, being a child who often worried, but Aiesha would have considered one of her last memories to be a happy one. Before the world sank in to the mayhem of shouting, roaring earth, and darkness; before — no, she could not face that last memory. That hadn't been the good one.
Aiesha had never considered her life outside of Muat-Riya, or really the world outside of the happy little bubble of her life. She had friends — those her mother called her siblings, but they weren't really, and while she knew that on some level it really didn't matter; they were there, they were constant, and they were her's. She had her mother, too, of course. The most stalwart of her connections, always available, always providing the food, warmth and attention that a growing child needed. She missed her father (sometimes quite terribly) and Nazli would be there to comfort and commiserate with her, or soothe her to sleep.
It was a blessing when they had to leave Muat-Riya. As beloved as the place was, and as well-known to Aiesha, she had grown up on stories of Akashingo. To think that everyone was being summoned back there, moving all of their paltry belongings to the Red Palace! She had been thrilled; terrified, too, but that was just another flavor of excited. The journey itself had already faded from her memory; first they were packing, then they were walking, and somehow they'd reached the palace and — it was marvelous!
It was hard to consider all that Akashingo was. She saw the tall stone pillars which transitioned in to the mesa, and there were mazoi standing guard, and fellahin racing about to get things moved-in and sorted through. Aiesha could remember looking to every face for signs of familiarity, and then she had lain eyes upon her father Senmut, and the world went from noisy and chaotic to perfectly attuned.
Yes, that was the good memory. Her mother Nazli, her father Senmut, those children who were her friends and pseudo-siblings, together as one full family. Aiesha remembered feeling elated, and hugging her father, and wanting only to follow him around from then on; except, the days progressed and he had his work, and life found a momentary normalcy as everything flowed again.
Why couldn't the happiness last?
She could remember being summoned to the catacombs. It wasn't specifically Aiesha that had been called but the whole of the kingdom, which itself was an amazing feat, but also frightening to the girl. She had never seen so many people in one place, and kept close to Nazli; then she had seen Senmut there again, not among the throng of strangers but at the head of the procession, and she had wanted so badly to go to him — to be held, to be comforted, to get answers from her father — but Nazli had said, ""No, he is at work, you must wait,"" and so many other things, as she did not attempt just the one time.
Finally, she remembers his voice shouting above them all. Try as she might, the words themselves failed her. There had been talk of treason, but Aiesha did not know treason. There was the mention of the Semer-wati, but Aiesha only knew that word conceptually and had not yet learned to match that to a title, or to the person among them with all the power. She thought she saw the Pharaoh, Toula, once among the people present in the forefront; but by then the world was rumbling like a hungry belly.
Her mother's voice rose up over the resulting cacophony — as the palace came down, Aiesha could remember that voice shouting her name over, and over, and over, until she could only hear the screaming of the people as they were crushed beneath the rocks. Had her mother found her? She didn't know. There had been a shadow over her, and then Aiesha had felt weightless, and wrongness, and then nothing.
It could be difficult to navigate her emotions, being a child who often worried, but Aiesha would have considered one of her last memories to be a happy one. Before the world sank in to the mayhem of shouting, roaring earth, and darkness; before — no, she could not face that last memory. That hadn't been the good one.
Aiesha had never considered her life outside of Muat-Riya, or really the world outside of the happy little bubble of her life. She had friends — those her mother called her siblings, but they weren't really, and while she knew that on some level it really didn't matter; they were there, they were constant, and they were her's. She had her mother, too, of course. The most stalwart of her connections, always available, always providing the food, warmth and attention that a growing child needed. She missed her father (sometimes quite terribly) and Nazli would be there to comfort and commiserate with her, or soothe her to sleep.
It was a blessing when they had to leave Muat-Riya. As beloved as the place was, and as well-known to Aiesha, she had grown up on stories of Akashingo. To think that everyone was being summoned back there, moving all of their paltry belongings to the Red Palace! She had been thrilled; terrified, too, but that was just another flavor of excited. The journey itself had already faded from her memory; first they were packing, then they were walking, and somehow they'd reached the palace and — it was marvelous!
It was hard to consider all that Akashingo was. She saw the tall stone pillars which transitioned in to the mesa, and there were mazoi standing guard, and fellahin racing about to get things moved-in and sorted through. Aiesha could remember looking to every face for signs of familiarity, and then she had lain eyes upon her father Senmut, and the world went from noisy and chaotic to perfectly attuned.
Yes, that was the good memory. Her mother Nazli, her father Senmut, those children who were her friends and pseudo-siblings, together as one full family. Aiesha remembered feeling elated, and hugging her father, and wanting only to follow him around from then on; except, the days progressed and he had his work, and life found a momentary normalcy as everything flowed again.
Why couldn't the happiness last?
She could remember being summoned to the catacombs. It wasn't specifically Aiesha that had been called but the whole of the kingdom, which itself was an amazing feat, but also frightening to the girl. She had never seen so many people in one place, and kept close to Nazli; then she had seen Senmut there again, not among the throng of strangers but at the head of the procession, and she had wanted so badly to go to him — to be held, to be comforted, to get answers from her father — but Nazli had said, ""No, he is at work, you must wait,"" and so many other things, as she did not attempt just the one time.
Finally, she remembers his voice shouting above them all. Try as she might, the words themselves failed her. There had been talk of treason, but Aiesha did not know treason. There was the mention of the Semer-wati, but Aiesha only knew that word conceptually and had not yet learned to match that to a title, or to the person among them with all the power. She thought she saw the Pharaoh, Toula, once among the people present in the forefront; but by then the world was rumbling like a hungry belly.
Her mother's voice rose up over the resulting cacophony — as the palace came down, Aiesha could remember that voice shouting her name over, and over, and over, until she could only hear the screaming of the people as they were crushed beneath the rocks. Had her mother found her? She didn't know. There had been a shadow over her, and then Aiesha had felt weightless, and wrongness, and then nothing.
*✸*✸*✸*
Now as she awoke, these thoughts and half-remembered daydreams flit through her mind. It felt as though she had been asleep for a very long time, perhaps even forever. Like she had been dreaming a very long and complicated dream, the kind you only remember pieces of upon waking, and if she did not tell someone about it, all would be lost.
She sat up, looking around frantically; she thought, 'Where is my mother?' because Nazli could always be counted on to be there — except, she wasn't anywhere. Neither was Aiesha, from what she could see. 'Where is my father?' she thought next, feeling like she was about to cry. The feeling of a warm breeze pulsed across Aiesha as she turned in to it, feeling the beads of her tears catch in the wind and chill against her face, rather than fall.
Her haunches shook as she got to her feet. Looking down at herself, she saw nothing wrong — only dirt, she thought. Red dust and gold dust and brown earth, and... As she took a step, then another, there was a sort of tension to her legs, as if she had never used them before. They began to tremble and before she could go much further, Aiesha was plopped down again on her rear-end, sitting pitiful and alone, in this nowhere-place.
Her mother wasn't here. She couldn't see her father. Where had everyone else gone? And with that thought her features contorted, her vision distorting behind a wall of tears which began to fall with her first wail.
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