Bring your daughter to work day

looking for @ "Mesen-ka" <3

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The desert sands that they had risen from were different than those that surrounded the mesa. Ra's gaze scoured the sands.

Taliba sat by the edge of the Oasis. She stood in the shallows, watching minuscule fish dart past. If she stood still long enough, they would creep forth. So still she stood, hoping that if she was fast enough she could catch one. The girl's head was damp from previous attempts.

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Glory's a vicious cycle of change. Their children have been risen from their graves by the goddess and stand on blessed feet.

Still they are in the unknown, and the missing face of a certain girl left the kingsguard in worry. Before the wildlife could come for her, he did first. Damned be monsters to find their eyes on his blood. To the warrior's relief, no daring coyote has found her. Or worse, a boy.

The little face of his daughter is fixated deeply on the pools, water dripping down her sandy chin. Amusement blossoms in his chest! She's trying to catch the fish! The sound of his steps are surely audible once he is twelve or so feet behind her, coming to a sit with a broad, toothy smile that simply watches and nods with the encouragement of a teasing dad!

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An auburn ear swiveled at the approach of footsteps. It gave the girl pause before her father's scent reached her nose. Without a word to Mesen-ka, Taliba merely flicked her tail to him as she honed in on the glittering water.

There! A flash of silver scales!

The girl's neck stretched as she craned her neck towards the sighting of the fish. She tried to move her legs as little as possible, lest the ripples she made scare away her target.

Holding her breath, Taliba watched as the fish skittered closer to the water's edge. The depth getting shallower and shallower.

Fiercely, the girl lunged towards the fish, hoping to cut off its escape back to deeper waters. Her legs outstretched, maw wide, and teeth bared.

Her teeth closed on water.

Her slide across the shallows knocked the fish away rather than trap it. It briefly went airborne before it slapped back into its water abode and made a hasty retreat.

Dejected, Taliba slowly looked over her shoulder to her father. How embarrassing...

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Stepping to her side, the man takes a knee and motions with an iron head towards the blue waters. Failures are a great part of life. In death, an eternity they would have time to go over again and again. "Never did like the taste of fish." Mesen-ka too has a roll in both shoulders, idly watching the ripples of the fish gather in the distance after being frightened away by her lunging teeth. "The rivers of my home far, far away was flooded with them. Delicacy to the likes of the royals, prepared often with their eggs meticulously separated from their bellies."

The diners were filled by the dozens. Great feasts that were open to all; though, the royals and the common civilians, peasants, they shared different floors that were guarded by even the likes of himself. Great strong scents of tigerfish and barbel with imported herbs from the outer regions were a strong memory.

A single toe swirls the pool, shaking their reflections before it came to a still. The fish must've thought it a landed bug when they inched closer. "Took all of me to not gag!"

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“Not many of the mazoi fish.” The girl noted with a shrug. “I wanted to give it a try.”

Her eyes returned to the sleek forms that flitted through the water. As the water stilled around the pair, Taliba quieted. The desert oasis nourished life beyond the fish. Green vegetation decorated the edge of the water. A few palms rose from the ground and swayed gently in the sparse breeze. Insects buzzed in the air, and she could hear the skitter of small rodents that came to drink. Hesitant with the presence of wolves in the water.

The scent of freshwater brought back a fractured memory. One shrouded in darkness, the plants in the oasis did not compare to what her young mind could piece together.

“My brothers and I, we were born near water, right?” She looked to her father once again. “Did our mother fish?”

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"Keep trying. You will get there."

​​​​​Perhaps not today or even tomorrow, but one day his daughter would be fruitful in her endeavors and showcase a fine skill. There is no doubt to be had for it.

They did not speak of the past. Not often. The present was filled in great plenty with things to distract from it. A distant look fills the fathers eyes as he stares at the water. Nodding firmly without more than a second passing, a hum follows, "Yes." Do not lie.

"You were born by a great swell of water. Nothing like the shallow pools before us. It was brimming with life and teeming with fat creatures. I am not sure if your mother knew how to fish. I do not know how well your mother hunted at all. It was I who filled her table."

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A thoughtful expression crossed her face, followed by a frown.

“Did you not know her long?”

Her mother must have hunted at some point her life, right? It did not stand to reason that her father provided for her entire life.

It is a sad strum to her heartstrings, the realization that her father could not greatly expand her knowledge of her mother. Zharille's existence in the earliest periods of Taliba's life was comprised of fragmented memories, half-remembered scents, and a mountainous shadow in the depths of a dark den. No image of her mother's face remained. Not even a shred of a voice resonated in Taliba's thoughts. Just what her own mind thought her mother would have sounded like.

This lack of knowing pierced a hole into the girl. She had seen the other children with their mothers, royal and common alike.

There is envy. There is hurt. The girls masks it with another question.

“Why did my mother not live with us in Akashingo?”

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"I wish I'd the chance to know her longer."

Zharille.

He is glad she did not follow them into death. Not for lack of privilege, or for any foul reason the civilians of their kingdom may have rejected the woman's being.

He was happy she was freed of them, and of him.

"Your mother's heart was to the wilds." Mesen-ka says, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon. The wind stirs his thick mane, rippling like waves across his fur. “To the untamed heart of nature, to the call of the wolf.” His eyes fix upon his daughter. "You, Aiman and Ibrahim were brought into the kingdom for a chance at education and to be surrounded by those of your age." Then the night of the servants came.

Mesen-ka wishes to distance away from this, and refrains the teeth that wish to clamp his own tongue into blood. It is important she knows. Everything, if she desired. He'd give her the world if he could.
But the father had failed to give her a mother. "I am glad you've asked me of this. I will tell you what you would like to know. I have a question for you myself, too." 
​​​​​
"Do you have memories of the lake?"

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Whatever love her mother had was not for her. An ugly truth that branded itself to her heart. Mesen-ka tells it to her gently, poetically, but Taliba stood at the cusp of adolescence. No longer a child, and not yet a woman; she wanted her mother's love all the same.

Was she undeserving of it? A girl did not possess the ability to understand the heart the way an adult did.

Taliba did not hide her face when she answered her father, “No.”

Her jaw tightened, her teeth pressed together. Eyes closed and brow knitted, she inhaled slowly through her nose, caged her breath until it beat against her ribs to be freed, then released it. Sun gold eyes reopened.

“They don't feel like memories, at least.” A dark, auburn paw lifted out of the water. Rivulets of droplets distorted her reflection as they fell. “They're dark. There are smells that I haven't smelled since. It's almost like I imagined them, but I can't forget it either.”

Taliba's eyes lowered to the fractured image of herself, they began to glisten. An expression as ugly as the hurt she felt crossed her face. Her paw slammed down into it as the first tear welled.

“I don't remember her face.”

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