schrodinger

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.

*✸*✸*✸*

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.

the staff team luvs u

Culling the competition is a sour pot in the role of a warrior.

And when he approached her, would he be able to do it, even if it was a swift end? But now as they are laid in the lands of the gods and reborn in that of the afterlife, does the bloodshed of enemies still remain? Mesen-ka knows that this is may no longer be the answer in their lives, and that may be far beyond the ways of mortals below their land.

​​​​But he thinks it.

​​​​​​The River Pharaoh would have commanded it.

He serves new gods now, and perhaps now the land of the dead brings this child to them too; though, as their distance shortens, he sees the red of her coat, and is even reminded of their very own sand-wolves at the palace. What used to be.

They are more now.

A smile beams on his face and the kingsguard marches forward, no doubt a giant rumbling the ground in the eyes of a baby. "Hello, little one! Have you gotten lost? This seems unfit of a place to play."
the staff team luvs u

Bulbous tears poured from her eyes and her initial wail of panic became a discordant heaving as she sat there, time around her frozen. She cried like a fish gulping for oxygen, and truly it felt as though her lungs could not catch enough of it. Aiesha's entire body was a trembling mess by the time her grievous sobs ebbed to something close to stillness. Her throat felt raw.

Who could really tell how long she had sobbed! She could feel the pain in her heart and in her chest, a tension through the shoulders; these reminders that she was here, alive, real. Her shrieking did wane to a kind of disquiet - sniffling, red-eyed. Empty.

In that stillness came the undeniable sound of steps, weighty ones, behind her. As she was now descending in to shock, Aiesha did not immediately react as the large shape came striding close. She was catching her breath when the unfamiliar voice of a stranger met her ears, too-loud, foreign, but... The surprise of hearing anyone at all made her turn and look, and she saw the large man looming over her.

Was it her father? No. This pierced the wound in her heart anew, but Aiesha did not pause for long: throwing herself against the stranger and wrapping herself against his chest so recklessly! Sobbing fresh against his furs, sheltered by those strong forearms. No, this wasn't her father - but in the moment it didn't matter.

the staff team luvs u

It's disgustingly crashing,

the wreckage in his heart.

Time and time again, struck into the oblivion that was hearing the wails of a child. There's pain in her body and the wound burns deep. Quiet was the day, waging its war with heat upon the dunes.

Her body shuffles against his chest and there's the stillness of only ringing silence along the desert, shaken by hoarse cries and sobs. Near lost in that voice, somewhere along the way having rid of it in those red eyes and heaving lungs.

She cries so hard that he remembers.

It's a raw type of pain he feels, and he's at a loss for what has hurt her in this lifetime. In the arms of their universe, fairness ripped from the hands of children with lights for eyes. He's angry to feel it. Angry to see it happen again. 

Allowing the loosening of his muscles, his smile came to a slow fall, and an arm lifted to wrap firmly around the girl's back, embracing her. The bottom of the kingsguards chin fell in front of her, sheltering, and allowing those tears to fall for however long she needed them to.
the staff team luvs u