I am the flame that shineth in the sanctuary.

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Two worlds collided.

Did Death know?

She was scarred in the deepest parts of her with names of men that knew they would never stay. Names, again and again, of those who saw a perfect picture to stain with sweet voices laced with the most terrible pain one could ever know. To be wanted, only for a moment. To be forgotten the next. For another story. For those prettier than her. More entertaining than her. Less broken than a woman who was so willing to seek the comfort of any arm that would dare extend to something so hideously unraveled.

It was what Legend had begun to see in the reflection of flowing mapenzi rivers.

Was that why the reflection had only ever been rippling?

One day, she did not want their love anymore. Just the memories of what once was, what could have been, and the blissful ignorance of pretending bond remained in the fake respite of company.
There used to be no desire at all.
Now all she wanted was for someone to look at her, and not look away.

But everyone looked away.

Death knew.
She knows.

Freedom only in a dream, where the dark of night stars at Nazli’s back met the lit horizon ahead of her, and between their bodies the dusky shore of their met edges. Dark starspeckled blue into peach ember dawn. Running. Eyes closed, airy laughter in the imp’s mouth, feeling all the stick and touch of soft petals brush between her fur and touch skin that was new. A way she did not run from.

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Only in nights where her breath was feather soft in the ears, where being in lonesome for beats far too long, did the acceptance of numbing grief come. So, so loud were the names of all who smiled like a cheshires. Was it not the smile she held now?

Legend once thought hers wasn’t big enough. So, it grew wider, stronger. Bigger and bigger with squinty little eyes until dribbling tears met the ground. So often those sweet smiles brought in others, evoked emotion of affection and positive affection.

Why did it not work when she did it?

Dream.
Dream.

Dream away.

Where wildflower pollens were rich and powdery. Where eyes did not watch and in one’s own head, they could find the iridescent lining of fake realities and pretty sunfalls.

Did Nazli know that feeling?

Big old ears were sky high, reaching for where the moon had once been and homing a childish giggle below their spires. Nakedness in entirety of person, new to what it was— what it was to do something as jump within flowers and run for self and not for another. There was no message to be given to distant kingdoms, or teeth trying to find the neck. No expectations of servitude and no command to follow. In that lostness of seeking a master, pitying gods laid a path for the smallest steps of exploration. But they were so very large to Legend. To laugh just to laugh.

But vulnerability did not come without its glass, and Gods took two of the lost and asked them to find.

I see you.

Like a fawn into the grass, disappearing beneath lengthy stalks and multicolored petals. Belly down, legs tucked, eyes big and wide with those foxy ears pulled down. Their points were the first to rise again in black peaks, nose next in small sniffs that never could hold a scent. But she could hold a memory. Baby blues, as though they’d seen a ghost that caused the most strange wonder, cautiously came into view and found watchful umber. Too lost in fight, flight, freeze, to truly think beyond hiding and peeking.

Preposterous! Nobody sees Legend!

Whispering, repeating Nazli’s statement, but whether it was to Nazli or to her own self was not clear. A question that simply was.

“See me?”

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And you remind me of my mother! The thought was quick, violent, painful.
Always— always looked to first, always able to provide the most when the opportunity arose! Nazli, the sick fellahin who had weeks, months of being incapable of being more than a body in bed and a voice spoken of but never seen. Only to come out and bring wreckage to Legend’s own life. Perhaps it was by being more forgiving, more charismatic, less loud, less all that she did wrong. A soul which could take knowledge given and learn from it, who could sit and look at all the little details that the imp couldn’t bare to put eyes on for long. Or ones that she had tried so very hard to understand, and yet never could.

And even in Nazli’s leave, her name was always lingering as a threat to no one but someone so inconsistently important. Legend never was good at being more than a tool.
Yet she had seen how intricately Nazli was woven into Akashingo’s history, with no royal name, no royal title. For simply being, living, making things like friends and family out of who was there, and Legend hated it. She had tried to do the same and failed, failed, failed.
Always failed.

Watched eyes turn away without a seconds notice. A tool in a dynasty that was to be picked up, dropped, yet to never know what it was like to feel a bond. To be bonded to. To be spoken to simply to be spoken to.

Lip wobbly, unable to stop the smallest walk forward from the tall greens which hid her. The softest, warmest voice that coaxed out even a demon from its depths. Nazli had that way about her. A woman who could bring hell to its knees to listen.

Frail limbs emerged, chin tucked, unable to hold eye contact or let loose the rage which she held on to so tightly. Just to find it wasn’t there when it was supposed to defend her. Instead, the same vulnerability which had always been there. “Daughter.”

“Daughter.. Aiesha?”

Her dreams hurt.
But they were the only things which made fears too tall to be ignored.

“Your daughter not like me. She’s smart, an— an—an patient. And good at many things.” Nazli insulted Aiesha, she just did not know it, she believed. A paw, swaying back and forth on the soft soil. Shame prevented their eyes meeting, for that head was too heavy with all the grief of unknowns to lift. “You don’t see me. ..I run from everything.”

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