On the Queen's throne, a foreign black pelt laid with crossed wrists.
She stared down upon the palace room, empty and barren with vacant feet. Those tall ears sat high, weight shifted to comfort before moving back to a disciplined lay. Stretching her feet, she rolled in the comfort of a Pharaoh's luxury, drowning and yearning, feeling for a rush of high that would never be touched again. She knows not what she does. She understood only- the feeling of richness, a comforted, thrilled whine with a trapezist's smile. Comfort! Comfort! Comfort! Feels good! And this.
This is how the Queen saw her people. As the Pharaoh would.
Slipping off the throne, with a blow of her lips, she casted her fur off- nice and tidy! All done! All clean!
Then, she stretched her entire body with a big yawn on the floor, before moving to disappear to new halls and go find the food storage. They had to have had some left. She looked, starved!
Kiaxe caught the sight of a shadow passing from the throne room and gave a cursory sniff, then turned to Nazli, who she had been escorting, but the girl hushed the guardian and told her, put it from your mind. Still, Nazli knew how her caretaker felt about the two would-be strangers that had come to the palace. Nazli wasn't sure how she felt about the woman, and held some further misgivings when the sighting was reported.
Some time later, Nazli was hungry. She insisted that she could make her way to a storehouse herself; she knew these halls better than Kiaxe or Gil, and she knew there were alcoves along the way should she be in need of a rest. It was best to separate from Kiaxe from time to time so that the guard could get a break, anyway.
As she came to one such storehouse, her pace slow and stuttering, she saw a dark tuft of tail fur for a split-second as it vanished through the doorway. Um, hello.
Nazli called out to them, and while she did not sound like her usual meek self outwardly, internally she felt her spirit shrink a little bit.
An alerting "Mn!" left her lips as a voice cut her ears. Lifting her head up, her jaws had lodged deer thigh between her teeth. Dropping it, she vibrated her ears after quickly turning her head.
"Ohhh..."
She'd be mauled by now, if it was a hitman. Her bewildered voice turned chipper. "Hello!"
Nazli approached, her head bowed as it used to be, as one who served.
Is it to your liking?
She motions with a lift of her snout towards the haunch which the woman had grabbed, seeing the teeth marks. The girl smiles carefully.
I could see if my watcher would go fetch something fresh, if not.
There’d only been two that she’d come to see.
Her eyes centered a focus upon Nazli, head to a quirk, ashy paws pressing deep to the floor until they became featherlight.
Her neck extended, her nose taking quick, soft inhales of her scent. A coat of lilac. Sorrowful eyes, dark as a cobras. That this, her, this woman, and this girl, rooted to the center of her belonging. Of her purpose. Of which she had failed.
And she had failed Seth.
Or he would not have left her.
She had tried to understand, and she understood now that this would have been why. Legend had done everything right, but this. Though, do not tell her, do not explain to her, that even now she did not understand. Even now, if she tried, she would only learn to know fractions. But she saw one thing here, and that was that for all of the time Legend had spent looking for her,
It had been her who was found.
Why had she made a mistake?
Legend was starved and had hardly taken a bite yet, but her mouth was desperate to drool. She held it in! Looked ugly when she drooled! “It good! I love. And-“ her head quirked the other way. Confirmation. “You? You Nazli?”
The woman seemed content. She ate wildly, and had Nazli not lived among the wildfolk of the lakeside, she might have been off-put by it. By now the girl understood how desperately hungry a creature could become. There was no reason to fault Legend for the display.
The fact they knew her name was a surprise!
Ah, yes! I am. Do you — know me?
Suddenly thinking she had forgotten the face of someone important, her ears slant back and her eyes go a touch wider. She licks her lips as a sign of uncertainty.
“Uhu! Ya-betcha! I been huntin’ you the last somethin’-however-many-months! All around, all over!” Most of her patrols around the border had taken her outside of it, and countless days, hours, walks through the Lowlands, had all been in search of Nazli. Failure had eroded her, and she heard Seth’s death bells knocking on her soul each day she couldn’t.
“Ya not know me! But I know you.” Legend starved again at the rumble of her belly, and her jaws snapped down on the thigh that she’d gotten her teeth on prior. Hungry! So hungry! Even hungrier, when she spoke of her job. Just speaking about it took the wind out of her and made her bones all sorts of uncomfortable aches. Work! So much work! “You been slip away from me! Slip- slip,” slipian? Sliption? Slip. Slip. She ran all the suffixes in her mind, until -ing rang alarm bells. “Slipping! English stupid, yeah? Ah! But I find ya now, yeah? Someone shoulda told me you blue! Make life lot easier! I Legend!”
This woman was unlike anyone Nazli had ever met, filled with a vivacious spirit, a mania which was mildly off-putting as she adapted to being in its presence. As the conversation went on, Nazli decided that she liked this new kind of energy; although a part of her was wary of it too, the kind of mental side-eye made towards those who displayed symptoms of illness. There had been some like this at the women's circle where she had been recuperating.
I am surprised you would be hunting so long,
had the woman asked Tavina, the sesh surely would have mentioned the healers that tended to Nazli in those months. She felt her face redden with second-hand Embarrassment. I was being looked after by doctors. Tavina sent me there with Akashingo's blessing.
She did not want to discount Legend's work, not at all! I am glad you found me when you did, though. Coming home to an empty palace is -- well, unexpected.
"I surprised I hunt so long too."
She spoke as if her voice itself shrugged, dangling around a piece of meat on her claw with a sudden expression of unknowing. Oh, but she did know, and she knew well. That bored expression immediately switched back up to a smile, shoulders leaned forward before she pulled back.
Sick? "Doctors? Ya sick?" Her claw poked the air towards her. Legends brows were curious and raised. Is that why she couldn't find Nazli? She was sick? With doctors? Her eyes narrowed, confused as ever. She had been missing! Gone! What did Nazli mean she had been with doctors by Akashingos blessing? Tavina? Tavina lie? "Huh?" No. RATS! "You tellin' me you been at doctors the whole time? 'N Tavina sent me on a wild goose chase for nothin'?!" her voice rasped and cracked, inside voiced, falling confused and defeated with no fingers to point. Nazli was at the doctors all sick or whatever? The whole time?!
Legend did not know that Nazli had returned the first time.
Her poor little mouth fell slightly open in drowned defeat, frowned and shocked.
The whole time? Nazli didn't know what to make of Legend's confusion; it was a miscommunication on her part, but she couldn't exactly remedy that. It had been so long since Nazli's return after being part of Greatwater Lake that she didn't even think of it!
I was sick. I'm getting better but it is a very slow process,
Nazli went on to explain. It wasn't something that would remedy itself in the coming months, or even years. As it had been explained to her: the stress of the starvation in the wilderness had changed her on a fundamental level. Her body would always be this way going forward.
But, these were things Nazli didn't feel comfortable elucidating.
Not for nothing! You did find me. I'm glad to know someone was worried enough to look.
She gave the woman a sheepish smile, although felt genuinely beloved because of this effort that had been made. She wanted to ease the confusion and fix the frown upon the other woman's face so badly!
Last from me!
Worried? Worried.
Wor.
Ried.
Legend didn't quite know if she'd say she was worried. Worried-shmorried. She tried to smell the word from Nazli.
Well, Naz-ley could think she was worried! And if Legend wasn't worried before, Legend decided she was worried now! Worried all about Nazli. Better late than never?
"Yeah!" Her tail waved and waved. "I try-" she squinted next, "but it very hard. You very hard to find. Next time, you just say 'NAZLI HERE', and Legend come find you again, yeah?"
Next time, Nazli needed to say Nazli Here before she attempted to take a fat nap on Toula's throne again.