Naaghai Lowlands Slang

“Less screaming pigs. Are you certain of that?” A wicked implication is posed. The resonance of Tuna’s laughter causes her own to break and the night air fills with the sound of cackling girls.

“I’d like to see you take on a wild boar. Sounds dangerous though, Tuna.” She did not doubt the fellahin, however. Tuna is tough, and Eset liked imagining she knows the secrets to temper a beast like that.

“Would you ever go back?” Her eyes cut to the coyote with ragged breaths. She had never seen a palace so grand as Akashingo, nor anywhere so vast as this before, similar to Tuna’s homeland. They could look out unburdened for miles in every direction, no woodland holt nor ridgeline to block the endless stretches of desert. Here the trees sprout not even leaves, instead needles, arming themselves against those who would try to devour their hearts.

Her own home, that shame is still unbearable. Though after thought, it is a secret in the blooming loyalty between herself and Tuna she feels she no longer needs to veil, and so she speaks of it.

“There was a walled garden. Mother and I were indentured to that land and those who ruled it, with the other women. Coyotes.” She forces a breath into her lungs and there is the scent: sweet as a plum tastes, thick as smoke, wild and strange yet wholly familiar, like a memory she didn’t know her mind kept.

“I can smell them.”

She’d had no choice like what Queen Toula gave. No autonomy. The serfs were not allowed any dignity. She was a scared girl there. She was never going to be her again.