Lion Head Mesa and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't wishing for untimely death or demise

Aquillius had come to a conclusion in his first week spent in the Mesa.

He did not like being touched.

The fellahin who bathed him would find him stiff and almost flinching from their touch. Recoiling as if they meant to bring him pain. Really, he just didn’t quite enjoy the sensation touch gave. Like burning metal had dashed across his skin, flaying him open to some unforeseen core he did not wish to interpret.

They also, it felt like, rearranged his bedchambers every day until he was never quite sure what to expect when he dragged himself home. The intimacy of someone else inside the place he had claimed made him feel like he would shake apart. It wasn’t right. He must be doing something wrong if they continued to come in and change things.

Which was the reality he was dealing with now. Staring at the bed of furs, noting it had changed, but too tired to do more than half heartedly glare at it like it had personally wronged him.

a young man no older than their own pharaoh(!) toiled in a room.

nala had come bearing a blessed gift. a bone carved softly with symbols meant to offer protection and health. a thing she figured most mazoi ought to carry!

only she wondered if now was a bad time as he seemed to glare in his abode.

ah— her voice soft in the back of her throat. a little clearing sound. mazoi? i have brought a...gift.

His blink was sleepy, his eyes falling half lidded at the voice curving through them. This was unfamiliar, and he was guarded.

Was she one of them? His single eye fought to make out details through the exhausted fog and he swallowed, thick in his throat.

I…thank you. A gift? For him? Yet again, uncharted waters, churning and choppy around his dingy of a brain. He blinked again to try and bring the room into focus.

Do…do you want something in return? No, you fool, she said gift. Aquillius drew one of his legs down the length of his nose.

something in return!

her smile was soft and perhaps coy with how she had become blessed by Her.

she set the gift down, so that he may accept it into his own.

nothing in return! this declared with a motherly shake of her head. unless you have a story or song to share.

her eyes twinkled warmly now.

He looked at the gift, then up to the odd woman, then back down again. The boy reached out to gently take the bone between ivory fangs, pulling it up into his mouth with all of the care he could.

It looked important, carved like that. It wouldn’t serve him to screw up a gift. He moved into his spartan quarters, resting the bone neatly on a rock shelf. After a moment, he gently reached up to push it a bit, straightening it out.

I..I’m afraid I don’t know any stories or songs. He wished he remembered any he’d heard as a child, but the memories of those days were like an old photograph, faded by the sun. 

It struck him suddenly that he could not remember the face of his mother.

You do? He asked, voice quiet.

why i do!

she beamed brightly, not bothered one bit by his own lacking. for it only meant there was an opportunity for her to share.

are you familiar with the Gods and Goddesses that akashingo worships?

her eyes twinkled fondly as she began to softly sort through her own mind. thought of the best stories to start with — or ones that might interest a mazoi!

Curiosity glinted in his single eye as he turned to look at the woman, his eyebrows upturned and his ears slid forward.

I do not. He moved to the center of the room, rolling to sit on his haunches in preparation to hear the story. He couldn’t tell if he liked the giddy excitement that rose in his chest at the thought of a story.