Kali

Kali could feel round young eyes upon her.

She twisted her slim neck just enough to peer between the trees at Eudora’s girls gingerly plodding through the undergrowth. They rode a mere metre apart from them in a single-file line, parallel if the roots would allow it. The excitable one (Kali had lost her name among so many new faces) was watching her, and doing a terrible job of pretending she wasn’t. There was not a chance that the girl was out of her teen years, the mace strapped to her back could easily be older than she.

“Is there something you would like to ask me, child?” Kali called through the soggy, low-hanging branches.

The girl started, jumping a little in her saddle and earning a huff from her horse. She looked away, then back to Kali with a sheepish expression that regressed the age upon her dark skin even further.

“Y-you’re from the south, aren’t you?”

“That’s not a question,” Kali replied with a half-grin.

At least she knew now what to expect next. Many were curious of the south, it was not a region that travellers tended to choose for a wander. Not that the south wasn’t hospitable but with their positioning on a jagged stretch of land that was oft nicknamed ‘Elatior’s Dagger,’ it doesn’t have many entrances for foreigners to approach from. The sea lined the majority of the south’s borders along the blade, and Tilli fields, acres upon acres of crops and flowers created the colourful quillion of Elatior’s dagger. Lining and protecting those fields was a formidable wall older than anyone Kali knew of, and only at the centre of it was an entrance to be ridden through.

She had no doubt this young maid was moments from asking her one of the three questions she was inevitably bombarded with every time she found herself in the company of a northerner who had never left their minute village: ‘Do all southerners worship the star gods?’ or ‘Do all southerners swing-ride?’ or ‘Is it true that southerners eat nothing but fish for every meal?’ She prepared her answers for all three in her head just in case.

“Do all southerners…” the girl began nervously. “Do they have eyes like yours?”

“Lowri!” The curvy one, Blaire, gasped with utter horror. Kali was not ashamed to admit, at least within her own head, that she had only remembered her name because of her thick thighs and bouncing breasts.

Not that that’s what she should have been thinking about at that moment, having been utterly flummoxed by Lowri’s question. The kid had actually managed to catch Kali off guard, for the first time in her adult life she struggled for words.

“I-I’m sorry!” Lowri cried, Blaire’s reaction having apparently put the fear of the gods into her. “I didn’t mean to offend!”

“I.. well…” Kali laughed at her own stammering. “I suppose the short answer is: no.”

“I really am so sorry,” Lowri continued to babble, “I’ve never met anyone from the south.” The girl’s eyes darted from Kali’s to Blaire’s. “I mean, I’ve seen them but never- I’ve never had the chance to ask anything or learn from- I-”

Kali took Lowri’s rambling as a welcome few seconds to compose herself before cutting her off. “It’s fine, child, truly. You surprised me is all,” She assured her. After a moment’s pause she realised she still hadn’t fully answered the question. “The south does hold a large community of my people, but monolids are not a requirement to live in the dagger of Elatior.”

It would be a lie to state that the question had not left her feeling awkward, however, she would not let the child know. It was not her fault that she was uneducated and Kali believed she was genuinely curious. The round-eyed girl did not look capable of spite.

And yet, she managed to find another question. “Do they have people like me there?” she asked quietly.

Blaire was staring at her with an incredulous expression, as mothers do to their children when they can’t quite believe how foolishly they are behaving. It would have been amusing if Kali didn’t feel so uncomfortable, an emotion she was not familiar with whatsoever.

Kali considered her answer, something she was not known to do before opening her mouth, “There are people of every race there, only in far smaller proportions to the rest of the kingdom,”she said.

In truth, there were incredibly few people of naturally dark skin like Lowri and Eudora in the south. They didn’t seek out the sunny coasts like the pale people did. The dagger was the perfect place to gain colour: scorching sun combined with blustering breezes allowed for hours of sunbathing on the sandy coastline without discomfort. And there was nothing that the citizens of Elatior prized higher than dark skin.

“I truly hope I haven’t offended you,” the girl said sincerely.

“You haven’t.”

“I think your eyes are beautiful.”

Kali snorted before responding, “Thank you, so do I,” with complete sincerity. After all, she considered her eyes to be one of her best features, especially when decorated with kohl and her prized golden paint - only traders in the south carried it among their wares, making her tiny tin pot rather rare out in the northern regions.

Northerners did not decorate their faces aside from occasional pink or red lip paint which they could double as a weak blush powder. Kali often wondered if that was due to the inclement weather, after all, it could become rather costly to apply a full face of powders and creams only for the rain and cold to smudge and crack your delicately crafted art. In Mesial she had seen a few faces sporting bright colours and intricate designs but they were all originally of the south, and their northern peers had their noses trapped in their books so deeply they simply couldn’t find the time to pretty themselves or appreciate the southern charm among them.

She could feel Blaire’s eyes upon her now, light green with long lashes, the woman was flushed and giving her a painfully apologetic look. Kali raised her hand with a smile in an attempt to put her at ease but the woman simply dipped her head.

As if this trek was not to be long and arduous enough.