The lurching of the cart woke her from her sleep beneath the heavy fabric that had been laid over the cart. At some point in their travels, the sun had set and the moon had risen, the cold of night had settled in. The ache in her head of the noon-day sun was now a distant, unpleasant memory, right alongside the last memory of her parents placing her within the back of this cart and sending her away. Her own father hadn’t said a word to her, choosing instead to speak with the driver. It was only her mother’s touch and soft whispers that made the memory bittersweet. Be strong, she had said. Let El guide you.
El… Her mother was so tied to this ghost of a god that she had begun to wonder if he was real. Countless hours had been wasted following her mother into her hidden prayer room and emulating her the devotion the older woman had. But her prayers seemed to go unanswered, so she had devised a test. Surely if El did indeed exist, then he would grant her the strength to kill her brother. But when she had gone to test her prayer, nothing had changed. Now, here she was on the back on a cart being sent to some unknown location.
The hard wood of the cart ground into her shoulder as she rolled onto her back. Closing her eyes, she sampled the night air deeply and the new scents it carried. Gone was the subtle dark smelling stench of the stock pits, evocative of their stained lives. Gone was the ever present floral musk of her mother’s garden, a symbol of the woman's inability to leave her alone. Gone was the delicious odor of the slaughter room next to the kitchens, where so many animals had been drained. All she was left with now was grasses, trees, dirt, and a hint of something in the distance that she couldn’t quite place.
Pushing the fabric aside, she sat up and took in what the moonlight showed though nothing she saw was familiar. More importantly, nothing in the moonlight revealed to her where home was. That feeling of simply not knowing, gripped at her heart in a way that the abandonment hadn’t. The uncertainty of where she was or who she was with… It took everything in her not to huddle back beneath the fabric. Be strong. Mother’s words were made plain now. She would need all the strength she could muster.
“Not long now.” The driver spoke in a melodic tone that bounced and rolled along the divets in the dirt road. “We should be there when the moon touches those trees there.” He motioned off to the west and her eyes followed as if under a spell. The moon was hovering over the treeline like a glowing eye intent on watching their travel. By the time she looked back to the driver, he had already turned back to his task.
“If you’re thirsty, there’s a hand-pot there with some blood in it. Drink it all if you like.” Once more his words flowed with the night air. As if the man’s words were magick by nature, hunger gripped her and she hissed with pain. Diving under the fabric, she began rummaging through the contents of the cart until she came upon the little wax-sealed hand-pot. With ease, she pried the lid off and began greedily drinking the contents. Once it ran dry, she laid there on her back gasping as her body seemed to tingle with magick. Whoever this blood had come from had been amazing no doubt. Closing her eyes, she basked in the high that the slowly growing blood high.
As she laid there listening to the world, time began to slow and stretch. Thoughts were fleeting and fickle as they came to her but never seemed eager to stay. Emotions washed over her in waves as though it were a sea, lapping against the heart of her. Closing her eyes against the starry night, she relaxed into whatever this sensation was.
Then she suddenly was sitting in the back of the cart once more, legs dangling off the edge of the parked cart. The taste of the evening meal was fresh in her mouth and she looked around in confusion. She saw her father speaking to the driver but he wasn’t alone. Another man, seemingly made of smoke, stood beside him with its attention fixed on her. It had no eyes but she knew it was looking at her, into her.
Then the scene shifted once more and suddenly she was in her brother’s chambers. His body was laid flat upon his bed as she sat upon his chest, her little fingers tight around his throat. She fought to choke the life from him but she found no purchase and he began to smile defiantly. A roaring of disembodied voices began to rise up within the room. The loudness of it was such that she was forced to tear her hands away from his throat and press them hard over her ears. But it did little to stem the growing clamor and she began begging it to stop.
With a gasp, she sat up and quickly looked around. The dream was still crisp in her mind, leaving her shaken to the core. She could still hear the echoing of the voices in her ears as she tried to adjust to where she was. Frantically wrought with fear, she looked around for the driver who stood to be her only connection back to her home. But he was gone. Instead there was just a boy, a little older than her, at the end of the cart folding up the fabric that had once covered the cart. His clothes were clean and the vest he wore was embroidered with a little box-like symbol that matched the signage of the building they had stopped in front of.
“Thought you might be dead.” The cart shifted a bit as the boy climbed up onto the back of the cart and set the fabric down on one of the many wooden boxes. “Never seen a kid drink Moonlight before.” He motioned to the bottle she had drunk out of. Now out from under the fabric and in the torchlight of the town, it was plain that the bottle she had drunk out of had an ornate purple and red, paper and wax seal. The side of the pot had a crescent moon symbol pressed into the ceramic. The pot she had been intended to drink, had little more than a cork, was laying off to the side still waiting to be ingested.
“See anything interesting? Might make Malik less angry if he at least had a story to go with it.” The boy talked as he worked at rearranging the cart. Some things had moved in transit and he was clearly mentally cataloguing anything that was damaged or broken. She had managed to make a real mess of the cart earlier when she had been looking for the handpot of blood and it showed. It was also apparent from his body language that he was more focused on the task at hand than her well-being.
“Malik?” Her words were soft as a gentle throb began to grow behind her eyes. Putting her face in her hands, she tried to rub the ache away.
“Malik brought you here.” It came flatly from the boy as he continued sifting through the crate after crate with practiced precision. He must have picked up on her rubbing as he continued. “Drink.” The corked handpot was pressed against her forehead. The coolness of the ceramic felt like a blessing as she felt her face warming up like a sunburn. Nodding, she feebly took the pot and went to work uncorking it and sipping the contents.
The boy, seemingly certain that he had done all he needed to, climbed down from his place in the cart and offered her a hand. The torchlight caught his loosely pulled back blonde hair and seemed to set it aglow along with his honeyed eyes. For a moment she was lost in the look of him. He was different than anyone she had ever met. Back at the palace people did things for her all the time, but this felt different. He wasn't helping because he had to, but because he wanted to. Shifting towards the edge of the cart, she took his offered hand and climbed down.
Of course, upon standing the world lurched and she heaved all she had drunk out upon the road. After several, forceful, purges she remained bent there trying to catch her breath. In her stupor, she thought she caught flecks of gold in the mixture of Moonlight and blood, though it could have been little more than a trick of the light. Standing, she groped the air a moment before catching herself on the side of the cart as it became apparent that her balance lay someone in the cart still. The boy smirked at her before outright laughing. She wanted to be angry at him for laughing, but couldn't figure why that would be a valid response as she, too, took to laughing there against the cart.
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