Her hair was tied into two poofs at the back of her neck, using little strings that looked like hardened cheese and snapped when she let them go from her fingers. She had a pouch full of the little loops.
"What are those?" I asked.
"Rubber bands," she replied. "Everyone uses them."
"So THAT'S what rubber is!" I gasped, and took one by the thumb. I stretched it, and it snapped back and stung my fingers. I winced, and shook my hand. She breathed in harsh through her teeth, and giggled.
We'd been traveling the coastline for weeks, taking our time with every stop – delaying the inevitable. Now it was time to head to Timbuktu. I thought back to our journey here, to a communal beach on the Saharan coast. Islamic nomads and Christian missionaries, light and dark and all in-between, found common sand here. It was a simple dip in the dunes full of makeshift shacks and huts; no name to govern them, nor for them to call 'home'. Many came and went by weekly passing, while some made resident of the beach, partly because food merchants were forced to pass through or face the harsh desert, and partly because they were too tired and poor to leave. If the time were taken to build a few docks, in a century's time, this refuge could become a town. For now, it was where The Huntress and I had been camping out, taking turns watching our belongings to swim in the ocean's blue waves, as they crashed on red shores. We'd been forced to sell our horse and carriage in the last town, and trade them for a single camel. The camel was stronger, she told me, and better-suited for the journey ahead. I was disappointed to learn that our buyer planned to turn the horse into a roast, even though he was proud to inform us it would feed his family for days.
The Huntress tried to say, "It's the way, of..."
"...the land," I finished. "I know, I've seen it back home, too. It's still sad."
Since then, it had turned to autumn again, and in the desert, that meant cold, cold nights. We all, of the beach, scrounged for wood to build a bonfire for the night, and lit the tall pile we built to share. The Huntress and I clung to one another in a cloth sack. Though she was unimpressed with me throughout our time together, she did seem to have grown fond – and there was nobody else we trusted to take our spare heat and love. I wasn't the only one who seemed to get flushed feelings, as I learned one night after she'd spent the week teaching me to hunt.
My aim with the sling was terrible, and with the bow, even worse – she called me a "waste of arrows". But I was fast on bare feet, and I could endure for a long time after having carried so much weight. I chased a gazelle through what little yellow grass remained, and eventually it was so tired, I found it taking a rest by a pond. It was barely able to hide in the stalks. I didn't want to hurt it, and I knew I could try to find some plants to eat, but I didn't know which plants were edible, or if The Huntress could be fed by them. I tied a rope around the gazelle's neck, and led it back to the campsite, dragging and tugging it to where I wanted it to go. Once there, The Huntress had me hold its legs in the air while standing on top of a rock, so she could slash its neck and drain the blood into a spare pot. She recited something I couldn't understand, because it wasn't in any language that I had learned, while the gazelle died in my hands. It struggled and convulsed, but not for very long.
We spent the whole next day working it into what we needed from it: meat, and a pelt to sell. The pelt was skinned off, scraped thinner, and tanned, then left to hang and dry. The meat was cut into pieces, and salted so it could last for weeks wrapped in waxy paper that she'd bought for this sort of thing. I carried the organs and blood in the same pot, and dumped them a long walk away from the camp for something else to eat, like a wild-cat. The strong smell of blood would keep it away from us as long as I didn't leave a trail. When I got back, The Huntress had picked all the leftover meat off the skeleton. The scraps went into a pot, along with some roots she'd plucked from the ground somewhere, and fat from along the inside of its skin before. Unlike the grain-fed hogs and birds back home, the gazelle didn't make me sick. In fact, though the gore bothered me and the smell of blood turned my stomach, its cooked meat made me feel almost giddy, and stronger.
That was the night she told me she had to "have someone", though it was only a week after I'd tried the same thing with her, and got "no" for an answer. She was powerful, and I could barely keep up. We held each other for hours, falling asleep and waking up only to start again. After that, we became like partners, looking out for each other's needs. We took one another almost for recreation, sometimes for love and sometimes out of boredom. Though there were nights she didn't want me at all, and she would crack leftover bones in half out of anger, or weep for hours. She kept to herself what about, but often, she'd curse out her father to the sky. And sometimes, I did the same, thinking about what I'd lost and left behind. My house, where I grew up. My parents, whom I scarcely knew, and The Knight who'd left me to get pummelled and tossed into the fields. But these times passed, like the good ones did, and just as quick.
On this night, at the beach and surrounded by strangers of kind temperament and honest hand (not a thief in the bunch), it seemed to me like a very good time indeed. And then it passed.

I woke up empty-armed to a pair of feet I didn't recognize. Dark reddish brown on top, and only a little lighter of sole. One of them nudged me ungently.
"Get up," said their owner, "we have to go."
Groggy, I rubbed my eyes and tried to get a look at my apparent handler. By the time they opened to the light, the feet were gone. I stumbled to my own, got dressed, and looked around for The Huntress. Other travelers were making open-pot coffee, and I borrowed a mug to grab some, dipping into the bubbling brew to scoop up the steaming, bitter liquid. It was the same color as the man standing next to The Huntress, over by our camel where now two camels stood. I blew hard into the cup and slurped to cool it as I drank. It was sweeter and more oily than I was used to from the dry imports back in Ireland – I felt a spark light my body's fire. I still felt a film in my mouth when my cup was done, and it tasted like caramel without the sugar. I had a second cup, then a third... it was too good to resist. Then I was offered a sailor's biscuit, hard as stone of course, but opted for a cold bowl of okra and spinach with goat cheese, which had been cooked in an iron pan the night before. The pan was lidded to protect it from pests, and lifting it brought a damp, musty smell to my nose, but sharp with flavor. It wasn't that I'd given up on my ideas of what to eat and what not to, but that if I didn't eat what they'd made here, I was probably going to starve. There was nothing else around for miles, no green gardens to pick from, and no market stalls. Just carriages passing through, dropping off what we could convince them to part with. And none of it could be kept cold, so... I chose not to starve. It was pretty good, for a last resort.
I was about to rejoin the Huntress after eating, when an old lady stopped me.
"Dinner for breakfast, eh? Don't get sick," she croaked.
I grinned. "I don't sick so easily."
"Good," she nodded. "You know, we had that Black Plague before you Europeans did – it took so many of us."
I remembered my mission, however much in jest I took it upon myself, and felt a small sense of purpose return from where I'd left it. I asked, "Do you know where it comes from? Or how to stop it?"
She nodded, then shook her head. "I don't know. Somewhere else. My mother told me to wash our hands, and not to eat any sugar. She said it feeds demons that want to live inside us. Many sweet people have demons."
I looked over again for The Huntress, and she was gone. I felt an anger rise in me that I'd never felt before, and a voice in my head stung me: 'SHE CAN'T DO THAT TO YOU.' It shook me to the tip of my spine. I fumbled for words to the elder, confused at myself. Somehow by speaking of it, a demon within me had awoken. Or was it there all along? Oddly enough, it sounded just like The Barreler, but not quite.
The old woman felt ignored, and turned away. I held her hand and thanked her for the food. Then I waved goodbye to the other travelers, who smiled at me and shared kind words, and I ran off tied to my belongings to look for my partner. I finally spotted her, waiting for me at the edge of the encampment. Next to her was the darker man, and up close I could see that he was just as strong and beautiful as she was. My face reddened when I saw his sharp facial features, piercing black eyes, and lean, muscular frame. He painted himself as well, though his stripes were broader, almost like black and white rings around his limbs, and big triangles on his thin cheeks, up to his jutting cheekbones. Yet in all that sharpness was equal softness, his muscles like firm pillows, his gait gentle, his face like a noblewoman's and twice as sad. He looked like a panther, and before I could muster the courage to approach, my heart seemed to stop the instant his gaze met mine. I immediately looked down at my feet, hoping he'd spare me his judgment. He didn't.
"This is who you run away with? He's a baby," he spat. "He can barely walk straight."
The Huntress rolled her eyes. "This is The Prince," she said to me. "He comes from Nubia, and he's here to escort us-"
The Prince cut in, "US? No, just you. He is not coming with. Your father will kill him, or sell him – if I don't do it myself. He's useless."
I protested, "Hey, I'm not useless-"
The Prince stuck out his thick bottom lip, and marched up to me as close as his evident disgust would allow. I froze, and looked up at him, being that he was a good foot and a half taller.
He growled, "Go on, then, sick me with that blade on your back. Prove to me you are worthy of my air you're breathing."
The Huntress said angrily, "He's with ME, he goes where I go. He doesn't have anywhere else."
I meekly sputtered, "Yeah, I- uh," I choked. I swallowed the lump in my throat. "I'm going to Timbuktu."
My demon wanted me to attack him out of indignation, but it was weaker than I was, and I didn't feel like doing anything it told me to. He did, however, seem to hear its whispers in me, and reacted the same as if I'd just thrown a punch... and missed. The Prince breathed out of his nose onto my face, and my cheeks turned red.
Then he laughed. "Go, then. The Chief's men wait for you, they'll show you a good time." He shoved me back a couple steps, and walked back to the camels. It was less to hurt than it was to make distance.
The Huntress was confused. "What do you mean by that?"
The Prince replied, "Your father intends to kill you before you reach Mali. He has assassins posted not an hour away from here."
"But our village-"
"Is gone. He sold everyone into slavery, and burned it to the ground."
"Then why would he send for me just to kill me?!" The Huntress cried. "Why not let the desert do it?!"
The Prince shook his head. "He wants to make sure. Before you make his usurper from your belly."
I stood in silence, waiting for something else to be said. The Prince took a long spear off his back, with a red cloth like a flag tied near the head, and stuck it in the ground to lean on, like I'd seen the Lancer do half a year ago. The Huntress paced back and forth, exasperated, postponing her grief to learn that everyone she left behind is dead, or worse.
She rasped, "What, then?! Where are we going?!"
The Prince lowered his head to sigh, slapped his knees through his soft red robes, and rubbed some dust off his golden wrist-bands. They were longer and flatter than hers, and so was his tablet necklace. I noticed two things: one, he didn't have any bone adornments on him; two, I'd been too flustered to even notice what he was wearing, until now.
The Prince cleared his throat. "We are going to Oudane, between Chinguetti and The Eye. There, your Chief sleeps with my traitorous mother. And we are going to kill them both."