Naira Isi's Story

((Just start wherever. :) The warriors/hunters live nomadic lives, only coming to the dwellings to divvy their goods amongst the other families or to recruit new warriors.))

Naira Isi shakes under the keen eyes of her mother and grandmother, their nimble fingers drawing her cloth around her, knotting wildflowers in her hair with their delicate touches. They had priorly bade her be silent, to allow them to work their magic in silence, to let them do the right thing, for her and for their family name. Let them make her a woman, a woman any man would be lucky to take as a wife.

Tecumseh, her father, had not told her much about today's events, only that she'd be meeting her new husband, her new master, for the first time, and that she just has to impress him. He had assured her that she'd live a comfortable life of riches, having the man's six elder wives to chat with and to work with. A comfortable life, ideal for his precious daughter.

"Daughter," her mother's silky voice coaxes. "You are ready. You may go look."

Naira allows Sacnite, her mother, to guide her out of the hut, to the edge of the lake. She peers down at her reflection, scared to look, scared that she will not recognize herself. For within these hours, surely her appearance is nothing like the true her, the girl within her being, in her soul. The girl she must hide for fear of persecution.

Sure enough, her form is wrapped in tinted fabrics, haphazardly, yet elegantly all the same. Beaded necklaces with symbolic charms of all sorts wrap around her neck. Her face is painted, orange swirls starting on her eyelids and reaching down her cheeks, pink dots bordering them. Flowers of blue and purple adorn her brown hair, unmoving even as Naira turns her head to get a better look.

It is not the true her, not at all.

But if this is not the real her, what else could she be?