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━
ANKHAYA TSULAARAI
taurus / 24 / ukhutaqyi / partial shifting / bitch idk
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☐ │stargazing, riding, feasts
☐ │ social gatherings, soft textiles
☐ │ beasts of burden, hawks, cities
☐ │ bow practice, physical challenges
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☐ │ dishonesty, complaints, insects
☐ │ weaving, verbal conflict, uncertainty
☐ │ tedious work, math based games
☐ │ business, woodsmoke, storms
the cicadas scream for what they cannot be
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"but we have the world
to roam over, only
the lonely are free."
moral alignment: neutral good
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The very first sight she remembers, when she thinks back the farthest she can, is the terrible vastness of the blue sky above them, then the firm earth below, the stretch into unending of the yellowing grass. Her favorite is of the sleek hairs of the mellow beasts of the herd as they bent their heads to chew the grass. There was no struggle in their ranks.
She knows too much of struggle now. She wants a kind gaze, a selfless hand to take, but she looks around the room and sees eyes that linger like hovering carrions, waiting for a show of weakness. She is young and small besides their greying beards and savage hulks of bodies, but she grips their shoulders in greeting with the force of a lion's paw and sees them pull back to hover for another day. She does not betray the relief she feels.
She doesn't even remember whose life Trirayi stole that night. She didn't concern herself with the keeping of the herd. It wasn't her crime. Only it was, because Trirayi was her family and she bore his sins the way he would bear hers if he had to do. But she had no of her own. Once, she accidentally scraped the scalp of her brother with an arrow (before she came she sharpest shot in the tribe), but he'd forgiven her. She'd been forgiven. Now she was condemned. The boy they buried in the earth wore finer cloaks than her family and had two lines down his face in dark red mud of the Aroxquratiy. Trirayi only wore one dot by his eye. Ankh had none. The cost of his life was more than they could ever hope to repay. Ankh stared down the possibility of servitude, of a life without value, with an unwavering gaze. Fear paralyzed her heart.
Now her life is worth more than that tribe in its entirety could ever hope to repay, but the thought of it still turns her stomach in the same way it did then. She thinks, if she can, one say she will change this. If she can prove herself enough, if she can rip apart the earth with her bare hands, then they will have to hear her. She will not compromise, and she will not step back, and she will watch them all bow their heads in deference, and then things will run as she knows they should.
For now, she plays within the system, as she did then. Because a life without value wasn't her only option. So was death. Or, rather, certain death. The leader of the tribe was infallible, it seemed to her then, lumbering and massive, eyes as sharp as a hawk and just as dark. She looked up to his gaze and issued a challenge of position. If she died, it would be honorably. If she did well enough, Trirayi's debts would be forgiven. The responsibility weighed heavy on her shoulders, but she bore the burden of it far better than she would the shame of his crimes.
When he charged, she remembers thinking, it was slow. So slow she could hear the groaning of the earth beneath his feet, and she ducked beneath his wide flailing arm with ease. She learned then that power was more than strength. She thought of the snapping, precise movements of the vipers, the blurred swooping of the eagle, and realized the bull, for all its force and might of its horns, was still relegated to eating the grass. The fight ended quickly.
But there were always more battles to be won. She hadn't known before but as a chieftain, to be forced to bow her head to the higher rulers felt like swallowing poison. Cooperation was one thing; subjugation another. So she trained, forged her body into a weapon, and continued to forcefully strip the blundering men of their positions. To claim her current position was the hardest challenge of all, an attempted feat she was half convinced would rob her of her life. But she'd set her sights on it the moment she'd tasted power, the accompanying autonomy, and she didn't know how to stop without reaching her goals.
It's been a small number of years, and while Ankh does not regret her decision, she cannot say she doesn't long for the days when her mother would run her hands through Ankh's hair and hum softly. She misses the gentle caress of her hand against her back, misses the bone crushing embrace of her brother, and the firm weight of her father's hand upon her head. She makes do with the rhapsody of festivals, the flurry of social activity, the radiating warmth of the people dancing around her. But it's a poor substitute for comfort when she cannot escape the cold eyes that watch, waiting for her to bare her soft belly to room, waiting to sink their claws into the all the softest parts of her.
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I. . . . . .
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III.
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