☼ Seventh Sun ☼

The sole focus of Aisha's days became her mission to prove Raqeeb Hadi wrong, to have him accept her back where she belonged. It was easier—and, in Aisha’s opinion, far more important—than thinking about the mysterious barrels of water from the day prior.

Every morning began the same: she awoke to the sound of her father getting ready for work. The darkness consumed her, trying to coax her back to sleep. Her body was more than willing, but as soon as Adil left the tent, she forced herself upright despite the pleas of her sore muscles.

Getting dressed on her own was no easy feat. It was a slow and careful process to navigate her way into the robe and headdress, but it also gave her enough delay that by the time she made it out of the tent, the stallions were leaving. The older mare who worked to clean up the plates eyed her with the usual poorly concealed disapproval.

"There is little left," the mare—Jaddati, they all called her—said as she nosed one plate on top of another. "You would do better to go back to bed and wait for your breakfast."

Aisha's ears flattened against her mane and she sat down on the blanket. "This is my breakfast."

Jaddati snorted and leveled a disapproving stare at Aisha, but didn't say anything further. She grabbed the edge of the bowl between her teeth and tilted her head to pour what remained of the pilaf onto a plate.

"Thank you," Aisha muttered before she devoured the meal that amounted to barely two mouthfuls. It wouldn't satiate her for very long, certainly not for the whole day. That meant she'd need to conserve her energy: no running, no singing, and no getting stuck in her head ruminating unnecessarily on the what-if's and could-be's.

A whole loaf of bread dropped onto her empty plate, startling Aisha out of her thoughts. When she looked up, Jaddati was turned away from her and focused on the task of putting the other plates in a basket.

The old mare glanced over her shoulder with a hint of a smile. "It wouldn't do anyone any good if you fell over and starved to death. Just a waste of time."

With a grateful grin, Aisha tore into the bread and eagerly gnashed at each chunk. A cup of lukewarm tea was all that she had to chase it down with, but she still tried to savor the faded notes of its normally vibrant flavors.

"Better hurry." Jaddati slipped the basket onto her back with expert maneuvering of her snout and shoulders. "Stallions will be a good few dunes away by now."

Aisha grunted as she forced herself to her hooves. Her muscles already ached at the thought of the day that waited for her, but she trotted across the sand and between the rings of tents to break out into the open desert.

The wind whispered with grains of sand that danced along the ground and into the shimmering horizon. She saw the group of stallions far enough ahead that they were an indistinct mass of movement and cloth, already much closer to the mining site than she was to them.

As she followed the faded hoofprints in the sand, a large lizard watched her from atop a black-faced rock. She locked gazes with it and tried to look more formidable than she felt being all on her own; it blinked one eye, then the other. A tongue flicked along its upper lip before it slowly lowered into a resting position and seemed to lose interest. The tension eased from her, but she quickened her pace nonetheless to catch up to where the stallions were already deep in sand and stone.

Once she crested the last dune, she stopped to watch the stallions already shoulder-deep in the hole they'd all made together. Each black-clothed figure moved as if they were one, a unity binding them that she thought she had felt just before Raqeeb Hadi cast her out. If only—

Aisha quickly shook her head. No what-if's, no could-be's. She dropped her canvas water bag onto the ground a good length away from them, close enough to hear but far enough to stay out of the way. There, she began the long and arduous process of digging a hole in the sand.

It didn't take long for Hadi to storm over to her, the sound of his heavy hoofsteps heralding the question she knew was coming. "What are you doing here?"

Aisha didn't meet his gaze, instead continuing to drive her forehooves down and kick them back. "Working."

Hadi narrowed his eyes. "I told you to leave."

"I came back."

"I didn't say you could." He moved to stand directly in front of her with his forelegs planted firmly in the hole. "Go home."

Aisha turned her head to look over at the line of stallions, some of whom had stopped to watch them. "You're neglecting your job as raqeeb."

"How dare—" Hadi followed her gaze and swore under his breath. "Work!" he shouted, and when a few hesitated, he galloped toward them.

It was a small victory, but even that was giving herself too much credit. She had simply bought herself a little more time, so she went back to digging in earnest.

The sun bore down on her as the hours dragged by in no hurry. Hadi's interruptions grew less frequent as his attention became focused on the extraction of the gems that the stallions found. Aisha was still working through the depth of sand that stood in her way when Hadi called for the midday break.

Aisha pulled herself out of the hole she had dug and dropped down onto the ground, watching everyone else enjoy a reprieve in the shade. She felt her father's disapproving gaze tear through the distance between them, but she shoved aside the uncertain feelings that stirred within her. Instead, she focused on taking the canvas bag between her teeth and relished in the soothing water against her parched throat.

There wasn't much else to look at, but she was desperate to keep her attention away from the stallions. Sparse mountains jutted out of the distant landscape, dark and imposing against the azure sky. She spied a cluster of grass forcing its blades through the sand and her stomach rumbled.

Her gaze flickered to the group sitting under the canopy, and she slowly eased herself up onto her hooves. They all seemed preoccupied as she edged closer to the grass. It was far from dignified to eat like a wild animal, but what dignity did she have left at that point?

She lowered her head and took her first bite, wincing at the dry crunch of it between her teeth. It tasted wholly unappetizing, like sand and dust baking in the heat—which, she supposed, it more or less was. Swallowing was a struggle as it scratched its way down her throat, but she went for seconds nonetheless.

A whoop of laughter carried across the open air and Aisha jerked her head up to glare in its direction. All of the stallions were watching her, laughing at her; shame seared through her chest and she hurried back to resume digging to distract herself from the tears she wanted to cry.

'Do not cry to me when the reality of your choices does not match your imagination of them.'

"I'm not crying," she snapped at the sound of her mother's voice in her mind.

Raqeeb Hadi's whistle signaled the stallions to return to their own work, and she took comfort from the distant pounding of their hooves. It gave her a rhythm to focus on and follow, especially when the work song followed soon after.

"If yesterday is as today

"And if tomorrow is the same

"Never will I be without purpose

"Under the guidance of Al-Seglawi."

"And so will I," Aisha replied through clenched teeth, driving her hooves down into the sand, "and so will I."

"For the pleasure of a song

"Like dreams in the shade of a grove

"With our eyes full of dust

"Among the thorns of the desert."

Aisha broke out into a smile as the sound of all the voices in harmony finally soothed a temporary reprieve from the ache deep in her soul. "And so we sing," she continued with the chorus, "and so we sing."

Movement ahead of her caught her attention and she looked up, ready to bark a retort back at whatever Hadi had to say to her.

Golden eyes greeted her, the ethereal face they belonged to barely a breath's distance from her own.

Though Aisha's heart seized in her chest and her breath caught in her throat, she had enough sense to take the opportunity for a good look at the vision that had been haunting her. Long lashes and a slender face finally told her that the horse was a mare, and a beautiful one at that—perhaps the most beautiful she had ever seen.

The curved horn that protruded from the mare's forehead was the anchor point for two sheer veils that draped over her face and tied back somewhere beneath her voluminous white mane. All around her, long lengths of fabric wove through the air and folded back on themselves, rippling and twisting and almost seeming to dance. Each moved independently, as if they were all drifting on a different breeze, though the air was perfectly still.

Those golden eyes seemed to be searching for something. The curiosity within them was the only hint of emotion on the mare's otherwise impassive face.

"Who are you?" Aisha asked, almost surprised at the sound of her own voice.

One of the mare's ears twitched and there was a long, silent pause before she simply faded into wisps of smoke. Aisha hurriedly looked around for anyone—anything, even—that looked as unsettled as she felt.

The work song carried on without interruption. Raqeeb Hadi continued to walk the line and tend to the barrier. A scarab scuttled across the sand off to her right, and the sun continued its slow descent toward the horizon.

That was it: the sun. She was just seeing a mirage from the heat that seared everything it touched. The air shimmered, the sand burned, and her mind concocted elaborate distractions from what was important.

Aisha shook her head and looked back down at the seemingly endless sand that she continued to scoop and push behind her. A part of her knew that digging on her own was a futile effort. She had no raqeeb to erect a barrier that would protect her negligible progress; tomorrow, the hole would be filled in and she would have to start over.

But to Aisha, that didn't matter. It wasn't the point. She was there to prove that this wasn't a punishment to her, but what she had asked for—what she wanted.

So, despite the sweat and the pain, she continued digging and didn't stop until Hadi whistled the end of the work day. The stallions whooped their joy, loaded their baskets onto their backs, and began the thunderous journey back to camp. Hadi trotted behind them, his gaze locked with Aisha's as he passed her.

She waited until the group was over the dune before she slipped the strap of her canvas bag over her head and followed after them. The run home seemed longer than the morning's light trot with ache seizing every muscle, but the promise of food kept her hooves moving in the right direction.

When the colorful tents against the backdrop of desert came into view, the stallions were already being greeted by their families. Aisha saw her own and knew that, just like the days prior, she would return without welcome.

Sahar kept her attention focused on Adil as Aisha walked past them and toward where dinner waited. Jaddati acknowledged her with a dubious frown and flared her nostrils in warning.

"Stop where you stand," the old mare warned, moving to place herself between Aisha and the canopy. "You've neither made dye nor brought gems. You can wait until the others are ready to eat."

Aisha's stomach tightened in protest, but she relented by lowering her gaze.

Jaddati gave a stern nod. "Good. When you contribute, then you don't have to wait."

While the last of the dinner preparations were finished, Aisha remained where she was, glancing between Jaddati moving about under the canopy, and Hadi separating the herd's share of ore from each stallion's basket. It was an interesting juxtaposition that, for a moment, distracted her from hunger.

For many years, Aisha hadn't given much thought to the food that was served morning, noon, and night. It was simply placed in front of her, and she simply ate it.

Now, with Jaddati's words clear in her mind, she understood: the herd, the family, and the self—always in that order, and no other. The herd owned a portion of what the stallions mined and what the mares ground, which were traded for supplies to feed the families, so that each self could contribute to the herd.

Nothing was free. That which she ate came at a cost. That which she wanted—her freedom, her goals, her dreams—had a price. She wasn't free.

There was little time to dwell on that realization as everyone began to gather on the blankets for dinner, and Aisha's raging stomach dominated her conscious thought. She moved over to where her family sat and took her place near them, kept at a slight distance from the unspoken but definitive lack of welcome.

The steaming pilaf, seasoned bread, dried dates, and special treat of a single slice of starmelon on each plate had Aisha's mouth watering despite her parched tongue and throat. It was truly torturous to wait for the sheikha's arrival when she wanted nothing more than to devour the food in front of her.

Hooves drummed against the worn rug when Sheikha Wardee and her elders emerged from their tent, the noise underlined by the chimes of her jewelry. Today, she wore a magnificent display of silver chains and turquoise stones that draped down the back of her neck and over her chest.

When Wardee took her place in the very center, she stopped to allow her gaze to travel the horses spread out all around her. Her eyes were sharp with an intense focus that forced them all into silence.

"A young manticore," she began without preamble, "saw a Badawi herd cresting the horizon and turned to his companions to ask how to attack them, for the Badawi were many in number."

Aisha's hunger was momentarily forgotten as a chill sent the hairs of her coat standing on end. In all the years she'd sat there and listened to the stories Wardee would tell, she thought she had heard them all.

This was not a story she knew.

Wardee slowly lowered herself to sit, but her posture remained rigid. "The oldest of the manticores told him to go and ask the horses one by one who their leader was. So, the young manticore went to the Badawi herd and asked them about their leader."

Each elder raised a hoof to point at the sheikha and said in unison, "They all pointed to their sheikha and said that she was their leader."

"So," Wardee continued, "the manticore returned to his kind and asked what he should do. The oldest shook his head and told him not to attack, for he would surely perish. And, thus, the Badawi passed by the pride of manticores."

A mix of hunger and uncertainty gnawed at Aisha from the inside out, forcing her to break her gaze away from Wardee to eat from the plate of cooling food. It was easier to satiate her hunger than to soothe her nerves.

"Later, a group of Hadar travelers walked the same path, their greed carried upon their backs in the form of riches. The young manticore once again sought advice from his own, and once again the elder told him to seek the leader of the horses. This time, however, each one drew themselves up and proudly replied:"

"I am the leader," the elders said together.

When Aisha glanced up, she found a smile breaking through Wardee's otherwise placid expression.

"Upon hearing this, the old manticore said: 'This group is easy prey. Without a leader, there is no unity. Attack them one by one until they are eliminated.' And, thus, the pride was well-fed that day."

While most of the herd drummed their hooves against the rug in applause, Aisha heard Nawar ask, "Ummi, I'm scared!"

"Why is that, my little flower?" Sahar's voice was soft and loving, as it always was whenever it came to the twins.

Zahra whimpered. "What if the manticores come for us next?"

The chuckle Sahar gave almost irritated Aisha into glancing over at them. "They won't. That is the point of the sheikha's story. The Hadar follow only themselves. We, however, follow the sheikha, who follows Al-Seglawi. We are safe because we stand together."

Aisha tried to bury herself in eating, but she found that her appetite had gone. She pushed herself up and ignored the looks sent her way as she left the circle of her herd. Exhaustion was her prevailing concern, and second to it was the need to get away from the thought that chased her: was she like the Hadar in her mother's mind?

The darkness of her family's tent welcomed her, and she gladly accepted the embrace of the pillows she collapsed onto. All of her muscles let go of the tension that had constricted them in a tight grip. There, in that moment, she felt safe as she drifted off into the dreams that would coax her through the night.

Sleep was Aisha's only reprieve from the days of labor that began to seem pointless. Each brought her reminders that she didn't belong, and eventually she began to mark them by pain rather than by time.

The Plight of No Water, as its name suggested, was the day when Aisha discovered a tear in her canvas bag from which all of her water slowly leaked. That day had seemed the longest of them all as every breath clawed at her throat. Her tongue swelled up, her lips cracked and bled, and her head grew both light and heavy at the same time.

Of course, The Sand Storm was a mixed blessing from Al-Seglawi's habub, which ripped the landscape apart, piled dunes around each tent, and buried anyone foolish enough to roam outside. Aisha was able to rest her legs that were raw from the constant abrasion, but she had to endure prolonged close quarters with her mother. She was, by the next morning, grateful to return to the harsh desert.

The Scorpion's Sting was the most memorable, however. She had uncovered a burrowed nest of scorpions with her forelegs, which bore the brunt of their fury. Jaddati had tended to her wounds with care that was tempered by another lecture.

It was on the eleventh day that, after her father had left the tent, Aisha didn't move. There was no more ache within her; she was numb and empty. Nothing seemed worth one more day of torture when she could instead just give in, fall back asleep, and go back to an easy life.

And, yet, with a deep breath in, she pushed herself up. She forced herself to get dressed and keep moving forward. Too much time had been invested to give her mother the satisfaction.

When she finally stumbled out of the tent and over to have whatever was left for breakfast, she found someone waiting for her under the canopy—and it wasn't Jaddati.

"Aisha bint Sahar," Raqeeb Hadi said from where he sat alone, a covered plate in front of him. "Come. Eat before it gets cold."

Though her heart pounded with a mix of uncertainty and excitement, she lowered herself onto the blanket and nudged the cover off the plate of rice. Her eyes never left Hadi while she ate, and his never left her.

"You are stubborn, aren't you?"

Aisha paused in the middle of chewing. With a careful swallow, she straightened up to her tallest. "Yes."

There was a long pause before Hadi barked out a full-bellied laugh. "This is why I didn't want to work with a mare." He stood up, then tossed his head to gesture at where the stallions waited at the edge of camp. "Come."

Never had a single word filled her with more pride. It was a command—more than that, it was his respect. She finally belonged.

When she joined the stallions, Adil was the only one to greet her, a weary look in his eyes. "So, you'll continue this path?"

Without hesitation, Aisha held her head high and replied, "Yes."

His headdress fluttered with a soft sigh as he turned to follow the others when Hadi whistled for their departure. Just under the noise of hooves against the sand, Aisha heard him recite, "To understand the ways of a daughter is to understand the rain."

Aisha didn't need him to understand her. She had what she wanted, and that was what mattered.

The sun didn't feel quite so hot and the sand didn't bite as much that day. She knew the words to the work song without having to think about keeping the rhythm. And when the midday break was called, no bitter remarks were made. The water had never seemed sweeter, because it tasted of victory.

For the first time, her heart soared as they thundered toward the camp with the setting sun at their backs. She saw the line of mares waiting to greet the stallions and joined the chorus of joyous ululations, even knowing that no one was waiting for her. While her family greeted her father with love and affection, she was more than content with the shy and cautious smile Basma spared her.

It did not take long for life to become routine for Aisha. She slept, she ate, and she worked. The stallions of her herd, despite her father's occasional unsettled glances, began to accept her as one of their own. She learned how to dig with her hooves in the sand without striking so hard that she risked hitting the stone far beneath the dunes.

And she was happy.

Author's Note

This story is a part of the Quill & Blade universe.