Private Meze & Machinations

[Tsara Kez'Dar]

The fragrant smoke of incense bathed the room known to hold the clasping and clenching of the Mansa's many Hands, blue-grey against the white tapestries which draped across each wall and the crimson of the words of Faamaba's Mandate emblazoned across the lot of them. Nestled close to the Starthrone, the Tokura al-Shams' salon exchanged the invigoration of fresh air and natural light for the convenience of access to any part of the maze of hallways which deterred unwelcome visitors from making their way deeper into the Palace-on-High. It was filled thusly with light fabrics and the refreshing florality of lotus and water hyacinths, pillows and cushions sparsely studded with crystalline-beads which kept the air in the room from going stale. At its most central table, maps and tableaus for planning the realization of the Prophet's will sat, ringed by a stately cushion for each of the Hands in those rare times in which they all gathered as a single grasp.

When the Unforsakeable entered the chamber, the hidden door leading from a passageway that skirted the palace gardens also welcomed in the soft light of the gloaming hour. The breath of impending night stole the last gasp of the incense burning in its censure, which Tsara drank in with a comforting inhale as she eschewed the central table in favor of a pair of lounges closer to the southwestern corner of the room. It was evident from the expression of her face that she found comfort within the hidden place near the palace's heart, her gaze lingering upon the many volumes of records that the Great Order kept with knowledge gathered from every corner of Khurun. She was tempted, fidgeting with a ring of powder-blue crystal absently, to visit the myriad racks of scrolls to see what new knowledge could be within her grasp. Yet, the heavy platter she had just placed on the low-table called to her with the sweetness of baobab-spiced manakish and the savory smoke of charred vegetables. The largeness of the dish reminding her of the imminent nature of her planned company's arrival, she instead settled onto one of the settees.

Whilst waiting for the other hand, Tsara set about to making herself more comfortable. While she was capable of eating elegantly while talking, this space of shared purpose did not require the artifice of the Unforsakeable, and she had no desire to risk staining the dress of fabrics enchanted to mirror Nazuri's weave--she had been scolded enough times by her lady-in-waiting. Thus she unclasped the outer layers of her ensemble, revealing the more simple Suma-crafted trousers and shift that served as her house-wear, coiled her braids to sit neatly atop of her head, and removed the many jewels from her fingers and wrists.

Another of the chamber's doors opened just as she was tucking her jewelry away amidst the folds of her doffed gown: "Brother Marhukules, welcome! I brought us dinner to share. There isn't a chance by some great twist of Takoumba's shadow that you brought a satchel of makeup wipes with you? Is there?"

Tsara cleaned her fingers with the bowl of water and a cloth the kitchen had included with the platter of meze, offering the two to the man after she was finished with them.

 

[Marhukules]

"You still weep for her, do you not?"

Marhukules enjoyed the company of women, but there was no denying the beauty of the Mansa in that moment. He sits across from him and watches as he stands by the balcony of his solar. His white veil hides the stars in his eyes. The ones that many imagined whispered the Truth to him so that his words might shape reality or that willed reality to shape him as he must be for the world to be perfect. The Unassailable watched as his slender fingers rested on a balcony of marble coated in the dust of the crystals that nourished his people. The Mansa did not need to look upon him to know his thoughts. Perhaps it was because he knew the thoughts and minds and hearts of all of his people or perhaps it was because he was omniscient. Who was to say? Despite his own power, Marhukules was still but a mortal and if the legends were to be believed, the Mansa walked with the spirits themselves. He held counsel and made love and made war with things that he could scarcely understand.

The Mansa spoke again.

"Do not answer, old friend. I have seen your sorrows written upon the sands. I have held counsel with you in the past and have seen your soul rendered bare in eyes that have seen war. If the stories of Zara'jati are true, I know that she loved you fiercely. And to lose such a thing... I chose you as my ally long ago because I knew the foes you have faced and the courage in your heart. The evil that took that beauty away from the world exists still. Within our own people. Within our home, the desert itself... And in enemies we still face," he turns finally to face his champion.

His next words are a whisper....

_______________________
​

Salons were not his place and yet he understood the need of them. To accept the machinations of the Mansa meant that one needed to accept the need of speaking. Of politics and well wishes, genuine or otherwise. Such was his way. Elsewise, how else would their people bloom as they have. Words bore the path of Royalty just as war did. It was not hesitance to engage in the necessities that made his shoulders seem heavy. One might argue that it was the skin of the leopard that hung from his shoulders or the armaments he carried. The dagger at his hip or the great club that was slung across his back. Or even the gold bracers gifted to him by the Lioness when they'd retaken the city from the Great Pretender long ago. The ones that told of his deeds and all the men he'd felled as he waded through blood and shit to reach glory. Alchemy in motion.

The Unassailable has never met the eyes of the Unforsakeable. He was wary that she might bewitch him as it was rumored she'd done the Mansa long ago. And perhaps even the Faamaba as she was known to keep the company of women and appreciate their form. But he'd always respected her as a sister. Today was different. When she spoke to him, he met her gaze for but a moment. The only indicated that he'd appreciated her humor was the very ghost of a grin for the Unassailable did not smile. Should he ever do so, the sun would sink beneath the clouds for the final time and the Greatest City That Is, Was, or Will Be would fall into the sands and never be seen again. A thing that was said and a thing that perhaps he'd taken into his soul.

"Alas Sister, I have not," he responds, intentionally quiet and yet his baritone carries. He washes his hand in the water and cloth and his belly rumbles to life in response to smelling the dinner prepared for him. Pride or something he cannot describe prevents him from mentioning that he has not supped and longs for it....

 

[Tsara Kez'Dar]

For most, to gaze upon Marhukules was to see a tool not unlike the club he was typically armed with. Both reflected the salon's soft light, hardbodied and polished to dead efficacy by unfathomable violence. The man's features expressed about as much emotion as the unyielding wood, yet to be unchanging was to be a canvas for the emotions of those that beheld. To be painted with the fears, hopes, and dreams of people who had little desire to know the history of such a tool beyond the deft hand it acted as an extension of.

Yet, Tsara knew that just like his club, Marhukules was hewn from a living thing that had once been soft. Whether branch or boy, the shaping conflict between internal growth and the outside world bent and battered, bent and battered, until they grew so Unassailable as to never be bent or battered again. It took much effort to look beyond the edifice of scar tissue that shone like varnished ebony to see the subtle ways in which Marhukules' heart had yet to harden.

Truthfully, few probably were permitted to even spend enough time with the Mansa's most devoted Hand to know to watch for such moments. It just so happened that Tsara was Unforesakeable, and thus had the opportunity to attend to such moments with the rigor of Takoumba's eight watchful eyes.

As her brother-in-arms walked into the room, she noted both a softness and a heaviness. It was in the way he paced across the finely woven Miradi rugs to join her, surely, but there was something in his manner she could not leave alone. She knew well enough that such softness, such as the previously unthinkable moonshadow of a near-smile, was only possible when Marhukules had been with -Him-.

Nebu, may his wisdom forever raise Miradj'Dah ever closer to Aja're's embrace, had an undeniable impact on all that were graced with his presence, but the Unassailable became ever the more human when with his Mansa. So for such softness to be accompanied by such a weight meant the Prophet had his Hand bear either terrible knowledge or a daunting task.

It was not Tsara's place to unravel such mysteries, the Mansa wove her future much as Nazuri wove the sky and Takoumba shadow. She knew that if she was meant to know, she would eventually know. No, what she needed to concern herself with was dinner.

"Ah brother, how foolish of your sister how foolish. Of course you would not! What cause would you have for such when your natural beauty captures the hearts of poets and professors alike?" She set her face to stony neutrality, tilting her head hither and thither as if she were posing for a portrait. Then the growl of the man's stomach broke the momentary silence. "Aja're's Tears, you must eat Marhukules! Eat!"

With a deftness trained by many nights of plying foreign dignitaries and merchants with food and wine, Tsara ripped a piece of the manakish to spread with fakoye and wrap around a tender-grilled eggplant before stuffing it into one of the man's hands before she beset his other with a cup of sweet djablani.

Satisfied that the other Tokura al-Shams had first been served, the Unforsakeable did much of the same for herself, first however slaking her thirst with the well-spiced ginger juice before she dug in to the food.

"You know brother, what I said earlier about poets and professors was no mere jest," she professed. "I came upon a most interesting stall in the night market earlier this week. It seems that the purveyor had quite a singular fixation that suffused the art, booklets, and even clothing sold there."

Tsara's chagrin was evident in her voice, her wicked smile evident even around the bite of yam that she held daintily infront of her mouth, bits of black fakoye dripping onto the palm of the hand she used to prevent a mess being made of her pants.

"Oh, and you wouldn't believe the name! Marhukules Is Magnificent! I did make a recommendation, of course, such a title simply does little justice to the air of mystery that drives the obsession of the shopkeep and customers. I thought The Marvels of Marhukules would be much more suitable, don't you think so?"

 

[Marhukules]

He'd dreamed that morning of her again. He shared a hammock with her at the edge of the desert, near the sea that dreamed... Barzabar had struck her again and even with a bruised visage, she was still the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Perhaps he'd gotten his stoicism from his mother. She never cried or perhaps the desert had dried her tears long ago as it was want to do. Takoumba taught his people hard lessons. He remembered when he still had yet to learn them. He wept and longed to rend the world into many pieces in heartbreak for his Mara'jati's suffering. For who was she but a Spirit of Mercy that sang to him and reminded him of all that he was and could be? He remembered the way his chest jumped and the way his fingers tightened in a jealous rage against the colorful fabrics she wore. He expressed his rage. Promised her that one day he would carry her away and take care of her. And she would just sing to him and run her fingers in his hair as the hammock swayed. She reminded him that he would grow to be strong. Marvelous. And that all pain was temporary...

The day she took her last breath, he'd sat in the hammock alone and looked out into the sea...

He wondered if it still there.
​

"Hrn... Marvelous," he cast his gaze downward and chewed on the word the same way he chewed on the eggplant placed into his palms made of granite and shaped by warfare. There were many children of the desert and on foreign shores that would disagree. A wise Miradi once told him that heartbreak begets serenity. Such a feeling had eluded him. He'd only added to the cycle and created children that would one day become as dangerous as he... Slowly, he moved his club to lay across the fine carpet. He set aside his belt, the bejewled hilt of his dagger reflecting magnificent colors where candle and torchlight hit it.

"A fine title for stories, I suppose. The truth has always been a blacker thing... There is a child who wakes up everyday without a father or mother to help them withstand hardship. A reality I create as often as the dunes shift."

He sipped the ginger juice, perhaps to wash down the words he spoke. They felt foreign to him. His was a voice suited to barking orders or howling at Nzuri's sky and the Mother's splendor with the neck veins of his enemies hanging from his teeth. Though he supposed the shadow of war brought more truths out of a man than even he would care to admit. It crept over the horizon, ominous like a storm carrying angry djinn behind it's whirring sands. He met her gaze for but a moment and looked out at the setting sun, the Mother shown brightly in the sky, her many-colored rings resplendent.

"Such is my way..."

 

[Tsara Kez'Dar]

Tsara held Marhukules' gaze as long as he allowed, the shimmering of the golden paint that lined each of her eyes dancing not unlike the jewels of his dagger in the amber light of myriad small flames. Thinking on his words, the woman wondered for a brief moment if she too were not unlike the dunes. Had entire lineages not been felled by the sharp edge of her gilt tongue? As the Unforeseeable had she not also killed parents, sometimes even in their own homes as they slept? What children were left in the wake of her workings? Would any of them persist to too create themselves from near nothing, true history left buried beneath the sand just as she had done?

Perhaps, and if they too threatened the sacred order and brought heresy into the world she would strike them down as well. For she serves as a Hand to He-Who-Sees-All, and it is He who speaks the Truth and thus guides the Greatest City There Is, Was, Or Will Be and all Miradi to their destiny.

"Brother, I think how well your ways are known is the very reason the people of our city craft such things," her voice was soft, losing the playful edge that had previously colored it. "What you do is in their service, ultimately. For while the Mansa is the heart and mind of Miradj'Dah, its body is the people. People who would rather bask in the perfection of the Mother and her many gifts than know the plight brought upon the land should the winds no longer move the dunes across desert. It is all balance my brother, why else would He ask such tasks of you if not?"

Shifting on her cushion, the sandy-brown of her billowy trousers stark against the vibrant indigo silk, Tsara leaned forward to thoughtfully select her next combination of meze. Fresh cucumber and cold lentils fragranced with saffron she bound together with a bit of bread, giving just a moment to Marhukules to reflect upon her words.

"Now, enough about you and your adoring fans," she declared, popping another slice of cucumber into her mouth. "Tell me of the world! What is it that you have heard dear Brother? More importantly, what is it that you have done? You know, finally has my business with the rogue Takoumba’ni and her heretic lovers ended and I long to set my sights beyond the edge of Miradj'Dah once more. If I never have to enter a gambling den again I would count myself lucky!"

 

[Marhukules]

He eyed the rugs as he turned her words over in his mind...

He recalled the first time he ever met the Mansa in that camp so long ago and it felt like they were perhaps even a whole world away. He'd come in robes of white linen, pure and simple. The dust from the sands did not cling to him as it did the common man and when he spoke, Marhukules knew the Truth was there in his speech. And he fell in love with the feeling of it. He knew that he'd fight the rest of his days to protect it and to protect this place he had learned to call his home. His own people wandered into the desert. Perhaps they'd been devoured by Takoumba's machinations or perhaps they thrived in their secrecy. But he'd become Miradi at the side of the Prophet, wreathed in glory and blood and the admiration of the people.

A man could not help but wonder what truths other people held close to them. What drove them to pick up the sword and risk their very soul and legacy? For the gods had many names and the spirits knew boundaries outside of the deserts they called home and far away from the Spires that protect them from the cloying miasma of corruption in the world beneath them. Were they right to forsake the world to pursue their glory so close to the Mother's embrace?

Others might call his musings heresy. To bring it before the Mansa may well have made him smile. He did love to unravel such questions and delve into the mysteries of men's hearts. A thing that the Unassailable once found troublesome.

"I find it difficult to imagine you in such a place. The Palace suits you so..." he spoke plainly, sipping his ginger juice before looking at the cup and downing it. The weight on his shoulders required something harder. He reached to grab the flask from his belt and poured a clear liquid where sweetness once was. He offers it to Tsara. The look he gives her tells the story. She will perhaps need it before night's end. Her shoulders would become just as heavy.

"I've just returned from Dadj'rhan. The last city before the isle that connects the two great lands... I went on His orders just to watch and speak with it's people. They suffer there. The Empire pulls them ever into their shadow..."