Maliha

“You can come out now, she has gone” voice rumbling like a lion’s warning growl. It was not a request.

Her bare feet glided across the floor, her thin white nightgown swishing at her legs as she stepped over the threshold. Her milky green eyes peering up at the shadows Ujarak’s body created. The moment she stepped further into the light she noticed that the amber hue that had coloured his eyes had dwindled down. The embers of fire seeping out of his eyes until nothing, but dark brown orbs stared back at her.

He was an intimidating piece of work, crafted like marble and stone, his face was strongly chiselled, lips pursed as he remained stoic to Maliha’s state of undress.

“I didn’t mean to-” her words cut off by the abrupt wave of his hands.

“You did mean to listen, Maliha,” goose bumps rising along her skin at the way her name tumbled from his lips.

“Perhaps not initially, but you did not leave when you came upon us”

It was the truth, she had heard their voices and followed them and though she hadn’t intentionally meant to listen in on a private conversation, their voices were the only reason she had left her room. Regardless, she hated the way in which he spoke to her. It was not blatant but the way his lips curled, and his face lightly sneered, it was clear to see that he had an issue with her.

“You don’t like me,” her voice soft and hesitant knowing that his answer would not be a kind one.

“I do not know you Maliha” but his deep brown eyes suggested otherwise.

They suggested that he knew the deepest part of her being. His eyes insinuated that he knew her soul and that he found it lacking, that she was lacking in some way. Such blatant disregard to her person made her feel so small.

So, insignificant

She felt like nothing

Like a piece of ash blowing in the wind and disappearing into nothingness, but instead of cowering under the tall and intimidating stature of this male, she met him head on. Her spine unbending even as she felt as if she would wilt under his strong stare.

“But yet I still I sense you do not like me Ujarak, why is that so?” His name was foreign to her tongue, exotic yet solid. It was an odd name he had, the origin of it unknown to her.

His chest rumbled as he sighed deeply, his body shifting forwards as he perched himself against the desk.

“I do not dislike you Maliha,” he dismissed, “I dislike what my tribe whispers about you,”

His words automatically had her back rising, confusion lining her face. “What do they say- about me?” Her eyes shuttered to the floor as she shoved a short piece of hair away from her face.

She couldn’t explain why but she wanted this tribe to like her. She had never met a people like them and though they were so hard and cold, the culture they shared was one she wanted a part of, if only for a little while. The way they treated each other was with reverence, each person was a valued member of the tribe everyone but her and perhaps Xiuri, though Xiuri was more welcomed than Maliha would ever be.

She feared what they whispered about her but at the same time she was tired of being an outsider.

“They think you may be the one promised to us or that you are a sign that she is coming,” he sighed deeply, resigned to the conversation they were about to have.

“The one promised? I don’t understand,” brows knitted and arms folded.

“The survival of our tribe is connected to the correct bloodline sitting upon our throne. Every year the Der Surjaz tribe goes without her, our people suffer”

Maliha doubted they suffered, they had food plentiful, sunshine, a fresh water source. They were in the god’s favour and yet he spoke of suffering as if they truly knew the word.

“I can see your thoughts; you think that because we have food a plenty we do not suffer”

She hoped he couldn’t read her thoughts quite literally because her mind was a minefield. She thought things of Ujarak that she knew he would be displeased with, her mind was her sanctuary. They had taken everything else, she hoped they would leave her with her free mind.

“Tell me this Maliha, how often do you see children wandering around our lands?”

Often, she thought. This land was rich with the sound of childish laughter. Such pure energy from the most innocent and purest of human forms.

“And how many of them would you say are girls?”

At that her mouth dropped open, her mind reeling with what he had so obviously pointed out to her. There were hardly any girls if any at all. Of all the new born and toddlers, she had seen hardly any of them, if any, had been girls.

“Our tribe is dying because if the true woman does not lead then our production of women decreases until all we can produce are males.”

It was a daunting future, a world without women. A world where women would be imported or taken from other tribes because to not do so would mean the eventual annihilation of a tribe.

“Men are valuable among this tribe, they protect and help provide the future. They fight battles like no other but the women...”

His head shook, and his eyes glazed as if in deep memory, “The women of our tribe carry a ferocity like no other, a deep-rooted community, full of wisdom and generosity. With our women at the helm, we are balanced, without them we are damned.”

His words were so solemn and sombre, but they filled Maliha with renewed energy that floated threw her being. How could they value women so much?

In all her travels, she had seen women respected to different degrees. In some tribes, they were nothing but vessels to carry the young and further the tribe. In others, they were more respected but still they were a home giver. Only a few tribes, like that of the Feri tribe, accepted women as equals. Women in that tribe were encouraged to be as fearless as the men but even then, there were limits.

Never had she encountered a tribe where women were the heart, the life and soul of the tribe. It filled her with sadness to see how far from their origin this tribe had fallen.

“We are lost Maliha” such despair in his voice.

“And they think I can help?” His deep eyes glaring into hers, “but you do not?” She stammered, her teeth sinking into her lip as deep disappointment filled her.

“I know you aren’t,” he spat

“How do you-”

His harsh voice shut her up, her jaws snapping closed with a sharp clack, “My mother was the last true leader of this tribe, she held Savuriya above all. You do not.”

“How do you-” her words faltered at his snarling mouth, lips contorted as his teeth gleaned threateningly.

“When you were whipped to a writhing person on the floor, not once did you pray to her. Worse yet, you do not know the origin of human kind because if you did you would understand why you can never be the one...”

Each anger filled word hit her like the lash of Tanzim’s whip, slicing through her skin with pointed precision. Her eyes drifted shut as the feel of her warm blood ebbing from her body filled her mind. Her chest wheezing with breathlessness at the god-awful pain.

“Yet there is a part of you that thinks it may be true,” she whispered, tears pooling along her eyelids at his harsh tone and poor opinion of her. It was bizarre that no matter where she went Maliha always seemed to want the disdain and anger of people, perhaps there was a fault in her being. Perhaps she was wrong.

“I do not know what I-” she murmured hesitantly, her long lashes casting downwards. Her hands clenching along her thighs as she gained enough gumption to face Ujarak head on, his flickering orbs and hard jaw causing her heart to thump erratically.

“I do not know what I did to make you think so low of my character.” Her voice clear as she kept eye contact for all five seconds before her head was lowering back to the ground, she felt like a child begging for attention from a sour faced parent.

A huge huff of air whooshed from his lips as he sunk further into his perched place on the desk.

“Nothing... Nothing and everything. Even now as I berate you, you stand here with tears in your eyes and a look of betrayal as if I owe you anything. Perhaps I am wrong to judge you so harshly, but you only prove me to be right when you cry like some weakling.”

“The leader of this tribe has always had strength and courage, they would never mumble away with hurt feelings. You need a stronger spine.” His tone was softer, laced with sympathy and pity as if she were some weak and dying bird that did not realise it was on the verge of death.

His pitying look, kindled burning flames of all consuming fire, igniting a strength in Maliha she had never felt before. She was not weak! Never had been and never would be!

“You think your spine is stronger because you sit there and berate me for being a gentle soul? I have more strength than you will never know because in this moment when all I can think about is throttling you to death, I walk away with my head held high knowing that I have not brought any bad energy my weary.” Her steps measured as she stepped her fighting moves towards him.

“So, what if I cry? You think it is a weakness to show I am hurt? That I am not courageous because I show my emotions?” She scoffed, her hand beating down on the desk as short choppy strands of hair whipped along her face.

“I think you are weak Ujarak, you are weak in every way that I am strong,”

She felt that to be true in this very moment.

“I stood up for Xiuri when everyone else in your tribe stood by and watched! I did that!”

Her hand thumped against her chest, the responding clap of her words rising through her chest and resonating into her being.

“And in that moment, I though you could have been her but your tears,” his hand waving dismissively.

He was disappointed

Disappointed in her and in himself. Himself mostly for believing that this mere slip of a woman could be her or even someone important. Maliha was no one but yet he had that feeling that she could be someone.

Someone important but it was so hard to resonate the present Maliha to the woman she would need to be in order to lead. She did not have it, as much as he desperately wished she did, he knew she didn’t.

She was just another wandering soul, another female who had reached the Der Surjaz land bringing the whispered promises of a better future to only have those dreams remain stagnant. They were disappearing now, that dream.

The stories of the land his mother knew was dying.

The tribe was dying and when the last Der Surjaz tribesman closed their eyes and breathed their last breath they would take their legacy with them.

It was a sad future to wait for, but it was one he could believe in more than the possibility that this scraggly waif of a woman would be the one.

She was nothing like his mother, a woman with integrity and strength. She never cried, even when she had held the still body of the prayed for girl, whilst her son squirmed for her. She did not cry. Even when she never birthed another child after that. Even when death greeted her with its heart-breaking hold, his mother did not cry.

She never cried and no leader of his, no Solah of his would cry over spilt milk.

It wasn’t done

“I am sorry Maliha, but you are not her, you are not my Sujurrah”

She stood there, her body solid but her eyes dimming as if her being was collapsing in on itself. She looked frail and heartbroken, proving to him that she was everything that he did not need. Her chin buried into collarbone as she created a shadow around her face with her dark hair.

Lips wobbling and hands shaking as if she would faint.

But then there was the subtlest of changes in her body posture, her hands stopped shaking and a soft sigh eased from her lips.

When her eyes met him next they were deep with emotion and conviction.

“Tears do not make you weak Ujarak, they make you strong because I am able to feel. I would rather feel and be considered weak then to be cold and considered strong”

“Can you say the same?” Her head tilting as she headed to the door.

She would not wait around to hear his answer. She didn’t even want to know what his reply would be. Her hips swayed as she sauntered past him, a big paw reaching out and grabbing her wrist.

Her eyes clenched closed as a remorseful tone washed over her.

“I was out of line”

He had been.

“I shouldn’t have berated you like that”

No, he shouldn’t have.

“I don’t know your struggle-”

“And quite frankly, you never will Ujarak because you see the world in black and white and I see it in colour,” she interjected, her hand me on her hips as she finally whipped around to face him.

His response was a noncommittal hum, as if her words meant nothing but she could see the apology in his face.

Perhaps his pride would never allow him to give her a proper apology, or perhaps his verbal acknowledgment of his wrongdoing was his idea of one.

Maliha was never able to ask because as her lips parted in preparation to ask those questions, a sharp ringing filled the air.

Clanging of metals ringing around the room.

“It’s time to eat” he murmured over the dangling chimes of the whistling bells.

His back turned to her revealing a large swirling pattern of black markings. Vivid dark flames swirling until they disappeared into the band of his trousers.

His shoulders bunched as he swaggered out of the room and Maliha followed like a moth to a flame.