The Dragon and The Nomad

(3) A Lifetime Ago

The days have been strange and the nights even stranger than the days. There are many patrons that visit this brothel, but there were even more people that come to its doors more than usual that thrilled the Madam. It went as far as rolling out the red carpet in the lobby and entrance for these new “patrons” with expensive scents and servants dressed better than me.

All of them are first cloaked with a sheet of darkness and I wouldn’t see their faces till they pull the hood down their heads and show their supple and ethereal beauty. Their eyes held no hardship, but I saw the cruelty behind it.

And every night, I hide in the small storage room that is also where I sleep, with only a sheet as my door, and I hear it—the moaning and often times the hitting. I’ve grown used to the sound of flesh hitting flesh, but this wasn’t it. it was torture. I hear his guests, but I never heard him make a sound and at this point, I know what he sounds like more than the beating of my own heart.

Even though it’s just been less than a week since I’ve served him, I cannot help my gift from having a mind of its own and it keeps showing me glimpses of small things. Things like oranges, which means he loves drinking and eating oranges and I get him that from the kitchen. Then things like an open window, which means he loves the morning air and I open it for him before he wakes.

There are bits of me that are frustrated with this gift. It’s never straightforward, but I hear my mother whispering to me, the usual whenever I’m frustrated.

Karina and her ways are mysterious, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong or that it’s for nothing. Just listen and you’ll see

I sigh. The dusty air of my room woke me up with a sneeze. I smell what’s left of the morning air when it manages to reach my space. It pulls me up from my mat and reminds me of another day. Another morning, and I feel hope.

Karina is with you

Because Karina is hope itself.

I fold my rug and tuck my pillow inside that fold. I push it to the empty space on the lowest shelf and stretch. My palms already reaching the ceiling, but in all honestly, I’m not that tall. I am perhaps the smallest in the clan, and everyone literally has to look down on me, because everyone in town is a large, tall being compared to us. I mean, to me.

The morning routine has me taking the medicine kit from the top shelves along with clean towels from another shelf. It has become a morbid reality, but my sense of hope is still there. Karina has not left me. Marina has sneaked enough medicine through her connections to me, which I’m grateful for because most of the things that I asked aren’t easy to procure.

All of it would be needed for me to help the doll.

I enter his bedroom without looking at anything else, but at the windows. They were closed last night since the patron didn’t like the cold air too much, so I open them now to let the morning air in. I wait for the smell of the room to be carried out and to let the air circulate before I turn and face the bed

The patrons do not sleep here, Madam has been pissy for a while when she discovered that the standard of this brothel is far too low to the new patron’s taste to even stay and sleep here, and no matter how much she changes her interior, they would not stay.

The bloody sheets and the wounds don’t surprise me anymore. Not when I know who it was who went through the doors with shrouds. Her eyes held nothing but danger and hungry cruelty that I don’t understand. Karina warns me horribly to stay away. I had to pry my eyes away from her lilac eyes and deep in me, I knew that she does not respect a single thing in this world other than herself.

Seeing her cruelty in such an early morning is even more deplorable. I feel the bite of my tears, but I hold my breath. The doll doesn’t like it when I’m even troubled by anything. He’s a strange fellow, but I trust him since there isn’t anything to be afraid of when it comes to him.

“Good morning” I whisper softly to the morning air.

He rouses, softly. A soft groan escapes his lips with drops of blood on them. “…Ami…rah?”

“Yes” I slowly sit beside him and take what I brought from the storage room. “I’m going to dress you with some salves and bandages now. Don’t worry, I have pain killers”

The whip marks are shallow, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t hurt. There is a lot of them that intersect with each other and some still ooze with blood that worries me. I quickly clean them first before putting in the medical gel to help his wounds to close. It’s the most expensive kind that Madam demanded I use only for him and no one else.

I patch the adhesive dressings to his skin. From the front of his body and trailing down till I reach his thick legs. Hard with muscles yet lean with supple skin that I cannot begin to understand what kind of life he must’ve had before this.

The guards outside the door called him a Fallen Angel. A fallen angel is a heavenly being that is also winged but they aren’t Dragons but was struck down by their god due to some disgrace. An old legend of an old civilization that has died a long time ago. I can’t begin to imagine what they truly look like since a part of me cannot believe that this doll would do anything disgraceful.

Just because he’s here doesn’t mean he’s done something horrible that it can’t be forgiven. I know firsthand that the future in front of us seems to be both laid out and objective. There are days that I could see and feel the future for hours or even days, but mostly it is just snippets and a strong feeling of intuitions in my gut.

Ama had trained me into always trusting my gut. It’s the first indication of the gift and it should be heard no matter what. This manifested in me when I was young, around my fifth year of life, I told my family to wear something to cover us from the rain and to set camp as both rain and a sandstorm would arrive and that is always a painful ordeal. Ama and Aba were listening to me with wide eyes and a look between them came to pass.

There was a part of me that thought that they wouldn’t listen because adults don’t really listen to their children’s ramblings. No one does. But to my surprise, they did. They told the clan to set camp and quickly even though it was a clear day and good enough to trek more of the desert.

Just listen Aba once told them. Let’s listen to what Karina is saying

When every tent was set up and we’re bundled in clothes to fight the cold that would seep in, the rain and sandstorm came in with thunder and lightning after an hour. Our tents held on, but the sound of the weather is enough to keep any child from sleeping. It was the time my Ama told me what my gift is and that we are blessed to have it back in the clan again.

Apparently, her grandmother had the gift, but since her death, it has been twenty years since anyone was born with this, it used to be the whole clan who has such an ability, but it soon dwindled and skips a generation. My mind can’t properly wrap around the idea of a whole clan with a gift of Karina. People with gifts like me.

I smile at the thought. It would feel less lonely.

Doll raises his bloody arm and taps his index finger to the middle of my forehead. I pause at the motion. “What are you…thinking?”

I ease myself and take his raised arm to wipe the blood away, his strong hands slightly squeezing every time my hands graze it with the towel. “Of home,” I say. “Of my family”

“Tell me about them” his eyes twinkle in a way that made me feel safe. It is a strange feeling to have just from looking someone in the eyes. “You never told me about them”

I chuckle. “All I ever talk about is my home and where I came from when you have yet to answer anything about you”

“There is nothing interesting about me other than the things that you know now.” There is bitterness at the end of his voice, but it always comes and goes. Even if it does though, I still pause from my work to comforting rub his chest. My own heart squeezes from hearing such a voice from him. He smiles, slightly “I am okay Amirah”

“A bloody body and a voice like that is not okay,” I say as I finally take my hand away. This is not the way that people act around here and I should conform till I get home. “I know that I have mentioned my family before”

He nods. “Just your brother and not anyone else”

“Ah, I haven’t?” I hum. “Well, Ama is my mother. She is a sweet woman, but she’s also firm especially when my father and other members had to hunt—”

“Is hunting just a male’s role?”

I shake my head. “No, it’s just that my Ama doesn’t have the patience for it. She’s very impatient that my Aba once said that her cooking is terrible because most of it is raw.”

He smiles. “She sounds like a great woman”

“She is, she bought me my first bow and arrow for the hunt. My Aba and I would ride the horses and into the fields to catch wild games. We do not take females because they are needed to continue life and Aba could always gauge whether one is male or not even from miles away with just one look” I massage his arms this time. I feel his muscles tensing all of a sudden. “Aba would always send me first to the fields because I’m the fastest and the best with a bow and spear. Although, my brother is the strong one. I might be the best at it, but he always points out that I only have my gif—my accuracy and speed. I admit most of my spears do not have enough strength to hit the heart of a deer.”

“You hunt?” He asks, incredulous. “Is that safe?”

I nod. “It's the way of my people for years. I am more sure of riding a horse than those hovercrafts that most of the rich have. It does not sit well with me.”

He caresses my cheek with the same arm I’ve been massaging. His palm is strong, but it wasn’t rough at all. “You’re so small that’s why”

“I don’t think size is the problem in hovercraft—”

“you’re too small to hunt” he cuts me off with such a sober look that I purse my lips closed. “bow and arrows are fine, but spears could knock you off the horse with one small mistake.”

I smile “You’re not wrong, but my Aba said that I was so small when I first started that it feels like I’ll be knocked down from the air and I have fallen enough times to know what a broken bone feels”

He frowns. His brows scrunch together. He looks displeased that made the hollow of my stomach sit uncomfortably. He opens his mouth, but I quickly stand before he could say anything else. “I shall get your food. You must be hungry, and the kitchen would’ve gotten your food ready by now. Excuse me”

I leave him with the first aid kit and the medical salve for his wounds that I don’t see from the robe he draped over his privates. I only blush now that I’m out of the door of the suite. The guards that brought him here are sitting on lounge chairs on each side of the door, looking covertly like patrons than guards. They take note of me but naturally looked away, the both of them don’t look all interested in the naked flesh around the room, but the blonde one has ordered bottles of wine, yet he doesn’t look the least bit drunk.

I take a deep breath. The pinprick feeling over my skin doesn’t leave me and I could feel my blush wearing me than I it. I quickly go through the servant's stairs that lead directly to the service rooms that only we use. Keeping my head down and ignoring the carnal stench and sounds of the different rows of rooms I’ve passed by just to get to the kitchen.

“How was today?” Marina jumps at me the moment I’m inside the kitchen doors. Her smile widening at the sight of me. “Looks like you’re still getting along”

I purse my lips. “He is a nice person, yes”

“Not really what I meant” She pats my shoulder and marches

I eye her curiously. “You’re being strange. Did something happen?”

She smiles widely over her shoulder before turning to the laid-out tray of food. “I heard the news about your brother”

My heart almost skipped a beat. I grab a tray for Doll and follow in quick steps behind Marina. “What did you hear?”

“He’s safe at the very least because he did pass by here and an inn owner heard he’s on his way to the west border until he changed his course for the capital”

“The west border?!” I almost feel my hands drop the tray. “Why…I don’t—”

“Calm down first, at least we have a trail. My cousin is amazing as long as there is a trail to follow”

Marina walks up the servant's stairs with me. “He’s alive…he’s alive”

“Yes, Amira, he’s alive.” she gave me a confused look. “I don’t know why you’ve jumped to a conclusion that he’s dead”

Because I saw it. “Yeah, I’m just being overly worried”

“Yes, so calm down and serve that doll of yours. I’ll see you in the festival, right?”

I meekly nodded. “I’ll have a free time later.”

“No patrons?”

I shake my head.

“That’s rare. That doll of yours had nonstop visitors for a while”

“I know, but Madam said he should have one night’s of rest at least”

“Well, it seems like hell froze over then.” Marina turns the opposite way once we reach the end of the stairs. “The Madam isn’t known for giving such things. Well, I’m needed in the east wing. You be careful while I’m gone, okay?”

“I’ll be fine”

She looks me up and down. “I hope so”

When we parted ways, my mind is plagued with visions. The one that plagued me since we lost contact with him and it doesn’t end. The one that ends up with him bloody and alone whispering words to the sky that I couldn’t hear.