Hello again! Sorry this update is a little late, I've been a bit sick and very busy with exams. That said, it's extra long, and we meet a new character who will end up being pretty important, so I hope you like it! Also, there's some strong language, so you've been warned. I hope none of you are easily offended. And as always, thanks for reading!

- Swpoet

Pt. 2- Supplication

Ch. 1- O'otani

            For the first time, the bright sunlight filtering in through the thick iron bars is unwelcome. Standing in front of the window, wrapped in only a bed sheet, I think that I'd rather have the dark.

            Every other morning I've coveted the rays of sunlight that found their way through the thick glass and metal and into my eyes. Even if they only lit the dusty courtyard, untended and barren, the light reminded me something beyond my one-room prison existed. Something vast and wide, an out I longed for, lusted after. The horizon captivated me for hours on end.

            But now- now the light looks wrong.

            It's mellow, the sun having just risen. Once I would have found its golden tint calming. Now it just lies languid over the land, a woman sprawled across her sickbed, sapped of all intensity and vitality.

            And when the intensity comes at noon, when the sun is a firebrand and the sand turns hot enough to burn bare feet, it will be a corpse on its death bed, an oppressive dead weight, cooking from its own heat- emitting the vapors of rot- tainting the air itself.

            But the air is already tainted, I think as I breathe it in. It sits heavy in my lungs, thick as water, tinged red and tasting of iron. It's a sick air, a sick sun, a sick woman standing before it all, disgusted with the very ground she walks on.

            The entire country is infected.

            I rake my fingers down the glass, crushingly, a snarl on my face. I almost expect it to crack from the force of my anger, righteous and hot. But my fingernails warp and break instead, leaving me with five more jagged edges.

            I stare at the courtyard for a while, not really seeing anything. I meditate for a while on the abstract image of the dead woman, the sun, her corpse decomposing, the bones left to bleach white on the sand. Rot spreading, filling up the land, filling up me, choking me like the thick-as-water air.

            I let the sheet drop, grown hot. There's no one to look up and see me, no one in that little courtyard, and even if there was I wouldn't care. Let them look, let them see all of me, all of the sharp edges and muscle and the knees bruised from landing hard on the wood of the gallows.

            If anyone saw me now, I can't imagine them leering. No longing or voyeuristic pleasure taken from an exposed expanse of skin. This body- I hesitate to call it my body this morning- this body is a map of violence. If anyone saw, they would not see the woman, but the wounds.

            I realize belatedly my hands are moving on their own accord, tracing the marred topography of my sallow skin. Bruises on legs and knees, deep purple already. My wrists were bitten into by the rope that bound them. I wear bracelets of raw flesh.

            The worst is my neck. I have no mirror, but I can feel the damage. Indentations from the rope's knots, burned and chafed skin, now raw, red, and weeping clear liquid. I touch this new necklace, too, wincing in pain when my fingers make contact.

            I can still hear his voice, as clearly as if he was standing behind me and whispering in my ear. I hand you your life...

            I dig my nails deeper, hissing in pain, but still the voices come.

            "Traitor," a man yelled as a faceless guard pulled me up, dragging me down from the place where I was supposed to die.

            "Savior," an old woman whispered, fingering my dirty tunic like it was something holy. I was too disoriented to shrink from her touch.

            "Whore," a woman spit at me as I walked mechanically back to the palace, following where I was lead. I saw the violence in her expression, the hate, and I wanted to explain. It was all a lie, this is all a lie, all a play... a jest... but I had no words, and no energy to feel much at her accusation.

            The worst was the last man who spoke to me. "Protector," he said. The translation of Izsaiki, an old Shikkan word, into common Alyezsin. I couldn't tell if he was accusing me or praising me. Still, the one word went through me like a weapon. Protector of the damned, I thought, damned herself, though the devils call her saved.

            Traitor, savior, whore, protector. The words dance around inside my head, almost driving me mad at their intensity. And what am I? I am all four, all at once.

            Traitor to Shira. I wince, another knife through me. I had no way of knowing it would come to this. I had no idea what my silence would allow- I was manipulated-

            I sigh, lowering my hand to my side, fingernails now crusted with blood. Traitor still, intentional or not.

            Savior to a little maid no one else cared for, who saved me herself.

            Whore because I let them fuck my reputation into a bloody heap in the town square to keep that child alive. Whore because I let the city think that I am the accomplice of that- that creature.

            Protector because I am the Izsaiki, whatever that title means now. Even if it means nothing, it is still carved into my soul. I cannot dissever myself from it, not now, not ever.

            Even though I want to, goddess knows I do. After yesterday, I want nothing tying me to Arzsa.

            They just stood there and watched.

            They were scared, I can understand fear, but then they began to listen. And they swallowed every word he said like it was some magic elixir come to raise them to prosperity. And by the time he finished, they were jeering, and cheering on my death.

            They are infected now. Maybe they always were. Animals, a blind, stupid herd that will follow any shepherd with a soothing voice and an air of authority. Abandoning me, abandoning our memory, abandoning centuries of history because they cannot think farther than their own grasping hands.

            Let them burn, I think. They're the traitors. They might have protested. They might have rushed the gallows and cut Sholu down. They might have done something, anything. But they turned into puppets and they danced, oh how they danced for him.

            I hate them, I think. I really do. And it makes me sick, feeling this way. I'm supposed to love this city and its people, to protect them. This hate conflicts with my nature but I can't shake it. It clings to me, stubborn, yet another wound weeping venom.

            I hate myself, too. I fell to my knees and cried. I let them lie, defame me and my family. I did not fight for myself, as any good warrior would. I was a puppet, too.

            It was worth it, I remind myself. Could you live with yourself if you sacrificed the one good thing left in this horrible city, the spot of light that kept you sane? Who saved you as surely as anyone has ever been saved by another, just by the virtue of her presence? Could you let the void have her, too?

            Debts must be paid, and I owed that child my life. And no matter how much I hate what they must say about me in the streets, no matter how many nights I'll cry over the thought of my legacy burned to ash, I will not regret my choice. It was not what a warrior would have done, but I am not a warrior first.

            I am an Izsaiki. A protector.

            But I wonder how he knew. His voice was so sure, instructing me to be silent, threatening the one thing I would've been silent for. How did he know what that was?

            I brood over that thought until the door opens. I whirl around, my fists instinctively coming up as I assume the fighting stance Arn D'Verin, my martial instructor, drilled into me years ago. It's second nature to me whenever I feel threatened.

            It's a guard I've never seen before. I notice first that he has no visible weapons but a knife sheathed around his waist. Then, that he's young; I'd be surprised if he had twenty-five years to his name. His eyes are a muddy green and his hair is the lightest possible brown. It lays haphazardly, like he hasn't brushed it in ages, wispy and uneven in cut. His build is muscular, not good if I have to fight him.

            He balks, standing stone still at the doorway. Then he recovers himself and averts his gaze. A blush creeps up his neck, turning his pale skin the color of roses. I'm confused for a moment, then I feel the press of the sheet against my feet and remember I'm naked.

            I laugh. It's a mad sound, issued from a mad creature. My mother would roll over in her grave to see me, I know. I should run and hide my body, goddess forbid a strange man sees it.       But I feel no shame in my nudity. I've already been stripped bare and exposed before the whole city, my legacy, my life, my heart torn and rent- what is this by comparison? What power does flesh have to make him act like a nervous child, this jailer, averting his eyes in some mockery of propriety? It's all too much, too absurd.

            "I apologize," he mutters, "I only came to bring you a parcel."

            "Come in, then," I tell him, making no move to pick up the sheet. I like making one of them uncomfortable. The small amount of power I feel is a heady thing after a month of degradation.

            "I- um- I'll let you cover yourself, miss," he says. He has more manners than any guard I've met so far, than any man of Sholu's has a right to possess. I wonder who he is in spite of myself.

            "Then you'll wait a long time, because I have no intention of doing so."

            His brows knit together, then smooth. He talks slowly, softly, like he's addressing a wild animal. I can guess what they've told him about me- biting guards, beating on the walls, trying to make weapons from pilfered silverware.

            "Please put on some clothing, miss," he repeats. "Or cover yourself with the sheet. I only need to speak with you for a moment."

            "Then speak!" I snap. "Goddess, you're the one holding your tongue, not me! It's just skin, soldier. Don't you have some of you own?"

            "I have plenty, hidden beneath my uniform. As is the custom." He answers me gently, his eyes roving my face in assessment. Trying to determine if I'm really crazy, I guess.

            "Well, customs have been going up in flames lately," I reply with a bitter laugh. "Oh, I'm sure you know all about that. Customs mean nothing to you; why is this any different? Won't you come in?" I mock.

            "You know nothing about me," he says quietly. I look at him again; now it's my turn to search, trying to determine what exactly he is. He's something different from the harsh, dumb animals I've been kept by this past month, that I'm sure of. There's a spark of life, maybe even of kindness, in his eyes.

            It seems to mock me, and I hate him more for it.

            "Or maybe you've just never seen a naked woman before, is that it, youngling?" I condescend, knowing full well he has several years on me. "Are you scared of a pair of tits?"

            I sneer at him, waiting for him to shout, to blush deeper, to either attack or retreat from the naked thing mocking him.

            Instead he just stands there, meeting my gaze. His blush has receded, as has his confused, searching look. I read a decision, some sort of understanding, on his face, as well as an unexpected calm. His features soften into something too close to pity for me to bear.

            It's the slight kindness I see that drives me frantically towards cruelty. I need him to bend, to look away, to shout at me, anything to betray that I've gotten under his skin. But to have him look at me like I'm a wayward child is too much.

            "Or is it what's between my legs that makes you blush?" I growl, stalking forward. "Are you one of those sad boys that's terrified of a cunt?"

            The profanity slides off my tongue naturally, my good breeding and aristocratic manners sloughed off as easily as the bedsheet. What's revealed is raw, the innate violence that drove a wedge between me and so many of my cousins. They caught glimpses of it, in between forced smiles and soft linen skirts, and it unsettled them.

             The guard frowns, but still no anger rises to the surface. His gaze isn't averted. I laugh meanly, hiking one of my legs up on the bed and spreading myself with my hand. "What, you think it has teeth? Think it will tear your stalk off at the root? Or are you one of those who can't get it up? Or maybe you're shorter than my little finger, an inconsequential little worm-"

            "Stop this," he says quietly, "this tantrum will get you nowhere."

            "Nothing will get me anywhere, will it?" I laugh brokenly, "I'm never leaving this fucking place, so why not throw a tantrum? Why not rip the room apart? Why not?!"

            "Because you are better than this."

            I stop. The kindness is back in his eyes. This time it melts my anger back to apathy.  I lower my leg, let the sneer drop from my face.

            "Maybe I'm not," I mutter to both of us. "They all say I'm a traitor, don't they? What's the use in pride now?"

            "Prop yourself up with it," he tells me, walking into the room fully and shutting the door.

            I frown. "Why are you saying this to me? Why are you being... kind?"

            "Because I am not the faceless monster you think I am," he replies, bending down to pick up the sheet. He wraps it around me gently, somehow sensing I won't lash out. "And because it is the truth."

            I blush now, overwhelmed with shame at my behavior. Erratic, violent girl, my Aunt Jinn chides in my head. Kyoro might try to hide it with pretty dresses, but I see it clear. That one has a taint in her spirit that makes me weary for her future...

            "You're too quick to boil," Shira told me once. "It will get you nowhere, O'otani, don't you know that?"

            I do, but still my emotions are knotted and gnarled, both numbed and overwrought. I feel like a vase teetering on the edge of a shelf, one with no chance of regaining balance. It will fall, and it will break. I'll break open.

            "There now," he murmurs soothingly. "Breathe softly now. Stop your shaking."

            I do as he says, drawing the sheet closer around me. He waits, a calm look on his face, until I've collected myself.

            "Are you alright?" He asks when I look up.

            I nod, relaxing my grip on the sheet slightly. He watches me for a moment, a sad look on his face.

            "I don't want your pity, soldier," I whisper. "I don't need it."

            "I know," he replies. "But you have it all the same, Izsaiki."

            I freeze. "Do not call me that,"

            "I didn't mean it as an insult-"

            "Do not call me that," I repeat, quieter this time. "I- I hate the sound of that word. I don't want to hear it."

            "Alright then," he answers, "I'll never say it again."

            I nod, somewhat mollified. He watches me a moment longer before telling me why he's come.

            "Deme Verlaina demands your presence at breakfast," he says curtly. "And he's sent you a dress to wear." He holds out a parcel, then lets it drop when I refuse to take it.

            "Just cooperate, miss. It will make everything go easier for you."

            I just glare at him.

            "If you refuse I'll have to drag you there," he says apologetically. "I don't want to, but I will."

            "I will not put on a dress and go to dine with my family's murderer of my own free will!" I snarl.

            He sighs. "The Deme warned me you'd protest. Said to mention something about a maid. To let you know that if you refuse to eat with him, she won't eat either."

            I curse, hating Halima for a moment. Hating myself for caring about her. But then I think of what I would be without her, how the rage would have consumed anything good inside of my heart, and I feel shame. It's not her fault she got caught up in the middle of this, that a madman has found a way to use her as leverage.

            I know then I won't say no. She's already a thin child. I won't let her starve.

             I've already conceded my pride in front of the city; I can do this. For an innocent heart, I can do anything, I tell myself.

            "I want to see her first," I demand.

            "What?"

            "Halima, the maid. I want to see her. Bring her to me."

            "I'm sure you can see her after-"

            "Bring her now and I'll go willingly. Either that or you hold me down and wrestle the dress onto me, then drag me fighting down the hall."

            He weighs my words, then nods, seeing the truth written on my face. I suppose he doesn't think it's worth the effort to subdue me.

            "I'll be back with her shortly, alright? Just put on the dress."

            "Just bring her to me," I counter, shaking out the grey gown. It's a thing for evening, too extravagant for this time of day, too extravagant for me, period. I think fleetingly that Alya would have looked lovely in it.