The Night Before: End of Spring 514
When Tazi made it to Taloba, she was shaking. All the time she had been running through the mud she tried to reason her choice out. Maybe this had all been a dream. She was really still asleep somewhere. Yet the flash of lightening and roll of thunder told her that she wasn’t sleeping. This kind of noise and rain would have woken her up hours ago. Thankfully it was too dark and wet for the guards to notice her fear and anguish. Even she barely noticed her tears mixing in with the rain as it all ran in sheets down her face.
The rain had not let up by the time she had arrived to her little campsite. Zaza was looked a bit peeved, angry to have been left alone and in the storm. Tazi went up to her friend, running a shaking hand into her tangled mane. At least her campsite was carefully made, with the large tarp spanning between two trees to prevent her horse from getting wet. Tazi, however, was soaked to the bone from running around in the storm. Slowly, she sank down into the mud. Zaza, almost as if she sensed something was wrong, knelt in the mud next to her owner. Together they stayed that way, huddled in sorrow and fear.
1st of Summer, 514
A sharp object to her body and an angry sound from Zaza startled her awake. It was only when the second object collided with her forehead did she leap to her feet. What the petch was that? Finally a third had her spinning on her feet to come face to face with a group of young Myrian children. Zaza was rearing up at them if they came close, snorting and biting at the air. “What do you children think you are doing?!”
“Oh look, the exile speaks!” Scoffed one child, throwing a rock between his hands. A few of the other, younger children snickered as the girl continued, “You shouldn’t be here exile. So until you leave, we can do what we like!”
“I am not an exile,” Tazi growled. The previous night had seemed like a figment of her imagination, although the rocks were slowly making it more real. Her clothes were still damp from running in the rain, her hair knotty from sleeping in the mud next to her horse. Even her clothes were dirty and gross. Everything about her made her seem like an exile, a woman without a home. The children giggled at her, dancing around the lead girl and mockingly howling ‘not an exile!’
“If you aren’t an exile, what Clan are you from?” Giggled the girl, flipping the rock between her fingers.
Tazi opened her mouth to reply, only to have to slowly close it. That’s right. She had been disowned last night. With a heavy heart, she hung her head in shame. The children laughed at her, and threw the last few rocks they had in their grubby little hands at the exile and the horse. Tazi flinched away from the sharp points, bringing her arm up to protect her face from the projectiles. Thankfully, they were only children and did not seem to know how to use a rock as a real weapon. They were only here to make fun of her, not kill her. Death would be a saving grace for Tazi. At least it would be semi honorable for her to suffer death. There was currently no honor in the life she was being forced to lead. As she uncoiled her arms from her face, she watched the children scurry away, laughing. For a brief moment, she thought she saw her mother in the shadows of ruined buildings. After blinking, she was gone. Grumbling at her luck, Tazi began to pack her things.
If she was going to get ahead of these issues, she was simply going to have to get out of Taloba for a while. To do that, she was going to need some supplies. It was going to be an interesting day at the market, especially if everyone else knew that she had been dishonored and disowned.
