Amasa

Chapter Twenty Three- Forever trepidation

The following morning was a blur. Time was moving fast while my surroundings were occurring in slow motion, leaving an indentation of new vivid memories in my mind. Woken up with a violent shake from a loud woman, a massive headache was triggered from the shock of yesterday and the disorientation from today.

I was swirled into bright colors of  foreign traditional clothes and paintings. Aggressively handled and changed into unusually textured fabrics as greasy pigmentation was smeared onto my already oily skin, I didn't resist. I was numbed into amicability because of the overwhelming change that was taking place without my consent.

Hearing blabbering chatter that closely resembled chanting filling out the abnormally low roofed hut, the women I presumed were maidservants gathered around me, looking frustrated at my lack of response or inability to hear what they were talking about. Runesu was nowhere in sight and I did not know what to think anymore.There must have been a massacre of many yesterday because of me. All I could evidently tell was that I was in the Shintu tribe's hands.

 Their tribal paintings was all I could see as the patterns and color palette demanded my attention, inordinate markings that had no clear center to focus on. My standing wrapped hair was undone and was briskly replaced by a few small bantu knots. Father never let anyone let their hair lay flat on their head, our hair was our crown in Pokoda, the taller the hair stood, the more respectable you were. It felt unusual and unnatural to have my hair flattened into buns. I was humiliated and humbled... I broke down into tears and cried.

Pulled out off the mud hut and met with eerily high pitched ululations, men and women surrounded me as they danced to the sound of the drums, shakers and marimbas. I followed closely  behind the main dancers with pigmentation dripping off my face from the crying, landing as white dots onto my clothing and forearms. A gentle hand jolted my chin up. I turned my head to lock eyes with a beautiful middle aged woman. She smiled at me with eyes filled with both empathy and pity.

"You will be alright."

She spoke to me in Pokodan...leaving me a little confused.

 I crookedly smiled back  and looked forward, only to have my line of vision met with an unusual sight. King Narufu and his queen...my actual parents were seated on their throne. Runesu was immaculately dressed and sat next to them in her own befitting seat. She glowed from the richness of her skin and from within, looking happy and somewhat relieved. She smiled the widest that I had ever seen. She shone.

Reaching to the foot of the throne, my shoulders were pushed down by the surrounding women, with my knees forced to comply into bending into a kneel from the pressure above. The King shouted a few words to his people in a melodious jubilant voice and struck his tsvimbo onto the ground twice, bringing the whole congregation into complete silence.

He continued to speak to everyone as he rose up and walked towards me with his arms outstretched. The villagers stepped back, creating a hollow of space where the king walked freely. Pulling me up from the ground, King Narufu enveloped me into a tight hug, repeating the same phrase that I could not understand, his voice cracking with emotion.

"Ingane yami... Ingane yami, Ingane yami!"

My body was numb and unresponsive, stiff as a dead log fallen in the thick green forest that thrived around it. That was the depiction of me in the hands of Narufu, surrounded by the Shintu's vivaciousness. I weakly hugged him back as his affection could not go unreciprocated, however there was a vast difference between the excitement he exuded towards me and I to him. King Narufu pulled back and stared directly at me with a puzzled face and an extremely worried look. He looked nothing like Father.

Possessing no strong features of power on his face, Narufu's eyes and cheeks were rounded as the outside of a large hari pot with no fascinating creases or indentations carved in like Toga's. His skin was sandy and unremarkable, closely resembling the river bed sand that could easily be washed away and erased from one's memory. I longed to see the night in the ebony skin of the people like I did back home, but everyone hear looked the same. It saddened me because they all somewhat looked like Runesu... they all somewhat looked like me. I was not Toga's daughter, in resemblance I was the definite child of Narufu, a stranger.