NELNIFA CORLEDIA has a weak voice. When outrage sparks because of her mistake, she diverts the attention to the real problem: the truth to why their territory is poor. This takes Nelnifa to fishing ports, weaving districts, and back to the very plac...
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2404 Rab 31, Briss
Nelnifa closed her hands into fists, knowing she would start fiddling her fingers more if she didn't. An empty glass of water sat on the dining table, a half-filled pitcher towering beside it. She glared balefully at the water, her synnavaim swirling in impatience beneath her skin. Magic wasn't something she was privy to associate with but her fingers had been itching to do something while she waited for her father to come home.
She sighed and pulled at the messy bun she had tied her hair a few minutes ago. If her father wouldn't appear by the doorframe for the next five minutes, she might as well braid her hair. Once her purple locks fell from the back of her head and hung to her hips, her fingers clamped into her hair and began moving deftly. Just like how she wove baskets and did her fisher knots, she drew and tucked her hair into neat arrays of what would be the braid. She knew quite a number of methods of braiding and, tonight, she settled for something complicated.
When she finished, a wince crept into her face as she rolled her shoulders more than once. Oh, damn. She always forgot how her muscles would get tired of being raised for too long. Shouldn't have tried the more complex style. It's not like her father knew the difference between braids. And she wasn't waiting for him to compare hairstyles.
Nelnifa pursed her lips and slid off her chair, closing her hands around the pitcher and trudging to the nearby sink in the kitchen. Their house wasn't that big but it wasn't small, either. Despite being made of salvia trunks and void of a stone floor, it was enough to house five people without them bumping into each other on their way in and out of the rooms. Oh, yeah, it has enough space for a lot of rooms, too.
The water from the faucet splashed into the pitcher just as the front door squeaked open. The Potentate strode inside, wiping the sweat off his hairline with his palm. "Father!" Nelnifa was about to burst forward and greet him but remembered the water. She yanked the faucet's knob closed, leaving the pitcher on the sink as she tramped to the living room. "How was the journey?"
Her father sat on the couch, throwing a satchel-full of parchment work beside him. "Tiring, as usual," he said with a heavy sigh. "How're your rounds today?"
Nelnifa pursed her lips and strode towards her father's side. With a grunt, she slid the satchel to one side to free up space next to her father. Then, she sank into the soft cushion before answering. "It's alright," she said, those two words her default whenever she didn't feel like talking.
Silence enveloped them. Her father glanced at her from his periphery, his face betraying his emotion. He didn't know what to do with her and her inability to hold a conversation. Well, Nelnifa had gotten used to those looks all her life. It wasn't like she knew how to fix herself either.
"Listen, father, um," she scratched her chin before forcing her hands to stay still against her knees. "Can I ask you something?"
Her father raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, sure," he said, switching to the lesser known dialect called Qirela. He only does that when he's either really tired or he wants to talk about things he wants to keep a secret. "What is it?"
