Court of Snakes: This Desert Cage

Eyes Wide Open - Segeno | July of the Third Year

There was a woman at the street corner who caught Parisa's eye. She was bone thin and could hardly walk, even though she was rather young. With her were four children, one a few months old, all clinging to her as if she were the last thing left on the earth. They were walking skeletons as well, eyes hollow and wrists small due to malnutrition. They hobbled down the street until they stopped and held out their hands at a street corner. No one gave them anything. No one had anything to give. And this was in Atsa.

"Is this how it always is?" Parisa asked.

"Pretty much!" Perseus bit into a plum that oozed juice onto his hand. "You get what you can, and you don't let go of what you have."

Parisa held her hand out. "Give them your plum."

"What?" Perseus exclaimed and hugged the plum into his chest. "No way!"

Parisa saw the same primal need to survive in Perseus' eyes. "Fine. Come with me, then."

The two of them made their way to the nearest market and Parisa bought as much food as she could fit into her arms. When she returned to the street corner, the family was still there, and she offered them the baskets of food she had. The woman seemed confused. "What's this for?" she asked.

"It's for you and your family," Parisa replied and gave a basket to one child. "You all really looked like you needed it."

Tears came to the woman's eyes. "Oh... oh thank you, Miss."

"It's no problem, really. I'm just more than happy to help."

Parisa and Perseus walked down the Atsa streets on their day off and Perseus sucked every bit of meat he could off the pit of the plum. Cloudy thoughts had fogged Parisa's mind the last few months. She had done everything she could to work through what Rune Guildenhart had said to her the night of the masquerade. No matter how hard she dug, she could not find anything misleading or manipulative in Segeno's laws. Unless there was some secret book somewhere that held other laws and rules, nothing looked wrong. She was not naïve; she understood that laws were only as good as their leader.

Currently, their leader was terrible. All of Rune's talk about rigged systems made no sense. And Perseus would talk on none of it. He was of the belief that she could not possibly understand, having never lived in Dza'ya, and it seemed the subject troubled him deeply. He would tell her that he knew they were being oppressed, some subtle laws were in place somewhere, and did not believe her when she told him she could find no explanation to the divided districts. He would get teary-eyed and shake whenever she would bring it up, so she chose to drop the subject... for now.

After a few moments of silence as they walked, Perseus smiled and mumbled, "I hope your dad kicks the bucket soon."

"Why?"

Perseus looked at her with sincerity, his eyes bright. "If we'd had a Sovereign like you all along, we wouldn't be where we are now. Everyone would be fed and happy..."

"Well, I hope I can make it that way. With the way things are going, though, I don't think there's any hope for Segeno... especially if I have to marry Rune Guildenhart. He'll make sure things stay exactly the way they are."

"Things will get better. I'm sure of it."