VIKING AND THE TIGRESS.

❧CHAPTER 3: HOW THE TRIBE CALLED JUDAH CAME ABOUT - PART 2: THE CELL.

(Written).
(Edited).

***
She stayed in her cell, her metal cage, for gods knows how long. Days? Weeks? Months? She didn't know.

She had lost count after the Afo Market Day, making her tallies marked by a small but sharp stone, back-dated. She stank, and the smell of piss and whatnot permeated the air, which made the cell reek of the stale air of her... businesses. She hadn't been eating, except for the little snips of watery melon soup accompanied by molded garri given to her, and although it was barely a meal, she took it to regain a bit of strength, that she had lost. Luckily for her, on the market day, she was given akpu and okro soup alongside a little piece of meat (if it could be considered one in the first place), to eat. She sighed as her eyes roamed around the cell, whilst her mind tried to wrap up her current predicament.

Her chocolate skin was now dirtied by the sand and dust from the metal cage, and her — formerly sharp — bubbly eyes were dull, almost dead; not seemingly having the life-like characteristics it used to possess. Her plumpy cheeks and eyes were now sunken, making her now chapped lips more prominent. Her hair...

She frowned and her lips habitually arched downwards when she pulled a stand of her hair to her view. Her silky hair seemed like it had fallen off like a tree that dried during the harmattan season or like a barren land, thus, her forehead looked more protruded. She resembled those old women who were mocked by children when they were passing by. A hag! A witch? Her brows folded when she tried to remember what they called them in her native tongue, but then again, when was she ever fluid in speaking her native language?

Amunsu!

Yes! That's what they used to call it; she resembled an amunsu. She shifted her hands and legs uncomfortably at the unpleasant thinking of being labeled amunsu, making those chained parts jingle and produce a clunking sound. Her bony frame-like hands dug into the soil and rose out again carrying along with it sand, as she watched with her dull eyes, the sand slipping from her hands.

‘Oh! How I have fallen‚’ she wallowed to herself.

She was a shell of her former self. The truth hit her hard, but she had no other choice than to accept it. There wasn't anything she would do that could reverse this situation, although she hadn't been given a benefit of doubt for any chance of a silver lining. They said that amid a bad thing comes a sliver of hope, well that's not true, at least, not for her. Some things happen to someone, to make 'em lose faith. She'd heard about that kind of sayings — those kind of horrible stories — but now she had to believe, after all, she was going through it.

~***~
The half-moon stood high and proud indicating that it was still nighttime, but her clan was very much active. The children were playing with sticks, others were making shadowy shapes with their fingers, while some were listening to the Abu that their elders' told them, but that all stopped when they crossed the boundary and entered into their territory.

The women stopped and pulled their children to their chests, guarding them against the people who dragged the bruised and battered female. Guarding them against her.

The men paused, looking genuinely confused until one stepped up with courage to ask what had happened, but he was shoved down roughly by a hefty warrior and landed on the muddy road. The aged-looking man got up looking embarrassed as muddy water dripped down his stained shirt, and the children laughed at what they had seen, pointing fingers at the man. She couldn't care less about the man; after all, she had her problem and she wasn't a saint to simply care more. A bulky man with war marks marred on his body giving him a frightening aura, stepped up at the fact that they had stopped.