Tladi opened her single indigo eye to the crimson, orange, indigo and violet hues of a magnificent African sunrise. Slowly easing herself up from the gritty dry desert sand, she surveyed all her long thin pale limbs to ensure their continued existence. She laid her light-haired head back and exhaled a long slow sigh of relief. She allowed all the anxiety and fear from the night before to go whistling through her pearly white teeth and out her thin, pink lips. Only one thought continuously ran through her mind as she sat motionless in the sand: They spared me...They spared me...They spared me...
Tladi had been traveling for three long hot days in the desert, by way of Umthunz'omnyama's camel. She had left the village as soon as she heard that Stima had been seen walking swiftly into the desert night. Not that she had heard all that soon; it was hard to get hold of any kind of information when no one wanted to talk to you. Thus, she had only found out a day and a half after the event, that Stima had gone to seek death in the desert.
Tladi's eye had not been able to meet the eyes of Stima's parents without a deep guilt attacking her like an armed man. It had been, after all, the fourth time that Stima's life had been in danger because of her. Therefore, she had been more than obligated to go after him and bring him back. She had been compelled to do so; the deep emotions within her that ran from him had compelled her to try to save his life. She had felt that it would be deeply wrong for Stima to die, to leave a village he loved that was full of people that loved him, all for her sake. For her whom no one, save Umthunz'omnyama, loved, she who had thoughtlessly caused so much damage to their lives. She whose guilty conscience about all the damage she had caused to the village had only recently awoken...
She did not deserve a sacrifice as great as Stima's death just so she could live in peace... in peaceful isolation... She believed she knew the extent of human forgiveness and she did not believe that it could stretch that far. Stima's self-sacrifice out of love for her was something she knew they could never forgive. Unaletastima, as his name implied, brought light to the village. He was a source of laughter and joy. He was one of the favourites in the village and his death would make Tladi into a bringer of darkness.
Yet none of this mattered to Tladi; she could not care less what the village thought of her. Her popularity status had never mattered to her; very few things had ever mattered to her... until Stima. Now everything that concerned him concerned her, everything that affected him mattered to her. Thus, she had gone off to find him in the desert...
She had opened her single Indigo eye to a full glowing orange moonrise, on the night of the third day. Something had disturbed her sleep; she had not been able to say what it was. She had slowly eased herself up from the dusty sleeping mat that she had brought with her and had surveyed her sandy surroundings. There had been sand dunes as far as the eye could see. The cold night air, along with something else, had chilled her. She had caught sight of a huge sand dune directly north of her, that she had not remembered seeing there before.
Tladi had quietly removed herself from her sleeping mat and, as silently as a shadow creature, had hastened to the northern sand dune that had seemed to be calling her name. She had known that Stima had been there; something had spoken to her in her soul.
After having soundlessly slithered on her belly up the rise of the dune, to prevent her white-clad form from being seen against the night sky, Tladi had peered down into the silent valley of sand. The valley was completely empty, except for a circular pool of water the breadth of six grown men from head to toe. Next to this pool, in the middle of a seemingly strange scene, lay the slender, tall, dark mahogany, muscled, motionless form of Stima.
Tladi had unthinkingly leapt up wildly and run into the strangely eerie scene, to fall to her knees next to Stima's still form.
"Stima!" she whispered, desperately.
"Stima, are you alive?"
She turned the slender wide-shouldered form on its back and leaned in to listen for his breathing. She released a short laugh-sigh of relief and silently thanked whatever gods there were for her amazing good fortune. Using her thin, long, pale hands as a cup, Tladi scooped up water for the half-dead Stima to drink. She was on her fourth scoop when she noticed a too silent silence, the kind that is a siren to a trained hunter. Not even a cricket's call contributed to the suddenly silent song of nature. She realized all too late how stupid she had been in racing to Stima's aid.
Just as she reached for the long thin wooden spear she wore on her back as protection, something swiftly struck her back so that she landed facedown in the desert sand. She tried to move to her feet but a sharp blow behind her left knee sent her sprawling again. She suddenly realized that she had been surrounded. Where did they come from? She thought to herself as she had turned to lie on her back. Her arm was protectively flung across Stima's shakily rising and falling chest.
That was when she realized that they were all dressed like her. They all wore the same rough white silk hooded cloaks and head cloths that she had recently acquired the dexterity for making. No one in the village even owned such a cloak, never mind wore it. She looked into faces as pale as her own with her single indigo eye narrowed in suspicion. Several metal curved swords, the type of which she had never seen before, were pointed in her face. Dark eyes glittered in the torchlight like the numerous stars that were overhead.
YOU ARE READING
TLADI
Fantasy'Tladi' is a narrative mostly based in an unusual African village nestled between the desert and the sea where a variety of cultural groups have mysteriously gathered to cohabit in the fulfillment of a secret purpose. In this setting, the outsider...
