Nomads

Chapter 1, Pt 6- Mahha

The ship stood mighty and high, her sails ready to drop down and to set sail. All the luggage and cargo had almost been loaded. But there was just Alsaqr that kept her from embarking on the voyage.

He had woken up before as soon as the first rays of the sun had lit the morning. He had been waiting for Mahha at the harbour for three hours; he had even gone to the Wrecked Beach to search for her. He remembered well that he had mentioned the time of his departure. Time and again, he found himself looking around, in hope of seeing Mahha approaching from some direction. He could have simply gone to her house but he had never seen it; he had never felt the need to. Ever since she started working with him, she would show up at the inn in the morning and they would part ways in the evening.

It was the captain’s last call for everyone to board the ship. Everyone was already on board but Alsaqr; if they didn’t set sail soon, they wouldn’t be able to catch the tide.

He climbed onboard, stood on the deck and looked down at the crowd that had gathered to bid them farewell. He carefully scanned the cheering crowd; children, fishermen, women, local shop owners and a few foreign merchants, everyone but Mahha.

Alsaqr breathed a heavy sigh of discontent and pain. All the memories of the previous days and the time spent with her came rushing uncontrollably into his mind just like a flood crashes down on a village of crippled people. His unstable mind  jumped  from one memory to another faster than a monkey leaping from branch to branch. His heart sank and his stomach twisted, his head became heavy, he was finding it harder and harder to  breathe.  He could not hold it longer. He leaned on the edge of the deck, and looked down at his shoes, trying to forget everything, fighting himself, and failing. He breathed heavily and looked up. The crowd was there, smiling them, cheering at them. He looked at them, the longer he looked, the more smiling faces he saw. ‘If  they can find happiness in someone else’s journey, why can’t I find love in their happiness?’ he thought.

He stood upright, took off his turban, held it in his hands and looked at it. He was no more the heir to a noble family, he was a traveller. He threw up the turban in the air as it undid itself clumsily and floated in the wind. The crowd suddenly roared and cheered loudly at this spectacle.
He breathed a sigh of peace as he felt the strong breeze of the sea in his hair, and as he heard the sea birds’ calls from above. The captain yelled orders and soon after, the anchor was up and the sails were down. The deck shook violently, and the ship began to drift away.

He stood on the deck as he watched the shore grow farther and smaller, smaller and smaller until it disappeared from sight. Now it was just him, his fellow sailors, the wind, the ship and the vast blue ocean.
“Oh a windy day, And the sailors sail!” he heard a deep husky voice sing loudly from behind.

“Knows who, to heaven or to hell?!” most of the sailors sang as they gathered. Alsaqr smiled at the spectacle of his present friends singing along.

“Ay! The Kraken will join us and sing for the day!” the sailor with the husky voice shouted.

“Knows who, songs of heaven or hell?!” Alsaqr joined in with the chorus. He knew that the memories and questions about Mahha will trouble him for the rest of the journey, but he was with his fellow voyagers at the moment, singing songs of the sea. And that is all that mattered to him at that moment.
---

It had been three months since he had visited Karawa. The shore did not look any different to him. As soon as his family had granted him the permission to set out on his own journey of life, he had boarded the first ship of local merchants
sailing to Karawa. He had faced discrimination and bias on the ship due to his noble background, but every trouble was worth his search for Mahha.

He kept asking around everywhere but found no information on Mahha. It was like the whole village had suddenly wiped her existence off. He visited all the places he remembered that Mahha had shown him, he even went to the cemetery in hopes of finding at least about her death. Her thoughts had been bugging him so much for the past three
months, that even the littlest information on her could have made him ecstatic.

He kept asking around until dusk had finally set in. He had found out nothing about Mahha but had heard about a young girl who was rumoured to have mystical powers. She was said to help villagers with their problems and cure their illnesses, she had gained immense respect. Alsaqr had found all this awfully familiar, and he set out to search for that
girl instead. He found out that she lived in a small hut by the shore. When he went there, he found himself looking at a small wooden door. He knocked at the door and it was answered by a small girl. He found her face very strangely familiar, but
he could not recall where he had seen her before.

“Who are you?” She asked, “Ten bronzes for problems, fifty for illness.” She said with a stern voice.
“Me, search Mahha.” Alsaqr said in his broken local language.
The girl went silent for a moment.

“Wh...Who are you?” she asked in shock and uncertainty.

“Alsaqr.” He said.

Her eyes grew wide in shock. She stared at him for some time, trying to fathom everything that was happening. She invited him inside, and gave him a creaky, small chair to sit on. He looked around; it was just a small room with a small table, an old bed, and dirty clothes and utensils lying around.

He was observing the room when he suddenly felt a jolt of pain in his forehead, the air grew heavier and denser, and it was as if something else was there too, with them.

“I'm her sister”, a deep growly voice startled him. He looked at her in horror, it was her making the deep growl, speaking in Arabic. Alsaqr immediately recalled her memories as a timid and afraid small kid back from the inn. He had only seen her once.