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meredithmcclaren · 15 days

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Sun Blind

I commissioned @meredithmcclaren! She was a pleasure to work with and produces some of my favorite art! (I got my character drawn by @meredithmcclaren!!!!! omg how cool is that??(◕ᗜ◕))

Najma closed her eyes and steadied her breathing.

In the shade offered by the balcony above her, she stamped her feet and stretched her arms, twisting her back and bending her knees. She had ran around the arena twice before arriving at the entrance, and her skin was pleasantly flushed, her body loose. Her bare toes dug into the dry dirt under her feet, the bite of the marble stone walkway bisecting her foot, cold and rough compared to the fine grain of the dirt in the arena.

Cheers and cries of merchants filled the air around her as the people gathered in the stands awaited the show. Children laughed at the antics of the fools now dancing for their entertainment. Drunkards shouted for more wine and beer. Somewhere, one woman’s boisterous laugh carried over the rest. Horns trumpeted in the distance as a foot race concluded, and a cheer went up as the victor celebrated.

Najma tried to ignore it all as she shook out her arms. She bounced on the balls of her feet, balanced delicately on that edge of marble.

“Najma,” her brother called softly from just beside her, and her eyes popped open.

“What are you doing here?”

Zilan smiled slightly, his dark hair blowing in his face as a breeze picked up, carrying with it the scents of fried foods, unwashed bodies, and animal. Najma shivered at the scent of angry bull.

“I’ve come to wish you luck.” He held out a length of ribbon, brightly dyed and thin. She peered at it happily until he motioned for her to turn. She presented her back to him and felt him tying the ribbon into her tightly bound hair. The tips of the ribbon only just brushed her shoulders once he was done.

“I love the color,” she said, picking up the end and eyeing it. It wasn’t an expensive ribbon, but Zilan surely knew how likely she was to ruin it today, perhaps even lose it. But it was the thought that counted.

Red for luck.

She turned back to him, smiling up at him.

He had always been taller than her, as far back as her first memories, when he held her clutched in his arms, his heart pounding loudly against her ear as she cried for their parents. It had been so cold back then, in the dark and rain.

She shivered again, and he reached out and rubbed his hands down her arms. “You’re ready for this.”

“Mn,” she agreed. “I know I am.” Her heart was pounding as loud as his had on the night they lost their home, for a reason so far removed that she couldn’t hold the sadness in her heart.

She knew the sadness of their loss was never far from her brother’s thoughts, something that kept him going in troubled times, but he tried for her. He smiled at her confidence and nodded.

“I’ll be watching from up there,” he said, pointing above their heads. She bit her lip.

Up there, the rich could afford seats under a shade and servants to bring them food from the market without them having to brave the crush. She and Zilan were certainly not wealthy enough to place among them.

Their parents had been simple folk, weavers by trade, dead these past eleven years. They had escaped the raging waves of the untamed river that had swollen with freezing waters into the city with only the clothes on their backs with the other displaced peoples of the flood. Just a pair of orphans among the dozens of others, lost into the crowd of poor and hungry.

Zilan had been old enough to become an apprentice, and clever enough to hide his sister in his little room permitted to him by his master that they had survived, but Najma had to wonder how much of their luck was due to hard work and how much of it was due to Zilan’s loose morals.

She had seen him come home far too often beaten and bloodied.

He patted her shoulder and shook his head. “Just focus on your performance today.”

She nodded. “Be careful up there with the lofty types, hum? They’re far more dangerous than any thief with a knife in the dark alley.”

“And you beware of the horn!” He pinched her cheek like she was still a child. Whinging like a child, she pulled away, batting at his hand.

“I know Sap well! He will not harm me!”

Laughing and shaking his head, Zilan left to take his seat as horns within the arena sounded. Najma returned to her preparations, stretching and bouncing on her toes.

She wore little clothes, so as not to have anything that might catch and pull. She had bits of cloth wrapped around the length of her feet, leaving her heel and toes free. Her hair had been pulled up, secured with pins and ribbons. Beside her, two other young women also prepared for their own performances. Dressed similarly, the three of them were a little troupe of dancers that knew no rivals in the city.

The oldest of them was Selika, dark and tall. She was well muscled and limber, and had been dancing their dance since she was a child, as her father had been a master in his own time. Najma was only two years younger than her, and the third girl was much younger, coming only up to Najma’s shoulder, and Najma wasn’t tall at all.

Salima had been sold to Selika’s father as a serving maid when her mother died and her father found he didn’t have it in him to care about a girl child that couldn’t work the fields. Selika’s father was a decent man that raised Salima as his own, giving her his family name, and teaching her alongside Selika. When Najma appeared to watch the girls practice, the man had easily drew her into the lessons until she was a part of the little troupe as if she were their sister, too.

He had died two years ago, a cough that wouldn’t go away, so Selika had taken over the training, while their cousin, Atam, insisted on taking over the business end of her father’s business.

He wasn’t as decent. Salima now lived with Najma, and Selika hoarded away as much money as she could, out of his hands.

Salima jumped into the air, touching the tips of her fingers to her toes in the air, and a few children spotted her, cheering at the display of skill. Salima landed, her arms thrown up into the air, posed just right, back arched, feet planted. A louder cheer went up.

Two fools came running back toward them.

“Let’s go,” Selika said, then ran out into the arena. Najma followed, and she could feel Salima behind her.

Two steps out of the shade, the sun bore down on them and sweat beaded on her brow, but she ignored it all in favor of leaping into the air, her hands landing with a dull thud in the dirt. She shoved back to her feet, into another flip, and a third, hands nearly touching her heels with every flip.

She caught glimpses of Selika doing a similar trick, higher into the air than herself. Then she stopped just in time for Najma to flip onto her shoulders. She caught her balance and held her pose as Salima lightly skipped onto her back. She touched a hand to Najma’s shoulder, and Najma gripped her leg and lifted her into the air.

Salima waved to the crowd, drawing more cheers, before Najma dropped her leg and caught her by her arm pits and then let her to the ground. Selika threw her into the air, and Najma twisted into a spiral before landing sideways in her arms.

“Good,” Selika commented before setting her on her feet. Najma nodded to her before bouncing back into motion, kicking up into the air to the cheers around them.

Flip. Flip. Flip. Twist. Land and tumble under Salima’s flip. Climb Selika’s knee and flip. Catch Salima and throw. Pose. And breathe.

She looked over the crowd, but there were so many people she couldn’t quite tell one face from another, and the balcony was facing the sun.

Who had decided to make them face the sun?

She glanced at Selika and saw that she was also worried about the sun. Under the balcony, Najma could just make out the shape of Atam as he opened Sap’s pin, but the bull that exited wasn’t Sap.

He was an unfamiliar bull, and Najma stiffed as fear coursed down her spine. The bull scuffed the ground, his snorts sending up a plum of dust.

“That’s not Sap!” Salima cried, her voice high with terror.

“Salima,” Selika snapped. “You stay out of his sight.”

“But-”

“But nothing. You stay out of his sight. Keep the crowd entertained and distracted with your flips and tumbles.”

“Yes, xwişk.”

“Najma-”

“Let me do it.”

“You-”

“He’s too short for you. You’ll get injured if he tosses his head. I can do it.”

Selika sighed. “Okay. I’ll dance.”

Grimly nodding her head. Najma ran forward. She knew Selika would be running just beside her. Salima would be sure to flip around to the back of the bull where he couldn’t see her and would hopefully forget about her.

The first pass the two girls dodged his wide horns as he charged, and each flipped in a different direction as the bull turned to face them again.

From around her waist, Najma tugged free the red pennant that would draw the bull’s attention to her alone. With the dust and dirt in the air, the red wasn’t as vibrant as in the fields just outside the city, but the size and fluttering nature of the fabric was enough to keep him distracted.

Selika kept pace with her as she raced toward the bull again, but once more they diverged when the bull swung wildly. Too dangerous to trust.

Panting, Najma knew that they’d couldn’t keep it up. Two flips was the standard. Najma daren’t go for more. Sap would have tolerated it, but this unknown bull was dangerous. Where did he even come from?

The third pass arrived and the bull lowered his head just right. Najma felt Selika break off as she caught the bull by the horns and threw herself into the air, feet over her head, body twisting as the bull tossed his head, shoving her farther up into the air. Silently cursing, she released the horns and touched her feet to his spine before quickly skipping off into a second flip.

That wasn’t elegant or smooth, she thought as she landed on her knee, quickly tumbling to her feet and dodging out of the raging beast’s path. Selika distracted the bull only momentarily before he was once more charging at Najma.

He was too close. The sun was directly in her eyes.

Huffing, Najma nodded to herself and met him head on again. He swung his head the wrong direction, and, had she time, she would have broke off, but they were too close. She heard Salima cry out.

Launching herself into the air, she landed on her hands on the bull’s shoulders, felt his horn brush her thigh, but shoved off just as quickly and landed on the ground, knees bent to absorb the impact.

There was blood dripping down her inner thigh, but it was done.

She did a back flip in place then looked to the bull.

She had dropped the red pennant on the last jump, and the bull had mauled it into the dirt. Selika was flipping off to one side, headed toward the shelter of the balcony. Salima was already in the shade behind the stone guard that surrounded the arena.

Najma quickly made her way out of the arena amid the cheers. Panting, she stopped beside Salima. “Are you alright?”

“Mn, he didn’t come near me.”

She reached out and patted her hair. “Good. That was dangerous.”

“You still did it.”

She nodded. “It was too late for all of us to back out. Never jump over an unknown bull, Salima. You saw how he tossed me the first time and then gouged me the second?”

Salima looked down at the blood on her leg. “That looks painful.”

“If it was painful, she wouldn’t have done it,” Selika’s cousin sneered, snapping a rope in his hands. “What a pathetic display.”

Selika stepped between them, glaring at her cousin. “Where is Sap?”

Atam shrugged. “I sold him. He cost too much to feed.”

“What?!” The three girls shouted in unison. Najma and Salima gaped at Atam while Selika fought to keep the rage out of her voice.

“How dare you? He was my bull!”

Atam waved a hand and turned away. “And the money I got for him will pay your rent.”

“In my father’s house?”

“And for your upkeep,” he went on, ignoring her. “Next time, I expect to see a better show.” He snapped at the arena. “And get that bull back into the pin so I can return him to his owner.”

He left them, and Najma could only reach out and rest a hand on Selika’s shoulder.

Salima leaned against her own shoulder. “How are we supposed to get him back in the pin?”

Selika shook her head, looking lost and afraid. Najma didn’t know what to say, and when she turned to wrap her arm around Salima, she spotted her brother standing farther inside the shelter, his arms over his chest and glaring at Atam as the man walked away.

She shivered at the hatred and anger in his eyes. She hadn’t seen that look since the day they discovered that the district governor had been the one to order the dam upriver from their family’s village to be destroyed.

That governor was now dead through unknown causes.

She met Zilan’s eye and shook her head. His eyes narrowed then he moved away, disappearing into the shadows, out of her sight.

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