#Nadeem el-Azimi

[yet-another-heathen]

Active Series Masterpost

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The Jackal of An-Nadr - [X]

Set in 1,200 BCE. The Jackal of An-Nadr follows the capture of Nadeem, a date-farmer turned thief who was abandoned in the wastes of the desert when he tried to steal from the wrong ship.

Stranded and alone, he is found and enslaved by a crew of ifrit—towering demons that roam An-Nadr in ships that can sail the sand. Will he become a plaything of the creatures from his nightmares? Or is there something more for him waiting in the hands of his would-be captors?

Content | epic worldbuilding, defiant whumpee, environmental whump, teratophilia, slavery, desert pirates, pre-historic fiction, LGBTQ+ fiction. Adult themes, with occasional NSFW content [including dub-con and non-con]

Cast | Nadeem, Yeezumon, Ifyaa, Adrsiae, Hidhialial

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Liliholm and Page - [X]

This series follows Wesley Page, a daring vigilante best known by his alias, Deimos. When he steals and exposes a massive library of blackmail owned by one of the city's worst villains, their entire criminal world goes on a manhunt to track him down. Captured and alone, Deimos is subjected to the revenge and torture of not just the man he stole from, but every villain whose crimes he exposed.

Does he have it in him to withstand their torture long enough to escape? And if so, will he still have the strength afterward to heal?

Content | sci-fi, cyberpunk setting, superpower whump, kidnapping, very brutal torture, gore, repeated noncon // PTSD, an old friend (who just happens to be the city's most powerful villain and a renowned psych professor) turned caretaker. LGBTQ+ fiction. Frequent NSFW content, almost exclusively noncon.

Luca and Garcia

An offshoot of Liliholm and Page. A dynamic duo of bastards that you absolutely hate to love.

Content | EXTREME GORE, VIOLENCE, whumper POV, all hurt no comfort, character death, incredibly brutal whump, painful healing, immortal whumper-turned-whumpee, agender protagonist, villains that are so human you want to strangle them yourself. Aro/Ace friendly!

Cast | Wesley Page, Henry Liliholm, Yalom, Luca, Garcia

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Writing Prompts

All my writing prompts are free to use and can be found under the tag #words of a heathen.

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The Hare Trap Chronicles - [X]

This story is not one of mine, but one submitted to me in series by my beloved 🐇 Anon. Follow the story of Ignacy, a hedonistic young aristocrat-turned-vampire, and his many lifetimes of misadventure as he lives out his centuries as the 'black sheep' of his family's estate.

[yet-another-heathen]

At this point I feel outright giddy. From top to bottom; Yeezumon, Ifyaa, and Nadeem <3

YURRRRRRR SPIDERVERSE PICREW OUT NEOWWWWWWWWWWWWW

PLEASE TRY IT AND SHOW ME CUZ I WANNA SEE YOUR SPIDERSONAS!!

[daybydayintheatmosphere]

sometimes i think a bit to hard about nadeem and i

[yet-another-heathen]

Under the Cover of Night - III

1,506 words. Original Work: The Jackal of An-Nadr.

For new readers, The Jackal is an ongoing whump series set in 1,200 BCE, where pre-Islamic fantasy meets the love of bloody sword fights, found family, and handsome men who long for nothing more than home. 

<< | previous | next | >>

Chapter Warning | environmental whump, desert whump, initial capture, ancient demonic pirates that are both beautiful and terrifying (in an "oh. I'm being hunted down by a predator" sort of way. my beloved fellow teratophiles, you're going to love this), defiant whumpee, existing foot injury, xenophobia, language and cultural barriers, veiled whumpee having their face forcibly exposed, suggestive taunting (non-explicit), kidnapping/rescue (you decide)

Author’s Notes | This chapter shows our first instance of Q̷͚́ŭ̸͇r̵̥͝u̴͚̍r̶̠̈́a̴̰̋q̶̹̀, the language of the ifrit, as seen through Nadi’s lens. If this causes any problems for my font-sensitive readers, please reach out and I will gladly send you a translated copy! And thank you so much to @secretwhumplair, whose incredible series, No Warrior, inspired this format of language barrier whump!

Taglist | @killtheprotagonist @secretwhumplair @ink-and-salt @kixngiggles @brutal-nemesis @thebewilderer @whumpvp @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whimperwoods @shydragonrider @pizzasthengym @thecyrulik @ceph-the-writing-spook @mylifeisonthebookshelf @ohwhumpydays @redwingedwhump

When night came and the last of the light had sunk beyond the dunes, Nadeem inched his way out from the edge of the riverbed. A large fire burned at the heart of the ifrit camp, casting ripples of false warmth out across the water like embers. The ifrit had spent the dusk bathing in its flames, washing themselves in glittering cinders with all the eerie joy of dust bathing doves. It was more of a distraction than he could have hoped for, and he wouldn't let the chance get away from him. 

He moved slowly, careful not to disturb the surface of the water lest someone see the reflection against the flames.

It was a slow crawl up the embankment as he kept to his hands and knees, clinging to the cover of the banthum grass. His thirst had been sated, but his body was still horribly weak. The climb wasn't an easy one, and his wet clothes clung to his limbs and made silence across the grass all the more difficult. 

When he finally made it to the crest and slipped down the other side, he closed his eyes and let out a breath that felt like it had been stuck in his lungs for days.

The night over An-Nadr was moonless and dark, and the stars cast little light on the landscape around him. Shadows welled beneath the wild date palms, shifting with the movement of their fronds. 

He gingerly made his way to his feet, ankle angry and swollen beneath his weight. Every step was a gamble to keep it from collapsing, and he forced himself not to think about what that would mean for his ability to survive out here. Especially if it got any worse. 

He was careful to keep his head low, following the edges of the rock bed. He kept his hands spread to catch himself in case he stumbled.

He had no recollection of the path he’d taken into the trees, but he knew he’d eventually find sand the further he got from the water. He followed the lowest path he could between the outcrops of stone, moving silently between the dense patches of cover.

Ahead the grove thickened, creating a canopy of fronds under which the ground was beginning to soften. He headed for their shelter, eager for the promised safety that would calm the feeling of ant bites at his nape. Breaths clouded against the back side of his litham, the fabric keeping them silent from the world outside. He'd take the chance of stumbling into the shelter of coiled snakes and other wildlife over the chance of being seen.

The light of the stars was distant and faint through the leaves. Away from the familiar paths and eddies of his home, Nadeem's progress was slow through the dark. 

No animal walked in steady, even tempos but men; and so he kept his pace faint and hesitant to disguise the sound of his footsteps through the littered clay. Often he stopped to listen and observe the shadows around him, picking the path least likely to catch on sticks and twigs. Behind him followed an uneven trail of single bloody footsteps, meandering back through the dark.

There was nothing he could do about them. He just had to hope that neither the ifrit, nor anything else, would find them. The shifting of the sand would cover the tracks once he made it to the safety of the desert, and they would lose the trail there.

He watched through the leaves for the lighter gray of the dunes. And soon he caught glimpses of the open desert far beyond the trees. He slunk low between patches of cover, keeping the distant sound of the fire to his back.

His mind continued to race with thoughts of how to avoid being tracked, preoccupied with the beginning of a plan to circle to another part of the oasis. Then something pricked at the edge of his hearing. 

He stopped in his tracks, straining to listen as ice flashed through his limbs. 

For a long while the night answered him with nothing but the roar of crickets, stretching out the moment to eons. And then he heard it again—about thirty feet to his right, the sound of something in the dark. He lowered himself into the shelter of the surrounding bushes, crouching to listen.

Then he saw it. The blue-abalone reflection of eyes from the darkness. Like a hyena's, stalking him through the grass. But as he watched, they rose out of the darkness to a nearly impossible height. Fixed on him.

Then a twig snapped somewhere in the darkness right behind him, and Nadeem forgot how to breathe.

He whipped around, searching the blackness. His heart pounded as something in the shadows behind him moved, leaves shuddering against their branches.

A massive figure stepped from the shadows, melting into the starlight. 

The ifrit towered above him and inclined its head. The glinting of eyes, the flash of smile. Something else moved behind it, emerging from the shade by its side.

—No.

Nadeem tried to run, not a single thought given to the pain in his ankle. He only made it a few steps before he collided headlong into another body.

Enormous hands grabbed him, breath leaving his lungs from the force of the impact. He gasped and struggled, trying to yank free as the monster locked all its hands around him.

He clawed and shoved, “No no no no, no—” falling from his lips. The ifrit from before, with the black sash across its chest, called something to the others.

With an effortless twist of a hand it pulled his head back, nearly lifting him off of his feet by the back of his turban. He gasped, staring with wide eyes up into its face.

“Let go of me,” he gasped, “Let—”

Dark eyes smiled down at him, wandering.

He cut off into a tight whine as it reached up and took the cloth of his litham between its fingers, so close to his face that he felt the heat pouring off its skin.

"H̴͎̆e̶̙̅l̷̤̿l̷͓̍o̴̖͋,̸̨̕ ̷̭̀ḹ̸ȋ̶͈t̶̩̆t̶̼͑ĺ̴͓e̸̮͐ ̶͍̒j̷̮́a̷̢̍č̵͉k̶̬͆á̴͜l̸͔̔.̴̪̚"

The ifrit purred something in its rumbling language, leering down at him.

"S̸͎̅ọ̸̀ ̵̙̎g̶̣̋ō̸̺ȯ̴̲d̶̐ͅ ̶̪̀o̷̖̐f̴͍̓ ̵͈̍y̴͉͠o̷̱̿ư̴̦ ̴̲̇t̸͎͠ŏ̸̺ ̷̡͐f̵̛̲i̷̥̎n̸͕̿a̶̯̿ḷ̶́l̵͜͝y̸͂ͅ ̸̦͝j̶̣̃ō̵͕i̴͈̎n̶͇̔ ̶͙͘ű̸͓s̵͈̄.̶̟̓"

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Ifyaa glanced up when the sound of struggling edged into the camp. Two of his fellow ifrit emerged from the shadows, followed by Yeezumon and the thrashing, clawing human he was dragging with him.

Every set of eyes fixed on the dirtblood as it cast wildly around the camp, dragging a bloody foot. Its clothes were muddy and torn. Yeezumon forced it to its knees.

From the other side of the fire, Adrsiae inclined her head.

"So we do have a visitor,” she mused. 

It strained away in Yeezumon’s grip as she rose to her feet and came closer, the boy watching her through narrowed eyes. It flinched when she reached out and took its chin in her palm. 

“You found it at the end of the blood trail?”

“Near there. The damn thing was playing clever: had it been only ten minutes sooner it probably would have slipped past us back out into the wastes,” Simntii, another member of the hunting party, muttered. She grunted softly as she knelt at the edge of her tent, adjusting the leg of her pants, “Gave us one hell of a fight on the way back.”

“Hm.”

It leveled the captain with a scathing glare when she turned it by the jaw, and then tugged down its face cloth to see its features in the light. 

Dark eyes narrowed under thick, winged brows, the domed bridge of its nose crinkling with its snarl. Cracked lips and bared teeth, jaw lined with overgrown stubble. 

It was rugged but...an undeniably pretty face. Her claws left indents in its cheeks as she turned it in the firelight, appraising.

Then she released it, and it gave a full-body shudder as she turned away. 

She reclaimed her spot by the fire. “Yeezumon, you were the one who tracked it down?”

“I was.”

She leaned back, tearing into the soft flesh of a date, “Then it’s yours. Do with it as you wish.”

Their eyes didn’t leave the human, whose smell of fear was tangible in the air even as it glared back at her. Each of them nodded in deference to their captain, absently touching their thumbs to their temples.

“Careful Yeezumon,” one of them teased, flashing his canines in a mockery of the human’s bared teeth, “It looks like it wants to bite.”

A ripple of laughter broke through the camp.

“It's handsome, for a dirtblood,” another admitted.

Both Yeezumon and Ifyaa smiled, sharing eye contact across the camp. Then Yeezumon lifted its face, making it meet his eyes.

“So it is,” he grinned. “And we’ll put it to good use.”

next | >>

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[yet-another-heathen]

Under the Cover of Day - II

899 words. Original Work: The Jackal of An-Nadr.

For new readers, The Jackal is an ongoing whump series set in 1,200 BCE, where pre-Islamic fantasy meets the love of bloody sword fights, found family, and handsome men who long for nothing more than home. 

<< | previous | next | >>

Chapter Warning | environmental whump, desert whump, epic worldbuilding, hiding in an attempt to evade capture, ancient demonic pirates and the sandships they sail, being tracked down like a wounded animal (which, let's admit it. right now you may as well be)

Taglist | @killtheprotagonist @secretwhumplair @ink-and-salt @kixngiggles @brutal-nemesis @thebewilderer @whumpsical @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whimperwoods @shydragonrider @pizzasthengym @thecyrulik @ceph-the-writing-spook @mylifeisonthebookshelf @ohwhumpydays @redwingedwhump

The sun was beating down on the water, glinting and blinding and sharp. Nadeem hadn't moved an inch from where he'd climbed down beneath the spines of the thicket, save to drape his waist sash over his head to disguise the yellow of his turban.

Strings of algae wormed between his toes like grass, flowing with eddies of water beneath the dappled light. Across the oasis, under the blue of their sail, the ifrit had set up camp. 

Open tents spread out along a sandy stretch of embankment, while the women and men milled back and forth to the pond with buckets and canteens. Long, darkened limbs reached as far out as they could to collect water from the dryness of shore. Feet traced carefully around the water's edge, never touching the surface. Their voices rose and fell in a way that was even-tempoed and foreign.

Patrols had been venturing out into the oasis since dawn, groups of three or four disappearing into the underbrush only to emerge from some new part of the clearing. He’d counted twenty-two in all, with tall figures occasionally calling into the ship where he suspected there may be a handful more. 

He watched the camp carefully, searching for any indicator of how long they’d stay. He knew the human caravans that traversed An-Nadr would sometimes linger for weeks at any oasis they found in the wastes. He had no idea what that would mean to the larger sandship. 

So far they had unloaded very little save for their tents, and he was holding to the last of a prayer that meant they wouldn’t stay for long.

He’d seen enough wildlife that there had to be some kind of foragable plants, and if he was lucky—very lucky—it would be enough to get him though a few more weeks in hopes that another human caravan would pass through. If he could stay out of sight, he still had a chance. 

There was only one problem.

Even under the stifling heat of the afternoon sun, the water that bubbled from the earth was so cold that his limbs had gone numb where they were buried in the sucking depths of the silt. With the night fast approaching, he knew he couldn’t stay where he was.

But there was nothing between him and the ifrit camp but open water. 

So Nadeem did the only thing he could do. He planned. When night fell he would slip from the bank under the cover of darkness, where he could pick his way over the stones back out into the safety of the dunes. He knew the sand, heat-baked by day, would be enough to keep him warm. Having nearly drank his weight in water, he figured he could make it another night or two before he’d have to find a way back.

The desert bought him time. He just had to wait. 

He wound his fingers through the roots buried in mud beneath him, and leaned his head back into a crook between branches. He watched the world through his lashes, biding his time as the wind sifted through the thorns.

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Ifyaa had spent the morning unloading the ship, the sun beating down on him until his shoulders had begun to smolder in the heat. Wisps were still rising from his skin as he made his way through the camp, side-stepping bedrolls and limbs as he made his way toward his tent.

Several of the others had just returned from patrol. Among them he spotted his husband, trailing behind the rest. Yeezumon’s eyes were cast out over the oasis, scanning the trees as if he was expecting to see something move.

Ifyaa finished securing the side of the tent flap, then slipped between the other ifrit and made his way across the beach. Yeezumon didn’t glance back when he approached, but he automatically reached out for Ifyaa’s hand.

They brushed the tips of their fingers down each other’s palm, settling in at one another’s side.

“What is it?” he asked.

Yeezumon glanced at him, distracted. He passed something over, silent as Ifyaa took it and held it up to see. A jagged stone half as long as his finger, the pointed tip covered in red-brown blood. 

“Hm. So I wasn’t seeing things,” he murmured. He turned it over in the light, then handed the stone back, “What’s it doing so far south?”

“I don’t know. I had my patrol check the horizon, but there’s been no sign of other ships.”

“...a stray? This far out?”

“I’m not sure.”

He sighed. Ifyaa slowly unwound his turban, stepping forward into the water. He felt Yeezumon tense as he waded out into the ankle deep silt, the sound of splashing turning eyes from the camp before they realized it was only him. He tugged his turban free, running fingers over the waves of his hair before stooping to run the fabric through the water.

“Well whatever it is,” he wrung the cloth, “I don’t fancy a mercy killing.” He scanned the edge of the pool. “Have you told Adrsiae?”

“She knows.”

Something in the tone of his husband’s voice made him glance back, and he found those dark eyes following him with just the barest trace of a smile.

“Habibi, how do you feel about a new toy?"

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Like this chapter? Please remember to reblog so that others can read it, too!

[yet-another-heathen]

Nadeem and his daughter.

cool father daughter bonding activities: stand next to each other in dead silence as you both stare directly into a campfire

[yet-another-heathen]

nadeem ?

I laughed! So very, very him 💅

[yet-another-heathen]

would you ever write nadeem playing some kind of board game with the ifrit i just think it would be really funny if they introduced him to their traditional version of uno from their culture and he got really good at it and beat all their asses

He does exactly this! The night crew especially likes to play games with carved bones and dice. When they're just starting out, someone gifts Nadi a single coin so that he's able to bet. Before long, he's holding his own against people who have been playing these games for centuries. Your boy has a talent for strategy! Just not so much for luck.

[yet-another-heathen]

Alright everybody, Jackal update!

I have a newer and fuller version of Nadeem's story that I've been rewriting on the side, and it's finally time I published it! This doesn't include any entirely new chapters, but there is a lot of depth and story building that I have added into the current story that so many of you have told me you want to see.

So, today I'm going to be posting these rewritten chapters for the first time! My plan is to create a new master post for the updated versions, which will become my new pinned post at the end of the day.

I WILL NOT BE DELETING THE ORIGINAL VERSIONS OF THE STORY. The "Old Masterpost" will still be available, it will simply be unpinned from the top of my blog. The reason being is that some of my most beloved comments and interactions live in these original posts, and nothing in the world could convince me to get rid of those memories.

If ever you want a link back to the Old Masterpost, just let me know and I'll be happy to send them to you!

Note that there will be one or two chapters that I will keep as the original version for now—I'm still making my edits to those parts of the story and will weave them back in later once they are complete. But in general, you can expect to see a lot of bonus content especially in those first few chapters of Nadeem's story!

I hope you enjoy <3

[yet-another-heathen]

Oh, so unbelievably weird. Not only does he have no experience around the ifrit world at large....but for lack of a better word, Nadi is the Qa'imrani version of a hick. An isolated little farm boy 😆 No concept of how the world works outside of the village he grew up in (which he'd never left until the day he got taken by the merchants).

And to top it all off, Qa'imrani customs are pretty much in direct opposition to the ifrits'. While the ifrit wouldn't blink twice at public nudity, Nadi's people cover themselves with almost excessive clothing. Especially the men, who also stay veiled around anyone who isn't family. To the ifrit, casual touch is as freely given and natural as breathing. Even between strangers! Whereas Nadi feels justified biting anyone who even acts like they're going to touch him. And that is barely even scratching the surface.

So yes, sufficient to say that Nadi is acting very very weird 😌 Especially because the only ifrit he's ever interacted with are the crew, and he's got a LOT of false expectations of what the rest of the ifrit are like.

love the sailing boat discourse and all but i have to say being on a ship for a prolonged time does change a man and i don't mean in a hardened but wisened sailor kind of way i mean that everytime my brother returns from sea after a few months he has to be reintroduced into society like some sort of feral beast. being on a boat might not give you scurvy but it WILL erode your impulse control and ability to react normally to any situation whatsoever. that's just what months of hard work and inability to leave while the ground moves does to a mf

[yet-another-heathen]

For Nadeem:

B) What inspired you to create them?

H) What trait do you admire most?

B) What inspired you to create them?

Nadeem's entire world came about when I was solo car camping one night. It was getting really cold outside, but I was bundled up in a soft bed with lots of blankets, just as snuggled down into them as could be. And the first glimpse I ever got of them was Nadeem sandwiched between the Husbands on a cold night, so content from the warmth that he could barely keep his eyes open. I think him getting a massage to get the knots out of his neck/shoulders was also part of it, because I very much remember him melting into a puddle in their hands. The next morning I wrote the very first draft of "Uarhaq's" story where he got dragged up onto the deck right after his capture. Part of that very first draft actually made it into Nadi's canon, where he's described as being dumped unceremoniously onto the deck and watches the shadow of the sail on the deck planks. I'm still so glad that the original seed is still visible in the rest of the story even though so much of it changed and grew on its own.

H) What trait do you admire most?

By FAR, it's Nadi's relentless and unyielding love for his family. He truly loves his parents and his sisters more than anything else in the world. And it's for them that he's surviving all of this, and will continue to fight to try to get home to them against impossible odds. Yes, he might have gotten flung into a world of danger and politics and so much more than he ever asked for. But before he is anything else—a thief, a Son of Solomon, a slave, a keystone—Nadeem is and always will be an oldest brother.

[yet-another-heathen]

oooh, what is this a new big reveal?? Are we going to find out what a son of solomon is?

It's going to be a surprise! Only one person knows the secret, and he's keeping it under lock and key 👀 But I will tell you that it has to do with Nadi's identity, and plays a part in why he was stranded in the desert in the first place!

As for the Son of Solomon part, I actually plan to include an epigraph in this version that might shed a little more light on it. And if you still want more after you've had a chance to read the new version, I might make a separate post explaining the history of it in more detail <3 Just let me know!

[yet-another-heathen]

Posting this here because Nadi's language learning came up tonight with @venusski

When Nadeem starts learning Qururaq, his own Qa'imrani accent stays thick. This is almost exactly what he sounds like to the crew when he speaks their language. And that's after he's already spent a year or two becoming fluent.

[yet-another-heathen]

That's it! That's the entire plot! She is just such a Menace™ and every single one of the ifrit is enjoying watching Nadi get a taste of his own medicine.

romance is lame and overrated i love mentor/mentee relationships in fiction and especially when theyre sort of fucked up

[yet-another-heathen]

For my beloved henry: 12, 27, 38, and..3 (go to bed and nEVER WAKE UP HAHA)

And for Naddylicious: 18, 32, and B!

Oh boy. Putting this bad boy under a cut because it's a long one! Thank you Nemi <33

Henry:

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)

Most nights, Henry spends about an hour before bed bundled up and reading. He almost always ends up reading a little longer than he intended to, fighting off the heavy eyes until he finally has to put the book down before he drops it.

How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach? 

Oh, this one is a very familiar frustration for him—the scar tissue around his arm acts up sometimes and will get insanely itchy, but because the nerves have been so heavily rewired it can be nearly impossible to figure out WHERE the scratch is coming from. Imagine if you got a mosquito bite but no matter how much you ran your hand over your skin, you can only find a spot CLOSE to where the bite actually is. And most of the places you end up trying to itch are on scar tissue, which itself feels awful to scratch at. It's endlessly frustrating. Henry will try to ignore them for a while, but he usually just gets shifty and then irritable and then finally has to go off to a bathroom somewhere to spend ten minutes searching for them.

More mundane itches, he'll just excuse himself to go handle.

What causes them to feel dread? 

😈 Electricity. The sound of it crackling, the sight of sparks arcing through air. It gives him a very tangible kind of dread because he knows that if he gets shocked, it could very well stop his heart. And even if it doesn't kill him outright, a good shock means going to make sure that his ICD is still functional. And if not, that means yet another heart surgery in order to replace it.

Dogs are another one. Less dread and more 'you're gonna get to see him climb onto a table to get away from your Pomeranian' kind of antics.

What memory do they revisit the most often? 

You know, this is a really really hard one for me to answer. Henry spends so much of his time planning for the future, and very rarely goes about living in the past. Unless it's something he's still carrying a lot of guilt over. And of those, you pretty much have your pick—most of the time it's over the kind of mistake that you can only see the other choices for in hindsight. How you'd wish you'd been more careful, that you'd known to ask, that you'd waited just one day more. The ones that really haunt him are the ones that got other people hurt. And unfortunately, of those he has quite a selection.

Nadi:

What embarrasses them?

Nudity. And unfortunately for Nadi, his definition of the word is MUCH different than the ifrits'. To him and his people, a grown man having his hair exposed to people other than family is horribly indecent. Having his face exposed to strangers before they've become acquainted is the same. And having any more of his body exposed than just his hands and feet?? It's so unthinkably humiliating that to be in as little clothing as the ifrit wear would make Nadeem want to curl up into a little ball and cry. He has no idea how the ifrit just. Do that. And he's so badly hoping they won't make him join them.

[Here's the fun part of having Nadi as a narrator though: this boy doesn't realize that to the rest of the world, he's the one who is such a traditionalist and prude that it borders on comedy. They entertain it because they think it's cute.]

Do they have a go-to story in conversation? Or a joke? 

Not a specific joke, but he does have some pretty signature stories when he's around younger kids. Nadi earned himself a reputation around his village for being able to entertain all the children with his storytelling. It got to the point where parents who wanted to socialize during holidays knew exactly where to go leave their little ones; circled around a fire where Nadeem was already painting tales of travellers and magic. And the kids loved it because if they begged enough, then near the end of the night they could always talk him into one (1) scary story. And at those? Nadeem absolutely excelled. Sometimes it would be stories he adapted from real jinn encounters—a lot less bloody and terrifying than real life tales, but taking from the things that made them so unnerving. And he'd watch for when the kids were all holding their breaths in terror, then give a little jump scare. And then end the story on something silly, once the chorus of delighted screaming was over.

And for Nadi's final question, I've already got the answer for you here!

[yet-another-heathen]

which chapters are you still working on editing? Just so I know when I get to them

I'm still working my way through the second half of Prying at Loose Fangs, where Yeezumon gets handsy with Nadi for the first time. That will honestly probably be the chapter that ends up getting the biggest revamp, since there's more I want to add to the moment when Yeez tries taking away Nadi's turban and the general fear he's feeling upon being taken aboard. I've also been considering splitting off the touchy exploring for a later chapter, sometime after he's had his foot cauterized and is being weaned off the eadh.