Oath of the Sun
 

Oath of the Sun
-Private-

Players
Nolori as "Suna"
Image: (N/A)

Kanaveil as "Creed" (14
year old girl), "Pook" (pet monkey)
Image:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5307/pmd01.gif
Base (nevermore.cc)

Setting
Today, an Oasis.

----------------------

:: The sun is setting over the golden dunes of the desert. Creed and Pook sit hunched over a palm leaf cradling a handful of dates. The two share a glance and huff a sigh of relief. Their day's efforts rest in that leaf's flimsy hold, as well as their only food supply. The largest date sits tauntingly in the center of the nature-made plate, and both Creed and Pook reach for it casually. Their hands meet the date at the same time and a harsher shared glace takes place. They begin to slap at each other’s hands, playfully at first and then with cause. Their patting becomes a wrestle. Creed grabs at the leaf from the stem and yanks it while Pook tries to cup it from the bottom, resulting in the two working together to fling the leaf from their hands. The leaf and all it's tasty goods spill into the river. ::

Creed: :o Now look at what you did...

:: Pook and Creed watch as the last of their date stash soaks in the sandy waters of the river as they wash away into the horizon. Pook whines in his throat. ::

Creed: :sarcasm: Wonderful. Now we're going to starve. I never should have listened to you, Pook. The caravan probably has no idea we're even gone. Like anyone would care, if they did...

:: The wind begins to pick up. It's chilly. The palm leaves shutter above them, leaving an eerie, chattering ringing in the air. ::

Creed: :( Why is it so cold? I thought deserts were supposed to be the hottest places on the planet.

:: Pook begins to burrow himself in the sand. ::

Creed: :o Wait! Get back here! I'm not gonna freeze out here by myself!

:: Creed curls up next to Pook's makeshift nest and closes her eyes, shivering in the desert night winds. ::

Notes: On the off chance anyone stumbles across this who actually knows about Namib and Kuiseb and the oasis that runs along it: I would like to apologize for the gracious liberties taken from the truth.

----

The sun began to set over the golden sand of the Namib desert. The red and orange of the painted African sky danced together in a graceful spin until the two melted together like lovers into a single seamless being.

A young woman, dark skinned though clearly a native of northern Africa rather than the South, walked barefoot over the heated grains. Her legs moved rapidly, with almost the appearance of hopping rather than walking, as any desert creature might do to keep off the burning ground. Her lips were curved into a soft, content, smile that came solely from the comforts of home.

The Kuiseb river ran rushing along side. Its lapping waters and quiet wildlife making music for the coming darkness. They looked up, alert in her passing, but rather than run went back to their drinking in an almost uncaring fashion, as though she were a part of the desert itself.

The oasis that followed the Kuiseb was easily one of the longest stretches of life in the vast and slumbering desert. The young woman followed it with a quick-stepping stride and the comfortable knowledge of direction and familiarity.

The river often carried many strange objects along its route. From the river alone the young woman could have probably sustained herself if the need arose.
But that, she thought to herself with a laugh, would have been far too easy. Life, even a life that is spent so often at home, would be worth very little to the young woman if she decided to take the easy routes the desert so casually offered her.

A leaf floated down stream, a sight not uncommon in the wasting heat, but along with it followed more dates than any one tree could drop at once. She thanked her Father, for whom she assumed a vast majority of this bounty had come from, but declined it. After all, such things were too easy. One date, however, was very large and ripe. The young woman smile broadened.
Well, if Father wanted her to have it, it was a courtesy to take it, wasn't it?

She dipped her hand into the warm water and waited as the date came into it. Plucking it out, and taking a bite, she continued her walk home. It would be a few days yet until she reached it, but what was a few days for such a... lasting creature as herself?

As though in argument of this assured thought, the wind whipped along the sand against her. She snorted at it with a boast. Is that the best you can do? You'll have to work harder to beat me. Nothing comes that easy. It rang through the leaves of the various plant-life that had fought against the harsh environment. Perhaps the ringing was its vengeful reply, but the young woman paid it no heed. Instead, her ears turned to the sounds of human life. A girl's voice, not much older than a child, argued loudly to a stranger with no apparent voice.

The young woman approached them. The second figure looked to be a spider monkey, although whether it could understand the girl's words was debatable. The young woman laughed to herself. How funny outsiders were.

"Goeie annd!" The young woman said, waving to the light-skinned girl, "Good Evening. What are you doing out here? You're no nomad."

:: Creed popped her head up at the greeting. She thought she'd heard laughter, but figured it was only the wind. A figure stood silhouetted by the orange light of the sky. Creed could see hair billowing in the wind, with a strange harshness to it's silk. A woman. She stood as if she were a piece of the land; purposed for the dunes as a sort of monument to the desert's dangerous beauty. Pook was sleeping. Creed had only dozed off, but when she opened her mouth to speak, a glob of drool crept to the sandy floor. ::

Creed: :drool: Who's there? Are... are you from the caravan?

:: Creed quickly wiped her face with her fist. She strained her flickering blue eyes to see through the haze of dark that drifted up to the sky from the sand, beginning the ceremony of nature's shift to the shroud of nightfall colors. ::

Creed: :shock: Are you a ghost?

:: Creed shook Pook with frightened aggression. Pook batted at her hand with lazy reluctance. ::

Creed: :angry: Wake up, you fat log!

:: With no response from her companion, Creed forces herself off her side and onto her wobbly knees, scrambling for something to defend herself with. She finds makes out the shape of something long and straight and without giving it much of a feeling inspection, she stands, heaving the object up in front of her. She turns her face away as if to sheild her eyes from any danger that may be waiting in response to her pathetic front of courage. ::

Creed: :talk2hand: Tell me who you are!

:: Pook dangles from his tail in Creed's grip, still sleeping. ::

The young woman laughed, her thick black hair waving wildly as she did.
"Caravan? I might be. I might have been, at some point. Which one are you talking about? The one that was here yesterday? The week before that? The month before? The century before?"

It wasn't until the girl appeared to become frantic with worry that the young womans's smile began to fade. The child, it seemed, wasn't entirely keen on jokes. At very least, not [i]her[\i] kind of jokes. What had Atem done to her, the young woman thought, to make her sense of humor as unamusing to others as his was?

Ghost? Did the girl know about the lost souls of the desert? Had she been told the tales of myth and legend that permeated these old and tribal lands? It was more than possible, depending on how long she'd been here and why she'd come. How many light-skins had been out of South Africa without a gun in recent years?

What terrible saddness had engulfed this land.

The young woman, however, was currently more concerned with the state of the child than the state of the war-torn land in the north.
"No, of course not. I-"
A thought crossed her mind, bringing disdain to her face. Had Atem put the girl up to this? Anything was possible.
"If you call me Baba Yaga I swear to the Sky that nothing Atem told you will be worth what I'll put you through."

The child's face showed only fear. Atem wouldn't have chosen such a girl to work his pranks and terrible joy in pain.
The disdain slipped from her face and moved back into a kind of contentness. The child was frightened of a figure approaching from the coming darkness. Any sane person would be. The young woman had almost forgotten what it was like to be lost in a foreign land.

The child grabbed a weapon.
"You do not want to fight me, child. I can garuntee you that."

In the approaching darkness, it was hard to see what the weapon was exactly. This worried the young woman more than anything. It did not appear to be a gun, but it was certainly hard to tell. The young woman moved forward slowly, her quick and short step gaining a kind of predatory gait. As the child moved into view, the weapon was simply the monkey she'd been talking to earlier.

The young woman laughed.

"Your sleeping friend there isn't going to help you here, I don't think." With a breath between laughs she added, "My name is Suna and, unlike yourself, I'm born of these sands. What's a girl like you doing out here alone?"

:: Creed looked at Suna in confusion. ::

Creed: :stare: Help me?

:: She thought, aloud ::

Creed: Why would he, he's asleep on the flo-

:: Pook squirmed in her hands. Creed squeaked in surprise as she dropped the fuzzy stick. Pook landed in the sand and a puff of dust exploded up into the air around him. As the sand settled, Creed could see her friend cooing and grooming it's sore tail. ::

Creed: :sweat: Sorry, Pook.

::Creed turned her attention to the lady.::

Creed: :( We got lost... we didn't mean to! It was... sort of an accident. You see, Pook wanted to catch the beetles that were following the caravan. They were real big and black with blue wings, flying along side of us. Pook ran off when he spooked one of the beetles by actually catching it. I didn't want the caravan to leave him behind, so I jumped off the wagon to stop him, but he was too busy chasing that stupid bug to pay any attention to me... Next thing I knew, we were too far in the desert to know which direction was home and which was no where. Then Pook smelled something and he led us here. It's been a day since we got separated... but no one's come to look for us.

:: Creed begins to sniff, self counsciously, afraid to appear weak in the stranger's eyes. ::

Creed: :oops: But I'm fourteen, so I can take care of myself!

:: Creed wipes her face and turns her back on Suna. Pook tugs are her dusty jeans in disagreement. ::

The child relayed her story to Suna.
"Be careful of the beetles." Suna said, unsure of whether she was talking to the child or the monkey. It seemed rather silly to be talking to the animal, but thus far it had exhibited an intelligence and capability for communication not usually found in untrained creatures. Perhaps the child, for all her youth, was gifted with animals. It appeared to be more than possible.

"Many of them are more violent than they are calm. It's the law of nature; eat or be eaten, you know."
Suna laughed at that, apparently finding either its simple reality or unkind truth remarkably amusing.
"Strange that something so small can be so angry, hm?"

As the child spoke there was sadness in her eyes, a sadness that almost belied her fear. Perhaps it was loneliness in the vast desert, despite the monkey-companion. Perhaps it was depression in learning that the people of the desert were a kind of pack animal, many of whom did not take kindly to new-comers. Especially the light-skinned man. Or, perhaps, the child was merely hungry.

"The desert is a vast place and to stop moving is a terrible thing to the nomadic people. You weren't quite one of them, were you?"
Suna attempted to hide any disdain she had for the foreign intruder, but was unsure of how successful she was. Since white man had found dear Africa, Suna had never quite accepted his presence there. They brought their God and their guns; such things had no place in warm Africa.
That being thought, as bitterly as possible, she held a kind of pity for the child. What business had the caravan leaving a child in the desert? What business did they have taking her into in the first place?
Caravans took people only for money and what money could this child have?

That hardly seemed to matter though, since the child turned away.
The monkey was protesting.

"Grown men have been lost and died in this desert. The cold of the night is often more unkind to man than the sun." Suna said, "The desert doesn't care about how well you can take care of yourself. It cares less about your age."

The child was crying now. Suna found herself hoping it was because of the caravan and not because of anything she'd said. She'd meant all of it and she had no intention of taking any harsh words back, if there were any, but she found she was remarkably uncomfortable around crying. Suna was not made so uncomfortable by sadness or weakness, in more than one case she had found it pitiable and cute in the way one finds a small animal cute, but rather by such emotions induced because of her. She had come to identify that as Atem's job. Atem made people cry; Suna made them feel better.
Sometimes.

Suna folded her arms into her long woven over-coat.
"If you're going to try and sleep in that you'll freeze tonight."
She pulled her arms out, pulling the coat along with it.
"Use this." Suna said, handing it to the girl without offering to take questions on the matter. Her fingers remained entwined in the fabric.
"On one condition: what's your name?"

:: Creed looked back at Suna, wide-eyed, but it was Pook who lept from his place to accept the coat. Creed watched him carefully, deciding on whether or not she wanted to break her 'courageous' front. ::

Creed: :| It's Creed Scott. Creed Ellanore Scott. My mom named me that because she said I was something that God owed her because of a promise he couldn't keep. I don't really know what she meant by that... but she said it's a good thing. Like giving somone a rose because you're sorry.

:: Pook was dangling off the bottom of the coat. A sudden boom in the distance shook the dunes and the trees rattled. The noise of what sounded as though the wind was crying in anguish blasted past Creed's ears, shaking her bunned hair out of it's band and into the air, dancing with fear. Sand sprayed her face. Pook scampered up the inside of the coat and squeezed himself into one of the sleeves. Off on the horizon a dim flicker of red and gold illuminated the blackness of the now, evening struck, sands. Fire. ::

Suna looked down at the monkey whose hand was just as firmly gripped on the coat as Suna's was. She gave a laugh. Regardless of whether this monkey was intelligent or just very well trained, he was awfully amusing to watch.

Creed.
Well, at very least, the girl had been raised to respect her God. Her mother sounded like something of a odd one, but such things could be forgiven depending on circumstance. Granted, Suna found the idea that any God could owe anyone anything absolutely ridiculous. God did not owe anything to his creations. He created them, and that was that. No sacrifices, no promises, no prayers in the name of any God could repay that initial debt.
The girl didn't seem to believe her mother either, though. Or perhaps Creed didn't care. Both cases worked fine with Suna.

Suna felt the rush of pained and bemoaning wind before she heard the sound. A loud explosion met her ears with terrible force. It was not, unfortunately, the explosion that bothered Suna as the cries of the desert that erupted as a result. Sand erupted from the ground, disturbed from their peaceful rest, flying into the crying wind.
How the dunes wept at this war. These sands were so tired of war.
Suna found herself agreeing with them. There was a time when no matter how the body fights on, the soul fall and cries out 'Enough'. The men of the war had not yet found that falling, but the desert had. The Old Gods had. Suna had.

Colors played up in the sky with the darkening sky. Had the pinks and oranges of the passing twilight not finished their dance, she might have mistaken the fires for them. These yellows from the distant ground grew into oranges and reds as they licked the night sky with its greedy tongue, as though desperately wishing it could reach the sky as it had the ground. This man-made fire was a disgusting thing and she could not fathom how anyone, any man, any beast, any God, was not yet tired of the whole affair.
But man did not live long enough to bother with time as she knew it.
But beasts would learn to move in time and be at peace with the only life they had ever known.
But the gods did not often live on this Earth and were tormented by the sounds and sights of death on a daily basis.

Suna looked at the budging sleeve that Pook had inhabited.
"If you want to stay in that coat, you get to come with me."
Her attention turned to Creed.
"I am headed home." Suna said, her voice thick and dark with hate, "Up the river."
Her voice was eerily calm despite the explosion. If anything, the hatred and anger that had wormed its way up from her heart and into her throat had only served to empty her of fear and replace it with a want of vengeance, of justice, for her desert so strong that it overshadowed all else.

"We may pass by the mad men, maybe, but I assure you they won't bother us. You are welcome to join me. You are welcome to stay here if you like. But now, if you don't freeze, I would not be surprised if the mad men found you. You are not part of their war, but I wouldn't trust them regardless."
Suna handed the coat over to Creed fully.

Creed: :( Do... do you think those crazy men attacked the caravan my family was on? If they're after money, they'd find it there...My family is really wealthy. My uncle and aunt where taking me back to the city with them but they said we were still a few days away... at least from leaving the desert.

:: Creed looked to the distant fires and. The smoldering thoughts in her mind met an icy wind on her skin and she shivered. ::

Creed: :eager: Shouldn't we go to them? What if they're in danger?

:: Pook sneezes in his sleeve as Creed holds the coat in her arms. ::

Suna gave something of a sardonic smile after Creed mentioned her family's money.
"They don't teach basic survival skills to rich kids do they? It's probably wise you don't go talking about your money to everyone you just met. You're lucky I really don't want it. As you've caught on, people will do all sorts of terrible things for money."

She was quiet a moment before adding: "The gold was nice, but once it all turned to paper it really wasn't worth keeping up with it anymore."
There was a kind of wistful reminiscing in her voice, which faded promptly when she noticed Creed looking out to the fire. The girl was brave, or at very least loyal, and she couldn't be faulted for that. It was nice to see such things still existed in humanity: women in particular, man's world had begun to take it out of them.

"They could be. The probably are, but you only go after people in danger out of idiotic love or the assurance that you can win."
The sardonic smile found its way back into her eyes, her face, her voice.
"We might as well. If you have the love, I'd be more than willing to supply the assurance."

Suna started off along the river again, the urge to keep the girl with her tampering her quick-hopping like step.
"You're going to want to put that on." Suna said, gesturing to the jacket without turning around, "I wasn't joking about how cold it gets out here, but if you were with the caravan you should know that."

Suna paused along the riverbank and looked out at the smoking pillar of flame that spat up into the sky.
"We're going to want to get their quickly, hn. In case something particularly bad happens." She turned back to Creed now and smiled, "You're going to want to close your eyes."

Sand flew wildly into the air with a force much stronger than the current wind could have produced. Suna made some grunting like sounds as she kicked at the sandy ground, until it gave way to hard dirt. That dirt, upon cracking under Suna's pounding feet, gave unto blackness. The disturbed creatures that had made their home under the warm sand hissed madly during the display, but she paid no attention to them. Rather, her focus was intent on the darkness opening up beneath her.
Someone, a male voice, called out from beneath the darkness though his words were mutilated by distance and echoes.

The wild sand and dirt died away with the sound of the maddened creatures of the desert. Suna jumped down into the pit with something akin to laughter escaping her lips. After the thud of her feet slamming against its invisible floor, she reached up her nearly as invisible hands to Creed.
"Jump down. I will catch you."

((I'm not sure if you know who Anansi is. So if you don't, he's the trickster god of western African lore. I probably like him more than I should. Haha. ))

Suna put Creed back onto her feet.
"Can you see me?" She asked, "I know some people have a hard time seeing down here. Be still for a moment, I'll keep hold of your arm."

Before doing that, she pushed her hands against the wall and began to stroke the sand upwards. Much like she had done to open the gapping hole, she now closed it. Sand crackled and rushed against itself as it headed upwards to the surface. Its mass migration send the shouts of the desert creatures into the air.
Suna laughed.
It took only a moment of erupting sound and wild winds of movement before silence deadened the hole. The night light of the moon and stars vanished into thin lines that seeped through the ceiling of earth, until they too vanished into the empty silence. Sand trickled down from all around, forming hourglass like streams of earth that piled quietly onto the floor. Besides Suna's voice, and the occasional echo of some deep far away sound, it was the only noise in the underground tunnel.

Suna took hold of Creed's arm.
"It's dark down here, but it's easier to get to where you want to go. Earth moves differently down here. You aren't going to want to question it; it'll only give you a headache."
It bothered Suna more than she liked to admit that she was down here. Something about the simplicity of finding her way about dear Africa in these tunnels felt like... cheating. It felt far more truthful and honest to walk about the sand like the rest of the world.
But she felt for the child. There was sympathy and pity among her impressions of her. But there was also a strange kind of admiration. How many people would jump down into a black, yawning pit with only a stranger's world to rely on?
Creed appeared to trust the world in a way Suna wished she did.

The hole, apparently, was a tunnel beneath the freezing sands of Namib above. The Kuiseb rushed endlessly; sometimes overhead, sometimes to the left or right of the tunnel as both the river and tunnel twisted and turned about each other.

In the darkness, the scuffling sound of life arose around them.

Suna sighed loudly. Wouldn't it be wonderful if she bring someone down here without this happening? Couldn't he have his fun with someone else?
It occurred to Suna then that all the time she spent out of the tunnel was time he spent 'having his fun' with others.
The scuffling grew louder until it was easily overhead.
"Well, hello there!" The voice was a man's, deep and thick with the accent of his native west Africa.
"Hello." Suna said shortly.
"Are you still angry with me? You shouldn't hold grudges!" The man laughed heartily.
"You toppled the tunnel around me. It took me over a week to dig my way back out."
"It wouldn't have if you just did was Atem told you."
Suna grumbled from deep within her throat.

The man drifted down from the ceiling. His black hair, or perhaps they were fangs, hung down before the two girls. He was dangling down from the earthen top, though how he held on was up for debate. His clothing, or perhaps they were simply the designs of his haired skin, glinted in a light that was not there. His arms came down, or perhaps they were extra legs, and he held them out to the two girls.
"Who might your friend be, Suna? Introduce me."
"Go away, Anansi. I'm trying to get her home."
Anansi smiled playfully, his eyes, though how many he had could be argued, turned to Creed.
"I'll bet I can do it quicker."

The man could not truly be described in words. In one moment he looked to be a human man, with the remarkable ability to hang from an entirely unsteady ceiling. In the next, he was a large spider hanging by a thread. But, oddest of all, was how naturally these two images collided to form the being before them.

Creed: :shock: Who-who... or... WHAT is he?

:: Pook shuffled in the jacket collar in discomfort. Creed attempts to pull the monkey from the jacket, but he avoids her grasps by scurrying to another corner of the fabric. The movements would have tickled Creed, but the moon didn't allow for something so lighthearted to ensue. Instead, she grew weary. ::

Creed: :| Creeps me out, too, little buddy. But don't be afraid. Suna knows him.

:: Creed pulled herself closer to Suna, not quite clinging, but with dependent nature in the gesture. ::

Creed: :o What does he mean "I'll bet I can do it quicker."

"A friend!" Anansi said laughingly, twisting his way down from the ceiling and onto the floor, "A friend - that is what I am."

"Oh, did I bother the little monkey?" His many-eyed face stared deeply at the jacket where the monkey was.
"You shouldn't be so scared! You're one of mine! Spider monkey?" He looked at Creed happily, as though for confirmation.
"Well, you look like a spider monkey. Ghekre wouldn't like you though. Too small. He'd blame you on me."
His eyes turned to Creed quickly, "Ghekre. Monkey god. Judges dead people. Big guy." Without missing a beat in his sentence, he turned to Suna.

"Did you know he knows Anubis? They're friends and everything. Apparently Ghekre watched Ammut when Anubis was dealing with the mummification-gone-wrong thing up in Minya."
"It doesn't really surprise me."
"Really? But Anubis is so much more... fun than Ghekre. He chases around Bast! A man after my own heart."
His many eyes returned to Creed, "You should meet him some day. Nice guy. Usually." He paused for a moment before adding, "Oh. Well. I guess you have to meet him someday." He laughed loudly.

"Anansi creeps everyone out." Suna agreed with Creed sourly, folding her arms, "He doesn't take a hint."
"I understand all your little hints, I just don't want to leave. People are boring."
"Bird wasn't."
Anansi's face soured, "We agreed not to bring that up. You're breaking the rules, Suna. I'll break them too, if you make me."
"We also agreed that you wouldn't bother me anymore."
"This isn't bothering. Bothering would be-"
In an instant, too quickly to accurately describe, Suna was hanging upside down from the sandy ceiling, tied sternly by spider threads. Anansi was sitting lazily on a web beside her.
"-that. That would be bothering."
Suna yelled something indisputably profane, but her exact words were muffled by the gossamer ties.

"And what I meant by getting you home quicker was exactly what I said. I can get you home quicker. Suna doesn't like to use these tunnels; I do. They're easing than using the 'backdoors' anyway. Hop on down here and 'whoosh'!" He made a waving like motion with his many legs, or arms as the case may be, "You're over here! And then whoosh! You're over there!"

With a loud thump, Suna was on the floor. More explicatives fell forth.
"This is why no one likes you, Anansi!"
Anansi's smile melted away from happiness and joviality and into something far more sinister, "Plenty of people like me. It's just that those people change a lot. You know, in a few days you won't be so angry at me anymore. Besides, this isn't really my fault."
"You say that about everything."
"Atem wanted me to come down here and find you. Get you to... change, so to speak. I'm getting closer."

Something had changed about Suna. Her tongue seemed to click more when she spoke. Her eyes had grown rounder, darker, looking almost inhuman on her face. Her wild hair had appeared to form great bulges, which her hair wrapped around and hung down. The tips of them had come together almost to a point.
When the young woman noticed this, her hair sprang back out into the chaotic pattern it had been in before.

"We don't have time for this Anansi." Suna hissed, grabbing Creed's wrist tightly and pulling her away.
"What's to worry about?" Anansi began to crawl on the ceiling after the two.
"The fire fights have started again. That's what."
The clicking sound of Anasi up on the darkened ceiling could quite clearly be heard, but his voice had fallen silent. When he did speak, the sardonic joy was gone from his voice entirely.

"Were you in a caravan?"
"What did you do?" Suna hissed upwards at him.
"Slapped a camel. Caravan took off. It was funny. I didn't know the men with guns were here."
"You stupid, son of a-!"
"They were just up here." The invisible, scuttling legs on the ceiling pulled ahead of the two girls.