The pair was swiftly seated at a comparatively small table. It seemed she didn’t fancy having to shout to him from end to end of the large banquet table, which wasn’t too far away.
She was apparently also conscious not to scare him off like last time and only laid out a modest selection of akamu and akara in front of him – the quintessential breakfast food, as far as he was concerned.
He took his calabash full of the creamy pudding and poured some of it onto the floor.
“What are you doing?” she queried suddenly, unbothered but still very curious.
“Aren’t you supposed to offer your meal to the ancestors before eating?” he asked, surprised and embarrassed by her reaction and the small laugh she had when he answered.
“Well,” she said, sprinkling something onto her own bean fritters, “that used to be pretty common but has kind of died out. I’m surprised you know about this.”
“I’ve heard bits and pieces but have never had anything like an education on these matters… the Learning Crocodile Province is under Elven rule, after all.”
“So, what do you want to know about Odinani?”
Odinani referred to the religious and legal system rooted in the primary goddess of their realm, Ani, or Mother Earth. Besides some irrelevant and perhaps overstated snippets, he didn’t know much about it and therefore didn’t know where to start.
“Is there really that much to know?” he asked. “It’s virtually just the Osu castes, sacrifices and other arcane things of that nature.”
“You’re right,” she said simply, “I’m breaking the rules of the great goddess’s system by sitting down with you.”
He was aware of that and looked at his rapidly cooling meal with guilt. He still hadn’t taken a bite, and neither did she push him on it. Even just sharing a table could be seen as an improvement from last time.
“It’s not that big of a deal, though. I doubt Nne Ani (nne means mother) will descend on your account. I also made sure to sacrifice a large white ram to appease her, so we’re covered.”
The joke didn’t put him at ease on the matter, but he had already gotten this far and would feel guilty if he let the food go to waste… again. (There were also armed bodyguards, so he couldn’t as well leave freely).
He grabbed the fritters in his hand and tore them apart in the pudding, mixing the two together before using the deep calabash spoon to wolf down the whole meal.
“So, do you do those sacrifices every day?” he asked almost immediately after clearing the bowls of their contents.
“Only on market days,” she said with a lazy drawl, invoking the image of a sun-kissed cat. “Four days a week. But we pray to our personal god daily. That doesn’t require much sacrifice, just prayers and some special oils. We only present substantial sacrifices to it after some great success. The shrines to our ancestors are in our homeland and generally only receive attention when we travel home during the winter. Only the Bori really pay attention to our forlorn forebears in our day and age.”
“The dance troupe?” he asked in puzzlement.
“Well… yes and no,” she said, pushing her own bowl to the side now and washing her hands in the extra one on the side. Her guest had already wiped his hands on his clothes after eating, and she made a mental note to chide him afterwards.
“They do practice their religion in large part through dance,” she continued, “but that’s just one expression of it. At the moment, a more radical branch is on the rise. I heard that even a high-ranking member of the Dari clan was attacked just outside the province boundaries. Naturally, they were wiped out.”
Her cold and lazy smile made it seem like she was merely gossiping, not discussing conflicts that were shaking the world around them. Perhaps it was the security of being Highborn… the thought had crossed his mind, but he banished it very quickly. She didn’t seem so vapid as to not know when something was serious, especially as part of a trading clan.
“They’re bold,” he noted, though he was not sure what else to describe them as. “What exactly is their religion? What could they gain by attacking such powerful enemies?”
"Hmm." She gave the question some thought.
“They’re what the Humans call animists (we all are, to be honest), but they don’t believe in gods unless they're personal ones. All spirits are fundamentally equal, and Nne Ani and the Great Xango are deceivers… something along those lines. It’s a pity too; I always loved watching their dances.”
Overwhelmed at such words, he looked for the only thing he felt he could discuss safely.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
“Your personal god is called Chi, right?”
“Exactly right,” she said, with the indulgent smile of a proud tutor, “guardian spirit, personal deity, individual destiny. Whatever you want to call it. At birth, a Dibia performs his afa (divination, basically), and this is made clear to us.”
“I know,” he said excitedly, pulling out the playing card that had stayed on his person despite all his previous trials and showing it to her.
“What an interesting way to do it,” she mumbled, looking at the card with interest. “What do the snake eyes mean?”
Snake eyes? He thought to himself, puzzledly, before turning the face of the card back to him and observing that there was a pair of snake eyes there now, looking at him from beyond. He felt them run across his soul coldly, piercing into him despite not being animated.
He dropped the card like it was a brand.
Those eyes –
The scaly and scarcely-seen beast he had encountered in his mindscape was the first thought that came to his mind.
His brief experience of it had filled him with existential dread, but to discover now that it was powerful enough to even alter his Chi by some unfathomable means… this, it made no sense.
A person’s Chi was unalterable.
He had stopped breathing.
Why had he stopped breathing?
Breathe, damn it!
His body obeyed his instructions but seemed to have its own interpretation of what they meant.
His breath came in with short, frantic, desperate pulls, each inhalation snatched from the atmosphere like a stolen article.
No rhythm.
No control.
Was this some kind of joke?
Don’t tell me—
He clutched at his chest as a sudden throbbing pressure bloomed beneath his ribs. His heart was hammering so violently it felt less like a pulse and more like something trying to break free.
He dragged in another breath.
It wasn’t enough.
Another.
Still not enough.
The air felt thin. Useless. As though it dissolved before it reached anywhere vital.
His fingers began to tingle.
His jaw tightened like a vice.
A Lycan having a panic attack, he thought, twisting his lip into a resentful grin. Now I’ve heard everything.
He felt the cool contact of a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay.”
The words broke through.
“Just breathe.”
His body listened this time, winding down gently as he took in easy breath after easy breath.
The pair waited for some time, allowing him to fully adjust to what had happened.
“Thank you, young mistress,” he said simply but earnestly.
She waved it off and helped him to his feet – he had fallen to both knees during the attack.
He suddenly became conscious that he was touching her and pulled his hands away while offering a small bow by way of apology.
She wasn’t overly bothered by this and instead studied him for a few moments.
“Everything will be fine,” she said finally. “I promise.”
Something told him that the matters he was faced with were a little above the pay grade even of a great Goblin noble, but he was still comforted by her words and thanked her once more sincerely.
“First things first,” she said, walking alongside him, flagged now by a pair of servants about her age.
“You need a weapon.”
“I need a weapon.”
Yachit stirred from her sleep much later, unaware of when the spirit of the night had taken her to his kingdom of dreams but grateful regardless.
She recalled the previous night vaguely but did her best to keep it vague, shaking her head in embarrassment.
Her morning routine wasn’t overly complex, especially now that she was off duty for some time.
Deciding that Iya and Atu were best left alone to recover, she decided that training would be the best use of her time.
What’s that?
Her eye was drawn to something she hadn’t noticed earlier in her haste. It was a white handkerchief.
She rushed at it and tried to hide it under her pillow, scanning the surroundings before daring to peek at it again.
Ugh, I can’t believe I did that.
While they were on the topic of gifts from young nobles, she decided to regard the small box she had received from young master Danjuma.
It’s probably tea leaves from some eccentric gardener, she thought with some glee. I’ll brew a cup for Master Busa. Hopefully, that will cheer him up.
Contrary to her expectations, though, there was only a simple, thick envelope with a red wax seal in the box.
Don’t tell me it’s a love letter!
Her mind immediately went there.
She chastised herself for the huge leap and genuinely wondered what it was she had in her, right now. What message would that man want to pass on that he wouldn’t tell her himself?
Not being able to bear suspense for any reason, she violently ripped open the seal and was just as violently thrown across the room.
Ugh.
She groaned in pain and spat out several mouthfuls of blood across the floor.
It wasn’t a love letter.
