Chapter 9: The Sijarkes Has Abandonment Issues
The Sijarkes never thought of herself as an orphan girl. She's just never been left to her own device, as simple as that. When she had to pack up her belongings and load it along with the merchant ship that'll take her to Gu'ambiss, the attendants who came with her were exclusively shipped out only for the maintenance of her lifestyle and condition upkeep. Those meant her horsehair wigs, caring for her skin that itched and dried when under the direct exposure to the sun, or maintaining the padded dresses she'd made to pass the time.
They weren't meant to keep track of schedules or list of tasks. That job fell entirely upon the Sijarkes the second she boarded. She didn't really prepare beforehand—a major oversight on her part. Regret only came later as she nestled against the window, unsure of what else she must have yet to do.
Even her speech references had been left behind, stuffed inside crates which were most likely stored in other parts of the citadel. It would be a hassle to turn back; her inauguration into the Tirkju'a's position was not something she would want to flunk—that is most likely the case if she does nothing about preparing for all the worst possible instances.
It had only been a week since her departure from Katill Broiis, a total of four days before she was unable to see the Empiirjan from the horizon. In that time, she thought of the entirety of her existence in that citadel, full of mostly boredom and longing.
Not used to the sea, she rarely left her cabin. On the occasion that she did leave, she chose to only come out during the day when the waters were sparkling and the breeze enticed her for the change to come. Everything was to pivot in just another week. Not every Domme had to go through the misfortune of travelling on sea manually by boat. There are others aside from the Tirkju'a and the Parrhadomme—the Dove—yet they are all so far spread out that the Sijarkes was certain she'd have to book several more travels to be able to see them all upon docking.
There would be a time for that.
She was told that another Domma was waiting for her in Gu'ambiss, residing also in the same temple upon which the Sijarkes would take residency whenever she was at Gulf Ebe. The Domma Margijer, its principal resident, a beacon of godly favor.
She may not like the Domma but the decision felt right. The gulf had been the last place she had been to during her infancy years when she had yet to be transported to Katill Broiis.
'I don't actually recall much...' the Sijarkes thought to herself as she picked up a parchment, unrolled it, and set it aside to begin drafting her speech. 'I only remember how the Tirkju'a had treated me then.'
Aashurhallal, the Tirkju'a, had cared for her there, fed her, and nursed her even when she was sick. She was definitely sure he had been there with her at the start of it all. The Sijarkes found herself unwillingly smiling at the recollection. Happy memories were not so easily forgotten.
She remembered again: the Tirkju'a had been so much smaller than he was now. He was only a little over seven feet tall then as opposed to his current height of about seventy-eight feet, almost as large as the Domme Oranseh. The Tirkju'a looked just the same as he did then but younger, of course; no beard which the Sijarkes disapproved so much, and he bore a strong, youthfully tan face whose brows are in a constant straight line, enveloped by bright, thick orange hair tied back resembling what she referred to as a heap of hay.
Suppose the longer his beard grew, the further down his brows arched, and the more displeasing he became.
It had been a hard fact to swallow that she had loved Aashurhallal before he became known to the world as a Domme, the Tirkju'a. Dommes hadn't always been gods. They could've been creatures like her and Aashurhallal, lost and in need of companionship in a world where they learned they ultimately stood alone.
The Sijarkes set her quill down and laid back on her seat, gazing up at the skies overhead, the wide expanse of the world open to her should she desire to conquer it just as Aashurhallal did, which granted him the title of Domme. That was how it worked then. When you are recognized as a Domme, you received a title from the Dove; a post came with it, if you were not as unlucky as the Sijarkes had been. If Aashurhallal had the Dove to help him elevate his status and power in the known world, the Sijarkes had only the Tirkju'a, and not the Aashurhallal whom she had loved—her true caretaker and mentor.
Perhaps as the years wore on, he became a hardened creature, so unfeeling and impersonal, where he no longer chose to spend his time playing with her as much as he did so in the old days.
The Domme Tirkju'a—good old Aashurhallal—was the luckiest of all to be the right-hand man of the Shaman Dove, a fellow bird; the Sijarkes merely assured herself that it was by virtue of him being a bird himself that made the Dove favor him much easily as he did other creatures who had learned to read and write just as she did.
Perhaps Aashurhallal had been a special kind, one which the Sijarkes will never truly know.
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-----Ki Heptre 1233
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Aashurhallal dropped several buckets unto the ground, filled to the brim with fresh fishes. He wiped his forehead, A little green snake child—the Sijarkes, in her infancy—celebrated, seated by the window. She had little to no teeth, green seaweed hair springing up in all directions, untamed—barely a few weeks old.
"Happy now? Come on, time to eat." He took his spear and stabbed a live fish. The little child stopped in her rejoicing. He raised the spear to her level, inviting her to take a bite. She refused.
"Come on, we don't have all day," Aashurhallal urged sternly. When he saw that the child still remained uncertain, his gaze softened in the very same way he did in present time. "I know. It's raw fish. Have you tried it?"
The child looked up at him, mouthing something he could not understand. The Sijarkes didn't know either if, in her infancy years, she was taught a language. But she knew what this meant: 'I don't like it!"
He took a large bite out of the raw fish's side, chewing it thoroughly in front of her as she yipped in shock.
'You're disgusting.' The infant Sijarkes wailed incomprehensibly, drooling.
He nodded encouragingly, moving the speared fish towards her mouth. "Yes, it's gross, isn't it? You wanna try?"
Out of curiosity, the snake child decided a sniff wouldn't be so bad.
For no reason at all that the Sijarkes at present could reasonably justify, the infant Sijarkes bit and snatched the fish from the spear's end, breaking the tip with one nasty bite. Aashurhallal reeled back, gasping as blood sprayed all over. She hoisted the fish up before swallowing it hole, cringing slightly at the difficulty in doing so. Once she was done, she was insatiable.
'Give me more!' The infant Sijarkes pounded at the window. Aashurhallal found himself chuckling, shaking his head.
"Alright, be patient. Be patient. You'll get your fishies." He went back to feeding her, but with a metal rod this time, lest she bites off another one of his spears' tip.
She remembered that he had also been the cause for her being disabled as of the present.
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-----Ki Heptre 1234
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One morning, he'd left her unsupervised by a window sill as he went off with his spears. She was a silly infant then, only a year old, but she was now capable of imitating sounds and vowels that she'd heard from Aashurhallal. The Sijarkes remembered that he had never taken her out to speak with any of the ancient villagers that once occupied the Gulf Ebe. She was restrained and kept out of sight inside the cottage granted by the village folk, a little far from the village center.
She had crawled over the ledge to have a look over the ancient view of Gulf Ebe, long after they had captured a giant toad which at present serves as the Domma Margijer. She had been a thing of legend in the olden days. But she was real, and the infant Sijarkes had seen her then from that distance of where she was staying at, the toad's sleeping form lay by a valley dozens of acres away.
The legend goes that she was not to wake until her feeding time which occurred only once a year.
Turning her blobbed gaze away from the toad's form, she looked out and across towards the distant huts, the sounds of the thriving village clear to her ears, sharpening in their senses as she grew stronger and older. Often times she looked up at the clouds, and the sun that rose and fell. She followed it throughout the day from window to window, unsure of what to make of it, and oblivious of how sensitive her eyes were at such an age and so incapable of keeping in moisture.
They shriveled up, blinding her over time.
When Aashurhallal returned, he had been too late.
"What's wrong?" he cried as he fell before her, clutching at her shoulders, and she remembered how he cradled her in his arms as she wailed and itched at her eyes. Had it been her fault or his? She can't even trust her memory all of a sudden. If she were to put the blame on either of them, it would mean nothing now, with him gone and her partially healed by the grace of the Dove.
But he had cried then. She'd felt his tears on her head. Poor, poor child, he'd cooed.
What did he know? He was only a stupid man-creature.
A very foolish one.
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Recalling this assured her that he had loved her then. But the present was also not something which she cannot deny, no matter how the past had been. And to recall this any further only made her fume at how he had the nerve to disappear so abruptly. He would not have been killed so easily, after all.
As far as the world within the Order knew, the Domme Tirkju'a conquered all the other Dommes, building the foundation of the Quamship, and reformed the world as they know it. He had grown massive, nearly eight times his natural size.
He would not have been lost so easily to them now, it was almost impossible and she dared not to think of other alternative situations in which that may not be so.
With him gone, she wondered how different Gu'ambiss is now after two thousand and a half years. And with that she wondered also of where she was to stay—the Oriehemian Quamship temple, where three Du Quams now reside. How she hated them, though she may need them at least for a few years until she can mind her own businesses regardless of their counsel.
And this notion of having her own Du Quam—well, she can't deny it; she's always wanted one. But he might not feel the same excitement and curiosity as she does, for he might've resented her as he could not serve the original Tirkju'a.
He'll have his Tirkju'a, alright.
He doesn't have much of a choice but to stick by her until his death. By Domminical law, Du Quams who dishonor their purpose as a link between Dommes and the human species are to be handed the death penalty.
If the Tirkju'a had really left her and the Order, then that was all she needed to know—he was simply nothing to her anymore.