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HOMELAND Zukai BIRTHDATE Summer (July Thirteenth) AGE Nine MOTHER Sadrehsan bint-Giauzar al-Tazarad FATHER Tazarad Fahimkairo al-Tazarad COURT Dusk POSITION Scholar |
tw for moderate sexual themes, depictions of violence and gore
" ...ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere "
- warsan shire
Atlas was not always the rag-cloaked wanderer seen struggling to traverse the dunes; once upon a time, he was a prince, the second son of the Al-Tazarad family, third in the hierarchy of Sand Czars in the faraway kingdom of Zukai. The seven Sand Czars were styled as land barons, mostly, though they unabashedly plied their trades as resource owners… and the most prevalent resource in Zukai was people.
Atlas was born second to a mother who would eventually give her family seven male heirs, a prodigious and heralded thing. Sadrehsan bint-Giauzar al-Tazarad was a great honor unto her families, both the one she left and the one she wedded into. Her husband, Tazarad Fahimkairo al-Tazarad (as such was the naming custom of firstborn sons) was the third wealthiest stallion in Zukai, and with seven intelligent and driven sons following in his wake, he was poised to perhaps move up a position in the eyes of the prosperous elite.
Born Azimal Fazid al-Tazarad, a name which translated, loosely, to ‘protector of hope and lands’, Atlas was the picture-perfect second-born; polite, punctual, proper, an unproblematic birth on the scheduled day, and immediately foisted off into the care of the al-Tazarad nursemaids and nannies. He was a quiet, intelligent youth, often held in comparison to his oldest brother Tazarad (Azimal thought the naming tradition sensible and organized; Atlas thinks it was dumb as hell) as being more of a refined sunbeam than a complete fireball. He was educated, as was the custom of the ruling elite, in mathematics, languages, the histories of Zukai (told through the lens of those self-same ruling elite), the care of various beasts such as falcons and hounds, business etiquette (and etiquette in general), and sailing. His favorite subject, however, was that of astronomy: the study of heavenly and celestial bodies, their formulations and figures, distances, discrepancies, and how to navigate the world by them. He would lose countless hours in his father's ornate astrarium with star maps old and new; more than once he found errors in the old masters’ calculations and submitted them for reprinting, earning him a name amongst the nobles for being astute and shrewd.
He attended falconry competitions with his father and older brother— and, eventually his younger ones— and, like any good Sand Czar, watched the Games whenever he was invited. A particularly nasty bit of bloodsport, the Games pitted servants, slaves, and owned soldiers against one another, or against various elements like wild beasts with added elements of fire pits or ditches filled with venomous serpents. He never found them intriguing or entirely enjoyable, but as a child and young stallion, it was what people did for fun, and as the good second son he would sit in his second-row dais behind his father and brother and uncles as they passed bidmarkers to the runners and snacked on fine fines and cheeses brought by seductively clad slaves.
Azimal was wedded to his first wife just after turning three, a beautiful bay tobiano named Sadal bitr-Almizar (now al-Tazarad). Her father was the second Sand Czar and made his wealth in casinos and brothels. For an arranged marriage, the two were very happy together— Azimal made sure she stayed outfitted with expensive silks, wines, baubles, and slaves, and Sadal made no comments to his family about his lackluster performance in the bedchamber, and his tendency to avoid his wife at all possible times. His older brother, who already had three wives, a child, and a slew of concubines who may-or-may-not be carrying, took up much of the spotlight at all times; Azimal was never jealous. He was happy to be the second-born, an ideal predicate of patience, who looked pretty for public appearances and spent the rest of his time covered in ink and silver dust and paper cuts from mapmaking.
As time went on, however, the pressure for Sadal to conceive grew by leaps and bounds; should the couple fail to produce a child, it would be the mare’s failing regardless of her cries to the contrary. She would be labeled as barren and cast off as nothing more than a spinster, a leech sucking money out of the family. In her desperation to avoid anything short but exile, and under the stern gaze of two dynasties, she requested the help of a known (but not too well known) individual employed at one of her father’s brothels: a pleasure slave by the name of Nashira.
" If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him? "
Azimal first met Nashira late one night when he was returning to his bedchambers after another long, begrudgingly lovable chat with his mother about the status of his fatherhood. He expected to find his wife sound asleep under a cloud of chamomile incense, and instead was surprised to find a Silverite vixen in luscious purple silks with half-open gold bindings helping herself to some expensive wine. She was dappled silver and black of hair, with uncanny purple eyes, and her slave tattoo was done in gray ink to mask itself instead of harming her beauty.
To her credit, Nashira underwent every technique in her long and multi-chaptered book in attempts to seduce him; unlike Sadal, his family, and even Azimal himself, she was intelligent enough at the end to see it just wasn’t going to work. After a bit of an awkward start, with Azimal blushing, stumbling over himself, and hastily apologizing to the intruder in HIS room, Nashira offered to strike a deal: Azimal needed a cover for his latent homosexuality, and Nashira wanted to not be a pleasure slave anymore. As it was in common order for noble stallions to have concubines— again, his brother and father had droves— Azimal agreed.
Elated that their son was finally showing some interest in procreating, the al-Tazarad family quickly purchased Nashira from her master; her pleasure house brand was masked by the golden al-Tazarad falcon, with the star and line that was the chosen icon of Azimal’s branch. Within a month, Sadal was pregnant— a clever trick devised by Nashira which involved getting Tazarad the younger too drunk to discern where he made his bed— and before long she gave birth to ‘Azimal’s’ first son.
Nashira was quick, clever, and experienced in the ways of surviving as a lesser class— indeed, no class— citizen. Though it was simply her plan to use Azimal for his prestige and house, she began to bond with him over their mutual fondness for clever conversation and the basic art of learning. Sadal was satisfied with frivolities and content to attend luncheons under tropical flowers and watch the Games from a silken dais; Nashira wanted to make the most out of her position. She was relatively educated in certain faculties, but Azimal began to secretly teach her the subjects she never dreamt of knowing in her time as a pleasure slave: higher mathematics, physics, principles of business and, of course, astronomy.
In turn, Nashira took Azimal under her wing; she saw in him a kind, unspoiled soul, who floated with the currents of the cruel nobility of the Sand Czars instead of riding atop it. She taught him the art of blending in and the two would tour the lower towns and slave bazaars, and it opened his Azimal’s eyes to the seat of bones his family’s bloodline was built upon. The deeper he realized he was sunk in this monstrous sea, he more he struggled against it. He rented out whole rooms of brothels under the guise of extravagant orgies which were, instead, teaching and tutoring sessions; he traded his own education for knowledge in physical labors which were socially considered below his standard, like cooking and sewing. He, along with Nashira, whose non-traditionally educated viewpoint often helped shed light on things the book-taught scholars clouded, devised a new technology for purifying the frequently foul, but singular, source of water those in the low towns had access to. He even learned how to act as a midwife, and even to this day— and much to his chagrin— there are many babies named Azimal to be found in Zukai.
Azimal’s second wedding flashed by in the blink of an eye; he was so busy with Nashira he barely had time to attend the ceremony, and even there he sat her at a high honored spot and spoke to her more frequently than his new bride. His parents and the other elites began to take notice of how much time he spent with his singular concubine. Under the scrutinizing eye of his family, the two became thick as thieves; Azimal was not capable of loving Nashira in a typical way, but she became closer to him than any member of his family— indeed, any other living creature. And he had no reason to doubt his feelings were anything but reciprocated.
In the end, he was correct. It saved his life, and ultimately destroyed it.
" I… don't know. What… could he do? What would you tell him? "
Azimal was having tea with his mother the afternoon before his seventh birthday. His eldest son was set to turn two shortly and both of his wives were pregnant with more children; his mother was, in one breath, congratulating him on his genetic success while in the other cautioning him against spending more time than was necessary with Nashira.
As he was assuring her his bond with Nashira was nothing more than that of master and concubine, his mother began to struggle for breath. Within moments there was blood pouring from her muzzle and she lay still and pale on the floor. Azimal called for the guards and a medic and received no response. He checked the hallways— they were silent, but something was off.
Panicked, he ran to his chambers and found them empty; he checked Nashira’s next, and they were the same. Distraught and terrified something had happened to his best friend, he went to his wife’s section of their vast manse—
Where he found the room upheaved and covered in shards of broken pottery, and stained with blood. The bodies of Sadal’s room guards were prostrate on the floor, still struggling against their open throats as two strangers went about ransacking the room. Another, cloaked, stood over the dying guards; it took the shocked Azimal moments to realize he was looking at Nashira.
His entrance caused a stir and all eyes turned to him at once. Nashira assured the other two she would handle it as she wiped her bloody knife on her cloak, turned, and advanced. Azimal backpedaled, stumbling over his words, in a terrifying, if hilarious, replication of their first meeting.
Nashira forced him beyond the room and into an antechamber. She bid him take off his cloak, his gold, and his jewels, which he did. She asked if he knew what was happening, and he said no. She lunged forward, blade held aloft, and Azimal was certain she was going to slit his throat—
—And in one deft motion, she sliced his brilliant golden mane from his head, leaving an ugly, chopped up remnant. She sheathed her knife and covered him in her own dull, bloodstained cloak. She told him the time of the Sand Czars was done and instructed him to leave the city— caravans of freed slaves would be crossing out of Zukai by the tenfold— and never to return, insisting this would be his only chance to live.
Azimal never thought to ask about Sadal, his brother, his father, or his false son. He simply asked if he would ever see Nashira again.
She kissed him gently on the head and said, “Not in this lifetime.”
And so, as Nashira turned back with Azimal’s gold and trappings to tell her co-conspirators another Sand Prince was dead, Azimal fled as the palaces of the Sand Czars burned and the slaves lifted themselves up in revolt. He crossed over a burning bridge, attached himself to the nearest traveling party, and, with a broken heart full of fear and pain, headed out into the deserts beyond.
It was not long before he realized he would have to change his name, though no one spoke to him much for the first few days. It was not until his thirst and exhaustion finally got the better of him, causing him to stumble and fall, that the self-proclaimed leader of their little party paid true attention to him. When prompted, he mumbled out a word: Atlas. Like the star maps he so favored, probably singed and still strewn across his workstation ensconced within his dead father’s ravaged astrarium.
He was not of the same endurance caliber as those around him; they knew how to survive in harsh circumstances, and had, indeed, weathered worse; Azimal— Atlas’— hooves and lips cracked and his tongue swelled and he grew faint with hunger. The others insulted him, taking him for a palace lush, some taboo jaunt for a Sand Czar with socially unacceptable tastes; though they goaded and teased him, they did not leave him behind. Another young stallion close to his age— he called himself Nathely and bore the marks of an owned soldier— was assigned to his care.
Nathely was charming and handsome, kind and jovial and golden in all the ways Atlas was not; under his watchful eye Atlas made a quick turnaround. Once he was of slightly sounder body, he began helping the slaves-turned-nomads: he could navigate by the stars where many of them could not; his knowledge of mathematics helped in rationing food, and though it paled in comparison to some of the elders, his medical knowledge came in handy, as well, especially in identifying strange plants they found as they traveled.
They had no real destination. Zukai was the only true city in the area, standing alone as a bastion of wealth and bloody prosperity against the sea on one side and the endless desert on the other. None of them could turn back; the chance that the rebellion had failed would spell death for all of them, now— even Atlas, who had long since come to terms with shedding his nobility. His survival would mark him as a co-conspirator and he would die along with the others.
They became a small family, and he and Nathely became incredibly close. Nathely often called him his brother, and Atlas, who was certain he was just trying to fill the gaping hole left by the absence of Nashira, beamed and basked in the praise. The two frequently scouted out dangerous surroundings to see if it was safe for their band to pass through.
The Azimal of golden baubles and silk coverings was long dead. Atlas traveled with Nashira’s worn cloth and wrappings of bug-eaten linen, covered in dirt and sand, scrounging for survival in the desert. At night he and Nathely would range miles ahead of the party in the cool of night under the stars; Atlas would name the constellations and Nathely would make new ones, silly ones— ostriches with flowers in their hair doing a dance, or crocodiles in silk pajamas playing cards. Atlas committed each one to memory.
One night, Nathely said they should name stars for themselves; he claimed the north star was Atlas’, even though Atlas’ insisted it already had a name. But, Nathely, insisted, it was his guiding light, and so it deserved a proper name. Internally, Atlas figured that if the north star was named after him, the southernmost star, the furthest one behind them, should be named Azimal; he picked a bright white dwarf in the head of the northern constellation to be Nashira. To Nathely, he identified a burning red supergiant in the heart of his birth constellation, though he left out most of the significance save its powerful brightness.
In the early dawn, they came across an oasis, filled with pure water and green grass and colorful fruit. A blessing, it seemed, and Nathely proclaimed it so, already turning round to gather up the herd and bring them forth. Atlas was struck by how peculiar the oasis seemed— look, he tried to point out, there are no living things; no sand deer and no birds and not even any flies. The water is still and too-blue, the plants, unidentifiable even to Atlas, smell nauseatingly sweet. Nathely assured him he was simply a worrywart; he was so confident, so sure of himself, that Atlas’ anxieties succumbed a little. He told Nathely to stay and relax and recover, that he would go round and fetch the herd and bring them up.
“Ah, brother,” Nathely said, “you are a lifesaver.” And he began gathering a pile of colorful fruits. As Atlas descended over a large dune and the oasis fell out of sight, he watched Nathely with a smile on his face and a flutter in his heart, as the red in his glorious mane caught the sunlight.
It took a full day and night for Atlas to return with the rest of the herd. When they arrived at the oasis, Nathely did not come out and joyously greet them as Atlas had expected he would. He tried to warn the others to wait while he scoped it out, but they were tired and travel-weary, and, like Nathely, the sight of the oasis lifted their spirits. They descended upon the verdant paradise with shrieks of delight and cries of relief and glee. Some set upon the pile of fruit still resting where Nathely had begun stacking it; others dove right into the water.
For a moment, everything was okay, and Atlas let himself relax; but in seconds the happy cries turned into pained, horrific screams. There was an awful smell in the air, like soured meat and acrid smoke and something so strange, so awful, it outweighed the sickly sweetness of the trees and their bounty. The water became a thrashing, tumultuous mess as equines struggled to escape it. Some were struck and smothered by the desperate flailing of others; Atlas and those on the shore tried to help, tried to reach forward and pull them out, but after helping free the first few, every time they grabbed flesh or hair it would fall away in their mouths and they would have to spit it out. Dark clods of what Atlas thought was sand or stone began to color the crystal blue pool, but as he looked closer he realized they were pieces of pelts and muscle and sinew attached from it.
In the end, only about half of the equines who plunged themselves into the water came free, and of those half, two succumbed to their injuries soon after. Another who had drunk the water instead of diving into it was fading fast, with rivers of blood streaming from their nose and mouth in an eerily familiar situation which reminded Atlas hauntingly of his mother’s death.
As things calmed and the survivors wailed, wept, and dealt with the shock of the event, Atlas searched the foul oasis; with the chaos calmed and the stand of fruit trees empty, he was able to find, to his continued horror, Nathely’s body, half entombed in sand, with an empty spot where his throat should have been. There were no bugs to consume his flesh and the remainder of his face was screwed up in a tortuous expression of pain.
Distraught, heartbroken, and in terrible shock, Atlas stumbled back to his companions to find them each in various stages of ill health. Those who had eaten the strange fruits were complaining of heavy limbs and slurring their speech; some of the younger ones were already laying in the sand, eyes blown wide, catatonic.
Atlas did what he could as his second world rotted around him. He ran to fill skins with water, to flush the toxins from their systems; he brought clumps and mouthfuls of edible foodstuffs, to strengthen their constitution. For two days he ran, scurrying here, sprinting there, to try and stave off the inevitable, all the while the cursed oasis lingered on the edge of his vision, disappearing and reappearing with the movement of the sand dunes.
On the third day, he stopped running and began the arduous task of digging graves in shifting sand.
Atlas lost count of the days. He could no longer remember how old he was, and, truth be told, he didn’t care. He spent his countless hours wandering the desert, alone. There were a number of other nomadic bands also wandering, and not all of them unfriendly. He could not, however, bring himself to take of the resources he knew all too well were quite limited; instead, he greeted and bid goodbye to them in the same breath, parting with the knowledge to avoid the cursed oasis. Garden of Endless Sleep, one of his herdmates had called it in her final breath, and so it became.
His long, lonely travel eventually led him to the sea; feeling there was nothing left for him in his homeland, he sought a ship bound for anywhere else. He found one whose navigator had come down ill, and offered to fill the spot, passing a quick quiz posed by the captain to earn himself a slot aboard.
The passage, like the rest of his life, was dull, and nothing noteworthy happened. It did not bother him. After all, he had experienced in his life, a little boredom in semi-comfort was not unwelcome, so long as he performed his job and earned his keep.
Eventually the stars began to change, as is the custom when one traverses the world; at the point they became unfamiliar to Atlas, they read like home to the captain who was a native. She explained the land they were coming to was called Novus, and spoke about the differing kingdoms. She waxed slightly poetic about the legend of Tempus and his children, and though Atlas never had an ear or mind for religion, he listened intently, as he realized perhaps the only trait he had retained since his seemingly distant youth was his penchant for learning.
They docked at the Dusk Court, or so Atlas was told. He paid little mind to the brief introduction given by the captain, feeling content to begin wandering again once his hooves touched land; though it seemed as soon as he did, he was struck with issues of the wardrobe.
Nashira’s cloak was long in the tooth and by then rendered barely a scarf, tied together in fraying knots, grayed with age and ridden with holes and tears. He felt strangely naked in this new land with little more than a bandage wrapped 'round his neck, and so he sought the market to purchase a new one… and many beautiful cloaks and capes were to be had, masterworks of craftsmanship that caught the eye and seemed to be spun from gold… and priced just as high.
With not a signo to his name, Atlas was plumb out of luck. He was not a creature taken to vanity, yet it was this one stroke of such which kept him rooted in place. Word of mouth led him to a job as a scribe, writing bills of sale for an auction house; it was meager pay for good, honest work, and the auctioneer was so impressed with his penmanship that he gave him a small bonus.
And so the time has passed. Atlas has settled himself into life in Terrastella; he busies himself with work and leaves little time for socialization. He occasionally visits the coast to feel the salt sea and hear the whisper of the wind, but it makes his heart heavy for the land he once left. He intends to save money until he can purchase a new cloak, and then set his hooves back on the solid and solitary path once more.