forward-flowing tide of time [MYSTERY FIGHT]

[Aghavni]

W

hen I was younger I often asked my father what my mother looked like. All the paintings done of her had burned in the fires, and the ones done of us all, reclining on cushions like three sleek hounds, had been too large to fit in the back of an escaping caravan.

I suppose that I asked my father what my mother looked like because I knew the answer would hurt him. I could not blame him for my mother’s death but I could blame him for leaving her portraits behind. It was an unkind thing to do, but I have never claimed to be particularly adept at being kind.

I remembered my mother in snatches: the scent of the rose oil she rubbed into her skin; how she hummed folk songs when she walked through the gardens; how her legs were like stems, anchored with stacks of gold bracelets; the little bone dagger she kept behind her pillow.

Of her face, though, I remembered nothing. It was either that or her dead besides me, her white throat like an open mouth.

To that, nothing was a kindness.

It was my nursemaid who’d told me, when I had asked (in a moment of longing—it was summer and the night was thick with cicadas; we were somewhere near the Vitreus, halfway to Denocte) if I looked like my mother. “Don’t you! All limbs and eyes, just like you. And her hair—” she’d said, while brushing mine. “Your mother was the envy of all the Court for that hair of hers. Every night I combed it, like I do for you now. It was as lush as spring and as black as melted obsidian, or—or Caligo’s night in a bottle. Never saw anything like it. If you had her hair you would look nearly identical.”

“Like you,” my father said, when I asked after breakfast the next morning. “She looked like you.” The displeased way he said it (which differed from my father’s customary terseness by a negligible amount; yet even young I had been unusually perceptive) would discourage me enough that I would go weeks before asking again.

Yet I did not miss the way his eyes went to my hair. Bone-white in the sun. My father and I shared a secret. When he saw me, I knew that he saw me as I had been. With the hair my mother had given me.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell.”

My father and I shared a secret, and we will both carry it to our graves. 

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell.”

The shock sweeps in like a tide, like a tsunami with five ships in its bowels. Who are you? It—my anger—catches me by surprise as much as it will her—Zarqa—because I cannot battle when angry, when I am anything other than blank.

My fan slices the air where her—my—face had been precious seconds ago, before I know how my body will follow. 

I improvise and it is sloppy, an opening for any fighter deft enough to end up in this arena, with me, a Hajakha, a princess, an emissary, as her opponent. My father does not believe in chance. Neither do I.

Clouds of sand fly up around me as I lunge viciously forwards, lifting my legs at the last moment into a half-rear to hook them around Zarqa’s neck, or her cloaked shoulders, or—nothing, if she is quick enough. My first attack is thrown; half wits and the other half luck. I had never expected—

I gnash my tongue against my teeth. “Yuz o‘g‘irlash!” I hiss. Face-stealer in Sahvahn, the tongue of the nobility. The God-chosen. She has stolen more than my face; she has stolen my mother’s as well.

Before my hooves make landing with the sand, I utter a silent prayer.

Solis give me strength.

@Official Day Account
_{Aghavni can be hurt/maimed, even badly, in this battle! in fact I kinda do want her to get hurt haha, though the degree is up to you c':}

aghavni
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« open up and bite it, bite it (bite it) »

♢

Summary: Aghavni enters the ring and doesn't notice anything is off until Zarqa steps in close and shows her her face. Aghavni goes into a long monologue/flashback that recounts how her face is basically a copy of her mother's and then freaks out, because Zarqa is not only sporting her face but her dead mother's. She slices her fan down near Zarqa's face (involuntarily) and then lunges forwards, aiming to wrap her legs around Zarqa's neck or shoulders. She's spooked badly though, so she could miss entirely.

Attack Used: 1
Attack(s) Left: 1
Block Used: 0 
Block(s) Left: 1 
Item(s) Used: weapon (steel-edged fan)

Response Deadline: June 21
Tags: @syndicate @Official Day Account (not an official judged battle so not tagging any staff)