☼ ISHAK ☼اسحاق
"Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go"
"Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go"
There’s a question Ruth doesn’t ask you; you can see it on her face. And it matches with her rhetorical opener, you’re certain.
Why water?
You could have said flash flood. You could have said desert storms. You didn’t. Water is still deadly, water is still necessary. The ocean, at least, is a beast one step removed.
“But the gods do.” Ruth says.
You have no real response to that, not one that isn’t do they really? They talk like you; they appear like you. But who can say they think like you?
“I don’t expect salvation. I don’t expect kindness. I don't even expect mercy. But Ishak: if you met a sandwyrm in the desert, would you provoke it if you knew that you couldn’t win? Solis needs nothing from us. That does not mean I want to risk his anger.”
You are desert-born and desert-raised. You know what it was like to be solid in a world that shifted. You knew some that were lost to gaping mouths instead of shifting sands. You knew too what it meant to be someone’s last stop before they challenged a wyrm. Your father thought them foolish, but he was happy enough to top off their supplies.
“The honest answer, Ruth?” you say, knowing that the mere mention of the word makes you more suspect, “I’d prefer it not to know I was there at all.”
And maybe it is honest. Yet, here you are, trailing after an Ieshan. Not a shiny one, not an egocentric one. But still, someone kin to the priesthood. Someone who grew up with incense and prayers clinging to her coat as surely as antiseptic and decay. Is she not a priestess of a different sort? You have heard the prayers of dying men — when are they not for healing?
Regardless, Ruth’s responses when taken in sum are an answer to your unasked question. It seems she does not find comfort in religion. You are not sure how you feel that there are things left to discover about her; it keeps life interesting, but you find comfort in her predictability. Your uncertainty is irrelevant, though, in the same way the looks of fences and old colleagues are. You will climb this mountain with Ruth again and again and again.
“It may be best to try to rest,” Ruth says.
Sleep sounds heavenly. You settle down, and then smirk up at her, heights reversed, “Doctor’s orders, huh.”
Sleep sounds heavenly, but you know you won’t be able to get any as long as Ruth stays awake.
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