★ Wattpad Featured: #FreshReads #InHerWords2022
❝You're not taking me to bed. Ever.❞
❝...Who said it had to be on a bed?❞
A disgraced immortal and a legendary folk hero are desperate to locate a blacksmith who can break the enchanted handcuffs that...
stretching your big wings over waters turning gold
so tell your story, baby, don't give up
just let all it out
the quiet wishing's not loud enough
❧ flume, "take a chance"
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The jungle temple was silent and the main entrance gaped open like a jaw, which was an invitation to Sunkanmi if there ever was one. Her mother would've marveled over the swooping architecture and the gruesome faces painted into the pinkwood.
You could only find unique details like these in Bamidele.
[You don't belong here.]
Blind in the dark, Sunkanmi banged her hip into a giant urn and nearly toppled over.
Pain lanced through common sense and she shouted, "Fuuuuuck!"
Clutching her side, Sunkanmi hobbled into the main temple like a crippled old woman.
[At least now I finally look how I feel inside.]
The goddess presiding over the temple was unrecognizable, the elements wore her holy house down to a lump of woman-shaped rock, but Sunkanmi thought it was worth a shot. After all she'd done, she wasn't sure if she was still allowed to tread such hallowed ground.
Her earliest memory of Urfan was him encouraging her to set fire to the temple where her father used to preach. Where she and her mother tied wish-knots into the trees. Where the red tigers roamed.
After it was over, Urfan congratulated her for passing the initiation and welcomed her to the Heretic Army, leaving Sunkanmi just enough time to run for the treeline and throw up. So much of her youth was split between choosing faith or acceptance. Trading in her old gods for the new.
Urfan and his radicalism promised what religion couldn't at the time, and that was friendship.
Belonging.
"This won't be easy. None of this will be easy, and it hasn't been. I honestly don't know what I expected." Tears dribbled down her cheeks as she addressed the empty room. During funeral rites for fallen soldiers, Urfan often complimented her tears and said they were the most beautiful piece of her. He thought she was a pretty crier. Whatever that meant.
"I'm not begging forgiveness. I just ask for the will to carry on. For them. For myself... for him."
Noise clattered behind a destroyed fresco and a large figure slithered from the darkness on all fours.
"Goodness!" Sunkanmi jumped before chiding herself.
It was just a man. Probably homeless and frustrated about hosting an uninvited guest so late in the day.
