The Queen's Sandcastles

Family Reunion(edited)

Cassandra thankfully didn't have to torture answers out of the man.

He was so scared shitless, all of the information, which was either helpful or confusing, poured out of his mouth just like a waterfall.

The man before her was called Asnee, a 46 years old and specialized craftsman who was the sole provider of his family consisting out of him, his wife, and their six children.

Kalim, the dead man beside him, was one of the small slave-traffickers on the black market in the big city Babari and he was visiting every couple of months different little villages and stole little girls and boys for his business.

Asnee knew the job as Kalim's lackey was a miserable and degrading one having to tear apart families and force children into slavery but the only thing that made him do the job was his fear of his family starving.

Namely after he lost his shop and craftsman-licence due to a scamming, he didn't have any chance to be paid a regular income. No one wanted to hire him despite his multiple and desperate pleas because of his unlucky situation and of course, his age. This resulted in him working for that bastard criminal Kalim without his wife or kids knowing about it.

And the last job on their tour happened to be the little girl called Aya. They stole her from a poor village three days away from Babari and almost a day away from the lagoon, the lagoon being one of their mid-stops in the desert.

This was the useful part of the information.

The other part, the confusing one was the situation she was in. Asnee was fully convinced that they were in the "Egyptian Empire", on the right side of the Nile, not far away from it.

Aside from that he was not familiar with a lot of things she asked about, including communication devices, air-transportation, American embassies and many many more.

When she mentioned anything about those topics, his brows furrowed and with a hesitant and anxious voice he would tell her how he had no idea what she was talking about. His tanned face wrinkled by the harshness of his life faced the ground in a submissive manner while his eyes would flash now and then to the tattoo on her arm.

He waited patiently with held breath for Cassandra's reaction.

Her instincts made her believe he wasn't lying. With her experience as a soldier she knew when someone would lie and this was not the case for Asnee. First, he had no motive to lie about such usual topics. Secondly, the man was too desperate to get unharmed to his family because if his life ended because of her, his unknowing family would remain unprotected, an easy prey to further ruin.

The tip of her boots dug little holes in the sand in frustration and her hand went to her neck in a tired pose. She sighed.

"Are you 100 percent sure you don't know anything about a phone or a radio? even a telegraph?"

"I don't know anything, noblewoman! I swear on the God Amun!" he answered what made her sigh again defeated.

"Well, I guess, I'll believe you ........for now."

A bit of relief crossed his face, with a lighter heart he dared to raise up his head a bit, enough to have her right arm permanently in sight.

"As for the other matter. I have not the right to to judge you or even worse kill you. Normally, I'd give you over to the authorities, but from what I've heard from you. That's not really a thing around here......"

The rustle of clothes interrupted her train of thought. A little sleepy head watched them, her little fists rubbing the drowsiness from one eye.

"I'll think about it." finished Cassandra her sentence before she walked leisurely to the rising child.