Hamartia - the Singing Dagger | #NaNoWriMo2019

Chapter 1.1: The Reaper Strikes

PRESENT-DAY HAMARTIA. 2023 A.D. (After Doom). The capital city Selah.

Two years later, Mahani didn't think she could sink any lower.

Yawning, Mahani stretched and shook the dust off of the woven reed mat she had slept with on the clay floor. She was then startled by a voice shooting through the bamboo dwelling.

"Mahani! Do you want to buy this fresh eel for breakfast?"

Juna's voice overlapped with another, competing boom.

"Oh, no, she doesn't want eel, Juna." Ikaro propped up their window with a sturdy stick and waved to the old lady carrying a large jar of eels from the outside.

"Excuse me? Excuse me, ma'am? No, our wife, Mahani pays for all the food here. And she doesn't really eat eels."

"Now, not so fast, Ikaro."

Mahani pushed Juna away from the door and descended down the coconut-slab stairs. "Your first statement is a fact, Ikaro. But that second part? I know for a fact that none of you know the first thing about what I do and do not like."

Rummaging into a black pouch, she took out five piyasas, the flattened rings that were the Selahin currency. The inscription of this is not money was carved into every ring.

You know. Just to make sure a malignant elf doesn't find out what humans value and feed on their suffering for all eternity. Selahin logic.

"I'm sorry for the trouble, ma'am. We're buying half. Juna, tell Burkon to bring in the large jar to put these feisty eels in."

"But Mahani, I am certainly capable---"

"Shut it, Juna. And don't you even make a peep, Ikaro. You've done your quota of pretending to help me today."

She waved her hands in dismissal. "Come on, guys. Just go get Burkon."

Mahani turned to the stout vendor. "I sure do love eel, ma'am. Let's just sit here on the stairs for a bit while my husband gets a container."

In the morning mist, Mahani squinted her eyes to see a figure sprinting down the river path.

Juna let out a panicked yell from inside the house. "Burkon's not here, Mahani!"

A faint grunt of pain echoed from the river path, followed by a thump.

⚔⚔⚔

He was coughing up blood. Coiling in the fetal position, they could all see his back mapped with purple bruises. Burkon's large frame seemed to shrink before Mahani's eyes as he curled up more with each grunt of pain.

The three of them squatted by the large man. Ikaro and Juna had carried the jar to the door themselves, where it lay now half-filled with live eels. The old woman had offered to go by a healer while returning to the city.

Juna knelt toward Burkon. "Why did you leave, Burkon?"

Ikaro slapped the back of Juna's head. "Be quiet. You're not the one whose voice box is swimming in blood right now."

Burkon uncurled and glanced up at Mahani. Juna bent closer to Burkon, peeling off the dark leaves that chilled his back to replace them with more from a golden platter. The purple welts started to clear, forming characters Mahani knew was archaic Hamartian: Pay Up.

Back when she lived in the palace, she had been taught this ancient script, along with other matters relevant to the continent of Hamartia: cartography, time-keeping, speaking in the seven dialects of Hamartian and so much more. So much gone to waste.

But not today, she realized.

Mahani looked over to her two husbands and from the void looks of their faces deduced that they had no idea that the welts meant something.

"You, two. Stay here and wait for the healer. I'm going to work."

Mahani walked to the door, stopping to throw her black ring pouch at her three desperate husbands. In her silent rage, she tightened her calvestrings till they ached.

And to find the Reapers.

⚔⚔⚔

Human senses were disgusting. Caelem squatted under a cacao tree in the palace garden.

Come on, guys. Try to make this mission even a little more bearable.

But he knew the other Wind Spirits were under no obligation to do any such thing for him. He was assigned here. In the mortal realm.

He, Caelem. A being so free that he could bathe in moonlight and swim in jungle canopies. But here he was instead, with an animate body that would be locked to the ground by daytime.

Frogs and crickets welcomed Caelem into the midnight. Tarsiers leaped at lightning speed through the trees, some snatching praying mantises, others pounding cacao pods for the juicy white meat inside.

Night in the city of Selah was an enchanting experience, compared to what he knew about the Selahin mornings.

Noise. Stench. Fickle weather. Hunger.

And most of all, the humans. Did he really have to be incarnated as a person? A tarsier would have been cuter.

Caelem remembered his purpose. To find the evil that was hovering this city. Unfolding his deep violet wings, he flew into the sky; bathing in the moonlight while no one could see.

⚔⚔⚔

A/N: Hadassah on the loose, my people!

This year, I'm doing the NaNoWriMo Challenge. 💪

The goal is to finish 50,000 words by November 30, 2019, at 11:59 my time. But you know, just taking it slow. 😅

Hope I can make it... But I'm pretty sure I can if you guys don't forget to follow, vote and especially comment on my work-in-progress. Thanks! 😘😉