Hearts On Fire

Six: Acceptance

She sat down with a cold body and stared intensely at Ammi, her eyes beginning to get misty. But she wasn't going ot cry yet, Ammi knew of that too. She heaved a sigh and palmed her face with both hands. Ammi was hurt beyond words, and Fatima Zarah could tell that by looking into her eyes. She was a painter when it came to emotions, but whenever she was hurt, Fatima Zarah always knew.

"There's something I want you to understand about life, Fatima. You can't always get what you want or what you think you deserve. Life doesn't follow that path, it's cares about nothing and no one. It just reads what's written in your book of destiny and then you can't unleash the hatred and grudge you hold against other human on innocent beings. I know what Al-mustapha did to you was uncalled for, but what you did to him wasn't right at all. I'm not saying this to give you my reasons why you must marry him, but it's just a lesson you should take. Had it been you let it go, Fatima Zarah your life wouldn't have taken this turn. Learn to douse the fire within your soul, not everyone needs to be burned by you, okay?"

Fatima Zarah felt tears pooling the brink of her eyes, and if she truly understood what Ammi meant, this woman meant business. She meant she had already gave her consent. What should she call this? An arranged marriage didn't stand on the way. May be forced marriage? She didn't even know. But she couldn't even imagine herself being married ot this guys, whatever the hell was his name, she didn't want to remember.

"Ammi, so you're telling me that I have to get married to him, in a month? Ammi, why? Because he comes from a royal family or what? His mother is the Mama Fulani of the sokoto? Don't you think that even if I get married to him they're just going to revenge on me and that's all? Ammi why would you do this to me?" She couldn't hold the tears back anymore, so she let them flow freely down to her subtle cheeks.

Ammi stood up from where she sat and sat down beside Fatima Zarah, she held her hands tightly and smiled, in a consoling way. "It's something I can't fight with too, Fatima Zarah. If Mama Fulani wants something, especially for her son, she can trade her life for it. She can make me lose my job, lose everything I attained, and might even make me lose my life. After all the hassles are settled, she'll forcefully get you married to him, and you have to obey to save your own life. No one judges her, because she do all that in a discreet way. Fatima Zarah, do this for Ammi while she's still with you, do it forcefully when she's buried depths beneath the earth."

Fatima Zarah stared into Ammi's eyes with more tears rolling down her cheeks, "But Ammi you know I don't love him, right? I can't even love him, Ammi."

"Love is merely a feeling, it can come to you at time you don't even know it would. it's just a feeling, it fluctuates in our hearts Fatima Zarah. I'm sure it'll come to you too someday. But you have to let the fire in you melt down that iceberg you have in your heart, it's not worth it."

"Ammi that's something I can't do, and you know it. I'll keep this iceberg for hundred of years to come, unless I take revenge or you tell me the full story and I'll figure out if it's not worth for me to keep anymore. And for the idiot, I'll think about it."

Ammi laughed, the kind of humorless laughter meant to console both her and Fatima Zarah. "You need to work on your anger issues, Fatima Zarah. You can't be like this in the royal house. Stop calling him an idiot too, he's going to be your husband soon."

"He's going to get married to me, because I can only regard to him as my husband when I feel the need. There, I rephrase your sentence. I pray we meet again in the court, hmm." She titled her head to sideways, as if she was cooking the kind of humiliation she would cause on him.

"Don't even think of doing anything to him, dan wanga ya hiki hauka wallahi. (That one is crazier than you.) Unless you want to spend the rest of the month in the cell you'll get released on the nikkah day." Fatima Zarah groaned and pouted her lips, Ammi laughed freely this time.