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Sarai bint Jangir al Basram
Story Status: OPEN
Age: mid-20sStory Status: OPEN
Gender: cis-female
Orientation: hetero
Height: 5'2
Weight: A hard sneeze might send her flying abroad
Distinguishing characteristics: Blue eyes that lack pupils. The iris is completely blue, almost the same shade as lapis lazuli. Burn scars mark the left side of her body (face, shoulder, side, leg).
Random notes: She has a cat, an oriental shorthair that is light colored with dark points. His name is Koki and he's as friendly as a rusty bear trap to others but adoring to her. Sarai is keenly aware of his antics, especially since he loves to travel with her by riding on her shoulders like a scarf.
Heritage: She the daughter of a well placed noble in a desert culture that was created as a blend of Mongolian/Steppe cultures and Persian by Robert E. Howard for the world of Conan the Barbarian. The nation is called Turan. Her mother was only a concubine in her father's harem yet as cherished as a first wife. This does not come without dangers in the world in which they live. When Sarai's father allowed her to survive past her birth despite her obvious blindness it made her mother determined to see her daughter educated and prepared to succeed in every way she possibly could. Sadly, while Sarai was a teenager, her mother was lost in childbirth trying to bring a son into the world and Sarai was left with few to protect her in an insidious world.
A glimps into Sarai's history:
Silence. It settled in the room with a feeling as normal as breathing yet as heavy as death thanks to the grief that still blurred her mind and senses. She paid the silence no notice.
The scent of the oil used in the lamps around the harem was familiar. It drew no exceptional notice. She laid her head on her pillow and turned her back on a world that ached to exist in. Her mother had been gone for months yet the agony of loss continued unabated.
One ember was all it took, blown onto waiting fuel with malevolent intent. This was no accident. This was spite, anger and vengeance.
She could hear her own screams and smell the scents of burnt flesh, singed hair and her world going up in smoke. She gasped for air that rapidly vanished as the flames rose higher on her bed, her clothes and herself.
Maybe death would have been better.
There was no way for her to know how long had passed when she awoke screaming in feral agony in the back of a moving cart. Even in the crush of bodies stuffed in such a confined space the others pushed away from her. She looked like a nightmare to them as she sat there covered in burns and wrapped in burlap. The scent that wafted off her terrified the other slaves, like she were a warning they were to meet a similarly grim fate.
Menna did not want to go to that part of the city that day. It was rare she traveled this far from her brothel and she wanted to simply finish her business and make her way home. Her guards flanked her, their presence a mark of the life she had carved for herself in ways that would have left her an outcast in the land of her birth. She held herself with pride as she walked through the markets wrapped in fine silks, jewelry and perfumes. She turned away from where the slavers carts stood and covered her nose with a handkerchief to fend off the scent of filth and desperation. The distraction made her stumble as her foot hit a bundle on the ground.
The bundle made a sound.
Menna recoiled in horror and made a gesture to fend off evil spirits as she looked at the pile of dirty burlap.
"That's a person," one of her guards gasped.
"No…," Menna denied, fabric still pressed to her nose. She gestured to the guard to move the fabric.
All three wretched at the glimpse of the figure beneath and yet, the figure still breathed. It still whimpered. It lingered there on the ledge before death somehow.
"Pick them up," Menna ordered as she attempted not to gag.
"Menna! They're… It…"
"I said pick them up, and I do not like to speak twice," she told the reluctant guards firmly.
One of the guards used his cloak to wrap the burlap-clad figure and lifted it with surprising ease. The person weighed so little.
It took only a day for Menna to realize the figure was from her homeland, marked by a piece of jewelry on her unburned side. It took them months to even begin to heal the figure's body. This lost, blind little songbird dumped to die in a far away city somehow survived. Menna herself took meticulous care of the girl, like she were experiencing the stirrings of nurturing a child she'd never been allowed to have.
"Stay brave, little dove, stay brave," the old whore told her every night as she changed the young woman's bandages.
And so she did. The little beggar, so far from home, survived. But what life would she know now?
The scent of the oil used in the lamps around the harem was familiar. It drew no exceptional notice. She laid her head on her pillow and turned her back on a world that ached to exist in. Her mother had been gone for months yet the agony of loss continued unabated.
One ember was all it took, blown onto waiting fuel with malevolent intent. This was no accident. This was spite, anger and vengeance.
She could hear her own screams and smell the scents of burnt flesh, singed hair and her world going up in smoke. She gasped for air that rapidly vanished as the flames rose higher on her bed, her clothes and herself.
Maybe death would have been better.
There was no way for her to know how long had passed when she awoke screaming in feral agony in the back of a moving cart. Even in the crush of bodies stuffed in such a confined space the others pushed away from her. She looked like a nightmare to them as she sat there covered in burns and wrapped in burlap. The scent that wafted off her terrified the other slaves, like she were a warning they were to meet a similarly grim fate.
Menna did not want to go to that part of the city that day. It was rare she traveled this far from her brothel and she wanted to simply finish her business and make her way home. Her guards flanked her, their presence a mark of the life she had carved for herself in ways that would have left her an outcast in the land of her birth. She held herself with pride as she walked through the markets wrapped in fine silks, jewelry and perfumes. She turned away from where the slavers carts stood and covered her nose with a handkerchief to fend off the scent of filth and desperation. The distraction made her stumble as her foot hit a bundle on the ground.
The bundle made a sound.
Menna recoiled in horror and made a gesture to fend off evil spirits as she looked at the pile of dirty burlap.
"That's a person," one of her guards gasped.
"No…," Menna denied, fabric still pressed to her nose. She gestured to the guard to move the fabric.
All three wretched at the glimpse of the figure beneath and yet, the figure still breathed. It still whimpered. It lingered there on the ledge before death somehow.
"Pick them up," Menna ordered as she attempted not to gag.
"Menna! They're… It…"
"I said pick them up, and I do not like to speak twice," she told the reluctant guards firmly.
One of the guards used his cloak to wrap the burlap-clad figure and lifted it with surprising ease. The person weighed so little.
It took only a day for Menna to realize the figure was from her homeland, marked by a piece of jewelry on her unburned side. It took them months to even begin to heal the figure's body. This lost, blind little songbird dumped to die in a far away city somehow survived. Menna herself took meticulous care of the girl, like she were experiencing the stirrings of nurturing a child she'd never been allowed to have.
"Stay brave, little dove, stay brave," the old whore told her every night as she changed the young woman's bandages.
And so she did. The little beggar, so far from home, survived. But what life would she know now?
Also: cat tax
