Hydra and Ruudi

Knowledge is the shrouded firefly in the abyss of the night.

Her boots trace the mist of her name in the kneaded soil. Following her shape of her steps. Hoping but a breath from her. Hoping that her tongue doesn't pierce her like the arrow that wounded Hydra's heart from the raging village. An enflamed Imam, privy to the secret meetings in the Wu'thu room, his daughter Ruudi, took too long to perform. Hydra like then was tracing her valleys in the sand and found zum-zum. Except now, she is tracing her footsteps to forgotten whispers under the stars. Their hungry lips breaking fast with a blissful kiss. Distant memories. She remembered when her mother and her went to Ruudi's arranged engagement to a doctor and noble. "Look up Ruudi! Show your face!" family said as Hydra watched them shift and adjust her like a ragdoll. Casual pats on the very senior fiancé's back congratulating him. This, Hydra could not bare. Fury burned a hole in her chest. Seasoning in the longing to sever him from nape to member. Food came and music filled the room with shoulder shaking aunties and chest bumping uncles. All complicit. Ruudi approached a now leaving Hydra in the sea of families. "Dance with me."

Her eyes never left her. Ruudi places her vermilion veil around her neck. Familiar hands brushed to a clasp before they placed it into each others cheek, mosaic of anguish masked in their dance motif. Ruudi was a well at capacity, about to overflow. Hydra held her close to whisper into her, "I will live in the moment with you forever if you never let me go." Ruudi's nose was inched from hers. The fiancé moved through the crowd and tapped Ruudi's shoulder as he stared at Hydra over it, "Are you finished now?" Ruudi turned around. Faced with his parents and the rest of his family. The music came to a faded silence. "Well?" Ruudi took her ring and dropped it at his feet. Her furious father, thundered through the room, brazed her face with a gash slashed across her cheek. His threats echoed through the house, "Wallahi, if I kill you now, Allah wa ta'ala will spare you!" He grabbed a kitchen knife and lunged at his daughter. When she saw this, the one of one too many attempts at ending Ruudi's life, it broke Hydra. She raised her bernos and pulled a dagger from her sheath cloaked by her hip. She blocked his advance. Guards by the entrance aimed their arrows. "Kill her." The fiancé yelled. They aimed for Ruudi and Hydra pushed her out the way. She looked down at Hydra's heart to see the exited tips drenched with fragments of her innards. "Run to the place, habibti." Ruudi screamed. She kneeled into her pool of blood. Family members attempt to pull her up before armed men came and wisked her away to be stoned. She took off her heel, failing it at their heads and jammed it into a guard's eye which allowed her to break free and escape into the weepy night...

This was but moments ago. Hydra cut through leaves and bushes before approaching the Harenna Forest under a Masincho tree. They began cutting leaves of the branches grinding it into a paste over a rock. The last of her being watered the roots. Her eyes glossed over, in and out of darkness. Slow muffled patter journeyed towards Hydra.

Thud.

Ruudi fell in her lap. Chattering voices drew closer. Torches wisped in the distance, "She went that way"

Ruudi took leaves in her mouth, chewing it before sharing the paste to the lifeless Hydra. Ruudi cried to the goddesses of the forest. Praying for their protection from the men as they drew nearer. The men parted the leaves to their discovery. A snake approaches from behind the tree and takes shape into crone with skin of bronze scales. Her thick silvery locs with obsidian blades that adorned the tips, draped the ground she blessed. The men froze with fear for they knew the skulls that bejeweled her waist was men that wronged the daughters, mothers and ancestress' of the lands. Her name was Buk. She came to collect on behalf of them.

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