After several days of secret training, Raajimera finally started to get a hang of this whole sand bending business.
She still had a lot to learn, but she was able to lift more than one grain.
Feng turned out to be a good friend and a useful ally.
This evening, after a successful training session, she hoped to sneak back into her tavern room undetected. Something, however, stopped her on her way.
“Hello, there!”
She raised her eyes. It was the young athlete that the village chief praised so much. She finally had a chance to take a good look at him.
He was much taller than her. The light of the setting sun was shining on his face, making it seem even more chiseled than before.
“Oh, did I scare you? I'm sorry, I just noticed that you’ve been with us for several days now, but you didn't seem to speak with anyone, so I thought I would try to break the ice,” he said. “May I ask you what your name is?”
Raajimera thought about it for a second. She already accepted the fact that her old life is over.
The woman touched a small lump through her skirt to make sure that Feng was still hiding there.
For the first time since she appeared in this village, she felt that she now had a reason to embrace this new life.
“It's Raajimera” she said and smiled softly, not without a grain of sadness. “That, at least, is what it was chosen for me.”
The man looked at her, “I will be honest, I thought you were mute, but then I saw you speak strange words to a wild critter and figured that maybe you just don't speak our language. I am pleased to learn that both of my presumptions were incorrect,” he said, scratching his chin. “Oh, where are my manners. I'm Seyed”.
“…nice to meet you, Seyed.” she responded after a brief moment of silence. It felt so strange to her to finally speak with an actual person.
“Likewise,” the man replied. “Oh, my people will be so thrilled to finally talk to you!” He said with excitement, “They have been waiting for days!”
She crossed her arms and opposed, “I'm not sure if I'm ready to speak with them just yet.”
“Of course. No pressure, we will be ready when you are.”
She nodded and turned her head.
He asked, “So, would you please tell me if it's true that you are the Snake Queen?”
“I guess so. Before joining this village, the only thing I remember was a strange snake spirit in the sky.”
“You must be, then. So you really don't remember your life before that?”
Raajimera shook her head in disagreement.
“It's a great honor to be chosen by Twilight Mother,”
he said with a serious and confident voice. “Would you like to see our shrine?”
The woman agreed. Seyed led the way.
They appeared in front of a tall stone statue of a snake with its mouth open. It looked just like Raa. She got close to it and placed her hand on its cheek.
Raajimera felt a strange connection with the statue. Deep inside, she knew it was a calling of Raa that brought her here. It appears that there was an important task at hand.
The woman remembered what her little friend had told her the first night she was in the village.
Without breaking eye contact with the statue, she said,
“I think I'm indeed what you call the 'Snake Queen'.”
Raajimera suddenly felt as if she had to honor this deity. She noticed the abundance of offerings and lit candles all around the shrine. The woman lifted her hand theatrically and snapped her fingers, causing small amounts of sand to dance above the candles. They spun around and became tiny pieces of glass that looked like flowers. She collected them and carefully put them next to real flowers.
Seyed observed the occurrence with his eyes wide open. He wondered,
“How could this happen?”
because he didn't believe what he saw.
Raajimera was completely starstruck by the energy of this deity. She suddenly remembered that he was there and she turned around.
“I apologize,”
he expressed.
“I've never seen anything quite like this before. We are truly lucky to have you here in these times of need.”
She wanted to say something, but suddenly, she felt that Feng, hiding in the pocket of her skirt, was trying to grab her attention. She knew that she had to get back to her room to have a proper conversation with her friend.
Raajimera backed away and said,
“Actually, I am sorry. I really have to return to my room now.”
“Already?” Seyed sounded surprised. “I hoped I could show you some more things around the village, and we could maybe get to know each other more…”
“I need to take care of something right now, maybe on another day. Thank you for showing me this place.” Raajimera left rushing.
Seyed turned to the statue. He waited until he could no longer hear the woman's footsteps, and then he reached for one of the glass flowers she had made.
“I hope you won't need all of these, Twilight Mother.”
The air started getting sharp cold, and it was unsure whether it was caused by the approaching night, or the deity's disappointment in her follower.
Raajimera's steps were swift. She quickly went up the stairs and went into her room. She took a seat on her bed and pulled her snake pal out of her pocket.
The animal seemed agitated.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.
Feng looked at her. “You? Don't think so” the animal was restless. “When you placed your offering on the shrine, something changed in Raa's energy.”
“No, I think she is proud of you. I can't quite put my tail tip on what is wrong.”
Their conversation was interrupted by some noises from outside.
They exchanged looks and the woman got up to look out of her window. Seemed like the whole village gathered around the well.
“This doesn't look good. Think I should join them and see what's going on?” Raajmera scratched her head.
“You might need to. Bring me with you.”
The woman put Feng back in her pocket and left the building. She quietly observed the crowd from afar until the village chieftain noticed her.
“Ah, here you are,” he said. “Our village is experiencing a water shortage right now. The last couple of days were quite dry. We thought that bringing offerings to Raa would resolve the issue, but it seems to have worsened it. Do you think you could help us as the herald of Raa?”
Feng slithered out of her pocket and appeared on her shoulder.
“You could draw the water from the ground and bring it to the surface” the snake hinted.
Raajimera lowered her voice, “How can I do that? I literally just learned how to bend the sand.”
“The same way. You just got to visualize the system of underground rivers and grab the water from there.”
“I really hope you are right, and they won't kill me for being a fake deity” she whispered sharply. Raajimera raised her voice, “Step back.”
She approached the well, lifted her hands up and started doing slow and graceful movements resembling tai chi. The woman closed her eyes and for several minutes she slowly started becoming one with the hidden water. Raajimera knew where it was, she could command it. She could almost smell and touch it.
The sudden collective scream of the entire village broke her focus, and water shot out of the well like a wild geyser. Raajimera got scared and fell to the ground. Wet and dirty from the splashing mud, she looked up to the darkening sky.
For a split second, she could see the Twilight Mother observing her.
Suddenly, the sky was obstructed by Seyed's face. Wet curly strands of hair were sticking close to his skull, which made his head seem smaller. He offered her a hand, helping her get up.
“Nice work! I knew you could do it!”
“You did?” she seemed confused. Raajimera looked around, everyone was too busy filling their jugs with water. “I thought people would be surprised when they hear me speak or do this, but nobody actually seems to mind?”
“Oh, that's because I already told them that I got you to speak, and what I saw at the shrine.”
“You…got me?” She felt like it's unfair to put it like this after so many days of trying to accept her new identity. It took her so much work to come to terms with it, and somebody just got all the credit. She wanted to argue with him, but he didn't let her.
“You had your proof!” he shouted at them. “You will see that now our village will thrive, just as the prophecy foretold.” He left her there and disappeared among the villagers, trying to help them.
She lowered her voice to get Feng's attention, “The prophecy? Now it occurred to me that I think I never asked them how it ends.”
“What do you mean?” the animal looked at her.
“I want to know what happens to me after the village is saved.”
“Maybe you should ask around the village, somebody should be able to tell you. What makes me wonder is where the prophecy came from.”
“Huh?” Raajimera was confused.
“That information doesn't come from Raa or any other spirit animal.”
“Any ideas what the source could be?”
“No, no clue. We should probably find out, but I am not sure if we want to.”
They looked around. Suddenly, Raajimera noticed Aya helping other women carry jugs of water. She approached them.
“Do you need help?” she asked. Surprised, Aya looked at her.
“Oh, not really. Thank you, you already helped us enough.” She was left standing there.
Raajimera just shrugged. Perhaps she was simply overthinking everything, but she couldn't stop the race of thoughts that kept happening in her head.
She returned to the tavern and brought a pot with her.
She wanted to collect some fresh water to clean herself with. The tavern had an old bathtub in one of the rooms. She brought enough water to fill it, but it was freezing cold. Raajimera sat on a small stool nearby and stared at the container she had just filled.
Feng emerged from hiding. “What is it?”
“I was going to take a bath, but I realized the water was cold. Do you think I could go to the kitchen and ask them to boil some?”
The snake gazed intently at her.
“What?” Raajimera seemed clueless. The animal did not respond, it simply continued to gaze at her. “Wait, don't say I can do this myself as well.”
“You can. It's great to be a god, isn't it?”
“I should have figured this out myself.” The woman rolled her eyes. “Tell me how to do it, then.”
Feng hissed. “This is very similar to what you did before. Only this time, you have to visualize a little flame around your heart.”
“Just that?”
Feng slithered closer to the tub, “This is merely the first step. Now, put both hands between your breasts and visualize placing the flame on top of your palm.”
Raajimera carefully followed the instructions.
Feng gave a nod of approval. “Now bind yourself to the water the same way you did with the well. Imagine that you hold it in your other palm and then put your hands together to combine them.”
The woman gracefully moved her hands and, after several minutes, the water in her tub reached boiling point.
“Well, that's too much. You should stop it before you kill someone with a flaming hot cauldron falling from the ceiling!” Feng shouted.
“I don't know how!” Raajimera panicked.
“Don't worry, you just need to do it the other way around. Imagine extracting some of the flame from the water. That should lower and keep the temperature stable.”
Eventually, the temperature dropped. Now, the water was serene and pleasantly warm.
“See? You've done it! You are a natural. I mean, as much as a person who got their powers from a deity can be.” if snakes could smile, Feng would definitely do it right now. “Just a quick question, though.”
“Yes?” Half naked, Raajimera turned around while trying to enter the tub.
“May I bathe with you? My skin feels really dry, and I am about to molt.”
The woman placed her animal companion next to her as she sat down.
“Ahh, yesssss.” Feng was beaming with joy. Raajimera laughed.
After a refreshing bath, she got dressed and wrapped herself with a blanket.
The woman glanced out of the window.
People from the village had already disappeared. She looked up and saw a dark night sky filled with thousands of sparkling stars that looked like glitter.
“It's so beautiful, would you look at it, Feng?” she placed the animal on top of her hand and lifted it up so that it can witness the sight.
The snake raised its little snout and asked, “Can you see that one big star? The brightest one.”
She gave a little nod.
The animal carried on. “It is where Twilight Mother is. Whenever I feel scared or worried, I look at this star and I know that she is with me. It makes difficult times easier to bear.”
Raajimera smiled and gazed upon the star.
“I still don't know what your plans for me are, but… thank you, Raa, for putting such a wonderful friend in my way.” She rubbed her cheek against Feng's.
Maybe it was because she wanted to believe,
maybe it was because she didn't know how to listen,
but that night, the universe sang quietly,
that this isn't the only thing put in her way by fate…
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