“I’m not sure I want Lahn to –”
“My dear, he has much coin. The proof is covering you head-to-toe. Take them. He won’t blink. He will expect you to take your custom to his vendors. It keeps them happy. It feeds their coffers, puts food in their bellies and he needs their allegiance. Take them. Trust me.”
I studied her and she tipped her chin at me encouragingly.
“Take them, Dahksahna Circe,” Sheena urged then tipped her head and smiled a white smile. “Pretty!” Then she giggled.
I looked at the bangles, picked them up and turned them in my hands. They were roughly made but they were pretty. There were five of them and they’d go great with my outfit. Heck, those pearls would go great with any outfit.
I slid them on my wrist.
“Ah! Suh rahna Dahksahna fahnay ta kay! Rah fahnay ta kay! Shahsha, kah Dahksahna, shahsha! Shahsha!” the vendor cried, ending with his hands in prayer position, smiling at me like a lunatic and bowing repeatedly.
“He says the golden queen smiles on him. Thank you,” Diandra translated, grinning.
“How do I say, ‘you’re welcome’?” I asked.
“Nahrahka,” she answered and I turned to the vendor, bowed my head and smiled.
“Nahrahka,” I said to him.
“Suh rahna Dahksahna lapay sahna! Shahsha fahnay ta kay. Shahsha, kah Dahksahna!” he yelled, I laughed and looked at Diandra.
“He says the golden queen is beautiful. Thank you for smiling at him,” she explained and I nodded to her, to him and smiled again.
“Shahsha, uh… good sir,” I muttered.
He bowed, shaking his clasped hands in front of him then turned to the next stall and shouted, “Suh rahna Dahksahna fahnay ta kay! Fahnay ta kay!” Then he bent his torso back, looked to the clear blue sky and shook his clasped hands at the heavens.
“Well,” I muttered to Diandra as we moved from his stall, “you were right. He seems pretty honored.”
After I was done speaking both she and her daughter laughed and it felt really, really good to join in and laugh with them.
We moved through the marketplace and it wasn’t near the same as going to a mall (what could I say? I was a shopper) with my friends from home (something I wasn’t thinking about, I already missed my Pop and was worried about him, I didn’t even want to think about my friends) but it was just as much fun… in a different way. I liked Diandra and the more I was around her friendly, helpful chatter, the more I liked her. And Sheena was a sweetheart and proved, while shopping (and begging her mother for this treat or that trinket) that twelve year old girls were universal… no matter what universe you happened to exist in.
We’d drunk some juice that tasted of mangos that we got from another vendor who was pleased beyond rationality that I partook of her cool beverage when I saw them.
A pen in which… I stopped and stared… in which there looked to be pure white, baby tigers.
“Oh my God,” I whispered and rushed forward to the pen. “They’re so cute!” I cried and looked at the man standing beside the pen. “They’re gorgeous! Unbelievable! Are they for sale?” I felt Diandra and Sheena get close and I turned instantly to Diandra. “Do you think they’re for sale?”
Diandra was eyeing the tiger cubs. “Erm… Dahksahna Circe…” she started but I shot around her on a bee-line to the man by the pen.
“I want one,” I declared when I was standing in front of him. “They’re white!” I whirled to Diandra. “I’ve never seen a white tiger! I didn’t even know they existed!” I whirled back to the man. “Do they change color?” He blinked down at me and I kept talking. “I hope not. I want to name mine Ghost. No!” I cried. “Casper!” I shook my head. “No, I think Ghost is better.” I whirled to Diandra again. “What do you think? Casper or Ghost?”
“I think, my dear,” she moved closer, “that you should discuss this with your king.”
“Why?” I asked and her brows knit.
“Why?”
“Yes, why? He’s The Tiger, he’s got to like a baby one,” I stated.
“Dahksahna Circe,” she said softly and took my hand, “he is The Tiger and you are his Tigress, but you are introducing a pet into your family. Not a cat or a dog or a bird but a dangerous carnivorous animal. You don’t even know how to speak to your new husband in his language. I think, perhaps, you should settle into –”
“Look at them!” I exclaimed, throwing an arm out to the pen of cute, cavorting baby tigers. “They’re adorable. They’re not carnivorous animals.”
“Even now, my dear, I suspect they eat meat but even if they don’t, they will,” she replied rationally.