Rumors like desert-grit wander through the streets of Ůtef; we have heard one in particular, the singular, troubling report that lurks like a nightmare. There is word, the account goes, that the Kását are moving, that they have discovered a northern stretch to the land. They are still far away, the rumor goes, and so there is time to prepare. The Ůt’ēžen ran from the Kását once. It isn’t likely that they’ll run again. They have changed in the countless generations between founding this city and establishing it as a gem in the desert. Though it is nothing like the lands their ancestors knew, it is home. They are desert people now, as gentle as they’ve always been, but hardened by desert life. They are desert creatures, as cunning as predatory cats and as tenacious as vultures. Hej is as troubled by this as anyone. He has kept his wits to him and hasn’t fallen into the morass of sulks and panic. He has hardened himself, as if the Kását will arrive tomorrow. His manner has not changed: he is still gentle with me and playful with Borá. He still pesters Lÿsti for still more dragon stories. She laughs at this and says that in one week she will have to make up new stories, as her source of true tales is nearly exhausted. Hej, she says, as if marveling at the wit and manners of a precocious child, is insatiable. He wants to know everything there is to know about dragons, and he wants to know it all now. “Our forefathers and foremothers ran,” Hej says to me on a quiet night, bright with moonglow and city-light. “There are few new places to go…we will fight now, if we must. We will protect Ůtef.” We are on the roof of our house, drinking evening tea; Borá and Lÿsti have gone to visit friends, to gossip and laugh and play esmet like hardened gamblers. They are safe: we both know this, but it is a comfort to share time on the roof, watching the streets for their return. Hej has spent the week working in the lightening-mills, drawing copper into long threads and braiding those threads into cable. There are machines for this kind of work; Hej operates those machines and makes good brass in doing so. His labors have made our house rich by local standards and he says that I may retire from trading soon…though he says this quietly. I think he wants to make a journey with me, to see Elül and to meet the semi-nomadic desert tribes; at night, in our common bed—larger and more comfortable than anything I’ve ever seen in Elül—I regale him and our wives with tales of my travels; I tickle their ears with the complex names of tribal chiefs, trades-people, and the occasional snarly warrior. Hej is always most drawn to such stories, and perhaps when Lÿsti’s dragon stories run dry, he will begin to pester me for trade stories. It is a comforting, funny thought. Now, however, seated on a tea-mat, beside my brother-husband, I consider him in the moonlight, and think—for a moment—that a true warrior sits with me. I know of his rituals: the silent moments of contemplation and prayer at the onion altar, and an image flashes into my mind, the recall of a previous night. I saw moonlight in an onionskin. I saw lightening, and now the image plays again through my mind and I wonder if Hej had seen the exact same thing, and read it as an omen. The time may come to fight for Ůtef; when this time comes, I will fight beside Hej. But now it is enough to share tea in the barefoot-comforts of home, waiting--with him--for Borá and Lÿsti to return and to learn, whether or not Lÿsti has won another close game. *** Onionskin with blue LED. No postwork aside from resizing and level adjustment. This is the last image in the Onionskin series, but there may be more. There is more to tell of the unfolding story and so Hej and the others will return (perhaps many times) to my gallery. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a fantastic week.