Post by devilinthedetails on Dec 15, 2021 6:23:01 GMT 10
Title: Shaman of the Bloody Hawk
Rating: PG-13 for sexism and sexuality.
For: Seek
Prompt: Something Bazhir-centric.
Summary: Kara finds her strength as shaman of the Bloody Hawk.
Notes: Happy Wishing Tree, Seek! I hope you enjoy the holiday season and this Bazhir-centric fic I wrote for you!
Shaman of the Bloody Hawk
“I want to resign my position as head shaman of the Bloody Hawk.” Kourrem’s words almost made Kara’s heart stop in her chest as they sat on a blanket woven from sunset orange and red threads outside their shared shaman’s tent, pounding desert flowers for poultices.
The stars rose silver over their heads. It was after the evening’s communion with the Voice. When everything should have been at peace. Except that Kourrem had a knack for identifying the most tranquil moments, and saying the perfect thing to shatter the serenity. That was perhaps her most powerful magic.
“Resign?” In her shock at Kourrem’s latest scandalous revelation, Kara narrowly missed smashing her fingers into her clay mortar with her pestle. That would have been painful and embarrassing. “But who will take your place?”
“You.” Kourrem glanced up from her own grinding with mingled impatience and amusement on her face. “Who else has the training and the ability to take on the role in this tribe?”
“But I don’t have the personality to be head shaman.” Kara bit her lip. She thought they had settled this long ago when Alanna told them to choose who should lead them. Who should be the head shaman of their tribe. Kara had been more than happy to defer to Kourrem then. She wasn’t born to lead but to follow. Unlike Kourrem who coud never follow without bristling and resisting. Kourrem was the one with the independent, restless streak. Not Kara.
“You’ll never know if you don’t try to be head shaman.” Kourrem’s tone assumed the patient, soothing quality used when addressing a balking, skittish mare.
“Why do I have to try?” Kara shook her head. “Why can’t you continue to be head shaman?”
“Because I have an itching to travel.” Kourrem gazed wistfully across the sand dunes. Her independent, restless stream apparently rearing its ugly head again. “To see the rest of the desert. To study with other shamans. To learn new things from them.”
“We’re Bazhir. We’re nomadic.” Kara couldn’t understand Kourrem no matter how hard she tried. Even though they had grown up together. First as outcasts in their own tribe. Then as apprentices to Alanna, and finally as full-fledged shamans in their own right. “We travel across the desert. We just do it as a tribe so that none of us has to be alone.”
“I can’t stay with this tribe.” Beneath her black veil, Kourrem’s eyes blazed fierce and dark. “I can’t love it or feel that I belong to it no matter how hard I try. Not after they rejected me for my magic. Not after what they did to you, Ishak, and me without shame for years.”
The desert wind swallowed Kara’s sigh. As much as Kara’s desire to be a true and accepted member of the Bloody Hawk was flamed and fanned by the recollection of time she had spent as a pariah among her own people, Kourrem’s need to be approved and embraced by the tribe seemed to cool and diminish to ashes the more she dwelled on the memories of that period of pain and rejection. She and Kourrem were best friends, but opposite in so many ways. Like the sand was the opposite of the unreachable sky.
“Will you at least stay until I’m married to Halef?” Kara asked, hoping for a compromise. She was betrothed to Halef now. Within months, she would be the chief’s wife. That status combined with her own rank as shaman–soon to be head shaman should Kourrem be true to her promise (and Kara had no doubt she would be faithful and unflinching as ever)--would make her the most important and respected woman in the tribe.
She would complete her climb from outcast to chief’s wife. She should have felt proud and triumphant at her ascent, but instead she felt dizy and disconcered. As if she couldn’t be certain of the ground beneath her feet although she wanted to believe with every breath of her lungs and beat of her heart that her feelings for Halef were rock solid and his for her were equally firm. Equally unalterable by time and circumstances. But even rocks crumbled into windswept sand when enough eons had passed. When enough rain had fallen onto cliff crags.
“I was hoping you would perform the ceremony,” added Kara, hating how small and uncertain she sounded. How abashed even in speaking to her most loved and trusted friend. That was no way for a head shaman or a chief’s wife to talk, she scolded herself. Berating herself more harshly than she would anyone else as was her wont.
“I will.” Kourrem dropped her pestle and reached out to squeeze Kara’s hand between her fingers. “Of course I will.”
Kourrem’s word was as reliable as the sunrise every morning. She did indeed preside over Kara and Halef’s wedding ceremony, which took place before a campfire beneath desert stars surrounded by the expectant faces of their entire tribe. Witnessing the vows Halef and Kara exchanged that made them one flesh and blood that bruised and bled together. Watching as they cut their palms with knives. Pressing their wounds together so their scarlet blood mingled. Binding them into a single body that loved and hurt as one with the force of her magic.
The feeling of her blood mixing with Halef’s and Kourrem’s magic swirling like lightning in the air around her made Kara’s skin tingle and tickle. As if there was something static inside her. Something that could lift her every hair out of place.
Once the oaths and blood-letting were done, the solemn ceremony ended and the joyous revelry began. Led by Halef and Kara, the tribe danced around the fire until even the embers died. They feasted on baskets of sticky dates to represent fertility and on platters of baklava filled with crushed nuts and sweetened with honey.
That night, alone in the chief’s tent they would now share forever, Halef tasted of honey and dates when he kissed her. His touch–with his fingers and mouth–was tender as he undressed her, and she didn’t feel the vulnerability she had feared she might being naked beneath him. When he entered her, he was gentle and slow. She didn’t feel the stabbing pain Mari Fahrar had warned her about, but she did bleed, and she was grateful Mari had cautioned her about that too. Or else she might have been confused and appalled about what was happening to her.
It was strange how much ecstasy–she could feel when she was bleeding from such a sensitive, private place, she thought. Then didn’t have time to think anything else. Became too consumed by passion and pleasure to spare any attention for trivial matters and musings.
The next morning–barely lingering long enough to offer Kara a farewell hug–Kourrem rode off into the desert in search of her adventures and learning.
Three months passed before Kara saw Kourrem again. Eager to hear about Kourrem’s travels and what she had discovered during them, Kara invited her friend to join her for steaming cups of cardamom tea at the low table in the tent where she made her home with Halef.
Halef was absent resolving a dispute about sheep grazing rights between two particularly fractious members of the tribe, and the two women could talk without any fear of masculine interruption.
“We aren’t the first women to be Bazhir shamans.” The words tumbled from Kourrem’s mouth in an excited rush even before Kara had finished pouring their tea. “In the far south of the desert, there are tribes where women born with magic train to be shamans, and nobody gets their nose in a twist. There have been tribes that have accepted women as shamans for centuries.”
Kara had heard about other tribes where women were permitted to wear veils in every color and not just black–where that wasn’t seen as an offense against modesty–but she had never heard of a tribe much less multiple ones that had allowed women to be shamans for centuries. That had seemingly permitted it without a fight or a fuss.
“But Akhnan ibn Nazzir said that women couldn’t be shamans!” spluttered Kara when she could speak through her surprise. “He said there’d never been a female shaman in the history of the Bazhir.”
“Akhnan ibn Nazzir lied or was ignorant.” Kourrem arched an eyebrow as she sipped at her tea. “Does that really shock you, Kara?”
“No,” Kara admitted, still stunned by what Kourrem had revealed about the history and customs of magic in other Bazhir tribes scattered across the vast desert. “He was an evil liar, and in his ignorant pride, he meddled with powers he didn’t understand. That was his downfall.”
“He was jealous of us.” Kourrem’s lip curled in contempt for the man who had once been shaman of the Bloody Hawk. “He feared our power because we could be greater than him. Would be greater than him. He was so weak that he was scared to train a successor that would unseat him. That would be stronger in magic than him.”
The shadow of Akhnan ibn Nazzir loomed dark and large in Kara’s memory. She didn’t want to think of him during what should have been a happy moment of reunion with her friend, so she switched the conversation to lighter topics. Updating Kourrem on the births, pregnancies, and marriages she had missed while traveling amongst the sand dunes. Filling Kourrem in on the gossip and governance of the Bloody Hawk. Initiating her back into the tribe.
All too soon, Kourrem was gone again. Barely staying around longer than the desert wind that seemed to blow her always away from Kara.
Months after Kourrem left, Kara’s monthly bleeding didn’t come for the first time since she had donned a veil.
“I have a gift for you,” Kara whispered in Halef’s ear late at night when her cycles failed to visit her for two months in a row and she could feel the new life growing inside her. “I’m pregnant.”
“This is the proudest and happiest moment of my life.” Halef kissed her deeply. “We must announce it to the tribe tomorrow at the campfire. The entire tribe will rejoice with us.”
“The baby might not be a boy.” Kara’s hands folded over her womb. She wasn’t certain how Halef would react if his firstborn was a daughter instead of a son. Knew how the tribe would react. With blaming and shaming her for failing to give Halef a son on her first try. With hard stares and judgmental speculations. “I might be carrying a girl.”
“Then I will still be proud and happy.” Halef cupped her cheek. “And I will find her a good and gentle husband one day. Daughters are sometimes more of a joy to their fathers than sons, being less troublesome than sons. So do not worry, my love. All will be well.”
The next night, Halef did proclaim her pregnancy at the campfire with the whole tribe in attendance. The men cheered and clapped. The women provided their whispered congratulations to Kara and endless, often contradictory advice about what foods she should and shouldn’t eat while pregnant. Acting as if she were ignorant about herbs instead of the tribe’s shaman.
At the fire, the mood had been celebratory and supportive, but soon the storm broke. The following day Halef strode into their tent for the lamb and lentil stew Kara had cooked for their noon meal wearing a grim expression.
“Some of the men don’t want you to be shaman any more,” Halef said before Kara could ask what was wrong.
“Why?” Kara asked even though she had a shrewd guess as to the reason and wished Halef had never announced her pregnancy to the tribe. Her pregnancy had reminded the Bloody Hawk that she was a woman, a wife and future mother, and not just a shaman. They had difficulty seeing her as wife, future mother, and shaman. So they wanted to reduce her to being wife and future mother. They wanted to confine her to her tent. Limit her role in tribal politics. Shove her back into what they saw as her proper place.
But Kara didn’t see that as her proper place any more. She saw her proper place as being the unashamed, proud shaman of the Bloody Hawk. The shaman she had trained and struggled to be.
A proper Bazhir wife, Kara thought, wouldn’t have even dared to pose such a question to her husband, because it would have sounded too much like arguing.
She wasn’t a proper Bazhir wife or woman. Even if she was more traditional than Kourrem. Even if she did prefer to remain with her tribe rather than roam through the desert like sand cast about in the breeze.
“Because they say you can’t be a wife and mother while being the shaman.” Halef pinched the bridge of his nose. “That the responsibility is too much for any woman to bear.”
“And who do they intend to replace me?” Kara’s demand was arrow sharp.
“They thought Kourrem might be persuaded to come back and serve as shaman.” Halef’s voice was calm. Level. Infuriatingly so. As if it didn’t affect him that his wife should be shamed in such a way.
“Oh, well, that’s a nonsense notion,” snapped Kara. “Kourrem wants to travel, not be trapped with this tribe full of petty people. She definitely won’t have any interest in coming back just to put me in a cage.”
“A cage,” Halef echoed quietly. “Is that how you see our tent, Kara?”
“It’s how I would see it if I wasn’t allowed to leave it,” retorted Kara, refusing to back down. Unable to fathom backing down when that would mean no longer being shaman. No longer having the role and identity she had worked so hard to claim and carve for herself among the Bloody Hawk.
Silence fell between them. Kara could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Since the silence was so terrible and she had abandoned any pretense at being a proper wife, she burst out, “And what do you say, Halef? Am I no longer to be shaman? Am I only to be your wife and mother to your children?”
“I said that if a man can be a chief, husband, and father, there is no reason why a woman can’t be a shaman, wife, and mother.” Halef pulled her to him in a hug. “Now will you stop yelling and pecking at me, wife?”
Kara felt the rough, jagged edges of her anger smoothing as she melted into the strong warmth of his embrace, but she couldn’t resist another poking inquiry. “If that’s what you said, why repeat what the men said to me at all?”
“Because knowledge is power.” Halef’s hands kneaded the tension from her shoulders. “I love and respect you too much to keep you ignorant of what people in this tribe say. Would you have me be any other way?”
“No.” Kara had a final tart remark to hurl at him before she could forgive him fully. “I would have you inform me with more sensitivity to my doubts and fears, however. I’d have you be less of a lout if you can manage that.”
Rating: PG-13 for sexism and sexuality.
For: Seek
Prompt: Something Bazhir-centric.
Summary: Kara finds her strength as shaman of the Bloody Hawk.
Notes: Happy Wishing Tree, Seek! I hope you enjoy the holiday season and this Bazhir-centric fic I wrote for you!
Shaman of the Bloody Hawk
“I want to resign my position as head shaman of the Bloody Hawk.” Kourrem’s words almost made Kara’s heart stop in her chest as they sat on a blanket woven from sunset orange and red threads outside their shared shaman’s tent, pounding desert flowers for poultices.
The stars rose silver over their heads. It was after the evening’s communion with the Voice. When everything should have been at peace. Except that Kourrem had a knack for identifying the most tranquil moments, and saying the perfect thing to shatter the serenity. That was perhaps her most powerful magic.
“Resign?” In her shock at Kourrem’s latest scandalous revelation, Kara narrowly missed smashing her fingers into her clay mortar with her pestle. That would have been painful and embarrassing. “But who will take your place?”
“You.” Kourrem glanced up from her own grinding with mingled impatience and amusement on her face. “Who else has the training and the ability to take on the role in this tribe?”
“But I don’t have the personality to be head shaman.” Kara bit her lip. She thought they had settled this long ago when Alanna told them to choose who should lead them. Who should be the head shaman of their tribe. Kara had been more than happy to defer to Kourrem then. She wasn’t born to lead but to follow. Unlike Kourrem who coud never follow without bristling and resisting. Kourrem was the one with the independent, restless streak. Not Kara.
“You’ll never know if you don’t try to be head shaman.” Kourrem’s tone assumed the patient, soothing quality used when addressing a balking, skittish mare.
“Why do I have to try?” Kara shook her head. “Why can’t you continue to be head shaman?”
“Because I have an itching to travel.” Kourrem gazed wistfully across the sand dunes. Her independent, restless stream apparently rearing its ugly head again. “To see the rest of the desert. To study with other shamans. To learn new things from them.”
“We’re Bazhir. We’re nomadic.” Kara couldn’t understand Kourrem no matter how hard she tried. Even though they had grown up together. First as outcasts in their own tribe. Then as apprentices to Alanna, and finally as full-fledged shamans in their own right. “We travel across the desert. We just do it as a tribe so that none of us has to be alone.”
“I can’t stay with this tribe.” Beneath her black veil, Kourrem’s eyes blazed fierce and dark. “I can’t love it or feel that I belong to it no matter how hard I try. Not after they rejected me for my magic. Not after what they did to you, Ishak, and me without shame for years.”
The desert wind swallowed Kara’s sigh. As much as Kara’s desire to be a true and accepted member of the Bloody Hawk was flamed and fanned by the recollection of time she had spent as a pariah among her own people, Kourrem’s need to be approved and embraced by the tribe seemed to cool and diminish to ashes the more she dwelled on the memories of that period of pain and rejection. She and Kourrem were best friends, but opposite in so many ways. Like the sand was the opposite of the unreachable sky.
“Will you at least stay until I’m married to Halef?” Kara asked, hoping for a compromise. She was betrothed to Halef now. Within months, she would be the chief’s wife. That status combined with her own rank as shaman–soon to be head shaman should Kourrem be true to her promise (and Kara had no doubt she would be faithful and unflinching as ever)--would make her the most important and respected woman in the tribe.
She would complete her climb from outcast to chief’s wife. She should have felt proud and triumphant at her ascent, but instead she felt dizy and disconcered. As if she couldn’t be certain of the ground beneath her feet although she wanted to believe with every breath of her lungs and beat of her heart that her feelings for Halef were rock solid and his for her were equally firm. Equally unalterable by time and circumstances. But even rocks crumbled into windswept sand when enough eons had passed. When enough rain had fallen onto cliff crags.
“I was hoping you would perform the ceremony,” added Kara, hating how small and uncertain she sounded. How abashed even in speaking to her most loved and trusted friend. That was no way for a head shaman or a chief’s wife to talk, she scolded herself. Berating herself more harshly than she would anyone else as was her wont.
“I will.” Kourrem dropped her pestle and reached out to squeeze Kara’s hand between her fingers. “Of course I will.”
Kourrem’s word was as reliable as the sunrise every morning. She did indeed preside over Kara and Halef’s wedding ceremony, which took place before a campfire beneath desert stars surrounded by the expectant faces of their entire tribe. Witnessing the vows Halef and Kara exchanged that made them one flesh and blood that bruised and bled together. Watching as they cut their palms with knives. Pressing their wounds together so their scarlet blood mingled. Binding them into a single body that loved and hurt as one with the force of her magic.
The feeling of her blood mixing with Halef’s and Kourrem’s magic swirling like lightning in the air around her made Kara’s skin tingle and tickle. As if there was something static inside her. Something that could lift her every hair out of place.
Once the oaths and blood-letting were done, the solemn ceremony ended and the joyous revelry began. Led by Halef and Kara, the tribe danced around the fire until even the embers died. They feasted on baskets of sticky dates to represent fertility and on platters of baklava filled with crushed nuts and sweetened with honey.
That night, alone in the chief’s tent they would now share forever, Halef tasted of honey and dates when he kissed her. His touch–with his fingers and mouth–was tender as he undressed her, and she didn’t feel the vulnerability she had feared she might being naked beneath him. When he entered her, he was gentle and slow. She didn’t feel the stabbing pain Mari Fahrar had warned her about, but she did bleed, and she was grateful Mari had cautioned her about that too. Or else she might have been confused and appalled about what was happening to her.
It was strange how much ecstasy–she could feel when she was bleeding from such a sensitive, private place, she thought. Then didn’t have time to think anything else. Became too consumed by passion and pleasure to spare any attention for trivial matters and musings.
The next morning–barely lingering long enough to offer Kara a farewell hug–Kourrem rode off into the desert in search of her adventures and learning.
Three months passed before Kara saw Kourrem again. Eager to hear about Kourrem’s travels and what she had discovered during them, Kara invited her friend to join her for steaming cups of cardamom tea at the low table in the tent where she made her home with Halef.
Halef was absent resolving a dispute about sheep grazing rights between two particularly fractious members of the tribe, and the two women could talk without any fear of masculine interruption.
“We aren’t the first women to be Bazhir shamans.” The words tumbled from Kourrem’s mouth in an excited rush even before Kara had finished pouring their tea. “In the far south of the desert, there are tribes where women born with magic train to be shamans, and nobody gets their nose in a twist. There have been tribes that have accepted women as shamans for centuries.”
Kara had heard about other tribes where women were permitted to wear veils in every color and not just black–where that wasn’t seen as an offense against modesty–but she had never heard of a tribe much less multiple ones that had allowed women to be shamans for centuries. That had seemingly permitted it without a fight or a fuss.
“But Akhnan ibn Nazzir said that women couldn’t be shamans!” spluttered Kara when she could speak through her surprise. “He said there’d never been a female shaman in the history of the Bazhir.”
“Akhnan ibn Nazzir lied or was ignorant.” Kourrem arched an eyebrow as she sipped at her tea. “Does that really shock you, Kara?”
“No,” Kara admitted, still stunned by what Kourrem had revealed about the history and customs of magic in other Bazhir tribes scattered across the vast desert. “He was an evil liar, and in his ignorant pride, he meddled with powers he didn’t understand. That was his downfall.”
“He was jealous of us.” Kourrem’s lip curled in contempt for the man who had once been shaman of the Bloody Hawk. “He feared our power because we could be greater than him. Would be greater than him. He was so weak that he was scared to train a successor that would unseat him. That would be stronger in magic than him.”
The shadow of Akhnan ibn Nazzir loomed dark and large in Kara’s memory. She didn’t want to think of him during what should have been a happy moment of reunion with her friend, so she switched the conversation to lighter topics. Updating Kourrem on the births, pregnancies, and marriages she had missed while traveling amongst the sand dunes. Filling Kourrem in on the gossip and governance of the Bloody Hawk. Initiating her back into the tribe.
All too soon, Kourrem was gone again. Barely staying around longer than the desert wind that seemed to blow her always away from Kara.
Months after Kourrem left, Kara’s monthly bleeding didn’t come for the first time since she had donned a veil.
“I have a gift for you,” Kara whispered in Halef’s ear late at night when her cycles failed to visit her for two months in a row and she could feel the new life growing inside her. “I’m pregnant.”
“This is the proudest and happiest moment of my life.” Halef kissed her deeply. “We must announce it to the tribe tomorrow at the campfire. The entire tribe will rejoice with us.”
“The baby might not be a boy.” Kara’s hands folded over her womb. She wasn’t certain how Halef would react if his firstborn was a daughter instead of a son. Knew how the tribe would react. With blaming and shaming her for failing to give Halef a son on her first try. With hard stares and judgmental speculations. “I might be carrying a girl.”
“Then I will still be proud and happy.” Halef cupped her cheek. “And I will find her a good and gentle husband one day. Daughters are sometimes more of a joy to their fathers than sons, being less troublesome than sons. So do not worry, my love. All will be well.”
The next night, Halef did proclaim her pregnancy at the campfire with the whole tribe in attendance. The men cheered and clapped. The women provided their whispered congratulations to Kara and endless, often contradictory advice about what foods she should and shouldn’t eat while pregnant. Acting as if she were ignorant about herbs instead of the tribe’s shaman.
At the fire, the mood had been celebratory and supportive, but soon the storm broke. The following day Halef strode into their tent for the lamb and lentil stew Kara had cooked for their noon meal wearing a grim expression.
“Some of the men don’t want you to be shaman any more,” Halef said before Kara could ask what was wrong.
“Why?” Kara asked even though she had a shrewd guess as to the reason and wished Halef had never announced her pregnancy to the tribe. Her pregnancy had reminded the Bloody Hawk that she was a woman, a wife and future mother, and not just a shaman. They had difficulty seeing her as wife, future mother, and shaman. So they wanted to reduce her to being wife and future mother. They wanted to confine her to her tent. Limit her role in tribal politics. Shove her back into what they saw as her proper place.
But Kara didn’t see that as her proper place any more. She saw her proper place as being the unashamed, proud shaman of the Bloody Hawk. The shaman she had trained and struggled to be.
A proper Bazhir wife, Kara thought, wouldn’t have even dared to pose such a question to her husband, because it would have sounded too much like arguing.
She wasn’t a proper Bazhir wife or woman. Even if she was more traditional than Kourrem. Even if she did prefer to remain with her tribe rather than roam through the desert like sand cast about in the breeze.
“Because they say you can’t be a wife and mother while being the shaman.” Halef pinched the bridge of his nose. “That the responsibility is too much for any woman to bear.”
“And who do they intend to replace me?” Kara’s demand was arrow sharp.
“They thought Kourrem might be persuaded to come back and serve as shaman.” Halef’s voice was calm. Level. Infuriatingly so. As if it didn’t affect him that his wife should be shamed in such a way.
“Oh, well, that’s a nonsense notion,” snapped Kara. “Kourrem wants to travel, not be trapped with this tribe full of petty people. She definitely won’t have any interest in coming back just to put me in a cage.”
“A cage,” Halef echoed quietly. “Is that how you see our tent, Kara?”
“It’s how I would see it if I wasn’t allowed to leave it,” retorted Kara, refusing to back down. Unable to fathom backing down when that would mean no longer being shaman. No longer having the role and identity she had worked so hard to claim and carve for herself among the Bloody Hawk.
Silence fell between them. Kara could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Since the silence was so terrible and she had abandoned any pretense at being a proper wife, she burst out, “And what do you say, Halef? Am I no longer to be shaman? Am I only to be your wife and mother to your children?”
“I said that if a man can be a chief, husband, and father, there is no reason why a woman can’t be a shaman, wife, and mother.” Halef pulled her to him in a hug. “Now will you stop yelling and pecking at me, wife?”
Kara felt the rough, jagged edges of her anger smoothing as she melted into the strong warmth of his embrace, but she couldn’t resist another poking inquiry. “If that’s what you said, why repeat what the men said to me at all?”
“Because knowledge is power.” Halef’s hands kneaded the tension from her shoulders. “I love and respect you too much to keep you ignorant of what people in this tribe say. Would you have me be any other way?”
“No.” Kara had a final tart remark to hurl at him before she could forgive him fully. “I would have you inform me with more sensitivity to my doubts and fears, however. I’d have you be less of a lout if you can manage that.”