i'm high and i'm he, the water's up to the knee

Malik Maayan Maji · 05-29-2012, 11:53 AM

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you are mistaken, child. the only god is water.

The river was swollen with snowmelt, healthy and clear, but Malik Maayan Maji never left such things to chance. He looked up from his pestle and mortar to judge the breadth of the water, wondering how thin it would be if a drought came. It seemed that the settlement beside the river lived off it, but that was how things always were—how they had been by the Nile, by the Mediterranean, by every little brook and stream that didn’t appear on the maps. Cities were always founded by water because every living creature was drawn back to it, and so it was up to him to make sure the nations great and small did not suffer from their ignorance.

The wolves had taken the river for granted, but Malik mixed herbs and bone with care in the little bowl, grinding them into a fine powder. The little hyena hovered beside him, peering curiously at the mixture then glancing shyly aside when the dog looked at him. He smirked, reaching out to show Hapi the bowl. “The plants here are strange,” he remarked, “but I think this should suffice.”

He straightened then, adjusting his keffiyeh so it hung around his neck, and walked toward the damp bank of the river. He murmured a prayer, taking a handful of the ground mixture and holding it up in a loose palm. The wind scattered the powder from his hand, carrying it out across the water. He grabbed another handful and threw it, smiling thinly, until the last of the powder was gone.

Malik squatted down beside the water, wiping the dust from his hands and skinny arms. He filled the bowl with the water and walked back to Hapi, who lapped from the bowl when offered it. After taking a sip of his own, the desert luperci sat down on the earth once again, resting his lanky arms on his legs and watching the river flow as it would for centuries more.

[private for yusuro]

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