Endless nights
Scheherazade was the daughter of a vizier, a kind and dutiful man who had schooled her sister and herself in the arts of courtesy , diplomacy, diplomacy. And of writing.
Her more courtly arts were failing her. The lack of food, the senseless destruction of the kitchen, they had made her nearly snappish. A hulking brute in a green vest had offered her a packet of meat and some other small, nearly inedible food.
(The burnt shell told her one thing. If this place had ever been the home of the djinn, they had left it long ago. Such ruin would not be tolerated. It was only the mortals left.)
That left only her writing, and her imagination. She was teaching herself to write in English, now, her speaking box by her side, a pad of paper and pen laid on the table, the dictionary where it could easily be seen. She had first transcribed a simple story, and was now occupying herself with thinking of a new one.
A golden-haired physic's daughter who had to journey to find her husband, she decided, and wondered what trials would await her heroine.
Her more courtly arts were failing her. The lack of food, the senseless destruction of the kitchen, they had made her nearly snappish. A hulking brute in a green vest had offered her a packet of meat and some other small, nearly inedible food.
(The burnt shell told her one thing. If this place had ever been the home of the djinn, they had left it long ago. Such ruin would not be tolerated. It was only the mortals left.)
That left only her writing, and her imagination. She was teaching herself to write in English, now, her speaking box by her side, a pad of paper and pen laid on the table, the dictionary where it could easily be seen. She had first transcribed a simple story, and was now occupying herself with thinking of a new one.
A golden-haired physic's daughter who had to journey to find her husband, she decided, and wondered what trials would await her heroine.