Naeemah | Pre-search
Taresch wasted no time in selecting a back-of-nowhere island for Naeemah's exile and ordering her sent to it. A sevenday after she was sentenced she was being marched out to a ship through a crowd of friends, foes, and curious people with nothing better do.
"You'll be fine out there Nae, I know it," Lyrian assured his sister, giving her hand a quick squeeze as she passed. As she passed her mother, Asuui was crying silently in the arms of her father.
"I'll be alright, mother," Naeemah told her. "Don't worry, I'll find a way to make it."
Vano gave her a quick hug as she passed. "Prove those whers wrong and come back some day, Nae."
Naeemah smiled. "I'll try Vano, just for you and Thess."
"Move along!" one of the guards bellowed and Naeemah found herself propelled along for a few feet. She found herself facing Yteri, who smirked.
"Well you're finally getting what you deserve," Yteri crowed. "I hope you r-" Naeemah cut off the other woman with a hard slap across the face.
"Stop talking, it's annoying," Naeemah advised with a sweet smile. "And close your mouth," she added when Yteri just opened her mouth, her fury preventing her from speaking.
Naeemah felt herself poked in the back and whirled on the guard. "Would you get your dirty hands off of me? I can walk very well by myself."
With a last glance back at her home, Naeemah marched up the gangplank and on board the ship that would take her to her death. "Let's go," the guard told her gruffly and she was pushed along towards a stairway leading down into the cargo space.
Her quarters were no more than a long hole in the wall with a bunk carved out of one wall and a trunk underneath it. She was given glows for the glowbasket and a small meal and told she would be given the same in the morning tommorow before she was alone.
Naeemah's days for the next several sevendays went something like this: she awoke to the knock of her meager morning meal and the delivery of more glows. She was then left alone with her thoughts until the evening, when her evening meal and glows were delivered. It was a horrible life, and it left Naeemah with plenty of time to acquire a quiet, seething hate of her fellow humans. She had tried to save one of them, and they had repaid her by exiling her, treating her like a dying watch wher might be treated. And she had been trying to help him!
After what seemed an eternity - really only just under two months - to Naeemah, the rocking motion of the boat slowed and her door was opened between her morning and evening meals. A guard, who looked, to her delight, a bit scared, opened the door and quickly bound her hands. "We're here," he announced gruffly as he marched her out into the cargo hold and up the stairs.
The cool, salty-smelling wind smacked Naeemah hard in the face, whipping her hair into her eyes. Naeemah shook her head to clear her eyes and savored her first breath of truly fresh air in almost two months. Then she saw where "here" was, and almost wished she were back in her little hole in the wall on the ship. It was a very small island, it couldn't have been more than five or six klicks across and maybe seven wide. It was mostly beach with a small patch of lush green that could pass for a small forest. "It's lovely," Naeemah choked.
"I'm glad you think so, Naeemah, because you'll be spending the rest of your life here," the ship's Captain replied with a chuckle. Naeemah ignored his comment, not even favoring him with a glance. The Captain gave a grunt and turned to the guard holding Naeemah. "Well, take her down. I'll have some of the cabin boys unload her things."
Within the space of half an hour, Naeemah's few belongings and the minimal survival gear she had been given were dumped on the beach, Naeemah herself with them. She didn't watch the ship leave, didn't permit herself to cry. The moment the last cabin boy left shore she turned her back and began making searching for wood suitable for a shelter.
Wood was not in short supply, Naeemah was thankful to find, and she had a sturdy little two room shelter constructed before the sun began to sink in the skies. The food she had been given was not in such ample supply as the wood, however, and Naeemah ended up using them as bait to catch fish for her evening meal.
As she leaned back on her bed of clothes and blankets, watching the sun slowly sink down into the never ending ocean, Naeemah thought she saw the sihlouettes of dolphins far out at sea. She sighed and turned over, telling herself it was just her mind and eyes playing tricks on her.
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