NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: So, I figured, for my first thread, I should tell the story of how my country becomes a country...... since I'm technically already a unified country as we speak, consider this as having already happened in the past tense (and therefore interferance on the part of another nation is impossible..... not that I could see why you'd want to bother....)

IC:

The desert plain stretched as far as the eye could see, an endless span of sand that shone hot gold under the heavy sun. The hot, rolling desert winds had cultivated the soft, loose granules into a ruffled quilt. Small crests all pointed in the same direction, the miniature cliffs easily breaking underfoot.

It was late in the morning. The sky was clear, clean. A blank field of light, powdery blue that faded to bleached white as it reached the horizon, above the purple sillouhettes of far-distant dunes. Low in its center blazed the massive, shining gem of the sun. Forcing all to avert their eyes from its majesty, the sun was surrounded by a white aura that darkened to the even, rich blue sky around it.

A desert lizard, its narrow tan body covered in scales and organic spikes, skirted across the field with four flailing legs and a stiff, trailing tail. The cold blooded rodent sent a spray of ocher sand particles up around its pumping shoulders, until it disappeared into an invisible hole in the plain. Just a dozen yards behind the reptile came the source of its panic.

A pounding, steady thudding of hooves over the poofy sand rang over the desert plane. From a half-dozen sources, the clatter rolled outwards in a staccato cacophony. The sharp, hollow clops were spaced so close together it was nearly the sound of an avalanche's continuous fall.

At the head of this small party of six strode a small, tightly muscled Arab mare. Its short hair was colored an even, coffee-brown, save a long streak of white down its snout that contrasted sharply with the waving banner of its long black mane. The center of its chair was also white, while its flapping tail and blurring hooves were black. Tightly girded about its rolly-polly flanks was a military saddle of almost yellowish leather, a briddle of similar color biting into its mouth.

A short, slender-figured woman rode the hourse, leaning far forward in the deep saddle and pressing her horse hard with both hands on the reins. She wore a shirt of heavy and tough cloth, two buttons positioned just under the low neckline. Over this was a deep red vest, its shoulders pointed, the garment buttoned up to her minimal bussom. Long sleeves of the white shirt hung loose and billowy off her arms, terminating just behind her wrists. Her shoulders were bared by round holes in the cloth, showing deeply bronzed skin. Her vest was tucked in to a fine cloth wide sash of the same dark blood red color. Its wide band of furrowed cloth was drawn tightly about the small woman's surprisingly wide, muscular hips. Below that, her vest continued in a long trail of deep red cloth, the rough-stitched, thick garment terminating just above her knees. It was opened in the middle, leaving her red coattails to flap loosely off her bouncing thighs as she rode hard.

Below the coattails, her shirt continued far downward as well, the seamless pullover garment reaching down to just below her knees. The cloth was nearly was thick as wool, made of a tough, thick thread. Its bottom flared wide of her slender, muscular legs, which were garbed in pants of fine white cotton. They hung loosely off her legs, in piles of empty folds, ending halfway down her calves in three snugly fitted gold rings. Below that, her ankles and feet were bare.

Her naked hands and wrists were decorated with fine, intricate tattoos of dusky red ink that covered the back of her hands and fingers in a snakeskin dot pattern. A long white cloth was drawn about her long, swan's neck, in criss-crossing folds, as well as her delicate, round jaw. The cloth continued to wind around her lower face and from her brow over her cranium, concealing any hair she might hav had. Knotted tightly over her right ear, two excess lengths hung from it, currently flapping behind her in a strong hot wind. Between the cloths, a narrow strip of her ocher skin was visible. Thick, jet black eyebrows were poised in a sleek arch over beautiful, opal-shaped eyes of deepest brown. Only the beginning of her nose's length was visible above the head-wrap.

Beside her leg, jostling against the saddle it was bound to by a simple leather band, was a huge falchion. It curving surface was made of polished steel, almost mirrorlike as it caught the sun's glare down its flaring length. Behind a gold-plated guard that curved downwards and upwards in opposite directions, its long, curving handle was leather terminating in a flawless white stone set in as the pommel at a right angle to the grip.

A man atop a powerfully flanked black stallion rode just a step behind her. Out of respect for her rank, as his horse could easily overtake her short mare. He wore an offbeat white robe, buttoned up to its collar but opened from the midsection down. Beneath that was a loose-fitting cotton kaftan pullover of the same color that reached down to his ankles. His feet were garbed in sandals with black hide straps, the footwear's rubber soles thick and treaded. His sleeves were loose, flaring around the cuffs, slid back to his elbows as he gripped his steed's reins. Above a low collar, his thin neck ended in a long, bony head. His sharp, bony cheeks and sharp chin gave his olive face a gaunt cast. His thick lips and pointed, dagger-like nose with wide nostrils were contrastingly fleshy features. Under a knotted brow, his eyes were disguised by round-lensed sunglasses, stylishly thin. Jet black hair hung off his jaw and chin in a ragged beard. Over his head was a long white gutra, the headdress reaching down to just past his shoulders. Two bands of black cord held it fast to his cranium, its length flapping off his bouncing back. A black bandolier was slung over his right shoulder, holding against his back a long, antique rifle. Its flushed cherry wood stock, brace, its steel barrel and bronzed lever to the bullet chamber, were all immaculately maintained, much like the man's dazzling white clothes.

The rest of the party were all garbed in similar multiple layers of loose, flowing garments. Long headresses or tightly bundled turbans were the headgear for all. Their dark faces were wheathered to leather by the sun's fire. Each man held strapped across his back the spidery body of an AK-74, black metal and brown wood.

As the party rode ahead, their small-boned leader spied something ahead--the object of her long trek. A slender hand was raised flat in the air ahead, loose sleeves rustling in the wind. The hoofbeats began to slow, breaking the hard and fast rythm. Eventually, the dust swirling about their knotty legs began to settle as the horses slowed to a steady trot. With one sweep of her slender, limber leg, the woman dropped off her horse's left flank, landing in the sand with a gentle piff. The older man behind her followed suit, with some difficulty. Eventually the rest of the party followed, and all began to lead their horses by the reins, the animals following stoutly behind.

Ahead, the horizon had yielded up their still-distant objective. An oasis, starkly springing straight up from the desert plain. A crop of towering palm trees formed the oasis's body. Their deep brown trunks of diamond-tiled wood began as thick as a man's body, and tapered to a slender point as much as nearly thirty feet in the air. The treetrunks bent loosely as they thinned out, weighed down by their thick, vibrant emerald tops that formed the oasis's loose canopy. Fat palm blades like emerald explosions reflected the sun's light off a thick, waxy surface, the plants in very good health. Consisting of hundreds of densely packed trees, the area of the Oasis was perhaps eighty feet in width: approaching from the fore, one couldn't be sure how far back it reached, but the peaks of tall trees could be seen from behind.

Over that front was erected a tall palisade. Round, fifteen foot high logs still bearing their coffee-colored barkskins, each as thick as a tentpole, were lined side to side in their hundreds. Each was sharpened at its top, the wood's sand-colored interior honed to a wicked point. Beneath the wide palisade's length lay a small collection of large tents, of stretched animal hide and tough, beige colored sailcloth. Off to the side, a large, shapeless herd of gold furred camels milled about behind a wire corral, the fencing supported by stumpy blocks of dark wood.

The pale tents, their surfaces held taut up to a point or roof ridge by ropes and stakes hammered deep into the sand, drew nearer as the party advances. As they came closer, they could see that the outside was deserted save one man, straddling a horse at the small encampment's fore.

He wore solid black clothing, a long flowing kaftan fastened tight by sash, a vest bulging with pockets resting on his shoulders. His flowing headress was pulled over his left shoulder, up around his face, and fastened over his right temple, the excess length wound around his neck. A heavy-looking shoulder bang hung at his right hip. Under flaring sleeves, his rough, dark hands gripped the handle and barrel of another antique bolt-action rifle. The horse under him was predominantly brown, white spots dotting the broad curve of its rear flanks and its long snout.

The man shouldered his weapon's stock and lifted it outwards towards the oncomers. The woman leading the party gazed steadily at him with her wide, dark eyes and gave absolutely no sign of notice. The black-clad man's horse strode forward, accentuating each hoof-fall with a plum of sand, its muzzle high. The sentry held his gun steady as they approached.

Without warning, a sharp crack split the hot desert air. A cluster of sand not a yard in front of the woman's feet exploded, casting a multi-pronged spray of sand up to the knee for a second. "Declare yourself!" The sentry called, his dark eyes narrowed under hard eyebrows.

The woman had to yell back, still about ninety yards distant to the sentry. "I am Abal Soor ibnt Hashar, ibnt Melik, ibnt Sassam, ibnt Qurriki!" Her natural voice was a demure middle-tone, soft as it was strong, but yelling seemed to strain her. "I have come to answer the challenge of the Beni Sawasset, under truce between our tribes!"

The response was another shot from the sentry's rifle, its burst shaking the air. More sand detonated, this immediately to the left of Abal's outstretched foot. She didn't flinch, though her horse winnied and tried to shake its head. Another shot, this to the right, sent it whinnying shrilly, its shoulders heaving as the mare almost reared.

With practiced ease, the sentry let go of his rifle with one hand, and, still holding it by the stock, slung it across his back, behind his head. Taking hold of his horse's reins with the other hand, he increased its deliberate steps to a rollicking canter, crossing the yards in seconds towards the oncoming group.

"Daughter of Hashar," the old man called in a creaky voice behind her, a nervous hand adjusting his shades with a click. The sentry was fast approaching. "Please, I ask you to reconsider this. We could crush the Beni Sawasset easily, our armies..... please, Abal, I don't understand, why have you answered this challenge? Why?"

She looked over her shoulder at him, dark eyes serene under her blank cloth mantle. "It is not enough to defeat these bedu, Aziz. If our victory is to be anything more then a passing desert wind, we must earn their respect, their allegience--not their hatred." She turned her head forward just as the horseman reached the party. His horse snorted as it reared back slightly, curling its gnarled forward legs in the air as the sentry pulled hard on its reins, twisting his mount to turn aside six feet in front of Abal.

"Greetings, Daughter of the Qurriki!" The blazing-eyed sentry glared down at her as his horse settled, dust rolling past its knobby knees. "Peace be upon you---I must compliment you." He leaned forward and leered. "We did not expect you to come so far simply to meet death." Abal heard someone unslinging their kalashnikov behind her. Without turning, she sharply raised a hand, stopping the man behind her in his tracks.

"Peace be upon you, and the Beni Sawasset," she responded with calm respectfulness. "Please, let us not tarry. I have an appointment with your esteemed Emir."

"Yes," sniffed the guard, smirking behind his cowl. "An appointment. That's nice, haw! Follow me." His horse turned in the sand with a hazy spray, and began to clop back towards the encampment. Abal had only to kick up one gamey leg high and hop over her horses back with a flap of cloth, landing easily in the saddle and taking off immediately. The other horsemen mounted just as easily, save the elder, who was struggling to his mount even as the others rode past him in a swirl of golden sand and thunder of hoof falls.

The old man's black stallion caught up swiftly, however, and he was soon riding just to the right of Abal's mare. The sentry was only a step ahead, speaking without turning. The black clad man still hung lazily in his saddle, riding one-handed with ease. "You will have to come in alone," he called to Abal without turning.

"What!?" The elder turned sharply to Abal. "You can't now, surely! I told you these Beni Sawasset were sn--"

"Calm, Aziz." Was her only reply. The old man lapped into sullen silence.

Eventually, they reached a massive, circular tent at the very foot of the palisade. Twenty feet in diameter, it stood in sharp contrast to the drab, sand-caked tents around it. This edifice, its central pole no less then eighteen feet tall, descending from that peak to a thirteen foot tall rim, was as showy and elaborate as could be. The taut cloth forming the broad cone of its roof was a deep, midnight blue. Decorating the dark field was a pattern of canary yellow crescent moons. They led up to the tent's peak, where the pole's golden cap peaked out above the cloth--its top was moulded into the shape of a crescent moon on its back, forked ends sticking into the air.

Below, the tent's "walls," pulled to a slight angle by the ropes snaking out from under them, were a collection of several different huge sheets. Stitched together, each was printed with an elaborate oriental pattern in a dazzling variety of colors. Tesselation patterns, organic and geometric lines, from intricate to simplistic the various designs ranged. The powerful rear of a tall, snow white horse peaked out from behind the tent's curving side, a fantastic show horse tethered out back.

Abal slid off her horse in front of the thirteen foot tall opening flap in the tent's for, wide enough for two horsemen to ride through. Staring intently into the opening, she absently reached over and drew out her mighty falchion from its hanging position. The immaculate steel hissed hungrily as it was freed from the leather band. Swinging it about in one hand, Abal brought the blade's length--the wide falchion nearly five feet long--upright and gripped it in both hands. Despite her keeper's concerned look, she didn't spare Aziz or the men one more glance as she entered the tent.

* * *

The tent's floor was covered in carpet, as wide a variety of colors and patterns as the sheets outside. These thick rugs were layed out askew and patternless, often overlapping each other, creating a soft and uneven floor. Pillows and cushions in a variety of colors, some fat enough to be seats, others thin and silken, dotted the floor. The "ceiling," cloth was the same deep blue patterned with crescents, surrounding a centeral pole of dull, dark metal. The day's harsh light traveled through the wall sheets, half-illuminating the colorless outlines of the outside patterns, the streaming luminescence coloring the inner walls a dry manila.

Despite this, much of the grand tent was left wreathed in shadow, in the lower walls and the upper reaches. However, the ceiling was lightened by long curtains hanging from the central pole, connected to the ceiling's edge at the circular roof's base. These curtains hung low and loose, their bright pink surfaces bundled into pleated folds. There were eight in total, all reaching outward from the roof's peak. The curtains looked to be made of precious silk, their edges cut and folded into elaborately stitched frills.

Light spilled over the carpeted floor from the tent's wide opening, a sharp contrast to the shaded regions behind the walls. To either side of the door stood two men. Barrel-chested, though not particularly tall, their flowing clothes couldn't disguise the impressive girth of their arms, nor the serpentine daggers tucked in their belts. Their robes and kaftans colored in drab, earth tones, they both wore a wide, elaborately wrapped white turban that nearly doubled the height of their heads. They stood facing towards each other, just behind the tent flap. They held a long sheet of glittering silk, colored a pale green that shone under the doorway's stark light, taut between them. The sheet was as taller then a man's body, and obscurred what lay behind almost completely.

Abal's bare foot stepped over the carpeted threshold with a silent pad. The concave spine of her falchion rested on her right shoulder, her other hand at her side. The moment she stepped in, the taut veil dropped away to the left with a rustle--revealing a second veil just a short space behind. Slightly narrower then the first, this sheet too was also held taut by a duo of burly guardsmen. They kept their sharp gazes turned inward, chins tilted back high. As Abal stepped over the crumpled line of green silk, the blue one dropped away to the right, the left guardsman releasing his grip on it.

A third sheet, a light and glittery pink, dropped back. Burnt brown. Dusky orange. Each one grew narrower, until twenty feet back to the rear of the tent stood the last. No wider then the width of a body, the silk sheet was deep red. A single guard held it, standing on its bottom edge with one sandaled foot, stretching his right arm straight up to hold it taut from its top edge. With august majesty, he pulled it away--and Abal, now standing with the central pole immediately to her right, at last beheld the mistress of the Beni Sawasset.

Her entire body was cloaked under the sweeping folds of a burkha. Draped like a blanket, only two pale feet, naked but for thick-soled black sandals, peaked out from under the lacy trimming on the burkha's pleated edges. Its cloth was a pale pink, the trim of fine gold thread. The Burkha reduced her neck and cranium to the head of a tenpin, clinging closely to the contours of her crown. It grew loose as a sailcloth lower, totally obscuring the dimensions of her body---all Abal could tell was that she was clearly a tall woman. She sat on a short, hollow, cylindrical stool of gold cords woven to a basket pattern. Over this seated woman's face was fixed an ovoid screen of wooden fingers, layed together into a grid pattern. Behind the relatively wide spaces of that overlayer was a fine, black mesh of cloth that hid away the woman's face. She sat with one leg crossed casually over the other beneath her burkha. Out from under its poncho-like width, arms garbed in loose pink sleeves converged to where two long, waxy white hands rested in her lap.

"Good day, Aisha ibnt Moustafa ibnt Kilij al Sawasset. Peace be upon you." Her quiet voice perfectly calm, Abal could have been speaking to a bundle of cloth if not for the visible hands and feet.

"Abal Soor ibnt Hashar, ibnt Melik, ibnt Sassam, ibnt Qurriki." The response came from a surprisingly deep woman's voice, ringing with strength, carrying an obvious authority even its quiet tones. "No need to waste time on formalities. We are here to fight to the death, right?"

"Correct," Abal affirmed. Sooraya rose with a rustle of cloth, and kicked the stool behind her, the furnishment falling softly to its side.

"I want you to know this, before I kill you, though." Sooraya's deep voice easily adopted a stern inflection. "You have been the greatest terror to menace our desert in five years. Tribe after tribe has fallen to your armies, their ways of life absorbed and obscenely distorted into some kind of conglomerate..... twisted to your own ambitions. You want Muqharat, Desert Flower, you meant to turn it into one of those great and godless nations of the outside.... you would import their heathen technologies, their inhuman ideologies, and their devilish vices, just to turn us into some inflated empire with yourself at the head." The steely contempt clanging under Sooraya's words was nearly blowing the burkha off her screened face. Hot anger blew from her mouth like desert wind.

"But the tribes of Muqharat are a free people! We have no use for the grandiose ways of the outsiders, or for the prison they disguise as 'civilization,' and 'progress.'" Her beautifully sculpted hands were at her sides, clutching at the loose folds of pink cloth hanging over either thigh, knuckles trembling. "I know that God has blinded you, as the book says he does to the unbeliever. Your own pride will never let you believe what I'm saying, but it was also your pride that led you here. If you had simply swept in with your hordes, you could have easily enveloped this small tribe, and the last pocket of free Muqharat would have been yours."

"But pride decieved you into thinking you could simply come here and take it, like you already own it.... now you've no chance, Desert Flower."

"I'mshallah, we will settle this now." Kurt as ever, Abal drew her right foot slightly back, tensing her left as she bent it at the knee. Her weight settled, she unlumbered the heavy falchion, and brought it down into both hands, held over her body. The sleek, wide blade was held at an angle out in front, its tip parrallel to her eye.

One could barely hear the amused breath under the burkha. "Don't rush to your death just yet, Desert Flower. Would you not prefer, as long as we ladies are alone, to unburden yourself of that sweat-soaked mantle?"

There was a rustle, a hiss of rushing cloth, and with a sweep of one arm, Sooraya threw the burka aside. Now she stood, her person revealed to the Desert Flower.

She was indeed a tall woman, not quite a head taller then Abal. Her shoulders and midsection were not so broad as to be mannish, but had an unmistakable solidness in them. Her limbs, similarly, were not abnormally wide or bulky, but crafted into hard, taut shapes Her busom and hips were robust, the latter powerful and muscular.

She wore a vest of white cloth, buttoned with gold up the front to a low collar, the garment just barely snug enough to give an impression of her womanly contours while remaining comfortably loose. Out from under the vest's open shoulders ran long sleeves of heavy cloth, light pink in color, neither especially tight nor loose, but long enough to conceal her hands up to the fingers. A narrow, old sash of faded yellow cloth was drawn tightly about her waist, tucking in the vest, the only garment on her that pressed closely against her body. Below that, loose pantaloons of deep, dark blue were also tucked beneath the sash. The pantaloons, hanging off her legs in billowy layers, terminating just above the ankles. They were tucked into two piece footwear, white cloth over the ankles fastened over the outside by two vertical gold clasps, her black sandals fitting snugly under those.

Her light skinned face was strong as the rest of her, but not unattractive. Her round, deep chin and high cheekbones gave her facial structure broadness. She had a snub, down-pointed nose, and full but colorless lips beneath it. Her sleek brow was made prominent, as her long hair was pulled back into a thick braid that trailed down to between her shoulderblades. Into the last plait had been woven a metal ring that rested against the back of her shirt, the size of a touching forfinger and thumb. Two much smaller and thinner braids were made from her long bangs, hanging down either temple and terminating just past her chin. Sooraya's hair was a deep, dusky blond. Under round eyebrows, her ovoid eyes were a sharp, washed out blue. Stretching from her right temple, to the left corner of her chin, was a faded but thick scar of red that bisected her attractive face.

A thin chain of gold-plated links hung out from under her sash, over the rear of her left hip. A gently curving sheath hung from the chain, resting against the back of her thigh. Made of a wooden frame covered in red-painted hide, the sheath was enameled at both ends in thin plates of gold. The handle of her sword jutted out from behind her hip at an angle, a strip of leather wrapped in rings around its curving grip. The handle's length was bent like a seahorse's tail, the tip curling inward, capped with a round gold pommel. The guard was shaped like a squared-off U, and plated in gold. Tucked under the front of Sooraya's sash, at an angle towards the right, was the dark leather sheath of her dagger. The plain leather container's tip curled inwards in a little spiral, its width thick and blade length nearly seven inches long. The guard was a straight gold-plated bar, one end capped in a downward pointed bump, the other in one pointed up. The handle was straight, its gold pommel shaped like a minaret's peak.

Lowering her hand, Sooraya stood with legs spaced evenly apart, a hand dangling at either side but readily tensed. She looked like an old gunfighter, moments from the draw. She looked straight at Abal, with her head slightly lowered, and her lips stretched in a tight smile. Those finely crafted fingers of Sooraya's were dancing, already anticipating action.

Abal couldn't help but shoot her eyebrows up in surprise. Wordlessly, her eyes drifted to any of the stationed guards lining the tent's walls. They remained resolutely immobile, in both stance and gaze. The final one had withdrawn to the very rear of the tent. Sooraya smirked, understanding her opponent's silent question. "Don't worry about the guardsmen--eunuchs, all."

Abal lowered her head slightly, perhaps in a nod. Blinking, she lowered her falchion for a moment, and brought a hand to the knot hanging over her right temple. With one swift tug, she pulled free one end of the white cloth, and the knot fell apart right there. The bands fell away from her cranium, from her face, silently piling up on her narrow shoulders, until she shrugged the last bit of it off, letting it fall behind her.

In sharp difference to her adversary, Abal's features were slender and feminine. Her soft, round jaw matched well with her drawn cheeks, giving her face an attractive balance. Her full lips were a dark red, visible on the deep earth tone of her skin. Her semitic nose was curved as a beak, fleshy around the nostrils, protruding from her face. Her jet black hair was cut fairly short, but long enough to have been teased into wild chaos by the mantle. Clashing tendrils of hair danced over her scalp, low bangs hung over her fierce, dark eyes. Her wide gaze held the intensity of a hawk, giving Abal a hardness her feminine face would have otherwise lacked.

The Desert Flower readjusted her sword to both hands.

"Come at me," Sooraya's voice was strikingly quiet following her earlier boistrousnesss.

It began.

OOC: YEEEAAAH, I've worn myself out for today. Finish this tomorrow or shortly thereafter. Thanks if you actually had the fortitude to read through all of this!