Nacoti sighed, and glanced contemptuously at the mirror. Well, this is dull, she thought. Her appearance in the mirror, while beautiful, was just about the same as always. At least the dress is new. The luxurious vicuna wraparound dress had been a relatively satisfactory find in the marketplace on her part. It hadn’t even need to be dyed the deep amber color that complemented her rare and (she thought) mystical ruby eyes. To top it off, it was even embedded with amber gems, and, along with her wearing various bracelets, anklets, earrings, necklaces, toe rings, and a relatively thin headband, all imbedded with a rubies approximately the same shade as her eyes, she looked stunning. Of course, she had worn this all before. The only thing new was the belt, which was bat fur dyed to the same amber shade as her dress, and imbedded with the largest ruby she had ever owned to date. Still, it all bored her.
Nothing ever changes around here. It’s the same people every day, she thought. She looked sidelong at her maids, who, as usual, were cooing over her ‘wonderful’ clothing again. This is all fine and well, she thought, but I want to do something different today. Maybe my emperor will allow me into the marketplace, as I have pleased him recently, and I AM one of Lord Pachacuti’s favorite wives. Even as she thought rather fondly of the god-king, she knew she could not settle so easily for one whose heart belonged to not one, but many. Unfortunately, she thought, I have no real choice in the matter anymore. I married him instead of one of his nobles, and that’s that. Nacoti sighed again. Being second fiddle to anyone had never really appealed to her, as it did to so many of the more passive of Pachacuti’s wives. Then again, that he even was with her occasionally was more attention then some of his other wives got. Still, what annoyed her almost as much the sheer number of Pachacuti’s wives.
Sometimes, when the dislike of her new life became too intense, she began to wish for her old life, before the years of discipline as a ‘chosen woman’ had begun; before even her rather unhappy marriage to the emperor of the Inca. She sometimes wished to be back in her beloved commoner community, her former home.
Suddenly, an idea struck her: she would head down from the palace to the marketplace. An attempt to find something to do there was highly likely to succeed, if only she ended up shopping for something new to complement her sense of fashion. More tempting was the idea that there would be acrobats or something else of that nature that she could bring back to entertain the other wives and, more importantly to her Pachacuti. She could see no downside to this idea whatsoever, and hurried over to her personal maids to suggest the idea to them. They would most likely agree, and then she would be able to escape this dreary palace and see something new.
Her plan worked absolutely perfectly. Her maids, as obedient as they were, could not say no to her wistful tone and pleading ruby eyes. Nacoti even managed to leave without a guard. She finally left, wearing clothes of the sort often worn by the commoners, though she had not worn such low quality clothes for nearly ten years, at least since she was 8 years old or so. She smiled as she thought back on those innocent years, before her ruby eyes and healthy body had caught the attention of a passing priest. More specifically, a priest searching for young girls to throw into the service of Inti, the sun god.
She mentally shook away the memories of the past. Now my life is different, she mentally reminded herself, I am a secondary wife to the emperor of all the Inca. I am no longer a poor daughter of a commoner, fated to preparing food and weaving clothes for my younger brothers and my father for as long as they desired it. None of that world should exist for me now, even in my dreams.
Having crept around the palace until she was past it’s immediate grasp, she looked around. Normally, she would head to the marketplace directly to the east of the palace, the way she went with her guards every time she was granted a brief respite from her duties at court. With her newfound liberty, though, Nacoti decided to head south, on a worn path that seemed to wind through a jungle that looked relatively tame. The trail was beaten heavily in the middle by the carts and animals of various travelers, but no one was on the track. Nacoti, having spent the better part of ten years in a rather secluded part of the palace of Pachacuti, did not realize that seeing a major trade route entirely unoccupied was more then just bizarre, it was a sign of bad luck to come. Still absorbed in the memories from her past, she started to stroll along this unfamiliar path, not noticing a slight shimmer in the air as she passed by a rather unusual looking stone, one that seemed to have been carved into the shape of a fox with wings.
She continued to stroll down this road, noticing naught about her environs. If she had, she wouldn’t have noticed much. The jungle was much the same before the shimmer as after, and the only thing of any significant different between where she was at the moment and her home was that, if she had looked back at the road behind her, she would have seen a colossal dome, shimmering in a rainbow of colors in the daylight. She finally succeeded in wrenching herself from her contemplation of the past when she heard the noises of any typical marketplace getting more and more noisy. She quickly looked up at her new and unfamiliar surroundings. |
Submission Name: Nacoti Chapter 1
