War was not the glory Nesf bint Adala had expected.
Oh, they were told that there was pain and fear, sometimes even loss and shame, but what no one ever properly described - if it was even possible to properly describe - was the way it felt to stumble bleeding over sand and rock, fleeing in the chaos of a lost battle, or the way wounds stopped actively bleeding only to start seeping and itching. The losing was bad enough, but the days after? The days after blew. She supposed she should be grateful to be alive, as dealing with oozy-itchy healing wounds was ostensibly better than being a vulture-picked carcass out on the gravel plain, but that was not as reassuring a thought as everyone who liked to express such sentiment made it out to be.
The worst was her eye. Some thrice-damned Burkuteshti male had raked her face, claws catching and tearing and...and, well, she didn't really have a left eye anymore. And it was disgusting. And awful. And she had no depth perception anymore, which was utterly delightful. Oh, and it was disgusting. Seriously. No matter what she was doing, no matter what she was thinking about, she always came back to the inescapable thought of how completely awful her face felt. It was, suffice to say, incredibly distracting. The herbs the Tabip kept putting on it - or, more accurately, in it - weren't helping, either; well, they were helping, as it had yet to become infected, but they only added to the feeling. Squishy and damp and...yeugh.
Nesf had been eager when the cry had gone up and the battle begun, but it had quickly turned sour. Not just for her, but for all the Qyrhyeshti. They had been outnumbered and, despite their best efforts, overwhelmed. Her mother and Sabit had called for them to flee, and flee they had, in every direction. Nesf had run west, following her sister Aribak, but others had gone east, and others still were unaccounted for. It had taken a day for Nesf, Aribak, and others to reach the western oasis, and two days later some still trickled in. Whoever had fled east would have had a longer journey to the oasis there, and might only just now be arriving. Both oases had received news in advance, carried by their handful of falcon allies, and were at least prepared for the influx of injured. The difficulty and anxiety now lay in figuring out who was alive, who was dead, and who was where.
What she knew for certain was that her mother and father were not at the western oasis. She could only hope that they had escaped and gone east. If they hadn't...if they were dead, the Qyrhyeshti were, in all likelihood, ********. Heirs remained - including Nesf herself - but regardless of her ambitions, Nesf knew full well that neither she nor any of her sisters were truly prepared to lead. They were tough, and they were smart, and they had been taught well, but they lacked experience. And even then, Adala was supposed to choose which one of them would succeed her. If she and Kotu were dead, how would it be decided? All their lives, the sisters had struggled to best one another and prove themselves, rivalries for the most part tempered by at least some degree of familial affection, but if there was no one to make the decision, what would it come to? As a child, Nesf had fantasized about leading with her twin sister, but that hopeful notion had eventually been beaten out of her head.
They could not rule together. One of them had to succeed, and take a suitable male as her mate, as Bey, but the latter was irrelevant until the former was decided. Anxiety over how it would be decided plagued her. Would they all agree peacefully who would lead, or would they fall to fighting?
As she alternated between fretting about the state of her ruined eye and the state of the Qyrhyeshti's precarious future, Nesf had paced for what felt like hours, and ultimately did nothing but exhaust herself...and wake Aribak, who stirred and growled out her irritation, "Settle the ******** down, Nesf. Some of us are actually trying to sleep."
"Settle yourself," Nesf snapped back. "I can't sleep. How can you possibly sleep at a time like this?"
"Because I'm tired, and because if I don't sleep, I'll be useless if there's another fight. Something you should keep in mind and settle down."
"But what about-"
"Don't," her paler sister interrupted with a snarl, "Stop."
"I can't just stop thinking!"
"Learn to shut it off. Or if you have to keep thinking, at least do it lying down instead of pacing, and than you'll have some chance of falling asleep."
Nesf heaved a sigh, but flopped down next to her sister, a careless movement she immediately regretted. She grunted and hissed her discomfort before speaking again. "But what are we going to do? Aren't you the least bit worried?"
"We'll figure something out. Later." Aribak's gaze was distant, her expression difficult to read. She'd always been good at that, always been calm and cool and impossible to ruffle, and Nesf had always been jealous. "We survive this first, wait for information, and then we'll do whatever we have to do."
"You make it sound so easy," Nesf complained, ears canting back in annoyance.
"It is that easy. You're the one who's making it complicated. Now shut up and get some sleep, or so help me, I will shut you up." It had the tone of a threat that should be accompanied by a playful shove, but conscious of both their injuries, Aribak did no such thing. And, however reluctantly, Nesf rested her head on her paws and closed her - ugh - eye.
Aribak remained awake, bright eyes sharp and watchful, gazing over her sister and out into the darkness.
Whatever we have to do. A promise not to Nesf, but to herself.