Chapter Text
He showed up in the middle of the night. Clumsy as a newborn gazelle, he stumbled off his carpet to fall by Leona's spot atop the old rock outcropping. His knees hit stone with an audible crack.
Nothing breathed for kilometers, the land burnt crisp. Moonlight illuminated him like sun-bleached bones, glowing off the white strands escaping his hood as he knelt over him.
"Leona, do you want to get married?"
He smelled of life.
–
Leona got it out of Kalim with more effort than he cared to spend.
Falena and the council had put out a call for aid. Too fucking late, as always, in their endless optimism that the next months would be better. Drought always hit the remote towns hardest. Water itself wasn't the problem as much as transport, sustainability.
An ongoing problem. The global relief organizations were an old hand. Falena loved putting the country in their debt. Like all debts, it would need to be repaid.
"You think you can help?" Leona asked skeptically.
Kalim wasn't much to look at. He remembered an earnest, needy little thing, exhausting but sometimes interesting. He vibrated like a bunting, uncharacteristically drab cloak swallowing him like a pile of feathers.
Leona had seen Kalim use his signature magic as a party trick. Pretty but otherwise unimpressive, much like its caster. A scent he wouldn't be able to pick out of a crowd.
Stronger mages had tried through their history. Fire and metal lay beneath their lands. Didn't convert to water easily, or for long. The Savanna took back what it gave.
Kalim's unmarred hands shone with gold as he ran his fingers through his carpet's equally golden tassel. His magic carpet draped over his thigh like a favored pet. His snake must be lurking nearby if he wasn't hissing at him from his master's side.
The future master Asim, a fledgling sitting bored in his cushy nest while he waited for his pretty predetermined future as a figurehead to more wealth than their entire nation.
Leona had better things to do than entertain him.
"How about a preview," Leona said, closing his eyes and turning away. “Gotta try before you buy.”
Let him figure it out. He'd go away on his own.
–
Leona woke to a cool, pattering rain outside his covered rock. What had been sand stuck to his boots as he made his way down.
Kalim was under the skeleton of an old baobab, humming and twirling in the steps of a one-sided dance. Leona had thought it dead, but the trunk was an even color now, flush with water and magic, leaves verdant and thick.
Magic laced each drop of rain. A waterfall spilled from the cliff he'd settled in, churning into pools around them. The ground drank it up greedily. A river wound in the distance, shining in the veiled daylight.
Somehow, Kalim was still energetic, his signature unchanged. His robes were splattered in mud, soaked through and heavy as they swung about his ankles with every deliberate step.
"Leona, look, it perked up! It seemed really sad before."
A white baobab flower lay between his pruned, gold-laden hands, its petals furled back to reveal the puffed stamen. Opportunistic, like all things in the Savanna.
"It was dying," Leona said. Now, glutted on magic, greedy to propagate. He crossed his arms and pointed in the vague direction of Sunrise City. "Falena's that way, if you're tryin’ to cut a deal."
"But I didn't come to see your brother?" Kalim wondered.
"Sorry to disappoint, but only the king has that kind of power here." Not that Falena had enough resources to negotiate with House Asim either. A satisfying thought.
Leona added, unable to resist. "My advice? Take him for everything he's got. He's just gonna misuse anything you give him, magic or madols."
Like pouring water into a bucket with holes. A fool like Falena would try anyway. Incur more debt they couldn't repay.
Kalim didn't reject the idea outright. He leaned in, peering up into his face. "Is that what you want, Leona?"
He wanted nothing from Falena. He'd wanted too many things. A growl built in his throat. "Doesn't matter. I'm not the one with somethin’ to trade."
He'd been shown, again and again. Nothing he did had any value in this place.
Kalim only smiled, reassuring and unafraid. Sheltered prey never knew how to survive. "But if we get married, then it'll be both of ours."
He eyed Kalim warily. "And what am I gonna do with it?"
"Hmm," Kalim spun with the flower, his carpet looping around them. His eyes were vivid, the only beacon of color in the falling rain. "We can ask your brother for what you want!" he chirped.
Oh. Oh.
Now there was a thought.
House Asim, so important they were granted an audience whenever they set foot in the Savanna. Too wealthy, too powerful for even Falena and the doddering old council to give anything less than the red carpet treatment.
But their little golden heir was in front of him, a mess from head to toe, sodden and muddy. A surprise he was allowed to get this way. Kalim must have snuck out. Jamil would be furious.
This would never work, some part of him reminded.
But things had a way of working out for Kalim Al-Asim. Money and loving parents had a way of doing that. Even his magic itself, amplified beyond imagining from some absurd selflessness most people wouldn't be able to manage because life wasn't so kind.
Leona took the baobab flower from Kalim's hands, earning a brilliant smile. Pollen streaked his hands in gold, a messy overlay to his shining jewelry. It smeared when Leona grabbed his wrist and pulled him under the shelter of the tree to get out of the rain.
"Okay," Leona said. "I'm listening."
To pluck a baobab flower was to invite a lion to feast. What kind of lion would Leona be if he didn't even try?