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Long ago, in the land is not touched by the sunset, there lived a girl who had but one memory of her father. Her mother would not speak of the man. Her grandfather would only say harsh truths. And her brothers would only tell lies.
She lived well as one can, but something tugged at her. When her father was dragged out from his own door and she saw the look in his eye, one that even she as a toddler knew was one of sorrow, rage, fear, and love. She knew he would not come back.
Men like her father were discouraged by her people. But according to the same people, all are made in God's image and so could something one is born with really be that bad?
She liked men. She likes the curve of their shoulders and the hair on their faces and the space they took up, except when they took it from her. She understood why her father felt this way.
And so these thoughts that only by lies and harsh truths and silence grew on their own and fruited conclusions.
Women in her country were not completely excluded from professions and dreams of their own, but more often than only ones of money and noble standings and other such values were permitted to follow these things, and only at the wishes of their patriarchs.
And she felt the need to follow her father, to know of him and his strange ways and where he could've gone, where they could have accepted him.
She plotted in secret to fund her travels and live freely. Nowhere on this land or across sea did she know of many places where a woman could just be - and those that she did hear of were not always so perfect, despite a woman being on top.
But she felt regardless that while she did not desire women the way her father desired men, her conclusions and interests would set her apart - so she must find a place, a family where this would be acceptable.
Her ten and eighth year, three moons before she was set to be married off to a land even further east than away from where her father could be, she liquidated much of what she could carry. Shorn in her hair like a man and then wrapped it and herself like a man. And set to the port in the kingdom next.
However, when she reached this port someone strange awaited her. People black and red, she had seen before, mostly as slaves, occasionally as slavers and merchants. The king had one such princess, but in reality, she was more a concubine. None of her children would inherit, though they looked more royal than those born doubly of his blood, especially as a king born doubly of his own blood.
This man was black, although later he said he was once red. He had an eye and he had no eye. He said he did not know her personally, but it is said that he has a nose, and he knew her father. For it is said that he twice had a great love, and one such was a follower of the eastern light.
Such a strange declaration was this, with little to gain, and when no one recognized her as a woman, much less a noble from a man lover's blood, that she and he went to sit and talk and eat the meal at the end of the day.
He told her of his nose, how he met her father and how her father never slept and thought of her and her brothers - deep down some small part of her felt that it was just of her, as she was the only one on that day that did not turn away from him. He spoke a little of why her father was not there, and that justice was served, though not exactly by his hand.
A lump formed in her throat as he told her father's story, but she listed around it and the tears that welled in her eyes. She said, just wanting the moment to last a little longer and for the man to stay, “But where did you other eye go? You said you once had one of a wolf.”
So he told her how when justice served and when an injustice was served after king sister visited her rage and legacy upon him. He managed to kill and escape and live, for that is what he does, but he no longer wished to. So he traveled to the sea of sand to find his mourning daughter, but she would not be found. So instead he found the one he owed his eye to - for the Sangoma had said that she would come for it near the end and - fuck the gods. He had hoped there was an end.
So he traveled further into the sea of sands and through a knowing unmistakable from how he had carried it on his face, he smelled out the Red Wolf, she who gave him epithet.
She barely acknowledged him, except to say words. Words reminiscent of those the Sangoma spirit once said - the Sangoma being, as he said, an anti witch. And once she had said these words, and lunged as if to bite his face and truly end him, he awoke once more.
And though, and though, he could only see with one eye, he was alive. The Red Wolf could not changed into a woman, but that did not mean she did not have strange magic of her own. So she said to the man, "Look now to the east." And there he saw the dawn as it rose. “Look there to the east,” she said. “Do you not have a message for it?” Wolves are not creatures of coddling. But they are not cruel, and they know of family.
And something there. Some one, perhaps, would share in his sorrows.
“So it is she who brings you here.” Said the daughter to the man whose some might call also her father.
And he said, "I suppose.”
Nothing more came from his mouth. Though he had one, he did not always have something to say, surprising as that was.
To him she said, "Where do you go now?"
"I do not know.” He said the daughter.
“I know. At least a little bit. But I will need someone to teach me a trade, and introduce me to my chosen home.”
And he looked at her, one eyed, dark and firm, as if to say, "You are sure.”
And she nodded, as if to say, "I am, you fool."
He smiled. It was small and uncomfortable on his face. Like a creature who knew it had done wrong but came slinking by anyway. Even he looked surprised to feel it. And soon it was gone.
But she saw it, and she saw what her father had found. And for that she was glad.
Though he called her follower of the Eastern light, she followed him into the west. The magics he contained in his nose, she could never learn. He knew not why he had them, and he knew not how to teach it. But he taught her of arrow, and she soon surpassed him in that. It wasn't hard to do so, but she grew well anyway. For axes, he taught her, and swords in the manner her father once fought, and in that she surpassed him too, "But you remained ever for better in the hatchet.”
And for that they were both satisfied.
Like her new father, the girl was the woman who was never quite satisfied. Like her fathers, she knew how to love. And she knew how to find what she wished.
So, in some strange circle that once brought about some brothers and a sister she never knew until she was quite old, when the spirit-woman calmed, much like how her fathers came together and gave her new siblings, she gave herself children in the manner of the Sangoma.
Her new father helped her until her went to meet her old father. And while the world was never at peace, and she still ever had more more questions that needed answers, she lived content until she died.
And that is how I tell this.