Well, this is a two-shot that was begging to be written, so I wrote it. It is based off of 1001 Arabian Nights. I should have the second part up within a few days. Please R&R.
The desert told her stories. Or perhaps it was just that she knew how to see them, catching on to the way they were hidden, in every intricate pattern of the sand dunes, every sway in a horse's back, every bright-colored bird. The dunes showed scenes from the past, buildings now in runes, echoes of what was. The horse had carried a rider, far across the edges of the map. The bird had flown high and free, and seen what there is to see of the world.
Her father was the vizier, the highest adviser to the sultan. He loved her more than anything, but he was busy often, with little time to spend with his only daughter. She didn't mind. She ran wild over the palace, through the market and down to the sea, but most of all to the desert.
It was what enthralled her more than anything, the sea of gold, moving in gentle ripples beneath the sapphire sky. The serene quiet and the intense heat. When she stayed long enough, she could see things other people didn't see.
She saw eagles sometimes. The first time she saw one was something she'd never forget. The way it soared high up in the sky, wings spread wide to catch the air. It was free, more free than she was. She wasn't a slave or poor by any means, but she couldn't go wherever she wanted to, see whatever she wanted to see.
It was the first time the desert told her a story, and the first time she'd ever wondered whether or not she was really happy with her life. The eagle had seen battles, spread far and wide. He'd seen a hero singlehandedly fight down his enemy, for valor and for bravery, for all that was good in the world. The eagle had grabbed the hero's flag in his beak and flown through the air with it, waving it high and soaring over the land. It was how the enemy knew they through, how the hero knew he'd won his battle.
She wanted to be an eagle then, or any kind of bird, flying high and turning the tide of the world, changing things somehow. She wanted to soar with no one to stop her. She spread her arms out under the sun and ran fast over the dunes, wishing that someway, somehow, she could turn into a bird.
It didn't happen. But she stayed in her desert, and she watched and she waited. She saw more stories, hidden in cryptic ways through every part of the world, just waiting to be unraveled.
The desert wasn't as barren as everyone said. There were plants in some places, rugged and shrub-like as they might have been. She knew what kind they were and how they'd gotten there. A man had planted them once, as he traveled far over the land, dropping seeds as he went, searching for his lost family. Fruit would grow on them when he'd found them.
It rained once. Big drops of water fell on her, plopping down and sliding over her skin, falling down like a cup was being poured over her head. Flowers came up, growing out of the sand and blooming all around her in bright colors like a rainbow, reaching to the sky like it was all they'd ever wanted in life.
When she listened to the rain, heard the way each drop fell, she realized that it had rained before here, though rarely. Lovers had skipped around the flowers there, and leaned their heads back to catch the rain on their tongues. Their thirst was quenched; it was enough to water to save them from the death they would have faced, lost in the desert.
She wasn't sure how she knew, but she simply did. She didn't know whether the stories were true or not. Some of them seemed far fetched, tales so strange she never could have made them up on her own. They weren't things that really happened in the world, not anymore at least.
She didn't think it mattered much though. Even if they weren't true, she believed in them. They were worth believing in.
She saw wild horses galloping in the desert sometimes. They ran like the wind, hooves pulsing and reverberating as they hit the ground, sweat forming a bright sheen on their coats, kicking up sand as they went. She was struck by the majestic look of them, running their own way, wherever it was they were going. One had carried a rider fast under the moonlight, all the while chased by riders in black, close at their heels throughout night.
They'd gone into the sea then, wading in the shallows first, then farther and farther into the deep. The horse had turned into a great fish and carried its rider to the shore of another land, far, far away. The horse came back after delivering his master to safety, and still ran over the golden sand, wild and free.
She wanted to be a horse then, running like they did for all her days, then perhaps become the wind around their feet, pushing them on and on. That was what happened to horses; it was how they ran so fast. All of their kind that had lived before them became the wind they rode on, that kept them going for so long.
She wanted to be like that, a part of a story, a free spirit, roaming where she would and doing great things. She wanted to be the horse that kicked up the sand, not the single grain of it that was thrown by the winds of chance. She wanted to be something else, something she wasn't.
Then one night the desert told her a different story. It was late, with the moon hanging low over the sand, shining like a pearl formed in one of the clams deep at sea. She'd climbed out of her window to run through the cooler night air, to feel the wind at her back and the sand still warm beneath her toes, to listen.
It was a painful story, of a sultan broken, a heart shattered to pieces. An untrue wife and a hard discovery. And he was hardening, turning against the world. She felt it like a chill, traveling up her spine, and she shivered beneath the pale moon. He was forming a plan in his mind. He would take a wife for a night, and he would kill her in the morning. The next night, he would take a wife, and kill her in the morning, and on and on. Unless one came to him freely.
It wasn't the story she'd climbed out her window for. She wanted excitement, adventure, action. This was something different altogether. It could change her entire life. She shivered again and turned away from the desert, towards the palace. She would go back home, back to bed. The story meant nothing to her.
The wind caught at her back, forcing her to turn. She saw a horse running in the distance and an eagle flying high overhead, and she knew that her own story was being told to her. A girl who watched the world and wanted to be a part of a story, not just an observer. And like the grain of sand that starts a rock slide, she knew what she had to do.
In the morning she met her father in the courtyard, while she watched the bright orange fish flit around in the white marble fountain. She slipped her fingers into the cool water and they swam up to her, nipping lightly at her fingers.
Long ago, a bride had been found for a great sultan, because the fish in the fountain had nipped at her fingers. They weren't afraid of her, accepting her as part of their fountain and so part of their world. The people knew then, that though she was from a far away land and strange to them, she could be accepted as one of them. A fitting story and a good omen, she hoped.
Her father wanted to refuse her, but he didn't. No one else would have come forward, and more and more women would have been killed after just one night with the sultan. There was pain in his eyes as he led her to the palace, to be dressed in the ceremonial clothing and brought before the sultan.
He warned her of the coldness she would find, of the way the man had changed overnight, from a kind and just sultan, to a crazed wild man, hardened and cruel. "And Scheherazade," he said, looking desperately into her eyes, "I love you."
She nodded and smiled through threatening tears, trying to calm her nerves. Another bride had worn these same clothes only a year ago, and only a night ago been charged of infidelity and executed. She only hoped her stories could mend a broken heart.