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Merat: Fog
by Bettina Lege (2017)

(For copyright of my cover see note below)

Merat clung to her nurse's dress as the black-skinned man reached out to her. Nevertheless, he took a step closer, so fearfully she buried her face in the fabric, which smelled of herbs and spices of the evening meal. And Tabit stroked her fine hair soothingly.

"Princess, your father sends for you and asked me to take you to him," the black-skinned man said in a strange scratchy voice, as if he wasn't used to speaking like that. And then he cleared his throat, too, which sounded so funny that Merat risked a glance at him, of course without leaving the security Tabit's dress and embrace gave her. The man had his black hands at his sides again, but now leaned down to her, smiling, but with almost pleading eyes. "Your nurse is welcome to accompany us, there is enough room in the palanquin for both of you."

Palanquin, that sounded so interesting that Merat dared to touch Tabit's dress only with the back of her hand and approach the man half a step. She thought the colourfully decorated superstructures of thin branches and fluttering fabrics on the camels backs, which sometimes leaned to this side and sometimes to that side as the animals took their steps, were magnificent. Her aunt had told her that she had travelled in one of these camel palanquins as a baby, but she had no memory of it. She had been riding her horse since she could walk.

As they set off south the next morning, however, Merat's opinion of palanquins sank with every step of the camel, and she wished she could just ride. Tabit even forbade her to pull the fabrics apart with her hands to look out, and so she sat in the tiny rocking colourful tent, nestled sullenly in Tabit's arms, bored. Only when a breeze fluttered the fabric did she occasionally catch a glimpse of the rocky caravan road and the horses and camels of some of her fellow travellers, among whom were more with skin as black as her father's messenger.

The next day, Merat was again locked in the palanquin with her nurse. Tabit tried to keep her charge amused with songs, verses, and finger games, but for Merat the journey was becoming more and more unbearable. So every time the nurse mentioned horses or riders, she reminded her that she could ride and might well have made the journey on her horse. And so Tabit finally fell silent, and it became even more boring for Merat.

On the third day, it became warmer and warmer as the morning progressed, so warm that Tabit slipped her overdress over her head in the confines of the palanquin and even helped Merat out of her gown. The air also became different somehow, making Merat feel reminded of the wash tubs and drying lines between the tents of the tribe. And in the evening, at last, the caravan reached a cluster of stone tents that Merat's father's messenger called 'city'.

It was already dawn when the messenger lifted Merat off the camel and also helped Tabit onto the ground. "The animals stay here in the caravanserai," he explained, "but we can still ride comfortably to your father's house, princess." And he pointed to another black man standing in front of a wooden box with large circles. A cart it was, the messenger explained, and the other man pulled them through the city in his cart. At last, Merat could see something of her journey, but it was so dark that only stone walls could be seen in the light of scattered lamps. They might as well have been in a ravine in the highlands at night. But Merat knew that at the end of this journey, her long absent father was waiting for her to finally embrace her again. So, despite the boring prospect, she fought sleep, but eventually she had to surrender to it.

*

When Merat awoke, heard Tabit's soft snoring beside her and saw the tent roof over her camp, she thought for a moment that she had only dreamed the messenger's arrival and the journey south. But then she realized that it was still so warm and the air was so... so humid. And when she jumped up from her blanket bed, she saw that she had only been sleeping under a stretched tent roof.

Merat finally wanted to greet her father and ran out of the shade of the tarp to look around. Here she stood high above the colourful roofs of the stone tents, on a smooth ground painted orange and yellow. And further down, in the not-so-distant distance, a kind of cloud hid something from which only single posts of wood poked out like tent poles. Merat had never seen a cloud so lange and so close before. Fascinated, she watched it slowly move away from the city, revealing a dark blue expanse and the large, gently swaying wooden shells to which the poles belonged.

"Ah, now you are awake, my dear child," said a familiar voice.

"Father!" Merat shouted and turned to the voice. There he stood, almost exactly as she remembered him, but in a simple undergarment, with no overgarment or the coat the men wore. It was much too warm for that. She rushed towards him, he caught her running and picked her up to push her to his heart. That long they had been separated, that should never happen again. But as she pressed her ear to his chest, she turned her gaze curiously back to the cloud, which revealed more and more of the blue surface. "What's that cloud," she wanted to know.

"That's the fog that sometimes reaches from the western islands to Ma'ouwat in the morning hours, and now is retreating, you see. When the first fishing boats come into the harbour, there's no sign of it." Fog, that was a new but very beautiful word, its sounds as soft as that cloud down there.

Although Merat did not recall her first days in Ma'ouwat in later years, the fog had left a lasting impression. In the arid rocky desert inhabited by Merat's tribe, there were very rarely any small clouds, but never a phenomenon like this fog. And 'fog' was the first word of the Sa'atik that she had learned.

* * *

For more about Merat and her father see the summary of the start of my novel about them (and other characters) here in the description of: www.deviantart.com/blege22/art…

Copyright of my cover above:

The sword guard (Tsuba) on the cover: Photo of a sword guard (height 7.1 cm, width 6.8 cm, thickness 1 cm), made of a copper-gold alloy (shakudō), showing a dragon between waves (波龍図鐔 = sword protection with waves and dragons). On the front of the sword guard, a striking golden dragon can be seen between strongly moving waves and clouds, the spray of the waves is emphasized with gold dots, the space between the motifs and the edge are filled with 'nanako' (a surface design reminiscent of fish roe), The back of the sword guard also shows clouds and calmer waves with gold-decorated spray crowns, signed by the Japanese artist Tokinubo (1827-1879), with the inscription 守時信「花押」 Mori Tokinobu + kaō (Mori Tokinobu + monogram) on the front. I used a cropped and edited version.
Origin/Rights: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1891 from the legacy of Edward C. Moore (Edward C. Moore Collection), Accession Number: 91.1.786, licensed under Public Domain (creativecommons.org/publicdoma… ),
I used the image images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages… , isolated the object with GIMP, mirrored it vertically, placed some image elements over the cover text by cropping it again, 2023,

www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti… .

The cover itself I made 2023 with GIMP and MS Paint, for Latin letters I used MS Segoe Print (© 2008 The Monotype Corporation. All Rights Reserved) (learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typo… ), since the font was bought together with my Windows 10 Pro-Licence in 2016, MS allows using them free, even on the internet, even for commercial uses (learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typo… ).

For the Sogdian letters, which impersonate the letters of my fantasy-language 'Taribit', saying 'Merat' on the cover, I used 'Noto Sans Sogdian' (Copyright 2012 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved) (fonts.google.com/noto/specimen… ), the use of this Google font is regulated by the SIL Open Font Licence Version 1.1 from 2007 (openfontlicense.org/ ), this means, among other things, that I am permitted to use my graphics created with Sogdian characters freely, including on the Internet.

The German and first English version of this story I wrote for Wordvember 2017, the here presented English version of the story was last proofread by me in 2024 with help of 'Language Tool'.

Description
Merat: Fog
by Bettina Lege (2017)

(For copyright of my cover see note below)

Merat clung to her nurse's dress as the black-skinned man reached out to her. Nevertheless, he took a step closer, so fearfully she buried her face in the fabric, which smelled of herbs and spices of the evening meal. And Tabit stroked her fine hair soothingly.

"Princess, your father sends for you and asked me to take you to him," the black-skinned man said in a strange scratchy voice, as if he wasn't used to speaking like that. And then he cleared his throat, too, which sounded so funny that Merat risked a glance at him, of course without leaving the security Tabit's dress and embrace gave her. The man had his black hands at his sides again, but now leaned down to her, smiling, but with almost pleading eyes. "Your nurse is welcome to accompany us, there is enough room in the palanquin for both of you."

Palanquin, that sounded so interesting that Merat dared to touch Tabit's dress only with the back of her hand and approach the man half a step. She thought the colourfully decorated superstructures of thin branches and fluttering fabrics on the camels backs, which sometimes leaned to this side and sometimes to that side as the animals took their steps, were magnificent. Her aunt had told her that she had travelled in one of these camel palanquins as a baby, but she had no memory of it. She had been riding her horse since she could walk.

As they set off south the next morning, however, Merat's opinion of palanquins sank with every step of the camel, and she wished she could just ride. Tabit even forbade her to pull the fabrics apart with her hands to look out, and so she sat in the tiny rocking colourful tent, nestled sullenly in Tabit's arms, bored. Only when a breeze fluttered the fabric did she occasionally catch a glimpse of the rocky caravan road and the horses and camels of some of her fellow travellers, among whom were more with skin as black as her father's messenger.

The next day, Merat was again locked in the palanquin with her nurse. Tabit tried to keep her charge amused with songs, verses, and finger games, but for Merat the journey was becoming more and more unbearable. So every time the nurse mentioned horses or riders, she reminded her that she could ride and might well have made the journey on her horse. And so Tabit finally fell silent, and it became even more boring for Merat.

On the third day, it became warmer and warmer as the morning progressed, so warm that Tabit slipped her overdress over her head in the confines of the palanquin and even helped Merat out of her gown. The air also became different somehow, making Merat feel reminded of the wash tubs and drying lines between the tents of the tribe. And in the evening, at last, the caravan reached a cluster of stone tents that Merat's father's messenger called 'city'.

It was already dawn when the messenger lifted Merat off the camel and also helped Tabit onto the ground. "The animals stay here in the caravanserai," he explained, "but we can still ride comfortably to your father's house, princess." And he pointed to another black man standing in front of a wooden box with large circles. A cart it was, the messenger explained, and the other man pulled them through the city in his cart. At last, Merat could see something of her journey, but it was so dark that only stone walls could be seen in the light of scattered lamps. They might as well have been in a ravine in the highlands at night. But Merat knew that at the end of this journey, her long absent father was waiting for her to finally embrace her again. So, despite the boring prospect, she fought sleep, but eventually she had to surrender to it.

*

When Merat awoke, heard Tabit's soft snoring beside her and saw the tent roof over her camp, she thought for a moment that she had only dreamed the messenger's arrival and the journey south. But then she realized that it was still so warm and the air was so... so humid. And when she jumped up from her blanket bed, she saw that she had only been sleeping under a stretched tent roof.

Merat finally wanted to greet her father and ran out of the shade of the tarp to look around. Here she stood high above the colourful roofs of the stone tents, on a smooth ground painted orange and yellow. And further down, in the not-so-distant distance, a kind of cloud hid something from which only single posts of wood poked out like tent poles. Merat had never seen a cloud so lange and so close before. Fascinated, she watched it slowly move away from the city, revealing a dark blue expanse and the large, gently swaying wooden shells to which the poles belonged.

"Ah, now you are awake, my dear child," said a familiar voice.

"Father!" Merat shouted and turned to the voice. There he stood, almost exactly as she remembered him, but in a simple undergarment, with no overgarment or the coat the men wore. It was much too warm for that. She rushed towards him, he caught her running and picked her up to push her to his heart. That long they had been separated, that should never happen again. But as she pressed her ear to his chest, she turned her gaze curiously back to the cloud, which revealed more and more of the blue surface. "What's that cloud," she wanted to know.

"That's the fog that sometimes reaches from the western islands to Ma'ouwat in the morning hours, and now is retreating, you see. When the first fishing boats come into the harbour, there's no sign of it." Fog, that was a new but very beautiful word, its sounds as soft as that cloud down there.

Although Merat did not recall her first days in Ma'ouwat in later years, the fog had left a lasting impression. In the arid rocky desert inhabited by Merat's tribe, there were very rarely any small clouds, but never a phenomenon like this fog. And 'fog' was the first word of the Sa'atik that she had learned.

* * *

For more about Merat and her father see the summary of the start of my novel about them (and other characters) here in the description of: www.deviantart.com/blege22/art…

Copyright of my cover above:

The sword guard (Tsuba) on the cover: Photo of a sword guard (height 7.1 cm, width 6.8 cm, thickness 1 cm), made of a copper-gold alloy (shakudō), showing a dragon between waves (波龍図鐔 = sword protection with waves and dragons). On the front of the sword guard, a striking golden dragon can be seen between strongly moving waves and clouds, the spray of the waves is emphasized with gold dots, the space between the motifs and the edge are filled with 'nanako' (a surface design reminiscent of fish roe), The back of the sword guard also shows clouds and calmer waves with gold-decorated spray crowns, signed by the Japanese artist Tokinubo (1827-1879), with the inscription 守時信「花押」 Mori Tokinobu + kaō (Mori Tokinobu + monogram) on the front. I used a cropped and edited version.
Origin/Rights: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1891 from the legacy of Edward C. Moore (Edward C. Moore Collection), Accession Number: 91.1.786, licensed under Public Domain (creativecommons.org/publicdoma… ),
I used the image images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages… , isolated the object with GIMP, mirrored it vertically, placed some image elements over the cover text by cropping it again, 2023,

www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti… .

The cover itself I made 2023 with GIMP and MS Paint, for Latin letters I used MS Segoe Print (© 2008 The Monotype Corporation. All Rights Reserved) (learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typo… ), since the font was bought together with my Windows 10 Pro-Licence in 2016, MS allows using them free, even on the internet, even for commercial uses (learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typo… ).

For the Sogdian letters, which impersonate the letters of my fantasy-language 'Taribit', saying 'Merat' on the cover, I used 'Noto Sans Sogdian' (Copyright 2012 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved) (fonts.google.com/noto/specimen… ), the use of this Google font is regulated by the SIL Open Font Licence Version 1.1 from 2007 (openfontlicense.org/ ), this means, among other things, that I am permitted to use my graphics created with Sogdian characters freely, including on the Internet.

The German and first English version of this story I wrote for Wordvember 2017, the here presented English version of the story was last proofread by me in 2024 with help of 'Language Tool'.