Beginnings

Ishtar stood to the side of the door waiting for the group of kids to file into the YMCA lobby and counted the heads to make sure all 20 were accounted for. Working with foster children helped remind her that she was still part of something greater and not alone. Living alone and being single for so long made her feel so shut off from everyone else. Damien, the youngest of the group, made up the end of the line and went to reach for her hand. He accidentally grazed the scar on her wrist causing her to take a sharp inhale and swing her hand away.

With concern he looked up with his chocolate brown eyes and frowned. “Shit,” she thought. As the smallest, he was often picked on and was incredibly shy and it was a minor miracle he let her hold his hand. As they stood there staring at each other she crouched down and smiled at Damien.

“it’s ok kid, no harm no foul right?”

Pushing the painful memories to the side, she put her hand out as a gesture of peace and waited. After a few seconds, he placed his hand in hers and they went into the YMCA to catch up with the rest of the group. For now, all was forgotten.

Later that evening while drifting in and out of sleep, Ishtar thought back to that event and got caught up in her memories while mindlessly rubbing her wrist. She was trapped in a cell, isolated and helpless, bound to the wall. Ishtar struggled to steady her breath and ease her panicked heartbeat, a familiar routine by now as this was one of the more vivid memories she had. It took her a moment to gain her bearings; she wasn’t in that cell anymore. That had been centuries ago. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down and surveyed the surroundings of her bedroom.

Right now, she was in her bed with her sheets entwined around her like the shackles from her nightmare. Ishtar pushed them off to the side and looked up exhaling a sigh of relief. The wire frame of the canopy on her queen-sized bed loomed over her and the sheer curtains on the side ruffled in a silent breeze from the AC. She took a deep breath, sitting up and rubbing her eyes, she could taste the slightly acidic metallic tang of her fear permeating the room.

“A dream, just a dream” she muttered. This had become her mantra that allowed her to calm her racing heart when she woke from that nightmare. Ishtar shook her head. She didn’t want to think about it anymore. She had a new life now, a life that was far away from that cell. She was free, and she was determined to make the most of her freedom.

She reached over to the nightstand and touched the clock, two am. “Crap,” she moaned. Although that ordeal had been ages ago, she still bore the marks from then and it still haunted her dreams. Her right wrist had a small band of scar tissue, and there were still a few scars that had never healed properly on her back. She touched her wrist gingerly and could almost taste the guard’s anger. Even after all these centuries she tasted the spicy tang of it, like chili peppers on the back of her throat. She sighed and remembered that they no longer could hurt her, she sensed her aura changing and the edges and turned an indigo blue.

Ishtar exhaled and remembered she had held to her promise and killed them all. She smiled remembering how they screamed and wailed as she extracted her justice for what she endured. Simply because she was gifted, and the princess had been jealous of her skills. Ishtar, the daughter of peasants who became more feared than the nobility that ruled. She inhaled again to calm her nerves and could smell verbena and the cool Nile waters of her protector. Ishtar smiled ruefully knowing that he had tried to keep her safe and healed most of the scars that had been put upon her body. But he could never heal the emotional scars and she could feel the tears forming, wishing she hadn’t been chosen. That torture had been almost more than she could bare, and he said it had been her interference that had led to those events. She laid back down and still found herself offering a small prayer to him that he would always protect her, feeling that it fell on deaf ears. He had stopped answering her years ago.

Her anger towards him was the one grudge she couldn’t release. She had blamed him for leaving her to face that torment alone. After she healed, she ran away, building her defenses and pushing him out. Ishtar knew he was waiting for her to lower her defenses, and although it felt she had cut part of herself out, she wasn’t ready to face him directly. He had reached out over the centuries, but she refused to open up to him. Ishtar shut her eyes, squeezing against the tears threatening to come out, and started her breathing exercises to focus herself. As she counted the breaths in and she began to feel herself relaxing, and sleeps embrace returning. The darkness crept up and started to claim her again, and she relaxed into it praying that she might see him this time.

Ishtar woke up stomach grumbling, realizing that today marked the anniversary of her father’s death. Given that he left her at the temple of Amun, she honored this as the day that he passed on since she had no way of knowing when he had actually died. Tossing the sheets aside and off her body, she slid her legs to the edge of the bed and slipped her feet into her slippers. They were Hello Kitty slippers; she grinned and wiggled her toes before stretching languorously and pushing off the bed.

The beauty of living alone was that she was free to roam naked. Ishtar shuffled down the hall into the kitchen and opened the canister of coffee and grimaced, “fuck”. There was just enough for one pot, and once again she forgot to go to the store after work. She stuck her tongue out at the canister and dumped the grounds into the machine, added water and pressed the button. She opened the fridge and a lonely loaf of bread and a stick of butter stared back at her. “Toast it is,” she sighed.

As the aroma of coffee filled the kitchen, Ishtar walked across the living room to the sliding glass doors and looked out, appreciating the desert view. The sun had barely begun its ascent into the sky and the contrast between the night and day was almost breathtaking. The early morning light had begun to tinge the clouds a pale gold color where it had started to touch. Clouds closest to the rising sun were fading out from a dusty rose into a salmon color. The sky was turning a pale blue and the cacti and other fauna were still shrouded in darkness.

The mountains were dark blue against the sky and she could make out the jagged lines of the peaks. The colors reminded her of the paintings by Maxfield Parrish, almost surreal. She knew that should she go back to her kitchen and look out the skylight she could still see stars twinkling back at her. She loved that could see straight out across the desert landscape to the mountains in the distance. The only things that broke her line of vision were palm trees and cactus. Ishtar contentedly smiled. The desert was harsh and unforgiving and only home to those that were fighters, like her. It reminded her of home, but not quite. Egypt had been nothing but desert, except along the Nile and the Valley of the Kings.

Arizona had charmed, it was mainly desert at least until you got farther north into the mountainous regions closer to Colorado. Any major water had been driven underground long before people made their way here. She felt comfortable here and enjoyed the heat during the summer which reminded her of her childhood in Egypt, despite that it often broke 100 degrees in summer. She closed her eyes and felt the familiar tug of power that signaled the sun’s rise and the moon’s descent. Ishtar instinctively reached out, tapping into the power that was lapping at her mind like the waters of the Nile along the shore.

Suddenly there was a prickling of power at her back, and she spun around dropping into the defensive position she had learned years ago while training at the dojo. She started to pull the power and start the incantations of warding and protection. The words died on her lips, he was here. She narrowed her eyes at the man standing across the living room, and could feel his energy reaching out and caressing her skin like a lover. Ishtar straightened, there was nothing left to fear from him she mentally chided herself. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath tasting his energy, which was spicy like cardamom.

“It has been too long my dear,”

He said, smiling at her. She felt his grin and couldn’t help but to return it.

“Yes,” she whispered.