Days upon Days of unproductivity stretched into an eternity, each moment a grain of sand falling through an hourglass. This had been Mwanza's personal hell for two days, ever since his confrontation with Anderson at the tavern.
After his father had come and dispatched the crime lord, Mwanza had been taken back to the palace. He was brought to his chamber, where the royal N'angas awaited. Drifting in and out of consciousness, he watched them apply herb-infused bandages to his raw skin, the sting so sharp it forced a hiss from his lips.
Sometimes when he awoke they were injecting things that made his blood warm and his stomach weak before he was submerged once more into the muck of the subconscious. Returning to the world of the living was not a much better prospect, the horror of dull mundane awaited him with open arms.
Mwanza had felt pain before, but nothing was ever like this. His entire body might have dulled but the aching from the viscous punishment that Anderson had brought down upon him still felt like a million red hot niddles being driven into his flesh. Every breath that he took was laboured and painful, Mwanza had gritted his teeth one time too many as he forced oxygen into his lungs.
He had time to think about what he did and if it was worth it. He knew that this particular destination was chosen when he had foolishly charged into helping Hamanymu and the rest as they was history. He should have felt proud, heroic even.
"Do you feel like a hero." a voice whispered from the bedrock of his consciousness.
He wanted to argue against it, to proudly declare that he taken a moral stand against Anderson and the Stings. Yet his own body argued back with a sharp sting in those parts of his body that echoed with a dull pain. A reminder of how brutally Anderson had worked his body. He shuddered as the memory of each blow and slam which were all perfectly etched into his memory.
However, these waking thoughts and what-if scenarios paled in comparison to the dreams that haunted him whenever heavy eyelids surrendered to the wilderness of sleep.
In the dreams he was giant, a force who broke against the threshold of creation like the eldest had. He cleaved against the worlds in rebellious anger against his family. Who else, after the eldest, was more deserving of their father's throne? He was ancient when Sun, Moon, Storm, Ocean, Earth, Genesis and Omega were set upon him and his legions.
That was always when Mwanza woke up, his body slick with sweat and his head hammering as it burned with the ringing echo of pain. He had tried to interprate the dream even as he lost details about it with each passing second, gaining him nothing more than confusion.
"I hate this." he thought.
"Mwanza." a voice sternly erupted and pulled Mwanza out of the ocean of thoughts that he was drowning in.
The prince turned his head, a lazy movement, towards his father, who sat beside the bed. His mother was asleep on the couch across the room. Mwanza didn't know how long she had been there since his return, but every time he regained some measure of consciousness, he found her either watching over him or resting, as she was now.
"Are you listening?" his father asked from his stool besides Mwanza's bed.
"Of course not." was what he wanted to say, Mwanza simply looked blank faced at his father.
"You were asking about Erik." his father stated and though Mwanza nodded along, he could not conjure up the memories asking for that and from the look of realisation on the Mwami's face, he thought so too.
"How... how is he?" Mwanza wanted to punch himself in the face for not remembering something as important as that.
"He is already on his feet. A real Asikari that one." a warm smile graced his father's face.
Mwanza wanted to smile with genuine mirth until that all too familiar voice came and whispered to him. "He won't even come to visit you. Why would he, when you almost got him killed."
"What about Hamanymu and the Stings..." Mwanza trailed off as he tried to conjure up memories of what happened to them after Anderson had been rendered to ash.
"I can't say yet. Investigations are ongoing and crucial." his father replied, his energy reminiscent of a bull in a china shop, tense and constrained.
"I believe I have every right to know." Mwanza asserted.
"I know, but I can't say much about them." another deflection, a predicable aspect of his life. He was so used to being a ghost in every room, as he thought about it all his mind wandered back to the Earth District.
"Father..." he started and paused as he tried to think about how best to phrase his next words. "What I saw in the... no, the whole Earth District.... it isn't right."
The Mwami's facial features became heavy like exhaustion had instantly struck him. "I know, I... failed those people, I should have treated them as my own not just strangers to be managed in a box far away."
Mwanza remembered when the skies had opened and the dying world of Earth became visible within the void nebula through the crack in the tapestry of creation. For the first time in a long time the whole of Jrod united in saving the survivors before the crack closed and world was blighted by the Blue Belt. He had been left from going to the conference which saw
the division of those people... those people? odd how when thinking about the earthers they were a other to him, not fellow Valonians.
"I was afraid that they would be exploited if I dumped them into the deep pool of Valon, thought the Earth District would allow them to safely transition into the reality of our world, but a fat lot of good that did." the Mwami said, a sad, mirthless chuckle escaping him. "Now criminals have overrun the Earth District, and it has become a prison for its own people."
"We could move them out," Mwanza suggested. "Integrate them properly into Valon."
"I know, and plans are already in motion. The Earth District will be downsized, its people relocated across the realm… Leza-Mulungu knows they will resent me for it after settling in these past two years." the Mwami said. "They need a safety net during this transition, but it can't be so generous as to incite resentment from the native populace. That would make the Earthers targets for hate."
"You could grant many of them portions of my land." Mwanza offered. He had never seen his princely estate but knew it to be sizable.
"And what of the others? Even if we carved up every piece of your land it would not come close to covering 50 percent of them."
Mwanza considered the question, and then it struck him. "If I do it publicly, other wealthy and influential figures might follow. People love to display their virtue for recognition. Furthermore, if they are relocated to farms, shipping ports, and smaller cities, you could frame it as providing much-needed help to those areas while offering the Earthers a livelihood. With so many migrating to the high cities, there's a shortage of labor elsewhere."
The Mwami's grin was broad. "You have our way of thinking, my son. Good job."
"What...what about these gangs, I swear that there were Londa Asikari amongst them?" Mwanza remembered them so well, traitors who wore the Asikari eagle whilst being Anderson's thugs.
"We captured a few and let the others believe they escaped. As we speak they are being monitored, they will hide until it blows over thinking that they are safe. The fools don't even realise that they have shown their entire network." an almost predetory gaze emanated from the Mwami's face. "We shall tear apart their organisation until it is picked apart at the bone."
Mwanza disliked the idea, he wanted those men brought to justice immediately. "They betrayed Valon and everything their rank represents. They are not true Asikari and must be punished without delay, no games."
"And you will in due course. Honestly, my son, a man who is too focused on the climax is a bane of women." Undi Hachibambo erupted in roaring laughter at his own joke, Mwanza was not amused and judging by the look of shame that flashed across the Mwami's face, neither was he.
A pregnant silence passed between Mwanza and his father, the prince's golden eyes only met the brown eyes of his father once before Mwanza instinctively found the ground a much more interesting thing to look at. A soft cough by the Mwami forced him to lift his head and once again meet the Mwami's gaze.
"I.... I am sorry, Mwanza." the Mwami of Valon almost sounded childlike when he spoke. "The Train was a mistake."
"You shouldn't have just sent me off. I never wanted to go" Mwanza responded, the bitterness within rising from the heart to the tongue. "But when has that ever stopped you and mother."
"I understand how you feel." those words were like a slap to the face. "But that was the right call at the time to protect you."
"Protect me from what? You keep treating me like fragile piece of glass because of some illness that I beat years ago." Mwanza countered. "I don't see you treating Ishtar like this."
Mwami Undi brought his face into his heavy set hands and rubbed it in exasperation. "That is different."
"Enlighten me then? is it because she is the crown princess? then she should be over here in the capital, being dragged to every state function, instead of running around as a Mushirikari?" Mwanza clasped a tight fist around his bedsheets as he countered, his voice now raw. "I try and try to prove myself but neither you nor mother will see me as anything but a disabled child. I am not that anymore and even if I still was it isn't right to treat me like I am something that will break the moment you let me actually live, father!"
"Then you want to become a Mushirikari like Ishtar, is that it?" His father's tone wasn't accusatory, yet Mwanza felt attacked.
"I don't know... I just want to be my age." Mwanza threw his arms up the air in exasperation. "I am an adult. By my age, both you and Mother had achieved things with your lives, yet you restrain me. By the Mizimu and Leza-Mulungu, Mother won't even let me participate in the Insofuma ceremony!"
"We are simply trying to protect you." the Mwami cast a quick glance to the sleeping form of his wife. "I understand if you resent us, but everything that we do is for your good, we might not always do it the right or best way, but we care."
"I am not upset at you and mother." the prince sullenly responded. He wondered what his father wanted from him, did he want Mwanza to scream in frustration, to pound his fist into the sand in protest or to simply be so overjoyed in being a slave in his home.
"Now that's a bold faced lie." The Mwami snorted and Mwanza's face burned, not from embarrassment but rising anger.
"You are really not making this easy for me." Mwanza just felt defeated as he watched his father break into a belly shaking laughter. The churning storm of rage and righteous indignation within his chest melted away.
"I am your father. I am not supposed to make it easy for you. " the Mwami smiled broadly and Mwanza suspected that if his hands weren't numb with pain, he might have attempted to strike his own father.
Q
Lying in bed, his thoughts returned to Anderson and the treacherous Asikari. He mumbled, half to himself, half to his father, "Maybe I would like to join the Asikari."