Empire 6: Bright Days, Blight Nights

[Nefarion Xid]

A trio of Ashir royals mills about nearby while the Dolod have Neferkare's ear, drinking from golden cups of a bracing date wine. Despite their experience moving among foreign courts and acclimating themselves to the ways of strange folk, they look plainly exhausted and put out to be here. It's too hot and too early to put on their cheerful faces. Their eyes are painted stibian black and they wear their airy headscarves low.

Neferkare would recognize Amir Omar and Amira Amala il Naila il Liana. Matrilineal Ashir bloodlines were a lesson in frustration and alliteration, but among the thirty-odd royals, these two were worth knowing. They were half siblings by ill-fated Zarhan, who was father to Kasha and Ashina, consorts to Shebiktu. That would make them Zidan's first cousins. Both exemplars of their clan and exactly what you'd expect a warrior prince and princess to look like, except they weren't looking down at you from a horse. Amala didn't quite have the allure of Shebiktu's wives, but few women did. Unlike Kasha and Ashina, she did have the strong arms needed to plant a stone tipped javelin in a man's heart. That was sexy in its own way. Though, by rumor, even Amala was almost comically outmatched by the younger Jana "The Jewel". Al-Zamira was already a legend at nineteen. A shame she did not seem to be in attendance.