Back at the palace

Maya jolted awake, startled by something but not quite sure what it was. 

Nanny was snoring loudly by her, but she’d slept through that noise for as long as she’d lived. It was a no moon night and her room was so dark that she could barely see anything so there was no light that woke her up. The balcony door was open, Nanny had probably opened it to let the breeze in on the hot summer night, but there was no breeze coming to startle her awake.

What was it?

Maya realized then that it was not what she had heard, but rather what she did not. Why didn’t she hear any singing? The nightingales had been specially imported into their menagerie last summer, an exorbitant cost but well worth it for their ability to impress visitors and lull the entire court to sleep every night. But tonight, they were curiously silent.

Why?

Maybe this was what woke me up?

Maya wasn’t a child that could sit still and do nothing. Once her curiosity was pricked, she had to satisfy it. Otherwise, her curiosity exploded out of her in unexpected ways and somehow got in trouble. 

She glanced briefly at Nanny. Nanny was still snoring loudly, undisturbed by whatever it was that woke Maya up. Maya grinned.

Good. She can’t stop me. I can get out and explore.

She cautiously pulled her blankets aside and stepped out of the bed, keeping one eye on Nanny as she moved. Then she tiptoed carefully to her balcony using her misbegotten knowledge of where the floor creaked and where it didn’t. She peered over her balcony ledge, gripped two of the white marble columns that framed it.

Maya looked towards the menagerie, but couldn’t really make out any motion from the nightingales. As she looked around, she noticed that the garden looked less friendly and a lot more threatening at night with no moon around. The trees seemed to maliciously twist and claw their way up to the sky. Shadowy figures seemed to crawl over the gardens and up the pillars to other balconies in her vicinity. But, when she looked closely at any one such figure, nothing. Just a figment of her imagination. 

Maya shivered a little and hugged her arms tightly around herself. Her curiosity rapidly withered. There was nothing there. No one either. The birds were just asleep, no doubt because they’d engorged themselves on fruit that the menagerie handlers fed them. She wasn’t scared. She was just cold even though there was no breeze and it was a hot summer night. Some sort of weird body reaction to the weather conditions. With that, she pivoted, heading back to the warmth of her bed.

But as she approached her bed, she saw something silver moving towards her silently in the dark and her heart started thudding rapidly, threatening to leap out of her chest until she saw more.

Nanny? With a knife?

What was this? Some kind of an elaborate prank? To scare me? Why? And how dare she?

Maya raised her hand to slap Nanny, but before she could do anything, Nanny gripped her raised hand with an unnatural strength that Maya had never seen Nanny use before. Nanny pulled Maya up closely, looking at her with a strange emotion on her face, and then before Maya could react, Nanny slashed at a major artery in Maya’s wrist. Blood immediately gushed out.

Thoughts raced in Maya’s head, but she was unable to formulate any response. Nanny then dragged her to the bed and rubbed Maya’s bloody wrist on the sheets. Maya reflexively tried to wrench her throbbing wrist back to safety but Nanny’s strength continued to defeat her weak attempts.

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Blood! My blood?! What’s Nanny doing? Why is she doing this? Is this even her or just someone who looks like her?

Finally, Nanny ripped two strips of cloth from the bedsheets. One went around Maya’s bloody wrist and then pulled behind her back and around her other wrist effectively stopping the bleeding and immobilizing Maya’s hands in one shot. The other around Maya’s mouth preventing her from screaming before she even thought to try.

“Don’t try screaming. It won’t work” Nanny whispered hoarsely at Maya, at last speaking.

Maya struggled, trying anyways but failing.

Nanny’s right. Damn it.

“So, you’re wondering what I’m up to, hmm?”

“Did you think that your actions had no consequences? That you could slap me and get me in trouble and that was your right?”

What does she mean? Isn’t that how we train servants? That’s what Amma and Appa said…

“It’s not. We served your ancestors because they protected us. We served you out of gratitude for the actions of your ancestors. But the serpent people have lost the right”

What are you even going on about? What does that have to do with my bloody wrist?

Maya heard Nanny ranting, but she still didn’t know what was happening. She was beginning to think Nanny had lost it completely but she didn’t know how she could escape. Then she heard words that chilled her completely.

“The Naga and Nagini will die tonight. The whole royal family will. And the serpent people in the capital will be enslaved.”

Nanny stared long and hard into Maya’s eyes, finally impressing Maya with the belief that something big was happening tonight, even bigger than what Maya had realized from the events she’d observed tonight. 

All of a sudden, they both heard a thud on the balcony and looked out at a shadowy figure fumbling in the balcony. Nanny hurriedly grabbed the bloody sheets and bundled them up around a decorative vase. She went to the balcony and shut the doors behind her.

Maya was perplexed. She knew that she couldn’t act without learning more. Luckily she could still hear sounds from the balcony.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s done,” Nuissa grunted, shoving the heavy bundle at the shadowy figure.

“It’s done? But that’s my responsibility....” started the dismayed shadowy figure.

“No, the girl has always been my responsibility,” Nuissa said resolutely. 

The shadowy figure yielded then. There was nothing anyone in the rebellion could say to that, especially to the royal nanny, to Nuissa. He gave her a brief nod, conveying his deep respect,  and then he clutched the bundle awkwardly as he clambered back down the way he came. Down below, he tossed his burden into the pile that his fellow conspirators had started earlier in the darkness of the night.

Nuissa lingered at the balcony as she gazed down.

“She’s still my responsibility”, Nuissa whispered to herself, “But I can’t coddle her.”

Gathering herself, she headed back into the bedchamber.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maya looked at Nanny and Nanny looked at Maya. Then Nanny came by and gently pushed rumpled locks of Maya’s hair from her face as she started speaking again.

“My people will be freed tonight. It’s karmic justice. I cannot stop it. I will not stop it…” 

“And yet, I also cannot watch you die by my hand.”

“Stay hidden. Don’t come out no matter what happens. Wait for me.”

“Whether you survive what’s coming next is up to you.”

With that, Nanny finally removed the cloth covering Maya’s mouth and hands, giving Maya the illusion of a temporary and false freedom.

Unbearably confused, Maya whimpered “Nanny?...”

Nanny smiled, “Not Nanny anymore. Nuissa.” With that, leaving Nanny behind, Nuissa left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maya collapsed where Nanny had left her, shivering with shock and fear. 

Nan--Nuissa was lying, right? But what if she was telling the truth? Can she be trusted? What do I do now?

I can’t just sit here dammit!

Maya struggled back to her feet and ventured towards the balcony. The night sky was newly lit with smoke and fire. She could hear loud screams and clashes of metal down below. Gathering her remaining strength, she turned to her only recourse, slipping into serpent form slowly in fits and shudders. Her wrist started to bleed freely again as she struggled to complete her transformation. Finally done, but still scared about what she was about to see, she slithered to the edge of the balcony so she could see easily down.

There she saw green-metal bound serpentine folk being forced to line up before several flaming mounds, their throats slashed just as they reached a mound and their bodies burned once they were tossed in. She hissed helplessly into the night knowing that she was up here and her family was likely down there. Chilled to her scales, she coiled around herself tighter and tighter and settled down to watch.

I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive.

She watched as knives slashed.

She watched as bodies fell, glinting with the weird green metal bracelets like the one.

She watched as the flames started, and then eventually grew to burn the mound of bodies.

She watched as the rebels shouted “That’s everyone!” and “Well done!” and “Congrats” to each other, as they looted the palace.

She watched until she finally slept once more out of exhaustion.