“I don’t want to leave you!” Dzidzor cried, adamant in her decision. The hunter tried to calm her down the best way he thought fit, but she wasn’t listening, she was just acting. The moment she heard “go away for a while”, she began to throw fits. Temper tantrums, she had them a lot.

Dzidzor had been living with the hunter for almost two years. It took Dzidzor a while to get used to the hunter being in a new body and for the first few months, she got scared every time the hunter appeared out of nowhere, or walked too softly for her to hear. She asked him many times how he could just change bodies like that, and all he said was

“Mawu was taking you away, so I gave you my life. The earth saw my sacrifice, and gave me a new body”. She did not understand what he meant but she knew was safe, and that was enough for her. She did not even know his name; he told her he was comfortable being ‘my hunter’ and would not budge no matter how much she pressed.

Whenever she looked at her reflection, she was always taken aback. She did not know that she could be this beautiful. Her skin swelled with muscle and fat and bone and it was gleaming with the amount of shea butter she put on it. She even had breasts and a backside now and it was coupled with a curvy shape. Her hair too grew, thick and black and beautiful. At home, she wasn’t allowed to touch anyone’s hair so she did not know what to do with the beautiful locks that grew like weeds on her head. The hunter sent her to a hairdresser at her home once every month to wash and then keep it in different threaded hairstyles. Despite everything going well for her it made her feel like an imposter and a stranger to herself and that made her avoid mirrors like the plague.

She spent most of her time looking at him, studying him, because how was she sure, that this was truly her hunter? His movements, the way he spoke and his eyes, there was really something about his eyes that made her just know that he was the one. Then, she begun to learn from him. He was pleasantly surprised when he found out that she could read. She could not read as much as he could though and he taught her. He gave her a lot of praise and attention and this made her a better reader. He did not just teach her to read, he taught her to cook, sow, make medicines among others. She became so proficient that he took her along whenever he went to town. This made her feel something she had not felt before, pride. A sense of accomplishment in the work of her hands and her abilities and the feeling on belonging with the hunter. The emotion filled her so much and it felt so foreign that she would intentionally make mistakes, just to make the pride go away. She tried so hard to get him to reprimand her that she almost burnt the hut down. He just laughed at her and told her that fire makes clay harden better. She got so angry, she marched into the nearby forest and got lost for almost 2 days till the hunter found her.

As they got closer, she found out that she was developing feelings for him. He could be decades of years older than her, but he was all she wanted. She hid her feelings, dug deep into her subconscious, put her feelings into a polythene bag and put it in the hole and cover it up with sand. Very soon, her feelings found their way into her subconscious whenever the hunter was cutting up firewood, or when he was climbing up the tree to tap palm wine. She even found herself swooning over him when he kicked back in the hot afternoon reading in his bed. By no small feat, she was able to hide her feelings from him, till now.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“I told you I’m not going anywhere!” Adrenaline pulsed in her veins, her skin breaking into goosebumps as she contemplated life without him.

“Dzidzor, calm down” he said in the voice that usually made her calm, but today made her wary. They sat outside, taking a breather after farming that afternoon. He had removed his clothes, and it was drying in a stone beside him. She wore a t-shirt she got from the hunter and shorts and sandals that were the hunter’s. Now she was standing over him, breathing hitched. “Dzidzor sit down please”. She did not want to sit down. She was upset, she thought she meant everything to him and how he just wants to give her away, as though she was nothing to him. She would never understand. He pleaded with her one more time, even calling her lↄlↄ, which meant ‘my love’. It melted her heart a bit, then she sat down.

“I know you are emotional right now but I want you to listen to me” he said in English this time. He taught her English as well, so she understood what he was saying. “I am not sending you to school because I don’t love you. You have to learn the ways of your fathers...”

“I want nothing with the ways of my fathers!” Dzidzor spat in Èʋegbe “See what they did to me!

“It was your father who hurt you lↄlↄ, not your entire ancestors”

“Why would I want to learn about people who did not help me! For 14 years of my life!”

“Dzidzor…”

“No, I won’t listen. No, you won’t make me! I won’t”

“Listen, Dzidzor, listen!” She kept quiet, the was the first he had raised his voice at her. Tears stung her eyes “I understand you, but this is not about your feelings right now” Dzidzor focused on the two rows on ants, going in alternate directions at her, trying to hide her face so that he will not see her cry. “Your father, and many fathers continue to abuse their kin and others, because the survivors go far away, trying to forget the people they have left behind and in so doing, there is no one to protect who is left. You think you are the only one who was abused, eh?” she kept quiet, willing the tear from dropping. The hunter repeated the question again in Èʋegbe.

A small “Ao” was her reply

“That school will ensure that you are the last person, in all of this land, and in all lands, to be abused”. She still didn’t say anything. He knelt in front of her and held her chin up, revealing her face to him, and her tears. “please, listem”. He apologized as he wiped her tears. “If you don’t want to go to that school, tell me. If you don’t want to help people, the way I helped you, say it”

She looked about her, this place was her home, her happy place and the man in front of her was her love. She then wondered if she should’ve let her feelings be known to the hunter. Maybe he wouldn’t be so adamant to let her go. His arguments made sense to her though. She could help people, made sure that people could be their own hunters. She could change the whole of Kpando, even the world.

“I will go” she conceded in English.