#Nazik Al-Khafaji

[lesbiamano]

AN INTRODUCTION TO "The Loving River", AKA Nazya's story!!

this story takes place in a historic setting in iraq, no specific years (for now) so everything here is subject to some change in the future.

this post is just an introduction to the main stuff and characters in the story! (all under cut, and fair warning, its a lot)

Shanya Al-Malaika:

shanya is a 29 year old poet, going by the pen name "Ta'abata Sharan" and taking on the image of a man so she can comfortably write about her love for nazik, and to be taken more seriously in the world of poetry. she is the mortal daughter of the goddess shaahida, also referred to as "The Witness", and ill be explaining more about her and her lore later.

to make a long story short, shaahida never wanted a child, and so shanya's coming into the world was a complete accident, and to shaahida, a shameful mistake. with that, she sends off newborn shanya to live with her aunt, saabira, another goddess, this one referred to as "Patience". saabira had a mortal husband and five mortal children with him, so the choice to send shanya there was easy. shaahida was sure saabira, with all her patience and knowledge of children, would be able to take care of shanya better than shaahida ever could. but of course, if she was going to give away shanya like this, shed have to gain something out of it too. she slashed baby shanya across the mouth with her divine nails, drawing blood, and leaving a scar. a tie between them both, stronger than their familial connection. wherever shanya was, shaahida would be able to keep watch, and when the time comes, shaahida would be able to use shanya as the vessel for her plan (which i'll discuss later,, maybe.)

shanya lives with saabira's family for most of her life in dhi qar, where she meets nazik, a girl around her age, and eventually, falls for her. the two are worlds apart though, for while saabira prefers to live humble and poor despite her divinity, making shanya live as a young sheep herder, nazik came from a wealthy family. middle upper class, to be exact. one day, however, nazik leaves dhi qar suddenly, and without much explanation, leaving shanya all alone. what made it all worse was this coming directly after a major fight/argument between the two. (this is insanely simplified, for a lot of stuff happens between them here.)

shanya continues to live with saabira, until the age of 16. when one day, as she on the carriage of saabira's oldest son, shaheen, she began to tinker with the oud guitar he always had with him. she strummed a few notes and smiled to herself, preparing to play a small tune. the carriage soon hit a bump, and the oud, with all its heaviness, slipped out of shanyas hands and fell off the carriage, tumbling down into the nearby river, and breaking. shaheen went off the rails at this, screaming at shanya about how expensive the oud was, and going as far as slap her and push her out of the carriage, telling her to walk home instead. its then, when shes trying to walk home, in the most vaguest in terms, she ends up dying. very unfortunate, and a horrible look for shaheen.

shaahida oversaw all of this. she was angered, not as a mother would be for a daughter, but a creator to a vessel. she transforms her own body to shanyas likeness, and makes it, in a way, a vessel for shanyas spirit to reside in for the time being. making daughter and mother, one and the same.

after saabira realizes what had happened, shanya's death, shaahida's work, she is frightened, and she does not tell shanya of what had truly happened to her. instead she grabs her and takes her towards kirkuk, where hashim, her uncle, and saabira and shaahidas brother, resides. hashim the god, also referred to as "The Punisher". after learning of what had happened to shanya, hashim takes her in, almost like his own daughter, and he is the one who teaches her of poetry and art and whatnot.

it is also hashim who sends 29 year old shanya out of kirkuk and to baghdad, along with her cousins, the twins jamil and jameela (also saabira's children), to gain more knowledge and more inspiration after she finds herself in a writing block. and that is where shanya meets nazik again after so long, which kickstarts the main story.

Nazik Al-Khafaji:

nazik is the 30 year old eldest daughter to jasim al-khafaji and his university sweetheart, nadeen. young nazik worked in a library with her mother until she was 14, before becoming a 'healer' or a doctor later into her adulthood. she has a younger brother, azra, only 4 years younger. nazik's mother had been a worshipper of saabira, one of the saabiroon, and as such, nazik aligned herself with that sect of worship too. and when push comes to shove, as an adult, nazik realizes she had been blessed by saabira with the power of healing. specifically, healing people with her own blood, something she couldve used much, much earlier.

jasim's family was quite a rich one, and yet, he distanced himself from them and went against his own family's wishes by marrying nadeen, and as such he did not inherit much of their wealth at all, and all the wealth naziks family did have came entirely from his own hard work and businesses in gold selling and jewelry making. nazik's family was originally from baghdad, however after jasim's falling out with his family, they packed their bags and moved to dhi qar when nazik was 6 and azra was 2, which is, of course, where nazik met shanya.

nazik quickly found herself enjoying shanya's company, and even introducing shanya to her brother, for a chance to get the girl to step out of her shell and meet new people, for nazik had noticed how lonely shanya seemed to be, with how all of her cousins were decades upon decades older than her, and having no free time to spend with her at all. nazik found herself skipping many of her classes to be with shanya, almost getting caught by her father many times, but she simply could not get away from her. in her free time she brought shanya books to read with her, though most of the time she sat by and listened to shanya play the oud, yes, the one she often borrowed from shaheen. nazik hadnt realized it, but she had fallen for shanya, hard and deep. one day, after returning home later than she should, after spending a night with shanya, she came back to find her mother dead. nadeen had been sick for years now, but nobody had expected her to die so suddenly. naziks life changed overnight. in the morning, she went to visit shanya one last time, a meeting which resulted in a huge useless argument, before nazik ran off, going home to finish her packing. that night, her, her brother, and her father took a carriage all the way to baghdad. she left shanya with no last goodbye, no last hug, and that is her one regret, though she does not blame herself.

jasim never quite made up with his family, his parents however begrudgingly gave him an estate to own in baghdad, which they settled in. as an adult, nazik was practically the only one working in the house. jasim had given up on life and on fatherhood after nadeen's death, forcing nazik to mother her own brother, and to grow up faster than she shouldve. and while jasim was useless, azra picked up traveling as a hobby, untied and free of all burdens, he was almost never home, and always off doing his own thing outside of iraq, leaving nazik to labor on her own, completely oblivious to the exhaustion she was facing, for she hid it all from him.

nazik, of course, has her own set of people in baghdad, and one of them was a pen pal, jameela, who she did not recognize as shanyas cousin, and whom she had urged to come to baghdad to meet. jameela had of course come to baghdad with her twin brother jamil and her cousin shanya. however, shanya and nazik would not stumble upon eachother until much, much later after shanyas coming to baghdad.

Shaahida (Al-Malaika):

shaahida, the witness, was the second born goddess from "The Creator", coming only after her eldest sister, huda, "The Gift". sources speculate she was born from The Creator's left eye, to bear witness over humanity, and to help her brother, hashim, the punisher, who was born right behind her, in trials, so he may adequately punish both mortals and their divine siblings alike.

of course it must be explained that The Creator is the one true god of the universe, having created it all with humans and all. in their divine eternalness, they split themselves into 99 different pieces, and the one last 100th piece would be created when all 99 pieces set aside their differences and finish their business on earth, and come together to create a new "creator". which is to say, the 99 lesser gods created were much weaker in comparison to The Creator, having a limited set of skills, and being very close to human like with their feuds and problems and personalities. some say there is no way all 99 of them would ever come together to become whole again, for each of them held such wildly different ideologies, and often butted heads with eachother. sometimes mortals wonder if they truly did come from one beings.

each god has their own set of followers that follow certain rules for worship. some gods have easier rules than others, some want all the worship, some want none. while, worshipping one god means you believe in the existence of the 98 remaining, it does not necessarily mean you believe in their coming together again to be one, and it does not mean you believe in them coming from one being. those beliefs depend on the individual and the family they hail from. there is however another religion made from these using all these factors (believing in all gods, their coming from one being and their eventual unity) called "Istiqbal", in the way that its followers await the future for the 'inevitable' unity of these gods.

that being said, shaahida was never one to love her job. as the witness for the punisher, she did not last long. she kept it up merely 3 millennia before giving it up, opting to wander the world meaninglessly for a few couple of centuries, before settling in a temple and watching people worship at her feet all day. along the way, she found herself obsessing with a mortal girl, a girl named batool, and a worshipper of hers. she possessive as much as she was obsessive, and batool did not by any means hate the attention. until one day, when she revealed to shaahida that was to get married to a man soon. of course, that angered shaahida greatly, and with her anger came eyes on them, and the public soon found out about their situation. it was not homosexuality itself that was forbidden, but the act of mingling with mortals at the time was. hashim came, with his divine punishment, and stoned them, though whether he truly wanted to or not was debated. some even said he had someone else come and punish them in his stead. shaahida was hung up and stoned for a whole year, before her mortal lover which of course died before her. after her punishment, shaahidas reputation was tainted forever. humans misunderstood the punishment, thinking it for homosexuality, and quickly forbid it. which, in turn, made shaahida a symbol for homosexuality, and specifically, lesbian love. she would gain a few followers for this, though not many, and all worshipped her in secret. for the next few centuries or millennia, shaahida wandered aimlessly amongst the earth in a disguise, though she did not dare get close to any mortal during that time.

until one day, it suddenly became allowed to get with mortals. a lot of time had passed, and most of her siblings had slowly but surely been becoming more lax on many things. it was frustrating, to think that if her and batool's love was delayed a few mere centuries, it wouldve blossomed to fruition.

shaahida let herself out again, and began to mingle once more with the mortals. she met a writer one day, a man who calls himself abd al sahib. without knowing of her divinity, he spoke to her of his want to write a book about the witness. she smiled, thinking it was flattering. the two got closer, though she did not love him in the way she loved batool, nor in the way lovers loved eachother. he however, was obviously in love and head over heels. and he was not stupid, he soon learned of her divinity and her being the subject of his book, which only made him get closer to her. a series of events unfolds, many that were out of shaahidas control, and she finds herself bearing a child, a mortal child, shanya. for the first few months she had not truly processed it, until one day abd al sahib pointed it out, grinning with pride at the fact that he had impregnated her. her actions next had been a long time coming, she had enough. she killed abd al sahib, which, of course, was a sin. for gods could not murder their subjects and humans in general. it was fine however, for she hid all the clues. and when she brought shanya into the world, she was disgusted. not specifically by shanya, but the events that led up to her birth.

she sends shanya away and goes into hiding, hoping hashim would not find this out.

she loses herself completely in this loneliness and new found hopelessness she has dug herself into, and thinks the only way to get out of it and to be free is to simply become the new creator, to end the world prematurely. and maybe shanya was simply a tool given to her by the world to achieve this.

with that, her loneliness is broken only slightly, and only briefly by her meeting a new woman. nadeen. they got close over a short period of time in baghdad, before shaahida realized nadeen was already married, and already had a few month old daughter. it was shortly after this realization did nadeen leave for dhi qar with her husband and daughter, and shaahida never had much of a chance to see her again. and there she returns to solitude.

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and thats all for now! this is barely even half of the story, but again, its just intros, and it's already so long so i dont want to add more. i know not many will read all of this anyway so ive only written this for myself so its easier for me to see the info of my own story here. anyway! heres some art for the characters mentioned!

nadeen (left) and batool (right)! this is all i have for now! if youve made it this far, tysm for reading!