#ahzi.

''They mean, does Ma'Ridhinna fall in love with men or women?'' She seems bemused. ''Ma'Ridhinna is a woman --- she couldn't fall in love with another woman, it isn't --- it is a silly question! She is a woman, so she can only love men, yes?''

       Ma’Ridhinna does not remember how her siblings laughed. She focuses on that as long as she can, trying to recall if Sivarra was the one whose nose twitched ridiculously, no --- perhaps Ashirr, who would giggle with the soft sound of a river, or maybe that was Dar'ssi who laughed like that --- just so she doesn't have to thinkk about what is so close to the truth.       Because she knows her siblings have laughed at addicts. They would come by the house sometimes, shaking like sand in wind, or spewing out whatever their imaginations would tell them was true, and Ma'Ridhinna (La'Ridhinna, then) would imitate them so that Sivarra and Ashirr were not so scared.       And they have often laughed at Ma'Ridhinna, especially in the last few years before she had to leave them. The Khajiit had taken them to a festival once. Right in the middle of town. She'd gone to the market in the morning when the pink dawn was still crawling up the sky and there it had been. Singing and dancing and all the bright colours of the desert cracking in stained glass over the street. Melodies echoing from white-plastered houses. Ma'Ridhinna returned home that day with no food but she took her siblings to the festival and they had laughed at her (she cannot remember how it sounded!), told her the streets were empty, asked her why are you pretending again?       ''The stranger is pretending, yes?'' Almost pleading in tone. ''This one is not an addict, and the stranger could not know about this one's siblings. It is -- not true.''