#secati

Origin:

The first thing she ever saw was the sunset on the golden sands of the Sahara desert and a memory, the single one she had, flashing before it everytime she blinked.

S3 Cat1

She couldn't understand what that meant. She didn't try to, in fact. Her instinct was yelling at her to move. Do something, anything, but not stay there. And so she did. She started to crawl in the warm sand in hopes of reaching the top of one of the dunes, to be able to know where she was, or where she should go. But once she got on top, the only thing she could see was more dunes. Having no other clue, she continued for hours. Eventually, she learned how to walk, even though she kept tumbling down everytime the sand would give in under her weight, but it was better than crawling in it. When the sun came back up, much to her surprise, Kal'Najii continued to walk, although with much more difficulty. Her legs started to ache, a first and bothersome sensation aside from the warm sand. Then her back started to burn with the heat of the midday sun. Later, it's her throat who turned against her and became sore. Life was painful, she thought. She didn't see any reason to stop as long as she was standing, right? Her body led her to an unknown shadow. Now it was her midsection which started to ache, but this soreness was different. It was like a pit in her stomach, that called for something. She started to slow down, sometimes even stopped to dig in the sand, in the hopes of finding what her stomach was calling. But she had the feeling that even if she found something, her sore throat wouldn't let it inside her body. So she continued looking for something to stop the pain. The shadow she has been chasing had disappeared... The day was long and tiresome. Kal'Najii didn't have the strength to walk, and she didn't understand what she should do or where to go. She felt panic for the first time. Despair too. She eventually laid down on the scorching hot sand without a care in the world. ...Hours passed and the sun was setting again. Kal'Najii woke up from slumber once again, but much to her surprise, the pain was still there. She didn't understand her body and grew infuriated, but the cooling air renewed her determination. She walked for hours again, enjoying the coolness against her burnt skin. Her ears deciphered sound she had heard before but didn't care about back then. The sound of life: bodies walking or slithering on the same sand as her. She had no idea how far those things were, but if they were alive, maybe they could ease her pain. She walked and walked again, until the previous sounds were replaced by a new one, unknown to her. She hurried there, where she could see strange new forms sprouting from the ground. When she arrived, there was commotion, loud noises compared to what she's used to. Strange animals with a body and limbs like hers were sitting down together under trees, near a whole full of liquid, where some of the bipedals were crouched. When she arrived, everyone shrieked and backed away from her. True they looked very different, but was she that dangerous looking?

She hadn't noticed her tentacles had slipped out of her slits, slowly waving towards the liquid.

Kal'Najii avoided the humans and went straight for the liquid. It was fresh, fresher than the night air, and her throat demanded it. She drank for the first time in her life, in utter satisfaction. The humans just looked at her, dumbfounded, as she made her way back to them. Calmly, she bowed her head, unable to talk, to thank them for bringing her here. Without the noise they had made, Kal'Najii would still be wandering the world. The humans, that mistook her for a djinn and feared her as such, calmed down too, and offered the tall creature some meat as an offering. Curious, Kal'Najii ate it whole, and once again satisfaction filled her as she felt the meat slide down into her entrails, making a part of the pain in her stomach disappear. She looked at them, demanding another, and another. The humans kept giving, afraid of being eaten instead. After a while, Kal'Najii felt the same exhaustion from the day before, and laid down on the cooling sand, next to her saviors. She lived and traveled with them for a while. As thanks for saving her, she started to protect them from the danger of wilderness and bandits, since she could clearly see she was stronger and bigger than any of them. They later grew fond of the beast themselves, giving her a name and story as a djinn. They believed her tentacles were made from the night sky and stars, that her golden eyes imprisonned rays of the sun, and that her silver mane was made from the moon's light.

About Kal'Najii:

Kal'Najii didn't choose her name, the Bedouin that took her in did. "Najii" comes from "Najima" (نجمة ) meaning "star" in arabic while "Kal" (قال) means "he said". Both those words were shortened and combined to give a poetic name to the creature based on their appearance. One could simply interpret her name as "he talked to the star", but Kal'Najii prefers the more poetic "Star Envoy"

Another interesting thing about her name: Kal'Najii as no defined gender, and it is reflecting in their name, that has both a female (star) and male (he said) part.

As said above, Kal'Najii has no gender but prefers she/her pronouns. She doesn't mind people using they/them or he/him pronouns, but she will take it as a sign of defiance if the person uses he/him constantly when they know her preferred pronouns.

Kal'Najii has no idea of her real origin. She is convinced she is a djinn and feels closer to the humans who taught her how to survive in the desert than anyone else.