Malcolm continued to travel for the better part of the day until the leopard called him over secretly to tell him that they were near a small hamlet and to remember to do what the leopard told him if Malcolm was serious about making that blood pact.
Malcolm nodded and proceeded forward until he came in front of a small hamlet. Then he entered through, now that he had something to cover him he was no longer so nervous. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling that anything could happen at anytime especially if Malcolm ran into any mystics that felt like doing more then looking and talking down on him.
"Just gotta get my bearings right now I'll worry about that when its time." Malcolm calms himself down with this bit of pep talk.
He asked a local that pointed over to where the elder stayed. It was a modest sized rondavel Malcolm came to the front door and knocked three times then waited for a bit. After some shuffling noises were made the door cracked open slightly and an old woman appeared behind the door.
"H-hello young man can I help you with something? I don't think I've seen you before." The old woman spoke plainly.
"That would be the case ma'am,see I'm a wanderer at the moment, I asked around and the locals said you could help me get myself together before I head past the outer periphery." Malcolm spoke gently to the old lady who smiled in response.
"It's not too late I guess if you don't mind could I get your name young man?" Malcolm thought for a moment before replying.
"Call me black madam."
"Call you...black?" The woman said in slight confusion.
"That's the name indeed. I hope there's no problem with it?" Malcolm said playfully
"No problem no problem, I'll set up a room for you in the back just come in and sit down for a few ok black?"
"Sure thing Ma'am and I just wanna say..thank you." A genuine appreciation Malcolm felt towards the old woman was expressed plainly without much grandeur. The woman smiled and let him inside.
Malcolm for the first time well and truly understood that this was a new world who's people are similar but also different from what he's use to on earth. It's been a while since a stranger went out of their way to help him out in any capacity. This made Malcolm feel.. good now that he can catch a breather from the long night and day he's had.
He entered in what he assumed was the living room the setup is definitely traditional but it's all well organized and clean so he didn't mind it in fact something felt right about the setup in Malcolm's mind. The ground was bare neath his feet but now inside the rondavel it felt comfortable.
The woman waved her arm and a gentle force swept through the rondavel. Only then did Malcolm realize that the old woman before him was a mystic and she used an art just now to bring over a bedroll made up tiger hide.
The woman turned around to see the astonished look in Malcolm's eye. She gave a slight smile.
"Don't have that look for too long or a fly might find a new home in there young black." She points to Malcolm's open mouth and a gentle force shuts his mouth subtlety.
It took a moment before Malcolm realized what happened before it clicked to him. He inwardly told himself to be careful to not disrespect this old woman. After that he took the bedroll and sat down on it for a few. But the longer he sat down the more he realized that he was truly tired.
It must not be forgotten that the last time he had a long rest was on earth the previous night before he had met up with Tay. After that it was school then the mysteries man Malcolm met and after that deal that nearly ended with the young man's deaths. Processing that the transportation to a new world and dealing with the woman Natasha and the leopard. Now after some time to sit down and think Malcolm came to a strange conclusion.
"Maybe Isaiah was right, I might really be a super nigga." Malcolm sighs deeply thinking of the people he knew from earth.
"You really better keep to your word you old bastard." Malcolm mutters quietly.
"Hey lil black what you want for dinner?"The woman asks from the other room.
"Shoot, I don't know what you got?"
"There's some extra meat from a pumbaa one of the kind hunters dropped off a couple days back. I've been keeping it preserved so the meats is fresh." Malcolm thinks for a moment before asking?
"If you don't mind me asking but, how do you keep the food persevered out here ma'am?"
"You don't know? Wait a moment I'll come out and show you in a sec." The old woman replied patiently.
A few minutes past while the woman was setting up the guest room, Malcolm was reflecting on all the events that led up to the current present. He suddenly thought of the word to call the present scenario.
"Damn I really got isakaied didn't I? Still now that I think about it how is me coming here going to get that old nigga home? If anything why couldn't he have just shot himself through that portal..but maybe it's not so simple?" In the mist of Malcolm's pondering the old woman comes back to the living room with a skinned warthog hovering above her hand.
"Start that fire up for me if you don't mind lil black?"
"Sure thing Ma'am." Malcolm replied confidently enough but in actuality he didn't know how to start a fire up without a lighter of some kind. The drawbacks of being raised in the first world is showing its ugly side right about now. He struggled about for a couple of minutes before he managed to light the low fire. The old woman then came back with the warthog.
"You looked like you had a hard time getting that fire going, do I gotta teach you how to light a fire to?"
"No need for all of that ma'am I'll do just fine on that front." Malcolm waved off woman politely.
"Anyhow so how do we cook this thing and do you have any seasoning?" Malcolm asked plainly.
The woman stopped what she doing for a moment to look at Malcolm in disbelief and bewilderment. Malcolm sensing that he might of made a mistake quietly replied.
"Wait no of course of course why wouldn't you have any seasoning that was a stupid question, im sorry miss!" Malcolm said pleadingly
The old woman lifted her left hand and grabbed at the air with her thumb and index finger pressed closely.
Malcolm felt a stingy pressure on his right ear as if someone was..was.
"Pinching really? This what you're using your powers for? Cmon grandma please I swear it was just a slip of the tongue! Ahh I beg you please have mercy in your heart!"
The old woman was actually starting to laugh slightly and even Malcolm who was on the receiving end of the stick had a real smile on his face despite the pain. Overall things were progressing smoothly.
Back in the Ashuwa city Yara was just getting done with a normal day in the academy. A normal day for Yara involved many things, first teachers and students going out of their way to give her preferential treatment, then many of the clans young heirs and nobles trying to worm their way into her quarters, along with that there was the occasional attempts of other noble young women to sabotage her image and subsequently her father's image.
Overall in Yara's opinion it was a normal day. The class she was in was made up of the top students in the academy. All of which come from a good background and have a good chance of becoming not just mystics but powerful ones at that. There was to be on last outing to the outer periphery before the students were to be examined for their aptitude,then subsequently received their first art. Yara just wanted it all to be over with so she could start to go her own way out of the spotlight.
She walks home from school when she hears a familiar soothing voice inside her head.
"Sweetie I know how you feel, I wasnt much better off myself when I was your age. In fact I snapped off on people quite frequently that was until I met your father. He truly was the only one that understood me back then." The voice sighs in meloncoly. Yara stops for a moment before she keeps walking.
"Mother even after all this time how come you have to hide as a thought in my mind away from father?"
"Oh little Yara my gift to the world, it's like I've always told you. While your father is a good man I knew even before he took the tribe leader position that something changed in him and that something I believe will bring great harm to the whole tribe if given the chance."
"Mother I know but what is it exactly I saw father myself earlier and he held no kind of malicious thought or emotion when he held me?" Yara questioned
"Child if I knew exactly, I would of told you by now. While I have some plausible guesses I don't want to disclose nothing except the truth when all is revealed. Until then at least fully become a mystic first and receive your first art before we do anything. Understand?" Her mother spoke with finality and authority on the matter. Yara nodded in understanding.
The night past by in a breeze for the inhabitants of the region of Capri. At least it did for Malcolm after he got a good fill of dried pork. Who knew even without modern cooking equipment that food made in another world could taste like your mama's cooking.
The sun shined on young Malcolm's face as if to nudge him awake itself. Malcolm yawned like a old lion got up to do a few stretches before looking out the window at the blazing sun in the sky and the hamlet around him.
"Now this is something I can get used to." Malcolm mutters quietly to himself.
He breathes in the natural air before turning around to see the old woman already up and behind him. Malcolm jolts slightly at the unexpected sudden appearance of the woman but then he remembered she's a mystic and probably not a low level one at that. After the brief scare the woman laughs slightly at Malcolm's expense.
The two exchange a bit of bickering along with good mornings between them. After that Malcolm was told that from today he would start working. Now at first this made sense to Malcolm after all he's the one crashing at the old lady's crib, so he wasn't put off by working in the first place. Unfortunately nothing is quite so simple because before he knew it he was made to head out and grab himself some basic farm tools and for no lack of a better term go to the fields.
Clearly whatever deity reigned over this world had known of Malcolm's origins and ancestry because even the way the old woman delivered this information made Malcolm shutter inwardly. He tried disregard this notion except when he got to the other farmers and was told his task he quietly shed tears inwardly.
He comes to a small patch carved in the savanna enclosed with a small wooden fence and what he saw made him want to piss blood.
In the lenthly field ahead of rose many thin plants that had a few equally thin branches extending out from them slightly. Then what grew off of these thin branches one might wonder? Well it's the one, the only all to familiar fluffy white cash crop known as cotton.
So here young Malcolm stood alone. Staring down the cotton army that stared back, waving in the wind as if mocking Malcolm to hurry along and do his job like they told you to already.
"Well it really is a wicked world then. I got no choice after all." Malcolm sighs loudly and with a basket in hand he indeed begins picking that cotton like the good boah he always was.