God of Iron

Moise dives head first into the cold water and comes out gasping desperately for air.

She tries to swim to the other side but the wounded arm and exhaustion stop her from making any progress. 

Before she sinks, she summons all her energy to call a bolt of lightning which draws her out of the water to a destination up north. 

The bolt drops her in the middle of a road, just outside the boundary of the storm, and Moise rolls over coughing up water along pieces of plastic that fell into her mouth. 

As she looks up she sees a blinding flash and hears the deafening horns of an incoming car in front of her and a trailer behind her. She quickly dashes off the road before they both flatten her and takes refuge at the base of a nearby tree. 

Too tired to continue walking, she sits under a tree and cuts off a small piece of her skirt to dress her wound before falling asleep. 

The next morning, she is woken up by the smell of burning charcoal and the sound of chirping birds. 

She rubs her eyes and yawns, still feeling the wounds from yesterday's escape. 

Moise follows the smell of the fire and comes across a small collection of houses. She watches from afar as a woman stirs a pot of beans with her young child playing in the sand nearby, another one wrapped tightly on her back. 

To her right she sees a line of clothes being spread out and gets an idea. She picks up a stone and throws it at the child's feet, causing him to fall on the floor crying. The mother rushes to carry her baby inside while Moise uses the opportunity to steal her clothes off the line. 

Moise puts on a flowing white blouse, wrapper and scarf to cover her hair and distinctive clothes before walking back onto the road in an attempt to find her way back to Chidinma's house. 

She wanders aimlessly eastward, trying to avoid human contact as much as possible but after a few hours of walking, hunger and the aroma of nearby food forces her to stop. 

Moise watches from afar as two people order three wraps of amala, ewedu with gbegiri and two pieces of beef soaked in stew. 

After practising the order for a few minutes, Moise nervously approaches the table, the woman serving is taken aback by Moise's blue eyes and after a moment of of staring asks, "Oya ki lo fe je?". 

Moise repeats the order she heard before and the server packs her order in a bag for her on the table. 

Before she can take the food and leave the woman stretches her palm out and asks, "Owo da?".  Moise nervously searches the pockets of her stolen clothes and finds nothing. 

Just before the server can take the food back behind the table, Moise grabs it and runs straight into the bush. The server makes a faint hearted attempt at chasing her shouting, "Ole! Omo ale! Ogun ma pa e!".

Once safely far away from the angry server, Moise takes a deep breath and opens the container to examine her catch. 

She takes a sniff of the soup and begins coughing uncontrollably. After taking a moment to compose herself she takes a ball of the amala and dips it in the stew but is unable to swallow it. 

Disappointed, Moise tosses the bowl aside and lays her head against a tree thinking, "All that trouble for nothing". 

Far out in the distance, she hears a chicken going out for a stroll and moves towards it for a closer look. Sensing a chance to finally eat something, Moise begins stalking it and once in a decent position, pounces, but it flies up a tree brach before she can grab it. 

She tries multiple times to catch it, jumping from tree to tree but still ends up empty handed, with feathers being the only parts of the chicken that enter her mouth. 

As she tries to cough up the feathers lodged deep in her throat, she feels the vibration of footsteps behind her. 

Quickly, Moise turns to see a dark humanoid figure clothed in palm fronds and blasts it without hesitation. 

The figure defects the lightning bolt and Moise rushes in to kick its side but recoils in pain when she feels nothing but solid iron. 

Undeterred, she keeps clawing at the unfazed figure, even as it grabs her by the throat and raises her up in the air saying, "You are beaten, stop resisting". 

After a few moments of struggling, Moise finally raises her arms in defeat and the strange man drops her to the ground.

As she lies coughing and gasping for air the man mocks her saying, "I did not know your people to be petty thieves". Moise looks up and replies, "I... have... no idea *ahem* what you are talking about". 

The man replies, "You stole those clothes, you stole a bowl of soup, you even tried to steal this chicken". 

Moise gets up, pointing accusingly at him and shouts, "You can't prove that!".

The chicken perches on the man's shoulder and says, "Ole! Omo ale! Ogun ma pa e!" before flying away. 

The man and Moise silently exchange snide looks at each other until she finally admits, "Okay okay I stole them, what do you want me to do?" 

The man replies, "Go back to your world" but she angrily turns back saying, "I can't, if I could I wouldn't even be here". 

"Before you were here you came from somewhere, go back there. There are enough of your kind running around this in this world already, don't bring your trouble to my side" he says before walking away. 

Curious, Moise sweetens her tone and follows him asking, "What do you mean by 'your kind'?". He ignores her as she keeps asking, "Where did you see them? My name is Moise, the King's daughter, did they ask about me?". 

Moise grabs the man's arm shouting, "Talk!" and he responds by flinging her up a tree. As the man turns around, he comes face to face with an angry Moise hanging from the branch of another tree.

Frustrated, he sighs, "Since you you don't want to leave, you can help me with some few errands, bring me three iron axe heads along with one male goat, you must not steal it". 

Moise jumps down from the tree asking, "But I have no money, how will I pay for the goat?" and the man angrily responds, "That is your problem" before disappearing into the side of a rock. 

Sequence 2 

Hungry and exhausted, Moise heads east in search of the closest human settlement she can find. 

Along the way she comes across an increasing number of small shrines containing burnt pieces of metal and animal bones. 

There are also several plastic bottles of discarded soft drinks strewn around and she bites through them to consume their contents. 

Feeling slightly refreshed and energised, Moise continues walking until she reaches the boundary of a small town. 

She lies in the grass for a few minutes, observing for any signs of life when she hears a voice say "Ekaro O". 

Moise turns and tries to summon her spear but summons a spoon instead, fortunately for her, it was a grey parrot talking and not a person. 

Looking down at the spoon, she gets an idea and tosses it at the bird to chase it away. 

She moves away from the town to a secluded area and starts using her spark to summon various metal items. For several minutes she summons different types of metal objects from cans to coins and jewellery but still no axe. 

Frustrated, she boosts her power just a bit and manages to draw a cutlass from the ground which barely misses her head and lodges itself to the side of a tree. 

Moise continues to boost her power so she can draw heavier metals and after thirty minutes of trying she manages to get one axe to fly towards her feet. 

She follows the direction the axe came from and finds two others buried in the ground. 

Moise thinks, "Finally I got the axes, now to get the goat" amidst the rumbling of her empty stomach.

Hunger drives Moise to move into the town in search of something to eat and notices a large gathering of people dressed in white moving towards a collection of canopies. She follows them and marvels at the sight of a large party with music, dancing and most importantly, food. 

Moise carefully cuts out dirty parts of her sleeve with a pair of scissors she summoned and walks down to the canopies in an attempt to blend in. She quietly joins the queue for food but once it gets to her turn, the caterers stare at her stained white clothes and hiss before giving food to the next person. 

The party guests shoo her off the line and she goes to sulk far away from the crowd thinking, "Maybe I should not have left after all".

Her hunger pains get more intense so Moise swallows her pride and decides the go back saying, "Royalty be damned, I'm eating before the sun sets". 

She adjusts her hair tie, pulls up her sleeves, and walks back to the canopy, carrying plates from empty tables consuming the leftovers. 

After eating and drinking to her heart's content, Moise deposits the plates by the catering table and settles down to watch the party goers dance. 

She watches as the women get sprayed with cash and decides to join them. Her unique and sensual style of dancing draws the attention of numerous men who rush to watch to spray her with money in appreciation.

Moise stuffs as much cash as she can into her clothes before other women gang up to chase her away from the venue. 

With a full belly and cash in hand, Moise asks a little girl for directions to the market and she says, "Lo si titi bayi" pointing to a clutch of houses behind her. 

Moise pretends to understand what she just said and moves in that direction hoping to find a goat to buy. 

After wandering around for a bit, she comes across a small feed lot where dozens of goats, rams and three cows are being sold. She walks up a group of men standing around and asks, "How much?", pointing to a black he-goat. 

One of the men walks forward and replies, "Madam, that one is male, let me get correct female goat with sweet meat for you, that one is 15,000". 

As the man runs to get a white she-goat, Moise removes all the money in her clothes, about 19,800 naira, and hands it to the other men. As they count the cash in excitement, their boss returns and angrily shouts, "Where did she go?".

They turn and realise Moise has vanished with their goat and an argument ensues between the three men. 

Sequence 3

Moise returns to the spot where she met the strange man with the goat on her neck and axes in her right hand. The man emerges from the ground behind her saying, "You did well, your dancing was most impressive". 

Moise turns around, dropping the goat, and replies, "So you were watching me?". 

The man leans in towards Moise's left ear whispering, "I see everything in this town" before taking the items Moise brought for him. 

The man examines the axes remaking, "You could have gotten something a bit newer ..." then carries the goat, saying, "... but this will do fine for dinner". 

As he turns to walk away, Moise asks, "I got what you asked so you're going to help me right?". 

The man glances back and replies, "I said no such thing, now go away". 

Furious, Moise rips off her white clothes and throws them on the ground screaming, "Do you know how much effort it took to get these!"

The man ignores her ramblings and walks with the goat through the side of a soft rock, Moise sees this and runs after him in a desperate attempt to get answers, but her claws meet nothing but hard stone. 

Realising that her struggle was in vain, Moise uses the last of her spark to shoot a bolt of lightning at the rock and walks away with tears in her eyes. 

She collapses to the ground and begins sobbing by the side of a tree, attracting the attention of a nearby storm cloud which blocks the evening sun and floods the area with rain. 

After twenty minutes, the man walks out and extends his hand to Moise saying, "Come in before you get sick". 

Initially Moise ignores his offer until he says, "I am not leaving this spot until you do" after which she wipes her tears and follows him to the side of a nearby rock. 

The walk for some time until they get so a small room carved out of the ground filled with small iron sculptures, old iron artefacts and several books. 

The goat has already been skinned and hung, ready to be roasted so the man asks Moise to start a fire with whatever spark she has left.

As the goat roasts, the man asks Moise about her life and she narrates how she got to this point. He simply shakes his head as he hands Moise a piece of meat which she tries to accept it with her left hand. Seeing this, he gently slaps her hand away, saying, "Right hand, it's one of the things you need to learn here". 

Moise sighs and takes the correction before asking, "How did you end up here, all alone?".

The man takes a deep breath and replies, "I am an exile, like you" as he fills two cups with water and hands one to her. 

Recieving the cup with her right hand, Moise asks, "What did you do?" and he sits telling her, "When I was younger I would rush into situations without thinking and did many things I now regret. This is my way to make amends for my past". 

"What about your family, don't they need you?", Moise asks as she takes a sip of water. 

He pauses and looks her straight in the eyes saying, "It is better this way". 

Not wanting to cause an argument, Moise leaves the issue and eats the meat offered to her in silence before falling asleep. 

The next morning Moise wakes up to see the man polishing massive axe and recoils in fear, knocking over several iron figurines as she does so. 

He tells her, "Calm yourself child, this weapon will never kill again". 

"How reassuring" Moise sarcastically replies, inching away slowly as he stands up saying, "I don't need it to kill you… ". 

The man walks over to a jug and pours a cup of medicine for her saying, "... but if you don't get help soon that wound will". 

Moise reluctantly accepts the bitter mixture and replies, "Until then", before swallowing it all at once. 

After waiting 20 minutes for the fever to go down, Moise stands up and dusts off her clothes saying, "Thank you for your kindness but I must be going". 

The confused man asks, "Why? Why are you so eager to leave? Despite the people hunting you, despite your injuries, why are you so eager to die?".

Moise looks back responding, "I can't stay here, I can't go back so the only way to go is forward". 

The man sighs and walks her out saying, "Though I can not take you to your world, I can get you close enough" before cutting open a portal with one mighty swing of his axe. 

Moise looks at the portal and back at the man asking, "Why are you helping me?" and the man rests against the axe saying, "Iron can not stop lightning, it can only guide it. I hope you will make the right choice when the time comes". 

Moise looks back and thanks the man one last time before walking through the portal to find herself back inside Chidinma's house. 

The End?