scheherazade，

... storyteller of the fading stars.

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

.. they say there is a woman who walks west; she remembers babylon, persia, and the moon over chang’an. if one becomes lost upon the silk road, they need only listen for the sound of a camel bell. her name, they say, is scheherazade.

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

i know only this: when i was lost, a woman walking west led me home. i asked where i might repay her kindness. the woman merely pointed westward. “there,” she answered.
“and where is that?”
she looked at me then—a wistful thing i have never forgotten. “home.”

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

* from the records of an old merchant in dunhuang.

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

on particularly cold nights, i think i still hear the sound of camel bells beyond my door. there are those who say she remembers babylon. others insist she has seen the moon above chang’an with her own eyes. such stories belong to scholars and not merchants. as for me,

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

i am not an orchard. i am not spring. my tears do not resemble rain. the moon is not in my pupil. you have no right to love me as one loves the fantasy of an inaccessible world.

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

.. they say there is a woman who walks west; she remembers babylon, persia, and the moon over chang’an. if one becomes lost upon the silk road, they need only listen for the sound of a camel bell. her name, they say, is scheherazade.

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

@2DRP_AU / greetings! can we just drop her name? it’s scheherazade. and the language preference will be english, thank you very much.

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

@2DRP_AU / pomegranate, 2/5 (kind of second-encounter like?) and in english, thank you.

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

private letter (unsent),
[i fear i have fallen in love with the woman called scheherazade. she looked upon me with great kindness and informed me that she had known my grandfather when he was a child.]

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

all ended with her eyes .. hell, purgatory, paradise.

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

jade gate pass, unknown year,
[if you hear a bell in the desert, do not fear. fear, instead, when you hear nothing at all.]

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

journal of a guiyi army’s soldier, liangzhou,
[the foreign woman listened quietly as we spoke of chang’an. when i lamented that i would likely never see it again, she said, ‘i understand.’ yet, when asked if she had ever been to chang’an, she merely smiled.]

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

undated, recovered in dunhuang,
[she speaks persian, aramaic, arabic, sogdian, and chinese with equal ease. when asked where she learned them, she replied, ‘i had time.’]

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

year 861 CE. near nishapur,
[i met a woman clothed in green who asked me whether the apricot trees still bloomed in persepolis. i informed her persepolis had long since fallen. she appeared saddened, though only for a moment.]

[scheherazade， @mehraye]

@2DRP_AU ”must one choose? i have found that people are remarkably capable of living with both.”