Tale In The Red Sand

Chapter Ten

Hibaaq knew Ayeeyo Warsam would have her head if she were to interrupt her lounging yet again so after a while trying out breathing exercises in the downstairs bathroom, she fled up the stairs to her bedroom as soon as she checked the coast was clear. Her heart beat erratically within her rib cage from the situation she had narrowly escaped.

"Phew." she sighed out, patting down her heaving chest.

"You look like you've just ran from a ghost." Layla stated, casually sprawled out across Hibaaq's bed in a starfish position.

"Layla"?! Hibaaq startled, grabbing the material of her baati from her chest. "You scared me, what are you doing here"? She asked, shaking her head as she walked over to the foot of the bed where layla's feet dangled. Hibaaq towered over her, her fists on her hips and a slipper clad foot rhythmically tapping the marble floor underneath. She rose her sharp brow questioningly.

"Oh don't be such a bore, you should be happy, I don't give out entertainment for free." Layla said jestingly, rising up to rest on her elbows.

Hibaaq quietly chuckled to herself as she grabbed one of her accent pillows, she played around with the braided tassels, smoothed out the roughened linen and fluffed up the feathers inside with a hard punch before launching it at her unsuspecting friend. Once it had successfully hit its target, she recovered the pillow from the floor and began to hit Layla with it and not as damaging as she would've preferred, though the sound of Layla's muffled giggles as she hid her face within the sheets caused Hibaaq to pause her assault.

"What are you laughing for, do you know what your brother was about to tell me!" Hibaaq exclaimed, breathless by the end of her sentence as she tucked her makeshift weapon under her arm to gently massage her forehead with her free hand.

"Hibaaq... what happened. What is it?" Layla slowly sat up, peering worriedly at Hibaaq who paced back and forth between the two wooden bed posts.

She stopped, easing down on her bed with a huff. She wouldn't give her only friend the pleasure of torturing her endlessly by making fun of the unrequited feelings she harboured for all these years for her older brother, which Hibaaq thought she was so deluded to believe it was mutual. Perhaps, he came up here to tell her she could stop blatantly liking him under the disguise of searching for his sister because he was going to get married, even if it wasn't to the girl in Hargeisa - but no matter, it wouldn't have been Hibaaq anyway? She didn't understand, and she didn't want to and was not ready to come to terms with any of the wild assumptions her mind came up with. Maybe Layla knew the answer, but their friendship turned sisterhood was never worth breaking over uncomfortable facts.

Hibaaq was yet again relieved to have Ercole interrupt the time he did for she didn't know if her heart could take the premature words that were about to fall from his lips.

Therefore, she had to resort to...

"He came looking for you just now, said you rebelled."

Layla gave her a sceptical glance from the corner of her eye before nodding. "I did."

"You did."

"So?" Layla drawled, her eyebrows rising in a carefree manner as she shrugged.

"So, your mother asked him to come looking for you, and this whole time you were up here. When did you even get in?" Hibaaq questioned, exasperated, her head pulsating from an oncoming headache.

"I saw that you were with your grandmother out in the garden and didn't want to disturb you, so I saw myself in. You took very long though."