The story of Shahrazad and her daughter Ha starts on the hills of an unknown village. As village storyteller Shahrazad wraps the children and adults alike each night with a story. Tales terrifying and epic alike leave the audience spellbound, and her daughter Ha has inherited her gift, and maybe something more. Though after each time Shah tells a fantasy Ha asks her to talk about a true tale, one of her mother’s great childhood love, Shah always declines.
One night, Ha is telling a scary story about monsters in the woods, and as she speaks her voice takes on a ethereal, spellbinding quality. The children listening are terrified, and as she closes the story, yelling the final word to startle them, they shriek. Abide, a homely, stout woman hurries over to her terrified daughter and begins to yell at Ha for telling such scary stories and as she does so, Shah walks over to investigate. After rolling her eyes and giving a half-hearted apology, Shah crouches down to Abida’s daughter’s level. She too tells a story, but this one is happy, fanciful and it too wraps the children, soothing them. Abida leaves afterwards, though still fuming.
Later that night, in their home, Shah tells Ha that she really shouldn’t scare the young ones. Shah’s mother, Mama Rawiya, Raw for short, laughs and tells Ha not to worry about people like Abida, for they will always find a reason to dislike you and to worry. Shah rolls her eyes and exits the room. Mama Raw tells her granddaughter to keep on telling stories, but ha laments that she will never be as good with words as her mother. Raw concedes that she may never, no body may ever, match her daughter for her mastery of language, but that Ha has something her mother doesn’t. Magic. Every so often, she tells her, somebody in their family develops a quality to their voice, the one Ha has, that not only sounds beautiful, but binds people. They can’t not listen, even if they want to, so long as Ha puts her heart into the story. At this, Shah returns to the room, with a towel and tells her mother not to give Ha a bigger head than she already has, and orders Ha into the bath. Raw falls asleep in a rocking chair in seconds, and Ha asks Shah to tell her a true story, one of her father. Shah refuses, but tells another story, another fairy tale. As the tale ends, she dries Ha off, bud the two suddenly hear a devastating BOOM in the village. There are screams and a thunder of footsteps. Soldiers storm into their home and drag them out, through the streets. At the bottom of the hill awaits a massive structure, a ship from the looks of it. The soldiers lead them up a gangway, which is flanked by rows of the men of the village, bound and gagged. On their way up Shah and Ha hear shots go off, they hear the thuds of lifeless bodies hitting the dirt. They enter the ship and the gangway raises, closing the structure entirely, no seams in sight.
Sometime later, after waiting hours, days even, Shah and Ha sit in a room filled with other women from the village. Most are terrified, some enraged, most quiet. Ha is irate, in a way that makes it very clear she is also among the terrified. Shah tries to calm her down when a man comes in. The man explains that he is the Vizier to a great general and that he is hear to take one representative to him. Shah wastes no time before volunteering, thinking that if someone must go face such danger, it ought to be her. Maybe she can protect Ha and the other girls. Amused, the Vizier consents and has two guards escort her.
The Vizier then begins to catalogue the women in the room, giving them new clothes, as the guards weave Shah through the maze of corridors. They take her to a room, a bedroom, with a behemoth of a bed and a lounge area with chairs, a chaise and a bar. Upon the bed is a box, black a tied neatly with silk string.
Now, the Vizier escorts Ha and the women through the corridors, though different ones. As he does so, Ha asks question after question, hoping to find out more about where her mother is, when she will return. He responds to her, telling her that each night the general takes a woman, and lays with her. As the Vizier answers her, Shah opens the box to find a beautiful outfit, and at the bottom ornate lingerie. The vizier tells Ha that in the morning, her mother will be killed, and the pattern will continue. At the words Ha channels her horror into a mad dash through the corridors, determined to find Shah, though not having any idea where to start.
As Ha lays out the clothes, bile fills the back of her throat and she runs to the bar and gags into the sink. She rights herself, and then tries the door she came through. They’re locked, but soon after trying them they slide open to reveal one of the guards, whom she looks at oddly, for a blink of a moment feeling some sense of familiarity, then abruptly losing it as his voice tells her, “you have to put it on, or you will die, go.” The door shuts, and again she tries it to find it locked. Outside Ha still desperately searches for her to no avail.
With her clothes on, Shah waits. Finally the door reopens and a slender, narrow shouldered man enters the room, regally dressed. He enters the room and looks at her, for a moment eyes reptilian as they gaze over her, but soon he walks to the bar. He makes pleasantries, to which Shah responds, dazed, and he offers her a drink. Before long though, he seems to have casually moved her to the bed, almost without her noticing, and when she does, animal fear wakes in her with a start. He notices it too, and his demeanor changes, just for an instant, before Ha bursts into the room panting.
The three exchange incredulous looks of surprise as Ha catches her breath, and as she is about to speak, the Vizier runs in after her, grabbing her. Shah lurches from the bed towards him, but before she can cross the room, before the Viziers iron-clad fear grip drakes her from the room, Ha yells, “Mama tell me a story!”
Shockingly, the general laughs, and tells the Vizier he could use a good story. Shellshocked at first, Shah gathers herself when Ha runs into her arms, looking up at her pleadingly. Shah looks into her daughter’s desperate eyes, and then to the general. She makes a decision. “No,” she says. With a whimper of dismay Ha clutches at her mother, and Shah pulls her in tight. “Take the child away,” the general gestures and turns to make another drink. As the vizier drags a struggling Ha down the hallway, the guard shuts the door, closing Shah in again. Alone.
That night, Ha lies awake, staring at the ceiling from the top bunk in the dormitory. Her face sets with resolve.
The next day the women are served a humble breakfast. As they eat, they chatter nervously, wondering amongst themselves who will be taken next. Ha remains quiet. Her grandmother notices this and narrows her eyes. Along the shepherded way back to the dormitory, Ha’s grandmama Raw approaches her. She asks her what she plans on doing once she is with the general. Surprised, Ha tells her bluntly that she will kill him. Surprising her granddaughter further, Raw simply nods, though after a moment she offers her advice. She tells her to follow her initial instinct, to take the advice she gave her mother. Tell a story. The general was open to it, and with her gift it will be enough to keep her alive, and maybe, just maybe keep him listening instead of sleeping with and killing her.
She’s too angry to tell stories, Ha attempts to convince her grandmother, and she lacks the skill with language that her mother had. Besides, she doesn’t wish to survive, she wishes to end his tyranny. Mama Raw asks her what, even if she were so fortunate to beat the odds and slip a knife between his ribs, guarantees and end to his tyranny? She tells her that often once established a method of cruelty can outlast those who implement it. His second in command might be just as likely to continue his practice, and then she has not but cut the head off one beast, and grown another, possibly more.
Instead, what if she were to change him? Stories have the ability to drive empathy into the hearts of monsters, and if she can get him to stop his crimes, they won’t fester. Begrudgingly, Ha concedes.
In a room buzzing with frantic activity, the general sits, being served coffee. At his side are two guards, the same who flanked his door the previous night. In front of him stands his vizier and another figure, short and broad. They speak of the possible courses they wish to plot. The vizier informs him that to the east there are many delicacies, spices, he hasn’t tried and also exotic women to top off his Haram. The other man, his lieutenant, argues that they need fuel if they are to make it back to the palace and the east offers no wells. He states that one must get their nutrition before having dessert.
As he eats, the general seems to barely listen, but after leaving his advisors in silence without response for a moment he deigns to answer. He asks if they understand what it is to not have to make these choices, and answers for them that of course they don’t. He was born smarter than they were, richer than they were and with more power than they could even dream. Delayed gratification, he declares, is for those who can’t have anything they want when they want it, it is from the same chapter of proverbs that tells the poor that money can’t buy happiness. They will plot a course which brings him to the place of delicacy, but also gets them to fuel before they run out.
The lieutenant looks stricken, and after a moment tells him that it may not be possible. The general doesn’t respond, but leaves the room, guards attending him. The vizier turns to the lieutenant, compassion in his voice when he tells him that he had better find a way, because he won’t get the courtesy of a drink and a fuck before being… disenfranchised.
Later, the vizier looks over the group of women, again cataloguing them, a nurse performing quick check-ups on each woman he observes. As he talks, not looking up from the book he writes in, he states blandly that he will need another representative. Ha, gets ready to raise her hand, but before she can open her own mouth Abida yells for him to take Ha. Sardonically, Ha laughs and thanks Abida, stepping up to the Vizier to be taken. To her surprise, the Vizier steps towards Abida, who has her daughter in front of her. He asks her if, since she’s so willing to volunteer someone else’s child, if she’d be willing to let her own daughter go instead. When he’s met by her stoney expression, he changes his tune and asks, “or maybe you’d like to go yourself.” And this time Abida becomes frantic, sobbing dramatically and begging mercy. Ha and Abida’s daughter, who looks royally insulted, exchange a glance, before Ha tells the Vizier that it’s alright, she will go.
The vizier gives her a suspicious glance, that then turns into something else, admiration maybe. Ha’s jaw sets, and she steels herself. The Vizier places a gentle hand on her shoulder, and turns with her towards the door. Grandmama Raw hurries over, as best she can, and presses her lips to Ha’s ear: “truth comes not from facts or reality, it’s something that comes from inside you.” She’s dragged away from Ha by the nurse.
When the Vizier takes her to the same room he took her mother, Ha enters to see another box like the black one, but this one is pink, tied with yellow string. Unlike with Shah, the Vizier lingers as Ha undoes the knot and opens the box to find a pink, silk slip. He tells her that she’s brave to get it over with, that he’s seen many a woman go mad with the anticipation. She tells him that she doesn’t plan on being raped and murdered anytime soon. He winces, and tells her that if she doesn’t, she ought to take care with her diction. She assures him that she chose her words precisely, and that if he knew what was going on is evil as he seems to, he is evil for not stopping it. At this he turns red and angrily tells her she isn’t brave, just stupid, and he exits.
For what seems like eternity, Ha waits, not putting on the slip. Like her mother, she tries the door, but this time it remains locked. She goes and examines the “gift” again, and decides to put it under the bed, out of sight. Just as she does so, the General walks in, startling her. She tries to be casual, kicking the box all the way under the bed without his noticing. He goes to the bar, he makes himself a drink and offers her one. She bites her lip, and a little blood trickles down. She tells him yes. He makes her one, brings it to her, she sips it and coughs. He laughs and offers to make her another drink, she says she’s fine, but he goes anyway, mixing something syrupy into something clear. He calls her the story girl and asks where the present he left her is. She tells him she never got it, and he decides he will have to have a word with his Vizier about it. He asks what kind of stories she wanted to hear from her mother, what kind did she tell. Ha fights back anguish and hatred, trying to calm her voice as she tells him all kinds, and gives examples.
“But I tell stories too,” she says. “Would you like to hear one?”
He hesitates for a moment, but then laughs and says of course. He’s a charmer, to him, to not humor a girl would be a great sin. She asks him to sit down and as he sits he hands her a drink, which she accepts rising. She takes a sip. Looking at him in the large mirror in front of the bed. Over by the chaise a table with silverware rests, and there’s a knife. She eyes it. She asks him to close his eyes. Again, after a brief hesitation he does so.
She begins to speak, while walking to the knife.
She grabs it, and moves back towards him, glass in one hand, knife in the other. Her voice begins to glow.
“Once upon a time…” She taps the knife on her glass, and a hollow TING resonates and vibrates the world around, shaking it into another one.
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A mountain stands tall. A woman stands taller. She’s in front of it, dwarfed by it, but somehow, she consumes all. With a scarf wrapped over her mouth and shielding her eyes, she walks down towards a town, sand blowing the skirt of her robe.
She walks through a market. Stalls line up like the stars, and as the sun fades she walks between them. There are wonders in them. Glass works, fireworks. Woven garments, woven rugs. Food. Lots of food. Delicacies fill a row of three carts. As she passes them, she observes, she inhales. Her stomach growls and her hand jumps to quiet it. Carefully she looks around, there aren’t many people around, the few that are look dutifully to the tasks at hand. She ventures a step closer to the food, peeking at a line of candied apples.
In her peripherals somebody else moves up next to her, taking stock of the options. A hand reaches for the apple she was eyeing and as its fingers are about to grasp, another hand swats it away. A voice demands payment before consumption and the boy to whom the first hand belongs to chuckles, and tells the vendor that if he’s going to spend his hard earned coin, he'd better show him the best of the best. As the vendor comes from behind the stall to the front, the boy turns and smiles boyishly at the woman. He puts an arm around the vendor’s shoulder and turns to the neighboring cart, “sell me food, good sir,” another chuckle.
The woman smiles into her chest and looks down at the apples. She grabs one, then turns. She walks a half step, before turning around and grabbing another. She walks away, biting into one and tossing the other overhead behind her. The boy, still talking animatedly to the vendor with one arm on him, reaches the other up without looking at her and plucks the apple from the air.
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Each story Ha will come to tell is similar to this, simple, bizarre, revolving around a heroine, the woman is her mother.
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At the end of the story, Ha’s narration returns. The general is slumped on the bed, not quite laying down, not quite sitting upright. His eyes are unfocussed, looking into the distance. Something plays on his lips, a smile? No, not a smile, but something perhaps similar.
With her last word, the glow of her voice fades, the quality shimmering out. Ha looks exhausted. She’s on the chaise at this point, and she relaxes, leaning back against it.
A few moments go by, and as focus slowly comes back to him, the general says, “What a strange and wonderful story.” He sits upright, rubs his eyes and looks for Ha, when his eyes land on the chaise, he sees that she’s drifted off. For a moment he hesitates, thinking, he looks over her, analyzing her body. Finally his eyes rest on hers, they’re closed and fluttering. Her breath his the whisper of the sleeping. He stands, looks around and then becomes frustrated. He goes to the door and calls for his Vizier, he speaks in hushed tones to the man, who nods, bewildered and hurries off.
The general goes to the bar and pours one last belt. As he turns, leaning against the countertop, the Vizier shuffles back into the room, blanket in hand. He covers the girl.
The General takes a sip of his drink.
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The next morning, Ha sits in the mess hall, eating next to her grandmother. Her grandmother is talking to her, when the Vizier walks over. He sits. He tells her he got quite an earful over the box issue, and he hands her the box again, but this time with a purple tie. She looks at him angrily. “Just open it,” he says.
She does. Within lies a box of tea and two china cups. On top of the tea a note: For health of the Story Girl.
She looks up, and the Vizier tells her the general very much enjoyed her tale last night, and the tea is his way of encouraging another performance tonight. It has restorative properties, meant to soothe her throat and vocal chords. He stands and claps his hands. Two servants approach with a steaming kettle and pour tea for both Ha and her Grandmother.
He leaves her with a final word of advice, to tell a story, better than the last one, lest the general get bored. If she should fail, though, she need not worry, it will be over soon after that.
He exits, and Ha sips her tea, she is soothed. That is, until she glances over and sees Abida, seething as she drinks from her cracked cup. Grandmama Raw laughs and tips her cup to abide, winking.
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Later that night, Ha returns to the general. She tells a story similar to the last, revolving around the same woman, her mother, but this time the story is more fantastic.
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The guard from the night Shah was taken to the general walks through the corridors. He weaves one way then the other. Finally he stops at the end of a hallway and enters a dungeon-esq. room. The room has two large cells. He enters one, and he unbundles a loaf of bread he had tucked into the crook of his elbow. He unwraps it and hands it to Shah, who sits, very much alive, on thin straw mattress, with no pillow.
He tells her that he’s sorry he couldn’t get more, and then unbelts his canteen, handing it to her. With an air of hostility she snatches it from her hands. She says nothing. He tells her that the General suspects nothing, though the Vizier asked many questions when he discovered she wasn’t taken to the execution room, but instead was told she was killed by the guard and sent directly to storage.
Still, Ha says nothing, but devours the bread.
The guard is getting irritated. He asks why she won’t talk. She doesn’t tell him. He goes on to say he saved her and the least she could do is talk. Still, she says nothing. He tells her that he knows he didn’t save her from…everything. But once she volunteered herself there was nothing he could do until after…
Still, Shah says nothing.
He tells her Ha volunteered to go to him the night before.
She shoots up and demands to know what happened to her, why she hadn’t been brought here. Why he didn’t “save” her.
She finally takes a breath, and he says he wasn’t on duty last night, that he was focussed on smuggling her to the dungeon.
She screams that he should have let them do with her as they pleased and instead rescued her daughter. She begins to cry.
He tells her that she has been spared, apparently she told a story so great that she has been spared. After berating him for not leading with that, Shah demands that he bring her to her as soon as possible. He informs her, that this won’t be possible, she hasn’t just been spared, she’s placed herself in his favor, which has never happened. If she just disappears, there is no way it will go overlooked and even the old brig will be searched and they will both be doomed.
Hearing this, Shah decides that if this is the case, then they have to escape. Soon.
The guard, who’s name we know now to be Quadir, agrees.
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*From here the plot picks up greatly, for brevity’s sake they will be outlined.
-Ha tells another story, even more riveting and the General shows his appreciation, moving her to a private room, but Ha demands to share it with her grandmother
-Abida’s jealous becomes even greater, she begins to complain to the other women, stirring unrest
-As one of the General’s guards, Quadir attends the meetings where he hears of the course plans, he hears that they will be landing soon, he decides they will escape then
-While eating, Abida confronts Ha, telling her that she is undeserving of her status, Grandmother Raw tells her off, talks about what Ha has sacrificed, Abida Storms off
-Ha tells another story, and the Vizier listens, slumping against the door, he begins to really care for Ha
-Having made preparations, Shah awaits for Quadir to come for her, and to go save Ha and Raw.
-Quadir comes back, but tells her they’ve been delayed and are still over water.
-Because they General isn’t going through the women, the Vizier decides to have them start
performing chores, Abida has to do laundry, and while she is carrying it, she sees a guard sneak off, curious she follows, and sees him go into the brig, she peaks in and sees Ha
-Abida runs away, and sees the Vizier walking, she alerts him, and he checks it out, sees Shah as well
-He sends Abida away, and decides to keep it to himself
-Ha begins to feel worn down, she tells Raw that she can’t keep pretending, can’t keep being around the General, accepting his gifts
-When she goes to tell her next story, Abida comes in, interrupting and tells the general she has something to say
-The vizier, who was there bringing more drink in, sees her, stops paralyzed and then walks over and stabs her, before she can speak, he pulls a vial of poison from his sleeve and tells the general she was there to kill him
-After the storytelling, the Vizier tells Ha that Abida was there to get her killed, but neglects to mention her mother, Ha points out that if he had the poison all along, he had thought about using it, he remains silent, and she says that if there are others like him they should help
-The next time Quadir enters the brig to talk to Shah, the Vizier is there, talking to Shah, and horrified Quadir draws his sword
-Shah tells him to put it away and the Vizier tells him he’s there to help, they devise a plan, and the Vizier says he knows of one or two other guards that might be able to help
-Grandmama Raw is working, polishing boots for the soldiers with two other women, two soldiers come in, the lead throws his boots at her feet, yelling that they’ve been ruined. Raw apologizes and assures him that it won’t happen again, and that it wasn’t her who did it. Her words fall on deaf ears and he backhands her, sending her sprawling, he kicks her, leaving her coughing. One of the women helps her up the other runs for help.
-Ha finds her in their bedroom, poorly bandaged and coughing blood. The women from before presses a damp compress on her forehead, Ha runs to her and they talk, Ha tells her she’s been trying to change the General for her, that she’s even changed small parts, but her grandmother tells her that she only told her that to keep her alive, men like him, they rarely change, and men like him will continue to act like him even if he changes his ways, so long as good people allow them to, she tells her that she should keep on telling stories, but only so that the others will survive, and that if she ever has a clear opportunity, to take him out, one less monster in the world. Raw dies.
-Enraged, the next time Ha enters she can barely look towards the general. He tells her that they don’t have much time, they land soon to resupply and he must over see it.
-While Ha is with the General the Vizier and a guard go and get Shah and Quadir, they go to the dorm, where another guard waiting for them joins forces, they go search for Ha next.
-Ha tells her best story yet, but this time with the language her mother would use, and while she does so, she again grabs the knife, this time intent on killing him, but this time is also different for the general, their is something even more predatory about him. He advances on her, and stops her story and tries to get her to have sex, she shies away, and he becomes more aggressive. Finally Ha loses it, she slashes at him with the knife and misses, all the while yelling at him, telling him what a monster he is. He wrestles the knife from her and grapples her to the bed.
-The vizier lets the group in and then slips away. They burst to Ha’s defense and there is a standoff, at the end of which, the general gets them to let him stay in the room, in exchange for not killing Ha.
-The party runs, knowing time is limited before they are stopped. Troops advance on them, and the general captures them, he shoots Shah in the leg, and when Quadir screams in protest, he silences him for good. The general goes for another drink, before ending it all, and no sooner than the liquid meets his lip than he clutches his throat, gasping. He chokes, writhes on the ground, and when guards rush to his aid, Ha jumps to the ships steering and crashes the ship.
-Shah, Ha and the vizier, sneak from the wreckage.
