She found no trouble with desire, she had plenty. Always eager to taste all fruits, whether the ripened sweetness of grapes or the acrid sting of jatropha.
Patience, however, she left that somewhere in her younger years.
She used to believe she wore patience on her like skin, boasting hers outweighed that of Salazā's towering stone Awakened One that lay amongst the Temple of Faith. One could go there, regardless of their faith, and were free to connect to spirit without interruption.
This temple lay at heart of the land's sacred space, Salazā Spirits. Just outside Salazā village and facing the Senai seas, sheltered by the Sacred Gates, seemingly just a thin arch of wood, shrined over many generations.
In the centerpiece were relics gifted and preserved through dusting and glazing, done with as much care as one would take to the various bloom of flowers sprouting up through the years.
The tales go that the Awakened One arrived no bigger than a mango.
It grew alongside a shrine of proteas and indigo flowers, which branched around it, and rose until the Awakened One's head rested just below the top-most leaves of the mountainous sacred eternal baobab tree.
You couldn't reach the top, even if you stretched on the tallest rock or tree here. And still, those of her village swear the Awakened One grows a smidge each moon, all because it was patient as a seed, knowing its sprouting was inevitable and eternal.
Salīa doubted anyone would speak as poetically of her sprouting. And she couldn't really blame them after what happened back when she was still a tot.
You see, there was this game she played with the other kids amongst the eight villages of Salazā. Ala-Bala. It was simple enough.
One post lay on the side of the Salazā village that faced Senai and the other was on the opposite side, facing between Shumpa and Sando. They usually just halved the number of kids into teams.
Separating them was a soft, bouncy ball made from the meshed honey-gold skin of the sacred ala plant.
In each team there were designated destroyers known as destra, and designated defenders known as astra. And if you had enough members, you might have a wildcard known as a māghan, who can do both within limits.
It was a rare spot to be granted, yet Salīa was best at it, and that was the reason the kids let her play in the first place.
The game started when person of each side would race to the ball and whoever got it, caromed it into the other teams' posts. That set Salīa right off, full determined to have the kids invite her to play again and again.
She quickly earned that right when none could defeat her.
And after winning so many games, she wanted another and so she soared through the village, sneaking between cleft rocks, thick forests and behind the hutted homes to not have the ball knocked from under her.
A few kids cornered her, yet she needled through and raced to the post without thinking to pass to another. She'd been so sure she'd bring the win to her side that she didn't notice when she kicked a loose slab of rock into the Awakened One.
It didn't fall, it wouldn't, yet it chipped a good part of its ankle.
Besides the bloody foot it gave her, the ball was snatched, and not only did she have to say sorry to her team, she had to apologize to the whole of Salazā, the mainland and its villages, for the wreck she caused to something that's lived beyond many of her lifetimes.
All with a bandaged yet wounded foot, most of the kids just said, "serves her right," as they went to play on without her.
Maybe I was never patient at all.
It dawned on her the first night she returned to the Faraway Forests. At first, she was thrilled to go somewhere new, it had been long since her mother even spoke of travelling past the villages they'd known.
Yet now nearly a year has passed with Salīa being in the Faraway Forests, and oh, did time move so excruciatingly slow when slapped with all the rules and restrictions she didn't know this supposedly exciting celestial place came with.
Now all she had to grasp onto of the outside world was her mother's last letters, which spoke of traveling again. Except this time, Salīa wouldn't be joining.
Of course, Salīa couldn't help but feel a little tender that her mother was only taking her little brother and sister. Even though she knew it was only fair, since she once went on the same trip and also got to have her mother all to herself.
Oh, yes, she thought. I'll never forget that...
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