[AMAL POV]
By the fourth week, I had learned to read the forest's moods.
The way the birds fell silent before a storm. The places where the stream ran fastest after rain. Which trees offered the best shelter, which clearings caught the most sunlight.
"You see?" I told Malik as we watched a family of deer grazing in the early morning light. "Allah has given us everything we need. Food, water, shelter, beauty. What more could we ask for?"
Malik snorted, and I laughed.
"All right, all right. Maybe a few more of those sweet apples we found yesterday. And perhaps some proper barley for you, ya malik al-khuyul."
King of horses.
He tossed his head at the compliment, and I reached out to stroke his neck. His coat had grown glossy in our time together, his body strong and healthy. The forest agreed with him as much as it did with me.
"We're both healing," I said softly. "Allah is healing us."
It was true. The constant fear that had lived in my chest for six years was beginning to ease. Not disappearing entirely—I still jumped at unexpected sounds, still woke sometimes with my heart pounding—but diminishing. Like a wound that was finally being allowed to close.
One evening, as we sat by the stream watching the sunset paint the sky in shades of gold and rose, I found myself speaking to Allah more directly than I ever had before.
"Ya Rabbi," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "Ya Allah, I don't know why You chose to save me when so many others perished. I don't know why You led me to this place, to this companion. But I am grateful. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the worlds."
Malik was dozing beside me, his head low, his breathing slow and peaceful. I reached out to touch his shoulder, drawing comfort from his presence.
"I used to think freedom meant the absence of chains," I continued. "But I think I was wrong. I think freedom means the presence of choice. The ability to choose how to live, how to love, how to serve You."
A night bird called from somewhere in the canopy above, its song liquid and sweet. I listened until the sound faded, then spoke again.
"I choose to live without hatred, despite what was done to me. I choose to love this creature You sent me, this forest You provided. I choose to serve You not from fear, but from gratitude."
The words felt like a covenant, a promise made not just to Allah but to myself. I had been broken, yes. I had been scarred. But I was still here, still breathing, still capable of wonder.
"Rabbana atina fi'd-dunya hasanatan wa fi'l-akhirati hasanatan," I prayed. Our Lord, give us good in this world and good in the next.
Malik stirred beside me, his eyes opening to meet mine. In the dying light, they seemed to hold depths of understanding that went beyond mere animal intelligence.
"What do you think, habibi?" I asked him. "Are we good? Are we worthy of Allah's mercy?"
He leaned forward and touched his nose to my hand, the gesture so gentle it brought tears to my eyes.
"Yes," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "I think we are. I think we're going to be all right."
The nightmares still came, but less frequently now. And when they did, Malik was always there, a steady presence in the darkness. Sometimes I would wake to find him standing over me, his head low, his breath warm on my face.
"Shukran," I would whisper.
And he would settle beside me, his body a barrier between me and the shadows of memory.
"You know what I realized?" I said to him one night after a particularly vivid dream. "The palace tried to teach me that I was nothing without it. That I was weak, dependent, worthless. But look at us now. We built a home. We found food. We survived."
Malik's ears flicked forward, listening.
"We are stronger than they ever wanted us to believe. And that strength—it doesn't come from anger or hatred. It comes from something deeper. From Allah. From love. From the simple act of choosing to keep going."
I pressed my face against his neck, breathing in his familiar scent.
"I love you," I whispered. "I love this place. I love the life we're building together. And maybe that's enough. Maybe love is always enough."
In the darkness, Malik's gentle breathing was the only sound. But it was enough—a lullaby that carried me back to peaceful sleep, where dreams of green forests replaced nightmares of stone walls.
We were home. We were safe. We were free.
And for the first time in six years, that felt like more than enough.
It felt like everything.
The hunger came slowly at first.
For weeks, I had sustained myself on berries, wild figs, and the occasional handful of nuts. My body had grown lean but strong, adapted to the forest's rhythm. But as the seasons began to shift, I noticed the fruit growing scarcer, the berry bushes picked clean.
"What do you think, Malik?" I asked one morning, watching him graze contentedly on the grass beside our shelter. "Are you going to share some of that with me?"
He lifted his head and gave me a look that seemed to say, Try it and see.
I plucked a handful of grass and chewed it experimentally. The taste was bitter, earthy, utterly unappetizing. I spat it out immediately.
"Astaghfirullah, that's terrible! How do you eat this?"
Malik whickered in what sounded suspiciously like laughter.
"Mock me all you want, ya habibi. But one of us needs to figure out how to find real food, and since you're clearly not volunteering..."
I had been avoiding the thought for weeks, but I couldn't deny it any longer. If I was going to survive in the forest, I needed to learn to hunt.
The idea made my stomach turn. In the palace, meat had simply appeared on golden plates, prepared by invisible hands. I had never considered where it came from, never thought about the life that had been taken to sustain mine.
But this was different. This was survival. This was the choice Allah had placed before me: adapt or perish.
"Bismillah," I whispered. If I was going to do this, I would do it with reverence, with gratitude, with the knowledge that every life was sacred.
My first attempt was a disaster.
I had fashioned a crude spear from a straight branch, sharpening the end with a stone. The weight felt foreign in my hands, clumsy and unwieldy. I crept through the forest like a palace guard stalking a criminal, and the result was predictable—every creature within a mile fled at the sound of my approach.
"This is hopeless," I muttered, returning to camp empty-handed and exhausted. "I'm about as stealthy as a camel in a pottery shop."
Malik looked up from his grazing, and I could swear I saw sympathy in his dark eyes.
"Don't give me that look," I said. "You try catching a rabbit with hands instead of teeth."
But even as I spoke, I was studying him. The way he moved through the forest, his hooves somehow silent on the fallen leaves. The way he held his head when he was listening, his ears swiveling to catch the slightest sound.
"You're going to teach me, aren't you?" I said softly. "How to be quiet. How to listen. How to become part of the forest instead of fighting against it."
The next morning, I followed Malik as he wandered through the trees. I tried to match his pace, to step where he stepped, to breathe when he breathed. It was like learning a new language—the language of silence, of patience, of harmony with the natural world.
"Slower," I whispered to myself. "Quieter. Like you belong here."
We approached a small clearing where a family of rabbits was feeding. Malik stopped at the edge of the trees, his body perfectly still. I froze beside him, hardly daring to breathe.
The rabbits continued their meal, unaware of our presence. I watched them for what felt like hours, studying their movements, their habits, their moments of alertness and relaxation.
"Subhan Allah," I breathed. Even in my need, I could appreciate their beauty, their grace, their simple right to exist.
But I also understood that survival required difficult choices. The forest was a place of constant death and rebirth, where life fed on life in an endless cycle. I could either be part of that cycle or stand apart from it and starve.
When we finally returned to camp, I knelt beside the stream and prayed.
"Ya Allah," I said, "forgive me for what I must do. Help me to take only what I need, to waste nothing, to honor the life that sustains mine."
It took three more days before I caught my first rabbit.
I had learned to move like water, to become one with the shadows between the trees. The spear felt more natural in my hands now, an extension of my will rather than a foreign object.
When the moment came, when the rabbit paused in exactly the right spot, I struck quickly and cleanly. The animal died almost instantly, with barely a sound.
I knelt beside its still form, my hands trembling. Tears ran down my cheeks as I whispered the words my grandmother had taught me long ago: "Bismillah, Allahu akbar. Allahumma inna hadha minka wa ilayk." In the name of Allah, Allah is greatest. O Allah, this is from You and returns to You.
"Shukran," I whispered to the rabbit's spirit.
Malik approached quietly, his head lowered in what seemed like respect for the moment. He nuzzled my shoulder gently, offering comfort without judgment.
"This is hard," I said to him. "Taking a life, even for survival. But this is what Allah has given us, isn't it? The ability to choose, to take responsibility, to acknowledge the weight of our actions."
Preparing the meat was another lesson in humility.
My hands shook as I used a sharp stone to skin the rabbit, following half-remembered instructions from childhood visits to my grandmother's village. The work was messy, difficult, nothing like the clean abstractions of palace life.
"Astaghfirullah," I muttered as I fumbled with the task. "I'm making a mess of this."
Malik watched patiently as I struggled, occasionally offering a soft whicker of encouragement.
"Don't look at me like that," I said. "I know I'm hopeless. But we're both learning, aren't we? You're learning to be free, I'm learning to survive."
When I finally managed to build a fire and cook the meat, the smell was overwhelming. My stomach clenched with hunger.
"Bismillah," I said before taking the first bite. The meat was tough, gamey, nothing like the delicate dishes of the palace. But it was mine. I had earned it through patience, skill, and necessity.
More importantly, I had faced one of my deepest fears—the fear of taking responsibility for my own survival—and found that I was capable of more than I had imagined.
Over the following weeks, hunting became easier. Not comfortable, never comfortable, but easier. I learned to track animals by their prints, to predict their movements, to wait for the perfect moment to strike.
"Look," I said to Malik one morning, pointing to a set of tracks in the mud. "Deer. A young one, probably separated from its mother."
He snorted, and I laughed.
"Yes, I know. You think I'm getting too confident. But watch this."
I followed the tracks through the forest, moving with a silence that would have been impossible weeks earlier. The deer was indeed young, inexperienced, easy to approach. But when I drew back my spear, I hesitated.
The animal was beautiful—sleek, graceful, its eyes large and trusting. It reminded me of something, though I couldn't place what.
Then I realized: it reminded me of myself. Young, alone, vulnerable.
"La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah," I whispered, lowering my weapon.
The deer bounded away, disappearing into the undergrowth. I stood there for a long moment, trying to understand what had just happened.
When I returned to camp, Malik was waiting for me, his head tilted in question.
"I couldn't do it," I said simply. "It was too young, too... innocent. Allah will provide another way."
And He did. Later that day, I found a fish trap that had been abandoned by some long-gone traveler. With a few repairs, it began catching the fat trout that swam in the deeper pools of the stream.
"See?" I said to Malik as I cleaned the first fish. "Allah always provides. We just have to trust in His wisdom."
As the season turned and the first frost touched the forest floor, I realized how much I had changed. My hands were callused now, my body lean and strong. I could track animals, set traps, prepare food, predict the weather from the behavior of birds.
"You know what I think?" I said to Malik one evening as we sat by the fire, sharing a meal of fish and wild greens. "I think this is what Allah wanted me to learn. Not just how to survive, but how to live deliberately. How to take responsibility for my own life."
Malik's ears flicked forward, listening.
"In the palace, I was a slave. Everything was decided for me, 'provided' for me, controlled for me. But here..." I gestured to the forest around us. "Here, I have to choose. Every day, every moment. And those choices matter."
I took another bite of fish, savoring the taste, the texture, the knowledge that I had earned this meal through my own skill and effort.
"Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen," I said softly.
The words carried a weight they had never held before. This wasn't the rote recitation of palace prayers, but a deep acknowledgment of the complexity and beauty of existence.
I was no longer just surviving. I was learning to thrive.
And with each passing day, each successful hunt, each moment of quiet gratitude by the fire, I felt myself becoming more fully the woman Allah had intended me to be.
Not a servant. Not a victim. Not a prisoner.
But a free soul, grateful for every breath, every choice, every sacred moment of being alive.