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Moses shifted on the goat hide his hosts gave him to sleep on. Some insect crawled over his ankle as cold dawn air slipped in through a gap in the tent flap. Thoughts, memories, feelings plagued him. He was a stranger in a strange land.
Moses!
It was strange to not be a prince anymore. Out here, lost in the desert, Moses was no one. But these Midians weren’t lost. Tzipporah knew this wasteland as well as herself; she grew up here, between oases and mountains. And here, she was the eldest daughter of these people’s High Priest. She was so far from the half-naked slave she had been when they first met.
“Moses!” someone called.
She was also the only person he still knew.
Moses clambered to his feet and stumbled outside. A blazing sun peeked over the horizon, just left of the huge mountain by their camp. Moses didn’t know its name. He had never seen a mountain like that before.
Tzipporah stood outside the tent, hip cocked and a staff in her hand.
“Morning,” she greeted. “Sleep well?”
A smirk graced her face. Did she always smirk? Her sharp features looked sharper in the dawn shadows and Moses shifted. All the power was in her hands.
“Come with me,” she ordered. Moses got the sense she didn’t care how he had slept.
Moses kept tripping on the uneven ground but Tzipporah did not slow her confident stride. He found himself trailing her towards a huge flock of sheep.
“What…” he started. “Is this your herd?”
Tzipporah laughed, a short bark. “We Midianites keep our flocks together. See their ears?”
She knelt by one of the sheep, tugging it by the neck until Moses could see a notch in the lower edge of its ear.
“This is my father’s mark,” she explains. “This ewe belongs to him. So do any of its lambs.”
She met Moses’ eyes, as if expecting an answer.
“Um,” he said. “Good.”
Tzipporah huffed. That was the wrong answer.
“You and I are going to herd the sheep today,” she announced, straightening up.
“We are?”
Tzipporah sighed and turned her face towards the mountain. “My father offered to take you in. You’re used to the royal treatment, but out here, no one is above work. You have to do your part for us all.” She paused. Silence fell between them, with the sheep’s clanging bells surrounding. “We don’t have much,” she said, “but what we do have, we’ll share. What do you say?”
“Me?” Moses asked.
Tzipporah looked at him, frowning. “Have you always been like this?”
“Like what?”
“You’re questioning everything. What happened to demanding respect?”
You will show the proper respect for a prince of Egypt .
Moses winced. Tzipporah’s eyes widened and she looked away.
“I… accept,” Moses murmured. “I appreciate your father’s generosity, Tzipporah. It’s more than I deserve.”
“Hmm.” She eyed him. “All right.”
With a quick swing of her staff, Tzipporah started to walk.
“Where are you going?” Moses called.
“We,” she called back. “ We are going to Mount Sinai.”
Moses came to know the mountain. To love it. Tzipporah’s people guided their travels around Mount Sinai like the morning star.
I am the morning and evening star .
Moses’ memories of Egypt lessened with time. The sting, the ache, they softened around Jethrodiadah, Tzipporah’s youngest sister. She reminded him of himself, but more free, less cruel and careless. He teased her like he had Rameses, and together they caused far less destruction than he and his brother had.
Rameses’ ring stayed on his right hand.
It glinted in the morning sun. Morning was when he and Tzipporah would climb with the sheep towards the mountain, away from camp. He and she did not always play shepherds for the tribe, but they did more often than not. Moses found himself good at it, to everyone’s surprise.
They no longer needed greetings. They stayed silent one dawn, picking their way between craggy rocks and over hills.
“Do you think that ewe of Hobab’s will deliver today?” Moses asked. His voice whipped through the silence.
Tzipporah hummed. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Could be. Or she could keep holding out on us.”
Moses chuckled. “Triplets can’t be easy to birth.”
“I don’t think she’ll survive.”
“I don’t know,” Moses replied, smirking. “I saved—”
“My father’s doe who had quadruplets, I remember, Moses.” But her grin caught in the golden morning light.
“I see that,” he said. “I see that smile.”
Tzipporah huffs. “You saw nothing.”
They were laughing about something later, as the sun climbed higher. Sitting on a slanted rock, raised above the flock, Moses remembered stories of Ra pulling his chariot across the sky and chuckled.
"You're more patient than I thought you'd be," Tzipporah said suddenly.
"What?" Moses asked. He knew what she meant.
"You're kind to them."
"Who, the sheep?"
"My sisters," she said. "My people. Me."
"Maybe I learned people deserve kindness."
"How?"
She looked at him, head on hand on knee. The sheep's bells tingled gently; they were at peace.
"I found out… that I was not who I thought I was."
"Oh?"
Hush now, my baby, be still, love, don’t cry...
Moses didn't elaborate. After all, that was over. He wasn't Prince Moses any longer. In truth, he never had been. He had thought he was his mother's son, his brother's brother. Now, though, he was Jethro's shepherd-son. He was a Kenite, raiser of tents and wanderer of the Midian desert.
Friend of Tzipporah.
"Do you want to learn something else?" she asked.
"What else do you have to teach me?" Moses replied. "I thought I would have exhausted your wisdom by now."
She shook her head, jewelry and eyes flashing. "You still don't know how to dance."
"Ah." It was true. Moses was bad on his feet, and Tzipporah… She whipped through the firelight, swaying hips and smooth feet just brushing the ground. Her hands twisted mystifying shapes into the air. She danced like she was part of the cold desert night: the most beautiful part.
Moses' face started to burn.
"My father wants to see you dance," Tzipporah said.
That startled a laugh out of him. “Does he? Your father wants a lot from me.”
“He wants to see you happy,” she replied, voice fond. “You know how he is.”
Moses did. The man seemed to hold an abundance of happiness, spreading laughter and smiles from his broad hands. His booming voice led prayers as easily as he led songs around the fire. Tzipporah hadn’t inherited the man’s soft edges, but she had gotten his joy.
“What kind of dance does he want?” Moses asked.
“Oh, you know,” Tzipporah replied. “Nothing fancy. It’s the men’s dance around the campfire. It’s you, Moses, so he doesn’t expect anything special.”
Moses shoved her, almost pushing her off their perch.
She squawked. He laughed.
“Get up,” she grumbled, jumping down and landing with all the grace of an antelope. Moses did the same and stumbled. “You will learn this dance, Moses.”
“All right, all right. How does it go?”
“Loop your arm around my shoulders,” she instructed. “And move your feet, like…”
She did something, too fast for Moses to see.
“All right, again?”
“Moses,” she said. “You have to be touching me.”
Slowly, gently, Moses lifted his arm to rest on top of her, curving around her neck to rest on her far shoulder. Her skin reflected the warmth of the sun back to him.
For a moment, she said nothing. Then- “Watch my feet,” she told him, quieter than before. “Your left foot goes first. See?”
Moses saw. “And…?” He ventured another step: right foot forward.
“Y- yes. That’s right.”
He chanced a glance up to her face. Her lips were parted, her eyes downcast. She was breathing fast.
“Tzipporah?”
She shook her head, just once. But then a soft smile spread across her face like sunrise.
“You’re learning, Moses. Let’s try again.”