indigoauracolor:

“I have been drinking sweat and tears for too long, Oh, water, quench my thirst,
I am a wounded wolf,
My howling covers your surface with fog.
The sky is crying for me, and you – river, you feel sorry.”

— An excerpt from a performance of Qyrq Qyz (Uzbek, meaning ”Forty Girls”) retelling an ancient oral epic of Gulayim, a young female warrior from the steppes of Central Asia. After invaders killed her father, Gulayim led a group of forty young women to liberate their land, fighting to death rather than submitting, and established a rule of justice and compassion.