Previous Story: https://forums.candarion.com/topic/1183/one-dull-distant-memory

“Savoh.” A voice whispered out to me in the darkness of the tent. Across from me, Khoroush remained quiet under his covers. I had not been asleep. “Savoh!” The voice called out sharply, and I turned towards the tent flap to see Aroysh peering his head inside.

“I’m awake.” I told him, making an effort to appear disgruntled at the man’s sudden intrusion in the middle of the night.

“Come. It is important.” He said, disappearing behind the tent flap as I followed him outside.

It was cold. The campfire had been put out haphazardly and I could make out the frantic patterns of footfalls in the sand. But everything had otherwise appeared as it had always been when we camped for the night.

“Someone has been following us.” Aroysh said, staring out into the desert. “I think they got Hvorti.”

I blinked, feeling a sudden knot tightening around my throat as I followed his gaze out towards the desert, seeing nothing at all but the pitch blackness of the night. “Are they… Bone-Eaters?” I asked him in a quivering voice.

He spat over his left shoulder against the evil eye. “I’m not sure. But we need to make sure.” He says, unsheathing a bronze dagger from his belt.

“Why me?” I asked him, staring at the weapon uneasily. The driver had returned to visit my dreams, his head hollow and blood streaming from the side of his face. The howling sound of a woman came from his mouth when he opened it, and it frightened me enough to give up sleep at all the past few nights.

“You’ve killed a man before, haven’t you?” He asked. I stared at him blankly and realised too late that he was making a jest. He sighed, shoving the bronze into my hands. “You are his Dosht, are you not?”

I nodded. “Then we are his lance. We must both go.” He said, blade drawn in his sword-hand as he started out into the desert without me.

I followed behind him closely as we disappeared into the dark, looking out for the tell-tale howl of Bone-Eaters - those beings who lure people into the night to suckle on their marrows, leaving nothing but their skinned flesh behind.

“We won’t go far.” Aryosh assured me, scanning the horizon closely. “He should not have gone far.” He added quieter.

We came upon a rocky outcrop, its boulders black against the dark horizon, dead trees standing eerily alive against the backdrop of the sky as multitudes of dark smaller rocks rushed downwards like a barren wave.

“There!” Aryosh pointed to a shape, barely visible, crumpled against the rocks. It was Hvorti, and his bones were intact.

"Whore's drums!" Aroysh cursed out from beside me. "Savoh, go back to the camp. We need to war-" An arrow thumped against Aryosh’s chestpiece, sending him sprawling into the sand as another arrow landed silently in the sand between us. I ducked, pressing myself flat against the ground as I heard Aryosh’s deep groans for help amongst the sudden rushes of footfalls among the rocks. I turned around to face it, and there was a man standing before me.

He was tall and gaunt, and even with multiple robes and veils covering him, I could see the fine scale armour and his sword glinted copper-like in the dark. He turned to look at both of us repeatedly, finally settling his gaze on mine as he approached me slowly. I raised the dagger Aryosh had given me uselessly, and he batted it away from my hand with one forceful stroke of his blade.

Desperately, I turned towards Hvorti, pulling the corpse over me just as he began to thrust his sword towards me. The tip scraped dangerously close against my stomach as it passed through Hvorti, and I saw the man pull back his sword and bear it above me once more.

“No!” I shouted, grabbing his wrist just as the blade descended. The man pushed down his weight upon me, forcing the blade to descend slowly. I pushed back against him, my knees digging upwards into Hvorti to hold him back. I could smell the acid in his stomach he was so close, teeth gritting with effort and anticipation as the blade inched closer and closer towards me.

I could hear more scraping, more shuffling amongst it all, as my eyes shifted from the blade into the man’s eyes. “Don’t. Please don’t. Stop!” I begged him, feeling the cold wet tip entering the soft flesh of my neck.

A hand reached out and tugged at the man’s chinstrap forcefully, pulling his head and the blade away from me. “Kill him!” Aryosh shouted.

Frantically, my hands slid down Hvorti’s body, holding onto the small handle on his belt hoop with a shaken grasp as I brought it out of its sheath. The man knocked his elbow against Aryosh’s face, but he held on, tugging at his helmet once more to arch him further away from me.

“Do it! Do it now!” Aryosh shouted once more as I brought the blade up from under Hvorti and thrusted upwards.

The blade entered just past his Adam's apples with a squelch, stopping abruptly as it caught against the man's jaw bone. "Twist it!" Aryosh commanded through gritted teeth. I turned the blade and thrusted deeper, letting go of the handle as the man pulled back to claw at his throat, eyes wide with terror and blood sputtering easily over me before he fell flat on his back to squirm, then twitch, and then not move at all as his wheezing breath slowed and stilled to a silence.

I sat up to look at the dying man with ragged breath. I could taste the warm thickness of his blood on my lips as I ran my tongue along it, wiping it off with the sleeves of my shirt as I quickly helped Aryosh to his feet.

“The prince!” He said through laboured breaths, falling back onto his knee as he snapped off the arrow shaft. “Leave me. Go!” He commanded. And I ran, back towards the camp where torches and shouts began to flitter in the dark.

Everyone was awake now, their weapons drawn and dazed still from their sleep as they looked around in a panic. There was another corpse lying atop the smoldering remains of the campfire, Khoroush standing before it.

“One escaped.” A laskari rushed up to the prince, turning to face me at my arrival. “Where’s Hvorti? And Aryosh?” He asked.

“Dead.” I said blankly, catching my words too late. “I’m sorry. Aryosh is wounded. He’s by the rocks.” The laskari nodded and rushed past me, disappearing into the desert.

I approached Khoroush slowly, eyes fixed on the corpse he was staring at sullenly. “Did you kill him?” I asked.

“Yes.” He responded, his voice was low and completely foreign to my ears before he turned to look at me. “Are you hurt?” He asked, coming to himself once more, panicked at the amount of blood that stained my face and shirt as he moved in close to attend to me.

“No, I’m okay. I promise.” I said, pushing him away from me awkwardly. I could still taste the blood on my lips. “Who are they?”

“Aspad, I think. Come to kill me with his men.” Khoroush answered simply, a tinge of bitterness in his voice as he gazed upon the man he had murdered once more.

I hesitated to ask. One more year I had repeated to myself throughout the entire journey north. “And what would that mean?” I forced myself to speak just as the laskari returned with Aryosh and Hvorti’s corpse.

“That my father is dying.”

4/5. Only one more to go!

Sogadar • 22 February, 2021

Lore idea:

Because of the lack of a written language, correspondence in Sogadar is conducted through a network of runners and confidants who memorises messages in rhyming poetry. These could be as simple as a rhyme, who's rhyming-word could be totally unrelated to the rest of the sentance for rhyming sake, to carefully composed poems imploring one's companions to go to the House of Delight with them.

Although there are cases of runners being killed for mixing up messages with confidential love letters, it is still popular a communique used amongst forbidden lovers.

Sogadar • 23 January, 2020

Pruz, whom all things are cradled, offers patronage to those who mantle the burden of rulership, just as they have carried the burden of the daylight sun. To pick up the ring of Khvarenah is to shun the pursuits of Jaangir and Artahi, for to walk as a visage of the patron of patrons on earth is to share the burden in which the god has beared for the Veh.

They who burdens the weight of the raging sun upon their antlered head. They whom offer the blessing of the Khvarenah on their off-hand and the krater of all things pleasurable on their right. Upon their lap rests the whole universe, and all the rulers of the land rests upon their lap.

Sogadar • 12 January, 2021

Artrahi, that whom causes truths, offers patronage to those who enjoy the most simple pleasures of life.

They are the cup, its maker, and the one who quaffs to the impermanent delight of the now.

The most obvious inspiration for Sogadar is Greater Iran, from the Scythians and the Achaemenids all through to the Safavids and the Durrani Empire. More specifically though, I try to draw inspiration from Afghanistan and the Caucasus a lot more than most parts of greater Iran, since Sogadar's geography is a lot more similar to those two than it is with Iran or Mesopotamia. I also draw a bit of inspiration from bronze age Greece in some of my architecture, just so that it won't look like Agrabah. Some of the stories I write also have some parallels to the Iliad, but I don't lean too heavily on the Greek influences for the most part.

Despite all these influences though, I usually develop the culture in Sogadar by looking at the Veh and how that would influence Sogad society. The Veh itself was inspired by Epicureanism, but I sort of put on a Sufi and Buddhist filter on it so that the difference between philosophy and religion is a lot more vague and blurry. I wanted to make a society that was alien, like societies in the bronze age tend to feel when you look at them, and one that didn't follow a religion that could be easily fit into a box like Polytheism and Monotheism.

The final big inspiration that I have to give credit to is Orientalist art and romanticism. I wanted Sogadar to carry an atmosphere where outsiders might misjudge it as a decadent and seductive land filled with immoral backwards people who live on top of the crumbling half-forgotten ruins of an irrelevant golden age. Afghanistan was called The Graveyard of Empires, and I wanted Sogadar to match that title.

Previous part: https://forums.candarion.com/topic/1054/the-curiosities-of-tsomgats-for-merchants-and-travellers-part-2-on-living-when-you-might-otherwise-die

The city that is opposite of Bar Narsa is formally known as “Ruhum”, which means something along the lines of “All-Roads”. It is named so for its distinction as the largest trade-hub on the northern coast, and is under the royal possession of the Saka’s of Tsartsam[1], who dwell in this city during the winter months. Its local inhabitants however, know the city as “Baribar”, which owes its name in one part Tsomgats and another part Kohese, so that it simply means “The City by the Coast”. The surrounding countries we therefore know it as “Barbary”.

The city itself, although quite small, does not resemble an aggregate of villages, which is true for most cities in Tsmogats, for it is built in the imitation of our cities. It is straddled by water on three sides, so that the city itself resembles an island. It’s great harbour situated in the northeast of the city faces northwards towards the direction of Bar Narsa, and resembles the shape of a bell-beaker. It holds many ships of varying sizes throughout the entire year - all of which, are once more, of our designs. A great promenade stretches southeast, and a great many columns and trees divide the road in two parts, so that each of the two parts serves to direct the flow of traffic in one single direction. On either side were numerous townhouses and they were constructed with such luxury to be plastered with white lime and stucco in its entirety, giving evidence to the wealth of their inhabitants - for those who inhabit within the city were exclusively those with the means to do so.

On the base of these houses were multitudes of workshops, dressers, jewelers, and haberdasheries, each of which sells a great variety of pottery, goldwork, fine clothes, spices, dyes, carpets, tapestries, sculptures, cheeses, fruits, and many others of import and local production. Two days a week, merchants from outside the city are allowed to ply their trade within, flooding the promenade with their wares so that travel through the road is impossible if not done on foot.

There is a distinct lack of temples or places of worship within the city on account of the ban that the city had placed upon our people from taking up residence permanently[2]. Our merchants are therefore forced to make the journey to Bar Narsa each day.

The very southwestern quarter of the city opposite of the harbour along the promenade is the residence of the Saka which the seaward walls that run from the mouth of the great bell-beaker harbour passes through. It is very tall on account of its construction upon a hill, and its walls are made stout with the same materials used to build the sea walls. The palace, like much of the city, is made beautiful by a number of trees and fragrant plants and flowers that had been deliberately planted and kept by gangs of slaves responsible for the cleaning and maintenance of the city. These slaves are made up of prisoners of wars, vagrants, or the household servants of the city elites, for it is both the custom and the law of the land that each subject of a Saka are drafted to maintain or construct public works[3].

The intervening countries through which it is necessary for caravans to pass through were divided into gardens and plantations of every kind. Part of the land was planted with olives, and another yielded an abundance of pomegranates, figs, and a great number of other fruit-bearing trees. Many streams were laid upon the land to irrigate its parts, and more yet came from the underground channels(4) that brought down water from the mountains. There were numerous estates occupying this country, and the farm buildings and granaries were filled with everything that was needful to its inhabitants, so that none lacked for want. Further on, herds of cattle and sheep grazed on land unsuitable for planting, and a variety of flowers are grown there upon the pastures. Here and there, horses were kept alongside the stock, and they are of adequate quality for use of travel.

Truly does the city enjoy such manifold prosperity that it is only second to Tsartsam itself, whose great splendour is unrivaled across lower and upper Tsomgats.

It is by this way that I, Kero Ish Gelei, bore witness to the lands of lower Tsomgats and returned to write this.

---

Footnotes:
[1] - Shahristan
[2] - Unlike other “Sea-Peoples”, the Kohese are allowed to enter and trade within the city of Ruhum. They are however not allowed to reside in the city for long without a permit as one of their conditions for establishing the Bar Narsa trade outpost.
[3] - Household slaves are regularly sent in place of subject’s as representatives or tokens of their draft.
[4] - Qanats

Previous Story: https://forums.candarion.com/topic/1143/swear-it

It was well past noon when we arrived back at the palace. Cold had begun to creep back into the day and the group that we had seen shifted impatiently against the winds. They wore shawls and heavy coats stained with dust from the valley below, and if it were not for the bright orange banner that flew violently against the wind behind them, I would have mistaken them as peasants and nothing more.

“Prince Khoroush.” One of the bigger men among them called out as we approached, kneeling on the dust below with his head bowed.

We both froze.

I had known Khoroush as a prince and regarded him that way the first time we had met. But he had always been insistent that I did not treat him as such, and it had become easy to forget of the blue that ran in his blood. But to see others perform the obeisance as befits a prince drew me back to half-forgotten anxieties and uneasiness that we had worked hard to break between us. It reminded me of who he really was at the end of the day. And who I was.

He approached them uneasily as if he had forgotten how to behave at such a gesture of reverence, holding out his hand for each and every one of them to press their shawl covered heads against it, allowing themselves to rise only when they felt their prince’s hand on their shoulder.

“I did not expect to see you so soon, Aryosh.” Khoroush said, forcing a smile despite his wary voice.

“It has revealed itself to be an early spring, lord.” Aryosh responded with awkward formality in the language of the court. “Your Father-Saka has sent us upcountry for you.”

“And the tithes.” Came a voice.

Gozdarz stood by the open doorway of the hall. Behind him glowed the warmth of the hearth inside as the waning light of the sun outside began to colour the distant mountains red. His eyes flickered over towards me, and his lips tugged into a small frown that I had grown accustomed to.

“Indeed, Marzagha.” Aryosh said, his eyes cast downwards at the sudden appearance of the larger man before him.

Gozdarz made a grunt of a response, burying his nose further into his woolen cloak as a gust of wind suddenly blew between us. “The slaves will tend to it” He said, waving his hand for the party to come inside. “Come. Share the fire.” and he turned inside for the rest of us to follow.

I lingered back, wondering if I had made another childish mistake by promising to Khoroush something I hadn’t even known the stake of. I felt like a fool again, stumbling into things I hadn’t the wisdom to see ahead of time, acting impulsively.

Khoroush must have sensed the questions brimming from my eyes alone as we were left the only ones outside. He held my hand in his, smiling even as his eyes betrayed him. “I’ll tell you everything. Soon.” He reassured me, for he never broke a promise with me.

Inside the hall bustled with sudden life as slaves rushed back and forth carrying platters of food and mixing bowls of wine. Gozdarz had taken his seat at the far end of the room with his family, as all around, courtiers whispered greedily about the ones who had come to break the boredom of border-life in the mountains.

“I’ll meet you in our room?” Khoroush said, turning to face me suddenly. Looking over towards Gozdarz, I could see that perpetual scowl grow more intense as he glared openly towards me. I understood my place. I was not welcomed to this meeting.

“You’ll meet me there.” I nodded.

“Be welcomed, Shahristani-val, to Vatya-Manag.” Gozdarz announced behind me just as I began to leave the hall, his voice growing dimmer and dimmer as I climbed up the tower towards our room, and my chances of knowing a single thing of what’s to come with it. I pushed the thought away from me, if only to remind myself I will know soon enough. We were leaving, I was sure of that. And I would follow. That I knew.

Without realising it, I found myself packing when there was no need to. Other slaves would come to take our things away to the baggage train. But that is for another time. I needed it for now - to work mindlessly on things that were familiar to my hands until that time came.

There was a knock on the door, and before I could answer it, Kithia had let herself in carrying my dinner platter. I was not used to being served so readily by someone else - let alone someone I had been enslaved with. It had become easier over time to dismiss her with a simple thank you to avoid any of the lingering awkwardness that we both had given up on mending. But tonight had been different, as all nights would be from then on.

“Have you eaten yet?” I asked. It seemed silly for a boy to ask that question to the woman who had taken care of you and whose hair was beginning to grey.

Kithia did not answer immediately, her eyes narrowing its gaze upon me as if I were playing a trick on her.

“I have not.”

“Come join me.”

“I will not.” She said defiantly, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Then let me speak. Just this once.” I told her, adamant on this one thing. “I’m leaving. For Shahristan.” I said.

If she had any opinion about what I had just said to her, she did not show it, and remained expressionless. “For the prince.” She corrected me after a while. “You are leaving for the prince.”

“Yes.” I admitted.

“Why?”

Her question shocked me and I had trouble putting together an answer for her.

“Do you know what you’re getting yourself into, Tsaveyyo.” She pressed on, clear anger in her eyes. “I might have been born a slave, but I have been in this Forgotten land far longer than you have.”

“Kithia I-”

“Ask your prince what will happen when he’s Saka. Ask yourself if you were ever really worth more than your weight in gold.” She was trembling in rage now, and there was pain in her voice.

I was stunned, shaken at her words. “What will happen?” I asked.

She closed her eyes now and her voice dropped from her high. “I have made peace with myself, Tsaveyyo. When I die here, I will walk with Antho, God of gods.” She opened her eyes once more to look at me inquisitively. “You understand what will happen to your soul if you die here?”

I nodded my head, unable to bring out words for an answer. It was said that our souls are returned to Twae’koa, so that we may be born again on earth to await our return to paradise. But Twae did not dwell here; no soul who has died here would return to be born again. This was the land that Water forgot, and all here would be left forgotten.

She sighed, stepping forward to place her fingers upon my forehead, making a small circular motion there. “May the Light be your guidance, and guidance be your Light.” She intoned. A solemn and soft prayer that reminded me of the hymns she used to sing at night. And without another word, without looking back, she turned and left me alone in that room.

Could fate be so cruel to give happiness too few to only to rip them away just as you’d think it would last? It was almost a cruel sick joke to be left collecting memories by the thimble-fulls. The poets sang of youths whose body slept the sleep of bronze that even death could not expose anything within them that was not beautiful. But all I saw were maybe’s and could be’s.

Khoroush came not long after, and I clung to him on the doorway, burying my face against his shoulder as I held him in my arms with the sudden urge to commit his body against mine to memory. “What will happen?” I asked him.

I felt his body tense against mine, felt his breath draw to a close as I waited for his answer. “When we get to Shahristan?” I felt him stalling.

“You promised. What will happen when we arrive there.” I demanded from him.

He held back and bit at his lips anxiously as he registered the wild desperate look of my eyes, understanding where my sudden need arose from. He wrapped his arms around my waist and let out a weary sigh. “If my father is dead; then to the strongest.” He finally said.

“When?” I pressed on.

“Not soon.” He tried to reassure me, though he sounded unsure of himself, “Not now.” I imagined cold daggers slick with blood buried in warm flesh and closed my eyes, squeezing him tighter, pressing his body against mine even further than before. “Swear it.” I told him.

His lips broke into a smile then - his genuine one now, tender and soft as he brought a hand up to cup my face, brushing his thumb across my salty skin. “I swear it.”

---

We left Gozdaz’s palace three days later. The border-lord and his courtiers all escorted us out before the palace as the slaves worked to prepare the baggage train for the journey ahead. “I hope my rivals take you as their charge next year, Prince Khoroush.” He told him just as we were about to leave, exchanging an embrace that was devoid of both fondness or malice.

‘Next year.’ I thought to myself.

He turned to me then, scowling his scowl that was fast becoming a signature of him whenever I was near his presence, and brought his large hands atop my head, ruffling it. “You were a waste of a purchase, boy. I only hope you are worth more than you weighed.” He told me coldly.

I avoided his eyes in discomfort as he left us, spotting Kithia amongst the rest of the servants who had come to bid their royal guest farewell. Her eyes were locked with mine, even as he remained defiant over any emotion she might have felt at the time. I watched her behind my shoulders every few miles that we moved, slowly watching her figure grow smaller and smaller in the distance until I could see her no more.

I would never see Kithia again. Many years later when I had come to find her, the older servants would tell me she had died years before. They had found her in her cot one quiet morning, clutching at the disc she wore so zealously for her distant god. She would have been far too young, but I believed them anyway.

Previous story: https://forums.candarion.com/topic/1119/prince-in-waiting
Song for Dance Scene: https://open.spotify.com/track/43WlKT0CG9Yl8UvyGIr9oF?si=FGK2UftEQUCBwPwHjUX2vg

Our friendship came all at once after that, as sudden as a spark of flint on tinder. Our days became filled with adventures outside of the palace, claiming every piece of it as ours alone. Here the mountain we would climb to rest our feet on its springs, there the olive groves we would laze under the sun. Gozdarz would see us some days, and offer a disapproving smile. But that did not matter to either of us. My tongue became loose with giddiness and my heart would laugh and leap with us. We felt as if we could eat the whole world raw, and nothing could compare so brightly but the mirth of our eyes.

He would teach me how to string a bow, plucking at the string with his finger until it strummed like a lyre. I taught him how to cut stone, and to carve it with whatever tools we had stolen from a visiting artisan that had come to work for Gozdarz. The days became numberless and felt all too short before we would find ourselves in our room, listening to the cicadas and giving up sleep for just another hour to ourselves.

---

I asked if he could dance one day as we pilfered the great hall for some food and wine late at night. He looked up at me with a mouth full of grapes, carefully balancing plates of cheese and watermelon in his arms.

“Yes.” He told me without so much of a hesitation as he quickly wolfed down his grapes, rummaging inside of a chest behind the throne and handing me over a bell-less frame drum. “Do you know how to play?” He asked.

“Do I know how to play?” I scoffed, taking the drum from his hands and running my palm across its taut skin, mustering my memories of playing it so as to not embarrass myself now.

He stood in front of me still, his eyes flickering towards me and nodded lightly. Then I struck the drum, filling the empty room with its noise.

He began slowly circling me with shuffled steps in tandem with the drums, his boot heels clicking against the floor as his eyes watched me intently, breaking as I struck the drum loudly and he began to dance. Gracefully in practised form, his anklets and bracelets chimed to the drums as he moved in the way a bird-of-paradise might dance. The floor rasped to the dragging of his feet, and his hair flew wildly like a flame as he spun. His eyes were closed now, but I could see a hint of a smile forming on his lips in between the flashes of his movements, thinking nothing at all but the music - of me - lost to the swirl of movements he’d been born to move to. He leapt into the air, arching his back to the form of the bull leaper painted behind him, his rings catching the light of the flame for a moment as he seemed to float there in my eyes.

He landed on one knee in front of me, arms spread out and his head bowed. His face was flushed as he caught his breath, lifting gold-speckled eyes to look at me once more. And then we smiled.

---

We sat on the olive groves overlooking the land one afternoon, doing nothing at all. We found ourselves here more often recently as the winter slowly gave way for the coming spring and warmer days. Khoroush had been brooding and uneasy lately, enough so that I couldn’t pretend to not notice any longer.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked.

He looked up from the knife he was toying with idly in his hands. He had been leaning on a boulder we had carved a jackal and a hare upon. Khoroush carved himself as a jackal, on my suggestion, and I carved myself a hare, riding upon its golden back.

“Home.” He mumbled after a while.

I stood up to sit next to him on the boulder, grabbing the knife from his palms and placing it back in its leather sheath. He opted to cross his arms in its absence.

“Do you miss it?” I asked him tenderly. It was becoming harder to miss home when I was around him. Yet some days it would come, and those days were the worst.

“Not like that.” He muttered, turning his head to look at me. Our eyes lingered on one another's gaze, and for a moment, I could see no uneasiness behind them. Then he looked away once more as if realizing that we had been staring. “It’s almost spring. I’m supposed to go back. Every spring. For the new years.”

“And you don’t want that?” I asked him.

“I do! I miss Shahristan. But...” He trailed off, leaning his head back against the boulder and closing his eyes. “Every year I come back feels like a year I’ve spent just… surviving.” He opened his eyes to turn to me once more, this time with a look of shame. “You don’t understand what I’m talking about do you?”

I shook my head, and shifted so that I was standing on my knees in front of him. “Would it be easier if I came with you?” I told him.

His eyes lit up despite himself. “Would you?” he asked me, and I had to ask myself the same question. I was free to leave anytime, to go back home ‘below the winds’ as they called it. I could ask anything I want that a prince could offer, and find my way through the Gold Expanse with his protection. I could find myself kneeling before the Blood-Chief of Kaiaomec, I could have brought riches and gifts, and brought Hetu to live with me there in our new home.

What home? Where the gifts and riches that I could bring back in glory and splendour? Where was Hetu? It was foolish of me to even think Kaiaomec would take a runaway slave and disregard the caste. To think I could cheat fate by bending it to my weak will. It all seemed so long ago now. I was here, with this prince who looked at me as if I were the measure of his world now. I would stay, so long as he stays with me.

“I would.” I answered him, placing my hand firmly on his forearm - the sign of a promise. He held onto my forearm as tightly then, his eyes remaining on mine, pulling me forward suddenly to press our lips against the other.

It was a stiff and awkward kiss. The kind you would cringe and never forget for the rest of your life. And I would not have had it any other way.

We pulled away from each other, our soft measured breaths seeming to become louder than the world around us. “Would you?” He asked me once more.

“I would.” I answered, and his smile was brighter than pearls.

“I swear. I’ll tell you more. Soon.” He told me.

But there would be no time for that. Before I could answer, his eyes had drifted past behind me, and as I looked to follow them we could see an orange banner in the distance, fluttering in the harsh wind on the valley below as it slowly slithered upwards towards the palace.

Realm: Sogadar
Texture Pack: Excalubur