The rest of the day had been one of preparation and planning. Omid remembered sitting down to eat with a number of servants as he made idle conversation and encouraged them against the coming war party. None had ever been through such a thing, none knew what to expect, and yet Omid did his best to reassure them that it would go fine. For he was looking out for them, and he had some unnamed title here that none could figure out and none dare ask after.

Least of all Omid.

Omid was even avoiding putting a name to whatever it was that he and Sareen were. And under no circumstances was he thinking about what they would be. Which went against every single instinct Omid had of trying to plan ahead as much as possible. This recent bout of making it up as he goes was an aberration that would be under control in no time and Omid would have everything planned out as it should be.

This was even a good first step or several!

All of this planning for a war party that was apparently certain to incite violent competition amongst incredibly powerful and prideful beings.

One of which he had a vested interest in seeing succeed.

Because they were involved.

No. Stop thinking about that it’s...too early to really put a name to it no matter how right it feels.

How right it feels would just bring further implications and plans for the future.

Which Omid absolutely did not want, and instead just wanted to focus on planning things as normal.

“You’re lost in your head again.”

Omid blinked out of his daze, shaking his head as he regained a sense of his surroundings and the indigo eyed woman standing so very close to him once more with that same smile of pure amusement. And he was starting to get that she really wasn’t mocking him in these times, not intentionally. He was simply far away through a portal in his own head, and not here where she wanted him to be.

And though she always wanted him to be here for one reason or another, when exactly did he accept being here?

“Though I shall reach out a hand for you to grab, in your head is a difficult place to reach.”

The young man felt blood rushing to his head as he had been overthinking again. “Apologies, there is much to think about and so little time.”

Omid was back in this room bearing a large tapestry with what he remembered assuming to be Zallans. All of which were locked in...battle? Collaboration? From the sounds of how their meetings usually went, he was no longer sure that such a distinction truly existed.

“An unfortunate inconvenience for now!” Sareen announced in triumph, striding up to the tapestry. “There remains a rite to plan for. To vanquish or subjugate a number of rivals in one event!”

Yes, that.

What little of his mind that had lingered in the far future still had been dragged back into the present with that line.

Omid was helping to plan the demise of several other beings of immense power.

“And to be certain I am perfectly clear on this matter,” Omid rubbed at his temple as he hunched over a glass display with a thread and needle both gleaming like a polished pearl “I am going to be your hidden blade of a sort? And I’m going to guess one such victim will be that Mirzallan we encountered?”

“Of a sort!” Cheer faded into disgust in the blink of an eye. “And yes, him.”

This was oddly appropriate, Omid thought, as he had his own hidden blade. Of a sort. And though he had wanted to keep it secret for longer, it appeared there was no time like the present. As he looked down at the small, clearly precious thread, he started to form a plan.

“We’ll need torches.” He announced as he wheeled around on the spot, looking around the room in what he realized was a futile attempt. It was all those odd glowing sconces here, likely lit by similar glowing crystals as he had seen before in that ruin. “Torches and rope.”

“Your enthusiasm is appreciated but we will need far more than that to strike him down.” Sareen’s teeth were gleaming in the pale white light, in a smile that reached up to eyes that didn’t necessarily convey the standard type of happiness.

“Not what I meant!” Omid shook his head and did the same with a gesture of his hands. “I’m going to challenge him to a competition, and...well why don’t I show you? Where would you have torches?”

The Kirzallan looked on with crossed arms and a raised brow, before beckoning the young man to follow. “Near the stables would be a sorting room and a few storage rooms. Some of what you claimed from those thieves remains there waiting for you. They’re yours now, never forget what’s yours.”

Omid followed after, stealing a final glance at that tapestry that had led the pair here. It was a history lesson in what could be expected of such an upcoming meeting. And the aspiring mage had started to overthink things sometime around it being an event that could seem momentous at the time and lead to nothing or seem as nothing and lead to a new era.

“All of you are so fortunate!” Sareen proclaimed, extending her arms outward as she walked down her palace halls. “A battle strategy for a glorious war against those who would seek to end the world! An establishment of power and alliances! A new era!”

The human let her continue her sermon on what a glorious new era this was going to be, passing by construction and decoration in equal amounts all around them. As she continued her speech he would occasionally gently remind her of their plan to rule over more people as opposed to simply killing them. Which of course caught the attention of more than a few horrified looking servants, that Omid had to soothe with pleading looks and quick assurances that they would be rewarded for their service.

“When you say ‘reward’...” The young woman played with the hem of her blouse, violet eyes avoiding looking directly at Omid at all costs. “...forgive me but...did you mean-”

“NOT death. We do not mean death as a reward!” Omid forced a smile as he carefully placed his hands on her shoulders to reassure her. “NOR do we mean turning you to glass or stone and only being alive from a certain point of view, or anything else of that nature. Isn’t that right Sareen?”

The Kirzallan stared at the servant girl for a moment, standing perfectly still aside from a single blink. “Loyalty shall be rewarded, failure-”

“Betrayal!” Omid insisted, once more, as they had discussed earlier in an effort to promote more loyalty instead of pure fear

“Betrayal shall be punished harshly.” Sareen corrected herself, gaining another wicked smile that Omid missed by focusing on the servant that he had released to show they meant no harm. At the moment. The servant girl, however, saw the smile and shrank back towards the wall.

“By Omid.”

The young man winced, clenching his jaw hard as he shot a glance to the servant girl trying to hide against the pale stone yet failing horribly in spite of her own fair complexion.

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“It’s the least I can do.” Omid said as he rolled his shoulders and straightened his stance, he looked to the still cowering servant girl. “May I have your name?”

“L-lillia?”

“It wasn’t a question but you have nothing to fear, Lillia.” Omid reassured her with a genuine smile. “You wouldn’t betray us would you?”

“Never!”

“Wonderful!” The young man clapped his hands together. “Please let the other servants know that while they have nothing to fear if they commit no wrongs I will not be so kind in the event such kindness is betrayed.”

Lillia looked from Omid to a still smiling Sareen who gave no challenge to such a claim. The servant girl bowed to them both. “Of course. I shall do so with haste, Master Omid.”

Before Omid could reassure her further she was scurrying towards one of the hidden passages behind banners, which had still been his idea. An idea that the servants had already thanked him for in passing, an idea amongst a few Omid had that would help ensure their safety. And this was a simple request, don’t betray his kindness and force him into handing out an appropriate punishment.

He could have put that far more diplomatically, but it was still a simple request.

“Well done.” Sareen wasn’t even mocking him as she swayed closer to him, and he wasn’t sure that wasn’t a form of mocking on a more cosmic scale. “To rule alongside me, you will need to experience what that means. And to create our own rules, we must enforce them.”

“I’m giving them all far more warning than I gave to that bandit woman.” Omid frowned and took his place at Sareen’s side, waiting for her to lead on. “If I make things perfectly clear for them, then it is their mistake to make.”

Sareen’s smile only grew wider as she led on while walking backwards for several steps to observe Omid following behind her. The young man kept his own straining smile as he met her eyes. No anger or disgust, only a certain spark that Omid was beginning to recognize as...approval.

The Kirzallan turned around mid stride without missing a step, and Omid finally had a chance to let his smile fade from his lips as that approval filled him with an emotion he wasn’t putting a name to yet. He hadn’t even given her his full name, and now that he thought about it he hadn’t heard her full name. If she had one.

Given the power that such a thing apparently held, perhaps that came at some undefined later stage of things that there was absolutely no reason to think of now of all times. There were much more pressing troubling ideas to think about instead.

“Here we are.” Sareen announced, opening the door to a large room at the edge of the palace that held a number of crates and tables replete with a vast number of goods that one might carry with them through The Great Desert. As well as someone busy sorting a few stray goods into crates.

“Omid!” Taljir called out before flinching and bowing quickly. “And Princess Sareen. I did not expect you in the sorting room! Which I just learned of the other day and I’ve been going through it occasionally to see if there’s any tools for animal care in here!”

The “please don’t kill me” was implicit as Taljir shot a quick pleading glance at Omid. Who quickly picked up the slack so Taljir didn’t hang himself with it. “Resourceful and forward thinking! Excellent work!”

“Omid won your freedom.” Sareen said as she made her way through the room, eyeing the crates full of goods. “If I were to strike you down it would hardly be fair to him. Now, we shall be needing torches and ropes.”

The Kirzallan stood up after stooping over a crate, face scrunched up as she looked at the source of that confusion. “Omid, why did you request ropes and torches?”

Taljir was especially curious about this, being completely and utterly lost more than any other in this room. Omid sighed and started aiding Sareen in her search of the crates. “I will need a torch to show you. Lend me a hand, Taljir?”

The trio set about searching crates, with Sareen being the first to haul out several lengths of rope to toss onto a nearby table. Omid kept searching more and more crates, and got slower and slower as time went as he searched through more belongings. More assorted trinkets, books so old as to be crumbling, pouches of unfamiliar coins that would never be of any use to Omid again, small tools, even a few spare moon jars.

How would those even react up here?

There remained a greater question, of the people that these things had belonged to. Had they all been like the thieves? Or merely unfortunate fools as Taljir had been?

It didn’t matter, Omid thought as he shoved aside a small pile of rings. Things would be different now and he was going to be sure of that.

Had to be sure of that.

“Found some!” Taljir called out, hoisting a few short torches into the air before setting them down on a table and backing away. “I still have no idea what this plan is but I have a feeling it’s important? What mastermind plot do you have planned now? Because I offer my expertise in such an endeavor!”

“Perhaps…” Omid said as he withdrew his flint and steel from his pouch. He set the other torches aside as he laid the one alone on the stone table and struck the flint and steel towards it to ignite it before quickly holding it up. Then he looked to his audience. “I trust you both, and I trust you with this secret.”

Taljir cast a cautious, questioning glance at the newest member of this trust. Which Sareen ignored entirely as she focused on Omid who slowed his breathing, focused on the torch, and spoke a word of Command Fire. He pulled the flame from the torch into his free hand as he began his chant, just as he had been practicing every night he had to himself. A number that was far too few, but in understanding the mechanics of one’s will upon fire made manifest through magic it all made sense.

Control the flame, because you must.

Omid played with the ball of flame in his hand for a moment longer before he lobbed it back at the torch. He breathed a sigh of relief, feeling only the one bead of sweat run down his forehead as he saw Taljir all smiles and Sareen all disbelief.

“How?” Was all that Sareen could manage, barely above a whisper.

“You have your servants, I have my entourage.” Omid wasn’t technically lying about Aiz, Baz, and Karimala. He hadn’t asked them yet but they would likely agree to his scheme, which made this proactively true. “Amongst them is a mage who taught me this spell. I had hoped to retrieve them and add them to our list of available allies. Which we can straighten out the details of later. For now, my plan is to challenge that Mirzallan to a contest with the conditions of no Water magic or Earth magic. He won’t expect the fire, and though I can’t create fire yet...well, that will be the purpose of all those ‘decorative’ torches.”

Sareen had crossed her arms, but looked more intrigued than anything else. “And you believe you can win this challenge?”

“If I could win against you,” Omid held onto that confidence for dear life “then what chance would your enemies have against a seemingly simple contest where I have a trick planned?”

Taljir was unable to resist a chuckle before bowing his head and excusing himself from the room. Shortly before breaking into a sprint and bursting out a side door down a short hallway. Omid and Sareen both stared at the door, hearing the desperate thudding footsteps fading into the distance.

The human cleared his throat, turning to the deceptively young looking lady. “My apologies, it hadn’t come up before.”

Sareen just shrugged and brushed it off with a wave of her hand. “You brought it up when it was critical. We would be here for an eternity if we had to reveal absolutely everything in our lives to one another. Now, would you tell me the rest of this grand plan?”

There was that question again of how old Sareen truly was, and there went Omid’s attempt to care about it into the flame of the torch that Omid extinguished with another Command spell as he set about explaining the set up and execution of this plan. It was deceptively simple, and Sareen did note that it would rely on the abundance of other Zallans there to keep his particular Mirzallan true to his word over the planned loss.

“You’ll need more training then.” Sareen noted, with a finger at her chin. “It’s time we give you some more training, dearest Omid.”

She walked over to a crate at the corner and withdrew a number of blades that Omid recognized after a moment with widening eyes as the blades of the camel thieves. Sareen held them in her hands with care, shortly before shattering them in her grasp. The shards swirled about in a cloud of metal as she hummed a light tune to herself to make all the tiny bits of metal glow white hot and coalesce into a new form. A new blade of black and inlaid with golden details. A single edged work of art that curved slightly, Sareen presented him the sword which Omid took and inspected to find it weighed perfectly.

“Magic is only some of what I will teach you, learn to wield spell and blade in tandem and you will be a legend.” She cooed in a tone that didn’t match the deathly designs she had in mind. “Are you ready?”

Omid held the sword in two hands, running his thumb over a golden bit of the grip. He nodded to her. “As I will ever be.”