Mairek heard the cries of his neighbors despite the fact that he had barricaded himself in his room for the sole purpose of escaping the anguish felt by the Jamou village women's loud wails and the sight of the village men in tears as they comforted their wives whilst battling their own broken hearts. "Curse Binoria! Curse them to the depths of the Rankf sea!" Mairek cursed though a part of him knew his words were as useless as the person that had formed them.

Mairek had closed the wooden window and door to his mud hut located beside his father's four roomed stone house in an unsuccessful effort to block out the cries from the surrounding village houses. The hut had been built to house him after he'd come of age but failed to show any military amplitude that might secure him a spot in the Talisi Green army or shown any skill, no matter how vague, in things ranging from trade to farming. His father regarded him as a loser and cast him out of the main house, Mairek didn't disagree with him.

He was indeed a loser, a loser who had fallen in love with the intensity of a roaring furnace only to watch as the flame got put out by a Binorian. Mairek had loved Jesna and the Gods knew she had loved him back just the same. It was through her that he'd discovered his ability to compose poems and songs, a pitiful skill that wouldn't benefit him in Talisi. Only she knew of his bard abilities, he remembered serenading her late into the night in the same hut he sat in alone now.

A man had come from Binoria with his pale chin lifted in a self entitled fashion. Jesna had caught his eye and all it took for him was a few words and she was his. Hours of singing to her, composing poems for her, professing his love for her only for a Binorian to take her away with a couple of sentences. Mairek blinked away tears, he felt pathetic, he felt weak. He lay back in his cot and covered his head with a woolen blanket. He sobbed in tune with the wails of the women outside.

After a moment of weeping he flung the blanket off him in frustration. Mairek sat up in the cot and closed his eyes in the dim room , he hadn't done it in a while but he was sure he could create something, something that may serve as an outlet to what he felt, something that may act as a candle shielding him from the darkness that engulfed him. He moved his lips, willing sound to emerge and though his eyes were closed he could still see her, beckoning him to come over with a smile on her face.

"Your hair like moonlight's glow.

Your skin like the kiss of night.

Your eyes like a blade of grass.

Your smile like the end of drought.

Gone you are, forgotten you will never be."

He opened his eyes after composing to find the room that was once dim filled with sunlight. Mairek saw that the door was still locked, he turned towards the window and found it open with Ishar's face staring at him. Mairek let out a yelp and jumped off the cot, he wasn't expecting to see someone at his window and Ishar had startled him.

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"By the Gods man, that was beautiful, are you like a bard or something?" Ishar asked. Ishar carried with him a faintly blue bedsheet that was fashioned as a bag and propped over his shoulder. Ishar threw the makeshift bag into the hut then followed it through the window. He walked over to the cot, while examining the mostly empty hut save a few scattered utensils, an old lute and a pile of clothes at one corner. Ishar sat on the cot and turned his gaze to Mairek. "So, when were you going to tell me that you're a bard?"

"What are you doing in Jamou? You rarely come here! Why do you smell of smoke?" Mairek asked from where he stood opposite the cot, avoiding Ishar's question by formulating his own.

Ishar let out a sigh and leaned back on the cot until his face observed the grass thatched roof. "I'll tell you why I smell like smoke once you tell me why the whole village has erupted into wails, there are Talisi hollering while sprawled on the ground all over the village!"

"Talisi can not afford to match this year's quota to Binoria so they've opted to offer Binoria ten girls from every village and town in Talisi. The Green army marched in today and took ten daughters from ten households." Mairek concluded, he dipped his head in anger and stared at the ground with his fists curled, unable to add a sentence that would crush his friend.

"They took Niada." Ishar said calmly while still staring at the ceiling.

"I'm sorry Ishar, I am so sorry. I know how you feel-" Mairek started.

"I feel excited." Interrupted Ishar. The shepherd sat up in the cot and observed Mairek who'd gone silent as the words Ishar uttered settled in. "I feel alive, I feel awake, I feel.. Different." Ishar said. He stood up and stood before Mairek. "I know what you feel and it is not similar to what I feel."

"What.. What do I feel?" Mairek asked.

"You feel anger at what the Binorians have brought us to, a nation that sacrifices its own daughters for the benefit of a rival nation. It's a pity." Ishar took a step closer to Mairek and peered into the green eyes of the taller man. "You feel weak due to your inability to act, you feel pathetic and a huge part of you feels useless and another part of you, hidden from your own inner eye, a part of you that dances just out of reach of your thoughts and camouflages as despair, wishes to die."

Mairek gasped at the words uttered by his friend and took a step back from Ishar. "Last night someone told me that the Talisi will offer Niada and other girls as this year's quota, I thought it was a dream but you confirming it has eradicated any thought of it being a dream." Ishar said, he put a hand to his chin and stroked a none existent beard. "The person I met with also told me that Niada will die in a whore house, that I will die in half a decade's time and that basically the entire realm is imbalanced simply because a Goddess favored a King and gave him a piece of the Gods."

"Who.. Who told you these things?" Mairek asked.

"You're destined to die a pitiful death Mairek, probably in this very room. You're destined to amount to nothing and be nothing. So am I! So is everyone in the realm except the Binoria! Just because Meena saw it fit to bless them! Well, that will change for as a Goddess gave so has a God taken! There will be balance, our fate is no longer written in stone!" Ishar spoke passionately, the words oozing out of him like Rankf oil out of a jar. Mairek felt the power laced in Ishar's words, the hunger, the desire to make a change and it collided with his weakness, his unspoken desire to die and his inability to see something other than the future he believed he was destined to have.

"Why do you smell of smoke?" Mairek asked.

Ishar abruptly turned to face Mairek. He lowered his hand from his chin and set it to his side. Mairek observed his long time friend and couldn't help but notice a subtle difference in the boy. He held himself differently and his violet eyes glazed with a ferocious madness, something was wrong with Ishar. No, not wrong but different. "Why do you smell of smoke?" Mairek repeated his question.

"Why are you a pathetic weakling who pleasures himself to sheep and spends most of his days weeping at the memory of a girl who was taken from him as easily as a chick is taken by a hawk?" Ishar asked.

Mairek's face contorted in a fit of rage. "Get out of my house!" He commanded. Ishar stood still for moment then rushed towards his friend. Mairek raised his hands in startled defense but Ishar swiftly slapped his hands aside. Mairek wore a white shirt that was spotted with brown stains, Ishar raised the shirt over Mairek's head and slapped his hand over Mairek's bare chest, right over his beating heart.