Khalifa

08 Crescent

No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

— Terry Pratchett

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Him

Life is a game of cards. We play, we risk, we win or we lose. Life is a shadow of destiny-- a mere form with no details, each of which is unveiled with time, one by one when the curtains fall. Life is a fleeting kiss of a deceiving lover, teaching us passion and building us dreams, until one day to cheat us when death befalls.

She's one such card to him, which if he finds to keep he'll win this game. He's one such shadow to her, following her always but her fingers cannot grasp. They're one such story of lovers where she's ignorantly on the run from him and he's fervently after her in chase. In this game with her, he has traded his heart and she's playing with it. Yet he doesn't mind. He cannot ever mind a lover like her.

"You're my qalb (heart), Noura, but you're so pure. How can a man like me have a heart like you?" He watches the crescent moon smile faintly at him, then he chuckles at his own words. "Just like the night sky has its moon, I'll have you. If I'm the darkness, my light is you."

Her

It's magical how the shades of blue blend into the purple hue of the crystal before breaking apart into faded streaks of the color of roses and sun. It's magical how they make a crescent. It's as beautiful as the crescent in the sky if not more. Noura cannot take her eyes off it, just like she couldn't put it down in the bazar of Isfahan. She still cannot believe she's holding the pendant in her hand again, the delicate crescent moon hanging from a gold chain. She's not sure if it really belongs to her, dazed, wondering how come Eskander found it for her.

A good while later when her eyes start itching from staring at it too much and she feels foolish over it, she puts it back down in the box and close it. There's no note attached saying it's for her, nothing to indicate if it's from Eskander or someone else. But the coincidence of it being the same jewelry she had found back at her home and now someone leaving it in her chamber is too much.

She glances at the food tray, then puts the box right where she had found it, deciding to ask Eskander first before keeping it. Wearing her cloak, she walks out of her chamber and finds Hafez, the guard Eskander had put on her duty, standing at the door. He comes to attention upon seeing her.

"Sayidati, do you need something?"

"Is Eskander back?" Noura asks him hopefully.

"I'm not informed of his return, sayidati. I suppose the general hasn't yet returned."

She exhales in resignation before moving ahead of him. "I'll go for a walk. Take me to the gardens."

"As you please." He tips his head and leads her to through the corridors of the palace in dead silence of the night. They come across soldiers every now and then standing on guard as they walk past them. Their footsteps echo off the walls where lanterns are lit and the fire casts orange glow across the hallways, creating an eerie effect. Noura puts her arms around herself. Unlike the day in the palace when everything is fantastical, the darkness comes out hauntingly like a ghost when the sun goes down.