22 Dark

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Here's what love is: a smoke made out of lovers' sighs. When the smoke clears love is a fire burning in your lover's eyes.

William Shakespeare

Him

"Joojoo?"

She pokes him with the wooden sword and he looks up from the sticks he's using to make himself a bow and arrows. "Yes?"

"Can you not be a king one day?"

He sheepishly shrugs and resumes making his bow. "I can be."

"But he said your baba isn't the Khalifa, so you cannot be either."

"Who said that?"

"The prince. I don't know his name. There are so many people here." She sits down on the ground with him, crossing her legs and putting the wooden sword aside, watching with eager eyes what he's doing. "What are you making?"

"A bow for myself. You can keep my sword." He smiles at her. "I'll ask my baba if I can be a king someday."

Her round orbs gleam with excitement. "And me? Can I be a queen too?"

He nods enthusiastically and she grins. "When I become a king, I'll make you a queen then."

Her

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Her

A lot of times in life the life we're destined to live and the life we desire are only tangents meeting briefly before parting. Or maybe so is the case always. Human heart is a nomad trying to find home in this temporary world. And until the hourglass runs out of its sand, hope remains.

The inky blue of the pond reflects the specks of stars in the sky just like the hope in her heart. The night is in its early hours and the darkness it has brought with itself envelopes everything. There is a bite in the air from coldness, and she rubs her nose as she feels it numbing. The silence around her is heavy yet comforting.

Noura kneels by the pond, her fingers hovering over its surface but not touching, watching the faint outlines of fish swimming beneath the water. She traces them with her eyes, following their movements, before being interrupted by sounds of footsteps approaching.

"Sayidati?" Hafez calls her. "It's getting late. I should escort you back to your chamber."

"Is Fereydun back, Hafez?"

"I don't know, sayidati. I can go check for you if you want me to."

Noura sighs and looks up to the half hung moon in the sky. She doesn't know how many more crescents of new months she has to count before the one she has been waiting for returns to her.

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