I do not know when, where, or how my contempt for my family transferred to my contempt for everyone. Once—perhaps even mere months ago—I would have enjoyed the festival greatly. I would have drank. I would have fought. I would have danced until I lost feeling of myself, my body, my mind. And I do those things, now, but I do them as a ghost would; with a ghost’s expressions; with a ghost’s commitment. I am there and gone, within the crowd and without, a stalking panther upon the ornate marble dance floor. The gypsy caravans are full of unique and strange wares; I try on a leopard-skin cloak and stare at the double rosettes upon my shoulders. My own, and some slaughtered wildcat’s. 

Then I leave; I slam back mead and festival beer and, when that is not enough, I steal a flask from a woman in a lesser noble family. I slept with her once, I think, and that is why she is so flirtatious when I approach, and smile, and laugh with her; but then I am gone into the crowd, a shadow in the throng of celebration. The smells of strange foods permeate the air and wherever I walk the music of the gypsies follows me. 

I do not come awake until I leave the Sovereign’s citadel and follow a band of rovers; they are a group of men, foreigners with one of the many invited caravans. They had been semi-brawling in the center of the festival before the soldier’s escorted them out of the citadel. No violence, they had insisted. But they had raised enough noise and interest there were several other citizens in pursuit. I recognise a fight club when I see one; and it does not take them long to arrive at a pueblo house with a yard fenced with the trunks of desert shrubs. They leave the door open. The light from within spills out into the street; I take it as an invitation, and only confirm the openness of the club when I see the symbol above the doorframe. A half-sun sigil, run through with a scimitar. The Pits.

By the time I make my way to the backyard of the adobe, they are already brawling. The yard is lit with torches in each corner; and the faces, backlit by the flames, seem ghoulish and strange. I am smiling before I even enter the ring; I am smiling before I approach the ring-keeper and ask to enter a brawl.

My blood is singing, singing.

In it: the mead, the beer, the hard liquor.

It is the first time all night I feel alive.

My fight is short and brutal. There is only one rule, tonight. Don’t kill him. And so I don’t. I draw it out against the pegasus I am pitted against; we come together and then crash apart, forces of nature, full of teeth and fury. And oh,

I am alive. Each blow excites me; each blow awakens something dormant, something hibernating, within my soul. I am not distraught when I lose, knocked to the ground and pinned by his hoof until the night blackens and I awaken to find myself hauled to my feet by a trio of men. I am laughing.

Blood cascades down my face from where he split my brow. I could leave, but there are members of the Pits now, passing liquor and placing bets. No, I think. 

I might just stay forever. 

"Speech." || @Anyone! 

we are born like this, into these carefully made wars

where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

HAGAR IESHAN

meet a man at the festival. He has long, black hair and a coat the color of dark chocolate, blotched here and there with fingers of white that look like cracks in a window. He tells me he is some form of noble, a distant relative of the Azhades, come to town for the party. Of course, no one would recognize him. Of course, he does not need to introduce me. He seems to struggle for a way to elaborate.

“Because I already know them.” I finish for him, smiling politely, doe-eyes and bright.

“Because you know them,” he agrees, and buys me a drink.

A man who likes the way I smile, my hair falling in straight red curtains– not quite as bright as Miriam’s nor quite as wild, but red all the same, but, I think, just as beautiful. (If not more so, I will add, later, when I have the time to stand at my vanity and stare myself straight in the cold, thin face.)

I touch his shoulder. I lean my cheek on his neck and feel the thick, still muscles beneath. This man is not a socialite, he is a soldier, and I can tell by the way he looks down at me with the ghost of a smile, a private one that he tries to keep me from seeing, that he feels like he has played some great trick on me.

“To be underestimated,” my mother once told me, as we sat in the courtyard on a stone bench, shaded by the serrated leaves of our plum tree, “is a gift. Especially for you.” She had looked at me strangely, then, as if she was privy to some secret, and, as always, one she wouldn’t tell. A week or so earlier I had convinced the cook to give me not one but two pieces of cake before dinner, though she had been strictly told not to do so. A few days before that, Pilate almost dropped his lesson books and his quill where he stood until I was caught with my mouth to his ear.

She had known, I know now, what I could do. But Lady Keturah knew the value of secrets, and had instructed me well in their keeping, and so as long as I never said a word to my siblings, or my father, or the servants or strangers that came to my door, she never spoke of it herself.

It is a well-curated art by the time I step through the door with this man, curling the ends of his mane around an invisible finger and looking appropriately stupefied, which men seem to like, and slightly apprehensive of the dimly-lit series of open rooms full of tables that lead out to a space in the back. The apprehension is not as much of an act as I wish that it was.

The yard is dark, some patches of thick, dry desert grass turned silver by the light of the moon, and the dirt–not sand, just dirt–an inky sort of blue-black as we step onto it. My date greets someone on the other side of what looks like a ring, where they’re hauling someone just as dark as the ground to their feet. I am busy looking bored, and feeling annoyed, when I see him.

He is laughing. Somehow I am both surprised to see Corradh here and not surprised at all. I am only surprised because to find him anywhere is such a rare treat, these days. He is so busy running away from the stress of a comfortable life.

Once they have escorted him out of the ring and he is still laughing, nose bloodied and ears ringing, I’m sure, I cross the room toward him. My date follows, until he sees that I am walking toward another man–brother or not. Part of me can’t blame him. We do not exactly look like siblings.

“Corradh,” I say, “what are you doing?” I feel the man’s eyes on my back. I lean forward to wipe my brother’s nose with the silk of my robe. The eyes turn away.

“Is it fun?”