Definition of friends!

Rohaan's vision was pulsating, deeming each breath to be his last until he would recover, this cycle of continuous struggle was keeping him on the verge of falling into the other side, .

It was as if, the Prince of light was simply declining death's request,

The amount of injuries he had so far accumulated was simply too many, his whole body was painted in scars and wounds and stark red blood, and the damage only went deeper than that,

His soul felt unhinged, barely held together by threads,

The feeling was something like at any moment, the soul would simply fall down into nothingness, this dangerous access to one's soul, that the executioners held during battles was what made them extremely dangerous adversaries.

Rohaan had fought and killed three of them regardless

A searing pain starked his eyes red, as a gradient of painful purple and crimson filled the corners of his vision until there was nothing but darkness for a moment or two,

Then a spark of light defiantly struck and chased the unconsciousness away from within.

Constantly engaged between this charade of life and death, for a brief long second he gained consciouness, quickly he tried sucking in a deep breath but something between his throat completely blocked it off,

Before where atleast he could breathe, now even that simple action seemed like a far fetched thing to achieve,

This sudden change pushed his visceral bestial instinct as he grabbed his neck and squirmed, trying desperately to free it, for a second he felt nothing but dread, before where there were emotions of resistance, now was the sweet and alluring invitation of permanent escape and rest.

Death changed its tactics,

Rohaan sat up, his face hanging down looking at the tattered armor, the color of his skin was changing and his eyes had long lost their light, shakingly, he looked as his eyes darted throughout the land,

Was this really how, he was going to die?

He thought to himself,

The dagger was loosely clenched between his right hand,

Suddenly his eyes spotted an erected stone altar, it was deep crimson in color two horns on each of extreme of the frame, extending upwards for metres.

Upon it sat a blur of crimson red, thoroughly enjoying the show, Wasl's laughter rang in his ears. The vision cleared,

Seeing the smile on the sovereign's face forced a long lost train of thoughts that he'd sometimes dwell upon, completely serene white world, a figure performing kata training with a long dagger,

But something was different this time,

There was another figure, a red one, its hand passing through the chest of the one doing kata,

And that was all that Rohaan needed in the moment, the sudden adrenaline rush, the rage, Rohaan gritted his teeth and screamed ontop of his lungs, at first nothing but a silent wheeze came out but soon a melody of rage was intermixed.

Suddenly, deep orange pulsed in his blurry vision, spreading from the boundaries of the world followed up by a splash of faded yellow,

As if his powers were crawling out forcefully from a caged body,

Soon, another pulse, this one more clearer and bright yellow in color than the previous two completely illuminated his dead eyes, as the seal came undone, Rohaan screamed in rage and fury, such that the shargh had never seen before.

Then he stood up,

Pushed his foot behind, right arm up, the dagger clenched between his fingers from which blood slowly dripped down.

He locked the eyes with the demoness and for a moment, the fatigue and the tiredness, depletion, concepts didn't matter, only the bloodlust remained,

This strangely aroused the demoness even further, as she slowly stood up from her throne.

**********

Gimpi had leasured himself a hearty fully paid for vacation from the Empress herself, she deemed it extremely important that Gimpi's mental health would stay perfect and healthy, afterall, he contributed a large sum to the annual funds,

Just his honeysoup, the single most delicious product, had become so fabled and famous that a whole exit pathway was dedicated from the grand factory, that spreaded outwards to the entire sehra, not stopping at Shomaal,

The continuous overlooking of such a meganomous business empire was straining our small raddish friend alot,

Gladly, after a request submitted by Azlan, completely uncalled for, he was sent away on to relax, let his mind reel away from all the complexities of being extremely succesfull.

Relaxing by an extremely beautiful hotspring that had bubbly bluish water, he was hoteled in rare and extremely private resort, it was one of its kind in the entire Shomaal, being one of the two guests only that occupied it.

beside him was the crow. Noone knew why or when had the little black omen of death had decided to join Gimpi but he had, together, splattered upon the stone, both were soaking in deep, well needed warmth and ease.

They had formed a beautiful bond, it had started from awkward conversation to a heartfelt philosophical need for keeping everyone fed and safe, they were really similiar and different at enormous scales, one tried to keep the whole kingdom fed by its tiny raddish hands

While the other tried to keep the whole kingdom intact by his tiny black claws.

The day was beautiful, fluffy huge clouds overlooked the spring from above, passing by rapidly, the wind was not too chilly, everything was perfect.

The last conversation had died some minutes ago until the crow spoke again, his eyes fixated at the clouds.

"So what does a friend mean to you" the crow asked

Gimpi turned his fat reddish belly and looked directly at his friend for a long few seconds, then plopped back at the soothing stone.

"Friend who likes you without condition"

Such simple yet brilliant response struck the crow, who, as it seemed like, was going through some internal philosophical strife,

"Indeed," he replied, gazing at the clouds.

"Bring juice!" Gimpi uttered a command into the air,

Funnily there was no other being except them two at the spring, the rooms were empty and the main tiny hall was had no reception table at all,

But he seemed confident in his command,

After a second, the bubbly blue waters shuddered and morphed into a set of arms, with slender beautiful hands, they emerged from the surface and obediently streched towards the kitchen, not even letting a single drop of water fall onto the guests accidentally

After reaching the kitchens, the comically pulled aside the door, with the most sophisticated gesture then grasped a waterskin from the shelf, labeled 'Crokus Flesh', the flask was adorned with a beautiful depiction of the creature aswell,

It looked like an amalgamation of tiny insect size crocodile with nine legs,

With a gesture of pure sophistication and class the hand plucked the seal out of the flask, then poured the juice equally in two lavish wooden vases,

The liquid bubbled and tried to burst out angrily right after touching the vase, but the hand gently caressed the vase from the outside, upon this the liquid settled down, changed its color to beautiful yellowish slime,

then a tray was arranged, and the vases were placed equally at same distance from each other, The hands grabbed the tray upon them, and offered the drinks to the guests.

It was indeed the most premium and vip service in the entire sehra,

**********

Isra fell on her face,

She slid off the mattress in deep slape and fell face first onto the cold hard floor, the core did not aid her in any way although being perfectly capable of atleast warning her.

She really hadn't connected with it yet,

Dragging her cheeks upon the slick marble floor, some dust entered her mouth, she didn't mouth,

a gremlin like her didn't care about these tiny nuances,

she sat up, her hair were completely electrified, each strand shared a unique address and her eyes were swollen with sleep.

She looked up at the wall clock, her eyes barely opening, it was near seven in the morning, after gazing at the clock for long few seconds, her eyes moved to the huge crack behind it,

her father had tried cleverly to hide it, by fitting that clock on the exact same spot but it was too obvious,

It suddenly ached her heart,

With a groan, she stood up clenching the edge of the mattress.

Exactly four days had passed since together with her sisters and some external help, she had successfully managed to break down the giant golden bangle that they had brought from the Sehra,

Owning a thing so valuable upon earth attracted unwanted praying eyes, but luckily they had a mysterious benefactor, and it was someone extremely close to them, it was as if fate was trying to help them get the house repaired.

She shoved her hand under her mattress and it came out with a bunch of Cash notes, all of thousand rupees, if she willed to, she could make her family one of the richest in the entire region, but Isra had other plans.

Deciding to sacrifice her sleep over the gentle smile of her father, she stood up and took out a bunch of never worn before clothes from her wardrobe,

It wasn't like she didn't spend the money on herself at all,

After getting refreshed, she snuck out of the house

"Now for the tricky part" she mumbled to herself, it was too early in the morning for any of the street urchin to be out right now and she couldn't send the same bunch over and over again, MrSherjan would get suspicious, so today she had to find a new bunch of people interested in taking money and spending it all to eat for free,

That wasn't the main problem, the main problem was her introvertish personality. Usually others did all the talking for her, she did feel embarassed about that, but lately, she had decided to take care of herself and work on the the social skills aswell, it was as if, she had slowly started getting mature and responsible.

Ofcourse those were only mirages.

**********

The boys savored every drop of the bubbly, chunky juice gifted by the beautiful hot spring maiden before rising, refreshed.

Gimpi, despite remaining as diminutive as ever, not even gaining a centimeter in height, he emanated a chubby charm. Among his kind, he was deemed exceptionally handsome, standing taller than most.

The last of the sunrays woke up the crow aswell who had long decided to take a nap, getting up he scurried around, and started readying himself for urgent flight, he had places to be by the nightfall and had overslept.

But Gimpi insisted that he stayed another night, he could feel layers of fatigue radiating from his friend.

Such a gentle kindhearted request from a true friend, the crow sighed, and sat back.

Soon the sun was completely gone, leaving behind a serene and beautiful evening,

"How work on shargh?" Gimpi asked as they strolled inside, the hotspring had prepared them lavish leaf cushions to rest upon, moments later a squad of bulb-beaks also entered the tiny quarter of the room, settling themselves upon a railing that hung from the cieling.

"Work, fine, tiring" The crow twitched, something struck him.

"tiring why?" Gimpi asked,

"noone listen" the crow replied sadly, then the conversation died, he kept looking at the stone wall infront.

"It always gets better" Gimpi said after a long pause.

"This time, it will take alot of time to be better again" The enigmatic crow answered in the same hushed tone.

He could sometimes form complete sentences now and the twitchings were becoming less aggressive by each passing day.

"Wanna go for walk?" Gimpi thought that fresh evening would do the crow better.

"Wanna go for a flight ?" The crow resuggested

sparks shone in gimpi's eyes

He smiled wide

"Yes, gimpi never fly before"

"Lets go then" The crow said as they both stood up.

They informed the maiden, a watery hand rose up and gave them a thumbsup, then gimpi climbed upon the crow's back as they took off,

It was an odd friendship between two of the most unlikely creatures, but like long lost brothers, they did not feel the need to overshare every tragedy that was going on within them,

they simply understood eachother without words.

they were the true definition of friends.