Chapter Text
48 hours and a few creeps in her pocket was more than enough for Raven to cross the border of the two countries by the beginning of the next day and find herself on the streets of the capital. Moreover, she could boast that she had managed to earn along the way.
Raven took a deep breath, and the dusty air was imprinted in grains into her lungs, while her body wanted to be something less hot under these creepy layers of clothes. She wiped off the shiny beads of sweat on her face, jumping from one roof to another and thought that she was starting to hate the sun.
The people around her sparkled with bright spots, and their voices merged into a single noise filled with the heat of spices and the sun, and the idea of returning to Vaat, to one of the largest and most densely populated cities, was terrible. To be honest, the last thing she wanted was to be here. At the bottom, ten paces from where Raven was, a squad of guards in shining armor on a dark background passed, and the confidence that this was a bad idea grew in her with every second.
Vaat is the main city of the Eastern Lands and the capital of the Nanda-Parbat Empire. When the continent was divided into four cardinal directions several hundred thousand years ago, states like Nanda-Parbat, Moak, Biel-Tour and the Cold Mountains were founded on each of the four Lands.
In Nanda Parbat, the imperial family of al Ghuls had been on the throne for several dozen generations and each subsequent heir to the throne was not inferior to his relatives in cruelty and ruthlessness. If Raven's memory does not betray her, then the former ruler of Ras al Ghul left the imperial post not so long ago. Despite the fact that the death of the former emperor was recognized as an accident, some chatty tongues mentioned the role of his grandson, the sole heir to the throne, Prince Damian al Ghul, in this event.
It was not fated that they lost their languages as quickly as he ascended the imperial throne.
Raven didn't know much about the current ruler of these Lands. Probably like many others. The emperor did not like to leave the confines of his palace, even the coronation was held at his own request in a narrow circle of close people, and more than one ambassador or consul could not achieve a personal audience with his Majesty. It seemed... it just didn't exist? Or there was too much of it. In the houses where Raven worked, she heard frequent conversations about the mysterious personality of the Emperor and every princess and aristocrat did not miss the opportunity to giggle on this topic. Someone said that the Emperor was so ugly that he did not show himself in public, someone on the contrary showered him with compliments and reasoned how beautiful and beautiful he was.
Raven frowned, shaking her head. Whatever Damian al Ghul was, his name caused fear on people's lips, the coat of arms of his family depicted two snakes surrounded by gold and blood, and with his coming to the throne, he managed to subdue two neighboring small states and increased the number of soldiers, and this should worry him much more than what eye color or height the Emperor had.
Her uncle would have called her heartless, and Cairo would have said that Raven destroyed the dreams of many beautiful ladies and she would probably have brushed off their grumbles. Raven smiled softly at the thought and her heart ached pitifully in her chest as longing for Cairo and Uncle Shabma overwhelmed her.
As a child, if this word could describe the situation, she was lucky enough to be bought by people from the East from local slave traders who were carrying orphans from the North. The man who brought her here called Raven an undead and rotten commodity, threatened to get rid of her cursed inanimate blue eyes and forced her to wear a mask covering her entire face.
At the age of eight, she was apprenticed to Uncle Shabma along with his son Cairo. When she saw Shabma for the first time and heard his dry, broken voice commanding her and the other children to remove the rags from their faces, Raven thought that the chance that it was her, poor and crooked, who would be redeemed from an evil man was pathetic. She kept thinking about it even as she stared with her pale blue glazed eyes at the face of the old man in front of her. He looked surprised, his gray beard seemed to have hardened all over, but despite this, Raven did not see the knife flash in his hands. He asked a rather strange question for an eight-year-old girl and for any other person breathing and standing in front of him, "Are you alive?" and Raven had to wonder if this old man was in his right mind, and maybe it should have been if she wasn't a girl with blue eyes and black hair darker than the night itself, and so she just shook her head. Her throat tightened sharply, as if her own body understood the gloominess of her thoughts and she continued to carefully observe the old man. Maybe he's thinking about how to give it to the soldiers? Or get rid of her body in the river? She had heard that a painless death itself was a quick death. Will she be killed quickly? Before Raven could let her thoughts wander any further, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder and heard the rough voice again. "What is your name, child?" the old man looked down at her with a kind smile under his gray beard.
With the same smile, Shabma raised her all these years, treating the cursed child with a love that many parents and children could not boast of.
Raven cast a brief glance at the burning windows of the house, pulling the hood off her head, finding herself in the middle of a small courtyard under the open sky and her heart sank at the memory of how she and Cairo drove chickens here as children.
Shabma kept a pub on the ground floor of his house, and on the second floor there were several rooms for guests and owners. He did not like to keep servants, and the modest earnings from the pub were not enough to hire nannies and cleaners, so Raven remembered spending all her childhood at the bar or playing on the small courtyard with Cairo.
Initially, he didn't accept Raven. Cairo swore with his father, saying that she was scary and frightening, did not give his toys and in general gave little to touch, saying that her hands were dirty like a dead man's. Raven did not pay attention to the little naughty boy, she still helped him carry water and spent the rest of the time with her uncle. One day, the neighborhood guys, who disliked the poor girl from the very first day and failed to bring her to tears, began to spread evil rumors that Shabma had lost his mind and decided to take someone like her. Then Raven got into a fight for the first time, breaking the nose of the very boy who insulted the old man. She was used to being considered poor and infirm, over the years it had already become a habit not to pay attention to it, but hearing this idiot say bad things about the person who gave her a roof over her head, Raven felt an acute desire to smack him between the eyes.
In the end, her uncle patted her on the head, oohing and aahing about the stubborn little girl, and Cairo seemed to look at her for the first time without contempt in his eyes. Not immediately, but he began to communicate with her, carried fresh apples and asked about what life was like in the Northern Lands. A few years later, Cairo proudly called Ria his sister. Raven never understood why he suddenly started calling her Ria while always blushing like a cancer, but Cairo explained this by saying that her name was not suitable for the Eastern Lands, so she just let the new name stay in her memory. He was the only one who called her that and Raven could put up with it.
Raven's back stiffened and she turned to see Cairo standing behind her, with a stunned and completely confused expression on his face. Oh, damn it, she thought grimly.
Looking at him, Raven realized that he now kept his curly brown hair braided in a ponytail behind him, his dark skin from birth seemed to darken by several shades under the scorching sun, and his shoulders acquired a masculine outline, instead of teenage bones, but she would have recognized him anywhere. Cairo still wore light-colored sleeveless shirts, mule-skin trousers and a bright belt on which always hung a dagger and a handkerchief that Raven had once given him. His bright brown eyes slid warily over her, he seemed to stop trusting his own vision and his lips frowned when Raven felt the strength and need to say something. She was here. Cairo was standing in front of her. She should have realized this much earlier or thought about what exactly she would say before coming here, but alas, she was here and she should have opened her mouth and said a few words to begin with, so that Cairo would not mistake her for a marble statue.
-" And um, hello?.." Raven almost bit her tongue in annoyance at her charming verbosity and looked at Cairo with all possible apology in her eyes, at the very moment he approached, scooping her body into an armful of his warm arms and she hugged him back just as hard, clutching his neck. The familiar smell of brewer's yeast and sand hit her nose, penetrating her feelings and Raven felt filled with them for a moment.
- "I missed you." He whispered softly into her hair, pulling her ribs between his soft hands, and Raven had to tell him about how she still had to breathe. Cairo waved her off, dropping her to the ground and immediately raining questions around them.
—"How long have you been back?" Why didn't you warn me? Are you okay?"
—"I've only been back a few hours, Cairo." Raven hurried to calm him down with a laugh and a soft smile involuntarily blossomed on her lips. — "And I'm fine."
"A few hours?" And you just decided to visit us now?"
"Stop making a monster out of me".
- "How could I."Cairo smiled, looking painfully happy, and Raven was about to ask if he was okay. Of course, if she could do it, being the one who returned home after three years and six months and now made her best friend break down with excitement in front of her. - "Let's go into the house, Father will jump to the ceiling when he sees you. "He put his arm around her shoulders and led her towards the wooden door, and Raven tried not to pay attention to how she counted the steps to her. She swallowed, shoved her hands into her pockets and tried to focus on the feel of Cairo's hand on her shoulder. He was glad to see her, probably Uncle will be glad too? Raven took a slow breath, thinking about all the situations that could happen to her when meeting her uncle, and it seemed the weight of everything that lay around began to weigh on her.
Oh, great, Raven, keep it up.
She rubbed her forehead, trying to erase the signs of a headache. Cairo looked at her questioningly, and Raven tried to give him a smile that she thought was plausible. The voices of local drunks and guests sounded loudly from the windows of the pub, and as soon as the guy opened the door for her, the warmth and thick smell of booze enveloped the space in front of her.
Raven swallowed, feeling her heart sink down her throat, filling it with saliva, when a man with a cheerful dry voice and a long gray beard came into her field of vision. She shuddered, too lost in her thoughts, feeling Cairo pushing her to the place where Uncle Shabma was playing at the table with other men. "It shouldn't be difficult," she repeated to herself, watching the old man laugh fervently and Raven began to think that she would be flattened on the spot if she took even one step closer. "He's laughing, he's happy, you shouldn't spoil it. " she thought and looked back, feeling a pounding in her ears and for a moment thought about turning around and leaving. Cairo pushed her again, looking down from the top with understanding in his eyes.
—"He's waiting for you, Raven. I've always waited and it won't stop." Raven nodded, straightening the scarf on her head and began her measured step.
Perhaps it would be better if her uncle noticed her before she walked through the whole room filled with people and she wouldn't have to make sure not to stumble on the spot from excitement. Or it will be better when she walks the whole room and stops in the corner where Shabma was and where there were not so many prying eyes. Probably the best option was in her head, the one that implied an exit through the window, but she didn't have time to think about it properly. Uncle sharply wailed at the man in front of him, waving his hand and looked into the hall with an irritated and empty look, and Raven stopped between seconds in motion until his narrow brown eyes stumbled upon her figure.
She heard the loud pounding in her ears again.
Her uncle's eyes stared into hers and Raven could have sworn she felt tingling all over her body. He slowly got up from the table, completely oblivious to the people trying to attract his attention and stopped opposite her in the thick silence. It seemed that the whole room, a minute ago packed with people, was empty and all sounds died down. Raven didn't know what exactly she should do.
—"You've changed, child. "Shabma finally said in his warm, rough voice, and Raven barely stopped herself from a wave of fresh tears. She snorted, wiping the drops of moisture from her eyes with an absurd gesture and pulled the old man's short body into her arms, feeling tears and happiness tear her from the inside, and something heavy inside her dissolves with a new wave of salty tears. She missed them so much.
Jumping to the ceiling was only part of what Raven had to go through when meeting Uncle Shabma, and several times during the evening it seemed to her that the old man would have a stroke, so there was a wide smile on his face as he continued to hum, circling Raven and seating her at the far table in the corner of the establishment. He questioned her about absolutely everything. Where she was, what she was doing and whether she had time to get married. On the last question, Raven almost choked on wine with Cairo under her uncle's fervent laughter. If he didn't try to get Raven drunk, he was happy to get himself drunk, and finally, after so many questions that she lost count and free drinks to all visitors, Cairo was able to win her from her fathers and escorted her to the top.
- "I see you're getting used to the role of a pub landlord? What a good boy." Raven sang maliciously, feeling the wine flowing along her body and looked around again, trying to figure out exactly where Cairo was leading her.
— "You know that this place will go to me, Ria. Stop clowning around."
- "Of course, of course." She could have sworn she saw a smile flicker at the corners of his lips as he walked ahead of her.
Raven blinked as they stopped in front of the door and her gaze came across a carved pattern on the door frame. Goosebumps ran over her skin before she realized that these symbols were really there and she really saw them, and Raven swallowed hard, a knot formed in her throat, feeling the ghostly touch of memories on her skin.
— "I didn't think you'd leave them. " She said coldly, and Cairo looked at Raven, trying to figure out what she meant.
- "Oh, you mean that." he smiled and his smile was directed at his own thoughts. — "You drew them as a child and my father and I thought it would be a good memory." He touched one of the symbols on the wall and Raven barely stopped herself from hissing inside herself. If Cairo knew what each of these carved things meant, probably living with one hand would be a more advantageous position for him.
Raven lowered that thought as far as she could as she moved around the room. His eyes slid over the made-up wooden bed, the many books on the shelves, the closet opposite the window, wondering how even the books on the bed remained in the same position when Raven left this place a few years ago. She looked questioningly at Cairo and he laughed softly into the space between them.
— "We didn't touch anything here." Father and I believed that you would come back sooner or later. he cleared his throat, as if most of the words had come to him with difficulty, but Cairo continued to keep a happy smile on his face. -" But we didn't expect you to come back with a new eye color."
Raven's lips curled as she nodded in agreement, hoping her reaction went unnoticed and instead jokingly said.
- "Lin-zy. I call it lenses." - she stretched out her hand to her eyes, performing a routine operation and felt relieved, looking at the world not in brown shades through the lenses. —"I won them from a wizard in the South." - Cairo watched this with unprecedented delight, like little children for a lollipop in the hands of a merchant and Raven grinned, holding out her hand to him with brown lenses in her palm.
- "Do you want to try it?"
- "Get your wonderful things away from me, Ria." Cairo pulled away from her, shaking his head as Raven laughed.
- "Are you afraid?"
— "No." - he grinned — "I don't think that after three years of separation, you came back to scare me with your lenses."
- "Anything is possible." Raven played with her eyebrows.
— @You should be a little serious, you wouldn't be worth it, Ria." Cairo growled.
—" I'm about to turn seventeen, and I still don't know what the name you call me means." Raven grinned as she removed the top layer of clothing and thought about how to finally get rid of the dusty and sweaty clothes on her. She clutched at the belt on her hair, pulling it off and finally allowed her hair to fall in a black waterfall on her shoulders.
Other women would have shouted that Raven's behavior was at least defiant, as soon as she bared part of her collarbones and let her hair down, but she crossed the desert in a few days and did not want to admit, but her body felt a little tired. Cairo was like a brother to her and she was sure that he considered her his family, which means there was nothing horrifying in the fact that she just took off her top scarves. In particular, she continued to think so at the moment when Cairo became suspiciously quiet on the threshold of her room and looking at him, Raven could barely make out his pink ears in the dark. Noticing that she was looking at him, the guy cleared his throat and, with an uncoordinated movement, handed her the bag that he had been holding in his hand all this time.
-" Here... clothes. My father said that you probably want to change clothes and I tried to find something suitable for your fIGURE, that is, for you, of course suitable for you." Raven's expression turned curious and she leaned back on the bed, watching him. Cairo and stuttering were the same as coffee and a boot had something in common with each other. To see her confident, ever-smiling childhood friend trying not to faint at the word "figure" caused a strange feeling in her, in the midst of the fact that Raven was trying to restrain herself from convulsive laughter. It's been more than three years since the last time she saw him, is that probably how it should have been? They grew up, matured, and the changes in the character of Cairo could also make sense, and returning to the East, she knew that she would have to face this.
Of course, Raven did not expect that on the first day she would have to restrain herself from laughing so as not to offend her friend.
- "Thank you, Cairo. You have no idea how glad I am to see something that doesn't smell of dust and cattle." - the guy smiled again, seeming to forget the nonsense in his head and once again looking at Raven, grabbed the handle, closing the door behind him.
- "Good night, Ria."
- "Good night, Cairo." Raven sent him a soft smile across the room, feeling the walls of the house vibrate with warmth around her, cooling down after a long sunny day and reached for the straps on her belt, wanting to finally get rid of rotten clothes and get under the covers.
-----
Damian strode through the throne room and his measured movements echoed in the huge walls of the castle. Ten meters away from him, half-dead people were lying, bleeding and moaning in pain, but this seemed to make the Lord's mood even more bored.
Finally he looked at them and their faces shuddered with a layer of something dirty and hideously terrible under the gaze of his emerald eyes.
—" Wasn't my order to hang them. " It wasn't a question, but rather a statement, since the Emperor rarely asked questions. He turned around, walking around the hall before stopping by one of the unfortunate ones. - "Get up." - the Lord commanded and two guards lifted him up.
"My Lord..." the man whispered plaintively and thick scarlet blood rolled down his lips and chin. Damian ignored his plea, dismissing him as a bored insect and continued to speak in a lazy tone, as if something was happening here that only the ancient dust cared about.
- "Tell me, is it right to steal from your master?" - a gloomy silence followed and probably any answer to this question was not happy. —"How dare you ask me for something after you've robbed me yourself?" Damian crooned, circling around the man like a hungry vulture.
"The Lord asked you a question." - the commander of the guard, a man in shining silver armor kicked the poor fellow and he fell at the Emperor's feet with a quiet groan.
Damian poked the nose of his leather boots into the man's face and pulled his foot away with a laugh. - "Abomination." he hissed. - "Take him to the gallows. Along with the others. They're dirtying my floor."
"Yes, my Lord." - Mal gestured to two guards to take the stragglers away from here and the sounds of their trembling voices filled the walls of the marble hall. Damian was silent, continuing to watch this until his eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.
- "I'm listening to you, Abduahir."his voice sounded coldly in the space around him and the man in the long emerald robe bristled, hunched over in the place where he already had a hump.
- "My Emperor." - he turned and Damian tried to listen to what he was going to say for no more than a few minutes. — As your faithful servant and adviser, I am extremely concerned about your absence from the small meeting.
— "That's why it's small, that it's not of great importance."
- "Yes, but I hope that my Emperor will be present at the next council. Other advisers are indignant."
- "Who."
- "Excuse me?" Abduahir asked, and Damian shot him a warning glance over his shoulder, knowing full well that the old man had heard his words.
- "Which of the advisers is outraged. Tell them their names and she will pay for her thoughts." - Damian didn't turn his head to look, but he heard a quiet, frightened whisper go through the hall and his lips twitched in a short grin. Of course, no one would raise indignation because of his absence. It was just a stupid game of an old bastard still loyal to his deceased grandfather. - "And so" - Damian turned to the adviser with a cold smile on his face when he met the expected silence. —"By the end of today, I'm waiting for a list of people who dared to say something against the Emperor of these Lands." he moved closer to Abduahir, mockingly shaking off the non-existent dust on the old man's shoulder and his gaze tracked the trembling in his feeble body. — "Or only your name will be on this list, Abduahir." - Damian pulled away, ignoring the indignation of the adviser and the tails of his emerald robe rustled behind his rapid step. Mal, the head of the guard, cast a mocking glance at the frightened old man and followed his master.
"Tell the grooms to get my horse ready, Mal," Damian said and ignored his friend's mocking look. He needed to clear his head. The walls of this castle were starting to press on his bones and Damian was almost about to admit that he missed the streets of Vaat.
—"Are you leaving us again, my Lord?" Mal looked into the Emperor's face, trying to figure out what he was thinking, but to his disappointment, he came across a steel mask and a silent answer.