Right after the great battle, Aatish had disbanded the entire army after a heroic speech that made many cry, they were deeply loyal to her and Rohaan, seeing them together again, victorious and standing in glory was simply too outstanding.
During the speech they spoke about the importance of being a hero to others, how even the simplest of acts become stories that are carried outwards for generations, carrying the torches of hope.
A great festival broke out upon the warzone
For a second, the oppression the creatures of shargh were born into seemed incomparable to the joy of the passing moment, From Ardavan to even the tiniest creature of the army, all were honored one after another, the scars and the broken weapons they weileded told the countless struggles they had endured for this exact moment,
The importance and care they were shown moved them on an extremely deeper level, they pledged to use all their might to revive shargh, the other half of it,
And that was the main reason they were spared aswell.
That Aatish had hidden them safetly,
She needed a wave outwards carrying stories and sparks of revolution, and the bunch were handpicked and seperated exactly for that reason, they were the most influential among the entire army.
It wasn't simply freeing shargh that was the main objective here,
The main and the hardest mission was to breath life into the long lost, dead planet,
Now the second part remained, which was probably the hardest one still, Zulmat, the other sovereign that ruled over shargh apparently had no weaknesses hey had found so far,
Thinking about it added a stinge to the whole scene, but Aatish left the worry for her future self, for now, she simply wanted to live in the moment.
******************
In the depths of the forgotten castle of Samarkand, amidst the piercing darkness, stood an archway. Its boundaries were illuminated by a diffused pale light that seemed to breathe, brightening and settling in rhythmic pulses. Within this ethereal glow, tiny glowrifters danced, suspended in the air.
It looked extremely serene until the light blinked, the gateway strained and a second later, a stream of bulbous black water shot at the adjacent wall in an extremely high speed.
The crow braced for impact but the wall never came, instead it shifted and tilted on its axis, dunking the already small heart that the crow possessed even further, For some, even thinking about samarkand was an impossible task, but here he was, succesfully infiltrating it in a single day.
The crow found himself falling into complete darkness, the air was whisteling past his feathers, and his talons were clutched outwards for impact, all the light had faded away from the world,
He closed his eyes and uttered a whisper as brilliant streaks of white light traveled upon his body, then entered the black of his eyes, suddenly the view infront became crystal clear,
He was freefalling.
Not only that, something was continuously pushing him down, increasing his speed, He tried tilting his wings but the airpressure was simply too much for his tiny body to handle,
Suddenly he saw a closed door suspended into the air some metres away, he would reach in some mere seconds, at first everything seemed normal, but as he approached closer he saw that the door was nothing sharp spikes arranged in a way that would make someone think it is a wooden door from above,
He tried turning to the right but the wind didn't allow him. Upon this the crow tucked his feathers with great effort and spoke a spell, and then snapped them open,
A veil of invisible wind carried outwards from him, it swirled around like a bulletish tornado and just in a glimpse the airpressure decreased, on his right crackles and sounds of whips were heard, as if the two winds, the one he had just summoned and the one that was destining him to die, clashed.
He suddenly lunged to the right, midair, and in the next heartbeat a plethora of sharp spikes passed by his beak.
Down below he spotted two more doors, all laid straight into his trajectory, spelling an inevitable doom.
As the death neared him once again the crow twisted in the air, his wings released a decaying energy surge that struck the oncoming carpet of spikes, completely melting them down from the top to the base.
Following it, he spoke another spell, silently, this one resounded into the air as a metal clang, as his body starting from his raven beak, slowly changed its hues, turning to slightly green.
With astonishing ease, he struck and shattered barriers. Behind the obsidian gaze of the crow lay mysteries and abilities coveted by only a select few. The knowledge he sought to unravel was too precious to remain neglected.
Knowledge like, why was the word "Sherjan" was specifically mentioned in the oldest copy of kairvan accords, the one he had found in the giant's lair, his mind was still battered, he could not understand why the most recent copies did not include the name specifically,
Why was "Isra Sherjan" given an impossible task of retrieving an immensely valuable item from under the nose of a sovereign.
He felt like, something forced him to feel like this from deep within, that the answers he sought, were hidden in samarkand, behind veils of darkness and misery. They awaited him, afterall, for him, knowledge was the best way to preserve something.
The other secret he sought was about the event called "Faisla", this one, he had no control over, for past few days something had forced him to travel to different destinations, seeking information about this event.
He felt like these pieces of information were extremely vital and crucial in the whole structure of things, in maintaining the sehra, safekeeping it, and once again, just like a thousand times before, the crow had embarked upon another harrowing journey to save the planets.
Operating quietly from the shadows.
***********
After a tiring day of travel and keeping the eyes peeled over the white blur, The girls finally reached the campsite, it was a tiny park of sorts hidden cozily between two tiny hills.
There was a lonely pink roofed hillstation and a park infront, with farm animals roaming around freely,
Behind the hillstation there were paths winding down to another greater ground, supposedly for horseriding and other activities.
One by one, the old bus emptied, packets of snacks, stickers, marker weird doodly drawings over seats, despite a watchful gaze of a teacher, children had refurbished the bus to their own style, which was usually dubbed as chaos.
Isra got out, her bag was stumped over her shoulder by a single strap and hair were disheveled, her entire left side of the face was covered with markings of the window frame and drool, she had given up midway chasing the white ghoul and slept.
Groaningly, she moved about inspecting the surroundings, at first it was all but peaceful but then it hit her slowly, a defeaning noise of useless chatter and banter,
"Look at the grey eyed beast so vile how can humans even make offsprings"
"Little abominations i wish i could stump them over"
"YOU KNOW WHAT, I'M GONNA STUMP OVER THAT GREY EYED ARROGANT ONE RIGHT NOW"
A tiny plump frog jumped on Isra's pink shoes, it stayed there looking at her, she looked back.
There was a weird anticipation in the air for a moment or two, then she swung her leg in a kick and the frog flew away at a bullet speed, towards the trees.
She looked at the rest of the frogs, who were spectating with a wide smile.
"DAMN... I THINK WE'LL NEVER SEE CROAKY AGAIN" One of them croaked, talking to the frog on its left, But his eyes were peeled at Isra.
To his tiny heart's surprise she said
"No you wont see croaky again"
The frogs looked at her for another few seconds, without blinking, she looked back, then they all scattered away.
"WITCH, A TINY LITTLE VILE WITCH" a far away echo resounded in the air from behind Isra, that put her in a good mood, she smiled and walked to the bench, then placed her bag down,
Went over to Khadija, pulled her out of the nerd swamp, there was simply too much to tell, and it was piling up, she could not wait more.
***********
Currently Roop was stranded and caged in the prison realm of infinity, she deeply longed to be back home, to be among the creatures of her sanctuary, they were her little treasure, despite the things, the million things she had destroyed, these creatures were a few she had actually saved.
Noone knew how much time had passed in the prison realm, it moved differently here, she wondered about them, if they would still care about their benefactor knowing the harrowing reality about her or they'd be simply too content to move on.
She wondered about a great many things, stranded, bolted to the mountain,
The straps had come undone by now, weeks had passed, if not weeks, months, there was no way to tell really and no way to escape,
Alot of things ached her,
She considered her siblings, the sovereigns, too invested in themselves, they barely conversed with each other despite being reduced to six now, they preferred a state of idleness over war, each of them carried an inmeasurable ammount of pain within them.
Roop had dedicated her entire life trying to bring them together, she had sucesfully done so to but they simply fell off,
She could not believe at this rate, they would be picked off one by one, taken out by the enemies, who were growing fiercer each day.
But Roop was not going to let them,
As a memory flashed through her mind, back when she had asked Shahrukh upon how many artefacts had he given away.
She exactly knew this would happen one day, she had a trumpcard, something to change the tide completely, if only she had a better leader than kehkashaan who would listen to her, pay attention to her.
Sighingly she looked up, the ribbons were slowly revealing a face of a human underneath them,