This was a peculiar situation. The guards had probably gotten in contact with the Order by now, as the Order’s official headquarters wasn't too far from the prisons. Kraven seemed oddly chipper in a cell and seemed oddly friendly for a man who picked horse dung off the market floor and flung it at a merchant trying to cheat him. 

If that was the true story. Trying to adjust himself in the small corners, Shayzani ended up backing too far into the corner into another person. It was clear to him it was another person. A hardy built guy, with a warrior stripe mohawk, bulging muscles, and a single braid. His jaw alone looked like it could cut steel. 

Shayzani bowed. 

“Excuse,” Shayzani told the man in hopes that he could appease the man with a simple kind gesture. 

“You should watch where you are going next time,” the man replied gruffly, “else you may very well bump into someone more likely to break your fuckin’ neck mate. However, I ain’t lookin’ to get a murder charge added to the list, elf.” The man pushed a small stool over into the corner and sat down, trying his best to not get too near to Kraven and the smell of shit. 

Shayzani bowed one more time. It was odd being in this circumstance. Normally he was an outsider looking into cells. Not stepping into one. This felt like an odd world, a world he didn’t fully understand and he barely understood the human’s world in the first place. This seemed a place to gather experience. To look at another’s view. 

“Yes, I should have,” Shayzani paused, “to look.” he added with a nod of his head, “Would you lend insight? How did you come to this circumstance?”

The man sighed audibly and crossed his arms with a bored look. “Normally I ain’t much of one to talk to people but since we are in this nice and cozy room,” He said with a wide gesture, “I might as well be so kind as to tell you. Now, I work hard all year round just to pay for my wife and son. Come the Harvest Festival and I says to myself ‘I’m gonna go into town and drink for the night.’ And I drink for the night. Got in a fight with a man over the tab and now I’m ‘ere. Happy?”

Happy? He never understood this expression well. Daveon says people mean it sardonically, when they are jesting when you ask a probing question. It just seemed like an odd turn of phrase didn’t it. Then again everything in Common had extra words that didn’t connect with another. Shayzani only nods his head as he processes the story.

“Ah,” Shayzani says in thought, “Less happy. More understand. To understand you. So you’d say the guards are?” he pauses for a second what was the word again, “corrupt? Or ah to pick on a certain group of people?” 

“The guards don’t care about anybody but the ones who foot their bills,” He said as he leaned forward. “If you pay them a little extra then they’ll do whatever they can to make your day better. Dwarves, Elves, they might have it worse. If they get caught in the wrong kind of business like you have, they can end up in the slave trade. ‘Course, ain’t nobody going to admit that there is a slave trade at all. But we all know it. We all see the men and women who go to the docks to never come back.” 

Shayzani nodded. Though the statement harbored a bitter taste in the back of his throat. Elven people as slaves. Ever since he entered more close to this world, proud to be in the Order feeling like he has done something to represent his people, the more close he had gotten to their politics. It saddened him with sorrow deeply to know elven people were suffering. 

Though at the same time there was nothing his people or other Elven people could do for them. They were warned centuries ago that humans would betray them. And what ended up happening? Humans betrayed them. Enslaved the working men. Some women were sold off to unsavory acts for their exotic beauties.

His own caravans attacked by prejudice and frightened humans. He knew the reason why he was thrown in here. Not enough people looking for other people’s perspectives. They were taught to look outside a dirty glass and never thought to clean it off to see a better picture. 

Cockroaches. Bred. Kill one. More cropped out of the cracks. 

“Isn’t bribery,” Shayzani paused, “illegal? Amin thought guards not allowed to take money.”

“Take money or not, they have to pay their bills some way,” He sighed. He seemed conflicted for a while in his choice of words, silently looking at the guard’s shadow on the wall across the way. “Bein’ a guard is dangerous. Someone could kill ya any day over somethin’ small. You choose the life but you don’t choose yer death, ya know? I’d take the money if I were them. I’d need it, for my wife and child. So that I can retire early and not risk dyin’ every day. Illegal to bribe them, yes. Can I blame them, not really.”

What a flimsy reason. Most likely because he had seen death already that he was willing to accept a job that paid little and he may die, but he would not take money he didn’t rightfully earn. A loose lack of morals and ethics it seemed on their side. 

And to excuse it away with just the simple words of family. In the Dust you worked hard everyday to ensure survival. Not just the adults. Children as well. If they didn’t make it, they were not strong to live in this cycle.

He didn’t understand that perspective. It was hard for him to put himself in their minds when he lived his life in the Dust, as the Dust, by the Dust. 

“Death is,” Shayzani didn’t know how to word it in common too well, “kirma lithlad. Great cycle. Val gwaith.”

He would not understand that. Shayzani looked at the man.

“One grain of sand,” Shayzani uses his hand, “is one person. If one person thinks for itself. No desert. Sand is stronger together. Bribes. Rich. Make sand separate.”

“I’m not sure how to make o’ that but I ain’t one to question how an Elf was raised. Here in the human empires though, money is what makes you strong. Money can buy anything. A home, food, water. It can even buy you a wife in some places!” The man seemed amused by his attempt at a joke but sighed once more after a brief smile. “You see, money can and will buy you anything. Here, it can buy you the less self righteous guards. It can buy you a nice woman to sleep in your bed at night. It can also lead to you being an idiot and endin’ up right here in the jail like we ‘ave. If you think that is bad then I don’t know if you want to get involved with them noble houses and their politics.”

“Aye, ‘eir a lot worse ‘an anythin’ you’d ‘ve seen,” Kraven chimed in, “what with all ‘eir lyin’, cheatin’, and not to mention payin’ for people to die. Just last year one o’ ‘em supposedly paid a woman to lay with the son of ‘nother house just to cause a scene. Gossip says he was askin’ for it, was too hot headed and didn’t want none o’ the trade split between his house and the others. Next thing ya know, kid was run outta the Council and they had the spot all to ‘em selves.” 

Shayzani looked between the two men. Taking a second he was distracted by the sound of a guard dragging a man to another cell. He watched for a second. Money bought everything. Humans willing to eat their own straight from the womb. Value money over community. It was hard sometimes to clean these windows to understand. He tried to understand. 

Shayzani turned back to Kraven.

“What made,” Shayzani paused, “merchant cheat you?”

“Likely what makes all o’ ‘em do it. The coin. Bein’ a merchant is no easier than working in a field. Just as he worries about crops growin’, the merchant worries about his supplies running out. He gotta pay the men to guard them. He gotta pay ‘em to not steal from him. And then he gotta sell ‘em to people like me. People who work hard to get food. Doesn’t change that he is a dirty fuckin’ cheat for overchargin’ me but the world ain’t pure ‘nough to undercharge. Lest ya want to be broke and homeless,” He said with a toothless chuckle. 

Shayzani shuffles. Their lives seemed sad. To be concerned about things like life. Which was so virtually important more than goods. Death and life were to be honored and respected as part of the great cycle that weaved them all into one net. He looks around the cells. How does Daveon word it? How would Hans ask the question?

“What,” Shayzan pauses, “to happen. If say neither of us are cleared. Where do we go?”


“If yer like me,” The man in the corner said with a shake of his head, “Then you just spend a few days in here and then go. Shit hands over there probably will only spend the night. You though, you might end up in the arena. To fight to the death for your crimes. Many end up being thrown to rabid wolves and rare bears in the arena. All for the laughs of others.” 

Shayzani nods. He looks outside the cell again. Where could there Commander be? He gave an oath and owed some debt to Daveon. He could not go to this human arena. Not just yet. Not when he felt close to achieving something. He rather die in achieving something or not. But not locked in a cell. 

Moving to the cell door with a humble bow to Kraven and the man he didn’t catch his name before turning to the guard.

“Has my commander been found?” Shayzani asked the guard in hopes that he could give him the answer.

“As if I’d know whether or not your commander has been found. The messenger was sent, yeah but it ain’t my business if he takes his sweet time gettin’ there. As far as we care, he can just not come back at all and you can rot in there,” The guard said as he approached the door. “I’d rather ‘em take their sweet time getting here so that you can learn a lesson from the rest of the scum in here, Elf.” 

Shayzani had heard it all before. Poison spat from the mouth because of what he is. It spoken so harshly. Yet Shayzani closed his eyes and nodded his head.

“Kyremcoia antvarna. Heren uummali ten loth,” Shayzani told the guard, “We are sand. Together we are powerful. Individually we are a speck. Karma is cruel.”

“I don’t care about none of yer talk about karma you fuckin’ elf. Come the end of the day, you are no different than anybody in this city. Nobody will think twice about your death in the arena. I’m sure you’ll make a beautiful scene with the bears,” He replied with a cruel laugh before walking down the hall. 

This city seemed filled with sorrow. That is how Shayzani felt. Poison from the mouth. Value of material over people. And everyone seemed in peace with this because they could not change it. He felt like clearing the mind would be better than simply waiting with uncertainty. Turning to his new cell mates, hopefully temporary and not permanently. 

“Would you,” Shayzani “to meditate with me. Helps clear mind. Gains new perspective.”

“Don’t think I am much o’ one for meditating,” the man in the corner said, “but if it passes the time then I might as well. Show me the way.” Kraven simply nodded his head in agreement and smiled at Shay with a slightly toothless grin. 

Shay sat down on the cold stone and stared at the man. Silently instructing them to do the same. They tried to sit on the stone as well, the man he still had no name for was much bigger and his knees extended out stabbing Kraven in the thigh. Though Shayzani didn’t allow that be his distraction.

“My common not good,” Shayzani told them “Think of vastness. A forest with whispering trees. A desert with sand blowing in swirls. A sea crashing on crags. Hold onto this image. This image is seere. Ah peace. Let this image be the guide. Now close your eyes. With image in mind.”

He demonstrates. Back in the heat of the desert. The cell walls fading. He wasn’t sure if the other two had actually fallen suit. But he continued.

“Now this is your peace,” Shayzani said, “Your inner mind. Embrace this peace.”

He waited for four seconds.

“Now in your soul is conflict,” Shayzani told them more trance like, “This conflict. This problem. Disrupts your inner peace. The goal is to figure how to make that conflict resolved. Mental. Then in physical you know how to resolve it.”

Prejudice. Hate. Greed. These things disturbed him about this world he entered. The Order a second chance, but the world seemed to be a void of darkness. It was not a problem so easily and readily resolved through just words of humility. It meant he had to let go of his own thoughts he harbored on. Today he gave into his resentment. That was something he could pass to the desert winds. Let it swirl. To fight cruelty. You fought with modesty. You fought with the opposites. If it is cruel, it is love. It is hate, it is care. 

“Your weapon is changing the environment,” Shayzani told them.

To the Plains of Ashes. He would be the model of behavior for his kind. The ambassador. A message. A symbol. He would not let the humans darkness birth an evil germ in his heart. He would not let prejudice become a toxin in his system. To the Dust it would go.