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I never wanted to be first. I just wanted to be happy.
I never wanted you to end up like this. I just wanted to share everything with you so we could smile and laugh together again.
We’re still friends, right? After everything?
After everything you’re still the one I can trust.
Since always, you have been the only one I will ever be able to trust.
Please. I thought we were best friends.
We're best friends, right?
We're best friends, right?
“We're best friends, right?” Kalim’s hand stretched out– out and up towards the sky, now clouded with ink and writhing, hissing snakes.
He had truly entered the Viper’s den, and now he was going to get bit.
What is holding me back?
What was holding him back? Why was he so afraid of getting bitten?
What honor did he even have?
The honor of being one of many Asims? The honor of being granted the chance to be born into a rich family? The honor of
One of thirty seven? One of the countless expendable heirs produced for the exact reason to be thrown at assassins as a scapegoat to spare the rest?
One of the many to stick a hand into the Viper’s den to be bit before another worth more could test those sands.
He wished to be normal. He wished he could want for a world where an unwanted heir of the thirty seven could reach a hand into the Viper’s den and not worry about getting bit. If the lamp in the treasury did not deceive Kalim gladly would’ve spent his wishes of having a normal life.
Jamil mockingly looked down at him from his perch against the gilded pillars– full of purity and light and everything Kalim wanted to be.
He wanted somebody to honestly bring him through life. He never wished for his best friend to hate him.
We're best friends, right?
Kalim never wanted to be the one to douse Jamil’s flame.
The flame being sparked again through pure rage and hatred filtering the way Jamil could see the world.
“We were never friends,” Jamil stood up and brushed himself off. He brushed off all the memories they made with each other, shed his previous skin to reveal a scarred one underneath.
A skin full of tears. Tears upon tears. Some crying themselves jagged through skin and others running themselves ragged from the corners of Jamil’s eyes and collapsing on the floor.
Eyes that perhaps, at one point, met his own evenly with a gaze full of life and joy and light and love.
Eyes, now burning with an unshed desire to be on top— to be recognized.
He wanted to cry. To scream. To cling to Jamil in all of his corrupted glory and beg him to come back.
Begging, how pathetic. How unbecoming of a throwaway child of the admired Asim family.
We're best friends, right?
The heel of a boot slammed close– too close– to Kalim’s hand. “For years,” Jamil hissed. “I have listened to your words but can find no reason why I should obey you. I have always hated you. You always stole MY light. Every success, every single chance I had to grab the light was tamped down by my duty-” he spat out that word like it was venom, “to serve you.”
Sand, it must’ve been sand. Or dust. Or the gusts of wind being constantly summoned by the lashing genie cryptid behind his best friend that was drying out Kalim’s eyes and triggering his tear ducts to activate.
Kalim blinked back tears– tears upon tears in their torn relationship. “Jamil… please…” His hand crept up to and curled tightly around his pen. “I would rather die first–”
“BUT YOU WON’T!” Jamil’s eyes flashed once, with… regret?
He dropped to his knees and met Kalim’s eyes. “If it should be friendship,” a scoff, “that you desire, then–”
“Jamil.”
We're best friends, right?
“Kill me. I am ready for it.” Kalim stood up and looked at the fire he unknowingly doused so many times. “Today and always. If you truly hate me so much then finish me off. Kill me.”
He was already regretting this. But he trusted Jamil.
To Kalim, trust was handing your most trusted advisor all the poison in the world and knowing they wouldn’t use it in any way to be of harm to you.
But maybe his idea of trust was just extended manipulation. From which end it didn’t matter. They both got burned at the end.
A flicker behind those flames. A hint of the resigned Jamil knowing he wasn’t able to kill Kalim without suffering the consequences. Yet just as quickly as his gaze flickered, the flames covered everything back up.
Jamil shoved Kalim roughly. “But to be your subject, that I cannot be.” A triumphant glance was thrown over his shoulder when the genie cryptid slammed Kalim against a gilded pillar and his pen tumbled out of his hands and into the rubble.
We're best friends, right?
“Jamil!” Please listen to me. “You were never a subject.” You are my best friend! “You were my best friend.”
Jamil was Kalim’s best friend.
Weren’t we best friends?
Kalim could only watch as Jamil stood over the hordes of Scarabian students, each under the same fate as Kalim was.
“If…” a whisper was sent back and curled around Kalim’s ears. “If it should be war you desire, or anything, then I would have been ready. But…”
He wanted to laugh. A bitter, choked laugh would’ve been appropriate for this situation.
But Kalim could only watch as the students he swore to guide were struck down in one fell swoop. Numerous snakes rising from the shed blot and sand to wrap around and devour.
He could only listen… his eyes were getting so heavy.
Cold metal propped his chin up and his eyes snapped open.
Gray eyes, once so full of stars, now glinted like a knife. “I will never want to serve you. Never to be your subject. Never again.”
Idia, housewarden of Ignihyde, told Kalim of a time when the Lord of the Underworld had his helmet of invisibility ‘temporarily borrowed’ by a hero under a gray-eyed goddess. One of wisdom and war. A goddess who sent the hero to slay a foul snake-headed beast.
Kalim jerked his head back against the pillar. He needed the starry-eyed Jamil back.
But that Jamil was gone. Disappeared a long time ago along with his hopes of success and rising to the top.
“I do not fall at your feet,” Jamil hissed. “I never wanted to. For you are God’s creature just as I am.”
Were we ever friends?
Jamil straightened and pulled back his staff. With a quick wave of a hand an inky snake retrieved Kalim’s pen and dropped it near his hand.
“Kalim Al-Asim, I challenge you for the position of housewarden.” Jamil tapped his staff on the floor impatiently. “Pick up your pen.”
⫷⫸
“I love you.” Kalim brushed some sand off Jamil’s cheek. “You shouldn’t cry. You’re too beautiful for tears.”
Tears, if they were released, would tear apart Kalim’s resolve. He was dying. Too much was pouring out of his body.
Ironic, considering his unique magic could easily replenish any amount of water needed. What a shame it’s not water.
Yet tears, they couldn’t be tears. Tears come from the eyes, not the throat.
⫷⫸
I always wanted to be first. I wanted everyone to be happy.
We’re best friends, right?
“I am Sultan here in my land.”
The land, now reduced to sand and dust and ink and shadow.
The dorm, now lying in ruins alongside with the bodies of the brethren who wished to live their life past college.
“And you are Sultan there in yours.” Jamil looked up at the genie cryptid that fought for him. A familial familiar of some sorts…
He made a sweeping gesture with his staff. “You were Sultan of them, too.”
Down at the sanded and inked and mangled corpses of the students who had so much more to learn.
“Yet listen, I do not say to you that you should obey me; for I know that you are a free man.” Jamil barked a laugh. “How can you listen, Kalim? You’re dead.”
Dead. Kalim is dead. Dead and freer than he will ever be.
Jamil stepped over the scattered pillows and shattered glass, over each puddle of water slowly seeping into the floors.
The puddles of water he won’t have to clean up anymore. He wouldn’t have to clean up after him anymore. Free from the shackles of their ‘friendship’.
Each puddle was so clear and smooth. Each contained no memory of the conflict that happened not even five minutes ago.
I guess the ripple effect only applies to water.
Jamil paused next to another puddle, larger than the rest, and stained red.
His eyes traced it back to the source.
In it, he could see the deserts and the deserters running away from them– bringing with them every last glimmer of the spirit of the Scalding Sands with them. He would not have wished for anything else– he couldn’t have wished for anything else. Not with all the created ruin from all the useless wishing. He brushed a finger over his cheekbone, it came back slightly powdery. How strange, it doesn’t feel like sand.
“As for me, I will not come to you,”
Not willingly, at least. He couldn’t.
“And if you are strong enough, then come and fetch me.”
I always wanted to be first. I needed to be happy.
I never wanted to end up like this. I just wanted to smile and laugh together again.
We’re still friends, right? After everything?
After everything, can you still trust me?
Since always, you have trusted me.
Please. You thought we were best friends.
We're best friends, right?