Isan’s visits to Equs’s stall gradually increased. She visited the stables almost every afternoon. She had also started frequenting the races, cheering as much for Arran as for Equs.

It had slowly grown blurry, the line that she had initially drawn against a slave like him. She herself did not know where to identify that divide between a slave and his master; She had instead started treating Arran like she would treat a friend, she had started treating him as more than just a friend. Though she did not know it herself.

Arran was not the only male that sought Isan’s attention. There were countless others. Nobles. Merchants. Warriors. All, men of great station and wealth, worthy in their own right. But none made her feel as free as she felt when she was with Arran.

Society wears a mask. It requires you to wear one. You are never truly yourself. Everyone behaves the way they are expected to. Wealth and Power are something the society recognises, they are what society identifies you with. Doors, some you never knew even existed, would open if you were rich and powerful. You want to get something done? All you need is wealth and power. There was no limit to this madness. There is no limit to this madness. As long as you are a part of the society, you are part of the madness. It only keeps growing, like a strangling creeper that slowly occludes the very scaffolding it had used to grow and slither onward, this madness brainwashes mankind..slowly suffocating it and warping it into a shadow of what it once was. What you think is free will is only the society’s impression on you. This is because you grow in a society that tells you that this is good and that is bad. What defines you, your very morality, is not your own.

Isan was part of the system. She had never realised how the society treated the lower classes as something less than human. She had never realised how everyone seemed to be in the grips something larger, much larger and vicious than she could imagine. All of that changed when she had met Arran. It was as if she had opened her eyes for the first time since her birth.

She saw, for the first time, all those people, the farmers, the beggars, the slaves, the sewage workers… milling about the city, with their own worries and joys, with their own lives….lives that were as real as her own. It had changed her deeply, and she came to appreciate Arran all the more for it.

Isan kept a steady stream of books flowing to Arran. She had not realised what a voracious reader he was. She had assumed that he was just the casual reader, that he had just begun to learn the basics of the educated elite.

She couldn't be further from the truth. Books were rare, especially for a slave. It had been a very long time since Arran had managed to get his hands on so many books. His mother had always encouraged his love for books…those memories felt so old now, their edges blurring..fading and crumbling into the sands of time.

She had been engaged to the son of Cyrium’s wealthiest man. Lord Tusian was far wealthier than Egon. Tusian’s family was deeply rooted with Cyrium, claiming to have it’s roots in Cyrium as far back as the original Ororian Empire. Tusian controlled a majority of the trade in Cyrium while Egon trailed behind him at a close second. Egon’s business acumen more than made up for his own relatively adolescent lineage. But it was truly impossible to simply overcome the hoards of wealth Tusian’s family had amassed over the centuries. His third son, Lord Erdoch had taken a liking to Isan and Tusian had been quick to use this opportunity to unite the two families and bring the trade of Cyrium under a single banner. Lord Egon was more than happy to agree.

Isan knew that Egon never had truly cared about her. She had only been another piece on the chessboard for him to use. And he did use her. He had simply cast her wishes aside and accepted Tusian’s proposal to have Isan married to Erdoch, knowing fully well Erdoch’s already infamous whoring and perversion. Erdoch was a man who knew he could get away with almost anything inside Cyrium’s impressive walls. And he made full use of this fact. There had been many women who had succumbed to their wounds during bouts of his extreme perversion. Egon had essentially condemned Isan’s life to death at best and who knew what at worst.

Isan knew this. She knew that there was nothing in her life to look forward to. She had resigned herself to her fate, or she thought she did, until she met Arran. He had shown her how to be truly free. And she loved every part of it. She wanted to live, she wanted to ride….free of all worries…free of Egon, Tusian, Erdoch and all the other nobles who called themselves human.

She wanted to live.

Yet she had no one to show her how to do it….until now.

Isan did not want to worry Arran with her own worries..even if she did confide in him, he would not be able to help her except may be provide the comfort of his company. She already had his company, in fact, she demanded it her every waking moment. She had decided to enjoy what little time she had left.

There is freedom in resigning yourself to death, a wildness that creeps in slowly but surely and sets its roots deep within your soul. She had nothing to lose. She had nothing more Egon could take away from her.

She had wanted to commit suicide and be rid of this prison that was her life. She had even tried once…only to realise that she loved life, what little she could have of it, very dearly. She had decided then, she would be free until her fated marriage with Erdoch…and then she would take that final step.

She would live till then….she would love life till then…

She was in the stables, lying down on the hay while Arran checked on Equs’s riding tack. The bratty horse was resting beside Isan, chewing on some of the hay, trying to pull part of it from under Isan’s plump bottom.

She had asked Arran one of the two questions that had been bothering her since she had met him.

“What is your idea of happiness?”

He had then looked straight at her then, his midnight black eyes boring into hers. She liked how he looked at her, the intensity of his gaze unmatched by any other she knew. She liked his earnestness. She realised then, that she liked him…nay, loved him. Whatever his feelings for her maybe, his answer would resonate with her very being till the day she would take the final leap.

“Happiness is for others. I demand Euphoria”.