favorite hairpin would have looked ridiculous on this dull hair. It used to be that his own tail argued with a fluffy decoration and clearly won, but now…

And Lis involuntarily caught himself thinking that now, as never before, he understands Squint-Eye. Squint-Eye, whom he always despised and humiliated. He called him a weakling, and considered a rag. Now he guessed the motives that moved Squint-Eye. Now these motives sounded in his soul. Now he barely restrained himself, so as not to grab the knife, and not cut to hell all his hair. Cut off this sign of the lord and the chosen warrior, and so on and so forth. A sign that has become so pathetic. And if he had been drugged, like Bert at that moment, oh!

Lis really wanted to inject something into himself now. But he endured because he was afraid of new trips. Even more terrible nightmares. He felt tired, awake, old and broken. Old wounds ached and reminded about themselves regularly. His body began to lose ground. He understood that. But he couldn’t fix anything.

And the face… it began to peel off because of this damn dye. Just like Arel’s. But Arel didn’t suffer too much from this, or it seemed that he didn’t suffer. It seemed to him that he really didn’t give a damn that people shied away from him in different directions. They look at them secretly, fearing a direct look. However, for Lis it is also all the same! Have they had enough of staring at him?!

“But why?! Why I was born this way?” asked himself a question stupid

Lis, not understanding how beautiful he really was. His mother was embarrassed of him, and Karina…

The sky is blue, there’s not a cloud, as if they are in the “Upper world”. Two captives are fighting in the arena below. Two blacks. They are just entertainment, meat, and Sigmer looks not at the battle of the “doomed to death”, but at her. At Karina. His Karina. He watches how intensely and concentratedly she watches the actions of her compatriots exposed for fun. As if she herself were fighting down there. She flinches at every attack, at each dangerous moment she moves forward, clutching her fingers in the parapet. He wonders, which one of them she supports. Sigmer is annoyed by it. But she does not notice that he is looking at her carefully. she is all down there, in dust and blood. He wants her to be distracted, to notice him, to look at him. Empty hopes.

A satin red ribbon is tied around her neck, hiding bruises from a completely different “jewelry” – an iron collar. It was removed recently. And there are traces of his teeth there.

And Sigmer catches himself thinking that he wants to do this with her again. Make pain so that she glances, remembers him.

“Gladiators inevitably,” they fight really brilliantly. Neither one nor the other wants to give up. “As for the last time” is ridiculous, because it is so. The battle drags on, two desperate people are already just rolling

in the dust of the arena, violently clinging to each other. “Blacks…” The instinct of self-preservation doesn’t allow them to give up. They are warriors.

“Have mercy on them!” She finally turns to him, with a plea in her eyes and voice. “Send them to hard labor camp, but don’t force one of them to kill the other. They fought honestly, and are equal in strength!”

What is she hoping for? That in the prisoner camp they will wait for release. That “their people” will come to save them. There can be no more stupidity! “Blacks” will never recapture lost positions. And those who were captured are doomed. What's the difference? Die now, or slowly and painfully rot in hard labor.