It had certainly been a while.

Kazna took a deep, cleansing breath, filling her lungs with the heady scent of Anin moss during a warm spring rain. Thunderheads towered high into the evening sky, casting the fertile belt into a near twilight darkness dominated by a bluish sort of gloom. Rain hissed and sizzled distantly against the open lava flows sending out steam into the sky. Lightning flashed somewhere behind a bank of clouds, and the distant rumble of rolling thunder reached her not seconds later.

Rain rattled softly against her helmet, and intermingled with the blackness that shrouded her body. She took another deep breath, and her lungs were filled with a cleansing, wet earthiness.

She closed her eyes, and when she did she could almost remember.

Anin before

Before invaders came from the stars.

Before everything changed.

In her lifetime they had gone from believing travel to space was impossible, to spreading out across the stars. She remembered when the old ways dominated the fertile belt, and technology itself had been taboo. She remembered the blood burning glory of war and triumph. She remembered quiet, misty nights under the stars.

She remembered.... Him.

How long had it been since she had held him in her arms?

How long since she had seen his face. She should have remembered him, but it seemed as if the edges of her memories were fuzzy and eaten away, but even then, her strongest, and last memories of him were full of pain, and spite, and hurt.

Cold rain pattered against her face.

She missed him.

And once this was all over she would see him again, she would have him back and everything would be as it once was....

Slowly, she opened her eyes again forcing herself to focus. She stood within a thicket of spears, of many different lengths all buried in the ground. Tattered cloaks flew from each, now soaked with rain and sagging towards the ground. The cloak in front of her had tarnished with time, its golden thread gone gray with years of exposure to the ash and the elements. The very fibers of the cloak were permeated with ash, and she might not have recognized the spot were it not for the distinctive helmet, that sat, slowly rusting atop the spear and cloak memorial.

"Soon my love."

She straightened then, hand gripping tightly around the shaft of her dark spear, and turned. Shadows whirled around her feet as she made her way out of the field of spears, passing through a forest of memorials for the fallen growing more and more colorful as they signified younger deaths. One day she would no longer be able to recognize the memorial for her dear Laus, no longer be able to locate it in the sea of spears, but she did not plan to return here.

If everything went well, eventually she would have Lanus back, and all would be well.

The rain picked up, slicking the mossy ground with mud and wet, but the filth did nothing to tarnish her cloak of shadow as she made her way down the length of the valley.

She may have stopped to visit her partner's memory, but she had come for an all together different purpose.

Kazna turned her head back and upwards, eyes fixing on the holy mountain, dark against the horizon, and flickering with subtle lines of blue flame characteristic of their one holiest place.

She sneered as she looked at it. Kazna had been a devout believer in the old ways, in the saints, but that devotion had long since passed away, since she had learned the truth, and since the old ways had been corrupted by her own daughter. The saint of the sun had taken and perverted the old ways, weakened the strength of the old methods of fighting, weakened their armies and destroyed their bloodlines all in one.

And that mountain hadn't bothered to weed her out.

More blue light flickered in the fires, a result of an unusual amount of sulfur rather than any sort of holiness. It galled her to think that Sunny, of all people had been brave enough, presumptuous enough to make the climb up that mountain. If only someone like Kazna had taken things into her own hands than things would have been different.

Maybe Lanus would still be alive.

Gouts of steam rose from the hotsprings at the base of the mountain, and Kazna found herself leaving a trail of footprints through the fine mat of bacteria that coated the ground under the layer of lukewarm water. The crust of the earth was thin here, and she did her best to avoid any pitfalls.

The mountain grew in her vision.

Steam condensed water droplets on her armor.

Kazna did not falter, continuing to make her steady way through the hotspring field, and eventually onto the mountain's low foothills. There was a small, well-worn pathway that went about a tenth of the way up the mountain, but halted at a rugged cliff face. Generations of Drev had gotten it into their heads that they could become saints, but most never made it past this rockface. The path beneath her feet was well worn with years of travelers, but the rock face itself was jagged and wild.

Kazna wasted no time, reaching up to begin her climb.

She could have used her other resources to get to the top, but this felt right somehow.

Her psalm ached and burned the higher she climbed, her muscles screamed in protest. On multiple occasions she gouged her open skin on the jagged edges of rock, but still she kept climbing. All she had to illuminate her path was the ever present glow of blue fire as the sky continued to darken.

The rock was slippery and wet underneath her hands.

Lightning crackled at her back and wind buffeted at her cloak.

At one point, two of her hands slipped, and she found herself dangling from the rock by only her left side hands. The ground below her was dizzyingly far away, A drev skull, with glittering red carapace leered at her from a crevice in the rock. Wind battered her body as her hands began to slip.

She cackled with exhilaration, throwing herself back towards the rock, to find purchase just as her upper hand gave way.

Pebbles clattered down the cliff face behind her as thunder rolled through the rock face so powerful it rattled her bones, but still she did not stop, clawing her way up the side of the mountain, using the blade of her spear and slamming it into crevices in the rock, leveraging herself upwards.

Rain sodden, drenched,and aching, she pulled herself up, and over the top to collapse, shivering at the entrance to the small pathway.

Ahead of her, the mountain peak loomed, towering high into the sky above her head.

A massive crack marred the face of the peak, opening for the rugged trail that made its winding way through the rocks, and eventually into the crevice.

She clambered to her feet, black cloak whipping behind her in a sudden gust of wind. The rain kicked up once more, pelting her armor and filling the air with the ringing sound of metal. She took a step, leaving a heavy imprint in the mud behind her. Rain slicked, and treacherous, she made her way over the rocks, slipping and wobbling on occasion as the crevice grew in her vision.

A small stream had formed, following the line of the pathway, eroding it way from inside the crevice and down before spilling over the edge of the clifface and into nothingness. She stopped at the entrance to the crevice, peering inward. There was less rain here, mostly a light drizzle. The wind was gone, and the sound of thunder became muffled by several thousand tons of rock.

Her footsteps echoed as she took her first steps into the crevice.

White moss began to appear, the further she trapsed her way into the tunnels, until it coated every surface, even the floor, where a steady stream of water flattened the plants in a line down the center of the gully.

The journey wasn't long, and before she knew it she passed out of the small canyon and into the holy mountain's crater. The white moss was everywhere, a color and species she had seen nowhere else, but now blanketed every surface, coating the floor in a tight, squishy layer, climbing up the steep walls and towards the distant sky, which was nothing more than a bright circle, against far-off cloud cover

At the center of this clearing, there sat a pool of water, deep and black in the dim twilight, its surface disrupted by a thick curtain of rain.

Water spilled through the opening high above, but left the corners of the crater untouched and dry, and there sat the torches, blue like the fire of the holy mountain, set in a wide circle that added only some light to the dimness.

And at the center of it all, standing at the edge of the small pool.

Stood

Him.

Naktan Chal

The Dark Sun

His carapace glittered in the dim blue light, obsidian black and slick with water, casting off the glow of fire in drops of rain that glittered like sparks. Even his skin was black, giving him the appearance of a shadow as he stood there, still and waiting

Golden war paint marked his carapace in simple patterns across the black of his carapace.

The message was simple.

He had been expecting her.

She stepped forward.

He did not speak, but when his eyes opened, they burned gold.

She waited for him to say something, but the silence between them continued, until, frustrated she lifted her spear, "I have come to-"

He held up a hand, cutting her off, and she did so mouth opening and closing in surprise at his blatant unconcern for her words.

"I know why you have come." His voice was deep, and melodious, "I know why you have come, but I know what you will get." he clasped his hands gently around the shaft of the spear, "Like so many before you, you have failed the first test"

She snarled, deep and low in her throat, "I am not come to be tested."

He tilted his head, "No? You can't tell me that you haven't thought of it kazna. Wondered how you would have fared had you only climbed my mountain earlier, perhaps in your youth before all of this began."

She kept silent, but hated herself for it.

WIth an expression of grim finality, he pointed his spear towards her, "Let me sate your curiosity. You would have failed then, just like you have failed now."

With one hand, Kazna tore her sodden cape from her body and threw it to the side, "I will show you failure,"

And then she charged