“Please... spare them Nridriel... let them live....” the young woman echoes to herself- begging the small spark in her chimed bracelet. “Let them go- they don't deserve this...” the sound of a crying woman barrels into her ears , not even drowning out the sound of the infant she held tightly in her arms. Everything was riding on this one moment. A tear slides free form Arsanna's face, falling to the refractor bellow her feet. Throwing her hands up, a chime erupts out, a beautiful multichromatic light expands- it resonates through the walls into the city, spreading across the cobble stones and tiled roves. It carries to the edges of the city itself, a sharp crackle of the stone gates screams across the sky already enveloped in the carnage of a weeping city bellow being shredded into the sky. Dizziness settles into the young soldier as she falls to her knees, several priests run to her side to assist her as she shakes them aside. “No! I'm fine... Go...” she smiles tears running down her face, closer to sobs. “It's better this way. Get everyone here in the Palace and go-” “Milady Arsanna-” “I said go!” she shakes off the man who tried to grab her hand. Several onlookers took this moment of silence to stare on at the young defeated general of one of the most powerful cities this land had ever known. The chamber was now silent say for the crumbling city slowly ripping into the sky and the crying child. Taking to her feet, and drying her eyes Arsanna took a moment to stare at the crowd who took refuge with her. “Remember what we stood for. Remember what we all fought and died for. Remember the sins we committed that brought us here today. Remember the things we gave up and cried for... Remember that there is always salvation amongst the stars... Go now- flee before there is no longer time left,” she points her way toward a visible western gate from their location. “Don't turn back. Don't watch our pride be swallowed whole. Let it die! Now go!” she screams onto the crowd that now began to make a break for the exit, leaving Arsanna and a single priest alone in the chamber. “So- you wish to see the end along with me?- Priest,” she says with a bit of acid in her tone. H shrugs, smirking slightly. “That slight grab at my wrist... wasn't to pull me to my feet.. it was for my bracelet. You must be with the thief and the counsel.” “I figured I could try- as orders are orders. But I'd rather go down in flames than be part of the problem-” he caught silent from a ring of the chime from her wrist; a single quick, brief resonating band passing by him as he stares wide-eyed. He blinks in horror and shock as several pillars behind him fall in half in a slight diagonal fashion. His vision doubles slightly, his head diagonally sliced and falling clear in half from the rest of his body as he crumbles into a bloody heap on the floor as Arsanna- hollowed to the counsel and anything in relation, stared on empty-eyed. Looking down to the chime she used on her wrist, dismay had washed in- the bell was now cracked- it housed an ember of a fire- something that as stolen. There wasn't any way it could be contained in this host any longer, and there wasn't any time left. No song could save her now. Nothing could. “Gods... Gods please... give me the strength to be strong,” she prays allowed. Tears again welling in her eyes. Tears became sobs and finally, unable to contain it, becomes morbid reality that everything was now gone. Her parents, her sisters of battle- even the city of Izarem. Despair, for the lives she forcefully took, for the family she could never love or hope to see again, for the unborn child she lost one winter passed. The light in her heart began to dwindle and go dark deep inside. The hurt of never having the chance to try just one more time- just once more. [i]The young woman awakens in a field- beautiful blue flowers dance in the gentle breeze as the sun's embrace brought warmth to her weakened form. In the distance stood a tree sheltering a young woman, her lover and a small girl clad in blue following butterflies of scarlet shades. The girl notices Arsanna and stares on- her parents shattering like glass and falling to pieces that cascade the ground. Arsanna shrills, trying to reach for the girl as she turns to run away from her. The child falls forward and pops into a black puddle of sludge leaving only black stained clothes. The woman now stands alone staring down at the sludge that now surrounded her feet.[/i] It was but a hallucination... Reeling back, her eyes engulfed in pure light, a cry of agony filled the halls of the palace. Sobbing rage poured from the woman as echoes cried in abnormal tones across the sky. The bracelet, Apple of Autumn shatters like glass off her wrist, leaving but the lonely and pitiful spark to slowly rise, the girl going silent and drifting upward with it. Her flowing hair flows freely, defying gravity as she floats above the mechanism she used to protect her people. The sounds of her cries still clearly resonating above began to echo from refractor to refractor- hundreds of bands of light and loops began dancing across the city while others took this as a signal to escape their refuge. Her eyes slowly close- it was time- time to return to the stars. To join the daughter she could never love and the soldier she met who fathered her. A tear roles off her cheek and hits the refractor- the young woman is engulfed in flames as the palace explodes upward. People began clearing a hillside outside the city, watching as the sky appears as a dark vortex, eating the city whole from a black void in the sky where one of their many moons once held high. A single bright light slowly rose into the black hole as opulent lights grew and in one bright flash, everything was gone. The city, the verdant land and everyone and thing within it. Ruins lay in shambles but no semblance of life remained. A young man took his sword, digging it into the ground and bowed as the other survivors began to follow his lead. The moons held high in the evening tide, no longer being a reminder of the Moon mother, but of the rage of a Goddess usurped by her most loyal followers. ---------------------------------------------- “She finally waking up!” the man cries out in relief. “You scared us, young madam... you... walked into the Oasis and got your hair tangled in some roots...” Arsanna, scratches her head- trying to speak but too hoarse in the throat to say much of anything at the current moment. She sits up looking about at a young man, a farmer, a doctor and an elderly woman standing about her inside a caravan tent. “I'm sorry young lass but.. we had to cut that beautiful hair... raven's feathers hold nothing to that hair but... you would have drowned!” the old woman tried to jokingly push the fact aside that the woman was confused and unsure what was going on. “Wherever you came from, did a number to you... your clothes were burned so heavily... I tried my best to trim it but... here, take this and take a moment...” Arsanna sits up, moving herself to feel something within her for a moment in some fashion of circulation. Staring into the hand mirror given to her by the elderly woman, a gasp comes out of her, an unintentional line of radiance pressing against the mirror that begins to glow in intensity. Her hair was no longer near ankle length but now barely meeting the mid of her back. Shrilling at the top of her lungs, the branded text goes black and the hand mirror shatters. Confused and mentally exhausted, she drops the mirror as the group leads her away to the bed once more; catching the old man by the arm she tries to whisper- “Where... am... I?”