[IC] After The End

[Roughdragon1]

No one in living memory knows what led to a sand-covered world. A mistake of its past inhabitants? A foreign invasion? A disease of unprecedented potency? It does not matter, for dwelling in the past is no way of surviving the future. Within the ancient graves, bodies of old stirred from all places and all times. There is no clinking of old armor, no clanking of familiar weapons. There is however, the familiar comfort of old mementos, from the silky chains of an old crest to the smooth, silver locket containing memories long forgotten.

Just a moment ago, the graves laid, undisturbed. Now, slowly, the memories of times long past arise from their tombs into a new world. Endless dunes of rough, gritty sand blow past their exposed bodies, stinging the flesh of some, or simply trickling over the scales of others. Some of the Arisen immediately shrank away from the gusts of biting sand, returning to the relative comfort of their graves. Others, however, rose up to face the outside world, curious of the new land that awaited them.

To their West, the distant ruins of some once-grand kingdom stuck out of the sand as if it was grasping for air.

To the East, a great sea laid still: No waves dared break its surface.

To the South laid nothing more than dunes more numerous.

To the North, the black sun hung over them like a dilated eye, the twin-peaked mountain scraping the heavens.

[Athol]

She woke to ash and dust, knowing little more than her name. Nezumes sat on the crumbling remains of a wall and surveyed the dead world around her. Behind her, a black sun over two peaks that unsettled her to no end, before her a seemingly endless desert, to her left a sea so still it was almost as unnerving as the sun and to her right the shattered remains of a city. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, time seemed of little relevance.

Eventually she chuckled softly to herself and clapped her palms against the threadbare trousers she’s woken in. ”Sitting her isn’t going to achieve much.” She muttered to herself as she stood. Stretching to her full nine feet, she raised her arms over her head and arched backwards. Feeling slightly better, she looked about her immediate surroundings once more, and not seeing anything of interest, she gave a small shrug and began heading towards the ruins.