Before the gash sputtered blood onto the colosseum floor, before the gladiator's blade slashed the gap between helm and hauberk, even before Saiix had lifted his sword too late to parry, he felt Dakkru's call. Her voice was like a chill in the air that made even his horns shudder.
He remembered being a young Ynnwn boy in Quintherion, surrounded by Demorians. A classmate mocked his red skin and when a stone left his hands and smashed her face, he felt that shudder. When he explained it to his grandmother, Linas, her anger dissipated. Suddenly, she was ranting about her diaboli father and the goddess of death. "It was the same for him," she told Saiix. "That shudder. He said it was like Dakkru was demanding he come home." That was the first time she mentioned his disappearance, along with the other diaboli, centuries ago. She wasn't sure what had happened. Her father left no explanation; it wasn't until the mystery of the diaboli people vanishing into the Death Realm surfaced that she decided her father must've gone with, finally home. Perhaps Dakkru had been Saiix's only choice from the very start.
When he came to, the world around him was dark. His wounds had healed. For the third time in his life, he had traveled to the Death Realm. He spat at the ground and cracked his knuckles, overcome with the urge to punch something. There was no glory in surviving. He had failed to deliver a true death to his goddess, and that he could make the journey back to the living world meant he had yet to fulfill his goddess's designs for his time in Yliakum. The first time Saiix died, he was a whelp, in Dakkru's service for barely a year; he couldn't have been more thankful that it wasn't the end. But now, he was fifty-seven and full grown. He had spent years honing his swordsmanship and seeking battle against worthy foes, always hoping for victory or to be soundly defeated by a strong opponent and sent to his goddess at last. His grandmother had warned him. "Go to Listarindel. Find yourself a wife and settle down. Or properly join the ranks of Dakkru's worshipers. If you get too used to life without other people, you're gonna get stuck that way." Ten years later, after her passing in the same house in Quintherion she raised him in, and he could finally acknowledge she was right. He felt stuck in his ways now, just as she had been stuck in hers. There was a woman, though.
Saiix set off, through the ever shifting Death Realm. He paid no heed to other travelers, whether they were resting or trying to make it home. He only responded to the solemn nods of the other children of the Dark Crystal, occasionally murmuring, "Dakkru's will be done," as they passed one another. The faithful were always about in the Death Realm, practicing their black magic or spreading hymns and praise for the goddess. Some of them had supposedly existed in this realm for eons, too old to return to the world of the living without immediately being greeted by death, too greedy for knowledge to finally take their place with the goddess. Though, he supposed they saw it differently. As eternal denizens of her realm, they could spread her word and ensure that younger faithful continued the work in the living world.
Saiix's thoughts were interrupted as a hooded follower stepped up, kissing him on both cheeks and whispering blessings before passing. He was a rather decrepit looking Klyros, probably aged long before his death. Many of the followers who looked old played the part of great sages. It made it difficult to tell who was honest. The first time Saiix died, he thought everyone was a faker. They claimed centuries, but when he asked about his great grandfather, about the vanished diaboli, they told conflicting accounts or had no answer at all. It all seemed a great sham before he met Yerela.
Sometimes Yerela's bone hut appeared in a clearing. Other times, he had to climb up towering structures just to get a glimpse of the island in the abyss where the realm's gravity had shifted it. The year Saiix spent in the Death Realm after his first death was filled with the daily labors of finding where Yerela would be next, until they started sharing the same bed. After that, the frustrations of waking were replaced by the joys of kissing her before they got up, listening a told a story from the countless years she had spent in the realm, watching as she tirelessly worked to explore the possibilities of dark way magic, and knowing as they lay down for bed that more of the same awaited him tomorrow. He could never say whether or not this sense of constancy was the proper basis for love, but he had no other romances with which to compare. Yerela seemed to believe it was enough, but with her perception of time so skewed he couldn't be sure. When he returned to the Death Realm for the second time, she hardly remembered him. That precious year, the memories that he cherished while back in Yliakum, might as well have been the blink of an eye. He spent ten years with her after.
This time, Yerela's hut was surrounded by a dense forest of dead trees. Or tree-like structures, Saiix couldn't be sure. Life did not grow in this realm and the strange existed in ways that befuddled the mind. He weaved through them, noticing that their branches did not bend and their skins were smooth, not rough like bark. When he stepped inside Yerela's hut, she was at her desk, magnifying glass in one hand and pen in another, furiously scribbling down notes as she stared at a dark crystal fragment. And there was a man lying in her bed.
Perhaps the true ancients of the Death Realm were so numb to the passage of time that diaboli's disappearance was simply another insignificant moment in the cluttered eons of existence crammed into their minds. Perhaps Yerela could only find love in constancy given the nature of memory in a realm of uncertainty. When she spotted him and raised a brow, Saiix knew he was again a stranger. And the only question on his mind was how many years he'd sacrifice this time.
[Hey folks, was just feeling a bit nostalgic and next thing you know I was writing a story for old time's sake. Please forgive any typos! Also, my settings knowledge is a bit rusty. I read stuff on the website for a refresher, but if some things are off by apologies! But this was a fun break; maybe I'll continue it as I get time. To any old friends out there lurking, hope you've been well!]
