Two years has passed.
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Sirius and Edward stood before the great Solaria Pyramid, which was a legend in itself, and nestled inbetween dunes of the great desert in the southern area of the southernmost country, Esparia. Since they no longer had the resources of the king of Ilain to back them in their search for The Coin to find Sirius's mother, they had to come up with another plan. A key to their plan was in this Pyramid.
For the first month of the first year, they spent concocting the pan. The next six months thereafter, they had both done research on the Solaria Pyramid and how to find it, as well as some research on the Nomads. As it would seem, the Nomadic Clans that wandered the land either exiled or killed the blessed people among them, and seeing that Sirius no longer had the man power provided by the Clergy or Ilain, nor the funds to recruit people, he had to resort to different means. They needed an expedition to find the coin.
That was where gathering the blessed people who were still alive and giving them a better life came in. First, he planned to offer them a choice when he found them. Simply leave, and continue their lives, or come with him, and they will be taught how to control their blessing, as no mortal is born with the ability to control it. For some, quite the opposite, in fact. After they were trained, he would again offer them a choice. Move on with their lives, or join his expedition to find the coin.
The flaw in this plan, was that he had no means of finding them. Which is where the Solaria Pyramid came into play. The tall, never-ending maze of booby traps left behind by the ancient Nomads. Legend has it, that if one can get inside, they will find an orb, which allows the finding and tracking of mortals with special abilities, and plenty of treasure, which was a bonus. Surely, he could use the treasure to help fund his expedition. But the orb was what he needed the most out of this old, crumbly building.
Edward peered at the ancient runes marked on the ancient door to the Pyramid. After inspecting them for quite a few minutes, with Sirius impatiently waiting, he pulled a book from his bag.
"This is written in the ancient tongue of the nomads. Not even the nomads speak it anymore. But lucky for us, I happen to have a text which can help translating it, since I suspected something like this might bar our way, considering it was believed to be built by nomads back then," Edward informed, as he cracked open the tome, and began flicking through it's yellowed pages.
"Good job. How long will the translating take, Edward?" Sirius asked, eyeing the runes with distaste. Thank the Gods he had Edward with him, or else this little plan of their's would've surely failed long before they ever reached the Pyramid without his intelligence.
"The rest of today, perhaps. Maybe sooner. Perhaps tomorrow we'll be skipping about dark tunnels and hoping we don't get annihilated by booby traps, eh?" Edward then chuckled, before beginning on the translation. Sirius snickered as well, and moved away to return to the temporary camp they had erected while they were here. And hopefully, by tomorrow evening, they would be "Skipping" out of this blasted desert with the orb and perhaps some treasure in tow.
Just under two years before Sirius's and Edward's arrival at the Solaria Pyramid.
The next day after the discovery of Elia's curse.
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She was blindfolded and led away after all night of being tied to a pole in the middle of the village and being scorned. Now, where ever she was, it was a heavily forested region. Elia could tell by the way their path was as curved as a slithering snake, and several times she felt the rough bark of a tree brush up against her arm.
"Where are you taking me," she hissed to the one leading her deeper and deeper into the forest by a rope binding her wrists together in front of her. She didn't ask it, but instead it was more of a demand for them to tell her.
"That's not a need to know, demon," he responded without emotion. Elia growled under her breath. She was sorely tempted to teach him some manners. Perhaps if she wasn't blind folded, she could use the rope he was leading her by to her advantage somehow. Maybe to choke him? It didn't seem possible if her thoughts on how long the rope was, was actually reality. She couldn't really tell.
So they continued to walk, until suddenly, she wasn't being lead anymore. She heard his footsteps fade away into the forest. Elia sighed. He didn't even have the decency to remove the rope around her wrist. No matter, though. She'd figure it out. So she raised her bound hands to her face, and pushed the blind fold back, and left it at her hairline to keep her auburn hair out of her face.
The first thing Elia did, was observe her surroundings. Her assumtions were correct, and she was indeed in a forest. A thick one that seemed to go on forever and ever without end. All around her, all she saw was green foilage, the trunks of trees, and the shadow of the canopy where any critter or predator could be lurking. And for one dark moment, she considered putting her skills as a huntress to use and tracking down the one that led her out here and kill him, simply for spite.
Elia shook her head. No. If she did that, she'd be no better than those who condemned her to exile and killed her family. And to be better than them, was satisfying to her. So, instead, the got to work gnawing at the knot that held the rope and her wrists together. While she did this, she thought about what had happend.
All Elia did, was help one of her friend's kids get their ball out of a tree. Instead of getting the ball, she fell halfway up the tree, and by some twisted fate, her shirt came up when she landed, and her metal skin was revealed for those kids to see. They had ran away screaming, and Elia was left there trying to figure out what was wrong, because it had happend so fast. By the time she did realize, it was far to late to stop the kids.
And then what her mother said, how her father, wasn't actually her father. Elia still couldn't determine if it was a ruse her mother came up with to try and save Elia and her father, or was it the truth? She always did find it strange how her father and herself didn't look a bit alike. She and her mom possessed the same aubern hair, and mostly the same features. She's even been told she looked exactly like her mother, except for her light grey eyes, which wasn't a trait she inherited from her father. He had looked quite the opposite of Elia, with fairer skin, and light brown hair, and deep brown eyes.
Elia found herself tearing up. What if it was true? Then her mother lied to her and her father this whole time. For twenty-three years, actually. And that was something she simply couldn't accept. Her mother had always been the best, and she couldn't ever imagine her spinning up such a fantasy other than to preserve her and her father's lives, even if they were to be exiled. Elia's throat constricted, like it usually did when she was about to cry. Her mother was prepared to sacrifice herself so they could live.
She wondered what their last thoughts were. With that thought, she stopped trying to break her bonds, and fell to her knees, letting the tears fall. She tilted her head back, and peered past the canopy, and into the depths of the darkening sky. Elia had nothing left to live for. Her clan, and her family were gone, because she was careless. And now they were all suffering for it. For one brief moment, she wished she had died with her parents.
What was Elia going to do out here? Survive was the obvious choice, but she didn't want to just survive. She wanted a purpose and a reason to still walk the land. She thought about her mother again, and how she had lied to Alikan the chieftan about Kalidar not being her father. Her mother didn't do that so she could sink into a puddle of depression in the middle of the woods. Elia wouldn't sit here and die, but she was going to sit here and cry for a little longer, as the idea of doing anything else seemed unappealing to her.
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