If nothing else, the young ones who had been so eager were quickly chastised even if that wasn’t what their guest had meant. They quickly filed in to a perfect order, picking up weapons as directed and settling in to a much more manageable group around their impromptu teacher. If Rael were the type to smile, she might have then - eager students, even the older ones in the back who so often liked to pretend they were above it all. Heralds in their own right. She did, of course, feel some level of guilt for putting Elpsis on the spot. But she was doing very well - experience? She’d have to ask.
Nyssa however, was keeping her plenty occupied for a moment.
Those Heralds that travelled off Maena to spread the Flame brought back tales of these Jedi, these Sith. Maena had their equivalents she supposed, in the Last Fathers and the newcomer like the New City’s proprietor, Xiangu. Rael had sat down with the latter - a deeply unpleasant experience, though in a way the Nautolan would have difficulty describing. The meeting itself had been exceedingly polite and productive, and she had been shown around and treated like an esteemed guest. Xiangu hadn't been anything like what Rael had expected, which was important because with the Eyaer possibly making moves, the Heralds had needed to reach agreements with all the players on the world. But she’d thought to find a more forceful and boasting woman. Instead she'd met someone polite and socially dexterous - as if she wasn't trying to avoid possible confrontation so much as figure out how to win it.
There was something of that in Nyssa, Rael thought - a casual and assured superiority. To the older woman however it was all, of course, folly. The only true ancient power was the Flame, the wisdom of their ancestors, and Xoth-Za’s teachings. All else was distraction, the work of the enemy. Ice, water - numbness to warmth. But she was interested in the philosophy nonetheless.
“Do you have a God? Someone from whom your power stems?” She’d heard dozens of accounts of false deities and had gotten very good at being tactful in dismantling illusions, at helping people find Xoth-za. She hoped for these two, Nyssa and Elpsis, now more than ever.
________
Eight hundred thousand years.
Shahmaran was the oldest living example of her people, the most closely connected to the day Idd-yha erupted and changed the face of Maena forever. Even still, nearly a million and a half years separated that event and the birth of the olive-skinned girl who would go on to continue the legacy of her kind. They dwindled, but her memory did not. Eyaer were exceedingly proud - arrogant, some would say. And never seeing her people at their greatest glory didn't mean she didn't long for the good old days.
And there was a large obstacle in the Heralds.
Talos snuck his way forward. She hadn’t been sure she’d ever convert him to reason. Like most Eyaer that still existed, he’d once been stubborn about working with others. They hated each other nearly as much as they hated everyone else.
(
Oh but the fear of the Stone lies above all else; they are afraid of what it will bring, of the nightmares that haunt all Eyaer since the day their ancestors found that black curse. So they follow her, and her promises and soothing whispers that they can stop it all before it’s too late.)
She watched as the brash younger man (75,000 years - a child) leaped across a narrow magma flow to grab on to the stone wall across it, scaling it ahead of his companions. He disappeared over the top, surely sneaking along the edge of the Herald compound as quiet as if he didn’t exist. He reappeared scaling the wall of the largest building, the Temple itself. Crawling over the roof, getting somewhere central and placing his hands down to feel the stones…
The power that slammed out of Talos was immense, the sort of shock that had once shaped this world. It threw him backwards, away from the massive hole he’d blown in the temple ceiling. Shahmaran could only imagine the damage the falling stone must have done inside - a projectile of that size cutting a brutally determined path through bone, flesh, precious artifacts. It was a shame that the Heralds didn’t write anything down to destroy, but it hardly mattered if they themselves weren’t around to remember it. Talos had moved to another section, blasting another section of the roof down so hard it shook the earth, pummeling whatever was unfortunate enough to be in its path.
By the time the alarm had sounded, the five remaining Eyaer had made it across the lava to drag themselves over the lip and in to the compound.
_____
Rael was ripped from Nyssa’s answer by the monstrously loud explosion that rocked the temple complex as the roof of the Temple itself fell in at one section. She was barely getting a grip when the second came, and the alarm sounded.
“Someone on the roof!” came a shout, and Rael’s stomach knotted with combined rage and dread. Cowards! Attacking where we train Initiates.
“It’s an Eyaer! Eyaer!”
When Rael turned to the courtyard of Initiates, all she saw was a sea of scared eyes.
“Caleb,” she barked, immediately taking command,
“you take the newest Initiates to the far end of the complex. Masters Yayou and Lee will know to go there to defend anyone if this were ever to happen. Atsuko,” her gaze turning to the best of their trainees,
“you will take the rest to support Master Siko where he sees fit.” She received nods from the two addressed, and held a hand up to hold the group before dismissal.
“Fear is natural, but remember - Xoth-za only gifted one people, and it was us, not them. And we have defeated them before! We will do it again! Go!”
Atsuko led the more experienced of the initiates off, a far more hardened group than that which followed Caleb. To be frightened was natural when faced with an old legend of dead monsters, but anyone who had looked in to the Flame for any period of time would fight tooth and nail for the will of Xoth-za, to protect their holy land. A moment of grappling with the suddenness of the moment was all that was needed before perspective shifted to the task at hand.
And that just left…
Finally she looked to the two women she’d unknowingly pulled in to what was about to be a warzone.
“I don’t have time to explain to you exactly what is happening, but you heard that name. The Eyaer were the enemies to our ancestors, long-lived. Nearly immortal. They cannot be killed by anything but complete destruction of the brain, complete. They will regenerate faster than you can hurt them. This will not be easy, and if you choose to turn around and take those speeders back to K’rylland and further, no one here will hold it against you.”
A thump so powerful that it unseated the stones of the courtyard, forcing Rael to lean forward to balance herself, cascaded through the ground.
“But you’ll want to choose quickly,” she said through gritted teeth, a spear materializing through the Force in her right hand before she turned to run towards the sounds of battle.
[member="Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori"]
