SONGFIC: TEMPLES of GOLD

The stars are up but they are not bright. Whether they mourn or have finally become sullen after watching centuries of earthen wars, I could not tell. The dark skies, though, simply have one thing to say, we only have our torches to rely on. Elune's light is gone, along with her life. She had offered it in exchange for our own, for a chance in the battle which we all know, will be the last. Among our weapons and shields, that message of the night, which had settled in our hearts, was the heaviest to carry. And as my comrades and I somberly marched down to the valley that will be our graveyard, the first drops of the year' forgotten winter fell from the sky. I looked to my side and saw anger that was more freezing than the night's breeze …

I see you when it snows in crystals dancing down

From the sultry sky

When silence was pure and unbreakable

I can see you smiling in every frozen tear

Summer is my season. My breath is fiercer on days when the Sun scorched the lands longer. Summer was when she first gave me her frustrated smile. Ice is hardest to make on days when the Sun can seem to melt everything.

I can hear you whisper

You and I

The summer heat drove us into each other's arms. It gave our kisses passion. It fueled our hearts, making it burn wild with fire… Our skins swelled with blisters after I first conquered her on the hot ground under Ra's blazing gaze.

Little did we know that they were life itself

The days passing by

We both have a share in the sacrifice

After the war, we always said. Our life would begin after the war. I will take her to the eastern country or we will settle on her northern isles. I will return to being a blacksmith, she will revive her family's healing tradition… and she will be waiting when I get home. Then we will have children. 6, 7, 8… we will have a platoon or, maybe, just one child, as what is customary in her clan. We will end the war… well and quickly.

Once upon a time we had something beautiful

Once upon a time

You and I

But I now see that there is no life after our crusade. Nothing else would make me feel more alive than her head on my chest, her icy breath muttering my name against my skin. Those nights were now long lost…

Take me wherever the answer lingers in the sand

Show me the way as the story unfolds

… taken away by our failure to end the struggle before it fully engulfed us in its savagery. Her clan sisters were all massacred; her father betrayed and ambushed... our firstborn… burned into a black corpse.

Bless me with a kiss across the universe

When day and night converge

And whisper my name as I fall asleep

I could not save her; I had barely survived then myself. She slipped down, down, down… until she settled into her sanctuary, a place where all she could see is wrath.

Tell me tales of days bygone

Tell me little lies

Tell me once again it's just you and I

I prayed to her that she would not leave me. But she asked for my kindness. Do not force love to dwell in me… it has no more place in a heart which overflows with hatred, was her last request.

Love is remote in this wailing winter wonderlands

Show me the way to the Temples of Gold

I breathed fire into the palms of my armor. Winters had been bearable because I knew that she liked it most. But now it fails to give her comfort. I want to reach beside me, want to give her warmth, touch her for the last time. But as her eyes filled with fury watch the unseen barren lands before us, I know that the cold façade in my side is only a shell. Rylai's vengeful spirit had already rushed ahead to the battlefield which would be filled with blood in the coming morning.