A/N

Yes, I know this is the second StarCraft oneshot I've drabbled up with the same title, but, well...go figure.

Blood and Stone

He'd never seen Kalath before.

Seen pictures of it of course. From above the planet, from the surface of the planet, and for good measure, an astrographic chart of its star system. Those good measures even went as far as showing him pictures of its single moon – a cratered, unremarkable rock no different from the hundreds of moons he'd seen over the hundreds of planets he'd also seen. He was less than 300 years old, but the universe was vast. There was always some planet to go to. Some battle to be fought. Lives would end, stars would fade, but even if they were fated to drift off into the ether, the planets and moons would remain intact after light had faded from the universe, and no protoss remained to see a starless sky.

He remembered Shakuras as well. Everyone remembered Shakuras, even those who had called it nothing but a refuge as the protoss prepared to retake Aiur. Shakuras and its moons would only live on in memory, and the images of it that did exist. Images aplenty of course, but still, only that. Protoss would be brought into the universe, Khalai and Nerazim, alike, that would never cast their eyes upon the world their parents had called home. He had long since planned to consecrate the debris field that had been the Nerazim's adopted home, but even with centuries ahead of him, there was always something else to be done. If time was a river, he was the sand of the banks – constantly being eroded, and carried off down the stream regardless of his wishes.

But he had come here. He, Artanis, Hierarch of the Daelaam, Unifier of the Tribes, Slayer of the Dark God. He could, he told himself, exercise the privileges that came with that title. To look upon the Hierarchy and declare "enough." That he would take leave of his homeworld and see the stars once more. Stars no longer bathed in blood, or echoing the laughter of an insane xel'naga.

And yet, I came here.

Followed, rather than come, he thought. The Light Seeker was already en route to Kalath, he'd just tagged along. Not that the crew had seen it that way – to them it was an honour that the hierarch would grace them with his presence – but he had let its captain command the ship as best she saw fit. He was only here to watch, to observe nothing but the verdant world beneath them, as the Khalai carried out the task of surveying the world. The Dae'Uhl might have been dead, but the kalathi weren't, despite the events of the Kalath Intercession centuries prior. A conflict he hadn't even been alive for, much less of age to partake in. Of course, given how history had unfolded in those dark days, it was one battle he had no shame in not partaking in.

So he stood there, looking upon the planet below from the Light Seeker's observation deck. From space, Kalath looked…normal. Many and varied were the species of the universe, but they mostly tended to originate on worlds similar to Aiur. Not too close or far from their sun. A moon would help spur the development of life from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. An oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere would help as well. Life might owe its origins to the xel'naga, but whether by chance or design, life appeared in more places than others. From here, he could only reflect how similar Kalath was to Aiur. Completely different continents and seas of course, along with slightly higher gravity and slight variances in atmosphere, but still, Kalath was to the kalathi what Aiur was to the protoss. A world that had given rise to a sapient species, and millions, if not trillions of other life forms. A world that, like Aiur, had known the touch of war.

"Does your thought feed the spirit, or does your spirit feed your thought?"

He heard the voice, but his eyes remained locked on the world below. Eyes, sky-blue, no different from Kalath's skies. Eyes bereft of clouds though, as clear as his vision was.

"Perhaps I should be more blunt. How fare you, Hierarch?"

He turned to the source of the voice. More blunt. I would like to see that someday.

The universe might have its surprises. Rohana being more blunt than she might be was one thing. Her mere presence here at all? Not so much.

"I am well," he said. "Distance from home does me good."

She had requested that she be allowed to visit Kalath as well, a request that Artanis had granted her. Even without the Khala, he had seen the stain upon her soul. He had been there when Aiur had fallen. She had awoken from stasis to see the ruins of her homeworld. What they saw was the same, but he had at least been there. He had been there at the moment the zerg desecrated Aiur's soil, had been there at the moment Tassadar had slain the wretched Overmind, had been there when he and the survivours had travelled to Shakuras. He would live with his failures, but he had at least been there to see what triumphs and failures had occurred. Rohana hadn't. She'd been there to stop Amon's fire from claiming Creation, but not an earlier, no less damaging fire. He watched as the preserver moved to the transteel that separated the two protoss from the vacuum of space. Watched as she put a hand to the window, as she looked down on the planet below.

"This world…it seems at peace," she murmured. She glanced at Artanis. "From Aiur, you can still see the damage the zerg have done. Entire continents reduced to wastelands. Our cities-"

"I was there, you need not remind me."

His words were firm. He had little need or desire to be reminded of the healing that Aiur would need to undergo. Of the healing all of the Firstborn would need. Rohana, for her part, didn't say anything. Instead, she took out a small crystal from her robes and handed it to him.

"From Prelate Lyrak," she said. "His survey of the surface."

Artanis took the crystal. A microsecond later, images flooded into his mind at a pace that would overwhelm the brain of a non-psychic species. Still, he was anything but "not psychic," so he quickly saw the images. And more importantly, comprehended them.

Kalath had healed. The kalathi had not. Scattered, divided, leaderless. Huddled in caves, huddled around the fire, looking downward rather than forward, let alone upward. They killed for food. And more distressingly, were still happy to kill each other.

He handed the crystal back to Rohana in silence. In a silence of her own, she took it.

"Does it bother you?" she asked.

He turned back to the viewport. Kalath suddenly looked a lot less welcoming.

"I know the history of the Kalath Intercession," Rohana continued. "By any measure of sound mind, the Templar would be absolved."

"Perhaps. But what of the kalathi?"

"If the bengalaas attacks the omhara, and the omhara defends itself at the cost of wounding the bengalaas, with whom does the fault lie?"

Artanis turned to her. "I am familiar with the analogy."

She nodded.

"But we are not animals bound by instinct. We might defend ourselves against the bengalaas while doing as little harm to it as possible."

"One might say that we did do as little harm to the kalathi as possible."

Artanis's eyes narrowed, even if the light from within them was blazing. "Did you see the same images I did Rohana? The kalathi have not recovered. Not in population, not in technology, not socially."

"You give them too much credit." Artanis went to speak, but Rohana continued. "When we found them, they were at war with themselves. If they continue to war amongst themselves, then what are they but following their true nature?"

"The protoss have warred amongst themselves well. Is that our 'true nature?'"

"No, of course not," said Rohana. "But we are the Firstborn. The children of the gods."

"And the kalathi?"

"They are not." Artanis turned back to the viewing port, but she kept talking. "Pity them by all means. But do not forget that you are not them, any more than you are any lesser creature."

Lesser creature. The words hung in the air. He knew he could have contested the point. He had done so above Korhal after all. But then, he had thought like her once. Even after fighting alongside James Raynor, he had scoffed at the arrival of the UED. After that, the UED had toppled an empire with a fraction of their strength, and a terran, albeit infested, had emerged triumphant from the ashes of the Brood War. If only for his own survival and that of his species, he could think of neither the terrans or zerg as "lesser species." And now, looking down from above like a god, he supposed he couldn't (or shouldn't) think of the kalathi likewise.

And of course, Rohana had a point. Through the Khala, she had 'seen' the Kalath Intercession, if only through the memories of the protoss who had entered the psychic link that had once bound the Khalai. He had only read of it, and seen of it through means similar to the kalathi of the present day that he had just witnessed. When the protoss had first found the kalathi, they had been in the midst of a civil war. The protoss had tried to intervene, revealing themselves to the aliens. Aliens that were confined to a single continent, limited to bronze age technology, and upon seeing the protoss upon their world, had stopped fighting…and attacked them instead.

He knew that the Templar had held back…to an extent. Yet history spoke for itself. Colossi had been used. Only a handful of Templar had lost their lives. Hundreds of thousands of kalathi had been killed, their civilization was in ashes, and they'd been reduced to the stone age. From what he had just seen, hundreds of thousands, maybe even more kalathi had died since. War, disease, famine, he couldn't say. Only that the protoss had come, and after their departure, the kalathi had been left in a worse condition than the protoss had found them in.

History repeats itself then. He looked to Rohana. "Do you think our actions were of hubris? Or benevolence?"

"The latter, of course. The Templar tried to help. They failed. Failure does not negate the intent."

"Perhaps. But I cannot help but think of our own history. Of the xel'naga, elevating us from the jungles of Aiur. Of steering our evolution. Of coming down, and leaving us in the dirt."

"Xel'naga that I may remind you we now know had no pure intentions," Rohana said. "After all we saw and did in the End War, how can you possible entertain-"

"I do not entertain any notion of Amon possessing a speck of regret or conscience," Artanis said. "But I do know that in the Aeon of Strife, our civilization was reduced to ash, our people reduced to the stone age, and we killed each other like animals. Bengalaas or omhara. Even in what we knew of history then, did we consider what our actions might do to the kalathi? Did we believe we might do better?"

"You may ask what Templar remain from those days," Rohana said. "But I must point out that ill-will or not, the xel'naga came to use while we were at peace. We came to the kalathi when they were at war." She paused, and when she spoke, her words were softer. Slower. "One may hope that the kalathi may find their Khas. Whatever the kalathi may call this period in their history, a few centuries is nothing compared to the Aeon of Strife."

Artanis conceded the point…to an extent. The kalathi had no psionic powers. No psychic link to fall back upon. They would kill, and kill, and kill, and unlike the Firstborn, never know the true horror of taking another life. In that, they were different.

But they still bled. Still spilt blood. Blood that fell upon stone.

In that regard, they were the same.