A/N: If you're reading this and are unfamiliar with the World of Exalted, you can go to http://www.exaltedcompendium.com/section.php?sec=3&article=3 to look up the terms and to http://www.white-wolf.com/exaltedweb/exalted.html to learn more about the world itself. Anyhow, this is my first attempt at fiction writing in any sort of formal way (not that ff.net is that formal, but heh.) I'm not thrilled with this story to be honest, but it was easy to write as it's based on a character I played in an Exalted game every week for about 8 months. I figured I'd get it out there and then use the feed back to write something better. It's told from the a viewpoint two centuries in the future of the setting as presenting in the main Exalted book. Anyhow, enough non-story blathering...

My breath crystallized in the air as I climbed the last quarter mile to the summit. I had been traveling for a couple weeks, at first by spell and then by foot. Both of us always completed the last few days of travel by foot. When I reached the peak, I found it empty and the air still; Alara wasn't there. It had been so long since we'd seen each other; lately events always seemed to conspire to keep us apart. Our dream of taking on the world together turned out to be us taking it on separately and then exchanging stories later.

I missed her so much, more now than ever before. My chest ached hollowly and my eyes teared up whenever I thought about her. I sighed heavily and sat. The chill of the ground seeped into me; I could ward it off with a charm, but I didn't. Maybe the cold would distract me from feeling sorry for myself.

Alara and I had discovered this place, a demense rich in essence in this stark but majestically beautiful setting, a century and a half ago. We came back every few years, usually together or sometimes meeting here from separate paths. We had talked about capping it and building a manse but we had manses already; it was more important to us to preserve it as we had found it.

I closed my eyes and cast my mind back. Back to those tentative days not long after we'd met. This was almost a ritual for me. Barring accident or violence, I would live to be three thousand years old, and I could double that if I chose to with magic. Always in some corner of my mind was the fear that I'd forget my oldest memories. So, I spent a lot of time reminiscing...

* * * *

We were in Endwall, a small city ruled over by another Solar, Forian, of whom we were frequent guests. This was mainly due to the fact the he and one of my Circle-mates, Amrin, were lovers. My Circle and I were taking a short break from the quest a Sidereal, Shadow's Edge, had sent us on. We were seeking the keys to unlock a mysterious artifact called the 'Bestower'. Alara and I sat in her room, talking about her offer from Lady of the Stealthy Blade (as Shadow's Edge was known in the Realm and thus to Alara) for Alara to join her guild of assassins and spies known as the Dreaming Blades. I loved her already then, though she was not so sure about her feelings for me. And who could blame her? We didn't exactly meet under the best of circumstances. I had been the primary architect of, and full participant in, a plan and trap that killed all the members of the Wyld Hunt she was leading to kill Forian except one, Doman, who later betrayed her because I talked her into helping us save the world from an army of giant insects. Now, those have to be about the worst conditions under which to meet the person you would love for the next two centuries. One thing I did have going for me was that I had saved her from the execution by torture she had been sentenced to as a result helping us (apparently the Realm didn't believe in mitigating circumstances).

I remember how afraid I was, desperate not to lose her but unable to tell her how I felt for fear of scaring her away. Her people's brutal betrayal of her notwithstanding, I was a Solar Exalted, an anathema, a being she had been taught to hate for her entire life and trained to hunt and kill for nearly as long. How could she love me? I told myself she was only with us because she had no where to go, or at least didn't until a few days ago. Joining that guild of spies and assassins, the Dreaming Blades, was a way for her to past to be forgotten, at least in the legal sense. In theory at least, she would then be able to go safely back to the Realm and her family.

I was torn. I wanted her to be happy. I knew she wanted to at least go to her family and explain to them what had happened; to tell them that Doman's testimony was full of calculated lies and malice (and, oh, how I wanted to spend a few days killing Doman in an exquisitely painful way). My mind raced, filled with scenarios where she stayed; where she left, came to her senses and I never saw her again; where I told her how I felt and it all fell together; where I told her how I felt and it all fell apart; where she went back to the Realm and was arrested and punished again (and in one version I rescued her again and in the other I couldn't)...

"What will happen if you join them?" I asked quietly. I swallowed with some difficulty, my mouth was dry from nervousness. I wanted to take her hand, but I didn't know if I should.

She looked at me but I couldn't tell if she sensed my fear or not. "I would be able to go back to the Realm, to see my family. As one of the Dreaming Blades I would be immune to arrest or prosecution for anything I did in their service or any past 'crimes.'" She would also have to train for a year and then she would receive assignments, usually a couple a year. The rest of the time was hers to spend as she would.

A year of training? To me, at that time, that was an eternity. I was 21, I had no appreciation of my three thousand year lifespan yet. A year was just as long to me then as it was to anyone else my age. Never mind that it was a year apart from the person I was falling in love with.

I wanted to say "What about us?" but there wasn't an us.

"The idea of a relationship with you scares me," she said as if I had asked the question after all. "You're a Solar and I'm a... Dragon Blooded."

And we're enemies, I mentally added for her.

I took her hands, "It doesn't scare me, Alara. I care for you so much. I want you to be happy and safe, but I want to be with you too." I hoped I hadn't said too much. I felt like I was walking a tightrope trying to balance saying too much and too little. I sighed and added: "I know this is harder for you than for me. You have a life, a family." A husband (yeah, she was married, to a man she despised; could this get any worse?), fifty years of people telling you to hate what I am...

"You could join the Dreaming Blades too."

I looked at her, in utter disbelief. The Blades were a part of the Realm. Was she completely insane? Why not just walk into the Imperial City with my anima flaring? I started to try to say something a few times, but too many questions and comments were competing for my mouth at once and I just made unintelligible noises instead.

Finally: "I thought the Blades were only for Dragon Blooded."

"Oh, no. There are mortals too, some of who are not from the Realm. Even a Lunar." She said this so matter of factly I wanted to scream. A Lunar? Of course the Blades where run by Shadow's Edge/Lady of the Stealthy Blade. No one was playing more angles than her. Of course this guild of assassins was as multifaceted as its leader. Now I wanted to scream more.

"They would love to have a Night Caste Solar join them."

Yes, I'm sure they would. It would be some sort of perpetual hazing by people taught that I was a heretical personification of evil. Soooo tempting. On the other hand, there was the Lunar. Lunar Exalted were heretical personifications of evil too.

My inner sarcasm aside, it was tempting though. Now, the tables where turned. Could I leave my Circle, my friends, to join the guild and be with Alara? Would I even be with her anyhow? I had other, more pragmatic questions too, what was the purpose of the Blades? What were Shadow's Edge's plans for them? (And what were Shadow's Edge's plans in general?)

I needed time to think about this. I needed to talk to some of my Circle-mates. I needed to talk to Shadow's Edge too.

A/N: Me again. Just to clarify, this is just the first chapter. So don't be too hard on my about the somewhat flat ending.