Chapter 10:
Diana survived almost two months of her punishment by sleeping as soon as she was delivered home each night right until she was woken up the next day. Sometimes Leona would be there just to lie next to her and sometimes she wasn't, it depended on what she could get away with, eyes were on her now that she had openly defended Diana's actions and she needed to be careful as to not make the situation worse for herself and even worse for Diana.
Diana was trying her best to push through what she knew was an overly cruel punishment, it was archaic and she was surprised she even made it this far through it, she knew they had decided on this length of time because they didn't expect her to survive it so even if she wasn't exiled she would be out of the picture.
At first Diana did well to resist the call of her curiosity, to resist going back to the notes she had hidden behind her book case and looking further into this. She planned to go back to it as soon as she could but she wanted to be careful, not to risk what little standing she had left but she eventually gave in.
One night after her enforced worship, she managed to muster as much energy as she could to pull out the notes she had hidden, to look through them for one particular page that she wanted to investigate. It was a map she had drawn based off what she had found in the books, it was based off of descriptions of a Lunari temple on Mt Targon somewhere, she knew it would involve a climb to the higher parts of the mountain in order to find it. She gathered a few of her things into a bag and headed out of her room. She didn't know how she would find the energy to complete the ascent to where the temple was hidden away but she knew that she couldn't wait another four months in order to find out, not when she may not even live through those months.
It took multiple hours for her to climb the distance; she had to stop often to rest and to drink as much water as she could. Diana was relieved when she finally found two large stone doors that had been carved into, the symbols on the door matching those she had found in the books she had looked through. She pushed at one of the doors, trying to get it to open, it took her several attempts with her lowered strength to be able to force the door open. She grabbed a cloth from her bag and wrapped it around a piece of wood she found on the ground outside the temple, lighting the cloth on fire so she could see inside the temple.
The Lunari temple was far more modest than the Solari temple down the mountain, she couldn't see too much but what she was able to see showed her a different type of culture. One that seemed, to Diana, to focus more on genuine unity than tradition or agreed beliefs, it intrigued her more as she scanned through the artwork on the walls. She wondered how long it had been since the last Lunari existed.
Diana made her way through the inner parts of the temple, taking her time as she passed through the halls. She was amazed by how it was designed, it seemed far from a cave, it was an actual temple carved into the side of a mountain. She felt less exhausted as she got further in, gaining back some of her energy. She entered what seemed to be a main prayer hall of some kind, an alter at the front underneath a hole cut into the wall, letting moonlight through and into the hall.
Diana walked down through the centre of the hall, admiring the artwork and detail that went into what was on the floor around the alter. Diana stood over where the moonlight hit the ground before turning to face the opening in the wall, she felt a burning on her forehead, and the pain was enough to bring her to her knees with her head in her hands. Diana lost consciousness quickly after that.
When Diana woke, she found herself lying on the floor of the prayer hall, her eyes finding a blonde woman sitting on the alter causing her to jump in surprise. Diana stared at her, the woman seemed to glow and didn't look real to her. The woman smiled at her, finding amusement in Diana's staring, confusion and small degree of fear.
"Did I frighten you, Diana?" The woman asked her, Diana scrunched up her face at the idea of this woman knowing her name.
"No." Diana said, doing her best to seem like she meant it, "Who are you?"
"You have been chosen, Diana. You have been chosen by the moon in order to serve a greater purpose, you are the first human to have discovered this untouched temple in decades." Diana stared at this mystery woman as she talked, putting together mentally that this must be a projection of the moon, Leona had described something similar that had happened to hear when Diana asked her what it had been like to be chosen. "Do you know what happened to the Lunari?" Diana simply shook her head, "The Solari killed them all, a mass genocide. There are no longer any Lunari left to worship the moon and the Solari have done whatever necessary to make sure it stayed that way until now; you are the first of a new order, Diana. The moon will always be with you, will always guide you." The woman said, finishing with a gesture to a pile of armour and a weapon that Diana didn't recognize, it was a type of weapon she had never seen before, a crescent shaped blade.
The woman moved towards her, Diana sat patiently and watched her, saying nothing as the woman's finger traced the newly created brand on her forehead. Her fingers moved to Diana's temple, creating images in her mind of the Lunari whose lives were lost in the genocide, what they were like before it was all taken away. The woman was trying to answer all of Diana's unasked questions about the past, to reassure her that being the Chosen of the Moon and worshiping the moon would be different from the Solari and their culture.
"Be careful on your return, Diana. It's been multiple days since you entered this temple, they will be looking for you and if they discover your new destiny, your life will be at risk. Take care, Chosen." The woman said before seeming to fade into nothing. Diana sat in silence for a few moments before pushing herself up off the floor and changing herself into the armour that rested in a pile on the alter, it was far lighter than the armour the sun had given Leona, it was designed for her to be agile instead of favouring defense. She grabbed the hilt of the crescent shaped blade and headed out, attempting to heed the warning given to her to be careful upon returning to the Solari, knowing that she wouldn't receive such a light punishment from them once they discovered her new faith.