Vas Vortune: War of Exile

[Nihoxdria]

How long...had it been? Standing on the edge of the multi faceted rift that had been left from the last Exile war Ethyeria frowned. Not long enough...the land had decayed, the waters of the remaining valleys now running a putrid grey with the ash from the old war zones.
She lifted a thin, elegantly fingered hand to catch one of the ebon strands of her own hair as the wind played obsessively with it. The Ruby encrusted hem of her stubbornly feminine dress was swayed with ash from her trek through the aged battle grounds at her back. She'd come a long way. At her spine the towering guardian she'd named Vortune shimmered in the bleak dawn, it's crest blade yawning in the sunlight. Before her amber eyes the rift stretched towards an uncertian future in the distance. It was all that remained of the Imperial City.
The Exile Rift....and blade at her back.
Ether sighed and turned heel to glance sidelong at her companion with a wide yet distant smirk. "We should head back to the city! when daylight hits the rift it's going to be blinding. We won't be able to continue until the next twilight."

[Reality]

Dias was busy watching the sky for any lingering threats. He hated to be close to the rift this late into the morning. After the first war it was sort of obvious that daylight was a bad thing. Still he knew better than to sour Ether's mood with any unnecessary rambling. "I'm not disagreeing" he muttered and made moves to begin their retreat.
Not even four years had gone by and already Ether was in the mood to return to the ruins of the empire just to see if anything were left. it put a poor weight on his mood. All these ruins. The only cities left in the continent happened to be run down holes in the wall as it was! For the life of him Dias couldn't figure out what drove her to want to explore the dunes of ash for signs of life. The war was over. Dark had consumed the world and light was the last enemy anyone had been expecting.
"how long do you plan on searching through this hell?" he grumbled aloud when he stopped to paw at the crusted and gray earth waiting for her to catch up.
Her smell came to him long before she physically drew even. The reek of royalty. it wasn't common knowledge that one of the divine daughters of the empire had survived through the Exile war. good thing too: she was hated by the people. they all were, knights, royalty, even the guard. the idea was that it was the imperial line that was responsible for the Exile...the more he thought about it....
the more Dias resented her too.

[Nihoxdria]

He was in a distant mood gain and she noted it. For as long as they'd known one another, Dias had been her closest thing to a friend. He's been her father's ally--a man of great skill. But there was something about the Exile War that had warped him lately. Trailing behind in his wake, Ethyeria blew out a breath and pushed the hair from her eyes. "As long as it takes. There has to be something living beyond the rift." There had to be.... It has taken her years to get up the nerve to begin rebelling against the thing that had corrupted her world and shattered her reality. A creature that had come from across the gap dividing the Empire from the wastelands that acted as a border between the common states...Her father had mentioned such things in the shadows that existed on the borders. Those things were supposedly why the Empire had never seen war with the other countries. But her father's foolish ambition to expand their territory had demanded that such borders be demolished. And that was when...
Ether glanced up to stare at the broad shoulders of her friend's back. "We haven't eaten in days. I'm sure you're starving," she coaxed smootly, knowing food was the weakness of any man. Even one as cool and docile as her knight.

[Reality]

Starving? he was FAMISHED! Dias bit his lower lip and tried to ignore the lure. She sure knew how to appeal to his interests. "What's the catch?" he knew better than to trust a woman's bribes. she was up to something and he wanted to know what. turning to face her, Dais eyed the smaller human. "you want to cross the rift don't you?" and by "cross" he meant a non stop trek through god only knew what to the border. her face rarely told him the truth so he wasn't going to trust the expression on it. Dias scowled and continued to munch his lip. "you're insane!" he barked even before she'd responded. "crossing the gap could take days! i don't know about you but i'm not willing to fry every time the sunlight hits the rocks, Ether." no amount of food was worth going to his death the next day for.

[Nihoxdria]

Maybe she shouldn't have laughed. Grinning at his alarm, Ether slipped around to stand before him, a kind tone touching her voice as she said mildly, "You can't expect me to stay with the rest of the waving majority in the ruins." Looking away she shook her head in a silent musing. No...staying here was certain death. With any hope whatever was beyond the border might still be living. "There's no way to tell how far the Exile War reached," she whispered. "There could be something left." Anything. She--she couldn't resolve herself to the idea that her family had sabotaged the whole of the world! That her father was the driving force of a genocide.
Shaking the very idea from her head she fixed her knight with a resolute glare; determined to force him to her ideals before the sun hit the full of the sky and the facets of the rift seared across the horizon with the blaring light that stopped so many from daring the mission they were. "If I can reach the border I could warn the other empires of the threat! we could tell them about the rifts dividing the continents!"

[Reality]

Dias blinked.
She was...
was she serious?
he stared at her. this woman. this woman was insane. damn royalty! damnit! they were all like this! always thinking they could save the world and look where that had gotten them! there were these THINGS running around in the ashes of the fallen! the Imperial city was a flatbed of cracked, black crystal that reflected the sun so intensely it had destroyed everything within a large mile radius. And his family? his friends? his love?! Everything he'd lost to the foolishness of the imperial lines! it took all his strength not to turn on the woman!
finally Dias bowed his head and fell submissively silent. it was his duty. so long as atleast one of the divine daughters remained i will protect, serve, and honor thy blood as a knight of the Empress and her kin. God how he regretted those words. Snapping a finger out infront of her face mere inches from her nose he put on his most stern face. "Food first."

[Nihoxdria]

~Rest Gimora: Last frontier of the "Ashen Empire"~

She watched more than a little bemused while her companion stuffed his face with the overpriced reserves of food Rest Gimora had salvaged from the wastelands. Grimacing at the stale bread and undercooked potatoes on her own plate, she had to wonder just how hungry he'd really been to be able to stomach such a meal so easily. Tipping her cheek into an awaiting palm, she used her free hand to push her dish towards his. "Are you sure we have the jin to afford all this?" It wasn't like she had a family to fund her outside the empire anymore. And she wasn't stupid enough to mention her lineage to a bar full of people raging against the imperial line to begin with.
It didn't help that half of them were drunk out of their minds in an attempt to drown out grief and suffering. She sighed and refocused on her companion. He'd gotten taller since she'd last noticed. That mane of furiously dark hair helped the sulleness of his stress worn face too. Ether couldn't help but grin at him, full lips spliting in a wide leer.

(Sorry De, had to. besides you didn't leave a character descript open! :P)

[Reality]

[i'm ok with it i wanted dark hair anyways]

He couldn't get the food into his system fast enough and only barely heard her. she was rambling about money again. figured. magically another plate of food appeared next to his own stocked with more deliciousness. Snatching a rock hard clump of what he thought looked like bread from the additional plate Dias shrugged. when her question finally made sense to him he rummaged in his pocket for the three, thin, gold squares left on the seam. he tossed them onto the table between them.
wasn't she going to eat?
he paused just long enough to look up at her and froze. she was staring at him with a creepy smirk on her face. "What?" way to freak him out. what was with that grin?

[Nihoxdria]

She shook her head and lifted her cheek from her hand thoughtfully reaching behind her to tap Vortune's thin blade at her back. She wondered.... "I was just thinking how much more handsome and dangerous looking you've gotten." Dangerously beautiful. Suddenly pushing her chair back, Ether added for his ears only above the drunken grumble of the crowd packed into the small bar, "Shall we test that languidly lovely body of yours out today?" it was an intentional purr that clouded her intentions then, and leaning forward in a rare display of feminine prowess, Ethyeria moved in close enough to kiss before abrutply pulling away and removing herself from his company. "Come play with me," the dethroned princess chuckled. She moved swiftly for the door and made it her business to entice him further without a backwards glance.

[Reality]

[O_O My God Woman!! What are you trying to do?! You're going to put every guy on the site in heat]

his eyes went wide and at some point in time Dias felt his jaw hit the floor. This wasn't normal at all. Not even for Ether! Not for the first or likely the last time did he wonder just how much of her mind she'd lost in the war. there was a sensual slink to the way she walked off and no matter how hard her exhaled, Dias couldn't get her smell off his senses. For a long minute all the knight could do was sit dumbfounded with half a potato stuffed in his mouth. Then chewing slowly he blinked a couple of times and recapped the whole encounter.
had she just offered.....?
A few long...LONG moments later Dias pushed his own chair back, snatched the 12'' spiraled daggers from the table where he'd left them beside his plate and moved to follow the tracks of his lady. it hadn't exactly crossed his mind at that point what he'd be walking into or even accepting just by following her but~~