Morgaine Kri Chya
New Member
~The Gates of Tirath~
The air shimmered with an unnatural glow, almost like the rippling of heat over desert sands, but this was no warmth of summer. The air between the tall hewn-stones balanced atop the cairn-hill of Morgaine’s Tomb, pulsing faintly with a light from a long-forgotten time, opened with a sudden burst of energy, and from its depths emerged a rider cloaked in gray and black. The silver-haired figure, mounted on a gray warhorse, surged forward. The rider’s cloak billowed in the rush of the wind, the weight of time pressing down as though it, too, wished to cling to her. Morgaine leaned low over the horse’s neck, her heart still pounding from the chaos behind her. As the last remnants of the Gate's energy dissipated, the sound of battle—shouts, the clash of metal, the screams of the dying—immediately drowned out by a loud prolonged CRACK like lightning striking. A white light beaconed upwards in the night, far into the night sky, bright enough to hide the stars before fading. Meanwhile the reverberating shockwave rumbled through her body to its core. For a moment, she remained tense, grey eyes sharp, scanning the landscape for the enemy she had been fleeing. Her grip tightened on the reins, her other hand resting on the hilt of Changeling, its arcane blade ready to bring finality to whatever followed her.
But there was no battle here. No armies pursuing her. Only silence, broken by the slow, rhythmic breaths of her horse, Siptah, beneath her.
She straightened in the saddle, Siptah’s heavy breaths puffing clouds of mist into the cool air, and her own breath caught as she took in the scene around her. The world looked wrong. Different. Her eyes swept over the horizon, and unease tightened around her chest as if the very air pressed against her ribs. She turned in the saddle, seeking some familiar landmark—a ridge, a grove of twisted old trees, a watchtower—but found nothing that fit her memory.
The ground beneath Siptah’s hooves was not the familiar, broken battlefield she had fled—nor the Vale of Irien, where the cursed Gate had stood for so long. The terrain here was foreign, altered. Hills rolled gently away from the cairn hill and towards a small farming village to the West. And further still, beyond the village, the landscape appeared to flatten into a desert that also cradled a turquoise lake. Maybe it was a trick of the light and her eyes. She couldn’t be sure. In the distance of the North, rose mountains that should not exist.
Her brow furrowed as she stared at the peaks, their sharp, snow-capped spires piercing the sky where once there had only been flat plain. Had it truly been only moments? For her, the Gate at Ivrel had been but a blink—an escape from disaster—but the landscape told another story.
"No..." Morgaine murmured under her breath, the cold realization creeping into her mind. Centuries must have passed. Time had once again betrayed her. Her gaze moved across the altered landscape, taking in the disorienting contrasts—patches of familiar terrain stitched together with places she had never seen. The ground itself seemed a patchwork of realities, a quilt sewn with rough and fraying threads.
To the East, a familiar line of low hills cut sharply into the horizon, but now those same hills ran into a forest that seemed ancient, thick with towering trees whose roots grasped at the remnants of half-buried stone. Her sharp eyes caught the distinct carvings of Qhal runes among the roots, but these were overgrown, worn by centuries of rain and wind—a stark contrast to the crisp inscriptions she remembered.
Had the world itself shifted beneath her while she passed through the Gate? Was this truly the same place she had left behind, or had the scars of the Qhal’s sorcery reshaped reality itself?
"Siptah," she whispered, stroking the horse’s neck to calm him, "we have crossed more than space this time, haven’t we?"
Siptah snorted in response, stamping a hoof impatiently, his ears flicking back as if sensing the same strangeness in the air. The bond between horse and rider, forged through years of battles and journeys through time, remained strong—even if the world they now found themselves in was fractured, unrecognizable.
Morgaine pulled her cloak tighter against the cool breeze. The air tasted of rain and pine, and there was an unnatural stillness to the silence around her, as if the land held its breath, waiting. Her sharp gaze moved beyond the immediate terrain, beyond the distant mountains and the odd shifts in the landscape, and she noted that the moon hung lower in the sky than it should have. Not in the season she expected, not at the angle she remembered. The very light was different—paler, casting longer shadows.
The broken gate she had exited was properly dormant now, having expended everything left to let her finally pass through the layers of space and time. The stones that marked its boundaries were worn and cracked - their once-sharp edges softened by time. This place had once known the touch of Qhal magic, but now it felt... diluted. Hollowed out. At the base of the ancient stones, she saw them: dried offerings, placed with care but left to wither in the elements. Small bundles of herbs tied with rough twine, faded ribbons, crumbling beads, and tiny woven figures of straw. Some were laid on flat stones, others left hanging from the twisted branches of nearby trees, swaying slightly in the wind.
Morgaine narrowed her eyes as she studied the offerings, feeling an old, familiar chill creep down her spine. This was a place of reverence, or perhaps fear... She had seen such acts of caution before in other worlds—villagers leaving gifts to appease whatever lingering powers they believed dwelled within ‘places of power’. Yet, the patterns were unfamiliar, and the offerings themselves spoke of rituals that were not her own.
Whoever had placed these things had known enough to tread carefully. They feared something—perhaps the gate itself, or me... Her thoughts finished for her.
She dismounted slowly, her feet sinking into the soft earth as she crouched to pick up one of the faded ribbons, the fabric fraying at the edges. The color had almost completely leached away, but once, it had been a bright crimson—a color of blood, of life, or of warning. She let the ribbon fall back among the rest of the offerings.
A shadow of movement caught her attention. She stood, turning sharply, her hand instinctively reaching to her hip, where her pistol was. A figure, no more than a distant silhouette, stood at the edge of the foothills. They were barely visible among the shifting shadows as clouds passed over the moon, but Morgaine’s sharp gaze picked out the wide eyes staring at her.
Morgaine met the figure’s gaze for only an instant before they turned and ran, back towards the village. The cry “Qujal!” carried on the wind. Her brow furrowed in concern, so the Qhal were still known here regardless of time and the changes in landscape. She watched the retreating figure disappear through fields as they neared the village, no doubt to spread word of her arrival. The whispers would already be starting, traveling faster than any horse could carry her.
Morgaine sighed and urged Siptah forward at a slower pace, heading northwest just north of the village. She needed to find shelter, to gather her bearings. This world might have changed, but her mission had not.
"Come, old friend," she whispered, patting the side of Siptah’s neck. "We need to understand where we are... and when we are."
