Mipa had hurriedly left the village to avoid being seen by the rest of her people. She had already been trekking through the thick rain-forest for an hour or so and had begun to look for the markers of where she wanted to be. As the village Elder she had very few secrets due to the weight of her personal responsibilities, but also given the title of being the Black Star guardian meant she needed a place away from her people to communicate with it. Mipa eventually found what she was looking for which was marked by two stones with an orange paint. She gently set aside the Black Star, which she kept in a pack, and bent down to slip her fingers underneath the lip of a hidden panel in the ground. When she lifted it the resulting rush of air entering the underground room threw out dust; She hadn't been there in quite some time.
Mipa had seen over the course of time several empires rise and fall. She was very old but nobody in her village could fathom how old she actually was. She had kept most of this information to herself, and with every generation of Umbral born, she began to fade into the woodwork of history. Mipa was among the first of several to be born, and essentially kickstart the Umbral's existence.
She descended down the ladder which lead into the interior of a crashed ship. It was here Mipa came to be and it was here thousands of battles began and ended. The interior of the ships walls were completely painted over with crude images. Mipa had kept a timeline and a documentary of the visions she received on anything she could get her hands on, sparing no space on the walls which surrounded her. The Black Sun began to hum in the backpack she carried it in. She quickly unraveled it from the cloth she had kept it and held it in her hands. The Black Sun as always was a perfect black. No light seemed to reflect off of it and it always swallowed it where it was present. The Black Sun would occasionally seem to move and sometimes slightly expand. This was a living creature despite its benign appearance and was capable of so much power.
The Black Sun in recent times barely spoke to Mipa, so when she received a vision that it wished to speak to Snno she had grown excited. This could have been the moment where she could have closed her chapter and passed the responsibility onto the young warrior, but instead Mipa could only feel concern after Snno's encounter with her own deity. Mipa needed to know what Snno had seen and communicating with it herself was the only way she knew how.
Mipa sat on the dusty floor of the derelict ship and held the Black Sun to her forehead. She closed her eyes and waited.
The Village was now in full rest and most Umbral besides those who are assigned to guard it slept in their homes. Shimmer remained sound asleep on the floor near Snno's beside and Snno remained sitting up. She had begun experimenting with her blindness and discovered she could still detect light. If she held her hand really close to her face she could make out a faint outline while in front of the fire. Snno decided it was enough to try and get up and navigate the room. Snno's first action was to stub her toe on the table near the bed. She let out a muffled yelp and grasped her foot. She muttered curses for a few moments then she made her way off of the bed. She could tell where the fireplace was and figured the door had to be nearby. Just barely missing Shimmer with her feet she ran into the table dropping the cold bowl of soup on the floor. She let out another string of curses as Shimmer snapped awake.
"Snno, what are you doing out of bed?" Shimmer asked rubbing her eyes.
"I Just wanted to move around a bit. Rest is the last thing on my mind right now..." Snno said with a frown in her expression.
Shimmer smiled and stood up.
"I understand... you'll tire out eventually, so rest will come to you on its own. Here..."
Shimmer guided Snno over to an open window.
"See if you can see the stars. I had been watching you experiment with your hand against the fireplace. So maybe they're bright enough tonight for you to at least see a glimmer of." She said.
Snno felt touched by the gesture and looked upward. She couldn't see anything but she thanked Shimmer anyway.
"I don't deserve you as my friend Shimmer... Thank you for being here for me."
Shimmer had begun to clean up the wasted soup and looked up over the bed.
"Nonsense, we were made for each other. You're the hunter, I'm the butcher!" She said with a laugh.
Shimmer was indeed the village butcher. While she was a pure white Umbral, the tips of her claws were always stained with blood. She had exhibited the skill at an early age and was immediately put to work with the eldest butcher to learn the trade. She had an affinity for blood and how living things worked, which isolated her socially to a degree from the other Umbral.
Snno sighed and continued to stare at the sky.
"Probably not a hunter anymore." She said remorsefully.
Shimmer looked down.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to make you think that way."
Snno didn't answer, instead she started seeing something.
"Shimmer, come over here and look! Do you see that?" Snno said excitedly.
(Shimmer's eyes are actually a pure red. This pencil just isn't multicolored. Anyways your pancreas is bad.)
Shimmer hurried over to the window.
"At first i thought it was a faint star but the color isn't right and its moving!" said Snno, trying to point at it.
Shimmer tried looking where Snno's damaged eyes were trained and saw it too. A brilliant yellow light grew in the sky and lit up the exposed village from the darkness of night that surrounded it. A few other umbral emerged from their homes rubbing their eyes and looked up to see it too.
[SOUNDTRACK]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA6mRTgK9O4The source of light grew as more of them appeared. Fragments of the same monolith had begun to fall from the sky. One brilliant ball of fire after the other broke through the atmosphere and it became apparent that there were hundreds more coming. Shimmer watched as the biggest of the balls of fire appeared, going straight through a cloud and dispersing it, making it disappear. She watched the large fragment disappear out of sight behind the treeline.
"Snno this doesn't feel right." Shimmer said concerned.
The ground began to shake.
