[Wip] Risen from Sand
People say, everything crumbles to dust eventually. They say, it will become one with the sands, as if this was the inevitable end. Yet they do not understand.
Sand is not the end. It is the beginning.
As he strides through the ruins of his city, the wind howls around him. It obeys his commands. It follows his lead. It dares not touching him, for that the wind knows who he is.
He walks through this once great metropolis, but he sees not the past. He sees the future. The sand plays along him, guided by the otherworldly magic he now possesses. Was it worth all of this? Was the loss of his kingdom worth the power he gained?
It does not matter.
Now all that is left from the metropolis, his servants, family, and empire is sand. It is this sand – his sand – that now flies around him, carried by his winds, guided by his wisdom.
And it builds all the city’s former glory: The towers, the houses, the parks, the statues, the disk that proves his might. When they say that everything crumbles to sand, they say it, as if sand was an insult, but sand is eternal.
He will teach them. He will enlighten them. They are so inferior, so fragile. He will make them strong. Every single one. No matter how many millennia have passed, this world has not changed and neither did he.
Neither does the sand.
As he summons his soldiers – his subjects, loyal even in eternity – he swears an oath to them; To this very world: They will understand. Be it guided by the scepter or be it taught by the spear, they shall see what this sand truly is and what it truly can do.
The sun rises in front of him. Even it bows before his grace, bathing him in the most beautiful, golden shine it can offer to him. As he walks deeper into the city, memories dance in front of his mind. He sees the children of the desert laughing, singing, and dancing. He sees the men and women: Beautiful and strong, capable and wise, loyal and loving. He sees them walking through the colonnades. He hears them talking about their lives. He feels them looking at him.
Had they hated him? Did they suffer? Was their last breath a curse against his greed?
He halts.
He is standing in the hall of the hundred silver fountains. The water is gone. Only dry stone and sand remains. Out of sand forms a shape in front of him.
The woman stares at him expressionless. Her face depicted so accurate, her body seemingly fragile, yet beautiful. He dares walking closer through the large hall, his steps echoing from the high ceiling, while his shine illuminates the seventeen long steps to the fountain of the emperor. She spectates him without words, her soft, gentle, loving face turned down towards him.
He remembers the colors of it: Her dark hair, as black as the night sky during that one day of the year, where the monsoon gifted water to his subjects. Her yellow and golden eyes, challenging the sun in its magnificence. Her tender, dark red lips, the color of blood – the essence of life.
But this mirage is just beige.
He reaches her and although he is taller now, it seems as if he was still looking up to her. He tries to touch her soft cheeks. He just wants to hold her one more time, but as his deformed hand meets her face, he is shocked, as there is nothing but cold roughness.
And she crumbles. She collapses. She dies a second time. Without words. Without goodbye. Just a hint of sand remaining in his hands.
Sand.
He kneels. He never kneeled before anyone. He is the emperor and the emperor does not bow to anything.
Yet he kneels.
His legs deny to carry him. He lost it all.
Light shines upon him.
The ever-burning fires of the sun breach through the holes in the ceiling of the hall. They used to play along the fountains, fractured into their beauty and giving purpose to the songs of the cascades.
The light touches his body, rises to his neck and head, and lets him feel the only thing he can feel nowadays.
Heat.
Warm, comforting heat. The heat of home, of his childhood, of his youth, of his lands; The heat of Shurima!
He rises.
An emperor does not forfeit! He is obliged to his people and their needs! He must fulfil his duties as a beacon of civilization, grace, and power!
He leaves the hall of the fountains, heading deeper and deeper into the city. The doors, that have been sealed for thousands of years, open on his command. Sand plays along his feet, his legs, torso, arms, and head. It dresses him in the robe and armor worth of an emperor. The stone bends under the magnitude of his new power. It reshapes. It rebuilds.
It forms a new city. One for eternity. A city, greater than any other before and after it.
He reaches the heart of his empire. A cubic room, one hundred meters on all sides, and as he enters it, the sun follows his path. It shines towards the center of this empty, hollow vault. There creates what he came for. A scepter takes shape. Sand rushes in from all sides to form it. A scepter worth his glory; Worth his sworn conquest. A scepter to confirm and verify his unquestionable reign.
With neither doubt nor hesitation his steps forward. Without them, he grabs the staff of this powerful construct forged from golden sands.
And when he turns around, they all stand there. They look up to him: His citizens. His subjects. Loyal even in eternity! Shaped from sand!
Proving to him, that sand is not the end.
Sand is the beginning!