I've Come Here from Nowhere [Ninsianna, ???]

Ninsianna trembled slightly at the judging words from Irkalla, perhaps in no small part because of how true she knew them to be. She had failed her goddess in allowing such defilement to occur, that she knew, but that was not why she had come here.

"I am in need of power. The words of my goddess still ring through me even now, and I have never once doubted them. If you have wisdom to offer, then certainly I would ask it, but even so I have not the power to will it into being."

Her hands clenched tightly into fists, the fury of knowing what had happened so overwhelming that she couldn't fully contain it. Even such a minor expression was, for Ninsianna, quite a great deal.

"The one who has done this shapes the world with but his voice. Without so much as the faintest effort. But even so, I must overcome him."

The request of power, oh how Irkalla was a little pained to be requested of it. She asked for the sake of knowing what she had hoped but what could be granted? That was a different matter entirely.

"I cannot give you the power you seek."

Irkalla was telling half-truths, it was not her place to hand over what she had in her possession since it was important to fulfilling her own promise that she made. The only other thing she could offer would more likely to kill Ninsianna rather than reward her, it was only by the peculiarity of her birth as an extension of the planet that let her use it without being drowned in the ocean of it.

"You sound as though you are faced with a great adversary, you are not human like I was. That much if obvious to me. I can provide you with a place to utilise for your own purposes, this is only the first gate of Ganzir after all."

There was something that did stand out here though to Irkalla, Ninsianna spoke of needing power. She was looking only at herself, like she was alone in this pursuit.

"Final Priestess, you need not power yourself if you can stir individuals to your cause. Faith is a powerful tool as I am sure you know - a double-edged sword which can destroy a civilisation or raise it to great heights - and you are powerless. Take your faith, dedicate yourself in body and soul to this. Is it pragmatism that you determine acquiring power as the most suitable course of action or is it out of spite and a desire to kill this being with your own hands?"

Those words rang painfully through Ninsianna's ears, even if she had already suspected she might hear them. She was asking a great deal, after all. The question that had posited to her pierced through her, but in the end, she could not possibly answer in any way other than honestly.

"Of course it is out of anger. Out of a desire to avenge her with my own two hands, which have not known her touch in thousands of years... Is it so wrong of me, Irkalla, to wish for that? To do this one thing of my own accord? To strike down the one who dares to defile the image of the one I love so dearly?"

It was too much to wish for. Ninsianna knew that, knew that it was her only course of action to find others who could do it for her. But that thought filled her with dread, regret, anger, so many other things. Above all, she simply felt like a failure.

"I am not one to judge, when you are so frequently surrounded by death it becomes trivial to try and apply morality. Did we make the right choices in life? Did we make wrong? The dead are all judged the same, I've had over a thousand years to consider my actions that I regret and I arrived at the conclusion that I can never truly know if I was right to do as I was told or not."

Her younger years were filled with fear and terror, she didn't know what it meant or what to make do. It was only when Enkika helped her through this did she understand herself and it was her joy and pain that such a woman made her carry on for as long as she remained inside this place.

Irkalla knelt down to meet Ninsianna closer to the earth and reached down to take the lock-shaped earring which had become a necklace around the woman's neck. The woman did remember asking Enkika once what happened to one of her earrings and receiving a cryptic answer that told her nothing as the woman was prone to talking in riddles.

"So what path do you wish to tread?"

What was right? Ninsianna felt she knew, that she ought to simply remain in her place. Passive, an outsider, one who found others to carry her forward and accomplish the things that she could not do on her own. Yet...she was not certain that was the correct course of action. Was that what her beloved would wish? For her to simply accept something so vile? To accept a creature so vile?

She...she could not. It was not what Enkika would have wished. She had not promised that. She had promised to persevere, to dedicate herself in her entirety to the ideals that she and her goddess had shared. And those ideals would not, could not survive in a world where Ahura Mazda still strode upon the Earth.

"Even if I find those who will help me, I cannot stand before that creature as I am. He would strike me down without my ever being able to so much as touch him. I cannot do this alone, but if I try as I am, then I cannot do it at all."

As Irkalla took the earring Ninsianna had always worn into her hand, the priestess tensed, though still did not change in her position. After all, it was not her place to challenge one who had been deemed a goddess.

"I see you have your resolution."

She took the earring from its spot around her neck and stood back up. Walking away a couple of steps while dangling it in her hand. Irkalla turned back to Ninsianna and gave her the stakes that she was presenting.

"This means a lot to you as well, show me your resolve then and take it back from me. You can remain here as long as you need, don't fret if it takes you days or weeks. Time moves differently here. You may use any means that you see fit If you cannot meet this trial your resolve is meaningless."

Ironically the whole thing was hollow, her physical body was still inside that room outside of this place. The loss of the earring meant nothing besides the anxiety it must no doubt bring to imagine losing something like this.

"Your adversary you so hate will crush you."

Not once since she had been given that earring had Ninsianna allowed it to leave her person. In four millennia, it had become nearly a part of her, a link to her goddess that she had not ever thought to remove. Without it, it was as though something was simply...missing. A part of her that she had always carried.

"I cannot allow him to. Not when there is so much still to be done."

Removing her glasses, Ninsianna stepped forward, as if simply to grab at the necklace that had been taken from her. But, of course, she knew that this wouldn't work. It wasn't about taking it back. It was simply about taking the first step toward that. She would try again, no matter how long it took. And she would do her absolute utmost to remember what she had once been, in the days before civilization collapse.

Before her homeland was gone with her goddess.

Irkalla's hand kept it firmly out of reach at the attempts not made. Her cold eyes worn down by existing in this realm of shadows for so long in what was mostly solitude besides ensuring that her promise was upheld. The woman's golden gaze narrowing at Ninsianna while she waited.

"Well? Earn it back from me. If you cannot overcome the obstacle that I present to you then you are nothing against your foe."

She stirred on, expectantly awaiting for the woman's reprisal at having her most precious object taken from her. A part of her identity.

It had been so very long since Ninsianna had been alone. No, that wasn't true. She had been alone for four thousand years, until the day her daughter had been born. What had she been, before she relied only on that promise? Relied on Enkika's name to push herself forward?

Who had she been when Enkika loved her that night?

A different woman. A woman more affirmed in her purpose, who did not simply serve others as a matter of rote memorization and principle. She had been a priestess, a magistrate, a ruler. Someone to whom others could look and be affirmed, one who did not simply carry out the law. No, Ninsianna had been one who spoke the law itself, who made it so.

"Very well."

In her blindness, her obsession with that promise, what had she done but simply lived a hollow shell of her former self? She, the law of the land, had become nothing more than a mere checklist of guidelines. Slowly, but surely, a weapon formed in her hand. Weapon? It was close enough, at any rate. It was a mark of her authority, to hold it in this way, and she lifted it with confidence toward Irkalla, before throwing it with...well, perhaps not impressive strength, but more than she would have otherwise been able to manage before. A sliver, perhaps, of the woman she had once been.

It wasn't exactly what she was expecting, the knife to be thrown towards her person. Maybe she expected to be rushed or something to that extent but from a distance? No. A hand came up and caught the dagger, not by the handle though as her hand gripped the blade and some of her blood dripped down to the floor.

"Well, that's a good start. Fight me for this tiankida-sikkuru like your life depends on it."

She challenged and conjured her own knife which looked to be made out of bone rather than any kind of steel. A crude creation which looked hastily made or maybe that was just because of its primitive look that it could be assumed as such.