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

Ninsianna had promised her daughter that she wouldn't work while they spent their time together, and surely enough, the last two weeks had been completely empty of anything even resembling her professional aims, the goals she had kept in mind. But, now that the vacation had ended, she had something else which she knew she had to do. It had been four thousand years since she was in this place, and yet, even as she looked across the ruined plains, barren and empty, she could still see what had once been there.

At least that mountain peak remained, and so she began to climb. It was not necessarily hard, at least for one such as her, but there was a degree of nostalgia that overwhelmed her with every step that she took closer to the cave she had known with her goddess. Memories that, at times, threatened to overwhelm her, if only because she had not allowed them much purchase in her life. Had she not promised to carry through all pain with gladness?

In a way, she wondered if she even ought to have been here. But the desire simply to see it again was enough, and she stepped into that place for the first time, ready for whatever she might have seen. Frankly, she expected to see nothing at all.

Nothing more than a normal mountain, large as it might've been. It was just that. The meticulous care a demon of old put into the maintence of the abode was clearly wearing away and it was a victim of time. Carvings and symbols of the outside were eroded by rain and weather, the inside of the mountain much the same with wear and tear. No lights or anything remained inside the walls of this crypt and Ninsianna would only be greeted by the dark passage that lead to a room of precious memories.

There was nothing here. Nothing even close to the inclination that another person could be here but it was full of death. The room was the same except for what appeared to be rusted chains that were broken and hanging on the wall. At close inspection a bone or two could be seen in the corner like a person had died there, the kind of position one might take if they had lost their will to live and waited for the end to encroach on them a small lock-shaped earring resting a little aways from them and an all so familiar necklace in the spot near the bone.

In the low-light there was only one thing that stood out, from the wall the danava could spy a silhouette behind her. Someone that could only be described as having manifested then though she had no spiritual pressure, there was nothing that hinted she was anything other than a momentary manifestation which could be mistaken for an optical illusion although she did wear the same necklace that gave a faint glint.

"Who.... you? What.... seek... you... here in -Kalla? "

Its words came broken and spoken in more modern version of Babylonian rather than an older dialect. It was missing parts like she was speaking the full sentence but only part of it could properly make it out. How long had it been to force speech, how atrophied this voice had become in millennia.

As her eyes came upon the cave as it now was, Ninsianna's whole being ached. The sight of bone, of the overwhelming feeling of death--

Surely, that was not her goddess. She did not even allow herself to consider the esoterica of her faith, so important was this to her, and instead her mind was completely focused on the most logical side that it might have been. Enkika, after all, had been a demon, a being of spiritual nature. She would not have left such ruinous remains in this place.

Still, emotion and doubt clouded that conclusion, but she ignored it as the empty words came from the faint shade. Should she have been worried, frightened? Perhaps. But she had come so far already, and all that she could do now was simply speak the truth.

"I come in the name of Enkika, as her final priestess."

"Enkika..."

The feminine silhouette looked awfully pained to hear that name, hand rising up to the necklace that hung from around her neck. The darkened shade of a person's red eyes came back into focus on Ninsianna, a hand touching at the glowing red splotches on her chest could've been markings or stains.

"█ was gravekeeper, Irkalla. ████ power over █████ ██ protect living ████ dead. Enkika was like ██████. I am █████ for you."

Another peek at the rusty chains on the wall and the remains that were her own in the corner, Irkalla looked back towards Ninsianna.

"You come in name. What ██ your purpose?"

There was some difficulty in listening to this sad being's speech, not only in the fact that simply parsing the words was a challenge, but in how bleak a creature it seemed to be. Still, Ninsianna could not and would not be swayed, her eyes having already moved to both the necklace and to the lock-shaped earring which matched her most treasured possession.

"I have come to reflect. This place was where I met the goddess thousands of years ago, and I wish to see what is left of this blessed place. To know if anything remains."

Of course, she had expected there to be nothing at all. Part of her wondered if her goddess had expected her to return here, if she had failed by waiting so long to come--

But, no. If Enkika had wished it, she would have made as much clear to her. Ninsianna had never once faltered from her promise, from the ideals that the two of them had shared. To abandon them for her own selfish reasons, to come here simply to remember a single night of genuine bliss, was not something that would have been wished of her.

"The image of Enkika has been gravely defiled. It is my intention to rectify this sin beyond sins, but I do not have the capacity just yet. My hope was that returning here might offer me clarity."

Irkalla cocked her head to the words, she was keenly aware that her own communication was lacking in this form. The incoporeal state that she was in which was more like an empty hologram than any meaningful presence.

"I see."

She did not know what Ninsianna was trying to say after all, Enkika was dead. Babylonia was an ancient civilisation that had fallen into ruins with nothing substantial left in the modern era to reflect it besides being a seed for civilisation to grow into a tree with but she was curious about the words and what they could mean.

"You need █████ or do you seek ██████? Meet ██ Ganzir. See ██ in your dream. █████ here."

Ninsianna was not necessarily frustrated, but she naturally wished that communicating with this shade could have been a bit easier. She supposed, if anything, she should have been more understanding. It must have been a tremendous struggle, just to stand here before her.

"I do not know what I need, nor what I seek. I am here... I am here simply in the hopes that I might find answers."

For the first time in centuries, Ninsianna sounded uncertain. But the mention of Ganzir, to see anything in her dream... That gave her more than sufficient pause.

"In my dream. Then I ought sleep in this place?"

Irkalla gave a curt nod at her questions, opening her mouth to give the best explanation that she could with her own presence here. Turning away to disappear into the shadows of the dim room.

"Barrier of ████ and Death ██ weakest at rest."

Taking the advice of Irkalla and Ninsianna would waking up from her sleep in the same room although it no longer appeared as worn down or destroyed by age. The candles were lit to keep the room at a soft glowand sitting on the familiar lush pillows there was Irkalla though she looked a more than just an empty shadow. In the same vein, Ninsianna looked as she did millennia ago.

"I am Irkalla, the One named as Goddess of the Underworld by Enkika for my power over spirits and death. You stand in my Gaznir, a place that exists in the Earth's shadow. One who calls herself Final Priestess of the woman who I viewed as a Mother tell me of what you have to say."

Her voice was loud and authorative but waivered towards the end, as she looked guilty. Irregardless though, she made sure to assert from the beginning of their situation here.

It was both breathtaking and painful, to see the place like this. Ninsianna knew without even looking, without even feeling the weight of her much longer hair, that this was a time long forgotten. As Irkalla spoke, and made clearer her position, Ninsianna knelt in proper reverence.

"I have come on account of sins in the most high against my goddess and my love. Her image has been distorted, turned into something less than her true self. It is a hollow reflection of her, but nevertheless...it is her. In the most vile way, I know that it is her. And even that has been further tainted by the hands of a being more evil than I am able to define."

Her voice had become a touch shaken by the end of that, but only because of the familiarity of this place. It was...home, in a way.

"I do not know what I am to do. I promised to Enkika that I would serve the people, that I would work for the good of civilization. But this creature defiles both her and her works, and I have not the strength to so much as stand in his way. I will not cast my life away meaninglessly, but I do not know what else I might do."

Aimless. That was the only thing she felt, and it was crushing to the very depths of her being. Ninsianna was a woman of order, structure, regularity. To not know what she might do was perhaps the most agonizing state of being.

Irkalla's face distorted into one of faint disgust at the information provided, looking at the carved wall in thought while imaging the audacity of the living to disturb the dead. It was truly the most foul of things, of someone she revered too, if it was just disturbing the dead she might only be disgusted but the individual that they tried to disturb really would be the apex of her hatred - the only comparable thing could be if she was aware that the barrier of dead and living had broken down rather than how it was in her own era.

"A good priestess such as yourself would be inclined to feel that way. You are correct, you are neither a ruler nor a warrior. You exist to serve the people rather than change the world with words or steel."

Pondering for a moment, she closed her eyes and stood up. A furrowed brow before she appeared to make up her mind.

"Yet you say that you are her final priestess! Tell me, O' Final Priestess, can you stand by idle and watch your object of reverence be trampled on?"

"Would you stand by idle while a ziggaraut burned full of sacred texts and treasures? No, you would dedicate body and soul to saving as much as possible without dying in vain. Whether trying to put out the blaze or dragging them to safety"

The human who was blessed with death and a flamboyant attitude by the fact that her arms had raised into the air to make a display out of it looked down at Ninsianna from her position.

"So tell me now, do you come in need of power or do you seek wisdom?"