Fire, through the ages, has found many a purpose through its unchanging nature. It burns, burns hot, and burns fast, through anything that cannot hold its own against it. It has its many uses, it's benefitted man through the centuries, and yet, it's one of nature's most fatal forces. It's unruly and nearly unmanageable, it could be said it takes a special sort of know-how to handle it.

Humans should never have been granted the gift of bearing it.

Red was not a color that suited the central plains of Yuan.
The kingdom, small as it were, was encompassed by vast grasslands, painted in timid strokes of soft greens and yellows, and nestled betwixt the empires of Kai and Gou. Therein the nation weren't mighty warriors, nor were there abundant resources good for trading; Yuan had been a simple land, housing a population of a mere couple thousand, maybe less, and neighboring its surrounding counties quietly. 

It didn't deserve to be charred to ash and forgotten through whitewashed historical receipts.
It didn't deserve to be soaked in the blood of its people and drowned out by the muses of its mightier counterparts.
It didn't deserve to be destroyed under the weight of Al Tharmen.

And yet, she could still see the embers burning hot among the houses. She could hear the cries of families being ripped apart by death in the flames. She could feel the heat creeping into the palace where she'd tried to stand her ground. She could still smell the smoke rising from the villages. 

*

"Would you quit hovering over her? What if she wakes up and the first thing she sees is that awfully creepy look on your face? It's bad enough that you're a pain to look at anyway— I'd want to stay dead if the first thing I saw after escaping the Rukh was you staring back at me."

"Juda-... High Priest, that's impudent, even for you."

"It's not my job to be nice, y'know. Get away from her."

The smell of smoke was ghastly, and thick enough in her nose to nearly choke her from unconsciousness. The way it made her cough and gag was akin to being pulled from the ocean and heaving up seawater after nearly drowning in it.

"Oh, would ya look at that? I made a good call. She would have been in for a rude awakening if I hadn't told you to move."

"She's alive! I'll tell her highness right away. Very good, High Priest! Very good!"

There came a shuffle about the room around her, from what she could hear, before long lashes slowly lifted to allow for flaxen hues to focus. Above her was a lavish ceiling, finer than anything she could have ever imagined in her own head. It was trimmed with white around the edges where it met the walls, while the main innards were plated with glistening purple and gold. It was over the top, actually. Who really needed gems and gold to be plastered to the ceiling this way?

"G'mornin', Princess."

Her eyes would flick to the source of the voice that beckoned her attention, finding near the edge of her bed a thin, but fit man in dark attire, and not much older than herself, she presumed. He was grinning at her something wicked, a smoking pipe in one hand, but through the irksome vibe she'd picked off of him, she deemed him as... not all that hard on the eyes. His hair was disheveled atop his head, but a hefty portion of it was gathered back into a rather unique and bulbous braid, one she couldn't quite rationalize the physics of in her hazy state. And then he spoke again with smoke streaming from his lips with every word.

"You've been out cold for a long while. But I brought ya back. You can thank me later because we've got a whole lotta work to do."

Yuxin had no idea what he was talking about, nor did she even know who this strange, but remotely attractive, man was.

Her lips had parted to inquire about just what exactly was going on, but another violent cough had erupted from her instead, racking her body with tremors as she jolted upright in the bed to get ahold of herself.

Before she could do much else aside from clutching at her bare chest, the supposed 'high priest' was at her side, watching with a disapproving look on his face that made her feel hot with embarrassment. "Easy now, kiddo. You can't just pop back from the dead and expect your body to start working all gung ho. You gotta give it time."

Had he said 'dead'?

Honey-colored hues found the priest once again, this time wide with bewilderment.

"Dead?" she managed to retch out between gasped breaths of air, to which Judar simply nodded.

"Dead." The smell of smoke grew stronger now that he was only within a foot or so from her, meriting for not one, but two gags to rip free from her in the most unpleasant way. Judar hadn't seemed to link the reaction to his smoking pipe, however, and took another drag from it. "You've been dead for..." he paused to count on the fingers of his free hand, extending a digit each time he rattled off a number, "Two.. Three.. maybe four centuries now."

Yuxin, still recovering from her coughing fit, glared at the man. "Don't be a pain in the ass. I've only just awoken and you're trying to scare me." Surely, this was all just some poorly played out joke, and she was at the butt of it. Perhaps her brothers had put this stranger up to this. Maybe he was a traveler to Yuan and she'd passed out in front of him. She'd figure it out, or make him fess up.

"Alright, you got me," the raven admitted with a snide, little smirk as smoke poured from his words. "But you really were dead. I pulled you out of the Rukh myself. Takes some real know-how and skill if you ask me. Go ahead. Tell me I'm awesome."

She didn't believe that. Not entirely, though the seed was well-planted and she was beginning to feel subtle panic stirring in her core. "What do you mean dead? I haven't died, I—"

In her mind's eye, a sword protruded from her abdomen, and her hands were stained with her own blood, reaching out before her until she met the ground.

"I died," she corrected herself at the snippet reel playing in her memory.

"Yeah, you've been dead for a couple decades... or something like that." Judar's tone was flippant, casual, as if he hadn't just revealed something of maximum caliber to Yuxin, who was now rightly frozen with trepidation. "But you're back now! All thanks to yours truly." He really was fishing for a compliment, and then serving them to himself when he didn't get one from her.

"I don't understand... How... What's happening? Where am I? What has become of Yuan and the rest of my village?" The string of questions came out in a flurry of rambles that Judar had very little interest in answering, and it showed in the way his brows knit together in clear agitation.

"Hey, hey... slow down. We'll go over all the official boring stuff later. I'll give you the quick of it. You died. You're here now. And you're gonna do as I say until we get through what we're doing. Got it?"

Yuxin stared. And stared hard. The panic that had welled up inside of her only stilled for the moment as disbelief washed over her. Judar, as she'd heard whomever was here earlier call him, had easily just made it onto the list of people she wouldn't have any qualms over brawling mercilessly with. It is to be noted that she, frail as she looks, was, and still is, an avid adversary with the blood of many on her hands.

"I'd like an actual explanation." It wasn't a request, nor was it an inquiry.

Judar shifted slightly where he stood, the crimson of his eyes glinting in the candle light. "Oh, you're kinda scary when you're mad." He'd don for her a shit-eating grin that she'd learn later was signature to him. "I like it."

Yuxin was on her feet in an instant, pushing through the wave of unsteadiness and nausea that spawned from getting up so quickly. Her gaze found Judar's and lingered there in a glare that had him taking another drag from his pipe.

"Come on, Princess." His tone was low and smoke billowed from his lips as he dared to hold his ground before her. "You're not in the boonies anymore. You oughta think about who you're threatening..." Cerise hues would once-over the girl, dripping down her body and then crawling back to meet her gaze as the smirk on his face grew more smug. "Especially when you're this vulnerable."

There was a beat of tense silence, Yuxin's cold and pointed stare idling on Judar before it followed his and merited for her face to flush bright red. She'd only realized now that she'd been clad in her birthday suit.

>>>>