The caverns of the mountain were silent in the early hours of the Kaiyumian sunless morning. Even the lightest rustle would echo through the caverns where everyone slept. All the while, armored guards patrolled the caverns with lanterns on their polearms, bringing the only hint of life to the otherwise dead tunnels. In the pitch black, a human girl and her Titan husband walked through, carrying small bags and a similar lantern hanging from the Titan’s staff. Iris looked past the other tents and alcoves where her other Kaiyumae slept, unaware of where she was headed. Would they even care? How would they react?

How would her parents react?

Iris shook the thoughts from her head as she continued alongside Arylos. Instinctively, she reached out and took a hold on his sleeve, drawing the Titan’s attention as he looked towards her with concern. “Are you alright?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine; just a little nervous,” Iris admitted softly while pulling Arylos closer to herself.

Arylos laughed under his breath and continued forward, taking a right at a crossroads all the while Iris clung to him. “Honestly, I would be too so I can’t blame you,” he said in a soft reassuring voice.

“Are you not nervous? This is Templarius after all,” Iris asked in a shy voice.

“And? It’s a planet just like any other,” Arylos answered nonchalantly.

“But it’s my first time going to a different planet,” Iris grumbled while she began to debate hitting him.

Arylos thought for a moment before chuckling to himself. “I guess I can understand. Kaiyumi is relatively united under one flag so you don’t get to travel to different nations and cultures; this would be something new.”

Iris nodded before a sudden thought hit her and she stopped in her tracks. “Hold on! I can’t speak their language!”

“Shush,” Arylos hissed while putting a finger to Iris’s lips. “The sun hasn’t risen yet and these halls echo loudly.”

Iris groaned and pulled Arylos’s hand away. “Still, how the heck am I going to get anything done? I highly doubt the rest of Templarius speaks Kaiyumian like Bellona and Eir can.”

“All the more reason that you can’t leave my side,” Arylos explained cautiously while continuing down the hall. “I will have to interpret for you since there are only a few Templarians that know your tongue. Understand?”

“Yes yes yes, you’ve been saying that,” Iris said dismissively while waving her hand. “But what if I need to talk to someone and you’re not there?”

“Then you better look for me,” Arylos corrected sternly. “Where we’re going, they can easily take advantage of a mortal foreigner like yourself.”

“You could also just teach me their language,” Iris said in a smug voice.

“I don’t intend for us to stay long enough to warrant that,” Arylos said, his voice getting darker as he approached the end of the hall and found himself in a large cavern that acted as a gathering area for the refugees. The dark hall made Iris’s hair stand up on end as Arylos trudged forward, unaffected by the darkness. Iris quieted herself as she followed closely behind the Titan until she could see 2 shapes in the shadows surrounding a lantern. It wasn’t until the duo came closer did Iris recognize Eir and Bellona huddled around the lantern.

Before Arylos could greet them, Bellona greeted them with a loud and obnoxious yawn, all the while Eir rubbed her eyes, struggling to stay awake. “Look who finally showed up,” Bellona said while rubbing a stuffy nose.

“Well good morning to you too,” Arylos said with a sarcastic laugh.

“Yeah, why the hell are we even awake this early?” Eir groaned while stifling a yawn that came to her.

“It’s so the Realm Gate doesn’t freak out these people here,” Bellona said in a snarky voice.

“He came here and attacked a bunch of guards; I think a big light is the least of their concerns,” Eir said while lifting up her coat to cover her head as a makeshift cover.

Arylos laughed as he looked at the two Templarians and couldn’t hide a smile that creeped up on him. “Thank you both for agreeing to come,” he said in a sentimental voice. “It makes me feel a lot better going into this with you next to us.”

“Don’t worry about it; if anything, we should be thanking you for agreeing to help our homeworld,” Bellona said with a laugh.

“Awe, look at him, he’s having an emotion again,” Iris said with a teasing smile as she began poking Arylos’s cheek.

“Will ye cut that out?” Arylos growled as a sudden accent took over his voice that was accented by a smile he couldn’t hide.

“It’s good to see you lot with such high energy,” a deep growling voice said from behind Arylos and Iris, startling them as they quickly turned and locked eyes with a dark figure with blue glowing eyes in the shadows.

“And someone needs to tell you to stop creeping on people,” Bellona growled, trying not to raise her voice.

Eir yawned once more before looking back towards Anoron and locking eyes with the Templarian king. Suddenly, an impulse came over her body once she saw the king that she could not control as she instantly dropped to one knee and lowered her head, humbly calling out the Templarian word “Jedah,” at the same time like an orchestrated motion.

“Sorah vyn’jhahe,” Anoron returned in the Templarian speech with a nervous laugh. “I take it that this is everyone who will be joining us?”

“You better not forget me!” another voice called out followed by the sounds of running footsteps. The group turned around and Arylos felt surprised to see a familiar man running towards them with bags on his back that threatened to snap the Templarian’s spine from their weight alone.

“Thoth? Why are you here?” Arylos asked nervously.

Thoth came forward and rested his hands on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath. “If you think I’m going to let you all run off and fight some insane machines without me, you are all mistaken.”

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“But you said you were needed here the most,” Iris said in a confused tone.

“Not if you get your asses handed to you!” Thoth hollered in a wheezing breath as he waved his arms around. “Who the hell is going to patch you up? If you think I’m going to leave it to Heka, you have another thing coming.”

Arylos laughed nervously and came towards Thoth, resting a hand on his shoulders. “I would be happy to have you, old friend.”

“Yes well isn’t that all very touching?” Anoron asked sarcastically while moving ahead of the group. “Let’s go; we only have a very small window.”

“Window for what?” Iris asked, genuinely curious.

Anoron opened his mouth to speak before stopping himself short as his eyes darted around. “Auer’makyr, please educate your wife while we walk,” Anoron said sharply while turning around and walking towards the large opening in the caverns. Iris watched as the Templarian king approached the opening, making his way outside into the cold irradiated city.

“Wait, we’re going outside?” Iris asked as the group of Templarians slowly followed Anoron.

“Oh so many things to explain,” Arylos mused while following the group with Iris in tow. “Essentially, Templarians use Realm Gates to travel. They’re kind of like bows and the people they’re transporting are arrows fired from those bows. Now, imagine if a bow could call back the arrow it shot; same concept. We have to be outdoors because the Realm Gates work by line of sight; they have to see us in order to call us back.”

“Then what’s this about a ‘window’?” Iris asked as the group neared the entrance and slowly made their way out into the cold city.

“Kaiyumi rotates and moves through space,” Arylos explained, trying desperately to find the right words. “So while the planet is moving, there’s a window of time where the Realm Gate can see us. Imagine scheduling carriage rides based around when other carriages leave and return; same concept really.”

“Right here; sixty seconds,” Anoron called out while pointing towards a cleared spot in the snow and ash covered road.

Like the well trained soldiers they were, Bellona, Eir, and Thoth followed Anoron’s instructions without delay. Arylos and Iris slowly followed behind while Anoron looked to the sky; dark, quiet, and blue under the shadows before dawn. Iris watched Anoron examine the sky and speaking in the Templarian language to himself before she turned towards the east, watching the orange halo of the sun slowly crest over the horizon. Iris admired the sun, wondering how long it would be before she could admire the same sun of her homeworld again.

Before she could lose herself in the sunlight, she felt someone nudging her arm and she looked over to see Bellona nudging her with her elbow. “Did Arylos get you a bucket?”

“Why do you ask that?” Iris asked in confusion.

“I’m sure he said Realm Gates are like bows, right?” Bellona asked with an entertained smirk. “But have you ever wondered what an arrow shot out of a bow feels like?”

“Oh no, I’m not about to deal with this,” Thoth said in a disgusted voice while moving away from Iris, standing next to Eir.

“Wait, deal with what?” Iris asked, starting to panic as she looked around frantically.

“Enough, our window is here,” Anoron said while approaching the group as his eyes shone a bright white and thudding mechanical footsteps cracked the stone under his feet. Once close to the group, he looked back up to the sky and tapped his fingers against the side of his mechanical head. “3 - 2 - 1,” Anoron counted down as thunder howled through the sky and Iris could feel the hair on her body stand up and her skin tingle. As she looked up to the sky, she saw bolts of white lightning scattering through the sky; far above any clouds and formed a line in the sky that matched up with stars like constellations.

“Mark!” Anoron called out loudly as the last of the white bolts formed in the sky and the ground began to vibrate and the air hummed in tune. Iris looked back towards the sun, wanting to feel a little of its sunlight before it was gone.

Yet before the sunlight could touch her face, the otherworldly bolts of light screamed down from the sky and struck the ground, sending energy through Iris’s body that made her feel cold and numb like she jumped into polar ice water. A loud humming filled her ears and deafened her as she began to feel herself lifting up slightly. She instinctively opened her mouth to shout but nothing came out or was drowned out by the otherworldly power.

Before she could scream, she felt a warm hand hold her own tightly, like a loving anchor that kept her grounded.

Suddenly, the sky crashed down on her as the clouds and the sun rushed past her, yet she was unable to move as a mighty force pulled on her. She watched as the sky above dissolved away like quicksand and she felt her body dissolve with it. Yet she could not look away as she watched the endless sea of stars rush past her, moving ever faster as an endless stream of light ran past. As the stars rushed by, she could hear a metronomic clicking in her mind that refused to speed up or slow down. It was like each passing second rang through her body like a bell tower striking every second.

Before she could come to terms with the visual high that assaulted her senses, a large star rushed before her and blinded her with a brilliant white light before going dark. Slowly, she could hear muffled voices that called to her and as she opened her eyes, she could make out the vague outline of Arylos’s face, his red eyes piercing through her blurred vision. She opened her mouth to speak but her throat was so dry, it felt like she had swallowed sand. Slowly, she rose up, all the while feeling Arylos’s hands steady her. As her vision returned, she kept her eyes locked down at her hands in her lap; the one thing that they could keep in focus.

“Fuck, that was intense,” she mumbled with a sigh as the drowsiness began to fade.

“I’ve seen her handle things like that; why did that affect her?” Iris could hear Eir’s muffled voice ask.

“She could do that at very short ranges; she just shot clear halfway across Reality,” Arylos explained defensively.

Iris slowly looked up and her eyes were able to see more clearly that she was no longer outside in the snow and ash covered Sentoraya, but now in a vast hall with stone ceilings decorated with elaborate blue and gold carvings and full of strange lights. She turned around and locked eyes with a large stone and metal circular structure like a vast doorway that hummed loudly as rings around the circumference spun around, lighting up with various markings in otherworldly whites and blues. Slowly, the humming died down to a low drone as the spinning rings slowed from a blinding speed to a slow crawl as air whooshed by as the rings spun.

Iris struggled to make sense of what she was seeing as a tall figure in dark blue robes with silver armor plating approached and set a metal bucket next to Iris before bowing and saying words in a language Iris did not recognize as they moved away.

“Wha– What is this for?” Iris asked slowly while gesturing towards the bucket. Before she could get a response, her stomach clenched violently and against her own will, everything from last night’s dinner to the morning’s breakfast came up in a violent torrent as the large stone hall echoed with the violent sounds of her retching her guts out.

Arylos could only laugh nervously as he rubbed her back, feeling sorry for doing this to her. All the while, she could hear Bellona cheer and Eir groan. She looked over and saw folded bills of money exchanged between them and Arylos felt a little disappointed.

“Really? Did you really take bets on how long she would last?” Arylos asked with a scowl.

“Oh come on! How long did you think she was going to last? I knew she wouldn’t make it far out of the gate,” Bellona complained with a laugh.

“I said she would have an hour before it kicked in,” Eir said quietly while giving Bellona a cold shoulder.

Arylos thought for a moment before looking back at Iris who was struggling to keep her hair out of her face. Before long, he reached into his pocket and took out similar looking bills and gestured for Bellona to take it.

“Aha! I knew you would have too much faith in her!” Bellona said while snatching the cash from the Titan.

“I hate both of you right now,” Iris groaned before her body heaved once more and she was pretty sure her stomach was now dumping everything inside her regardless of what she ate.

“You hate everything right about now, baby girl,” Arylos said with a soft laugh, trying his best to comfort the vomiting girl, knowing that it will be a while before she would be able to walk.