Sands of Fate: Interlude I
The Sands of Fate were a dreary, desolate place. Existing apart from all time and space, it was where fates were formed and forged, and where they came at their end. From the first moments of primordial existence across any universe, the sands have been as they were, enigmatic and unending. Even the Keeper of the Sands did not understand them completely. He was just as ancient and infinite as they were; perhaps more so, he did not know. All he knew was that he had a vigil to keep. He watched the sands always, though for what, exactly, he did not know. He traversed them when it pleased him, and it usually did, he rested when he wished, and he passed the time reliving the last moments of beings less endless than he. Each grain of sand in that place was a fate itself, whether one that had already passed or one that had yet to was difficult to determine, and largely irrelevant. Eons passed. The Keeper trudged through grit and grain, keeping his lonely, silent watch over the realm that had been entrusted to him, never questioning, hardly thinking, simply doing the duty that he innately knew was his and his alone. The sun over the sands was the color of dead ashes, but no less scorching for it. It made its long trek across the skies each day without variation and gave rise to three moons at the end of it's sojourn, each one a different and distinct shade of grey. These things were natural to the Keeper; these things were how he knew them to get, as everything was in that place, unworthy of real consideration. Until that changed. The Keeper had been wandering, as was his habit, on a night like all others before it. He stopped to regard the moons for a moment; just because they were as they always were did not make them less striking, for the Keeper had developed a taste for the beauty of monotony. Not a lot changed there, there was day and night, wind and weather, but any other change wrought was wrought by the Keeper himself. So he was quite surprised when something fell from above, striking the dust before him, fusing individual grains into crystals of burned black glass. The Keeper did not think he had ever been surprised before; still, he had the composure to kneel to the sand and search for what had fallen. It was a key. The was the day the Keeper changed. He began to question. He began to think. He eventually thought a thought that was altogether unfamiliar to him; inconceivably simple and yet incomprehensibly profound; and near blasphemous. He did not want to be Keeper anymore.