There is a prophecy, told in all six realms, that an immortal god will be born unto a mortal king, and the black blood of that son shall finally unite the warring realms, in a great and terrible war that shall nonetheless lead to an endless era of unprecedented and all-encompassing peace. The opposing nations will fight whichever nation bore the immortal, out of a sense of self-preservation (corruption), but the immortal will reign supreme, and reign forever. This prophecy has been a popular legend since time immemorial, but it was never time-sensitive. Most were sure that, when the immortal was born unto the mortal king, it would be in some distant future, and everything would sort itself out eventually anyway. A minority always held that the birth of the immortal was just around the corner, always teetering on the precipice of joy that the rapture would bring. No more war, no more poverty, no more hunger. These people were usually cult leaders, but always they spoke of the great king that would come later, the one man who would save the world.

Six immortals were born simultaneously, in each of the six realms. This did not go over well. 

Moreover, two of them: the immortals of Wind and Dark, were daughters. These were aberrations, and everyone ganged up on these nations immediately, Fire, Light, Water, and Earth forming a temporary alliance. The Realm of Dark was quickly subjugated, and their immortal, the princess Tsulluts (forgive the misfortunate Latinization of her foreign name), quickly murdered. The rest of the royal family was kept alive for future use by the Realm of Fire, who had advanced the most, and most quickly. The oldest son, whose ears were shorn and his tongue cut, was kept alive so that he may serve as a figurehead for future government. Lacking the faculties for language, he must rely on his advisors from the Realm of Fire in order to accomplish anything. The other son, whose eyes were gouged, was kept as a personal retainer for the messiah of the Realm of Fire. It is not known how he is able to do this while completely blind.

The murdered princess did not stay murdered particularly long, due to her immortality. Her blood, potently black, contained the essences of darkness. Whatever that meant. Many view darkness as an active force, something that snuffs out and extinguishes light, but it is truly no more than absence. Blood with the property of darkness meant blood with the property of the background nothingness of the universe, the aching void. She may move through it, becoming the page onto which the words of the world are written, in black ink. What this means is very little beyond a spiritual awareness, understood by no one but herself, and formerly, her brothers. Of the six messiahs, she was by far the weakest, and resultantly the least fit to rule anyway. Only the denizens of her own realm missed her, and really, what could you say about them? Who cared about those scores and scores and scores of people? They represented the nothing that pervaded all empty spaces, and she was the blankest of them all, a small non-particle of annihilation.

The realms of Fire and Light had announced their messiahs early on in the war, and were thus the most prominent players. Earth and Dark were next, Dark feeling it had finally amassed its military forces (weaker than the other realms' of course) and Earth having finally located their missing prince/messiah. Wind followed suit after a great deal of pressure, and Water never revealed its immortal, and simply began to act as if it had an interest in the war, which of course it did, immortal or no. It took a bit of time for each realm to realize that all the other realms also had immortals batting for them, and with this fear came time sensitivity. Logically, a king should wait for his son to come of age before he feels safe to send him to war or rule over his kingdom. But with six messiahs, whoever struck first won. The first blow was dealt by the Realm of Light against the Realm of Fire, when both messiahs were four years old. Neither participated in the battle, nor in the subsequent skirmishes, not for almost six more years.

Tsulluts was ten when she was first killed. Her tenth birthday, in fact. She was killed by the Fire Messiah, who called himself Kindler, which he thought was a suitably noble and powerful name, and made sense, since fire burned through his veins and destroyed everything around him like dry leaves. This was not his first battle, but it was his most important, as it was the first time he killed someone, even if she didn’t really stay dead. She cursed his name but that didn’t stop him, and neither did her subtle resurrection on his doorstep thirty days later. She tried many times to get back at him, and to free her brothers. She succeeded in freeing one, the eldest, and successfully hid him somewhere no one could find. Perhaps she used her blood of darkness to cloak his presence. No one is sure.

It wasn’t Kindler’s job to find him, but it was his job to kill Tsulluts wherever she popped up. She popped up lots of places. Her entire life has been an uneasy dance with him and his people, revenge consuming her but the power to change the fate of her own people eluding her. He calls her Stain, on account of how she’s imprinted herself permanently on his conscience, marring his life with her immortal legacy, and can never be rubbed clean from his life. She calls him lots of terrible names. She has never managed to kill him. At a certain point she learned she had to avoid him at all costs, but he could still seek her out each time, with the resources of his father and his army and his personal guard. She grew weary, and discovered the best way to avoid him was to stay dead, to just never return or act on her desire, never to avenge herself or her family or her people.

But to do so would be against her nature. She could not give up all she had fought for. She stayed alive, springing back into the aching throes of vivacity with more lethargy and dread each time. It had been sixteen years since her birth, but she had lived so long clawing her way out of the underworld. How many years had it been? How many years had it really been? She had no way of knowing, she had no power but her blank desire, that little fire inside her that was the only thing Kindler wanted to extinguish.

Each time he killed her, he said he was sorry. As if that meant anything.