@strongfuck found the high priestess
For as long as Melissa could remember, there had only been darkness; all-enveloping and overwhelming absence of light, the oppressive shadow tendrils wrapping all over her limbs, consciousness and the beating heart. The woman would be unable to say how long she was kept there, a hostage away from her people and the world she knew as 'home'.
There was just one thing that kept Melissa alive - her faith. The unwavering certainty that Rhayeon would not abandon his loyal servant and that light would return one day. Such was the content of the scriptures that had dictated the girl's every step, from the moment she was taken in by the Sisters of Light and then raised to embrace the worship of the Sun. The dedication to the holy words, the everyday miracles granted by sunshine in form of warmth, food, security - these things had kept Melissa content and happy despite a tragic past.
Such unfaltering devotion raised her to the most honored position among those serving the Sun-God: high priestess; the very same fate that caused her capture and subsequent imprisonment, but not even then she rejected Rhayeon. Melissa wore her vests proudly, clung to the gold pendant around her neck during that time of distress and prayed feverously until she no longer had any sense of self.
Until that very moment - slowly, Melissa's eyes blinked and got reacquainted with a world that had something she had so desperately missed: light. It was difficult at first, as if everything surrounding her was too bright, too luminous even if she craved that sort of brilliant shimmer. Next, her skin felt warmer - the cold, damp feeling of the caves was gone, replaced by a familiar and comforting presence of heat, seeping through flesh and clothes to reach her very own heart.
Finally - the face. Although the notions of time and space were distorted and the battle which she had been captured at felt like both millennia ago and just yesterday, the priestess would recognize these features anywhere. Melissa had gone over the sacred texts too many times, talked to the elders and those higher in the sun circles to be confused or uncertain: peering back at her was the visage of the sun god himself - Rhayeon.
Melissa had always known that being trapped in darkness wouldn't be her ending; the Sun never abandoned any of his people, but the woman had not expected the god himself to descend to her rescue. It was not unheard of - there were moments where both Rhayeon and Ravina walked among mortals, but to be the honored soul to be so close and bear witness to his powers...!
"My Lord," the woman murmured, voice coarse and sounding broken given how long it had been since it was last used; but nonetheless, the dream-like quality of one in awe of immensurable glory dripped from her speech and in the way her hands reached for his face, protocol and decorum forgotten and replaced by the sheer need of confirming that it was all real and not an illusion from the cave, "Blessed be those who walk in the sun's path - I always knew you would come. I always believed."
