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500 years since the fall of Arannis' brother, Derahci, and still Arannis travels the planes, constantly at work creating peace where none could otherwise be found, caught in a seemingly eternal war of all that is good and evil. His various travels find him at one of the very places he had come before; Chaos, now restored to its former natural glory.

Arannis came once again to a place he had called home in his trials among the planes. He stood silently, wondering who had summoned him in Chaos' time of seeming peace.

(One-time image post for reference)

Arannis held a hand up in front of him, and a faint red glow overtook it, his eyes widening at the possibilities.

"Kanen...?"

He determined the source of the aura he had copied, and took off in its general direction, spotting Kanen only minutes after.

"So it was you, Kanen. It's been far too long... I see you've kept busy."

Arannis put a hand on the arm come out to his own shoulder, and the other resting on Kanen's own, drawing him into a friendly embrace.

"That it has, in every way I know how to say. Rest assured, life is not easy, even now that my brother is undone. Strangely, though, my struggles never seem to come to an end. Did I ever tell you the truth about the man you met here those years ago?"

"No, Kanen... for two millenia, he had been my most mortal enemy. He and I were created, not so much 'born'. Only we have had that misfortune. Our purpose was held in common; to force peace across the worlds, but he took to different means, allowing himself into darkness while I turned to light, engaging in a struggle that would inevitably cause one of us to die... it was foretold, however, so I have no say in it... and it seems to be a common strain among all my travels thus far."

He sighed, backing away some and gazing straight into Kanen's eyes.

"What I suspect you don't know, however, is that I am not necessarily the same man you had met that thousand years ago."

"It does help that each of my counterparts had a significant portion of myself running through them. Tell me, then. Are you the one behind the scenes, or perhaps another?"

Arannis chuckled slightly, recalling both the friendly and the not so friendly times he'd shared with this Fallen Angel.

Arannis nodded some.

"The puppeteer, the one knowing perhaps more than the others. I know that for so long, I had not known of my higher existence until... Entropy, to put it somewhat vaguely."

"Oh, no. You misunderstand me. Truth be told, it was none other than myself manipulating things from elsewhere. It is a complicated matter, one that I would prefer not to let any others become aware of. You see, at that particular point in time, I lived perhaps half a dozen lives at once, but only one stood fully aware of the others. That was me."

"Oh, heavens no, Kanen. In all things, I am Arannis. What you knew in the day was myself in its entirety once Entropy came around. Again, I say. Long, complicated matters."