Work Text:
Avalon
They’d always lived in the dark.
Nights, millions of them—countless as the stars—walking through shadows with shadows fleeing them and shadows trailing them, and Kars would look up at the silver disc of the moon with its faint, dark rainbow ring and wonder why.
Why, when he and his kind were so powerful, so superior, why could they have only the heavenly body that was so weak, so inferior? Nothing but a pallid, paltry reflection, a poor mockery. Brushing over their skin pale, warmthless touches that taunted everything they could never have.
Why, when he and his kind were so powerful, so superior, why was it that they were forever trapped within the confines of darkness, trapped in a way no other living creature was trapped anywhere? Even plants, which could not move, could still grow, could stretch themselves ever higher towards the sky.
But they, despite their ability to absorb the life of other creatures, unparalleled healing, speed, and strength—they could never so much as touch the sunlight.
In the mouths of the caves and caverns they would retreat into at the approach of dawn, Kars would wait, sometimes, safe in the clutches of shadow to watch as the landscape lit with sun and all the colors unfurled, slowly at first and then exploding into full brilliance when the rays of sunlight kissed them.
Kars and his brethren, their vision was crystalline in the dark, outlines and depth in full detail, but colors were unsaturated, dull and insignificant.
The full radiance of color was only brought out by the sun, the vibrancy of which was held a secret from them, retreating always into the darkness underground at the first signs of the sky lightening, so afraid to burn away and resigned to their place in the dark.
But Kars was different, and sometimes he would stare at a ray of sunlight shafting into the cave, watching the way the dust danced, illuminated in the air, and carefully he would take a lock of his long hair, move so just the ends entered the sun.
And there, for the briefest moment before the hair became ember and then dust, he could catch a transient glimpse of just how vivid was the purple hue.
It filled him with an aching, deep and heavy; how beautiful it would be, to have that purple illuminated and glowing all around him.
And he would retreat aching back into the dark, away from the reflected light in the cave that did not burn him but that made him feel nauseous and sick, made his mind start to muddle and haze, and back in the cool clarity of the darkness he would promise himself that all that color that rightfully belonged to him would one day be his.
He would be back early to the cavemouth to watch the deep colors of the sky bleed to night and to press his hands and face against the sun-warmed stone before all the warmth seeped away and there was nothing left but cold.
(And sometimes Esidisi would come find him there, pressing himself against the stone, and when Esidisi placed a hand against Kars’ cheek it would be almost as warm.)
When the sun finally set, retreating with the bars of their cage, Kars would enter into the night alongside the chill and the shadows and promise himself that one day all that warmth would be his.
They didn’t believe him, his brethren. (No one but Esidisi—Esidisi had always believed him, had always laughed his laugh like ravenous flames and said, ‘If you plan on finding a way to enter the sun, I plan on following you there.’)
But there was untapped potential in their bodies, he knew. He could feel it, the awareness of his cells, the proteins and acids that determined who and what he was, knew that if he just had the power to change them at will that he could become anything.
And so he created the Stone Mask, altered his brain to give him that control.
It gave him the power to heal his body even faster, to grow his bone into blades, to never age even the slightest—but it wasn’t enough to fix his body so he wouldn’t burn away in the sun.
It was a double-edged sword, the malleability of his body; he could alter it at will, but it was that same malleability that made them so fragile that they were burned to dust by the sun’s rays, their malleable atoms disintegrated by the radiation like radioactive material, protons, neutrons, electrons blasted apart and scattering (he could feel the way the atoms fell apart when he brushed his fingers against the edges of shafts of sun).
He needed more control, needed the power to hold his atoms together just as easily as he could break them, add to and take from them—he needed the power to hold them fast.
And he needed it, that power—needed it, needed to free himself from the darkness that sucked at him like mud, held him fast in its clutches like a pit of tar. He needed to be free. (Needed to feel the warmth of the sunlight on his skin, needed to be enveloped in vibrant color, needed to know what the sun truly looked like, not its depictions in human paintings but what it actually looked like, with his own eyes.)
His brethren tried to stop him, and for that they paid with their lives. (If they were content to live forever in darkness, they were clearly content with death, clearly had never wanted to truly live in the first place.)
(All except for Esidisi, who had always burned with life like fire, had always felt emotions so deeply, laughed and cried and loved with abandon and relished in all the pain, never flinching away from any of it but walking straight in with a daybreak grin.)
He hadn’t wanted to, had wanted to share his power with them, had wanted to bring all of them into the sun—but they had called him a madman and had tried to stop him, and so he had slaughtered all of them, without regret or mercy (and Esidisi helped, laughing the entire time and then afterwards bursting into tears, taking the two surviving infants into his arms and promising them, in an echo of Kars’ own words, that they would live to see the light of day).
(Kars had often thought to himself that Esidisi freed him—like the Stone Mask and the Red Stone of Aja would eventually free him from the night—, had felt that he was freed from any kind of emotional burden because Esidisi always felt enough for the both of them and kept forever advancing like a fire that devoured all in its path.)
Sated on the blood of their brethren, they had taken the two infants and set off on a journey in search of ultimate power.
The Stone Mask wasn’t enough by itself, couldn’t alter their functioning without the power to pierce deep into their newly immortal brains before they could heal themselves.
For thousands of years they searched, but found nothing. The infants, both males, grew up strong. They lived and were feared and worshiped by the humans as gods, the humans sacrificing their own brethren to appease them.
(Their appetites never waned, their malleable cells needing the power of lives to sustain themselves, to split apart and form together, chemical reactions that required significant amounts of energy; their power was great, but not efficient, could not be self-sustained, and they could not create their own power as did plants because they could not use the energy of the sun when it was so powerful it broke all their atoms apart.)
(It was because of that—because they could not survive the radiation of the sun—that they needed always the energy from other lives, the energy that living beings stored in their cells, weak as it was in comparison with the energy of the sun’s rays. If they could just befriend the sun, they would not need to devour other lives as they did, would be able to live with the same efficiency of plants, the self-sufficient eternal life of trees, would have an immortality that was perfect.)
Eventually rumors reached them of the Super Aja, that perfect stone that turned light into power so cleanly that there was no loss of energy in the process, every iota of the sun’s light transferred into pure, unmitigated force. The stone was supposed to be in the hands of the Roman Emperor, on the continent across the seas.
And he knew, knew that this Super Aja would provide exactly the power that he needed for a Stone Mask that would be able to penetrate their brains and alter them despite their healing, knew that he needed it. And nothing, not even the vast ocean, would keep him from it.
And so he set off across the ocean to search for it, him and Esidisi (always, always Esidisi, the closest thing to the warmth and brilliance of sunlight he’d ever been able to touch without burning away) and one of the boys, the one they called Wamuu, who was, when it came to fighting, a genius (the other was only good as a guard dog, was unnecessary and would only get in the way, and so they left him behind).
(All the time they were crossing the ocean, Kars had been promising himself that one day—one day, after he had the Super Aja, after he evolved himself yet again with the Stone Mask—he would have the power to grow wings like a bird and fly.)
It’s on the eastern continent that they encountered the Hamon Tribe, that group of humans who, with their breathing, could channel energy like that of the sun, an energy that could destroy the cells of he and his brethren (an energy that could warm stone and make flowers bloom and shine brighter than flames).
(Kars envied them even as he destroyed them, these humans; envied that not only could they bask in the sunlight as they pleased but they could also create and hold that energy inside their bodies, pulling power from the air like trees.)
(That power these pathetic humans had—Kars wanted it, needed it, would possess it.)
(And yet, there was no need to rush, never had been—he had all the time in the world, immortal as he was, and he knew that one day, inevitably, the power of the sun would be his. It had never been a question of if, only of when, and he’d already waited thousands of years; he could wait thousands more, if need be.)
(It would be his, eventually. The world could not keep this power from him forever. He would chase his destiny, ever so patiently, until it finally found that it could flee no further, and succumbed. And when it did, he would be there to take it.)
It took more power than he’d estimated, to defeat the Hamon Tribe; the humans had never stood a chance against them, but while humans did not live long, their rate of reproduction was rapid, and as a result their numbers were great.
By the time the Hamon Tribe was completely destroyed, he was tired. Esidisi, Wamuu, they were all tired.
(Thousands of years of wakefulness—nights spent traveling and hunting beneath the stars, feasting till they were sated and running till they ran out of darkness; days spent hidden in caverns and chambers, planning for the future, carving masks from the stone, honing their fighting skills, burying themselves in what heat and light they could offer each other—and they didn’t need to sleep, not when all their cells including those of their brains were continually regenerating, fueled by the lives they consumed.)
(But fighting against the Hamon Tribe had required them to use their bodies in ways they hadn’t before, to break down and rebuild their cells at an even greater rate than normal, to push past the limits of what they’d previously imagined themselves capable of, and by the end they were tired.)
(The fights against the Hamon Tribe were were fulfilling in a way they’d never before experienced; thrilling in a way they’d never before experienced; exhausting in a way they’d never before experienced; they may have, it seemed, indulged themselves too deeply.)
(In immortal lives like theirs, diverting opponents were so very, very rare; never before had they enjoyed fights against anyone but each other, and fighting against the Hamon Tribe was even better, because the members of the Hamon Tribe they were out to kill and devour.)
And so they slept, fused themselves into stone so they could rest without being disturbed. (When you slept for thousands of years at a time while the rest of the world kept moving at a mortal’s clipped pace, you had to make sure that for all that time you slept you’d be safe.)
And when they awoke, the world had changed. (To neither his nor Esidisi’s surprise, for they’d slept for similar periods before, but this was Wamuu’s first Slumber, and the changes appeared to disorient him, at first, though he adapted quickly, as was his way, and Kars never regretted bringing the youth with them when they crossed the sea.) But the Hamon Tribe had been waiting for them.
Humans, they bred and spread so quickly, it seemed that perhaps it was inevitable that they would have missed some relation of the Hamon Tribe, that somehow the skill would have continued to be passed down for human generations.
Still, their numbers were significantly dwindled; only two Hamon users stood against them.
Two thousand years ago, they’d destroyed a clan of Hamon users that had numbered in the hundreds. Two was nothing. They weren’t a threat.
To one of the Hamon users, one who showed promise as a strong opponent, Wamuu and Esidisi bestowed their Wedding Rings of Death (another invention of Kars’, like the Stone Masks; all those days of cowering in hiding from the sun had not been spent idly). Kars did not begrudge them this indulgence.
(Wamuu had always taken fighting seriously, admirable in his unwavering dedication and unsurpassable straightforward approach, and Esidisi had always needed outlets for his overwhelming emotions lest they burn him away with their intensity like sunlight; Kars simply shared neither of these qualities. All that mattered to him was getting his hands on the Red Stone of Aja so he could finally, finally walk the earth adorned in the light of the sun, never again having to fear the day—never again having to hide cowering in fear of anything at all.)
Kars would not begrudge them the indulgence of dueling this Hamon user, but that did not mean he would compromise his search for the Super Aja.
He did not realize he was getting impatient, did not realize he was becoming frustrated—he had all the time in the world, after all; here was no reason to rush, no need to, not when he would inevitably acquire the Red Stone of Aja, and as such there was no ground for impatience and frustration—did not realize it until Esidisi pointed it out (Esidisi had always seemed to sense his emotions far more keenly than Kars had ever been able to sense them himself).
Esidisi had had impatience and frustration and pain reflected in his own face as he looked at Kars, reaching a hand to brush the tension from Kars’ brow and jaw with feather-soft touches like flickering firelight, and he’d smiled wanly as he’d said, ‘Your next words are: I’m not impatient or frustrated!’
‘I’m not impatient or—!’ Kars had started, and then stopped, grit his teeth (how was it that Esidisi had always seemed able to read his mind?), glared and then sighed. He let himself slump forward so that his forehead was resting against Esidisi’s warm chest, and he’d said nothing, because there was nothing to say.
(And Esidisi probably knew everything he was thinking, anyway.)
His hair had been all wrapped up in cloth, tight to his head, and Esidisi’s fingers had ghosted over the wrappings; and Esidisi had said, ‘The Stone will be ours. And then we will walk in the sun.’ He fingered the edges of the dark cloth. ‘Hair like yours deserves to be illuminated by sunlight.’
Kars had pulled away, looked down at the table, reached out to pick up the small, imperfect Stone of Aja, rolled it between his fingers, watched the red illume dimly in the refracted candlelight.
‘We’ve waited thousands of years, already,’ he said. ‘What’s another few days? Another month? Another year, or another thousand of them?’
‘Don’t try to tell me you’re not impatient,’ Esidisi had said, and so Kars hadn’t. And Esidisi had divined: ‘The thousands of years we’ve waited have been thousands of years too many.’
And Kars had set in the imperfect Stone of Aja down on the table and risen to leave the room.
Esidisi went out, that night. He didn’t come back at the end of it.
The following day, Wamuu had spent hours pacing the castle floor, like a cooped-up animal. Kars had said nothing. Wamuu had paced with noiseless footsteps, and it was quiet. (Esidisi had always been the one who filled the silence.)
That night, when they went out to feast their ravenous bodies on the life energy they so inexorably required, Wamuu hunted less than usual. Kars hunted more.
They returned to a silent castle, and watched the sunlight slowly illuminate the curtains. Kars thought that maybe, come nightfall, he should use the Stone Mask to create a servant army of vampires; somebody needed to do all the grunt-work, after all. And once they were no longer useful they could be consumed, for more energy than simple humans. Wamuu very consciously did not pace the floor. Instead he meditated, focusing on his breathing, the deep, steady breaths of a warrior.
Kars watched him, the steady rise and fall of his muscular chest, listened to the even sound of his breaths, and as he did Kars thought that it would so, so easy for them to use Hamon, if they just had the power to keep the energy from blowing their atoms apart.
The last of the sunlight drained away, like blood from a corpse, and Wamuu opened his eyes, met Kars’ gaze. A nearly imperceptible nod from Kars, and they both rose from their seated positions, moved together, without a word, out of the mansion and into the night, where the shadows enveloped them with open arms and the stars laughed like Esidisi’s eyes.
The night was never silent.
They hunted, and Wamuu consumed more than the night before. Kars consumed less.
When they returned to the castle, Esidisi was waiting for them. On his face was a grin as bright as Kars had always imagined the sun must be, and in his hand, dangling from a delicate chain he had threaded around his fingers, was the Super Aja.
(But of course—of course it would be Esidisi that finally brought him the Stone.)
In two strides Kars had clasped his hand over the Super Aja and threaded their fingers together around it, and Esidisi met his gaze with scintillating eyes and Kars wanted that sun-bright grin to be his, just like the power he’d always dreamed of would now be his, and so he kissed him, tried to devour the smile from his lips (but Esidisi was like a fire that nothing could smother, and he laughed into the kiss and glowed even brighter).
(Kars was going to bring him into the sun.)
Warm arms were embracing him from behind, a rumble in his ear of ‘My Lords,’ and Kars was grinning like the flaming smile from Esidisi’s lips had caught on his own as he leaned back into Wamuu’s strong hold, tilting back his head and reaching up a hand to thread his fingers through Wamuu’s hair as Wamuu leaned down to press sunlight-warm lips to his throat.
(And Kars laughed, laughed from somewhere deep inside, feeling supported by the air and twirling high in the skies as if he were already flying with the wings he would soon be able to grow.)
(After living tens of thousands of years trapped within the darkness, he was going open wide the cage door and finally free them into the light of the sun.)
For Kars, Esidisi would have plucked the sun from the sky with his own two hands.
He would have gladly, oh so gladly burned away to bestow upon Kars the power of which he’d always dreamed, would have done anything. Anything at all.
Kars had always been so much more, to Esidisi, than the words of any language he had ever encountered could describe. ‘I love you,’ ‘I cherish you,’ ‘I worship you’—they were all things that he’d never said, not explicitly, because such words were not enough, would never be enough; it would have been handing Kars the moon, when he deserved the sun.
Kars, Esidisi had always known, had been meant to be worshiped by the sun.
And Esidisi would have gladly burned away to catch just one glimpse of Kars illuminated by the sun’s golden light, his violet hair cascading around him, all aglow.
Esidisi had known, had always known, ever since the first time he’d encountered Kars all those tens of thousands of years ago, lingering in the shadows of the cavemouth and staring at the flowers glowing in the sunlight just outside with glowing red, red eyes, that Kars deserved everything. That he would do anything in order to give Kars everything.
The perfect Red Stone of Aja, when he had taken it from the dead female Hamon user’s hands, was the same color as Kars’ eyes.
And Kars’ eyes had glowed, when he’d seen Esidisi standing there with Stone. Had glowed like Esidisi had always hoped he would one day get to see.
(Kars had worn the darkness like a mantle, borne it like a blade, but in his gaze it had always been nothing but chains.)
And when Kars clasped their hands together around the Stone and kissed him like it was within Esidisi’s mouth that he would finally reach the sun, all inside Esidisi was a feeling so bright and unbelievably, unbearably warm that it seemed as if it should have burned him away.
(For tens of thousands of years living in a world that would have made him long ago have gone numb, Kars had always made him feel everything, always, all the way down to the very marrow of his bones and throughout every composite atom of his being.)
And when, after Kars, adorned in Mask and Stone, stepped out to greet the dawn for the first time in his immortal life, after the initial burst of light from which Esidisi and Wamuu had to hide, when they looked out the doorway there was Kars, standing in the sunlight with his violet hair cascading aglow all around him, and he was looking to the east with wide, bright eyes, his lips slightly parted, the emotions inside Esidisi were so large that they could no longer be contained inside his body, and he burst into tears.
‘Esidisi… Wamuu…’ Kars’ voice was soft, awed. His eyes were illuminated red like Stones of Aja. ‘The sun… it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’
And Kars was smiling, smiling so freely, and his eyes were so bright, and as he lifted his arms they were sprouting plumage, the same radiant violet as his hair, and then he was stirring the air with his arms that were now wings and rising towards the sky, and Esidisi could only fall to his knees and cry harder.
This unbearable happiness would burn him away, like Hamon and sunlight.
‘Lord Esidisi,’ Wamuu said, and he was rubbing warm circles into Esidisi’s back, holding out a Stone Mask with the Super Aja inlaid in the brow.
Esidisi shook his head, even as he cried, shaking with sobs. The emotions were too much; it was like all the flowers in the world stuffed inside his chest and blooming all at once.
Tens of thousands of years.
Tens of thousands of years, they’d been waiting for this day.
(Tens of thousands of years he’d watched Kars trying to reach the sun, unable to do anything but follow this beautiful, insatiable genius of a man and catch him each time he failed and fell—)
(And now, finally, finally Esidisi been able to gift him with the power he needed to meet the sun in the heavens, where he belonged. Where Esidisi had always known he belonged.)
Esidisi could barely stand, could barely speak through his grin, his laughter, his tears. ‘Y-you first, Wamuu.’
Wamuu looked at him for a long moment, and then he just nodded, placed the Stone Mask over his face and stepped outside, into the sun.
The hotel curtains illumed with brilliant light, and when Wamuu came back inside with the Super Aja in his hand, his expression was struck with wonder and awe. He met Esidisi’s gaze.
‘The sun is truly marvelous to behold, Lord Esidisi,’ he said, solemn, handing him the Stone.
Esidisi wiped the last of the tears from his eyes. He was back under control of his emotions, now, could stand steady on his feet, steady enough to follow Kars anywhere. Into eternity and into the sun.
‘Follow him,’ Esidisi said to Wamuu, nodding in the direction of the skies. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’
Wamuu bowed his head, stepped back, turned, walked out into the sun and light gold feathers emerged over his arms as they transformed into plumed wings, and in a few mighty strokes he’d taken off into the air.
A smile curved over Esidisi’s lips; how strong Wamuu had grown.
He bent down, swept up the third Stone Mask in his hand, inset the jewel in its brow, placed the mask over his face; it fit like Kars had carved it just for him.
He stepped outside, into the sun, where he knew Kars to be waiting. Waiting for Esidisi to follow him there. Like Esidisi had been following him for all those tens of thousands of years.
The sun was like nothing Esidisi had ever seen. A bright, luminous disc, resplendent with golden light.
And when the Stone Mask crumbled away from his face, Esidisi could gaze at it without burning.
Tens of thousands of years of living only in darkness.
This radiant light—not even his wildest imaginings had ever come close to it.
The birds, fluttering and flitting, feathered bodies of vibrant color in the sun, were twittering, singing, celebrating with all the remarkable might of their delicate lungs, and for the first time Esidisi could share in their jubilation.
(How long must an entire night of darkness feel, to a being as fleeting as a bird?)
Esidisi closed his eyes and grew himself a plumage, opened his eyes and lifted with mighty wingbeats into the sky, white feathers glowing in the radiant light.
And there was Kars circling around the sun high above him, and Wamuu, dipping and diving with feathered wings of resplendent violet and gold, and Esidisi, emotion flooding bright in his chest and breaking out over his face like the light of day, rose to join them.
When he reached them, Kars was laughing in delight, the sunlight bestowing incandescent kisses to his skin, his feathers, his hair.
Esidisi would have gladly burned away to see Kars like this just once—to get to see Kars like this for the rest of eternity, without ever burning, was an even greater gift than the sun itself.
Tens of thousands of years they’d waited in the darkness for this.
And now it was finally, finally theirs, and, together, the three of them flew higher, higher, higher, as high as they could go, the earth and its dark caves left behind them far below.
Never again would they need to hide themselves from the light.
And in loops and twirls of aerial dance, they chased the sun across the sky.
For thousands of years, Wamuu had been revered by humans as a God of War.
The others had always been worshiped as elemental deities: Kars was considered the God of the Night, the Moon, and sometimes also the Afterlife; Esidisi was considered to be the Fire God; and Santana had always been regarded as a Trickster God, a God of Chaos.
Wamuu alone was considered to be not a Force of Nature but a Master of Wisdom, his domain that of the art and technique of war, of battle strategy and fighting skill, of strength and honor and courage.
It had been Kars who had pointed this out to him, after one of their training sessions. The first time Wamuu had managed to draw any of Kars’ blood, and he’d been filled with a confused mixture of pride in his growing abilities and shame at having injured his lord.
(Kars and Esidisi, and especially Kars, had always been his lords. They were the pillars that held up his world.)
‘Perhaps it is fitting,’ Kars had mused, looking down at him as Wamuu knelt at his feet, and the firelight from the torches had played on the surfaces of Kars’ red eyes as his lips had curved. He’d placed a hand on Wamuu’s head, brushed his thumb over Wamuu’s brow. ‘The elements don’t change, after all. They are set in their ways. But I sense an unlimited potential in you.’
Kars had removed his hand, stepped back. ‘Continue to make me proud, Wamuu.’
And Wamuu, fighting back pleased shivers, had promised that he would.
Kars and Esidisi had taught him to fight, and they had given him something to fight for. To continue to improve himself so that he could better serve them in their war to conquer the sun.
It had always been that war to which he applied himself, more than to the prize. It had instilled in him self-discipline, and it was what had given him his sense of honor, because only by acting with honor could he continue to improve himself as a warrior.
It was why he refused to kill children and those who did not have the power to fight back against him—killing them would do nothing to hone his skills as a warrior, would do nothing but stunt his growth by making him complacent in his power—and it was why Kars tolerated this behavior in him, when Kars himself would kill the weak with no qualms.
It had been why Kars had indulged him by creating his Wedding Ring of Death, which guaranteed him battles against Hamon-users once they were strong enough to face him, why Kars had gone even gone so far as to create an antidote to the poison and a ring to contain it (a ring Wamuu still wore in his lip, though he now had no use for it, because even more than a promise to his opponents it was a token of the trust and faith that Kars had in him).
Kars’ sights were always set on the sun; Wamuu wished only to serve him, to the very best of his ability as a warrior. It was all he could offer the one who had always provided him with everything.
It had been why Kars had brought Wamuu with him when he crossed the ocean to continue chasing the sun, when he had left Santana behind. Santana had always been irreverent of everything, had always done only exactly what he willed, uncaring for the consequences and without any goals to direct his actions.
He’d been well-deserving the humans’ nomenclature as a Trickster and Agent of Chaos. His wild and unpredictable actions had left their mark on human society, far more than any of them, and it was no doubt for that reason that even after he’d fallen into sleep before awakening and dying at the hands of the Hamon-user Joseph (hardly a surprise given that, since he hadn’t crossed the ocean with them, he had no doubt never previously encountered a Hamon-user, and as thus could not have understood what he was up against), his name had been carried down as the word for the hot, dry winds that fanned wildfires along the western coast of the Americas, also sometimes called “devil winds.”
Santana had been no warrior, and he had never cared about the sun. There had been many a time he and Wamuu had wound up in fights due to their differences.
Santana had been glad to see them go and finally leave him alone, and Wamuu had been glad to leave him behind.
And then, on the continent across the seas, while they were searching for the Stone, they had encountered the Hamon Tribe, and Wamuu had been content. He had never shared Kars’ focused ambition or Esidisi’s burning passion; for him it had always been enough simply to serve them and to engage in battle, and he had done so with gladness and gratification.
Perhaps also it was because he had not lived as long as they, or because he, due to his control over wind, was able to venture further into the day than Kars or Esidisi, and he had not seen anything there that was worth more than anything he already had.
The night had never seemed like a confinement, to Wamuu, not the way it had to Kars and Esidisi. If anything he’d perceived the threat of the day as a challenge, something that helped him refine his skills by providing a time limit for his outside battles and by forcing him to hone his wind powers in order to be able to shield himself from the sunlight for periods of time.
But it was Kars and Esidisi’s objective to conquer the sun, and since that was their war and Wamuu was their warrior, it was his objective to become strong enough to fight the sun and conquer it.
He would have wished that Esidisi had chosen to bring him along when he went to retrieve the Super Aja and had fought the Hamon-user Joseph, the human and his unique techniques having intrigued him, but he understood why Esidisi had done it and he could not blame him for it.
And when he saw the sun and the sunlit landscape in their full glory, he may not have laughed in delight like Kars or cried for joy like Esidisi, but it had still taken his breath away and filled him with wordless wonder.
He hadn’t realized that the sun could be bright without obscuring, hadn’t realized that colors could be so differentiated and vivid.
Always, when he’d stepped into the sunlight protected by wind, he’d had to shield his eyes from the brightness, and the world was a nearly indistinguishable white blur that allowed him to perceive only the bare amount he needed to in order to sense the movements of his enemies. Both details and colors had been far clearer in the shadow of the night, and so he had never understood what, exactly, was supposed to be so desirable about the day.
But seeing it with his own eyes, looking up to see Kars circling on bird wings with sunlight filtering glowingly through his intense violet feathers and hair, Wamuu had finally understood.
He understood what they’d been fighting for, for all those thousands of years, and understood why. Understood why Kars was laughing and why Esidisi was crying, felt himself simply too stunned and benumbed to do either.
The light of the sun was just so much more than he’d ever imagined.
And when he’d taken to the skies on wings of his own, following after Kars, he’d realized that what they’d gained with the Stone Masks and the Super Aja was so much more than just the day.
They were, as Kars had promised, the Ultimate Lifeforms, embodying the powers of each and every living thing; all lives gathered as one, in each of them. The possibilities of what they could be, what they could become, were limitless.
Wamuu didn’t know how long that first day lasted; for countless rotations of the earth they followed the sun in its celestial path, never touching the ground and never falling into the ever-encroaching and ever-fleeing shadow of the night, sometimes flying above even the highest-elevation clouds and sometimes chasing each other weaving around mountain peaks or skimming low over the glittering waves, never needing to stop to replenish themselves when they could now photosynthesize like the plants, drawing their energy from the sunlight on their skin and the air that they breathed.
When Kars finally lowered himself gracefully to the earth and they followed him to do the same, it was in a vast field of flowers that they touched down, blossoms stretching sunlit gold from horizon to horizon.
Kars lay himself down amid the golden blossoms with his violet hair fanned out around him, smiling, closing his eyes, just basking in the sun’s warm glow, and Wamuu and Esidisi sat around him and wove braids into his hair, blossoming all manners of flowers from their fingernails to tuck into the violet locks, till Kars was awash with brilliant color like for them he always had been, and when he opened his eyes and smiled at them, raising himself gracefully to his elbows, they bestowed upon him pleasure in every way they could imagine, and when night fell dark over them they made their bodies glow like fireflies, like glowworms, like jellyfish and deep-sea creatures.
And when the sunrise broke over the horizon it took their breaths away, and Kars laughed as he kissed away Esidisi’s tears, and Wamuu looked at them and at the sun and felt warm.
For thousands of years, Wamuu had been revered by humans as a God of War, had defined himself in his practice of the art of battle so that he could continue to better serve his lords and one day conquer the sun; but now the sun was theirs, and their lives were no longer a war.
‘Perhaps it is fitting,’ Kars had told him, ‘that the humans consider you a Deity of Knowledge rather than one of Nature. The elements don’t change, after all. They are set in their ways. But I sense an unlimited potential in you.’
And Wamuu realized that, while their war might now be over, his endeavor to improve himself was not. With this power granted by the Stone Mask and the Super Aja, he now had so much more potential to realize than ever before. (He could keep evolving himself for eternity, and never run out of skills or abilities to develop and improve upon.)
‘Continue to make me proud, Wamuu.’
And he would, Wamuu thought, watching the radiance of Kars’ hair bloom with the sunrise.
All this beauty and power that was now theirs, he would reify it, carry the promise of their new eternity like the ring in his lip as he and Esidisi followed Kars across the sands of time now lit gold by the sun.