Sol was the child of the sun. And like the sun, he was brilliant. Separate. Above. The myths recall him chasing the sun with unbreakable intent, seeking something that even I can only guess. He was the warden against the encroaching dark, a living reminder, that no matter the terror, no matter the fear, the sun will always rise. A new day will always come. I wonder how one comes to possess such power, such ethos. Mine was earned through ages of study and life. I wonder where his came from?
The last rays of the burning dusk retreated beyond the horizon, lighting the sky on fire in its passing. Slowly but surely, the vivid orange of the sun's final gleam began to give way, falling before the encroaching night. Sol, as always, refused to acknowledge the creeping dark, pushing his body further than ever before, the shadow of last night's terror spurring him onward.
But for all his might, all his power, Sol could not outrun the night.
It unfurled above him like a sail catching the wind, lurching forward with ever-increasing speed as the sun drifted further away. The world zoomed by Sol, his long golden hair streaming out behind him, gilded eyes wide with horror.
Then, like the thousand eyes of an eldritch god, the stars appeared, twinkling with maddening light. The moon presided over them all, spearing Sol with argent rays. The cold hands of darkness seized Sol, squeezing him in their iron grip. Their eldritch fingers traced incomprehensible patterns along his bare skin.
Sol tripped, tumbling into the beige sand beneath him. He rolled, and struggling to get back to his feet, he roared in fury as if trying to drive back the night with the force of his rage alone.
He roared for what seemed like hours, the occasional spark of light appearing around him, only to be snuffed out by the everpresent gloom. Slowly, his roar transformed, the rage slipping out of him, quickly replaced with growing terror.
The world may have remembered him as the god of the sun, but I remembered him as something different.
There, in the middle of the desert, beset on all sides by the eldritch darkness, Sol, son of Adam, without his parents for the first time in his young life, curled up into a ball and began to sob.
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He was still quietly sobbing in the morning, his cries only quieted by the growing lightness of the world.
Raising tear-stained eyes to the horizon, he witnessed the slow onset of rosy pink, forcing its way through an increasingly thin darkness. Exhaustion forgotten, he watched intently as the sky turned into a kaleidoscope of colors and dawn arrived on its throne.
The sight filled him with desire, like a sun of his own burning in his core.
Father had commanded him to seek his path, to embody something higher.
Staring at the sun a thought struck him.
What was higher than the sun?
Excitement filled him, and he took a single resolute step toward the sun, determined to reach it by all means necessary.
He was out before he finished the step, his night full of terror finally taking its toll.
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He woke at high noon, basking in heat that would roast a lesser creature. His gilded eyes pierced the overhead sun without flinching and he slowly climbed to his feet, refreshed by the hours under the energizing sunbeams.
Stretching, he recalled his moment of insight upon witnessing the break of day.
All his life, his parents had held him through the night, acting as suns of their own, tiding him through the worst of the black.
But now they were gone, leaving him without light in the dark.
Basking in the heat of the sun, he thought he felt their presence, their love.
And he refused to give it up again.
Slowly at first, he began to walk in the direction experience indicated the sun would travel to.
Then jog.
Then run.
Soon, he was tearing across the desert, chasing the sun itself.
It seemed impossible, yet Sol had never felt more alive.
He would seize its light.
Then he would never have to be in the dark again.
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Sol’s life fell into a pattern.
Chase the sun through the afternoon and dusk.
Cower through the night.
Sleep through the morning.
The days zoomed by, blending into a canvas of light and darkness. Somewhere along the way, the sandy desert gave way to wide open plains. Sol fared better here, able to use that grass to obscure the maddening twinkling of the stars. After the grasslands came mountains, hastening the disappearance of the sun. Sol conquered them in record time and rested for a day at the peak. The entire world seemed to stretch out below him, a tapestry of vivid greens and muted browns. And at the end of it was an endless expanse of blue where the land ceded to the sea. It was distant but worrying. The sea would be the end of his journey.
He needed to seize the sun before he reached it.
He pushed himself harder than ever before, the forests and savannas alike fading into a single all-encompassing blur as even time seemed to fade away.
All that was left was Sol and his Sun.
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The sea stretched out before Sol, an endless expanse of crashing waves and frothing waters. As the sun vanished behind its horizon, Sol despaired, falling to his knees and crying out.
“Father! Please! Come back! Don't leave me in the dark!”
But Adam was gone, and the sun was unconcerned with the matters of mortals.
Stuck at an impasse, Sol began to scour his mind for ideas with all the fervor of a man pushed to his very limit. And found nothing. Despair overtaking him he succumbed to the sweet embrace of sleep.
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He awoke to the dawn, for the first time fully refreshed at the onset of daybreak. With a clear mind, he stretched, looking over the sea for his beloved sun.
Only to find nothing there.
He froze, slowly turning away from the white sand and gentle waves, and behind him, peeking over the lands he had just come from, was the crest of dawn. For a second, he struggled to comprehend what he was seeing, then laughed as his desperate mind grasped onto the only conclusion it saw.
He had been going the wrong way!
Without another second to spare, Sol began to run back to where he came from.
Chasing the sun.
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Sol traveled for weeks, chasing the rosy-fingered dawn through desert and forest, savanna and tundra. Only to arrive at another sea. And like the last time, he let despair lure him into a troubled sleep, only to wake to see the sun behind him.
And once more his desperate mind grasped onto the only conclusion he could conceive of.
He had been going the wrong way!
And once more Sol set out, chasing the sun.
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It is truly amazing the lengths Sol went in a futile task, all to avoid admitting it was a futile task. So consumed as he was by his fear of the dark, his mind became narrow, focused only on one solution.
And in that narrowing, he lost touch with the beauty of the world.
And the brilliance of the sun.
To him, all became a canvas of fear and desperation, the world reduced to a canvas of black with a single speck of brilliant light, neglecting the beautiful patterns in the dark.
Yet, try as he might, he could not obscure his nascent shine.
Man learns through experience, and trapped in his haze of fear, the only thing Sol truly experienced was the sun. And lacking the guidance of any other sort, he began to unconsciously imitate it, becoming a sun of his own as he retraced its steps, desperately trying to drive back the night with screams and howls.
To be the sun was to shine, and it was becoming apparent that Sol was shining as he tore across that land.
He just didn't know it yet.
As I watched him traverse the narrow strip of land he roamed, over and over again, standing on the precipice of enlightenment, I decided to intervene.
After all, he was my grandson.
I felt warm inside as I guided him to Thoth.
Maybe he could help.
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Sol burst through the undergrowth in a blur, golden hair fanning out behind him in a halo of sunbeams. He under a branch and flexed his legs, narrowly vaulting through two more, refusing to be stopped by mere trees.
The sun could not be restrained.
Rays of late-noon light filtered through the dense canopy above, lighting the path before him, though he had long memorized the way. For a second, he felt light, free, and powerful. He felt like the sun, streaking its way across the sky.
“SOL!”
Sol stumbled in shock, barely managing to keep from crashing into the undergrowth.
“Sol! It really is you!”
A nearby bush rattled and parted to reveal a young man, about Sol’s age, with rich chocolate skin and finger-length black hair. Sol swallowed, trying to warm up his rusty vocal cords.
“Thoth?”
The man, Thoth, smiled and enveloped Sol in a hug before pulling back and gazing at him with concerned eyes. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried.”
Sol’s voice was rusty with disuse as he spoke. “Chasing the sun.”
Thoth frowned. “Still afraid of the dark?”
Sol nodded silently.
Thoth sighed. “Sol, why did you go? Hestia had a plan for that, to help without father and mother.”
Sol shrugged.
“Do you want to go to her now? I can show you the way.”
Sol shook his head.
Thoth frowned, taking in his state. “Are you sure?”
Sol nodded, more firmly this time.
“Well, at least tell me what you’ve been doing.”
Sol thought for a second, then nodded and began to speak. His voice was rusty at first but rapidly gained confidence as he talked. He told Thoth about the dark and the sun. About things he had experienced chasing the sun. About how he kept going the wrong way.
By the end, Thoth was frowning. He sighed. “Sol, come here.”---he patted the rock next to him—” I need to tell you something.”
Sol sat and Thoth put an arm around his shoulder. “Sol, my brother, you’re going the wrong way. The world is a sphere, and the sun revolves around it. If you want to reach the sun, you must go up. Higher than even the tallest mountains.”
Sol’s breathing quickened, but he could come up with no retort. Thoth had never been wrong, and his words confirmed the suspicions he had been hiding deep within.
Still, he couldn't give up without at least a token resistance. “But the sun is straight ahead at the beginning and end of the day.”
“And where is it at noon?”
The world seemed to constrict as Sol was stripped of his last shreds of hope.
He would never escape the darkness.
“W…What do I do Thoth?” he whispered, “I cannot live like this. Father said to find our paths. I think the sun is mine, but I cannot reach it. I'm lost”
Small tears began to trickle from his eyes as low sobs resounded through the forest. Thoth comforted him, whispering sweet nonsense and holding him. When the sobs finally retreated, the despair remained.
“What do I do Thoth?”
Thoth was quiet as he took in his brother's plight before finally seeming to come to a conclusion. “Father did say to find our paths. But he also told us to embody higher things. To become greater things.”---he looked at Sol—”if you cannot catch the sun, then become the sun.”
“What?”
“You already streak across the land like the sun, fight the darkness like it as well. Why not go all the way?”
“But how?”
“That's for you to find out.”
I could see the gears turning in Sol’s head as the closing of one possibility opened another. Finally, he smiled. It was tentative at first but bloomed into completion as he warmed up to the possibility.
“Do you understand?”
Sol’s only answer was a brilliant smile.
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Sol looked down at the world from up high. It unfolded before him a canvas of color and life, populated by a myriad of diverse creatures. The sun shone behind him, ringing his head in a halo of light. He stood at the top of the tallest mountain he had ever discovered, which he had named Altus
Sighing, he sat down and closed his eyes, blocking out the cold wind around him. In his mind, the sun appeared, illuminating the cosmos. Each day it traversed the length of the world, granting glorious light. When it was around, the darkness dared not encroach.
Thoth's words had struck a chord with him. If he could not catch the sun, he must become it. And the sun could not be afraid of the dark.
When night came, Sol could feel it in the absence of the sun. But he clung to the image of the sun in his mind, using it to chase out the fear like the sun chased away the night. The eldritch fingers of the night reached out but found themselves stopped by a soft glow, barely even visible. Nothing like the sun.
But it was a start.
That night, Sol trembled and whimpered, but he did not cry.
The next night, he did the same.
Then the next.
For forty nights he did this, closing his eyes and letting the sun supplant the gloom.
On the eve of the fortieth, his glow was clear and strong, illuminating his body and the nearby rocks. When he opened his eyes, they were clear, devoid of fear.
That night, he did not close his eyes, instead opting to match the night head-on. As dusk fell, he began to tremble, cowing in the face of the thousand haunting eyes of the stars. He desperately held his conception of the sun in his mind’s eye, but with his eyes open it was not so easy to ignore reality. Sol felt the foundation of his courage rapidly being eroded by the wild waters of fear and panic. But, just when it seemed he would falter, his light made itself present, spreading out of him in a soft golden glow.
Sol gaped in shock before a surge of exultance flared his light even higher. Thoth had been right! He could become the sun!
The night still loomed at large but now, Sol pushed back with his own light, no longer afraid but excited with every foot he reclaimed.
He spent another 40 nights staring into the dark and forcing his light into it.
By now, his light was blinding, but it still felt short of lighting up the sky like the true sun.
To be honest, it was an absurd goal. Something only the children of Adam, with their pure and powerful souls could consider attempting.
At least until HER.
On the final night, the eighty-first, Sol looked down on the world below him and tried to bring his light to them, trying to reach out to those who struggled with the dark. His light illuminated Altus and the nearby mountains, but it fell short beyond them. Sol felt like he had hit a wall. It was no longer enough to blindly push back against the inching shadows.
He needed something more.
As he searched for that missing piece, he found himself retracing his journey. From a scared boy to an intrepid adventurer to a devoted supplicant to what he was now, on the verge of something greater. In the beginning, fear had driven him, inspiring a young boy to chase the sun itself. And despite the wonder and desire that had manifested itself, that fear had never left him. Sol traced that thought, finding the last small kernel of fear hiding in the depths of his heart.
It was like a rock in his chest, weighing him down and preventing him from seeking the sky. The sun shone fearlessly, unburdened by the weight of mortal life.
And only without this seed of fear could Sol do the same.
Yet it was surprisingly difficult, ridding himself of the fear that had accompanied him his entire life.
It was familiar, comfortable. It was part of him.
With it, he knew what to expect. What he was becoming was new. It was brilliant but also painful. Wild and free and bright.
His father's sad smile came to mind. Only now did he understand it. To walk one's path is pain, change always is, but in the end, it leaves one greater than before.
When all is obscured in darkness, it is only by igniting oneself that can one truly see.
With that last thought, Sol burned his fear, letting it become fuel for his transformation.
He became light, and light became him.
And there, in the middle of the night, the sun rose.
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