“Tyrr’olni’nel’mul is a wild card, his reckless Aarkiel ambitions and my plans do not match up. He moves now, you do not have much time, Nova.” L’Oos says calmly. “Go, the outsider is of more use to us alive than dead.”

You hesitate, before pulling backward with your haul.

L’Oos cocks her burning head, puzzled. She pulls her arm away slowly, drawing the orb with her, “Why do you pull away, child?” The orb floats above her shimmering palm, glowing like the sun its master embodies.

“Let me save him myself.” You say, unsure even of yourself. Why do you deny your goddess’s bind point?

“Darling, we are one person. The Reawakening is approaching, we need this Forerunner for what we will release from this miserable planet that I have created.” Her voice rings into the red night before she leans forward, pushing the glowing orange orb into your chest.

***

The Aarkiel Tyrr’olni’nel’mul awakens from his slumber atop his throne made of his own body. When he was born from the primordial soup of the planet’s Allegory, it had been his first prerogative, as dictated by his pride, to construct something to embody himself and his grandeur. The throne had taken years to finish growing, years of him sleeping within it, and it stood as a symbol of his power and renown. The others feared him as L’Oos’s chosen, they knelt before him, and some even groveled in his presence, but those days had passed. He used to be a ruler, a conqueror, an Aarkiel to be feared like Sa’Bel himself. But now, the throne stands as a testament to a bygone era, an era of blindness. That all had changed when he met her.

She was a young girl, sacrificed to him as an offering for good rains. She had been cast over the side, without remorse, to die in the void or at his hands. For some reason, that day, the Aarkiel Tyrr’olni’nel’mul, the scourge of the Eastern Titan Clusters, felt pity. Pity for a human! How stupid of him. He had everything he could have wanted in his infinite life, but he wanted her for himself. And so he took her.

He summoned her from her screaming descent into Death’s Domain into his own. And yet, she did not fear him. She feared death, but not its equivalent. How strange, he had thought as she wiped her tear-streaked face with her hands, standing adamantly towards him and his twisting throne.

He, strangely, spoke with a voice unknown to him. A soft, comforting one. He offered another chance at life, and in exchange, he would have her.

She accepted.

The bands traveled up her arm as the Aarkiel reflected to himself. Why was he doing this? Why this sudden change of heart?

The answers scared him, the unshakable Tyrr’olni’nel’mul, scared.

And so he threw them away. Embracing his first Branded One with some alien tenderness. He felt something new that day.

He felt like a father.

He loved little Jui’La like a parent loves their child, he was now giving out the love L’Oos had shown him first. He loved it.

Jui’La was his treasure, his whole infinite life. He buried the questions of why he felt this way and burned the world for her. Hundreds of Aarkiel and thousands of humans died at his hands, all for his daughter and only Branded One.

She and his mother L’Oos were the only two in the universe who loved him, Jui’La most of all. She saw past his grotesqueness and past the fear that the others saw him with, she treated him like a human, and that was the world to him.

Why? Buried, he didn’t want to know, didn’t need to know. He never dug them up again. Until she died.

He had given her more power, the power to destroy her enemies, sent after her by enemy Aarkiel attempting to dethrone him. That power killed her. He killed her. And that killed him.

The Great Tyrr’olni’nel’mul was killed by his hand.

He raged against himself, how could he have done this?! He killed her!

It took years of blind slaughter for him to finally live down the incredible burning that had been created as he held her body in his albino hands, it took single-handily reducing the population of Aarkiel by a fifth for him to finally come to himself.

He hated himself, so, so much. And so he slept. He went and slept for ages. Years and years passed as his name and influence faded from Xulaa. He didn’t care anymore, his world had died, and he might as well.

He slept for what seemed eons, alone and afraid until he woke up to nothing. All had forgotten him, and he saw that as good. He searched himself atop his false throne of bone and flesh, dredging up secrets best left to die.

Why had he loved her so? He scoured the infinity for answers, consuming himself again with lonely fervor. He had no other purpose besides answers.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He searched himself to the most minute details, searching his very soul for solace. That’s when he found her again.

Julia’s name was etched into his soul as if it was his own. This confounded the Aarkiel, what had transpired that day? He searched and searched and came up empty-handed, it was as though Jui’La had been him. Her soul and his had been seamlessly grafted into one another, her living on through him.

This breathed new life into the Aarkiel, he would be her vessel for all eternity. Yes, he would do that.

And so he was born anew, not a conquering monster but a careful and ambitious scholar. And he was content with himself.

He searched the world’s very essence for answers. He went to his mother, whom he had not seen since his birth, and managed to steal a glance at her soul. He looked only a moment, a moment for later review.

That was when the burning began anew.

Sun Goddess L’Oos, the progenitor of all he knew, was the same as him. Again the burning, again the consumption of himself, why!? Why were they the same!?

But this fire was different from the self-hatred of losing Jui’La, it was bearable. It was what drove him into you.

You were so much like Jui’La, he had to take a look.

Tyrr’olni’nel’mul gets up from his throne and crosses to the invisible boundary of his domain, a barrier made of lengthened space created by his desire for loneliness. As he draws nearer, the residual pull of the barrier grasps at his snow-white skin curiously, like it was experiencing something for the first time.

He raises a hand to it, resting it on the imaginary space that he created.

He had been given orders, to keep an eye on the intruder, but those felt inadequate, now. Sero had caused too much disruption and stress for his mother. He was simply too dangerous to be kept alive.

“I will kill the intruder, finish what I failed to do.” He says with his grating voice, a voice he hadn’t used in so long.

He presses the hand inward and disables the barrier. He steps out into Travelspace, and towards the signature of the Forerunner.

***

You appear suddenly back in Travelspace, the white plane surrounding you like the pressure of what you still need to accomplish. You look around, eyes landing on a morbid scene.

Sero lays motionless, facedown, in a pool of scarlet, his hair a depressing shade of grey instead of the usual black. You rush over to him, dropping a few things from your haul along the way. You splash through his blood and over to him, haltingly kneeling in the fluid. His eyes are open and blank and his body is completely unmarred by wounds. Your brain reels as you try to think of where all of the blood came from.

Unsure of what to do, you lift his body onto your knees and begin to break off parts of your gathered food and cram them into his mouth. He surprisingly begins to move, slightly, weakly attempting to swallow.

You breathe a short sigh of relief as some color returns to his skin and hair like ink soaking into paper. You get him onto his knees, such that you don’t have to be sitting in his blood. You grimace and gag slightly as you feel your hands squish the liquid out of his already crimson vest like a sponge.

Your eyes widen as you find one hand of his is missing a finger, blood dripping from the gory stump.

Eyes still blank, body limp, head lolling to the sky, he begins to methodically chew the fruit.

It takes an agonizing amount of time for Sero to wake up. To his eyes the cyan glow that you remember slowly, painfully so, returns.

The blood around your feet suddenly begins to shiver, almost rippling backward towards the kneeling man. You back up as the white, circular symbol glowing on his vested chest suddenly begins to spin.

The Rhodos begins slowly, like a water wheel, and quickly speeds up, spinning with ever-swifter revolutions. The blood around you, on you, in your clothes, seems to be pulled to Sero.

Then, suddenly, time seems to reverse. The blood begins to flow backward, up from the pool, and into Sero’s mouth. A reverse fountain of red.

You stumble back as the blood on your hands and in your clothes is sucked off of you and into his open mouth. Your eyes widen at the grotesque sight, but you cannot look away.

Finally, once the blood is extinguished, Sero wakes up. He falls limply to his side, shivering, coughing, and nursing his one-finger-less hand. You go to him, offering another piece of a pear-like fruit.

He weakly chuckles and takes it.

You look around, unable to say much. “...What…”

“The Rhodos can heal me using Allegory,” he coughs weakly, “and I can make more Allegory using consumed matter. I haven’t-” Another cough, “eaten anything substantial in several weeks, so my Allegory has been dangerously low.” He says quietly before placing the piece into his mouth and chewing.

“Why haven’t you eaten?” you ask, sitting down and offering a new fruit.

He takes it, saying, “I don’t need to eat very often as the Rhodos sustains me,” a light cough echos around you, “Maybe once or twice a month if I’m not fighting or doing anything Allegorically Intensive, which I usually do these days.” He takes another piece and places it firmly into his mouth like he is afraid it is going somewhere.

“I had assumed that you Xulaains don’t grow excess, more than you need to preserve space, so I never asked. I would need to eat an astounding amount, of one hapless Tree's food supply, to be full.” He says around the food, “Yes, I ate at the Festival of the Sun, but it wasn’t enough to sustain my usage habits. I could have hunted some of the root wildlife, but it slipped my mind as I usually never hunt for food.” He takes another piece, saying quietly around the food, “I am a stupid, rich, spoiled idiot…” He lets his face fall into his uninjured hand.

The two of you sit in silence, eating from your pile. After a little bit, he raises his head and injured hand, and the two of you watch as the finger grows back like a mushroom sprouting from a carcass. The new finger appears quickly, growing like a plant on overdrive.

“What did you do?” you ask, unable to not know.

“I ate it to stay above the surface for the last few minutes,” he responds, shivering slightly as he inspects the new one, clenching his hand into a fist. “I hate it, but I had to.”

Sero doesn’t look good, he seems tired, so, so tired.

L’Oos’s voice rings in your head as you eat slowly, “Darling, we are one person.” Her words scare you.

The void sleeps around you, as Sero eats his fill, and as a sinking feeling settles in your stomach.