Chapter Text
•••Over two hundred years prior•••
Sunlight filtered through a canopy of leaves and danced across a carpet of moss. A new bud was growing—one unlike any that had been grown before. The abundance of life, taking form. This form grew under the cover of the forest floor, slowly taking shape, solidifying. Like a seedling first stretching for sunlight, the crown of his skull would break through the soil, eyes seeing its own presence for the first time.
He was life, he was the Gift of the River, N'kiru N'tabi.
He came to be in the flood plains of the great river, a rich, fertile ground supplied each spring by nutrients from upriver. The plants here grew thick, trees stretching to towering heights to compete for sunlight. Rain fell often, and the soft, spongy earth supported a healthy, thriving ecosystem, where no life was wasted.
When N'kiru N'tabi first awoke, pulling his new form from the forest bed, he wanted to meet those whom his power supported. He made his way to the riverbank, where he sat and watched the world move around him. Crocodiles sunned themselves on the riverbank, dragonflies rested their wings on twigs and flowers, and fish jumped from the water to catch bugs that got too close to the surface. A snake swam past, headed for a clump of roots that disappeared under the surface. A frog sang happily from the reeds, hidden well in the mud.
There were many different kinds of creature here, but none of them looked like N'kiru N'tabi. He stepped into the river, feeling it's current curl around him, holding him up. He willed the river to carry him forth, as he wanted to meet the people whose life he supported.
Before long, cultivated fields were seen, and small thatched huts. N'kiru N'tabi emerged from the river, approaching the village.
The people there were very shocked at his approach. Conversation died mid-sentence, and baskets were dropped. A child stopped watching where he was going, and tripped over a rock, falling on his face.
"Hello," he said, approaching them.
The villagers looked at him in shock, and others gathered in the street.
He could not help the smile of wonder that took over his face, could not stop his eyes from taking in every detail.
These people were like him, but they were not the same. Some were tall, and some were short, and their skin looked different. His skin looked like the baked clay of their earthenware pots, but their skin looked like the mud freshly dug up from the riverbanks.
The villagers as well could not help but stare. Who was this man, who stepped from the river like he was made from it? Whose skin glinted like copper, his eyes an unseen shade of green?
One of the bolder among them stepped forward to ask such things.
"Who are you?" the villager asked.
"I was that," the stranger said, gesturing to the river, "and now I am this, too." He gestured to his body.
"Where are you from?"
"The river, of course."
"Where are your clothes?"
"I have none."
"Where is your home?"
"Where the river is, I am home."
"But where do you live?"
"I live where I am. Am I not living, now?"
"But where is your hut?"
"I have none."
The others in the village started whispering among themselves, wondering if this was a spirit sent to them from the gods; concerned that it could be a test.
"Do you have a name?" the bold man continued.
The stranger paused, head tilted to the side, then said, "You may call me N'kiru N'tabi."
The village knew what this meant. N’kiru N’tabi meant, to them, 'A Gift of the River'. They all agreed that they should welcome this newcomer.
So they invited him in to their village, and gave him their finest clothes, and showed him their ways.
He was always kind, always excited to learn more.
During the years that he stayed with them, their crops grew more abundantly, their elders stayed in good health, and their young grew stronger.
For many years he traveled from village to village, meeting new people and blessing their land. Many were the days of joy in that time.
But not all villages who met him welcomed him.
Some shunned him as an outsider, some threatened him, some ignored him.
One village let him stay when he asked, but they did not take kindly to him. They whispered about his strangeness behind his back, and they grew afraid when they saw his power shining from behind green eyes.
They believed he must have been given his power by spirits or devils, as no one like him had ever been born in their land.
They began to plot against him.
At a nearby cliffside, they carved free a cage, preparing a door to seal him away forever.
He knew of their fear, of their distrust, but he believed that he could change their minds about him. All he had to do was wait, and they would see.
They would see their crops growing more fruit, their land getting more rain. They would see that he was not against them.
But they were rash, and hasty.
The only power they'd known of like his was only whispered about, told in ghost stories and warnings of demons.
They all knew the stories, those which were not spoken aloud.
The spirits that steal away their children. The demons which feed on their souls. In an effort to save their people, to protect everyone, they drove a spike into the stone; an anchor for the chains that would keep the demon sealed away from their home.
Time passed, and the people prepared, but they still smiled and nodded to the demon when he passed. They knew they weren't as strong as him; they knew they'd need to use his surprise to capture him.
When they had finished casting their last bit of iron into a set of manacles, they knew it was finally time.
So wholeheartedly was their devotion to creating his tomb, they were blind to what the demon was actually doing in their town.
When the children smiled and waved at him, they knew it was because he was charming them. They wouldn't—couldn’t— believe otherwise.
So then they threw a feast. They prepared for weeks, storing up food, creating decorations, getting their village ready for the celebration.
Those who could play instruments brushed up their skills, and those who could sing composed new songs and lyrics.
The demon kept expressing his excitement, and they knew they had him hooked.
When the day finally arrived, everyone ate, drank, and danced the day away.
As the sun set, the demon didn't notice the lone man who set off through the woods, on an increasingly well tread trail, holding aloft a burning torch.
Night fell, and the real party began. The fires were lit, the drink shared among them all, and the music played in force.
The village elders hid their nervousness in their cups, and tried not to keep their eyes on the woods for too long.
Eventually, the man made his way back into the village, his torch starting to run low. He met the elder's eyes, and nodded once.
The elder recognized the queue, and stood. Those around him quieted, waiting on his command.
"A new song!" he shouted. "A song to our new brother!"
He met the demon's eyes, and raised his cup in a toast. The demon beamed, his smile brighter than the firelight around him, his unnatural, glowing eyes squeezing shut.
And the men beside him made their move.
The man to his right slung an arm around his shoulder, and in a mock friendly way, pulled him down, off balance.
The man to his left pulled the manacles out from where they had been secured underneath the table, and snapped the first half closed around the demon's wrist.
As the demon started to turn to his left, to see what was happening, a man approached him from behind and hit him as hard as he could across the skull.
The demon's head snapped downwards, slamming against the table. He groaned, vision spinning.
The men then quickly affixed his right arm in the shackles as well, and hauled him to his feet.
As the elder made a joke about the demon getting too deep in his cups, the other three dragged him away from the table, keeping a hand clamped around his mouth.
They dragged him through the woods, and to the base of the mountain.
The doorway into the rock stood there, dark and ominous. Two torches affixed to the cliff face were already lit.
The demon kicked, and yelled, throwing his body against them, but the three men just lifted him and continued their journey. Inside the doorway was a short hallway, opening up to a rounded room, carved into the stone. There were the torches, lit on the walls. There lay the chains. There was the spike in the floor, permanently affixed to what would be the demon's tomb.
They spoke no words to him as they chained him in place, looping his ankles in as well. They ignored his questions, his pleas, his tears— they believed it all to be fake. A trick.
A trick, like the one they played on him.
They had beat the devil at his own game.
•••
Back in the village, the music soared. Laughter rang out in the streets, and feet stomped to the beat of the music. Over the sound of the drums, and the clapping, and the slamming of drained cups, no one heard anything else.
No one heard the stones being stacked, sealing away a dark, shadowy door.
No one heard the rattles, the thump and the shake of a desperate fight.
No one heard the yelling, the anger, the hurt.
No one heard the young man's cries.