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He was not born a fighter.
Ajax was fond of small creatures, always crying when his father brought back a skinned rabbit for their meals.
When their neighbors knocked on their doors to wish his mother well after his sister was born, Ajax hid behind her skirt.
His brothers and sister took turns tucking him into bed, regaling him with the abridged versions of their father’s tales because he told them he was afraid of the monsters lurking in the darkest corner of his room.
And yet.
“Child,” Skirk’s voice whispered into his ear. Her callused hands guided his shaking ones towards the throat of the beast. “Here, you must be the hunter.”
Her hands pressed down, inching the knife closer. Ajax shook, vision blurring at the edges as the once vicious creature cried out in distress. It thrashed against their bodies, desperate to escape his mentor’s suffocating presence.
“Lest you become the hunted.”
Blood erupted from the beast’s throat. Ajax screamed, slamming into the chest of the woman behind him. The body beneath them gurgled as it choked on its own blood, flailing its arms and legs before finally stilling.
The taste of iron filled his mouth, and Ajax turned to dry heave away from the dead body.
“It will get easier,” Skirk spoke quietly, rubbing his back as Ajax sobbed into the ground. “Sometimes, it’ll even be fun. But for now, learn to accept your fate. This is the only way to survive the Abyss.”
And so he followed the woman whose shadow licked at her heels.
Often, they liked to reach towards him. Skirk always rebuked them, voice full of malice as she watched the creeping tendrils slowly remove themselves from his body and retreat back behind her.
Ajax used to feel nauseous every time they touched him. Cold and hungry shadows climbed up his arms and legs whenever his mentor was not watching, but they never lingered for long, only swirling over his skin as he shook in fear. After a few weeks, however, he stopped noticing them.
His own shadow seemed to move on its own accord now. Ajax found them a bit entertaining.
Skirk tells him that it’s a sign that his body has grown accustomed to the spirit of the Abyss.
“But you’re not ready just yet,” his Master chided whenever he begged for her Wisdom. “You might have finally gotten the Abyss to accept you, but your mind and body would break if you took on the mantle as you are right now.”
After her response, they traveled deeper into the darkness. His Master showed him how to turn everything and anything into a weapon. Nothing seemed to last longer than a few hours after being covered in the blood of Abyssal monsters.
There were some beings that did not engage them in battle. They always observed both him and his Master as they slaughtered countless underlings and filled the air with the scent of blood, staying only to meet the gaze of Skirk before walking through odd portals made of stars.
“Don’t mind them,” she had told him when he asked his Master about them. “They are simply overseeing. You may call them Heralds. They will not harm us.”
Shortly after their conversation, Skirk was approached by a taller Abyss Herald. Ajax didn’t hear any of their conversation. He only watched as it turned to where he was tending the fire, a long claw pointing directly at him.
It had no eyes, and yet, Ajax felt the gaze of thousands looking upon him.
The weight of the world upon his shoulders, Ajax’s father had said once. A story of a hero.
The Herald spoke to him from a distance, his Master standing directly next to it.
“A harbinger for the Abyss,” it rumbled. “He will bring forth the New Era of Our People. Upon his shoulders, █████.”
Three months after his fall, Skirk stopped before a towering, dead tree. Her shadow stilled as the Abyss seemed to silence itself.
“And this is it.”
Ajax turned towards her, “Is what?”
His Master smiled.
“Where we say goodbye.”
And without another word, Skirk picked up her broadsword, slashing the blade across his neck.
“Farewell, my child. Until we meet again.”
Choking on his own blood, he fell. He never did win a match against her.
The biting cold of Snezhnaya greeted him when he opened his eyes. Alongside it, a constant, echoing voice of something from the Abyss that had latched onto him.
( Show them .)
His next few years in the town of Morepesok mirrored his time in the Abyss, or, as closely as he could make it. No longer did his weapons disintegrate from the blood of his prey, and the screams of horror from the townspeople who had greeted him so warmly a few months ago (or was it days? Ajax was unsure nowadays) grated his ears.
( Show them .)
No longer did he shy away from his family’s livestock. They ate well, as he often brought too much back from his hunts. Meals were always silent, just like those with his Master.
Neighbors never visited anymore.
His older brothers and sister avoided his room. The younger ones thought of him as fascinating. His parents’ stares were heavy.
Conscription could not have come at a better time.
( Show them .)
He climbed the ranks too quickly for someone his age.
( Show them .)
“Sweet Childe, who plucked the stars from your eyes?” the Tsaritsa had asked him one day. His head laid upon her lap as she combed his bloody hair with her fingers, lazily gazing at the dead bodies lining the ballroom floor.
“I left them somewhere, I think. Somewhere far away,” he replied in a whisper. “Maybe I’ll get them back one day. When I fulfill my duty.”
Her Majesty laughed. “Lost somewhere far away, you say. Maybe we will find you new ones then. But what duty do you speak of?”
“To bear the wishes of the Nation upon my shoulders, as Harbinger.”
For any branch that does not bear fruit, one must cut down. And Celestia had long grown barren.
( Avenge us .)