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“Before the First Eye created the Kinkou, Ionia was in a civil war. Gods, spirits, and humans against each other for wrongs committed generations ago. Thousands died, and the boundary between the physical and spirit realms grew weak and unstable. Ionia was falling out of balance.
The faction of the First Eye and his lover, the Twilight’s Shadow, emerged victorious. They formed the Kinkou to mediate between gods, humans, and spirits, to prevent a war of the same magnitude from happening again. With the riches and authority they commanded from their victory, they brought peace and quieted dissenters. The temples they built doubled as hospitals, orphanages, and schools. Students not only learned about medicine, history, and the arts, but also about keeping balance between the physical and spirit worlds.
The Twilight’s Shadow taught combat and weaponry, while the First Eye taught about gods and spirits. The Twilight’s Shadow killed humans who opposed the balance, while the First Eye slew demons and placated spirits. The Twilight’s Shadow carried magic that whispered with darkness; the First Eye, his spirit blade.
They argued. They First Eye valued tradition, while the Twilight’s Shadow demanded progress. They loved. They were partners in life, and watched each others’ backs in battle. Despite their disagreements, they worked towards the same goal. It was said that their souls were connected by a string of fate.
Years passed. The First Eye preserved old traditions, and the Twilight’s Shadow taught about the new ways. Ionia began to fall back into balance, but the Twilight’s Shadow became unsatisfied with the magic he wielded, the power he had. He sought to strengthen his magic and the shadows within him, but as he hollowed himself out, the shadows gained their own life.
The First Eye saw, but too late. Consumed by shadows, by his own magic, he transformed from a man to a monster his own lover could barely recognize. The First Eye stood in horror, but rallied the rest of the Kinkou to drive the monster out. He kept his spirit blade sheathed. He couldn’t bear to kill his own lover.
The two great masters of the Kinkou became one, leaving only the First Eye, shouldering a burden meant for two people. His love did not fail, but love failed him. The Twilight’s Shadow had become unrecognizable, and he had failed to stop his lover from being drowned by darkness.
He taught, he meditated, and he grieved. Half of his world had been ripped away, but the Kinkou needed him. Ionia needed him. Reports came of a demon attacking villages and disrupting the balance. The First Eye traveled to a ravaged village, prepared to cut down the demon. The ground and houses had been gouged by giant claws, and dull eyed witnesses spoke of a demon who bled black smoke and moved as fluidly as the shadows. They spoke of white hair and pale skin, of blood red eyes that glowed in the darkness.
And the First Eye knew.
Nights later, under the quiet of a new moon, the Twilight’s Shadow returned, appearing to the First eye in the form of a man. The First Eye raised his spirit blade warily, but no attack came. “I’m sorry,” the Twilight’s Shadow said. In the dim candlelight, his features seemed angelic, not those of a monster. His voice was soft, and his eyes had faded from red to their natural purple.
The First Eye gave in to weakness and temptation, and under the full moon, the time where spirits and demons were weakest, Ionia’s spiritual protector made love with a man who was no longer a man. They pretended they were the lovers they used to be, before the destruction of their relationship. Afterwards, they laid in the bed they had once shared, and pretended the thread that had connected them had never been broken.
“You need to kill me,” the Twilight’s Shadow said. “I can’t do it myself, but I know I’ll hurt more people when it returns. I could hurt you.” The First Eye refused. He could never bring himself to kill the man he loved, regardless of the cost.
In the morning, the Twilight’s Shadow left.
Every month, he returned. Every month, the First Eye welcomed him. They made love and talked for long hours into the night and tried to pretend nothing had changed.
Every time, the Twilight’s Shadow begged the First Eye to kill him. Every time, the First Eye refused.
The First Eye sought any means possible to save his lover, but both knowledge and wisdom failed him. Long hours spent poring over books and fruitless attempts at destroying the demon pointed to the same truth—it was impossible to kill the monster without killing the Twilight’s Shadow entirely.
The attacks continued as the months dragged on. The people whispered of the Kinkou’s incompetence, of how they were no longer safe in their homes, and began to curse the First Eye’s name. Ionia was falling out of balance, and the memory of war was still fresh in their minds. Internally, the Kinkou argued. Many murmured dissent as the leader they had once looked up to grew incompetent. The First Eye’s brightest student was the loudest voice of criticism, and many rallied behind him. He began calling himself the Enlightened Watcher.
As time passed, and the balance began to deteriorate, the demon inside of the Twilight’s Shadow grew stronger, and the First Eye’s love doomed him. During a night together, claws sank into his chest as the Twilight’s Shadow transformed into a monster, and he died by the hand of the one he loved most. He died foolishly, and failed the Kinkou along with it.
The Enlightened Watcher named himself the new Eye of Twilight and led an expedition to hunt down the monster. Within weeks, the Twilight’s Shadow was dead. The Enlightened Watcher preserved the remnants of his magic in a lacquered box, and sealed it in the catacombs of the Kinkou temple, naming it forbidden magic that had nearly destroyed the balance between the realms. He decried the First Eye and the Twilight’s Shadow for their failures, but had the compassion to mix their ashes together to reunite them in death.
The Enlightened Watcher sought to remain neutral and dispassionate in his work. He blinded himself to both hate and love, which he passed to his successor, who passed these lessons through the generations. The story of the First Eye and the Twilight’s Shadow served as a warning to all subsequent Eyes of Twilight—the story of a man corrupted by his search for power and a man too blinded by love to do the right thing.
That is why you, too, must blind yourself to emotion. Do you understand now, Shen?”