Archive of Our Own

The first thing Altan Trengsin thought when he was about to die was that the tales from his childhood were a lie: there was no slowing down time, no magical epiphany, and no pretty hero that would save him. It was just him about to engulf himself in his own flames. In his own anger. In his own anguish. He had already drowned in his mind, where the phoenix burnt bright and there was only the molten lava of memories consuming him - so what if his physical body also burned in those flames?

It felt like what the Hesperians called ‘deja vu.’ A cycle. The Speerly language also had a word for this, his Aunt Hanelai was obsessed with it, but he forgot. It was ironically this very lab, twenty years ago, that Altan had accepted he would die.

Twenty years ago, this lab - his mind was a juxtaposition of itself. Sometimes, he hardly remembered, his mind a void just as empty as his heart, the numbness of everything pulling on his head (this state was often in an opium-induced haze). Other times, the most frequent occurrence, was that he remembered everything with picture-perfect clarity - how exactly the stars aligned in the sky when Riga had taken him to the boat, the exact words he had murmured in his ear to Altan’s incessant questions ( “Everything will be okay, they’re just going to try out a new medicine… Yes, of course you’ll see Auntie Hanelai after. She’ll be okay too. Just trust me, Altan, okay? You trust me right?” ), the exact amount of children in that small wooden boat that reeked of mildew, the exact look on Shiro’s face when Riga had showed up - crazed, obsessed, hungry. 

This lab. It was the start of something terrible - a catalyst in Altan’s mind, spurring him away from sanity and finding solace in destruction. The start of the cycle, perhaps. He remembered everything that happened here, now more than ever. The first night, everyone was so excited - a new opportunity. Few people ever left Speer - the adults had chided them that it was dangerous, that it was not safe for young children like them, that it was a bad, bad place - but they’d all heard of Nikara, of Mugen, of the lands beyond. Fascination was a thing prominent in children, he knew that now; if curiosity killed the cat, they were all ready to be slaughtered. Now, in retrospect, they shouldn’t have been; why could they not heed the warnings of their parents that they would never see again? Why had they not taken those peppered kisses as they were - an act of unbearable love? Why had they not gone to those dances, those rituals, those sacred times? Why had they not made more of an effort to go and learn their language? Why? Why had it all happened?

They could hardly sleep, anticipation steeping in the room like a fragrant cup of jasmine tea - it simmered, it danced, it wavered. As soon as the sun rose, the peaks of its golden rays shining across the black canvas flickering with stars, they all tittered with excitement, speaking loudly of the future when in that future, they would be begging for the past again. Shiro walked in the small room where seventeen of them were contained, a smile ripped across his youthful face, talking of a tomorrow where knowledge was freedom - where everything known was known. He asked for volunteers. At first, they had all hesitated, but a young girl (he didn’t remember her name anymore) offered her hand first, a smug grin adorning her face when Shiro took her hand as she stumbled, not quite knowing how to walk yet, out of the room. Altan remembers being disappointed that it was not him - he was, of course, the pride of the island, the golden boy of Speer, and this girl was someone he hardly even knew. Later, when her screams punctured the stale air when they all tried to sleep, when her eyeball stared at them for the next six months in a jar, still bleeding tears, when her silence was more deafening than the cacophony of shrieks just a moment before, he was suddenly not disappointed anymore.

He remembers the night after the girl. All the rest of the children had managed to fall within sleep’s graceful clutches, and it was just him, alone, watching the window - watching Speer, watching home . He wasn’t expecting anything to happen (just hoping that someone would come) but something did. It was small, at first. A rogue scream - a woman’s scream. His heart jittered - the night had been a quiet one, bar the girl, not a single bird stirring, not a gust of wind running by, not a single cloud crying.

And then he saw - the fire. But not the friendly fire that smelled like home: it ripped across buildings that were once homes, across trees he intimately knew, across people. His people. Then a tsunami of loud crashes started - he couldn’t see clearly, still too short to reach the full height of the window. Thousands of shuddering cries of stone collapsing hit his ears like a slap. That was the time Altan learnt that fire was not the warm embrace of a god, but rather a path of destruction that left no survivors left.

After the lab was Irjah’s house - a small mansion in the corner of Sinegard. A part of him had changed after the lab, as if half of his soul, the very essence of who he was, was torn from his body, his mind. Irjah had looked so friendly at first; his nice bath, his warm smile, his expansive meal. And then he had pushed a small seed that smelt so familiar to Altan. He had told him that it would make him stronger. Wouldn’t he like to be stronger? Yes, yes, yes, he would, he would. He took it, in the precise way Irjah had instructed. Then, suddenly, it felt like it was Shiro’s lab again - his body was so numb, full of the nothingness that only opium could achieve. He was going to get hurt. He started to scream, the tears pricking from his eyes, begging for help, begging for a Hanelai to rescue him that he knew was dead. Irjah had scowled at him. He was pathetic. A red hand had been imprinted on his face for three days after that. He never cried in front of Irjah again. 

Of course, after that was Sinegard Academy, just as destiny had foretold. He briefly considered running away, it would be the best opportunity, but what was the point? Where was home? He was Sinegard’s favourite toy - he could always feel their eyes on him, staring, staring, staring, when he walked by, when he fought, in those brief, sparse moments when he talked.

Then, was the Cike; it was a home that wasn’t quite home. They loved him, and he loved them in turn. His first assignment as the Commander, after Tyr’s death, was to collect a young girl from Sinegard. Fang Runin. Of course, he’d seen her before, in Jiang’s garden, but he never paid her much attention - he never did with anyone, ever; it was just another person to disappoint you. Besides, she spent half that time covering her face and staring at the floor. 

He glanced at her and saw Hanelai. He looked at her and saw himself.

Oh, Rin. She was so young, barely young enough for this war, but that was all of them, wasn’t it? He knows she will be just as grief-stricken as he is; he finds he doesn’t care. She, too, will feel the kiss of death as she stands on the precipice of the cliff, he is sure of it - one day, Rin will understand everything. She was bound to.

If death was anything, it was love. It was a harsh, cruel love that robbed and stole, but it was love nonetheless, one that was permanent and unchanging - one that took indiscriminately, that thieved to all. If death loved him so much, it would take him now back home. Home. Speer.

The words were synonymous.

Well. No. Not quite. When he says he wants to go back home, he does not mean he wants to visit the wasteland where nothing is left behind, but rather, Speer twenty years ago, where he was untouched by the brush of death on the canvas of the world, where the painter was only the victors.

Altan thinks death will be peace - another reminder of why living was so cruel. It will be silence, at long last, an absolution of the guilt. He will no longer be the last Speerly when others deserved it more; he will no longer be the Commander of the Cike; he will no longer be the Speerly bitch, the insolent trash, the opium-addicted warrior who could barely lift his trident anymore.

He would be at home, around a fire, telling stories of heroes who fought in this war. He thinks the one will be a love story. One of Chaghan and himself. He thinks the one will be of Rin. A young girl who defied all expectations. A young girl who would live until she didn’t. A young girl who would find herself home again. He thinks the first will be of a time before, one of war, of catching fish with a trident entirely too big for him, of folk songs and dances around a bonfire in the light of the crimson sky.

It would be a lie to say if this wasn’t entirely selfish. He had craved this very moment since he was four - he had looked death in the eye and begged for its silence. He had dreamt - no, fantasised - of this moment since he was young, had touched death, had kissed it, but it did not love him back until now. Until he was marooned in front of this lab, a hundred people, ready to attack. He wanted nothing but this.

He looked at Rin, so small, so young.

“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met,” He tells her.

And then he lets her go, even in her daze of tears, and finds that he is not the darkness, but the light. He is fire. He runs towards the warriors, and he is embraced in the warmth of his god again.

Death kisses him.

Darkness engulfs him.

He’s home, at long last.