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1.
Aha liked surprising others for as long as they remembered their existence.
Not in a way that drew excited gasps from people’s open mouths, as they giggled and blushed, thanking someone behind the picture, but in a way, when people’s eyes shot wide open from a mixture of terror and utter confusion from their antics, asking all over again: why? How ?
Yet for all the fun Aha had, they also got used to a quite simple truth—a scriptwriter cannot play the main role.
They could spend everything on surprising others, but none of them will actually succeed in leaving them speechless.
At least, it was the case until Akivili .
Their dear, unique, Akivili. The only one of their kind.
Akivili—Akivili, who was impossible to catch out of guard!—carried themselves like a walking puzzle; the titbit . They, who cared about humans enough to bother to present them in their human form, to adapt to their lifestyle; they, who balanced in the thin life of godhood and humanity; they, who recognised Aha despite their best attempts to mould behind another human form; and they, who despite that, allowed them to stay in the Astral Express.
They… Who weren’t angry in the slightest as their best creation blew up, being torn apart in two.
‘My dear, dear friend! Is that all you have for me?’ Aha pouted, putting hands on their hips, waiting. Watching . ‘A short sigh?’
Akivili traced the remains of the Parlour Car with their shiny amber eyes. Noticing that their favourite reddish sofa survived the explosion, they lazily plopped on it, throwing hands on sofa’s back.
‘Hm? What else have you expected, Aha?’ They asked, delightfully confused .
What else?
Oh, but there were so many things that Aha expected!
The concerning anger mixed with palpable hatred. A beautiful picture of the walking tragedy—the most human-like Aeon suffering the loss of their creations; both Nameless followers and the pieces of the train that Akivili so gently called their baby .
Yet, Akivili, whose hands dangled in the air, making a golden pocket watch that was wrapped around their thin wrist sway lightly, hardly seemed sad.
Somehow, it was even more beautiful. Not an expected tragedy, but a joyous masterpiece.
‘Oh, my dear friend,’ a loop-sided grin touched Aha’s distorted, disgustingly mortal features, ‘but who would’ve thought! Such an indifference coming from you, and not someone like our cold, cold Fuli! Aiya!’
Akivili smiled.
Simply as that.
‘Why shouldn’t I be indifferent? This train can be renovated,’ they beckoned them with their fingers, inviting closer. ‘And it will be. Now, and much later. Through centuries, it will change endlessly, with or without me.’
Unable to decline such a gracious offer—always too hungry to decline Akivili —Aha moved closer, settling down on them, with head on their lap, allowing unusually cold hands to cup their chin.
‘But dear comrade, lives of people are not something you can return,’ Aha giggled. ‘Or had you forgotten? They are not you. They die, and they don’t return, ha-ha! Silly, silly!’
Akivili chuckled.
‘I am aware. But isn’t death is just another part of the path I pave for my people?’ Not a mockery or joke, but a serene question. ‘I genuinely believe that you cannot follow Trailblazing without accepting this inventible force.’
Aha blinked a few times, ridiculously long eyelashes they cast on the new vessel just to bat around Akivili, prickling.
Ah.
Akivili, their smart and wise Akivili, was nothing akin to the idiocy of these other Aeons, who kept fighting with their own, wavering morals, never truly understanding what their paths were about.
‘My treasure!’ Aha laughed so hard that their stomach hard as their lanky arms wrapped around Akivili’s neck, tight and suffocating. ‘A one could assume that you befriended death, ha-ha!’
And then, Akivili—as if they didn’t crawl their way to Aha’s heart already, by preparing surprises, by being a walking riddle—smiled. Smiled so brightly that the sun could envy it. Smiled so widely that their dimples showed up and canine teeth flashed, just for a second.
‘Perhaps, I did. Perhaps, me and them are walking side by side,’ they jested back.
‘Oh, Akivili! I love you so much! You are so smart—I want to get inside your head and eat your brain, bit by bit.’
‘You are so charming, Aha. I might allow you to get away with that, too.’
It is much later that Akivili kisses them breathlessly as they hide from Pom-Pom, restless children in bodies of omnipotent Aeons, making Aha’s perfectly created human shell melt under gentle touches like a wax would under the destroying fire.
And as Akivili takes them apart with the same carefulness they chose to use, when they tinker with details of the train, Aha keeps chanting between screams, again and again—surprise me. Surprise me more, my lovely Akivili. Never stop.
And it is the closest thing to a prayer that had ever left their tainted lips.
2.
Akivili was known for being a quite generous being, to both, their followers and their enemies.
They didn’t care about anything that held a special meaning for mortals—either it was money, or some pieces of art—and they easily could give up anything to anyone, without thinking about it twice; something that the most Aeons could never relate as their greed and arrogancy made them deafening fools.
Akivili’s selflessness was something that Aha both adored and hated about them. But it wasn’t something that made them gasp in astonishment.
What made Aha shiver in anticipation, however, turned out to be Akivili’s hidden possessiveness.
‘I don’t like it,’ they hissed against their pointed ear—Aha pretended to be another survivor of the extended race this month—wet lips brushing against reddened skin. ‘I don’t like him .’
While Pom-Pom completely banned Aha from ever putting their feet in the Astral Express, they were rather poor in their attempts to see through their masks of never existing people; and so, Aha spent most of their time sneaking around, pretending to be another Nameless. It didn’t matter if in the end their cover was ruined; they always find their way back.
Because Akivili was there.
And because getting on the nerves of a bunch of awed followers of Akivili was the funniest thing in the world, of course.
No one liked Aha’s meat costumes—too loud, too cryptid, strange and rude—to miss them once they disappeared eventually, always under the different reasons, but sometimes they made a friend of a few; or, at least, humans thought of them this way.
Usually, Akivili was enjoying Aha’s attempts to blend in.
Until today.
‘My dear! Are you… Are you jealous ?’ Aha wheezed, filling chambers with concerning noises that they knew for sure would disturb others.
They weren’t prepared for this in the slightest .
Not even for a second, Aha could imagine being cornered by Akivili as soon as they entered their personal room, pushed against the door from behind. How could they ever assume that it would be gentle, ever-loving Akivili, mauling on their opened neck in a fit of jealousy, and not them ?
‘I am not,’ Akivili protested weakly, their smart hands moving down from their chest to hips, squeezing it. ‘I just don’t like the way he kept moving closer to you. He was clearly flirting, wasn’t he?’
Didn’t it sound like a joke? That Akivili—the one to always openly ready to destroy themselves to save planets—could share their own existence and to tear parts of themselves to others to feast with it, but not Aha ? That they drew a line on them?
It sounded like the most ridiculous prank in the world.
And Aha was elated !
‘Ah, my sweet Akivili, can’t you see?’ They moaned, tipping their head back. ‘I am all yours. Always were.’
They were; always had been from the very beginning.
For them alone, Aha was ready to burn the world down, not out of a joke, but out of anger . For them, they were ready to do everything and anything.
‘You say that, but, Aha,’ they mouth back, their crooked nose nuzzling in Aha’s temple, ‘I am nothing if not yours.’
‘Mine,’ they agreed with a low rumble, scratching their claws against the wooden surface as their fake skin shredded chaotically. ‘If I had a soul, it would be yours.’
How nice it could be, to lock up Akivili! All to themselves! With these stupid twats no longer bothering their time together!
‘Open my chest raw and eat my heart,’ Akivili muttered. ‘It is useless if it not yours, anyway.’
Or maybe not.
Maybe it would be nicer, if Akivili imprisoned them!
Either way, none of them could deny the other. And that wouldn’t change.
3.
Akivili was never the one to shed tears, neither from joy nor out of grief.
Their round face with dark eyebags under narrowed eyes was always too calm, slightly apathetic, even. They still smiled warmly, in a way it instantly lit up the whole room by its intensity, but their eyes were too empty to make them look overjoyed .
Death and terror swam past them, and Akivili did nothing but tip their conductor’s hat towards it in the highest respect.
It was hard to imagine Akivili crying.
Until this exact moment.
As they were sitting on their knees before bed, where Aha laid lazily, with arms thrown widely by both sides of theirs, Akivili wept.
It were silent tears that were hard to spot on without looking directly at it. They poured down their whitish cheeks without a single sound. If Aha didn’t turn their head, confused by the lack of response from their usually talkative friend, they wouldn’t even realise that they were crying.
‘My dear friend!’ Aha’s voice pitched, struggling between an unfamiliar mixture of surprise and fear; concern , even. ‘My precious Akivili, why are you crying?’
They were quick to slide down on the floor and touch their cheeks, starting to catch drops of tears with their fingertips.
How come they weren’t golden, they wondered absent-mindedly.
‘I am… I am crying for a child you were once,’ Akivili answered simply, their voice hoarse. ‘I am crying for that kid, because I know that no one else did.’
Ah.
Their joy was crying because of them!
And not because Aha did something wrong again—because that wouldn’t be surprising enough, would it?—but merely because they cared about Aha so much that they were willing to take the burden that they abandoned a thousand years ago on themselves.
‘Akivili,’ Aha giggled, pressing their foreheads together, bumping their noises gently, ‘my sweet joy, if I knew that you would be so emotional over a crumpled box with useless memories about my childhood, I surely would keep it to myself! Ah, don’t cry, don’t cry—or I will cry, too!’
They kissed their wet cheeks and licked on their tears, disgustingly so. Still, their ticklish Trailblazer only laughed unwillingly, dragging Aha on their lap hastily.
‘You? Crying?’ Akivili sighed on their collarbones as their had landed on Aha’s shoulder. ‘Aha, you are the Elation. Wouldn’t it be strange?’
‘For you, my dear friend, I would cry a river. Only for you.’
If there was someone, who was worth of the Joy getting destroyed for it, then it was Akivili. Without a single doubt.
‘Please, don’t,’ Akivili pressed their lips to the right side of their neck slowly. ‘The slightest thought of you, being hurt because of me, pains me deeply, Aha.’
‘Then, don’t leave me alone for too long! This way, I will have no reasons to cry!’
‘You don’t even need to ask me. How can I ever leave you, Aha?’
+1.
But they did.
Or, at least, that was what the world kept saying—Akivili, the Aeon of Trailblaze, died. Left the world, leaving behind themselves nothing, but scattered pieces of themselves named Stellarons.
No matter how many times Aha bullied Fuli into attempts to get them to find Akivili’s last memories, or to stop other Aeons from spreading lies, no one was listening to them. They buried Akivili in the instant, without trying to find the truth.
And the truth… It was there all the time, right under their noises.
Akivili had never broken their promises.
And if they promised Aha to always be by their side, then, they will do just that.
It was the thing that Aha adored the most about them, in fact—their stubborn ability to keep their word, even if it required them to turn the world up and down a few times. Because with all Aha’s obsessions with unexpected twists of the story and challenging turns of destiny, they could never not hate being unsure in the ones they kept close to their heart.
So, Aha waited.
The years passed in a blur, stories of the renewed Astral Express—a useless copy of once used to be theirs—filling the world again, and Akivili still wasn’t back. Not only that, but they were out of the tracks. Unable to be found.
And Aha…
And Aha couldn’t make themselves laugh, even if they wanted to.
They stopped appearing around their followers, entrusting all chaos in the world to their Masked Fools blindly, and locked themselves in their domain without a single wish to put their feet back in the mortal realm.
After all, Aha had never been fond of humans. Akivili was.
And with Akivili not being around, it didn’t matter any more.
Until now.
Until someone found them, barged inside their domain, ever rudely, and brought back an odour that Aha shamefully managed to forget for all these years.
The scent of hot metal, mixing with dust and machine oil.
‘You failed to surprise me this time,’ they whispered, no smile evident on their face as they refused to face their visitor; either out of childish resentment or a fear to be wrong. ‘Getting old, my dear friend?’
The floor behind them cracked lightly as the inhuman shadow of the Aeon towered over Aha; the rarest they had even seen Akivili.
‘You know me too well to be surprised by anything now, Aha,’ they replied carefully, a worried warmth touching their voice. ‘Let me return to my human form and crack my chest open. You will still trace my ribs with your eyes closed.’
Finally, they laughed.
They laughed so hard that tears escaped the cracks in the mask; a proof of the gentle surrender.
‘At least, you kept your promise, my silly Akivili!’ They sobbed.
‘I always will. I told you.’
‘You are getting boring,’ Aha laughed, sniffling quietly, the countless amount of masks surrounding them trembling along with its owner.
‘I do. But you still love me.’
And they did.
Because, in the end of the day, Akivili could be the most boring creature in the whole universe, but Aha would be still crawling back to them.
‘I haven’t been near as fun as we used to be together, my dear friend,’ they said, instead.
‘I don’t care. Stain me with your tears as much as you want—I will love you even more.’
On the next day, Aha returned to the mortal realm with yet another explosion—in the Herta’s space station now; the Astral Express joke was getting rather old—while simultaneously sneaking up in the another masquerade hosted by their Masked Fools, with a strange man in the conductor’s hat by their side.
But it didn’t matter.
What did, that Akivili stayed true to their word.
And Aha…
And Aha still loved them as much as in the day they met.