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“We need a sacrifice to complete the ritual!” Tierra called urgently. Teo froze. It’d been long since he made up his mind to stop the obsidians without a sacrifice, but being faced with it now, he had no idea what he was doing. Time was running out, and without a sacrifice, Sol wouldn’t come back, and the obsidians couldn’t be sealed away. They might have been pushed back by the power of Sol’s body being brought together, but it wouldn’t last for long.
But after all that had happened, this couldn’t be it. Teo hadn’t fought to survive against celestial beasts, to survive against Chupacabra herself, for there to be another sacrifice. All those days ago, on the Dias with the ceremonial blade in hand, he hadn’t refused to kill Auristella just for there to be more death.
The fighting went on around him, Dios and semidios alike all screaming for their case. Name after name was called out, cries and pleading echoing on top of each other for what felt like hours.
Ocelo thinks it should be themselves.
Lumbre calls for Auristela to be the sacrifice, to finish things the way they started.
Aurelio, and Teo thinks this one nearly frustrates him the most, offers himself up again.
On and on until-
“Why shouldn’t the sacrifice be me?” Teo’s head snapped towards Xio. He’d gotten so used to them the way they were acting in the woods -scared sure, but more willful than they’d ever acted during the trials- that hearing them speak in such a small voice again was almost jarring. “I chose to work with the obsidians. I brought them back, shouldn’t I be the one who puts them away again?”
Murmurs form in every corner of the room. Once again, everyone is talking over each other, except this time there is only one name in everyone’s mouths. Xio.
All Teo can think is why. Why does there have to be a sacrifice? Why does someone always need to die at the end? Why does it feel like no matter what he could’ve done, this was always going to end the same? Why can’t they find another way?
He turns to Tierra, and Sol’s lifeless form. Why are they turning to Sol once more, when it was under their leadership that this system came to be?
Realization hits Teo like a bus.
For all this time, the gods have been following the example of Sol. Their will, their orders. Mortals might have lost their autonomy to the Dios, but the Dios lost their autonomy to their worship. If the rest of the gods are not infallible, then why would Sol be?
“Wait!” Teo’s voice was a single droplet in a rainstorm, lost to the masses. He turns back to Xio, and before anyone could process, Teo takes the dagger from their hands. If words wouldn’t get their attention, then action would. “Would all of you just wait!”
In seconds all eyes are on Teo. A few mouths open, some ready to tell him off, some ready to make sure he isn’t planning on killing himself then and there. Teo speaks again before anyone else can. “What if we don’t need to bring Sol back?” Teo quickly realizes he probably should have gone with context first, declaration second.
“And what else should we do? Sit here and watch while the obsidians tear apart all of Reino Del Sol!” It’s unsurprising when Lumbre is the first to dismiss him. Her eyes flare like coals, and Queztal takes a protective step in front of Teo. He steps back in front of his mother, and gives Quetzal a hopefully reassuring look, and then faces Lumbre directly.
“No. What you’d do is face the system, face the harm you have created in this world, yourself. We have all of Sol’s body here, and the combined power of nine Dios, seven of which are golds, and you want to choose a living sacrifice over making a decision on your own?” This time, it isn’t just Lumbre that reacts. Nearly all the Dioses in the room range from offended confusion, to shock at Teo’s audacity, to pure unfiltered anger. Teo thinks the second one shouldn’t be surprising by now.
“Perhaps the child has a point.” Tierra speaks up from his position leaned over Sol, and Teo joins the rest of the crowd in confusion. Tierra rises to his full height, somber but determined. “We all revere Sol, almost to the same point mortals revere us. We never question their will. So,” for a split second, his voice catches, “why should we question his decision to leave us? Maybe.. maybe Sol understood that the majority could never be properly led by purely the minority, and that he was the figurehead of that leadership. All those thousands of years ago, maybe we were meant to start ruling without their guidance, not follow in their footsteps.” Tierra seemed pained to say it.
“I agree. With the boy and with my fellow Dios.” It was Suerte’s turn to speak up now, apparently. “Sol chose for my son, for Xio, to be in the trials. Sol chose him despite the possibility of the apocalypse. What if he gave us a reason to bring his body together, all the stones in one place, as a chance to make things right? We have a body to sacrifice, a body imbued with the power of Sol, and all of our collective power. Sol is telling us there is another way.”
Teo wasn’t sure how much he ran with the whole ‘this was all a big setup by Sol to fix things’ idea, but that could’ve just been the newly discovered knowledge that his entire perception of the world was wrong warping his view, and the conversation seemed to be going down the right track anyway. So of course, Lumbre speaks up.
“Why are we listening to a jade child? Have we truly fallen so low in the wake of the obsidians? What if his idea doesn’t work? We will have wasted our time and given the obsidians a chance to regain their advantage!”
“But if it works? We will have saved the world without further death. No one here will lose someone or be lost.” Suerte spoke up again, Quickly followed by Primavera. “I must admit it feels blasphemous to agree, but if there truly is a way to avoid another sacrifice, is it not worth trying?” This time, the room stayed quiet. People shared looks across the floor; whispered their thoughts to each other. The whispers sounded like shared agreements. Teo’s heart sped. Was this happening? Could they really make this happen?
“Are you all really set on this?” Lumbre questioned the room. “Are we really doing this?” Tierra turned to her. “I think we are.” No one refuted him. Tierra, with slow moving hands and soft eyes, lifted the body of Sol from the ground. He approached the center of the room. With looks of hesitation, the other Dios slowly followed suit.
As Teo’s mom passed him, she reached out, and he placed the ceremonial dagger in her hand. When the Dios had all formed a circle, Quetzal gently offered the Dagger to Tierra. Silently, he took it. The Dios all began to pull from their own power, glowing energy of nine colors swirling around Sol’s body.
Tierra plunges the dagger downwards, releasing a flash of light grand enough to blind the crowd, while the obsidians screamed their fruitless vengeance from the edges of the room and vanished to the stars. Tierra’s hands clutched around where Sol’s body once was; Niya ran over to be next to her grieving father. The Obsidians had been quelled, and Sol was gone forever.