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All his life, he has only been told one thing– that he must not turn around. It is inscribed into his very soul, his ancient name itself decrying those that did not follow its edict.
He must keep pressing forward. He must. He is Turnfire Kinich, and he must not turn around. To look back is to accept a fate worse than death.
~
He meets Mualani in the summer, when the air gets so hot it feels like everywhere he goes he's only steps away from a bonfire. Her eyes have a kind of charm in them he generally tries to avoid. People like her, he's long realized, people who face the world with passion in their hearts and smiles on their lips, have a tendency to try and drag him into things he wants no part of.
He's sure she would, too. He's seen her before, at the pilgrimage, and watched as she would take every opportunity to talk or to dance or to do whatever else involved integrating herself with other people. For years he has watched her, alone, from the sidelines, without once speaking to her.
“Hey,” she says. “Kinich, right? I have a commission for you.”
He turns. Mualani is behind him, waiting. She smiles.
“What kind of commission?”
“Battle training,” she replies. “A friend of mine just got her ancient name, and she's worried about the Pilgrimage.”
He looks Mualani up and down. She doesn't look like a warrior, not really, but she has never seen the untamed depths of the Night Kingdom nor felt the heat of the sacred flame. By any account, she would make a better teacher than him.
“What's in it for me?” He asks. His tongue moves before he can think, acting on reflexes honed by taking on countless commissions. He ought to reject her, and should have done so already.
“The pleasure of my company,” she quips, tossing him a bag of mora. There's enough inside to give him pause.
She laughs, the sound clear and bright in the lazy, humid air.
“They told me you were mora-minded, Kinich, but I didn't realize it was this bad.”
“You know me?”
She laughs again, like the idea of not knowing him is so ridiculous she can't imagine it. He doesn't know that anyone has ever felt that way about him.
“Of course I do. I've seen you at the Pilgrimage.”
He did not realize that anyone really saw him at the Pilgrimage, let alone enough to remember him. It makes him a little uneasy, suddenly worried that she might have a poor opinion of him.
He doesn't know why he's afraid. A great number of people have a poor opinion of him, and he has never cared before, but when it comes to Mualani he finds himself nervous. Perhaps– if even someone like her dislikes him, then there is no hope for him.
“You're a good fighter,” she says. “I know you'll teach Kachina well.”
“I haven't accepted,” he protests, but in his chest he holds on to the compliment.
“You haven't turned me down,” she replies, a mischievous look on her face.
He hasn't. He's already pocketed her mora. The weight reassures him.
“I haven't,” he echoes. He sticks out one of his hands, hoping the movement looks practiced instead of awkward. He's never done this before. “I remember you too, Mualani.”
~
The abyss draws closer. He can feel it pressing down on him like a beating heart. Someone nearby screams, but he must not turn around. If he turns around, he'll see if she's still there, and no matter if she is or isn't he will, for a moment, freeze. That moment is all the forces of the abyss need to tear him apart. If Mualani has fallen– which she hasn't, he tells himself– if he at least survives than she can be reborn.
But he must not turn around.
~
“Kinich!” She says happily, calling him over to where she stands at her shop. He begins to move towards her before even becoming aware that he's taken a step, like he's being pulled by some force that he cannot understand, but even once he gets a grip on his senses strong enough to choose to stop he keeps going.
Mualani smiles. She's always smiling, but this one is different, softer. He hasn't seen her look at anyone else with it but he does not imagine that it is reserved solely for him.
“What brings you to the people of the springs? Knowing you, let me guess–”
“A commission,” he interjects, finishing her sentence.
“You should have told me you were coming. I would have thrown a party.”
“Maybe that's why I didn't,” he says, deadpan.
She laughs as if his words were a joke, which he supposes they were. If they made her happy, then he's willing to act like he wasn't being serious.
“Don't look so worried. I know you wouldn't like that. Still, I would have gotten something nice for dinner, you know.”
“You don't–”
“I do!” She insists, flitting about her shop and flipping all the open signs to closed. “In fact, we're going shopping right now. You better get yourself something nice, because I'm paying.”
“I couldn't possibly ask you to do that.”
“Alright, I get it.”
She steps out from behind the counter and looks at him with a wide smile.
“In that case, I'm going shopping and you're coming with me.”
“I–”
“You wouldn't be coming into town if you didn't have time. Come along, now– I don't you don't get yourself nice things half as often as you should.”
He doesn't care about such things, nor does he care about gifts at all. Mualani does, though, and so he follows her out of her shop.
~
The only thing he can hear is his heart pounding in his ears. He knows that the abyss is behind him, that if he falters even once their monsters will tear him limb from limb.
The exit is near. He knows it, can already see it. If he can only reach it, he will live, and the pyro archon can bring back Mualani, and the world will continue to be a place worth protecting.
He hears her scream his name.
As he turns, while it is too late to stop himself but not too late to recognize his foolishness, he thinks– oh. It was always going to happen like this. I was always going to turn around.
His ancient name, for a moment almost palpable, seems to smile sadly at him. He feels abyssal claws tearing into him, and then nothing.
~
“You know,” says Mualani, the night before they are to leave on their expedition, “I like spending time with you.”
“I'm not too much of a wallflower for you?”
She laughs, her legs dangling off the roof of his house. She won't fall, she's too aware of her own body to make such a silly mistake, but if she does he'll catch her. One of his hands rests on his vision, while the other sits just behind hers.
“No,” she explains, “not at all. I love a good party, don't get me wrong, and think you should let yourself have a little more fun, but I get tired sometimes too. You're refreshing, though. I never want to go home when I'm with you.”
He struggles to speak for a while, his words getting caught in his throat. He's never been like this, he's always direct, but as he watches her watch the sunset he realizes that Mualani has always done things to him that he did not understand.
“You're not bad either,” he tells her, but it's not what he meant to say.
~
He feels warm. It's nice, after the cold of the abyss. It smells like antiseptic, but beneath that he can smell air and water and wood and he knows he's home.
Home– he forces his eyes open. He is alive, his stomach split open but still breathing, and in a room he doesn't recognize. Mualani–
Is in a bed on the other side of the room, unconscious. He stumbles out of his own bed and all but crawls towards her.
He reaches for her hand, finds it warm, and takes it. Her chest rises and falls like a wave. Her eyes are closed, but despite his failure she is still alive.
“Mualani,” he whispers, because he has to say it even though she can't hear it. “I love you.”