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In Ororon's dream, he meets an echo of a Saurian companion faithfully waiting on the bank of the sea of souls.
The Iktomisaurus turns to gaze directly at him with huge, trusting blue eyes, never doubting him, believing wholeheartedly that he would return someday. The sight freezes him in his tracks. Ororon's throat chokes up.
A wave of emotions he doesn't understand crashes over him: loneliness and longing, love and grief.
Ororon lunges without thinking, gripping its ruff and pressing their foreheads together in an instinctive gesture of affection. The Saurian wraps its wings around him in an enthusiastic, fluffy embrace, cooing and chittering happily. They are finally reunited.
Now their souls can make one last journey together before returning to the sea, as they were always meant to.
Then the echo dissolves into mist, and Ororon remembers who he is, when he is.
That was the last of the hero Sanhaj's memories. He and his companion, Mahamba, both died hundreds of years ago.
Ororon is still alive.
The blazing Natlan afternoon is oppressively hot and bright – at least, it is for someone as sensitive to sunlight as Ororon. He'd rather do everything on a nocturnal schedule if he could. Daylight makes his eyes water, and his pallid skin begins to burn in mere minutes. He tugs listlessly on his hood in an attempt to shade his face as he surveys the state of his vibrant yard-turned-garden.
Pruning shoots and pulling weeds leaves Ororon in distress, like he's lying to his plant friends about what shape they're meant to take. As a result, his garden is overgrown and disorganized, with bold chrysanthemums springing up around humble cacahuatl, wild grainfruit ripening amongst the domesticated carrots and radishes, and colorful candlecaps and hornshrooms scattered higgledy-piggledy underneath the tangles and twists of his berry bushes. It's a far cry from the average farmer's neatly cultivated rows of crops, but his chest swells with quiet pride at the sight of them flourishing, despite the heat.
“Despite everything,” Ororon amends. “You guys are still getting greener. Good work!”
He meanders to the hand-dug well out back, and hauls up the battered old bucket in order to begin watering everyone. Ororon prefers to let every seed follow its own nature and grow however it pleases. They're happier this way. Maybe talking to his plants does make him as weird as people say. He doesn't understand the other kind of gardeners, the ones that cut off the ugly parts and chase away the insects and only grow the things they want to see. They don't even name their plants, let alone talk to them.
Ororon supposes they wouldn't understand his way, either. Most people don't.
Truthfully, Ororon does want to be around people, he wants to take care of them and help them however he can, but they're just... overwhelming. He may be named outcast due to the ill fortune of his birth, but it's not like he's some kind of hermit, secluding himself by choice the way Granny does. He gets lonely in between Ifa's rounds, the Traveler's demands, and the Captain's visits. It's just easier to breathe out here in the wilderness, on vast golden plains beneath open blue skies. When he can live off the land, and it's just him and the aphids, Ororon can be true to himself.
Ororon's pricked ears swivel until he locates the sound of wings buzzing. He crouches first to peek between the gaps in the densest concentration of foliage, in case they get self-conscious.
The phlogiston aphids flutter low to the ground, their waxy, swollen abdomens bumping clumsily against stems and leaves. Ororon smiles as he observes them from afar. When they grow heavy and slow with honey pearls, and especially on a hot day such as this, they are not graceful fliers. They move about as well as Granny does after finishing a bottle.
“Good afternoon, Unusually Sweet... Extreme Sweetness...” Ororon begins calling their names, one by one, to let them know he's there. He makes cups of his hands to carry water from his bucket over to his aphid friends, allowing them to land their fuzzy bodies on his fingers and drink. There are a lot of names to get through, though. “...Sweetness to the Max... Sweet as Honey. I think that's everyone. Drink your fill!”
They're hard workers who deserve to take a break. Phlogiston aphids have a very important purpose, even if they are too simple to be aware of it. They produce more honeydew than they need to survive, graciously allowing Ororon to share their gifts. And little by little, the aphids are consuming the seeping poison left everywhere the Abyss touches. The pearls they excrete are the byproduct of processing those contaminants and purifying their environment. Natlan is a better place with them in it.
Ororon does envy them that purpose. The best he can accomplish is growing produce and giving it away. Sometimes Ororon just feels too guilty to eat any of the vegetables himself.
“Granny? What's it like to be dead?”
Citlali pauses her meditative weaving to regard Ororon. Even this young, the child has an odd way of catching her off-guard. His unnervingly mismatched eyes gaze up at her and right through her. He's already seeing the world painted in a vivid spectrum of biofluorescent colors she had to spend decades of grueling studying in order to view.
“That depends on the circumstances,” Citlali says brusquely, deciding to take his query at face value. “Based on firsthand accounts from the Night Warden Wars, most fallen souls simply wander the Night Kingdom in tranquility. If they are anchored by an Ancient Name, the Wayob helps to keep them whole, to maintain their sense of self, for when our shamans call upon them or the Ode of Resurrection is performed.”
“And if they don't have a Name?”
“For those souls, death is like... a slow, gentle erosion.” Citlali is not one to simplify her explanations for the sake of the children she tutors. They don't need her to hold their hands. The youths learn at a faster pace than adults want to give them credit for, and Ororon is no exception. “Just as their body returns to the earth, their soul returns to the sea of souls, the current where all souls flow together and become as one. The individual they used to be is unraveled, and then a new soul can be woven from threads of their energy. Everything and everyone in Natlan is connected.”
“Is it like this everywhere in the world?” Ororon's pointed ears perk upright in curiosity. He scoots closer until he's seated at the hem of her skirts, still staring at her with round-eyed fascination like a baby Iktomisaur. “Are everyone's souls actually made of little pieces of people that don't exist anymore?”
“No. Only in Natlan,” Citlali corrects, hiding a smile. She picks up her lap loom and resumes the repetitive process of threading the yarn over and under, over and under. “The Night Kingdom is a closed cycle. It does not take in foreign souls, even if they die on our soil. That's also one reason it is considered taboo for us Natlanese to leave our nation. If we die in a foreign land, our souls can't find their way to the Night Kingdom, and our Names will be forever lost... Pass me that skein of purple yarn, would you? If you're just going to sit here taking up space, you'd better make yourself helpful, too.”
Seated across from Ororon, the Captain's commanding presence is something rough and stoic, but honest, like a rugged cliffside worn down by the winds of time, still standing as a trusted landmark for the surrounding forest. Or maybe more like a hardtack biscuit, difficult to bite into and crumbling at the edges, but good at its core. Ororon scarcely even registers the man's physical appearance anymore. The outside is the part that matters the least.
“You are troubled still,” the Captain remarks. Unhurried, he stokes the campfire with a long branch. An answering flurry of sparks flash from red to gold in their reflection on the gleaming metal of his helmet. “With your Name discovered, are you not absolved of your responsibility to save Natlan alone? You are undeniably a hero.”
Ororon fingers the velvet edge of his pointed ear until it flicks instinctively away from his touch. Those ears of his are sensitive in more ways than one. More than the crackle of their campfire and the rustle of shifting uniforms, they perceive the smoke-filled wind restlessly eddying beneath the earth, the shadowed whispers of souls hemorrhaging from the weakening Night Kingdom, and the residual echoes of Yohualtecuhtin's waking cry.
Ororon shifts uncomfortably in his seat before wilting.
“It's not... I mean, I... I don't feel like I did anything?” He gazes up at the expanse of the night sky, fruitlessly searching the constellations for any hint of answers. “Standing beside Kinich, Chasca, Mualani, Xilonen, and Iansan... I'm weaker than all of them. I don't belong on their level. I tried to fight during the invasion, but... I've never been much of a warrior. My tricks are for distractions, temporary misdirection, so... I don't know how much actual difference I made. So many souls passed before their time.”
“Every helping hand is contributing to the same cause. Support comes in many forms, and not all of them are glamorous,” the Captain counters, calmly folding his gloved hands in his lap. “We do not often thank the supporters that weave our fabrics, mine our ores, or farm our food, but what military campaign could succeed without clothing, weaponry, or rations?”
Ororon's gaze drops to his own hands, smudged with garden soil. Was he of use to his Archon? To his tribe? To anyone?
The Abyssal invasion and its aftermath are nothing but a surreal blur. Fear, anger, and sorrow register as smears of color distorting his vision, stinging electricity that dances across his skin, even deep vibrations that rattle his teeth inside of his skull. It's difficult for Ororon to even bear the sweaty press of bodies in a crowd, the static that thrums in his ears when strong emotions clash, and the dissonant cacophony of laughing, crying, shouting, grieving, singing, life. He remembers little of what transpired beyond the sensations that overwhelmed him.
“I don't quite know how to put this, so maybe it won't make sense, but... It doesn't feel real to me. None of this,” Ororon admits softly. His unique relationship to the Ley Lines has long made him question everything. “It feels like spirit-speaking or dream-walking, only I'm the dream, not the dreamer. The Night Kingdom is disintegrating beneath our feet as the sleeper is waking up, and... I'm powerless to stop the Lord of the Night from erasing me, because I'm just a figment of her dream.”
The Captain regards him for a solemn, contemplative moment.
Just when Ororon is about to apologize for being confusing and making it weird, the Captain leans forward, lowering his gravelly, scraping voice for Ororon's ears only.
“It is not uncommon,” the Harbinger says slowly, “For warriors exposed to acute Abyssal corruption to experience hallucinations or delusions, or to deny reality, along with physical symptoms of illness. However, based on our time together... It does not seem to me that this is a recent development. Is it, Ororon?”
“No,” Ororon agrees in a meek whisper.
Saying it out loud feels dangerous, like the illusion of the sky will come crashing down if he reveals his doubts. Guthred's violent invasion of his mind nearly shattered him. And now he has Sanhaj's conflicting memories of the Abyss to sift through and separate from his own, an entire lifetime of stories teetering on the brink of overflowing the boundaries of 'Ororon'. He remembers being Mavuika's boon companion once, even though Ororon is also the traitor. He loves and mourns the loss of dear Mahamba, even though Ororon has never met the Saurian.
He pulls his knees up to his chest and tucks his face low, letting his hood overshadow his eyes.
“If our plan succeeded,” Ororon ventures, "'I' would have ceased to have meaning. But I'm still here. Do I deserve to be?”
Ororon's soul is less than whole; he could be less than human, too.
They would never say it to his face, but Ororon remembers once overhearing Granny's younger students gossiping behind his back, saying he was sired by Elder Tlapo, and that's why his birth mother was too ashamed to keep him. As far as rumors about his parents went, it's one of the more ridiculous ones – but it wasn't like Ororon hadn't wondered himself what made his constitution so painfully frail, the threads of his defective soul threatening to unravel and unmake him at any moment. He would almost welcome the crude explanation if it would finally make sense of his tenuous existence.
It doesn't really matter to Ororon where he came from, though. Even if he does turn out to be part of a dream destined to end. Whatever the truth of his origins, someone like Ororon was never meant to live as long as he has already.
He just wants to make it all mean something before he disappears.
“Granny? Does it hurt to die?”
“Pain is only experienced through a body, so the soul will be released from its suffering,” Citlali clarifies, firm in her conviction. “Death is nothing to be afraid of, Ororon. It's a normal part of life for all of us. Now bend your elbow more. And keep those feet shoulder width apart like I taught you!”
Ororon ponders this information as Citlali impatiently corrects his sloppy archery stance. He's getting better at drawing the bow, but he still lacks strength in his scrawny arms and back. Puberty made him shoot up in height all at once, but he hasn't filled out his frame yet, so he's all angles and limbs and awkward, teenage clumsiness. The desire to improve is there, but the coordination is not.
Citlali clucks her tongue in disappointment as he releases the arrow and it flies wide of its mark. It'll be some time before the kid can actually hunt for himself.
“Um... Since my soul was put together wrong,” Ororon begins haltingly, still struggling to find the right phrasing to convey his vague understanding of her spiritual teachings. He lowers his bow as he turns to face Citlali. “Was I intended to die...? The pieces of my broken soul could be recycled to make a new, better soul. Right?”
Citlali tenses, the weight of her years settling like stones on her shoulders. She swallows hard around a guilty lump in her throat. If nothing else, she owes him honesty.
“That... is the decision that was made for you in your infancy, yes.”
“But I lived anyway. Only because it failed,” Ororon concludes. He hesitates at Citlali's sour expression, but still forges forward, putting the final pieces into place. “I think it might have been better if I died. Someone new could be made from my spare parts. Someone people wanted to keep.”
It strikes Citlali suddenly that she has to look up to meet his eyes. She used to carry Ororon as a little bundle wrapped in her arms; that strange, doomed foundling someone discarded like trash on the side of the road. He was never formally adopted by anyone in the tribe. Various aunties and uncles just pitched in as group caretakers whenever they had time to spare. Citlali was no different.
When she wasn't looking, Ororon grew up all by himself.
“I don't want someone new,” Citlali objects with a sudden ferocity that surprises even herself. She pulls Ororon into an abrupt hug, making him squeak in shock. “You're my grandson now. You're the one I want to keep. You have to take good care of this soul for my sake, okay? Remember to carry your stabilizing gem with you at all times! I'll know if you lose it!”
“Grannyyy,” Ororon protests, squirming unsuccessfully in her grasp. “I'm being serious! Would Natlan have been saved if the ceremony succeeded?”
Citlali, for once, chooses not to answer.
If Ororon was laid to rest in the cool, dark loam of his garden, his would be an undisturbed slumber. No one would find his deserted shell for weeks. His soul would traipse the Night Kingdom at his own pace, naming every rock he encountered, while embercore flowers sprouted from between the gaps in his ribs, and quenepa bushes reclaimed his limbs. Acacia branches could unfurl from the hollow of his throat up to the sky, where the alpacas and long-necked rhinos could lip at his thorns. He would feed the flowers as he decomposed, which would in turn feed his aphids, which would feed animals and people alike, and the endless cycle would continue.
It's a comforting fantasy: to be useful, and to be at peace. But it is only a fantasy. Granny would be most cross with him if he slipped away from her again.
Plus, no one would bring the aphids water on hot days. They'll get so thirsty.
“However long or brief it may be, you deserve to live on your own terms.” Cold metal. Firm pressure. The Captain's gloved hand is clamped reassuringly on Ororon's shoulder, grounding him in his reverie. His pointed ears perk up to focus on the Captain. “Regardless of whether that life has a purpose or not: to preserve life itself, and prioritize survival - that is the creed I fight for, is it not?”
As a log shifts, the fire spits out another crackling round of sparks. The tiny glowing points hang suspended between them like stars, before winking out, one by one.
Ororon gazes searchingly into the lightless void beneath the helmet where the Captain's eyes should be, but finds nothing. However bittersweet the color of his words, however painful they are for him to speak, Ororon can still sense that the Captain means everything he says.
“You are the hero Bidii, that which is devotion. You are the Ororon who fought Guthred for the right to exist, and won through sheer force of will,” the Captain reminds him. “I would not be here – and Natlan would not be victorious in this battle – if you were not here. But your worth is not determined by the weight of your contributions. I believe you are worthy of existence simply because you exist, here and now. There is no higher meaning than that.”
As the Captain pats him on the back and makes to leave, Ororon exhales slowly and brightens. The warmth of gratitude tickles in his chest, making him feel light enough to take flight.
The longer Ororon lives, the more he has to question, and the more doubts he finds instead of answers. His Ancient Name was supposed to reveal his purpose, but his purpose turned out to be the search for a purpose itself. Maybe he'll never understand himself, and maybe he'll start to forget where he ends and Sanhaj begins, and his circuitous mind will end up even more tangled and twisted than Granny's yarn pile. It's scary to think about. Everything is so complicated right now.
Worrying about a future that is not yet set in stone does no one any good, though. Watering the garden, taking care of the wounded, offering food to people and animals that need it, that's at least more useful in the present. He just has to keep moving forward... Right?
That's all anyone can do right now.
“Um... Wait!” Ororon takes a deep breath to steel his nerves, then reaches out to grasp the Captain's shoulder. “Before you leave... Would you like to take some of my vegetables?”