Chapter Text
Last night had been a whirlwind. They arrived to the room they were staying in for the night all the while getting caught up in a group of dancers who had pulled Ajaw and Kinich away from their goal that day.
Mostly because Ajaw wanted to use the drums.
Ajaw's eyes blink open in the comfortably warm morning sunlight and yawns from his place next to Kinich.
Then he realizes everything feels different.
It wasn't normal.
Ajaw takes a moment to make sense of everything and correct the fogginess in his head from sleep. He lifts his arm from his side to look at a…hand. Not a pixelated paw. A hand.
All he felt like he could do was yell in panic and flail around until he fell off the bed with a thud, his heart beating wildly in his chest.
Kinich sits straight up from the sound of the yelling, groggy from being woken up so suddenly but awake from the sudden yelling.
Kinich stares at the man that fell from his bed. Hadn't Ajaw been there? Ajaw stares back.
“Kinich-” Ajaw croaks, his hands trembling.
What in the archons…
“Ajaw…?”
Ajaw nods. His hair has yellow with neon green streaks in it, messy from sleep. How?
“What the hell.” Kinich says from his spot on the bed. He tried to make sense of it but he couldn't.
Then Ajaw turned back into his usual ‘bright’ self and started yelling out curses left and right. He was so confused and his whole body felt numb.
“Stop panicking…” Kinich sighed out, his eye twitching with annoyance. It's too early for this. “You're acting like a kid”
Ajaw frowned “I'll stop when this gets explained! What in the fuck is going on!?” He yells, staring at his now human legs and body.
Kinich rubs his eye in thought then crawls out of bed and helps Ajaw up, propping his shaky dragon friend against the bed before taking a step back. Kinich stared at Ajaw with his usual aloof expression.
“How are you so calm!?” Ajaw exclaimed, clutching his hair.
Kinich looked calm but in all honesty he was internally panicking.
So his best friend,who had been the same green pixelated dragon that sat on his shoulder or head was now a human. And was sitting on the floor now looking absolutely confused.
~ •••••••••• ~
It was now midday. Even though Ajaw wasn't ready for the day to move on yet, mostly because of the body he inherited somehow in his sleep.
He wanted this to be a dream. Maybe a nightmare. Maybe this morning was a nightmare.
Kinich had lended him some clothes which he put on then stuffed himself in bed under layers of blankets.
The hotel Kinich had gotten for them was spacious and today Kinich had to clean up the area since they'd stayed there for a few days while they explored around the pass between Natlan and the Sumeru Desert, which had a big mass of water they were supposed to go across today.
Ajaw watched from the bed as Kinich moved about and picked up the room.
How do you process something like this? How could Kinich stay so calm even though this was happening?
Ajaw only had questions running in his head. He didn't know where this body came from. How did he even inherit it without being there to physically posses it?
“Here. Maybe these boots will fit you. They're new.”
Kinich startles Ajaw out of his thoughts as he handed Ajaw the boots by the neck.
Ajaw had to bite back a gulp and instead responded with sass.
“Pffft. I don't need you to buy things for me”
He scoffs but still takes the boots.
Kinich rolls his eyes and puts on his coat, letting the hood and sleeves falling to his waist. Ajaw's eyes trail all the way down as the sleeves fall to Kinich's side.
Ajaw never got tired of their normal routine outside of bickering all day. Although today was different.
“Come on already!”
Ajaw groaned impatiently.
“You take so long to get ready..”
Kinich sighs and puts on his bandana, tying it to the back of his head.
“I'm done. We can go now” He reciprocates with sass.Kinich slings a backpack over his shoulder and opens the door.
Ajaw stares at Kinich for a second before standing up and walking out of the room, the door closing behind Kinich, who led the way to the receptionist's desk, placing the key down and thanking the old tired-looking lady, who nodded in response.
Ajaw looks forward at Kinich's back and couldn't help but poke Kinich with his gloved hand in between his shoulder blades.
Kinich whipped around and raised a hand to put Ajaw away but then realized he couldn't. So he sighed, a twitch in his brow then walked away to the dock.
Ajaw grinned ear to ear. At least there's a new and improved way to annoy Kinich.
They stepped onto the dock and waited near the boats, the blazing sun blaring onto Ajaw's back was more than unpleasant.
After about ten minutes of sitting and waiting, two familiar voices sounded from the right.
“Kinich!!”
Ajaw looked to his right and his eyes landed on two girls who he personally liked very much but he would never admit it to himself.
Mualani and Kachina approached, holding hands and waving enthusiastically at Kinich and Ajaw.
Mualani held her shark under her right armpit.
Kinich waved back through his arm cross as Mualani and Kachina got closer.
“Hey Kinich! Oh? Who's your new friend and where's Ajaw?”
Kinich sighs.
“This is Ajaw.”
Maulani smiles and looks from Kinich to Ajaw at least three different times before gasping loudly. Well that took a while to process.
“What? Wait, this is Ajaw? Isn't he usually a dragon?”
She takes a long look at Ajaw then gasps again.
“What!? Kinich isn't he not supposed to have a body till you…die?”
She whispers the word ‘die’ as if it were a sensitive topic. Ajaw liked that word. Especially when it meant Kinich would die.
Kinich nods. “We don't know what happened. So just be normal about it for now. We'll figure out what happened when we come back from Sumeru.”
Kinich explains, getting up from her place where he was leaning and led the way off the bank to the ferry they hired to take them to Sumeru.
Mualani and Kachina wanted to take a girls night out type trip out to Sumeru because a festival was supposedly happening there and they wanted to see what Sumeru was like. Mualani had asked Kinich if he wanted to come and Kinich agreed to go.
Of course Ajaw had to stay with him. But Ajaw wasn't so sure now if the contract was still in place now that he had a body. If the contract was null and void now, he wouldn't have to stay with the nuisance Kinich anymore.
But what would that mean for him?
For his own life? Him and Kinich had been together so long. Maybe he'd grown to like picking on Kinich and maybe…there was a possibility he'd grown attached to Kinich.
That would be wrong though. He's not supposed to like Kinich. He's supposed to hate him. Like he did when they first made the contract.
The ferry set off after they sat down and settled.
At first Ajaw bickered with Kinich and ended up kicking Kinich in the shin which got him hit on the head, which he only yelled at Kinich more for.
Then Ajaw went to the front of the boat and sat in front of the railing. He closed his eyes and felt the water spray hitting his face like mist fanning at you on a hot day.
He looked out and could see a small patch of faint land a while away.
When he wasn't being loud, he was quiet. It seemed normal for now to be quiet. Whether in Kinich's bracelet. Or…when he wasn't with Kinich he was quieter than usual.
Kinich was his main source to pick on and bully. He chuckled to himself. Today was different. There was so much noise in his head today that it was harder to be loud on the outside.
Although it came naturally to him to be loud. That much was clear because a few minutes ago the Captain of the ship had told him to be quiet.
Typical.
“Hey Ajaw?”
He turned around to face the white-haired girl with a voice so warm it made anyone open up. It even made Ajaw feel better sometimes.
“You're really quiet today. It's not like you to be alone. What's up?”
She sits down next to Ajaw and smiles at him with this look of…reassurance.
He scooted away a bit. Too close. She did that a lot.
“It's not like I'm unsettled or anything”
He scoffs.
“I'm just thinking about how I got this body. Kinich was the one who made a contract with me. Who would just give it up like that? Without wanting anything in return?”
Ajaw grumbles.
“It's pissing me off. And I don't know what Kinich feels about the whole thing either, which makes me furious. Why the fuck do I have to sit around guessing? Me? 𝘛𝘩𝘦 K'hul Ajaw."
He growls and pouts.
𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘢𝘮 𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘸? 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵?
Mualani sighs and touches Ajaw's shoulder.
“Just go with the flow! The waves will take ya somewhere, so let it go for now and worry about it later. Let's just have fun while we're in Sumeru for now! Alright?”
She smiles big again then skips off to the back of the boat where Kinich and Kachina stayed.
Ajaw looks back out towards the plot of water they skidded across.
Maybe it would be ok.