Work Text:
There was no before or after. He was born into this world having already existed, the powers that be twisting him into shape. They formed him from the knowledge of everything, and he became the everything they took. He was time, devouring its beginning and ending until there was nothing left to consume. The et’Ada followed him, spawning from its carcass, and stripped the remaining flesh from its bones.
A hunger remained.
His teeth ached, and his stomach twisted with emptiness. He consumed all in his path, hoping that anything would be able to satiate him. The famine lingered even when others bowed under his dominance. Perhaps they thought subservience would spare them from his hunger. It didn’t matter if it was their flesh or their fear, he ate it all the same. But fear made the crown upon his head, granting him God King.
And King he became.
And Akatosh he became.
He knew unquestionably that no matter what he ate or how much, he would never be satisfied. The world will end and begin and end and begin again, and he will be the same. Unmoving and unchanging in the stagnant world they had created. He knew it to be true, and he knew it to be untrue. For he saw the eternity as he knew it twisting and shaping before him. For he saw a future that changed the fabric of the universe he had sown. He saw it in the shadow that flickered at his feet. Its shape foreign to his own. There was not a name for the whispers that followed him, nor for the long dark hair that he saw in the corner of his eyes. The shadow lingered behind him, close enough to touch but never touching. Close enough to hear the shadow’s breathing, the sound of something alive.The whispers grew stronger and louder until it was a voice that called to him.
“Akatosh, God King,” the voice said.
He replied, “That is I. What say you?”
“I do not have a name, God King. I have not been seen as you have.”
“Then have yourself seen by me.”
The voice merely laughed, and the shadows faded from his reach. The voice said, “I will be seen. Shall it be you?”
“I have said it, so it will be so.”
“So it will be so.”
Yet the shadow eluded him. Its breaths caressed the back of his neck. Its cold fingertips brushed his own, but never had he been allowed to gaze upon its visage. Not even his Sight could discern the specter that followed him. It intrigued him. It infuriated him. At least, the shadow had forgone staying mute. A fact that loathed and delighted him in equal measure. Because once the shadow started, it took a miracle to get it to stop.
He asked, “Will you ever stop your chattering?”
The shadow giggled in the face of his caustic tone, “Once you have learned the importance of breath, do you fail to breathe? Once you learn what it is to hunger, do you fail to satisfy yourself?”
He paused at that. “Then you have not know hunger as I, Shadow.”
“What do you hunger for, God King? Surely, you may eat as you please?”
How could he explain the emptiness within him? The gnawing hunger that laid at the back of his mind since his creation. The insidious desire telling him to consume the fabric of this world, to eat everything and then eat the nothing that remained after that. He would. He would, he swore. But time yielded him. Time promised he will be whole, he must simply wait .
“Not even I may eat as I please,” he replied.
“And why is that?”
“There are powers in this world stronger than even me.”
The shadow turned somber, its voice dropping to a whisper. “And what of a world where that were not the truth, a world where nothing crested you. Do you imagine a world like that?”
“Every night.”
The shadow did not reply, but he knew it to be pleased. The thought pleased him as well. A world that he shaped in his image. A world where he controlled the powers that be. A delightful fantasy for him to indulge in. However, it seemed the shadow believed this world to more than fantasy. Lately, their conversations turned to this world more often than not. And despite himself, he became more and more invested in this world yet to be.
It also seemed that shadow no longer skulked behind only him. Magnus approached him with proper reverence, “My King, my God, I have heard the most unique of ideas. Look at what I’ve blueprinted.”
Akatosh looked at Magnus’s creation, and he smiled. His hunger subsided for one precious moment. “Bring the others.”
Not everyone was as eager. Mephala took one look at the plans and scoffed. She declared, “I will have no part in these machinations.”
“You do not wish to sculpt a world as your own? Of everyone, I thought you would see this opportunity for what it was.”
“For once, it is I who sees what it is in front of us.”
And perhaps she had seen what he could not. What he did not want to see. Because they worked day and night with no reprieve, the shadow’s whispering cloaking them in a haze. The shadow stuck so close to him he thought they were made of the same skin. Had they always been one?
They finished.
The shadow laughed and laughed. Its hair tickled his face when it whispered, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Its gratitude repeated ad nauseam.
It was beautiful.
“What is this?” Magnus cried. Akatosh watched as the architect's divinity started to merge with the core of their world.
It was trickery.
He watched as shackles descended upon them all. Magnus broke the chains, screaming, “We have been tricked! Who is this trickster who has damned us?”
Some et’ada awoke from their stupor to shake the chains from their body. Others watched helpless as their divinity was stripped from them. He felt the chains, yet he was more focused on the figure standing before him. Hair as black and deep as ink, so dark he believed his fingers would stain if he touched those strands. Its skin was the same color as the heavens, the glow ethereal. Its face was distorted and constantly morphing.
He said, “Shadow.”
Its features shifted into the approximation of a smile, “I have been seen. What say you?”
The name rolled from his tongue, “Lorkhan.”
Lorkhan nodded, his hair spilling to the ground, long and silky. “I am Lorkhan, God King. What say you?”
“I will consume you. I will rend your flesh from this world. I will destroy you.”
There was a sparkle in Lorkhan’s eyes, “Will I satisfy you?”
He watched as Magnus broke free of their world. Mundus, he heard a voice in his mind say. Other spirits followed his path, shining stars left in their wake. He watched the spirits who did not follow fall to the earth as they grasped the fleeting remains of their immortality.
He said, “I would never hunger again.”