Archive of Our Own

The dew-kissed grass sways beside his heavy boots but Kakavasha has no mind to watch its dance. He vaults over a fallen log, gloves brushing moss, and lands safely on the forest floor. No time to lose. He casts one glance over his shoulder to find only the woods but he does not stop running. It is on the wind, the Hunt. In a thousand years it still will be.

Kakavasha hastens through the brush. His leather coat and belts care little about the twigs and thorns that reach for him but the parts of his face not covered by his mask are more affected. A shallow cut above his brow, a nick to his ear. He clicks his tongue. No more effort. No more to give to complaints.

A branch falls in the forest far behind him and his blood runs cold as much as his legs keep running. Faster yet, over stone and moss and creepvines. Faster yet, with his bag weighed down by spoils.

Kakavasha wipes the sweat from his brow with the clear water of a river. The blood goes with it, down the stream and out of view. He takes a second to drink from his cupped palms, to steady his heart, and then he runs once more.

A thicket blocks his way along the old road. Kakavasha wrenches his well-worn daggers from their sheaths and slices away in a few clean cuts. The Hunt does not need to follow the traces, the Hunt simply follows.

The wound over his brow closes with the sap of a gilded tree pressed to it. No true love’s kiss but there is no more blood. Another careless second wasted on the human body but Kakavasha knows what else lurks in these woods.

He runs, as he always does, down a steep hill into a ravine. The deep forest lays just ahead, towering trees and their firmament of boughs. There is no climbing back up, no hiding from the Hunt. But perhaps, in the brimming breathing coil of these woods, it could find its pursuit too troublesome.

Kakavasha takes a deep breath and breaches the threshold. A foreign domain, cold shivers down his spine the moment he sets foot in this grove. The warm summer night around him takes second stage to this moon-frozen maze of ancient trees. His vision blurs. Leaves drift past him like air bubbles in a shallow ocean. Every trunk seems blue and dark. Magic stirs below his feet.

But behind him lays the valley of the Hunt- so Kakavasha presses on.

The dark closes in on him. He is given no moment of encroaching, of a gentle nightfall. One second the forest exists and the next there is only void. Kakavasha gasps but his voice is gone and his eyes blind.

There is terror, first. Then second follows intrigue swift on its heels. What god summons a moonless night? What god suffocates its faithful in nothingness?

N I H I L I T Y, he mouths into uncaring air. Kakavasha closes his hopeless eyes and walks, blind, through the forest of nothing. He has done so before, after all.

To his left something rustles through the brush. Small, fuzzy, harmless. A rabbit? A squirrel? He walks in its direction and it scurries away. Kakavasha follows its path, the noise of prey. He has no mind to play the predator but its well-chosen paths can suit him fine.

His boots catch on a snare root, the forest itself clinging to him. Kakavasha shakes it off- the ringing in his ears, too, and the flutter of wings to his right. His lips twitch. Apologies, birds are too hard to follow.

His boots dip into wet mud, then damp leaves. Every sound a story. Kakavasha follows the rustling, the creature that blazed a trail for him. He stumbles a few times. He stumbled the last time, too.

Sound begins to bleed from the world. Kakavasha focuses on what remains, reaches far. No matter how hard he tries, the last remnants of a world abandon him. He has no voice to cry out for it, no sights to grieve. Hairline fissures spread through porcelain and for a moment he wishes to crumble, to fall to his knees and wail for all that he lost.

But Kakavasha prevails and continues, each and every time. He braved harsher storms, cheated death a thousand times. Even if the Nihility finds his brain familiar ground, even if the rivers of monotony it floods through him find already carved channels- even then he will win.

The flutter of feathers is to his left this time. Kakavasha huffs with no sound. Alright, fine.

He follows, less dogged than the Hunt. The bird moves unpredictable but not erratic, soft feathers brushing against leaves and twigs. Flightless? Harmless, then.

Kakavasha follows and there are no roots intercepting his stride. A cold chill creeps up on him, a shiver down his spine.

Prey runs, frantic. This bird does not.

Kakavasha follows and the sounds of the forest still, preserved in glass.

He opens his eyes.

The edge of the void is just ahead, a gleaming ray of light, achingly bright. Between him and the world stands a god.

The creature is taller than him by a head, its wings wide as sails and its feathers bathed in sun. Its many golden eyes fix Kakavasha with a gaze that could move mountains, could bring an ocean to tears. Half bird, half cat, a feline body covered in fur as white as snow. Its beak and ear tufts as well as the upper half of its wings shimmers in an iridescent blue.

It does not speak and neither does he. When it moves it is with the sounds of a smaller, harmless bird, coaxing him along. The anger may win over the awe but the wish to survive always reigns supreme. Kakavasha follows, noting the burned gold of the creature’s spiked halo only as it turns and dissolves into the daylight.

“You want to book this room for how long, exactly?” the innkeeper yelps and then composes herself, fixing her blue skirt and pink hair. “I mean, uh, yes of course! Paid in advance, no questions asked, good sir, hope you enjoy your stay!”

Her nametag reads ‘March 7^th’ and she made no attempt to hide her gawking as Kakavasha poured a large pile of golden coins onto her counter. Eyes wide as saucers and there is satisfaction in it, in handing worthless wealth to those whose life it could still change. Strange that the Trailblaze's faithful need coin as much as everyone else but he knows this world is most unkind to the kindest. He smiles as he always does.

“Thank you, I shall,” Kakavasha says. “Now, do you have any suggestions on where I could start in your lovely town? As a humble tourist I would like to make the most out of that stay after all.”

March rummages through one of the desk drawers and finds a small foldable map to hand him, enchanted to even repel water. She taps her finger on each location as she names it.

“Well, you have already had the honor of seeing my inn, which is right here. Then over here, next door, we have a lovely tea shop. Also a bakery which I am also in charge of. Across from us there are a tailor and a blacksmith, then further down the road you can have a mean cup of coffee. The bookstore and the library close to the plaza-“

After explaining every building and shop and their owners to him, March keeps him for another while chatting about his jewelry, the vibrant greens and gleaming blues.

“It’s rude to ask a stranger where they hail from,” March says, not sounding particularly apologetic. “But I’d love to know where to get something so elegant, especially with the feathers.”

Kakavasha smiles with his mouth alone, none of it reaching his eyes. No one will notice. What sick joy the thought yet brings.

“Why, thank you. I crafted them myself. They are one of a kind.”

Hewn with the hammer of a god that hates me.

When he steps out onto the street the sun has hit its zenith. None of the places particularly strike his fancy so he strolls along the cobblestone path, studying every house’s façade and every shop’s interior. Quaint and quiet. A raccoon races past him, bouncing past stalls and into the woods surrounding the village, but it is the only living thing disrupting the idyllic sight. Chimneys smoke and people chatter and life runs its course. No gold in the sky and no gold in the birds’ eyes where they coo and nest on rooftops. One swarm near the fountain in the plaza huddles around their smallest dove.

Kakavasha glances into the café and finds it quite busy, the counter swarmed with people. The owner, a red-haired distinguished lady, demonstrates the pouring of water from an ornate kettle. Shimmering and shining as the clearest spring, undoubtedly touched by an Aeon.

Kakavasha walks further down the road. The bookstore does not draw him in with the colorful covers on display. Nothing that catches his attention. The library does not have him any more enthused, surely a dingy dusty old place.

However, as he heads for the road again Kakavasha spots a few people among the regular townsfolk trotting along. A smidgen of gold in dark uniforms. Preserved in amber.

The library’s door creaks open and within a moment Kakavasha has entered its shelter. He finds no dust. It’s a cozy space, the shelves lined and arranged neatly but there is nothing sterile about the painted walls and flowers blooming on windowsills. In several corners pillows are strewn about to give room for undisturbed reading.

Something tugs on Kakavasha’s heart, a mourning bell from the past. A corner of the world, peaceful. A sliver of a life not meant for him.

“Good afternoon,” a voice greets him from the depths of the library. “Are you here to peruse or would you like-“

Soft and melodious. A birdsong, an angel’s soothing benediction. Kakavasha turns around and freezes as much as the librarian does.

Sunday cradles a few books to his chest. His long fingers, elegant as ever, twitch against titles and synopses. Traced over spines as gently as they did piano keys. He is still beautiful. Light blue hair, grey feathers on those fetching wings sprouting from his neck behind his ears. Then the eyes, alight with a spirit so fierce it would cut through the sky itself but only ever choosing to mend it. Prettier than a star, gentle like soft clouds.

Kakavasha’s heart sinks. Heavy weights tied to his ankles as he drowns. He does not fight it. Stares, simply, at the comfortable blue sweater Sunday wears, the earrings and piercings, the polish on neatly filed nails. Chosen with such care, as every corner of this library.

The building’s door swinging open saves them both from having to greet one another. Kakavasha steps out of the way, letting the newcomer move past him. An older man of tall stature, brown hair and black spectacles. He smiles at them, looking back and forth.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he says and his tone is calm and kind enough for Kakavasha to relax somewhat. “Just popping in to let you know the harvest festival is going to get pushed back a day, apparently, and that we’re gonna have to adjust the schedule based on that. But we can discuss the details later.”

Sunday nods weakly.

“Thank you for informing me, Mr. Yang.”

“And you are…?”

“Kakavasha,” Kakavasha says and does not miss the flicker of surprise in Sunday’s eyes. “Just a humble traveler. I was interested in some light reading and stumbled in here.”

Mr. Yang chuckles.

“You’ve come to the right place. My bookstore is next door if you are looking for something more permanent but I’ll leave you in Sunday’s capable hands for now.”

Silence descends over them after Mr. Yang has made his exit. A library, not left to dust, and a heartbeat racing too fast to catch.

“You are going by Kakavasha now?” Sunday asks. It is such a careful sentence, such a small sentence. He still hugs the books to his chest, wreathed in uncertainty.

“Safer,” Kakavasha croaks and clears his throat. “People… people tend to know what Aventurine has done.”

“I see.”

“Please-“

“I won’t tell anyone,” Sunday says, firm and weary. “I wouldn’t.”

Aventurine knew that. Aventurine would know. Kakavasha forces himself to nod. The smile does not reach even his mouth this time.

“I should go,” he says and Sunday does not stop him. Kakavasha’s chest feels tight, waiting to be called back, for a touch on his arm, one more chance to feel those elegant fingers against his skin. It never comes. He leaves, as he did the last time.

Kakavasha dreams of the god in the forest and its golden eyes. It sings to him. It sings of peace and solace and how safe a cage can be. The world reverberates with it.

He wakes in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and cries until his stomach hurts. He can’t stop, the downpour consuming him. It rains before the inn windows, too, long after he collapses into an exhausted heap on the bed. Kakavasha hiccups and sobs and keeps his eyes shut because they sting too much. He whimpers through gritted teeth, face pressed into the pillow.

Sleep claims him eventually, him and his spent body. Chest heaving, arms weak as the tension dissolves. There’s nothing left.

Kakavasha dreams of the Amber Lord and its cruel hammer crushing civilizations to dust. Everything stagnates. Everything lasts. His hands still remember carving the life out of a man below the rise and fall of Qlipoth’s arm. It felt good. It still feels good.

“Dan Heng, I told you the people want to have more colorful drinks for the festival,” March laments. “This looks like a scoop from the frog pond.”

The concoction on her desk is indeed green as a swamp and thick as sludge. The person that must be Dan Heng picks it up in clawed hands and examines it carefully.

“Perhaps there are adjustments to be made to the hue.”

“You think?!”

“It could be greener.”

Aventurine clears his throat and descends the last flight of oaken stairs down to the inn’s lobby. The two friends turn to him and under their stare he almost buckles. Did they hear? Did they hear your wailing, pathetic as it was?

Instead he smiles.

“I couldn’t help but overhear something about a harvest festival. Would you mind explaining to a hapless tourist what that entails?”

He is politely invited for tea in the shop next door, ushered into a quiet corner. The pictures on the wall show all the Nameless and their bright genuine smiles.

“Is this an interrogation?” Kakavasha asks with a twitch of his lips. “Was my question so wrong?”

The fragrant green tea pours into his cup from a beautiful porcelain pot. It smells like a sea of flowers.

“Apologies,” Dan Heng says. “No to both. I merely detected traces of a peculiar energy on you and wished to offer my help while explaining the local customs to you.”

Kakavasha crosses one leg over the other and drums his fingers on the table.

“What energy would that be?”

“That of an Aeon. Hostile or not is harder to tell.”

“Aren’t THEY all hostile?” Kakavasha huffs. “Save for the dead ones, of course.”

Dan Heng does not laugh. He furrows his brow, deep in thought, following the thought to its conclusion.

“Many of THEM,” he agrees eventually. “There are some I have encountered that I would not count among those ranks.”

“Oh?”

“The dragon of the Permanence was kind until THEY were slain,” Dan Heng says softly and his antlers gleam even in the teashops dim lamplight. “And I never sensed any animosity from the Trailblaze either.”

Kakavasha leans back against the seat, his head full of a god’s dying splendor.

“The dead ones, yes.”

“Perhaps that is the case.”

“Akivili’s shell still carries us well, though. I was surprised.”

“We will be safe here until the end of time,” Dan Heng says and casts a glance outside where the sky shifts every now and again when the giant creature their village and surroundings are built on moves. “That much is assured.”

Kakavasha suppresses a shiver, a flaw in his perfect smile. Out of the corner of his eye he catches something, someone, in the back. His blood runs cold and hot. It runs, as he always has. Kakavasha forces himself to focus.

“Quite beautiful, that. Now, was it one of those you named you sensed has gazed upon me or…?”

The tea is bitter enough to suit his tastes. This dragon’s sharp eyes follow him no less doggedly than the Hunt ever did.

“No,” Dan Heng says. “Nothing that familiar. Did you come through the grove in the north on your way here?”

“I passed many a place.”

“Whatever made you take shelter here, it is your secret to keep. However, should you find yourself needing help, know that many of us here have encountered the unfathomable.”

Aventurine would have laughed. Kakavasha finds it in himself to be moved. It is a genuine offer, a kind offer, from one of the people in this moving shelter to extend their hand so selflessly.

“Thank you, I will keep that in mind,” he says. “For now I would like to know about the festival.”

The explanation is brief and concise but Kakavasha’s eyes drift to one of the servers moving around in the back of the tea shop. When Dan Heng details returning blessings to the earth, Kakavasha watches Sunday, clad in a fetching green apron, as he smiles and chats with customers. Busying himself, helping out. He looks so alive. Glowing, almost, with a zeal reserved for content souls.

“He will also be present,” Dan Heng says. His tone is not tinged with mirth but Kakavasha can feel it nonetheless, slumbering beneath every word. The back of his neck prickles with heat.

“Your employee over there? He’s cute, I’ll give you that.”

“A dear friend who helps out where he can, moreso.”

Kakavasha sorts through his jealousy perched on a fountainside. A newer addition, apparently, since the map did not feature it yet, crystal clear sprouts of water in the main plaza. The sky above moves faster here in the wandering village of the Trailblaze, almost enough to trick him that time might be, too. Akivili’s shell, larger than a mountain, green as grass, trots from land to land in eternal continuity. On its back this valley travels, too.

“A dear friend,” Kakavasha scoffs, picking apart fluffy dough.

Sunday was not part of the plan but when was he ever? Not for Aventurine and his supposed stratagems. Not for Kakavasha and his shell of a life. Hollow, hollow, hollow. Sunday warned him he would be. Aventurine didn’t listen, not enough.

The pigeons and crows appreciate the crumbs left for them. One of them, a small dove, coos close to him on the bench. Kakavasha tries to eat some of the pastry but his stomach churns with grief and regret and ice cold envy. The birds thrive. At least the birds thrive.

Things were supposed to be BETTER. Things were supposed to be FINE.

The agents of the Amber Lord still patrol but they also flee THEIR gaze. Kakavasha lets them walk past. They don’t even notice him. How quickly he is forgotten. Another ledger taken care of, another debt paid. Kakavasha lets the birds eat from his palm until there is no more to give.

It takes half a day for him to reach the edge of the walking village, the seam where the sky begins and the forest ends. Kakavasha walks the perimeter, peering down towards the world below where he once set foot. It is so far now. If he squints he can see the spires of the city of divine foresight, the snowy mountains that shelter the streets of Belobog.

He sits on the edge, legs dangling over the chasm, and thinks of jumping. Not with sorrow, not with resolve, but out of habit, for all things regarding death always will become habit for him. Would Akivili’s shell catch him mid-flight? Bow its gentle head to allow him to climb on, like it did the day he fled the forest of Nihility with more vengeful gods on his trail? He had no choice then, letting it lift him up towards the heavens to settle into this new land. He has a choice now, to stay or to fall. To stay or to run once again when the wandering village next stops for a breather.

Kakavasha picks at the scab on his forehead. It is healing now. He should be healing, too. Settle down.

When he screams at the world below it hurts his throat. It is good that way. It is better that way.

“Why is it so easy for you?” he begs the breeze and the sky. “Why can’t it be easy for me, too?”

Sunday is everywhere. Helping out in the tea shop, working in the library. Then, like a winged spectre haunting Kakavasha’s every step, Sunday helped dust the windows at the inn as he returned for the night. Sunday feeds stray cats on the way to the village square. Sunday laughs with the owner of the coffee shop, hums a tune that resounds in every blade of grass, every drop of water in this village.

He never seeks out Kakavasha. Never so much as looks at him. A kindness, maybe, or perhaps heartless torture. Kakavasha stews in it for days, ill at ease being a witness, restless and discontent.

“Is there someone you’re waiting for?” Miss Himeko, the owner of the café, asks him once as she hands him his order. “I hope they find their way here, if they are able.”

Kakavasha laughs, as pleasant as possible.

“Just letting the eye wander. There are quite a few colorful personalities aboard your vessel, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Without a doubt. Including a rogue with a lot of money on their hands.”

“Sounds like a pleasant fellow,” Kakavasha replies without a hitch, “who wishes the followers of Akivili no harm.”

Himeko hides her smile behind her hand.

“That was never in doubt.”

A strange choice of words. Kakavasha leaves with the bitter taste of coffee on his lips and a mood to match. Himeko’s smile becomes mocking in his memory, twisted. In on a joke he isn’t smart enough to understand. She knows, has to know, and that can only mean someone told her.

Sunday is tending to the flowers near the vegetable gardens, diligently cleaning the weeds around fragile stems. The impulse to trample them all, destroy all this, leave it tainted and disfigured, runs through Kakavasha. He doesn’t, of course not. It would fix nothing at all. It would carve the wound deeper. The impulse begs for that, too.

“Gardening as well, huh?” Kakavasha asks and takes as much pleasure in the way it makes Sunday jump as he finds guilt for it. “This place is blessed to have you.”

Sunday straightens up, making himself more presentable. Some things don’t change.

“Good morning,” he answers. “Can I help you?”

“What makes you think I need help, hm?”

“Only a turn of phrase.”

“Can’t I say hi to an old friend?”

Sunday takes a deep breath. He always understood better than most that feverish incessant need to dig deeper in a grave already done.

“I,” he starts and clears his throat, “was so glad to see you alive and well. I heard about your success, of course, but was dreading to never find out what happened to you.”

It severs all the strings at once. All of that griefenvyhurt puppeteered around as anger, it dissolves. Kakavasha deflates, his shoulders sinking low.

“Yeah, I- I did succeed.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Are you? You were always against it.”

“I was not-“ Sunday starts and catches himself halfway through well-trodden frustration. “I am happy for you, genuinely. And happy to have the certainty of your survival.”

Then why are you avoiding me? Then why are you talking about me like I’m gone? Like you can’t even see me?

“Likewise,” Kakavasha manages to wrangle from himself, despite himself. “You seem to be doing well for yourself here.”

Sunday nods. He fidgets with his piercings, the pretty studs in his headwings.

“It has been good, I’d say.”

“That is… good.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

In another life, as Aventurine, he would have laughed and teased until this tension snapped. Sunday’s laugh was a gift. Kakavasha is older and wearier and doesn’t make it. They are helpless to regard a memory, mirrors of the versions that knew how to talk to each other. A room away, a world away. They wear different masks now, different selves. Incompatible and unfamiliar.

“Have you been enjoying your stay?” Sunday asks tentatively. A sincere ask, sincere as the hope it holds. That makes it worse. Yelling at him would only make him shrink into himself, scared and feeling deserving of it. Kakavasha still wants to scream.

“Been alright,” he says no matter how ashen it tastes. “Did you tell your friends about me? Did you tell them who I am?”

Sunday pauses, taken aback.

“No,” he replies. “I didn’t think you’d want me to. They have spoken to me about the supposed traces of Aeonic powers clinging to you but I did not tell them of your… work.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Not then, not ever. Kakavasha wants to bury his face in the crook of Sunday’s neck, curl against and into him, hide away and feel sheltered. He wants to kiss that frown from Sunday’s brow, smoothe out all the lines of worry, hear that laugh directed at him. Draw the light of the sun to him, bask in it, know it to be his.

“Alright,” Kakavasha says and tries not to stare, tries not to be too out of place in a peaceful sea of flowers. “They’ve made comments. That’s all.”

“Probably to hint to you that you are welcome, no matter your past,” Sunday says and huffs, fondly. “But I understand that sometimes that only fuels the suspicions.”

Kakavasha nods, a flicker of gratitude in his heart alongside all of the murky bitterness.

“Yeah. Kinda like that.”

The breeze is mild sweeping through the gardens. Sunday shifts from one leg to the other. Too polite to usher unwanted guests out. I should go, is on Kakavasha’s lips again, I’m in the way.

Sunday clears his throat.

“I have to go back to gardening for a while, I promised someone as much,” he says. “But there is actually something related to the festival that I could use your help with. Only if you find yourself with spare time, of course. And the fancy.”

He looks as lost as Kakavasha feels, Sunday in this garden of fragile flowers. It is all there, every nervous anxious habit, picking at himself, squirming and fluttering.

You used to feel safe with me, Kakavasha thinks.

“I’ll think about it,” he says as though his heart wasn’t yearning breaking mending all at once at being remembered at all. “Get back to you on that.”

Sunday smiles, just barely.

“Okay. You don’t have to leave, either, you could-“

Keep you company? Stay in silence?

“I should go,” Kakavasha says. “See you around, though.”

He leaves to brood on a bench not too far from the river that nonsensically flows in both directions and neither atop the giant creature. A vein opened and closed. For a long time he thinks of drowning. With every cloud that passes he grows bored of it. Death isn’t better than this. Death isn’t colder than this.

Kakavasha remembers it all, chronicled in his weary head. Every smile and sigh and whisper, every laugh and whine of pleasure. An assassin under Qlipoth and a priest of Ena, meeting by chance. Sneaking kisses under the moonlight, lazy mornings on the few days that allowed it.

Kakavasha sighs and buries his face in his hands.

“I thought about it,” he says, breathless from running all the way across the village back to the gardens. “I’ll help.”

It is all worth it for the brilliant smile he receives, that flutter in Sunday’s wings.

The lump in Kakavasha’s throat persists through the whole day. From being nudged to cut scary faces into pumpkins to drawing symbols on lanterns and prayer slips, from learning how to prepare the special dumplings and pies to choosing a mask to wear. March is curious about him, asking question after question no matter how many he avoids. Dan Heng provides gentle guidance. They tell him of the husk's head, large as a house on its own, where in the night of the harvest they commemorate the former Nameless and Akivili THEMSELVES. The raccoon that they introduce as their friend lets itself be carried around by him for a while, as well.

“Oh, you’re really good with your hands!” March remarks early on and then flounders. “Not in a weird way! In a cool thief way. You are a rogue, right? I’ve seen your daggers and the cloak looks like it, too.”

“Close enough to one, yes.”

“And you and Sunday know each other?”

“Mhmm. Old friends.”

“Sunday! How come you never told us-“

It continues throughout the day. This is a home, someone’s home, and Kakavasha wonders if it could have been Aventurine’s. If after that blade fell he could have gone straight to this, to bliss and acceptance and effortless whimsy.

Sunday disappears for a long while only to return quiet as a ghost. He looks tired, now that Kakavasha takes the time to pay attention. These people, his companions, make sure he is cared for and takes breaks but the weariness stays. Kakavasha remembers this, too, the look on Sunday’s face when a day had cost him much but he wished to not cost other people anything in return.

“Big deal, this festival, hm?” Kakavasha asks when they get a minute alone between pretty pottery and floral wreaths. “Takes a lot out of you?”

Sunday shrugs.

“It will be worth it, I’m certain of it.”

I just got you back, don’t kill yourself with stress. Please.

“If you show me how to weave this,” Kakavasha says and gestures to the flowers waiting to be arranged, “you can take a break. I’ll finish it up.”

Sunday acquiesces. They share a drink before the day is done and nothing is fixed or mended but they part for the night with a smile.

Kakavasha dreams of the stars. They watched as he was born, thrice blessed, and watched as everything he ever loved was swallowed by red sand. They watched as he carved a way into Qlipoth’s forces, a reckless gamble and shackles that bring opportunity.

“I chose to join them,” Aventurine whispered to Sunday one night, curved around him, curled against him. “They didn’t force me. I have a plan and it requires them and their resources.”

Kakavasha dreams of the stars who saw him spill blood, the stars who watched him run until the gods lost his trail in Nihility.

They break apart, those stars, and plummet to the ground where they will shatter upon cruel stone.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Kakavasha slurs after his third helping of honey wine, head pillowed on a table. “’tis nice. Nice place. Nice people. Nice festival.”

Sunday regards him with an exasperated brand of fondness. Blurred by intoxication, the shape of this saint, but more familiar for it. All evening Sunday has walked around the festival grounds in a fashionable waistcoat and cloak that hugged his body so well that Kakavasha’s mouth couldn’t be anything but dry. Sunday chose a scarier mask than expected, black and gold demonic features. Now, after many a drink sampled and ritual performed, it is placed haphazardly against his soft hair. Kakavasha’s own, a fox mask in orange and red, rests on the table as well.

“Thank you for coming,” Sunday says quietly, only meant for Kakavasha’s ears. “I’ve had a good time, too.”

“So final. It isn’t over yet, is it?”

Sunday laughs, tinged with something Kakavasha is too tipsy to pinpoint. It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay. It has to be.

“No, not quite.”

“You look tired even when you’re happy,” Kakavasha mumbles. “Do you still not let yourself rest?”

Sunday takes a sip of his own drink, leaning against the wooden table. Everyone else is still celebrating, too, music filling the air.

“I still struggle to, sometimes.”

“But aren’t things better now?”

“But aren’t they?” Sunday asks him, softer.

Kakavasha blinks and averts his eyes. He isn’t cold but he is. He isn’t sad but he is. A shiver runs through him.

“I miss you,” he says.

Almost immediately there is a warm weight settling into his shoulders. A coat wrapped around him, lined with fur and smelling like the sweetest honey. Kakavasha burrows into it, welcomes Sunday’s fingers carding through his hair. The back of his eyelids explode into color, beautiful kaleidoscopic rainbows painted by joy.

“Miss you, too,” Sunday replies. “Don’t worry about falling asleep, Churin, I’ll get you home.”

Churin, Kakavasha thinks with the happiness still swirling around in him as though laced into the wine, Churin. Aventurine is gone, isn’t he? Aventurine has to be gone because his mission is over. Aventurine has to be gone because Kakavasha can’t be.

The gentle strokes through his hair don’t seem to care either way. They pet him to sleep, whatever his name may be.

Kakavasha dreams of a star dying. It burns as it falls from the night sky, its wings long severed. Akivili’s empty shell watches it soar and perish. They are both witness.

Kakavasha jolts awake in his bed at the inn. He is alone, his head aching terribly, but he throws off the blanket and hurries to the window. Through vertigo and an early morning chill he beholds the star’s descent. It spirals and crashes into the forest beyond the walking village. One last flash of light and it is gone.

Akivili’s remains have stopped moving.

“We weren’t supposed to take a break for another week at least,” Kakavasha hears March whisper to Welt in the inn’s lobby. “Did we do something wrong? Does Himeko have an idea?”

Did you all see a star fall, Kakavasha does not ask.

“I was looking for a chance to stretch my legs a little anyway,” he tells them instead. “I’ll go down to the surface and take a look around. Who knows, maybe there is some rust growing on our dear host’s paws.”

“But what if it starts up again while you’re down there?”

“I’m faster than this old turtle. I caught up with it once and I’ll do so again.”

Kakavasha does not miss the worried glances following him to the edge of the world, the place where Akivili’s remains meet the air of the realm below. How quickly they got attached thinking he was a friend, an ally, someone meaning them well. It tastes bitter, their trust. So effortlessly he fashioned himself a sheep’s clothes, so incidentally he became a cat among pigeons once more.

The walking village lets him go. Kakavasha does not break his neck on his descent. Down there, in the green of the forest, he can breathe easier and move more freely. His gear weighs exactly as much as it should, his boots treat familiar earth. He heads north towards the mountains.

The stars do not cry, the stars do not grieve. The closer Kakavasha gets to the point of impact, the crash’s epicenter, the more the air hums with an Aeon’s tune. No fanfare announces his arrival.

Where there was once forest is now a clearing. Trees flattened, dropped like pins, by razing gales. They point away from the star like sunbeams, all of them scorched.

Kakavasha trails closer to the creature laying motionless between its wooden victims. A griffin, fur and feathers white as snow. Blood stains its legs, its wings, the beak and ear tufts. This time there is no halo, there are no plentiful eyes. Just two, closed tight. Its chest still moves.

Kakavasha sets his bag down next to the griffin’s flank.

“What cast you out of heaven, hm?” he asks and rummages through all the healing supplies he managed to bring. “Give me a moment. I’ll clean this up.”

Some bones are broken, many feathers torn and mangled. The griffin stays still for him, chirping pitifully like a much smaller bird. Kakavasha pats its quivering flank.

“Easy there,” he murmurs. “It’ll be okay. Focus on me, okay? I have salves and potions to help but they will take a while to set in.”

The griffin rests its head on Kakavasha’s knee. He rubs under its chin instinctively, behind its ear tufts until the frantic puffs of breath slow down.

“I’ll tell you a story,” Kakavasha whispers. “And you just hold still.”

There once was a boy who lost everything he ever loved. He lived in the desert with his family and then he was alone and wished he didn’t live at all. He fled, the last of his people. The ones who found him were not kind. They left brands on him that never faded. They made him take lives to trade for his own.

The boy grew up with the wish for vengeance. He learned it was one of Qlipoth’s most loyal disciples who ordered his whole world be extinguished. Those who helped him did not live to see his thanks.

So the boy clawed himself up from the gutter. So the boy dealt in lies and deception and blood to earn a seat at the table.

It was a comfortable life, for a long while. The boy met many he grew to love again during those years. A beastmaster, a lonesome werewolf, a priest, and an outlaw. They were good to him.

But the boy still needed vengeance. Love didn’t quell that thirst. So he had to leave them, in the end, had to sneak out before the early light of dawn to cut a man open under the light of Qlipoth’s hammer.

He doesn’t regret it, not really. But things didn’t get better, not magically, not fully. It had to be done but it cost more than he expected. The dead are still dead. The scars are still scars.

The cuts and sprains on the griffin’s wings and spine are the worst. Kakavasha tends to them with gentle hands. He has suffocated someone with these fingers, has choked the life out of a man. They are not made tool by their past.

“Still with me?” Kakavasha mumbles, stroking soft feathers. “Almost done. You’ll be right as rain before you know it.”

The creature’s halo thrums as it suffers. So much pain contained in its battered body. It doesn’t broadcast it, not on purpose, but it pulses in every heartbeat, breath, and cry. It does cry, the regal beast, in golden tears and quiet tremors. Perhaps a simple rogue’s story could stir even an angel’s heart.

“Shh,” Kakavasha coos and pets the griffin from beak to nape with shaking fingers. “It will be okay. I’ll try the potions next, okay? Rest your head.”

It complies, sweet and docile. Whatever shot this star out of the sky did not leave it with much spirit. No fight and no fear. It must be tired.

Kakavasha helps the griffin drink shimmering liquid, applies the leftover droplets to the wounds themselves. It soaks swiftly into the white fur, into the blue feathers. The creature seeks his touch, the respite from blinding pain. He kneels on scorched soil, his heart calmer than it has been in months.

When night falls the last rays of sunlight take the griffin with them. They dissolve its battered shape, feather by feather, until Kakavasha is once again left alone. The phantom weight of its presence stays.

Aventurine often dreamed of a life he didn’t deserve. Some time in that nebulous future when his vengeance was done and all the blood spilled there would be a calmer place somewhere out there. A few pets, perhaps, and a hearth to warm himself at when cold winter winds chased around the house. He dared to wonder if in such a future he could have companionship, love to last a lifetime. If the flowers in their garden had a chance to bloom and wither and bloom again.

But such a future was not meant for ‘Aventurine’. He knew it when the leaves fell in autumn and he thought of ashes, when spring came and he saw only what didn't make it through the cold. ‘Aventurine’ was who had to survive, had to function, had a job to see through. All that came after would never be his to cherish.

Aventurine still, inevitably, dreamed of that life.

Kakavasha slips into the quietude of Sunday’s place with the same caution he would muster for a heist. Sometimes that is what Qlipoth asked, according to those false scholars studying the movement of THEIR arm. Sometimes THEY demanded mundane tasks, ordinary enough to let him have his flights of fancy.

Sunday’s rooms, located above the library, are cozy. More plants in the small kitchen, nurtured and arranged in visible color patterns, spices and pickled food in pretty mason jars. Kakavasha pauses to study the labels, not in Sunday’s handwriting, on at least three containers of jam. Sweet tooth. It almost makes him smile. Tentatively he sets his own offering on the counter.

Sunday does not lift his head to greet him as Kakavasha enters his bedroom. He stays still, curled into a ball in a nest of pillows.

“I brought you some soup and cookies,” Kakavasha says. “Pumpkin and chocolate chip, respectively. For later if you can’t get anything down right now.”

He is greeted by a very quiet sigh and then an even quieter ‘thank you’. It is invitation enough. Kakavasha sits on the side of the mattress and places a hand on Sunday’s back. Greedy, perhaps, but it isn’t met with reproach.

They fall quiet for a long time. The room smells like incense, the kind that soothes the nerves when infused with the right spells. Calming and heavy. Kakavasha rubs his thumb over Sunday’s back.

“So,” he says finally. “What else did I miss, then?”

Those elegant, skillful, familiar fingers curl around his wrist. A loose grip, desperate but afraid to take and demand and assume. Kakavasha follows them nonetheless, lowers his upper body down to the mattress. He scoots underneath the blanket as though they were children whispering to each other in a pillow fort, as though they were still living together and sharing a home.

“You deserve to know,” Sunday rasps, his body still battered no matter how diligent Kakavasha might have applied salves and potions. “I do not deserve your patience but I ask it anyway, I am-“

“You have my patience. Take your time. I’m listening.”

“Can I-“

“Yeah, of course.”

Sunday curls against him. Kakavasha aches with his own ignorance. Did you really delude yourself into thinking everything has been easy for him since?

The last time they spoke was like this, heart to heart, Sunday’s lungs failing him as the panic set in. On colder nights he sometimes left the bed to lay by the hearth, hot tea calming his breaths into manageable sobs. Aventurine didn’t promise to come back. They didn’t lie to each other, after all. Every tear felt like an accusation.

“I told you I’d have to do this,” Aventurine said, hurting too bad to see anything but unjust blame. “I always told you.”

Sunday didn’t have words for him then. Now, shaking with dread, he does.

There once was a boy raised to die to protect everything he ever loved. His life was uprooted by calamity and when a devil adopted him he was too young to understand that sometimes kind acts are not kind.

The boy grew up knowing he was on borrowed time. He knew how it had to end. Do his part, give his life, dedicate his soul. Anything else was selfish. Anything else was impure and unsightly. There was a sickness growing in his head but he had no time or space or self to know it. It was cured, they told him, and if he felt it still that was his own failing.

He met a rogue, swift and smart, but knew that nothing could ever last. He counted the days, learned to cherish each one. He tried not to wish for safety and permanence, oh he tried, but he was always a covetous greedy thing. The world moved on, after.

The boy did his part, flew too close to the sun until the devil died and he was free. He dreamed of the mockery of a paradise and almost got his wish. He was struck down, removed from the heavens and the order he served all his life. But the debt to the world remained so he did not dare to live, not fully.

They came to collect, those gods. He felt it, the stars wanting their due.

“Do they know?” Kakavasha asks and combs his fingers through Sunday’s hair. “That you’re the only reason their village moves? That you are left like this every harvest season so they can live their joyful happy days?”

On those languid loving sunlit days Aventurine always dreaded the extent to which Sunday would give himself. He burns his candle down to the wick for others. He sets himself aflame, over and over, begging for it to be enough.

“It is only a few days per year,” Sunday mumbles. “It is only a few days.”

“You don’t even believe that yourself, angel.”

It slips out. Kakavasha doesn’t care to take it back. Sunday coughs.

“I don’t have a choice. This is Xipe’s punishment for my attempt at ascension. There is no refusing THEIR will.”

“Your Aeon is supposed to want Harmony. What the fuck is harmonious about cursing you like this?”

“I don’t know. I walk these lands and keep them safe and guide lost souls back to the path. That’s all I know.”

“And then, twice a year-“

“THEY take THEIR share.”

Kakavasha holds him tighter. Anger simmers in his gut, sharp and bitter.

“You never told me.”

“I always knew you were going to have to go,” Sunday whispers. “How could I have left you with that knowledge?”

Perhaps with that knowledge I wouldn’t have left, Kakavasha wants to bite back but he still does not want to lie to Sunday. Not to him, not about this. Aventurine had to go and kill those who killed his family. This was never in question. This was never a debate. Kakavasha can barely breathe imagining the days after he left, the days where Sunday couldn’t be sure both or neither of them weren’t dead.

“We’ll find a way around it,” Kakavasha says, firmer than even his arms clutching Sunday. “You can’t keep doing this. You don’t deserve this kind of cruelty, Sunday.”

The wet sob against his shoulder does not inspire confidence.

“Since when has fate cared what we deserve?”

I care, Kakavasha thinks helplessly. He is a fool, a callous senseless fool, but Sunday doesn’t even sound angry. There is a hollow acceptance to it all. While Kakavasha wandered, far away, Sunday lay defeated, in splinters, every time summer turned to autumn. Every time winter turned to spring. At least thrice the star had crashed and fallen and dragged its broken bones back up to the village on its own.

Sunday stirs.

“When did you know it was me?”

Kakavasha shrugs.

“When I met you in the library I put two and two together. Similar wings.”

“Oh,” Sunday breathes out. “It was you in the Nihility. I saved you.”

“You didn’t know?”

“I can’t see in its realm any more than you can.”

“Reckless.”

“Hah,” Sunday huffs. “How the tables have turned.”

They are the same height but Sunday feels small when he is suffering, when he is hiding away rotted from the inside by guilt and shame and sorrow. Kakavasha can feel him run through his fingers like sand, every year another grain forever gone. Still, pathetically, he drags Sunday closer, hoping that worry alone may keep him alive.

“We’ll figure something out,” he promises. “I don’t care if your aeon thinks you need to do this. I’ve challenged a god before and I’ll do it again.”

The cold indifferent clang of Qlipoth’s hammer still trembles in the earth Kakavasha walks on. The burning merciless ire of the Hunt still flickers in every dawn. What is one more Aeon’s hatred?

“You don’t have to do that for me,” Sunday mumbles. “You get to be free now, Chu- Kakavasha. You get to live your life. You were right, then, you always told me you would have to leave.”

I wasn’t right when you begged me to consider the life I’d have to live after my mission was done, I wasn’t right when I laughed at your request to go with me. You just think you deserve it.

The bed creaks as Sunday shifts.

“It still makes me sad that you paint me as a saint to put yourself down, it turns out.”

Kakavasha freezes. Anger and dismay.

“Are you reading my mind?”

“Your hand is shaking and you’re holding me like you always do when you think of losing me.”

A stab sharper than any knife. Effortless in its precision, scalpel cut between the ribs. It almost shakes him enough to forget to breathe.

“How can you say that to me and then expect me to leave again?” Kakavasha asks and it is a cry as much as a sob. “I’m staying.”

Then, quieter, “Let me stay.”

It is still early in the morning, the sun barely drifting in through the drapes. The room gently sways as the village begins to wander once more. Sunday twitches, aching, still bleeding to nurture the soil.

“I just want you to be happy,” Sunday hiccups and turns his face away. “With me or without me. But-“

“And you think that I’d be happier far away, knowing you’re dying alone out of my reach?” Kakavasha asks and struggles not to let his tears spill. “Sunday, I-“

Sunday rests his head against Kakavasha’s shoulder. His breathing is so shallow, so rough.

“Stay.”

“Huh?”

“That is my selfish wish,” Sunday gets out. “Despite everything else. I wish for you to stay. Perhaps you can save me like those gallant knights in the stories but that isn’t what I’d ask for.”

Kakavasha nods numbly. The early morning leaves him slow and somber.

“You just want me to stay.”

“Yes.”

“I can do that. I want to do that.”

And the tension snaps. Sunday cries in wheezing desperate sobs until he is all out of tears, until he is too exhausted to stay awake. Kakavasha is faring no better, eyes red and puffy and lungs aching. They nap the day away until noon when the world looks much better already. Brighter, the air fresh and clean.

It feels good to wake up here. It feels right to wake up holding Sunday and being held by him. Kakavasha can’t stop himself from touching, from running his fingers over Sunday’s back and hair and wings. The fluffy headwings and the sleeker spectral flight wings that always got sore so easily. Kakavasha pets them, patient and calm.

“I’m sorry about what I said back then,” Sunday mumbles moments after waking up. “You knew more than anyone that revenge wouldn’t bring them back to life. I shouldn’t have pretended that was not on your mind constantly.”

“Pretty bird,” Kakavasha replies, rubbing his thumb over Sunday’s brow. “At least give yourself a moment to wake up before letting the guilt win.”

“It’s important.”

“So is your health.”

“But-“

Kakavasha nuzzles him, bold, desperate, pleading. Then again, until it makes Sunday laugh.

“Okay,” Sunday says, stifling another chuckle as he plays with Kakavasha’s hair. “None of that anymore.”

By the time the sun is high in the sky someone comes to check on them but a quick lie about a hangover buys them time and space. Kakavasha does not let Sunday out of his sight, not when he still wobbles even when steadied by another.

“Careful,” Kakavasha says and keeps his arm around Sunday’s waist until he has safely made it to a kitchen chair. “Did your friends just buy this excuse every time? Are they-?”

Stupid? Do they even care about you at all? Do they only want you running errands, waiting their tables, serving their food?

“I don’t think they’re allowed to notice,” Sunday says and stares at a spot on the table where the cloth has creased, just out of his reach. “I only assume you can because you are from the outside.”

It stops Kakavasha in his tracks again. Sunday, cut off from even those closest to him, mutely watching their eyes be led away from him by fate itself. Kakavasha’s fingers twitch. He doesn’t fight the impulse, hugs Sunday from behind over the backrest of the chair.

“I could tell them.”

“Maybe,” Sunday says and sighs. “I do not want to make them choose between me and their god. They have been so kind to me.”

“If that’s a difficult choice for them then they’re not your friends.”

“Maybe.”

“C’mon, darling, try and eat something. Less worrying, more soup.”

The one time Aventurine got sick during their shared lives Sunday also doted on him so sweetly. Cold towels and warm bottles of water and always nutritious soup and tea. It felt nice, to be coddled instead of riding out waves of cold chill and fever in a ditch somewhere.

Kakavasha helps Sunday drink, rubs his shoulders, prattles on about this and that to fill the silence. Every chuckle it gets out of Sunday is a victory, every curious glance and small smile. There is something good still here, a seed left in the ashes of a scorched forest. It can grow anew. It can heal and thrive. Kakavasha begs every Aeon still willing to listen that it can.

“Thank you for being here,” Sunday tells him in the glow of a warm afternoon. “I don’t feel quite so alone anymore with you by my side.”

Kakavasha shrugs.

“Doing my best. I’m guessing Robin is still busy halfway across the world, eh?”

And Sunday smiles at him, quizzical, arms folded on the table.

“Who?”

The first time Aventurine stepped into the quiet chapel next to the city’s dreary graveyard he was blinded by the sight of an angel. A long day left him worn and tired but all aches melted away at the beautiful figure opening the door for him.

“May Xipe be with you,” the angel said. “How can I help you? We don’t usually receive visitors at this hour.”

Aventurine talked business over a cup of sweet tea. Sunday was reserved, polite, deliberate. His sister joined them before the sun was fully gone and Robin was as radiant as the rumors advertised her to be. Bright and diligent and kind, a will so strong it could bend the laws of time if she set her mind to it.

“I fear for her safety always,” Sunday admitted after she left them alone to tend to the torches near the graveyard walls. “But if it is her wish to go out into the world to bring harmony to regions plagued by strife then I will never stand in her way.”

“Let the bird fly free, hm?”

Sunday laughed in a way that Aventurine would come to know as fake.

“An apt comparison.”

Every meeting with Robin used to stick in Aventurine’s mind. She reminded him of his own sister, of course, always a clever word and passionate rebuttal. A mischievous streak and a romantic one- they both spoke of true love's kiss as a magic to overcome all others. Robin gladly colluded with him when Aventurine needed to plan surprises for Sunday. In turn, he never expected when Robin would aid in similar return efforts.

She sent him a letter once, after Aventurine had left. Questions he had no answers to. Thoughts too kind for him.

“Can I come with you on one of your guiding escapades?” Kakavasha asked, two days after nursing Sunday back to health.

That is how he finds himself overlooking the forest drenched with moonlight from the plateau’s edge. The village walks, invigorated. Aventurine wandered the night often, his outlaw and werewolf friends preferring the quiet cover of darkness. He misses them, still. They are out there somewhere. Perhaps one day their paths will cross once more.

“This is such a pretty form,” Kakavasha comments, petting Sunday’s majestic beak. “Not that I have any complaints with the regular you.”

The griffin rests its head on Kakavasha’s palm. The more of its power it uses the more eyes it grows and right now there are only two, golden with deep blue pupils. Familiar, so unlike a mocking god. Sunday chirps, tilting his head to make it easier to scratch under his chin. So affectionate, in all his shapes.

“So someone out here got lost and we have to find them,” Kakavasha says. “Easier said than done. Can you sense them?”

The griffin nods, feathers ruffling.

“Far away?”

Another nod.

“You know, I have wondered if you would let me ride you. It seems like the best way to ensure we make it in time.”

The griffin’s ear tufts tilt back, its eyes wide. It keeps its wings folded against his body but Kakavasha knows Sunday well and with him the sight of his flustered puffed up wings.

“Aw,” Kakavasha says and rubs the nape of the griffin’s neck, unable to stop himself from touching. “Come now, we’ve done more scandalous things than that. Don’t you remember when we accidentally defiled Xipe’s altar-“

It gets a choked laugh out of him when the griffin bumps its large head against his chest, almost strong enough to knock Kakavasha over.

“Alright, alright. But my request was serious. Let me fly with you, waiting for Akivili’s blessing could take a while.”

Sunday settles down on the ground with a grudging chirp. He folds his clawed talons, prim and proper. Kakavasha pets his feathered head once more before swinging a leg over the griffin’s body. It is a comfortable place to settle, just behind the shoulder blades. Sunday radiates warmth.

You always got cold so easily then and look at you now. Do you even need me anymore?

When they take flight Kakavasha wraps his trembling arms around the griffin’s neck and holds on tight. He buries his face in those soft feathers. Every strong beat of Sunday’s huge wings spins Kakavasha’s mind and lets the sinking feeling in his stomach dig deeper. It feels so good to be a team again. To have Sunday’s undivided attention, to be there for him in everyone else’s stead. Kakavasha can almost pretend away all the little flaws and blemishes in this otherwise spotless fantasy.

Robin’s absence aches in Kakavasha’s chest alongside his own sister’s. One of them is not his grief to carry and yet, and yet-

“I’ll do all I can,” he whispers to the griffin’s plumage where no one can hear. “Make it better. Just you wait.”

It burns so brightly in the moonlit night, the wish to bring back everything lost to time and fate and the whims of the gods.

What did Robin ever do, to become nothing but a casualty? What was her crime? What was her punishment?

“Did Sunday ever mention his family?” Kakavasha asked March on the way up to his room the night after Sunday managed to get up.

“He talked about his guardian being a complicated man,” March answered. “Which to me just sounded like that guy was awful. Nothing else though. Why?”

“Ah, idle curiosity.”

Aventurine did not offer to kill that guardian, that devil, because the body he once inhabited had already been burned to cinders. Sunday struggled with the expectations of an invisible presence, a ghost speaking through birds and their piercing gazes alone. After years of this Sunday never allowed himself to spare a thought and call it all an injustice. Robin was different. Robin said things as they were, saw them as they should be. Now she is gone, erased from history.

Kakavasha clings tighter to the griffin’s neck as the world below them becomes a blur of colors, concepts half-remembered on a map. If he keeps his eyes closed he can almost fool himself into a daydream. Swaying on a rounded cloud, drifting down the current of a lazy river. No worries, no complicated pasts. A shelter and haven, like Sunday wished for so ardently that he doomed himself.

Kakavasha could stay quiet. No one would ever know that this is a flawed paradise, least of all Sunday himself.

But Aventurine knew all too well how the absence did not always only let the heart grew fonder. He knew, better than anyone, that ‘absence’ was often ugly and hollow and painful. That grief picked and chose its timing at random. A stray thought to peppers he tasted as a child or the sound of what would have been flower stems braided into a wreath and suddenly Aventurine always was Kakavasha, always was his mother’s son and his sister’s brother and the only one alive.

If he never knew them he would never grieve them. If he never knew them he would neither be Kakavasha nor Aventurine- he would be nothing, perhaps, or a stranger wearing his skin. If he flayed himself could anyone wear the skin-suit, the hide tanned with utmost care?

The one lost in the forest does not wish to be rescued.

“Leave,” he snarls as they happen upon him, overgrown by golden flowers and eyes aflame with the red glow of mara. “Before I make you.”

Kakavasha hops off of Sunday’s back, his hands stuffed into his pockets.

“Good evening to you, too. My companion and I come in peace so there is no need for hostilities.”

“The mara does not care what you are here for.”

“But you seem to, good sir,” Kakavasha says and pats the griffin’s shifting flank. “I’m quite familiar with those fleeing the Hunt and you seem to be awfully lucid to be considered an abomination.”

The man growls but it comes out as more of a grumble. A wounded creature and yet far from an animal. When the beast overtook Acheron’s senses she still remained herself, somber but kind. Kakavasha gives Sunday a look.

“Is curing some of the Abundance’s curses part of your repertoire?”

The griffin chirps at him, headbutting his shoulder before trotting over to the fallen immortal.

“Ah,” the man says, an exasperated exhale. “You.”

Aventurine only ever crossed the path of Elio’s Stellaron Hunter briefly. A nice chat with an enigmatic woman in the marketplace of a city neither of them ever visited again. Hours after, the mayor lay dead.

Sunday, before his steps led him to the company of Akivili’s Nameless, spoke with many a sinner.

“It’s my job to hear everyone out and grant them the same patience,” he insisted.

Aventurine chided him for it more than once, that eagerness to put himself into danger, to trust any stranger walking through a graveyard with a sharpened blade.

“I don’t trust them,” Sunday always insisted. “I am not as defenseless as you seem to think.”

Under the cover of night, it all seemed the same. Compassion and cruelty, kindness and a death wish. Every time Aventurine reached the chapel he feared to find its doors out of its hinges and its holy halls bloodied.

When Qlipoth still allowed it he left one of his coins beneath the soil close by. Preserve their fates, preserve their home.

“You know each other,” Kakavasha states with a crease in his brow.

He recognizes the man coughing up tree bark and yellow flowers now, from wanted notices and a story by an old colleague.

The one that can’t die and believes himself an object.

“The priest has tried before,” Blade says gruffly. “Against all better judgment.”

The bite is gone from his voice, however, and he stays docile as the song of the Harmony settles over him. In grasping the power of all things living and dead the griffin shines like a beacon in the night, halo burning and many golden eyes blazing with a thousand suns. For a short time it is day- only here, only for them, a fierce and inevitable dawn.

Kakavasha loves him. Just like Aventurine loved him, just as any future iteration will love any version of Sunday so much it feels like a fever he can never shake.

Kakavasha loves Sunday, helplessly. The envy still flares up seeing him care for someone else, however innocently. That this person and everyone aboard the plateau gets to know the honor of knowing Sunday, truly knowing him, facets of him that neither Aventurine nor Kakavasha ever got to hold. He grinds his teeth and balls his fists and it would be so easy, wouldn’t it, to simply never speak up about the missing pieces of this world. He could keep Sunday for himself, be his only confidant, make right all that broke so callously years ago.

The flowers recede from Blade’s skin at the Harmony’s behest. Not gone, only dormant, but the relief on his weary face is instant.

“Thank you,” he says, however grudging.

When he gets up on unsteady legs he turns to Kakavasha.

“You’re the Stoneheart,” Blade states, tilting his head curiously. “The traitor. They seek you, too.”

“The Hunt? Maybe so.”

“No. Qlipoth’s agents are roaming the streets of nearby towns. One was on the way to the walking village, too. Be cautious.”

Kakavasha finds himself stunned by the warning more than its contents.

“Ah, your words of advice are appreciated, friend. Do you need a ride home?”

The griffin beside him chirps in exasperation but Blade shakes his head. Within moments he recovered, back straight and chin up. His eyes are gleaming in the shadows he dissolves into, gems bloodied by many a prey.

“Go on your way. Should the Hunt come for you, you may call upon me to settle my debt.”

He leaves the forest as it was, bathed in moonlight and tingling faintly with the remnants of Sunday’s song. Kakavasha exhales, the tightness in his chest relenting. Within a moment the griffin’s feathered head slides underneath his chin, offering its neck to rest on.

“I’m okay,” Kakavasha says. “It could be Topaz for all we know. It doesn’t mean they’re coming to kill me.”

Sunday chirps, settling down on the damp forest floor. He doesn’t protest as Kakavasha keeps his face buried against his feathers for far longer than necessary.

“You’re too kind,” he mumbles.

To me, he doesn’t say. You don’t know the thoughts I’m having. The dreams and wishes, ugly but truer than anything you believe.

Topaz told herself Qlipoth’s work was just- or so Aventurine assumed when they first met. A drone supporting the hive, her inner clock attuned to the hammer’s clang.

“I didn’t like you either, you know,” she told him when he admitted it to her over one glass of honeyed wine too many. “Pompous ass. I’m not an idiot, I know there are horrific sides to this job. But it also saved my life. I’ve used the Preservation’s blessing to save others, too.”

“You saved an alchemist’s metal pig and now it doesn’t leave you alone.”

“And others!”

Aventurine told her what he was going to do. Topaz listened and nodded and hugged him on that last evening before he slaughtered his own devil beneath the amber forge.

“You’re an idiot,” Topaz told him. “Good luck. And if we never meet again, fuck you for not finding a way to see me again.”

It made him laugh, then. It makes Kakavasha cry now that he lets himself.

Sunday collapses into his bed before the sun begins to rise.

“Urgh,” he says and it is petulant enough to assuage Kakavasha’s fears. “I have a shift at the bakery in two hours.”

Kakavasha fluffs his pillow.

“No, you don’t. You have an appointment right here, with sleep.”

“They need-“

“I’ll go help out, then,” Kakavasha tells him. “You carried me around all night, it’s only fair.”

Sunday is too tired to protest. He does pull Kakavasha down, keeps him close for those indulgent two hours. A warm bed in a safe town and all Kakavasha feels is guilt and guilt and always, sickening guilt. It itches under his skin when he makes his way past the plaza and its strange assortment of birds. A cardinal has joined them today, red as a poisoned apple.

“Oh, Sunday’s sick?” March asks as Kakavasha introduces himself as her newest employee. “Hope he gets better soon.”

She makes no more mention of it, her mood unchanged. Her apron is colorful and her hair in playful buns and after she explains the serving style of her bakery to him she hums under her breath. Kakavasha squashes the urge to shake her by the shoulders and yell do you just not care?

March cares about the sweets in her shop, the abundance of pastries. There are so many of them, more than they will ever be able to sell. Kakavasha serves them, his mind drifting far. The brand on his neck always burns but this is not the same, not beyond the discomfort simmering in his stomach. It isn’t new. It isn’t fresh, this wound.

Himeko, Dan Heng, and Welt all show up throughout the day. They are pleasant and polite. Kakavasha mentions Sunday and they express their concern the same way March did, a platitude, a passing thought. A distant relative.

“You did a great job today!” March says at the end of his shift, wiping flour from her fingers. “Have you considered staying longer?”

He blinks at her, folded apron on his palms.

“It’s Sunday’s job.”

“Oh! Right, right.”

March’s smile does not waver until he has left the building and she is out of sight. Cold sweat beads on Kakavasha’s forehead, his heart racing so fast he can only start running towards the center of town. Are there fewer people or more? He isn’t sure. He isn’t sure of anything.

Sunday is drowsily making tea as Kakavasha returns to him.

“Hey, how was your-“

“Something’s wrong,” Kakavasha says and hugs Sunday so desperately some tea spills onto the wooden floorboards. “Something’s horribly wrong and I don’t even know where to start.”

The blue in the sky is not the blue of the flowers on the windowsill or the color of Sunday’s pupils, forever beholden to a faith that eats him alive. Aventurine’s has been dead for so long, that trust in a higher power, but-

“Whatever it is,” Sunday says and twists in his hold until they are face to face, “we can figure it out. Together, this time, or so I hope.”

Today, Kakavasha teaches him how to braid flowers into a wreath. How to prepare a stew with peppers and beef, a recipe that never made it to paper. They don’t have all the spices but they get close enough.

“When we’ve figured everything out, I’ll find the real deal and make the full version,” Kakavasha says, crowding to the hearth and Sunday and any flame willing to share its heat with him. “That’ll be even better.”

Sunday smiles at him, indulgent, but even he is fading. So tired, so weary.

“Are you promising me a future?”

Kakavasha, kneeling on the floor of Sunday’s cozy comfortable lonely apartment, is sick with dread. A future. A future a future a future.

“I would like to,” Kakavasha forces out between forever smiling lips. Even like this he can’t form the entire lie, has to settle for an approximation. That is all this is, this farce. An outline, no details, not colored in.

Sunday keeps smiling, too. He knows. He always knew.

“Then I have nothing to worry about,” he says.

Sunday was not perfect. In the middle of the few nights they had together he often got up to fix something, anything around the living quarters. Sometimes it was compulsion, sometimes it was not letting work go even in when cuddling close to Aventurine.

Sunday was paranoid. Not about his own safety, not enough, but about Robin’s and Aventurine’s and the entire city’s happenings. It was an illness, an obsession with every intricate detail, and Aventurine wished to help but…

…Sunday did not admit to having an issue. He pretended, always, that it was trivial. A night of missed sleep, a bad mood today. Aventurine saw the marks on his arms and thighs, the missing feathers, the ribs pressing too visibly against skin.

Sunday, with his lips pressed into a tight line, told Aventurine that his revenge could and should not be his top priority. Strict and stiff.

“I understand it’s important to you,” Sunday said. “But it will leave you hollow. It will leave you with nothing to depend on if you don’t build a life to go back to.”

Perhaps it was kindness. Perhaps it was a cage. Sunday was a hypocrite, either way, because in his wonderful peaceful dream he would have been gone. No less hollow, no less dead.

Sunday kept it to himself, as he did all things that bothered him. Was it a lie? Is it a lie, no words spoken and no gestures made?

Welt Yang is gone the next morning. The pictures that showed his face have disappeared. Everyone goes about their day the same as always. Kakavasha runs back to the place above the library, seeking shelter, seeking commiseration.

“Welt is gone,” he says with his face buried against Sunday’s neck, arms and legs wrapped around him in a desperate plea.

Sunday yawns, a bit bleary.

“That’s a shame. I have a shift at the book store today. That is my favorite one, if I had to choose.”

After he leaves, chipper and pleased and without a care in the world, Kakavasha is left in the cold kitchen. He doesn’t manage to finish his tea or soup. As soon as he tries to the walls whisper of the cruelty of the gods that only mimics his selfish wishes. Only with great effort does he reach the bathroom in time to throw up all the meager morsels he has forced down recently.

It has to be you, the walls jeer, you brought misfortune here. A fresh coat of paint does not remove the rot. Here it is, your lovely future. Isn’t it pretty? Isn’t he all yours, only yours, as you always dreamed?

Kakavasha can’t even find it in himself to cry. He crams himself underneath the sink and scratches at his upper arms until the red lines redden with blood. He squirms in place, his guts twisting. Phantom pain, all of it. Phantom voices and phantom sins.

Who will be next? Who will be left? Do you think that if this town is only you and him you will always wait for the day he disappears, too?

Kakavasha tried to find Topaz once. Aventurine promised her, after all, and he intended to keep even a promise made by a dead man.

Topaz, however, no longer frequented the city they met in. Topaz no longer wished to be found.

Kakavasha walked grey streets and greyer fields. Aimless and thoughtless. There was no future to stride towards, no past to overcome. A promise broken, guilt to hoard.

Qlipoth’s agent arrives on the wandering village the day after Sunday forgets Dan Heng. Kakavasha woke up in Sunday’s arms, shaking and unsteady.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” he said.

Sunday barely listened, always happy, always giving and caring and helpful.

“You always do well,” he coos. “Always.”

Kakavasha flees as soon as he can. He roams the edges of the village, thinking about jumping once again. Such a long fall. Such a quick death. He chokes the thought down.

Jade stands in the main street appraising the blacksmith’s work. A hammer on an anvil. Kakavasha winces with every strike. He thinks about running.

“You look horrible,” Jade comments and it is almost concern. “Life on the run does not suit you.”

Kakavasha jumped the last time he got a glimpse of himself in a mirror. Shaggy hair and sunken eyes and sallow skin. Almost dead. As good as dead. No smiles to give so he nods mutely.

“I’m not here to drag you back,” Jade tells him. “There are more pressing matters.”

Kakavasha’s head spins. The sky circles over him like a vulture.

“What is it?”

Jade’s smile tightens.

“Jelena has gone missing. Her disappearance coincides with your own departure.”

Kakavasha pauses. Another nod, averting his eyes, seeking a chance to escape this situation and all others.

“Hope your search goes well.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

When Kakavasha lays down in his room at the inn that night he wonders what the purple witch’s deal was. Whoever she searched for would turn up eventually, certainly. Whoever it may be.

Every day on the wandering village is calm and joyful. Kakavasha strolls from the cozy inn to the tea shop, whistling with every step. It is a sunny day, no clouds in the sky. The bakery, then the tailor. The blacksmith, the coffee place, the bookstore and the library. Every person on the street wears a smile just like his.

When he returns to the inn that night the person manning the front desk waves at him, joyful. They are pretty with their golden eyes and those enchanting small wings fluttering beside their face.

Kakavasha returns their wave. Maybe tomorrow he will speak to them, try his luck.

The first time Aventurine encountered the Nihility he was barely old enough to understand what an Aeon is. Big Sister always spoke of Gaiathra Triclops with reverence and love but the cold deep waters, the endless sea of still stagnant void, held nothing at all. He was numb in it, as numb as he wished he could be to all the things in the world that hurt him.

“You’re blessed,” Big Sister told him, both to comfort and in jest when she ruffled his hair or spoke with admiration of the places out there they should both visit. “You always will be, Kakavasha.”

The Nihility was not kind nor cruel, just as no other Aeon could be. It wasn’t in their nature. It wasn’t in their intent.

THEY don’t love you; THEY also do not hate you.

Kakavasha walks past the fountain plaza every wonderful idyllic day. All those ravens and doves make such a beautiful picture, crowding around crystal-clear water and intricately crafted arches. He smiles. Everything is in place.

His eyes move from the cardinal to the goldfinch to the sparrow, from the wise owl to the parrot and the dove. A rainbow of colors, from green to red a thousand times. Kakavasha pauses, entranced. With the sky above so clear and the earth below so lovingly nurtured by soft rains there is still beauty in the eyes of a bird. In the eyes of a swarm, a rustle of feathers, an instant gone so fast it may never be preserved.

In those eyes there is no promised future- no visions or prophecies or oracles. In those eyes there is, however, a certain past.

Kakavasha gasps back into being abruptly, tugged above the surface of the black ocean after days of beautiful apathy. He screams, a strangled sound wrenching itself free from his chest like a dagger dislodged. His head feels like it is split open, an axe between the eyes until his skull cracks open like an egg. Kakavasha drops to his knees, eyes squeezed shut. Nothing spills out, no gore or brains or blood. The ache relents. Smoother, weaker pulses.

“You are-“

And he sees it, then- the cardinal’s red the same shade as Blade’s eyes, the owl’s plumage an approximation of Welt Yang’s hair. There are so many more. A purple hue in the parrot’s feathers to resemble Jade, the goldfinch’s beak shining like Topaz’-

“Topaz,” Kakavasha says and scoots closer until he is surrounded by the menagerie of birds. “You’re- why are you all here? Why are you-“

The small dove hops towards him, onto his open palms. In its beady eyes the sun reflects.

“Robin,” Kakavasha whispers. “This is where you went. How long has it been?”

And the questions keep pouring out of him, kneeling on cold soil.

“Why is the village like this? Which Aeon is responsible? What happened to Sunday? What-“

Robin pecks his fingers, interrupting him. Her song fills his mind, much quieter than her singing ever was. A grand staircase of mirrors, reflecting the burning light of Xipe, the pale face of Ena. THEY watch, motionless. THEY do not care to punish.

Aventurine arrives at the chapel in the quiet of midnight. His pockets heavy with gifts he presses the door open, lets himself into the sacred grounds. No one in the prayer hall, no one in the graveyard. The altars lie abandoned. Not a single offering left on any of the wooden tables. Everything is spotless, the day’s work dutifully cleaned up.

Aventurine places his gifts on a pew, the flowers and spices next to the books. He moves onwards into the humble living quarters. It was early on in their relationship, early enough not to fear the sight of blood on the doorstep yet. Early enough not to know that Sunday loved sweets and all things soft, that he denied himself what was considered childish but hated declining a gift more.

Aventurine peeks into the study and there he is, that stubborn angel, upper body folded over his desk. The parchment and ink are in danger of smudging and Aventurine hurries over to stop the spill. He sighs, fondly, and allows himself to watch for a moment.

Sunday relaxes not even in sleep but his features soften, those pretty lips parted around steady breaths. Aventurine can’t help but covet. He aches to run his fingers through that beautiful hair, a light grey tinged with blue, to press his palms to Sunday’s chest when he holds him so he may know that heart forever beats.

Aventurine swallows around the lump in his throat. He had it bad, from the start, no matter how much he fought it. Right now, right here, in this memory, the beginnings of grief stir. He mourns what isn’t gone.

“Mr. Aventurine?” Sunday asks drowsily the second a blanket is placed over his shoulders. “Oh, apologies. That was kind of you.”

“You’re apologizing for me waking you?”

“I- yes, perhaps.”

“Silly bird,” Aventurine says. “C’mon, lets get you to bed.”

“There are still-“

“I can do the rest of your chores. Water the plants, clean the candlewax. I’ve seen you do it often enough.”

Sunday’s eyes widen. Giving selflessly is not quite the same as being given to in inordinate measures. How greedy he must feel, how undeserving. Aventurine already wished to take those thoughts from Sunday’s mind, to bury them in gentle graves.

“I can’t accept that but thank you, truly,” Sunday says and bows his head briefly. “Would you like to accompany me?”

Aventurine settles for it. Follows like a shadow. It slips past his lips under the light of the moon, that his day sent him past the rivers in the west where the gallows’ ghosts haunt the waters.

“May I try and remove their grasp on you?” Sunday asks. “They cling to you like cobwebs.”

“Only if you promise to rest after.”

And so Aventurine sits on the side of Sunday’s mattress, closing his eyes to feel that sweet benediction sort through his self. The ghosts weigh on him. Every note of song feels as though one clasping hand is taken away. They tugged and pulled. Now their grip eases.

“Annoying,” Aventurine mumbles. “Why can’t they mind their own business?”

Sunday shuts him up inadvertently by brushing his fingertips from Aventurine’s brow to his temple so tenderly.

“They often can’t help it. All of their life’s regrets remain but they no longer have the sense to know where it’s from. So they reach for those who come by, who are caring enough to perhaps try and help. Like a child tugging on their parent’s sleeve.”

The pit in Aventurine’s stomach aches. Big Sister always laughed when he did that and he hates how young it makes him feel to remember, how helpless and at the mercy of the world’s whims.

“Ah.”

“You can still be annoyed,” Sunday huffs. “I only try to give some perspective. They’re not malicious, only desperate.”

“Will they be at peace, where you send them?”

“Yes. I remind them of the love they felt when alive and how to follow it home.”

Home. A stale and bitter taste.

“What if they had no love to follow?”

Sunday’s hand stalls and then gentles, brushing strands of Aventurine’s hair out of his face.

“Oh, Mr. Aventurine,” he whispers. “Everyone does.”

“Hey,” Kakavasha greets the griffin, curled on the wooden boards of the library. The creature barely moves in response, mustering a weak chirp.

Kakavasha sits down beside it. It is instinct to pet its soft feathers immediately, to smoothe them down and soothe the trembling body below.

“I walked through the village on my way here and there is barely anyone left,” Kakavasha murmurs. “Do you do all the work now, darling, with a smile on your face feeling grateful?”

Sunday can’t reply, too tired to even be human. A chirp is all he manages and Kakavasha only ever follows it closer, wrapping his arms around the griffin’s neck. This is where Aventurine always settled, held and holding, loved and loving.

“Is this your dream, songbird?” he whispers into the white and grey and blue feathers. “Are you keeping us here?”

The anger is so muted it might as well not exist. All of these people, all of these homely structures, all of this fake joy. A false paradise but a paradise nonetheless.

The griffin tilts its head, slumping more. Kakavasha squeezes him tighter.

“You don’t know either, do you? Even if- even if it is true, I know it’s different. They would all know this isn’t the same as the last time.”

But Sunday gives to the thought, all fight draining out of him. He surrenders, golden tears and all, and the spell does not break. Kakavasha waits, with bated breath, for a miracle to return the village to normal- whatever it may entail.

He keeps a hand on the griffin’s side as they stroll through the empty streets together. Only birds cross their path, the anvils and ovens silent and cold. Sunday quivers so bad he can barely keep walking. Guilt so crushing he may die under the strain. Kakavasha nudges him along, encouraging.

I won’t leave this time, he can’t manage to say.

“I’m here,” he offers in its stead.

The birds near the fountain stir as Sunday arrives. A particularly fluffy chicken in a bright shade of pink hops towards him, settling between his talons. The green sparrow and wise owl and red kite follow suit. As the griffin settles beside the endless stream the dove also finds its nest atop its head, nesting in the feather between those cute ear tufts.

Kakavasha sighs.

“Well, that’s something at least.”

He sits beside them all, chuckling as the goldfinch glares at him before landing on his palm.

“Yeah, you must have been here for a while, hm? And there I was searching for you on the other side of the world.”

Topaz frowns, as much as a tiny bird can. She stomps her foot on his hand. Her wings flap, agitated.

There is still something you’re missing.

Kakavasha frowns back at her. Then up at the griffin where it has accepted its fate, surrounded by all those loved ones equally lost.

The realization is not a gentle dawn. A lightning strike that travels from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, boots worn by long months of travel. Long months.

“Sunday,” Kakavasha says, whisper-shouting the sudden clarity. “Topaz was here before you. It isn’t you. It can't be you.”

“How do you even talk to an Aeon?” Boothill asked one night to distract from how horribly he was losing at poker. “D’you just yell at the sky until one of ‘em deems you worthy?”

Topaz picked her cards back up after making sure her menagerie was enjoying their many different dinners. The munching of numerous snouts almost overshadowed the conversation.

“Of course not.”

“Well, then how?”

“I don’t know but that’s ridiculous.”

“Not any more than havin’ no answer at all.”

Aventurine was content to watch them bicker and prepare to take all their money in this friendly competition. Topaz would accuse him of cheating and he’d laugh it off and then buy them all another round. Later in the night Acheron joined them, the image of the moon still reflected in her eyes.

“THEY don’t listen,” was her answer to Boothill’s question. “Most them do not have means to answer even if THEY wanted to.”

It wasn’t the last time they shared an evening together but there would be a last time. Aventurine gambled on it every week. One more chance, one more indulgent evening of companionship. There always was going to be a last time.

Akivili’s remains still walk. The creature’s head itself harbors a forest, its teeth the size of houses each. Blind eyes, skin like stone overgrown with shimmering blue grass. It trots along, bumbling and slow. It walks on, village or not, an eternal journey around the world.

“Akivili THEMSELF, then?” Kakavasha asks the sky. “Grieving and can’t let go?”

The griffin’s feathered head bumps against his back. So insistent now. A flicker of hope in sight and Sunday chases it as doggedly as he did self-destruction. Perhaps there is a future out there. Between them and it remains an Aeon’s apathy.

Kakavasha pats his belt, making sure his daggers are in their proper place.

Can Aeons bleed, he imagines asking Acheron if she wasn’t a somber little bird right now. Can I make THEM bleed?

Sunday can’t turn back, either, but the nihility he was wrapped in has made way for a hopeful spark of enthusiasm. Kakavasha is grateful, however, to see the griffin move at all. Sunday, consumed by his own guilt, wasting away slowly until all Kakavasha held onto was an empty shell-

The griffin bumps into him once more. Its feathers constantly rustle and bristle and puff up. So expressive. Kakavasha tries not to cling, not too often, brushing his hand over soft fur every once in a while to remind himself.

“Yes, yes, darling,” he laughs. “We’ll get to saving everyone.”

Sunday’s beak knocks against Kakavasha shoulder before he starts to preen strands of hair, from Kakavasha’s nape to his fringe. It’s so sudden and sweet that he almost stumbles over the edge into the abyss, shivering and shuddering with the sudden knowledge of being loved. Worst of all, he knows he’d be caught.

“Come on, angel,” Kakavasha chuckles. “We can’t celebrate yet. Who knows if this will work.”

Sunday’s halo chimes.

That’s why, Kakavasha knows instinctively. That’s exactly why you want me to know this now.

He can’t manage the response, not before the steepest fall, not before losing all of this to another act of apathy from the only ones with power to change anything. This might become a grave soon, after all.

Kakavasha forces himself to take the first step onto the walking village’s neck. Like a turtle, he thinks, slowly bumbling along through a world that killed it. He checks over his shoulder and Sunday is not far behind. Hopping onto the blue pathway like a much smaller bird, ear tufts twitching. Kakavasha stares for as long as he can allow himself, fill the vacant spot in his heart that forgetting Sunday left. Losing him by leaving always retained that fondness in grief, at least, in missing him.

The walk is too short. The blue grass whispers underneath his boots, mocking or encouraging he cannot tell. Kakavasha sighs.

Playing the hero now? Is this atonement? Is this, futile as ever, Nihility?

Sunday nudges him, once more. Steadying, encouraging, in spite of it all. A chirp and a chime and when they settle on the walking village’s still statue of a head Kakavasha feels at peace- in spite of it all. Sunday offers his side to nestle against and Kakavasha can’t resist the pull.

The song descends upon them both, draws them far into the shell of the walking village.

In the world between worlds and the space between spaces Kakavasha meets with an Aeon. No, not one- as he comes to in a bright auditorium, desks toppled and leaving only the grandest stage there are many eyes on him. He blinks, scooting backwards, seeking shelter from THEIR gazes.

The closest to him, puppet-face and spindly skeletal arms, studies him with abject sorrow. Kakavasha feels it in his marrow. Ena, unyielding, pities him.

Then, to THEIR right, Xipe and Lan hover around him like uncertain ghosts. THEY are not hostile.

Last of all, uncaring immovable force that THEY are, IX has taken root within the fallen podium.

Kakavasha sees THEIR thoughts before his inner eyes, before even his own. Uncaring fanatic beings and yet, and yet, there is grief alone in the myriad of divine whispers.

“Where’s Sunday?” he asks. “What did you do to him?”

THEY exchange looks, towering over him. A thing to be studied and pulled apart. He too would make a good puppet on THEIR strings, sinew kept smooth and pliable by constant use. THEY want him piece by broken piece, a pound of flesh for every failure.

An image flashes before his eyes. Sunday, safe, in a body not unlike Ena’s, a giant porcelain-faced angel, a conductor, eternally protected. Stagnant. Isolated. Lonely.

“Give him back,” Kakavasha snaps through gritted teeth. “Why are you here? This is meant to be Akivili’s husk.”

GRIEF washes over him, cold and clammy and vast as space. More images, of beings larger than life and oceans stained with oil and city spires breathing with lungs too large to fit a planet. Akivili is gone, certainly. Ena, Xipe, and Lan remain on this forgotten stage. Order and Harmony and Hunt.

ANGER follows. Trapped and betrayed and lured. Every intent turned to stagnation. IX remains, sealing everything in THEIR cold tomb. Two who made it to the funeral, swallowed up. One who happened to cross THEIR path by chance. The fourth stopped in THEIR frenzied hunt.

It starts as a chuckle and then bursts forth in a fit of wheezing shrill laughter. Howling like an hyena. Tears spring to his eyes and he can’t control it, can’t keep in and Kakavasha laughs until his stomach aches and his throat hurts.

“You’re also stuck here?” he asks. “Oh that’s great. Wonderful. Four stupid gods in another stupid god’s empty fucking head.”

THEY do not seem to understand enough to be offended. Aeons, crammed into what looks like a magic college’s classroom. Kakavasha still laughs even as Lan’s arrows begin to glow in THEIR quiver.

“Nah, you won’t kill me,” he says and gets up on steadier feet, grinning and brushing imaginary dirt from his shoulders. “You need me to get out of here. So let’s make a deal, shall we?”

Kakavasha’s heart beats out of his chest but his mind is alive with untamable fire. A risky gamble but progress is progress. THEY don’t know his heart. THEY know his smile and nothing else.

Ena reaches for him with THEIR spindly hands and Kakavasha sidesteps just in time.

“None of that,” he says sharply. “You listen to me now. You tell me how to remove your spells on this place and I’ll do it. In return… let me give you a brief list.”

THEY meet him with silence and confusion. THEY stare, the archer and the puppeteer and the singer. Their captor stays unmoving, nothing but void.

Then, finally, blessedly,

THEY heel.

When Akivili died THEIR carcass bled silver into the soil. Four days and nights THEY drained and after a full week THEIR corpse rose from the site of THEIR slaughter and went on its way once more. The spirit never died, the credo, THEIR wish for the world to connect in all ways.

When Akivili died THEIR passengers continued THEIR journey. One alone stayed on the plateau, sweeping empty halls and corridors to remember every last person who ever passed through. They knew arrival and departure well. They never quite got used to it.

When Akivili died THEIR fellow Aeons sought the carcass. Some to mourn, some to scavenge. A dead god is still a god. Skinned and repurposed and defiled it remains a god.

The last passenger knew that with such an act all memories would vanish. Every last person whose fate once brushed past them would disappear, undone and unmade. Remembrance and recollection requires great care.

The last passenger found a way, found a place to store it all and keep it safe. The last passenger was the first to go.

Kakavasha takes a hammer to the fountain. The blacksmith’s forge had many a tool but the sledgehammer rested best in his hands. He burns with fury, with all things vengeful. He burns hotter than the flame that tempered this weapon. It screeched across cobblestone, screamed and cried for an Aeon long dead or the many innocents caught in the crossfire.

Kakavasha lifts the hammer above his head and brings it down upon the anvil that is the fountain in the plaza’s middle.

It breaks into a thousand splinters with a deafening crunch. Water splashes everywhere, cold and fresh, a rain bestowed to barren soil. Then light begins to pour out, beautiful blinding light, and Kakavasha is knocked onto his ass by its splendor.

His head spins and his lungs are out of air and for a blissful terrifying moment he thinks he has died. The final bell has tolled, the last dance concluded. It has found him now, after all these years, and part of him always was waiting for the end.

Then, Kakavasha draws breath once more and the sky comes into view. THEY will not win. Not today, not ever.

He laughs, elated and manic, until the sun is overshadowed by the shape of a person.

“He’s alive,” they call out to someone behind them. “Whether he is ‘well’ is debatable.”

Kakavasha is pulled to his feet by strong hands and it is Blade who helped him, he realizes as his eyes find focus. The cardinal’s red remains in the iris but otherwise humanity is returned to him. A frown, as well, disapproving enough to make Kakavasha laugh again.

“You added more debt,” Blade says. “Irritating.”

“You’re welcome?”

He receives a grunt in reply. It is quite alright because within moments Kakavasha finds himself in different company.

“Aventurine!” Topaz yells and drags him close for a hug that shakes his bones. “Oh, holy shit, you’re here. You’re alive. You saved us all! For free!”

Through her weak attempt at a joke they both crumble. Kakavasha thinks about correcting her, setting the name right, setting it right as he set the rest of the world back into place. The goldfinch is gone, leaving only a friend he thought forever lost.

“For free,” Kakavasha croaks. “Hey. I tried to- I was going to-“

“It’s okay. I know. I tried to find you, too. That is how I ended up here in the first place, you know.”

The fountain lays in ruin. All of the magic crammed into it has poured out onto the village, onto the flock of birds. The creature conserved within has emerged- a rabbitlike being wearing a red uniform. March is crying holding onto them, hugging them tight.

Kakavasha’s head spins again, unable to fully put the pieces together. Everything is fine, everything is well. He gets to speak with Acheron and Boothill for the first time since his revenge. He gets to say sorry and thank you and whatever other words make it to his lips. They get to do the same. And they always, always, call him Aventurine. He's too tired to correct them. He’s too tired and…

Evening comes and he wobbles on his feet and the strain of the last few days begins to fully set in. Something is not right. Something hangs over his head like a grey cloud.

“Where’s Sunday?” he asks into the orange hues of sunset.

Aventurine fell in love with Sunday during spring. Qlipoth’s demands had forced him to travel all across the countryside, his coat still heavy with rime. The cold night clung to him, too, and by the time he made it to the small chapel his teeth chattered so loud it would ruin his trade on the easiest mission. He brought sweets this time. Blue flowers.

Sunday gasped as he caught sight of Aventurine’s disheveled appearance, the pallor of his cheeks.

“Come in,” Sunday insisted. “Let’s get you warm. Oh, Churin, did you trek through the marshlands? I can’t believe you. The bridge just got fixed. Why didn’t you-“

“Wanted to see you earlier,” Aventurine forced out between chattering teeth.

Sunday rolled his eyes, even as a blush crept from his cheeks to his neck.

“Keep the flattery for after you are dry and warm.”

Aventurine let himself be pulled along, compliant and docile because Sunday’s hands were pure magic, gentle and sweet. He waited for a bath to be drawn just for him, held still as Sunday massaged one of his herbal tonics into his scalp. The world smells like lavender. Aventurine dozed off in the bath, wakes only to soft humming.

But it was not that. It wasn’t the giving and being taken care of, it wasn’t the ways in which Sunday was useful and supportive.

When Aventurine woke to a glass of water on the nightstand and pillows behind his back he felt at home, he felt loved and cherished. He got up, clad in borrowed clothes, and checked the kitchen for his gracious host.

Sunday tended to a plant, watering it and dusting its leaves. He spoke to them sometimes. He chose pots to match their petals. As soon as the work is done, he adjusts the plant to stand in the precise spot it was before.

Aventurine stood in the doorway, unnoticed, and he was in love. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t fight it. It was a certainty, as certain as the moon would trade with the sun. Aventurine loved Sunday, small quirks and oddities and unfathomable kindness. He loved him with the desperation of any futile endeavor. Clinging and clutching and-

I CAN’T PROMISE TO STAY.

The griffin raises its head as Kakavasha approaches, cute ear tufts twitching. In its golden eyes the relief barely takes hold among the sadness.

“No, no,” Kakavasha slurs and stumbles over, passing through well-stocked library shelves. “Angel, don’t be sad. Just stay right where you are.”

He barely manages the last few steps, collapsing straight onto the griffin’s soft side. Kakavasha’s knees protest. Pain swims in the muddled pool of emotions, everything smudged together by exhaustion.

Sunday chirps, worried, nudging him with his beak. Kakavasha laughs, his voice pitching higher.

“C’mere,” he breathes out. “True love’s kiss will break all curses.”

Kakavasha presses the first kiss to Sunday’s beak, then his feathered forehead, then his brow. More and more, one after the other, until he holds a much smaller figure in his arms.

“Heyy,” Kakavasha greets the most handsome man in this vast world. “There you are.”

They kissed for the first time in the dark of an alleyway. Far away from prying eyes, far away from the judgment of Sunday’s father. A small act of rebellion, every small kiss. Aventurine teased, prodded a little, small lovebites and wandering hands. Slow pleasure. He wanted to do it right, to make it good, to pretend this could last and endure even eternity.

Sunday is crowded by his loved ones for hours. Tearful reunions, some explanations, fewer regrets. Pom-Pom, the rabbit creature, stops anyone from apologizing to them for too long. Their long vigil was not a sacrifice. They knew, with all their heart, that their passengers and friends would find a way to restore all that was barely preserved. There is a smugness to all their words. Kakavasha doesn’t blame them- trapping four Aeons is something he would brag about for years to come as well, however chaotic.

The library is full of chatter and shuffling steps. Kakavasha stays where he is, exhausted, dozing off a few times. Someone hands him water and food before the day is done and he trades them a smile that isn’t all masquerade. Hollow dread still bullies its way below his ribs but it’s slow, it’s manageable.

“Let’s give these lovebirds some space,” he hears someone- March?- say eventually. “Oh. Phrasing. Sure.”

It quiets, one by one, and the room brightens as lamp after lamp is ignited by careful hands. Kakavasha exhales a long breath as a warm presence joins him on the floor. Like children watching the stars, trading secrets, fearing nothing in the world. They never had this.

“Hey,” Sunday whispers. “Everything okay? You must be so tired.”

Kakavasha huffs, barely able to keep his eyes open.

“Ah, what are some heroics for a guy like me?”

Sunday’s fingers card through his hair and Kakavasha leans into it. A whine escapes his throat, something small and pathetic, and while he still burns with embarrassment Sunday has already wrapped an arm around him. Always drawing them both into shelter.

“So many heroics,” Sunday mumbles. “Thank you. Without you-“

“Yeah. Scares me to think about.”

“Me too. But we don’t need to. Also conductor Pom-Pom seemed assured that no matter what, one of their passengers would find them and break the spell.”

“I’m not-“

“However temporary,” Sunday interrupts him gently, still soothing every last shred of discomfort from Kakavasha’s body, “you are one of their passengers.”

Kakavasha grumbles but lets it rest. This isn’t the day for false niceties and empty flattery so it must be true. He, blessed and abandoned by Gaiathra Triclops and Qlipoth, must have added another allegiance to the list.

“How did you know true love’s kiss would work?” Sunday asks when the dark has near descended on the walking village, when his fingers are tightly interlaced with Kakavasha’s. “Did THEY tell you that in the Path space?”

Kakavasha flushes, cuddling deeper into their embrace.

“THEY wouldn’t know love if it cut them down,” he mumbles. “No, I- I think I was delirious. It’s the oldest magic there is, right? Had to work.”

“You weren’t sure. Oh my.”

“I was!”

“You weren’t sure,” Sunday giggles and sounds giddy like a teenager even through the overwhelming fondness. “That’s so sweet, Churi- I mean, Kakavasha.”

And it burns against his blood, his ribs, his retinas. All this time, all these years, since he left his home to kill who killed his home.

“I think,” he says, his voice faltering, “it might still be Aventurine.”

Because- as he knew,

As he always tried not to know,

The past does not return on swift wings or the wish upon a star,

There are things that may never return,

There are those that may never return,

So to try, to labor, to agonize to revert oneself back to how one was in their presence, to how one was Before,

May be a disservice,

May be a cruelty,

May be a grueling impossible unjust destiny.

“That’s okay,” Sunday says and nuzzles into Aventurine’s neck as though desperate to crawl under his skin, to be as close and closer than their physical forms even allowed. “I love you no matter what name you go by.”

It breaks the dam, finally, throughout the exhaustion. Aventurine’s eyes well over with tears within an instant. The sobs shake his body, shake his entire self as violently as a seizure.

“I’m sorry,” he weeps. “I wanted to stay. I always wanted to stay. I just- I just-“

Sunday rubs his jaw, his temples, the damp space under his eyes.

“Churin, I- I never wanted to tell you that taking revenge was not fully and wholeheartedly right. It was. You were honest with me when I wasn’t honest with you. Stop punishing yourself needlessly.”

“You’re one to talk,” Aventurine hiccups.

“Maybe I’m a bit of a hypocrite, yes, but that doesn’t mean you should follow my example.”

“Aren’t you angry at me?”

Sunday hesitates.

“I don’t think I know how to be truly angry with you,” he admits. “How to… allow myself to feel wronged. How to not hate myself too much to realize I get to be mad.”

It lingers in the warmth of the library, that somber note, but Aventurine finds he doesn’t fear it. Not with Sunday’s shaky hands clutching him just as tightly, not with the curse broken, not with his family’s murderers forever staying dead.

“I can see that,” he replies.

Sunday’s flight wings unfurl, wrap around Aventurine.

“I think you are the same, Churin. I lied to you. And I think that- that if we want to try again that’s something we really have to work on.”

The question woven into it is so tentative, such a small hope, that Aventurine’s flayed nerves give to the flood of tears again. He presses his face against Sunday’s shirt.

“Y-yeah. When we try again we should do that.”

The Aeons have left the walking village, all but the remnants of Akivili, dutifully carrying THEIR passengers and legacy forward around the world. The earth needs no nourishment, the rivers need no spring and the fires no kindling. As long as people tend to it, travel with it, the walking village’s grand plateau sustains itself.

“No,” Aventurine says, frowning pointedly. “I do not have to admit Akivili is the only Aeon that’s ‘kinda alright’. I don’t owe any of them anything. THEY are in my debt. Especially the Hunt.”

Topaz and Boothill roll their eyes at him almost at the same time. Their hands must be horrid. Acheron, bless her heart, keeps her face carefully neutral. Aventurine still knows it means she is bluffing. Perhaps he’ll throw her a bone today to see Boothill yell over unfair odds once again.

He rolls his shoulders and casts a glance outside the tavern window, up to the stars. Down here, on the ground, they look so far away.

“Look at him,” Topaz drawls. “Shutting down our Aeon talk again to stare wistfully up at the sky, missing his bird husband.”

Aventurine squawks in a very dignified manner, as he will insist later.

“We’re not married yet-“

“Yet,” Boothill says.

“Yet,” Acheron says, not looking up from her cards.

“I hate all of you,” Aventurine sighs, his heart so full. “Go back to being birds.”

When he sets foot on the plateau, Aventurine breaks into a sprint. He has to- not for the thrill of the chase or the fear of being hunted, but because the forest around him lends itself to it. Fleet-footed and confident he races towards the gates, the path past the brook and the first sign of the inn. He brings gifts this time.

“Dan Heng, look, Aventurine is bribing me again,” March calls out to the tea place next door. “Oh! Is that- that’s one of the earrings, isn’t it? And you matched my hair color!”

Aventurine gives, to please people and to establish his value to them. It is all a transaction, after all, and he still does not fully believe that his company is pleasure enough. It’s alright. It’s on the list of things to think about, to come to terms with or strive towards changing. The village too takes one step at a time.

“You said you had no need for currency anymore with how gracious dear Akivili has decided to be again,” Aventurine drawls. “So I had to think of something valuable.”

“Even if you had to pay for it still you wouldn’t be staying at the inn, would you?” March asks. “We still have a room for you, but-“

“No, no, that won’t be necessary~”

He bumps into Robin on the road near the plaza. The afternoon sun filters through the leaves of the tree they planted just weeks ago, the deep green above and the dark brown below. Blue grass thrives around its healthy roots.

“We have to sit down for a drink again soon,” Robin laughs. “So much to catch up on. I hear you made enemies of some really strange people.”

“Where did you hear such a thing?”

“You will just have to meet me for tea to find out!”

Her path takes her out into the world once more. To sing of that peaceful dawn, of that beautiful tomorrow, to ease the burdens of those who are not yet freed from their own curses. Aventurine waves at her as they go their separate ways once more.

His path, after all, always leads him further. The last gifts he carries are sweets and a specific array of spices, pairing well with peppers and beef.

The library’s door creaks open and within a moment Aventurine has entered its shelter. He finds no dust. It’s a cozy space, the shelves lined and arranged neatly but there is nothing sterile about the painted walls and flowers blooming on windowsills. In several corners pillows are strewn about to give room for undisturbed reading.

Something tugs on Aventurine’s heart, a yearning for something intangible and new. A corner of the world, peaceful. A sliver of a life meant for him.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” a lovely voice calls out from between the shelves.

“Take your time,” Aventurine shouts back. “The cake can’t get any colder.”

A dull sound of something dropping to the floor is followed by fluttering feathers and then Aventurine finds himself with an armful of pretty bird. Sunday almost tackles him with his hug, enough force and eagerness behind it to mellow Aventurine’s grin into something much, much softer.

“Hi,” Sunday says, pulling back to cup Aventurine’s face, to kiss him, to kiss him as many times as they both can stand. “You dressed up for me. Should I have?”

Aventurine traces the lines of Sunday’s shape with the discerning gaze of someone who has done so a million times. Sunday wears comfortable clothes, clothes that keep him cozy and warm and hug his body beautifully. He’s filling out again, in a warm nest.

“You’re dressed up just right,” Aventurine murmurs and drags him closer. “Prettiest bird.”