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Ajaw was unusually quiet.
Over the years, Kinich had learned how to deal with the abnormal lifeform in a manner that best suited his personal lifestyle. If Ajaw was privately making snide remarks, a simple command or huff was enough to silence him. If he was making a ruckus, a firm nudge would get the message across. And if he was truly offending others, then the self-proclaimed almighty dragonlord would earn himself an old-school smack into time out.
But he’s not exactly lying about that, is he?
When the two had first met, Ajaw had done nothing but fill the stagnant air with the sound of his own voice, flattering his own ego, uplifting himself beyond the starry skies of Teyvat with his might and grandeur. Mortals, he spat, should submit their lives and bow before his great and holy presence. His claims were so outlandishly arrogant and insane that an exhausted Kinich, who had just recently come to terms with being the sole survivor of the expedition into this death-trodden ruin, had been tempted to just pass off Ajaw’s chatter as useless drivel.
But there was something about Ajaw’s voice—the syllables he would emphasize, the vowels he would embellish, even the cadence to which he spoke—something about it felt foreign to Kinich. There was a driving force behind that strange voice, with a thread of something sinister closely intertwined with his inflated words.
So the second Kinich met him, he knew that K’uhul Ajaw, despite his childish appearance and demeanor, was a selfish, powerful, cunning dragonlord—one who had reigned over a portion of Natlan during the ancient age of dragons, instilling fear in the hearts of the humans who resided in his territory.
And yet, thousands of years later, this is what he’s become. Kinich lifted the lid off the crate and set it aside, allowing light to stream into the container for the first time in days. One of the last of his kind, no longer feared, but instead mocked and ridiculed, his terror-ridden legacy burned to mere ashes by the onslaught of time.
Ajaw stared up at Kinich. The pixels representing his eyes blinked slowly. And yet, his mouth remained still.
Quiet. Unusually so.
Kinich rose to a stand and walked towards the kitchen table. He set out a glass of juice—freshly squeezed from the latest batch cut from Iansan’s hand-picked harvest—and a container of popped grainfruit, then reached for his gardening tools and walked out the door.
It was a while before he felt Ajaw’s presence drawing closer, gently tugging at the bindings of their contract—the ones that always lingered in the back of Kinich’s mind, buzzing with a faint hum that he had long grown accustomed to tuning out. He lifted his head and spotted Ajaw floating in front of the door, staring up at the sun.
Quiet, Kinich’s mind supplied once more. Unusually so.
He didn’t like it.
“Did you think you were the last one?” Kinich finally asked.
Ajaw let out a sound that could only be a scoff. “Of course not.”
“So you did.” Kinich crossed his arms. “Well, it’s only logical to assume that, given how much Natlan must have changed since your prime.”
Ajaw let out a grunt of annoyance, but otherwise made no other sound to voice his disapproval.
“I spoke with the Traveler,” Kinich continued. “Ineffa is planning to return home. In Nod-Krai.”
Even if Ajaw was currently just a phlogiston projection, he was still as expressive as any other living being. Kinich’s eyes narrowed slightly as Ajaw’s hands and tail twitched—mere glitches to the untrained eye, but an emotional response in Kinich’s.
“Good,” the dragon finally said. “As she should. She’s not welcome here.”
“Because she’s made peace with her past? Or because you don’t like her?”
“When have I ever indicated that I liked her, servant?”
“You’re both originally dragonlords made by the Pyro sovereign, correct? You seem quite proud of that ancestry. I wasn’t sure if those feelings would extend to family members of similar stature.”
Ajaw spun around in an instant. “What kind of nonsense are you spewing now, you pathetic worm? Why would I ever consider that thing as family, nevertheless a likable part of it? You of all people should know that being related by blood does not equate to being liked nor wanted, Kinich.”
Kinich pursed his lips. “So you don’t like Ineffa.”
“Hah! An understatement as usual.” Ajaw’s body flashed with angry red. “Why would an almighty dragonlord such as us ever think highly of a house maid? Ha! The utter idea of it is enough to disgust me. She fully belongs to whatever dismal rubble she deigns to be her home!”
“A maid, huh? So that’s how you’ve chosen to classify her: as someone beneath you.”
Ajaw’s mouth pixels moved to form what Kinich could only guess was some sort of pout.
“Of course she’s beneath us. Look at her! Can’t even give herself a proper human form: just a bunch of scrap metal and wires slapped together by a child with no rhyme or reason. Pathetic.” Ajaw shook his head. “Rrrgh, just thinking about her wasted potential pisses me off. She’s better off being far away from here! At least then can we spare ourselves from such a pitiful sight when perched atop our throne.”
Kinich snorted. “The one that will loom over your reclaimed kingdom?”
“Mark our words, servant! The entirety of Natlan will one day bow before the might of the Almighty Dragonlord!”
“But you need to fulfill our contract first.”
“As do you, Kinich.” Ajaw’s projection shifted into his typical laughing form. “Well, no matter. All you need is to make one false move and you’ll be done. Done! Hehe, and it’ll be nothing more than good business for me, and another stepping stone on our destined path.”
“But for now, you’re stuck in a human’s fancy bracelet as nothing more than a clump of pixels. What a shame for you.”
Ajaw scoffed. “Hurry up and die already, servant!”
“In your dreams.”
Ajaw’s sprite turned red with anger as he spat out a series of insults. Kinich watched, arms crossed, as the projection flailed around like a fish out of water.
At least he has begun to sound like his normal self once more. Kinich felt the corner of his lip twitch downward. Almost worried me for a moment there…
Kinich awoke to a soft beep from his watch. He shifted in his hammock, grunting softly when he felt the strings of the bond tingle in the back of his mind. Without much thought, he reached over and pressed on the device to get rid of the notification, tuning out the noise in his mind until it had returned to its usual background hum.
It wasn’t until he felt the hairs on his neck prickle that he realized something had changed.
He felt a large paw press against his chest. Blocky claws shallowly sunk into his shirt, leaving behind nothing more than rigid indents in the flesh below. Kinich shifted under the strangely gentle press of the oppressing object.
“Ajaw,” he mumbled, eyes slowly opening to look up into the black mass of voxels hovering over him, “it’s late, what do you want?”
Ajaw let out an exhale in response. Hot air, tainted with gaseous phlogiston, struck Kinich’s face, causing his nose to scrunch up and throat to clog. He let out a wheezing cough as Ajaw continued to press down on his chest.
This isn’t right.
“Ajaw, shrink,” Kinich finally choked out. But he felt the bond tighten in resistance to his command. “Ajaw, what did I just say—” He yelped when he felt himself become airborne, suspended in the air by Ajaw’s ever-tightening grip. “Hey!”
“So fragile.” Ajaw held Kinich’s body up, red eyes scanning over it with a gleam that seemed less predatory, and more…analytical, calculative even. “And yet, not. You are a walking paradox, servant.”
Kinich kicked his legs, trying to wriggle free. “Put me down.”
“Humans are all like this. Yet in the end, even she…” Ajaw exhaled another huff of tainted air. “Pathetic.”
Kinich stopped his flailing. “So you are upset about Ineffa.”
“She had it right there,” Ajaw murmured. “She could have claimed it all. But she chose to walk away…to go to a human’s side. Willingly. She betrayed us.”
“…Are you sad she decided to leave?”
Ajaw remained silent, but if Kinich concentrated deeply on their bond, he could feel it—the true feeling of Ajaw’s ancient existence pressing against his temples, the gravity of it weighing down his bones, like a heavy blanket draped across his soul.
“No. You’re upset because she left with what you want: a place where she belongs.”
The bond flinched.
Spot on.
“Is it really that upsetting?”
Ajaw scoffed, but the bond twitched behind Kinich’s eyes. He squeezed them shut, steadying his breathing to concentrate on the residual pressure in his temples.
“…When my parents left me, I thought that was that—that I was destined to be alone. And I taught myself to be okay with that. I could hunt, I could craft, I could trade—I didn’t need anything else to live a fulfilling life. But Elder Leik, Mualani, Kachina, the other heroes, even the Traveler…they’ve shown me otherwise.” Kinich opened his eyes, gazing back into the scarlet fixated on him. “Sometimes, that’s the price you have to pay for happiness: being wrong, and learning how to come to terms with that.” Kinich placed his hands on Ajaw’s paw, giving it a gentle pat. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Ineffa spent hundreds of years roaming the world, trying to find her place. You’ve barely been out in the sun for a decade. It’s only natural she’d make it to her destination first.”
Silence. Then, finally, Ajaw let out a long sigh.
“My servant is so arrogant. How predictable: a worm that thinks it can talk on equal footing with a destined ruler.” A pixelated claw pressed against Kinich’s cheek as Ajaw leaned closer. “But let us entertain you for a moment: while others may have helped you on your journey, little maggot, your life still remains one full of solitude. And considering how you have tied your very existence with the likes of us since times long before you even began paying back even a fraction of your debt to your helpful little ‘friends’, that can only mean one thing.”
The spot the claw was touching pulsated with warmth, sending a jolt of heat through Kinich’s body, which responded in kind with a brief flare from his Nightsoul tattoos. The bond buzzed with electricity as the tattoos glowed, suddenly sending Kinich’s head into a doozy.
“The only thing you have ever needed is me,” Ajaw said—out loud or through the bond, Kinich could not tell. “And when you finally break that stupidly fragile neck of yours doing the impossible, the only thing you will be is my servant, forever and always. The rules of this world may not be, but time is on our side in this matter. Don’t forget that, Kinich.”
Kinich shuddered as another wave of phlogiston coursed through his body, calling forth another overwhelming surge from both the bond and his tattoos.
“I know.” His hand rose to rest on top of Ajaw’s snout. Phlogiston thrummed beneath his fingertips as he stroked the blocky amalgamation. “You know I know.”
I already told you back in that ruin: my duty is ensuring that you will never be able to wage any more conflict and discord in this land, even after my death. That I will bring you up to see the world beneath the sun, and convince you to make your last conquest be not of Natlan, but of the resentment and self-hatred festering in your soul.
Red eyes narrowed—not in anger or frustration, but something different: relief.
“Good. My servant knows his place after all.”
Kinich’s gaze remained fixated on scarlet blocks as Ajaw leaned forward, pushing back against Kinich’s hand until the front plane of his snout met with the human’s forehead—a clumsy imitation of Yumkasaurs coddling their young, tribal elders comforting children, lovers sharing a tender moment…
But in the moment, all Kinich could think about was Ajaw’s warmth.
Familiar. Comforting, even. Kinich felt his eyelids growing heavy. Ajaw, you…
Then, as suddenly as he had seized Kinich, Ajaw released his grip. Kinich fell back on his hammock with a yelp, bouncing off it and landing on the ground with a loud thump. He still held out his hands to catch Ajaw as the dragonlord shrunk back down to his typical two-dimensional form.
“Now tuck me in!” Ajaw demanded. “I’m tired!”
Kinich had to suppress his eyeroll.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have needlessly wasted all that phlogiston just to intimidate and insult me.”
But Kinich rose to his feet and set Ajaw back on his own miniature hammock. Green pupils shifted into horizontal lines as Kinich tucked the blanket around the pixel dragon.
“Done.”
Ajaw gave no response. The silence, plus the calmness of the bond, signaled that the dragonlord was asleep.
Finally.
Kinich stared at his companion for a moment, thinking back on the way the bond had thrummed in his veins as Ajaw took in his words—how for just the briefest of moments, he felt it stutter, as though coming to a revolutionary discovery after processing new facts; how for the slightest second, he felt Ajaw find relief.
Despite your haughtiness and claims, scoffs and rebukes, you and Ineffa are far more similar than you think. Kinich glanced down at his watch. You are ruthless, rude, and prone to triggering nasty tricks, but ultimately, it was your willpower that kept you going and landed you here at my side. And despite everything you say and do, you’ve ultimately decided to keep me, a mere human, as a part of your life, even after my time lapses.
The hammock shifted under his weight as Kinich slung himself back into it.
The only thing I’ve ever needed is you, huh?
The starry skies faded into darkness as Kinich closed his eyes.
As if you don’t need me just as much as I do you.