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The town square was smaller than he remembered.
Of course, he was bigger than he’d been the last time he stood here.
A dry wind rustled through the silent circle of huts. It stirred the Suva-chimes, which reverberated with a deep, ancient clang that made Toa Nidhiki feel impossibly small.
He remembered the first time he had heard those chimes ring out. The fog of ages blurred the edges of the memory, making it feel dreamlike. But the emotions were as sharp as ever.
He’d thought it was a celebration. The chimes had sounded so bright and happy to him, back then. He’d dropped whatever he was working on and sprinted to the Suva…
His abos were gathered in the square when he arrived, but they were silent. The mood was far from celebratory.
He looked to the Amaja and was stunned to see a stranger standing there. Only the Aga could stand in the Amaja circle.
But more stunning was the stranger herself. Tall and rippling with sinew, there was something about her that immediately commanded attention. Nidhiki found himself captivated by the intelligence in her burning orange eyes.
She was green like him. An aba?
That’s when he noticed the two figures kneeling at her feet.
He recognized one of them! Pafan, the cook. A kind soul, he always gave Nidhiki an extra serving of gola leaves with a conspiratorial wink.
Maybe they were paying their respects to this stranger. She was certainly impressive. This was clearly a being King Mata had chosen for important work. Nidhiki wondered if he should bow too.
The stranger raised something long and thin high above her head. Before Nidhiki could see what it was, Aga’s chest was there, blocking his view. Her hand pulled Nidhiki against her breastplate by the back of his head.
“Don’t look, ‘iki,” Aga Barot said. “Promise me you’ll never look, chalma. You are too good for this place. Too good for us. I’m sorry… I’m sorry.”
Then came sounds that Nidhiki didn’t recognize, but he knew he didn’t like them. Then screams and crying. He knew those sounds.
He remembered the Kanoka juggler at the Passing feast of those first two abos to fall.
She was so swift, so subtle that Nidhiki could barely see her hands move, they simply showed up wherever they needed to be to snatch the spinning disks out of midair. He longed to move with that much speed and confidence one day.
But even her skill didn’t still his abos’ tears. So once she was done, Nidhiki leapt up onto the platform and did his own routine with the discarded disks.
He made a mess of it, of course, but that was the point. Dropping disks left and right, chasing them around in the flickering torchlight, tripping over them and falling flat on his face.
He never looked away from the masks of his abos as he performed. Nidhiki couldn’t stop their tears either. But he made them smile through it.
After that, every time the chimes rang it was the same story. Nidhiki would go to the square, too curious to stay away. And every time, Aga would find him, cover his eyes, make him promise to never look, tell him how pure and good he was, tell him how sorry she was…
Until the day the chimes rang and it was Aga Barot on her knees in the Amaja circle.
She’d been a drinker in the end, Nidhiki remembered. Never a mean drunk, but she would sob for hours. It had always been Nidhiki’s job to haul her back to bed, to wipe the tears off her Kanohi and the dirt off her knees. No one else would go near her.
“Was I good to you?” she asked him one day as he watched over her pallet, her voice a gentle rasp.
“What do you mean, Aga?”
“Did I do right by you all? Or did I let you down?”
Nidhiki rested a hand on the brow of her Kanohi.
“You taught us about King Mata. You taught us that bula berries are safe to eat and nula berries are not. You told us the stories of the jumping kavinika, and how the Barraki fell, and all those adventures you went on with the Toa Nour.”
A faint smile flickered on Aga’s sleepy face.
“I suppose I did do that. Bring me my paints, chalma.”
Nidhiki had always loved the brightly colored powders that Aga used for painting wards. Aga had to watch them closely, or he would swipe some to paint scenes of his own. She’d always chastised him. The paints were sacred, and sacred things cannot be wasted on the vulgar, she’d always said.
Nidhiki had never understood what was so vulgar about a sunsrise, or a smile on his friend’s face.
But he brought Aga the bowls. She dipped her finger in the water first, then went for the Le-green paint, his soul hue. Nidhiki had to hold her wrist to steady it, her hand was shaking so much. The ward she drew on his right palm was spidery, but as she had always said, it was the intent behind the ward that mattered, not the artistry.
“May this hand ever do King Mata’s work.”
Next came Ga-blue, traced with love around the circular grille that covered his mouth.
“May this mouth ever speak King Mata’s praise.”
And then she mixed red and blue in a clean bowl, and stretched upwards to draw one last purple mark on the brow of Nidhiki’s Kanohi.
“May this mind ever be filled with King Mata’s light.”
She sagged back into the bed, exhausted. Nidhiki held tight to her hand, watching the green from the ward she had drawn on his palm mingle with the many colors that stained her fingers and drip to the ground.
“Thank you, Aga,” Nidhiki whispered.
“Underneath my pallet,” Aga said, eyes screwed shut. “There’s a little sack… I want you to promise me one more thing, ‘iki. On the day it gets too hard… On the day it’s too much to bear… I want you to bring what’s inside it to the Suva. Then you’ll know what to do. Can you promise me?”
“Aga, I don’t understand.”
“Will you promise me?”
“... I promise.”
“King Mata made a mistake when he put a boy as brave and as clever and as kind as you in a place like this,” Aga said, her hand shaking in his again.
“No… Aga, that’s not… I love it here.”
Aga laughed, but each expulsion of air sounded painful.
“Of course. You would love it here. But… You’re young yet, and there’s a whole world to see. You can go anywhere. Be anything. That’s you, ‘iki. I was always too much of the Peninsula and it was too much of me.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Nidhiki said. “I want to stay with you, Aga. You need my help and I need yours.”
She closed her mouth and looked at him.
He should have known.
Should have known.
Should.
Have.
Known.
Should have known that the next morning, the chimes would ring, and that it would be Aga Barot on her knees in the Amaja circle.
“No,” Nidhiki roared in anguish. Not a single head from among the gathered abos snapped up at his outburst.
He barreled through the crowd, snatching a farming scythe from where it lay discarded on the ground.
One leap and he was in the Amaja circle, profane feet marring sacred sand. He hefted the scythe – it was so heavy – and brought it down on the stranger’s head.
The stranger Dodged so fast that Nidhiki’s scythe cleaved through the head of the afterimage she left in her wake. She whirled around to face Nidhiki, grip tightening on her sword. Her head snapped into a quizzical tilt with a whir of servos. She must have been surprised by how small her challenger was.
“Get away from her,” Nidhiki said, forcing his voice as low and gruff as it would go.
“Teach your whelps to respect their betters, Turaga,” the stranger said in a voice that crackled like logs on a fire. “Or I will.”
“I’ll handle this, ‘iki,” Aga said. She was calm, but Nidhiki could hear centuries of strain beneath her words. “Just walk away. I warded you with King Mata’s work, with his praise, with his light. This is not for you. Walk away, ‘iki. Please.”
Nidhiki looked at his Aga, silently imploring her to stand up, to fight for her own life. But she just slumped to the ground.
If she wouldn’t fight, Nidhiki would.
He charged the stranger, lifting his scythe high. She only moved one finger.
The scythe Fragmented in his hands. The force of the explosion hurled him onto his back, stealing the breath from his lungs. He realized as he lay there gasping, that with that much power, she could have killed him with one stroke.
He didn’t think it was mercy. It felt more like she couldn’t be bothered.
“Brave little bug,” she said, and gestured at her side.
The sand stirred beneath him.
Centipedes, beetles, ants, and all kinds of crawling things burst out of the ground and blanketed Nidhiki, blacking out his vision. Wasps descended on him from the air. They bit and stung every weak spot in his armor, synchronized and directed by an intelligence that deeply understood Matoran anatomy and how to make it hurt.
Nidhiki writhed on the ground, clawing at his own body, crying out in terror. The punctures were bad enough, but some of them injected him with their venom, attacking his senses, his memories, his very thoughts.
In his frantic struggles, all he managed to do was clear the insects from his eyes.
“Help me,” he shouted to his abos. “Help her!”
He stared out at them in supplication, but not a single eye met his. The others were staring at the ground in shame, unable to lift their heads, unwilling to acknowledge what was happening right before them.
“Let this remind you that none may defy the Brotherhood and live,” the stranger proclaimed, lifting her sword high. “Not even a Turaga.”
Nidhiki looked into Aga’s eyes one last time, looking for anything other than that tired resignation that had been beaten into her over centuries. He found it.
Love.
“Be more than this,” she said.
The blade fell.
The Suva chimes clanged one last time and fell silent as the wind died.
The stranger was gone and the insects went with her. Nidhiki didn’t see it, but he felt her presence depart. He couldn’t look away from the dull eyes of Aga Barot.
None of his abos dared help him up or comfort him. The stranger was gone, but their fear of her lingered over the village like a raincloud. They went about their daily routines in silence, as had become the norm. As if there weren’t two bodies lying in their Amaja circle. As if they didn’t remember the countless bodies that had lain there before.
So there Nidhiki lay, until night fell and Aga Barot vanished into the Mystery that lies beyond life.
He lay there longer still, staring into the space where her eyes had been.
He wasn’t sure when he finally rose and brushed the sand from his body. He made his way through the silent, empty village, to Aga’s hut. With all his strength, he pushed Aga’s pallet up onto its side. Indeed, there was a little holey sack beneath it. He turned it over and shook it out.
It was nothing remarkable. Just a rugged sandstone, no larger than his hand. He clutched it close to his chest and returned to the Suva.
He ran his fingers along the cylindrical surface, searching for something, he wasn’t sure what. Words in a voice that he would never hear again echoed in his mind.
The Suva is where our prayers go, ‘iki. Where King Mata hears them, and where he stores them up. There is power in prayer magnified and redoubled.
Nidhiki had said that he thought the Suva was for storing Toa masks.
And where do you think a Toa’s power comes from? A Toa draws his strength from the prayers, the heart of his people.
He found a slot in the side of the Suva. He inspected the stone in his other hand. It looked like a perfect fit.
He didn’t weep until he slid the stone into the slot, until he felt the Suva rumble and come alive against his hands. Light and power poured from its aperture and bathed Nidhiki, burning his tear-filled eyes.
Nidhiki was lifted, lifted.
Be more than this, Aga had told him with her last breaths.
He would. For all those who couldn’t.
A flicker of movement stirred Toa Nidhiki out of his reminiscence. Now, the Suva that had transformed him was covered with cobwebs and little spots of corrosion, but there was a Bo-Matoran doing his level best to care for it.
He pittered around the shrine, wiping it with a rag, hunched over by weariness more than age. He didn’t look much older than Nidhiki himself.
He dropped into a bow the moment he spotted Nidhiki.
“Great Toa! How may I assist you?”
“Oh, no, it’s alright. Just passing through.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have much to offer in the way of comforts. The inn and the bar have been shut down since our Aga passed. So many left us after that…”
“I see. I’m not staying long.”
The Matoran looked Nidhiki over, smiling.
“Le-Toa. You know, a Le-Toa came from our village, a few years back.”
Nidhiki couldn’t help but grin behind his mask.
“Really?”
“He was in Metru Nui last we heard, with the Ma… Man… Something.”
“Mangai?”
“The Mangai, that’s right! Of course, we all hoped he’d stick around, help out here…”
Nidhiki’s jaw clenched until it throbbed with pain.
“... But he’s done very well for himself.”
“What was he like as a Matoran?” Nidhiki asked.
The Bo-Matoran nodded slowly, looking past Nidhiki’s shoulder.
“He seemed lonely to me… Bright, though, and quick as a whip. And very artistic. He always knew just what to say to cheer us up when we were down, to make us laugh. I remember this time he tried to juggle Kanoka… Mata, how I wish it had been me who got out, not him…”
Nidhiki turned to go, his hands gripping the haft of his scythe a little tighter. The Matoran didn’t seem to notice, entranced by the Suva.
“Nah… What am I saying?” The Matoran eventually said, freezing Nidhiki where he stood. “He deserved it more than any of us. Good kid…”
The Bo-Matoran murmured it a few more times under his breath as he returned to his hut.
“Good, good, good kid…”
Alone once more, Nidhiki leaned on the reflective surface of the Suva with one hand to steady himself.
Once his breathing slowed, he reached into his pouch and withdrew a stone. The very same one Aga had given to him, so long ago.
He set it down atop the Suva, but kept his palm flat against it. He wasn’t certain how long he stood there in the stillness, suspended between one thing and the other, listening to the wind and the Suva chimes.
At last, he found a thread of power within himself and pushed outwards. His hand glowed with a breathing, singing energy. The stone basked in it, drinking in every glimmer. He filled it with power once more, but it was unchanged to the eye.
He hit some kind of barrier and could not keep pushing, couldn’t give up all of his power and become an Aga. So, he hadn’t fulfilled his destiny, then. That didn’t really tell him all that much.
Something told him that what he had done to the stone would be enough, though. He pulled his hand away.
But then he sat down on the ground, cross-legged.
He rummaged through his pouch again, and pulled out three bowls of paint. He’d foraged and crushed the leaves himself, mixed the powder with his own hands like Aga had taught him.
He wet his finger and swirled it around in the green bowl until the powder was the consistency of paste. Then, he drew the first ward on the ground beside the Suva, the one Aga had traced on his hand in Le-green.
“May your hands ever do King Mata’s work,” he whispered to no one.
Next came Ga-blue.
“May your mouths ever speak King Mata’s praise.”
And then, Ga and Ta mingled.
“May your minds ever be filled with King Mata’s light.”
He stood and looked around the silent town square one last time. No Matoran stirred. He couldn’t even see eyes peeking out at him.
His eyes skipped over one patch of sand in the Amaja circle.
“Thank you,” he finally said, again, to no one in particular.
A gust blew through the town, and Nidhiki departed with it. He left behind nothing but his three wards and the Toa stone, brimming with possibility.