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Since settling their quarrel, we had all been at peace.
So, how did I end up here? Why was I dreaming, yet so disturbed? And most importantly, who was speaking to me?
“Huh?” I asked in wonder as a bright white cloth ball rolled from the darkness and stopped near my feet.
I knelt to grip the ball, but it passed through my hands. Or, more accurately, my hands dissolved into smoke before I could feel it, leaving me grasping air.
I gasped.
“It hurts? Then I’ll fetch Father. He’ll be able to heal you. He’s a doctor!” the voice continued its one-sided conversation.
Hesitantly, confused about why I dreamed of something so strange and foreign, I stared at the tiny human face that finally emerged from the wall of shadows.
It was a child, a small human, and instantly, I covered my mouth in shock because it resembled my mate so much, I couldn’t deny it was him.
Happier eyes, gentle, accepting, and so small and delicate. He was nothing like him, and yet I knew without a shadow of a doubt it was–
“Sun? Why are you here?”
He cocked his head to the side, grinning, front teeth missing. It horrified me, and I wondered who had knocked them out. But he didn’t seem to be in pain. Far from it, he looked happy, playing with me.
“How do you know my name? Did Kai tell you?”
“Who is Kai?” I asked, as the miniature Sun beamed up at me, his smile a little too wide, his eyes suddenly vacant, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Then, a mighty gust of wind knocked the ball back to his feet. He unfroze and chuckled, the airy sound filling the darkness.
He kicked it, balancing the ball on the tip of his toes before knocking it back to my ghostly feet.
The miniature Sun laughed, cheerful again, and I couldn’t help but do the same, in awe of him. His white robes looked too large on him like Sun’s clothing did in the land of the living.
“If you’re not hurt, then get up. I’ll take you back with me to the village. If you can play, the wound must not hurt so bad. We aren’t allowed to stay outside after dark, so come with me.”
What wound? I thought, as little Sun crossed his arms, the ball now tucked against his chest, tapping his slender foot impatiently. And why does he sound so old and young all at once? Who is he talking to?
I smiled and began to speak when another voice emerged from my mouth, deeper and jagged, like that of a much larger noc.
“C-c-come closer… my child. Play with me a little longer,” it said, trying to lure Sun away from the safety of the light.
He frowned, but crept closer, ball at arm’s length.
“I’ll play with you back in the village. It’s not safe out here at night. Those things, those creatures will eat you, you know? They like the taste of naughty children the most. That’s what Momo told me.”
Panic set my blood on fire, as the crunching and clattering of many legs resonated in my ears, the air shuttering as something crawled through me to get to him.
Run! Run, I screamed without a voice, robbed of anything but my ability to see this memory.
For that was what this was, a memory like the times Sun dreamed of his horse Haru, or the Naga Nest he decimated years before being imprisoned. It hit me at all at once, that I’d seen this scene before, clinging to Sun in the cell, but only fragments that now became crystal clear.
Sun froze, all the color drained from his expression. He looked up, and up, and up, and up and up and up until he fell on the ground, covering his mouth, shaking from head to toe.
“What… are you?”
His eyes widened in terror as bloody rays of moonlight clawed against the Earth, melting and morphing before transforming into a beast. The shadow of a large centipede noc, a crawler, descended on him.
It was like my first awakening, but worse. At least I’d had wings to carry me away from the war, and a body, if not strong, bigger than this tiny child to defend myself with. No one was here to save Sun, and I was useless to do anything but watch.
“Ahhh!” a scream tore through the eternal night, and I opened my eyes.
