Ajnido
Shooting through the sky as a star, a lone star, the deafening roar of his passage tearing the air like burning silk. The heat radiating from him warped the light around him into molten swirling clouds, bending reality itself.
A trail of glowing fury could be glimpsed if one dared squint through the blinding, sun-hot glare. He was heading towards the Tree.
That name: Daaeem. He had read of it before, in those stolen hours spent studying, learning of Thrones, Fundus, but most of all… the accursed name vibrated in his heart: Sefron.
This thought, this vile intrusion scratching at the inner parts of his mind, made him stop. Midair. Midflight. Midjourney.
The sudden silence after the roar was a physical blow. He scoffed, the sound dry and cracked like stone splitting. He ground his teeth, the echo loud in his own skull, trying to leash the inferno threatening to erupt from his pores, the liquid rage boiling in his veins.
But with each attempt, the voice of his father scraped against his inner ear, cold and commanding: "No Ajnido! Sefron will not accept those who lack steering!"
His neck muscles spasmed violently, tendons standing out like cables. Enough. His fingers snapped. A sound like a dry branch breaking in absolute silence.
Below him, the forest… ceased. Not burned. Not reduced to ash. The sound of wind through leaves, the rustle of hidden creatures, the scent of dirt and green, all vanished mid-breath. Not even absence remained. Just… a perfect, silent void.
A hole tore in existence. He hovered down, his rage a constant, heavy pressure behind his eyes. His feet touched the ground. Disgusting. The feel of it, cool and yielding beneath the fading heat of his soles, was an affront. He snapped again.
A sharp, brittle crack. And again. Until the ground beneath him was a raging pool of pure white flame, radiating a primordial heat that shimmered the air. Only now did he deem it worthy to stand upon. He looked around. Nothing left… nothing. The silence pressed in, thick and suffocating.
He clenched his chest, fingers digging into the fabric over his sternum. No pain, just… a hollow vacuum, echoing the void he'd created around him. All scorched away by those he trusted, by those he'd foolishly given his love.
All for nothing. His heart pounded slowly, yet with a terrifying, measured grace against his ribs, a drumbeat in an empty hall. This was the first time in years he'd actually listened to it.
His rage faded, receding like a violent tide, leaving behind a state of unnatural calm that washed over him like icy water.
The flames he stood on flickered once, twice, then died with a faint, mournful hiss, plunging him into stark, grey stillness.
His heart was… warm? An alien, unsettling warmth pulsed where only cold fury usually lived. He could not explain this feeling.
He found it… profoundly disturbing.
He sat down on the scorched, glassy ground, the residual heat soaking into his legs. He just looked up. Nothing. His mind strangely quiet, a stagnant pool. His hand remained unmoving from his chest. The warmth pulsed again.
Peace?
The word slithered into his consciousness.
Peace?
It echoed, louder.
PEACE!!??!
The realization detonated within him. The fact he could have a moment of peace slammed into his core like a blow. His heart stuttered, then went frighteningly quiet. His mind erupted in a silent scream of denial.
His fire surged forth from his core with volcanic force, a pressure threatening to split him apart. He nearly dug his fingers into his own chest, the urge to rip out the traitorous, quiet heart almost overwhelming.
His muscles locked rigid with refusal. He would not accept it. His anger flooded back, a scalding tide. He snapped at himself, a vicious, close-range burst of white fire engulfing his forearm.
The searing pain was instant, cleansing, a familiar anchor. It burned, a sharp, bright agony that cut through the alien calm.
The fire could never truly damage him; a cursed gift of Sefron, only heal him or make him feel pain. Only the Primordial Flame itself could scar him.
He shot into the air, a star once more, the roar of reignited fury tearing the silence apart. He needed to find something to burn.
He needed to see the fire, to feel the destructive heat on his skin, hear the consuming roar, smell the ozone and char, anything to fill the void, to bring a fleeting sense of purpose, of being more than the hollow vessel he feared he was.
The second he saw more trees, a distant smudge of grey against the horizon, he burned them to absolute nothingness, the act accompanied by a silent, localized implosion. The second he saw animals grazing, small, grey-furred creatures frozen in terror, he burned them, their brief, silent screams swallowed instantly.
He burned the fact he burned them, a metaphysical snap erasing the memory trace, just to burn them again in the physical plane, a second silent detonation. All for that little spark of validation, the fleeting, toxic warmth that whispered he was powerful, he mattered, he was something beyond the emptiness.
Then, as he was streaking like a comet, he noticed the trees changing. From monotonous grey to a vibrant, almost luminous yellow. They looked alive. They looked… beautiful. Stunningly, unnervingly beautiful.
They matched his eye color. They matched his sister's eye color. The similarity struck him like a physical blow. A memory lanced through his mind, sharp and intrusive. His brain literally contorted, a sickening pressure building inside his skull.
A sharp pain spiked behind his eyes. A loud scream came from his throat, raw and involuntary. He clutched his skull, fingernails scraping his scalp.
He burned himself. A focused snap of white fire at his temple. The pain vanished, leaving a phantom ache. The memory stood clear as day, unwanted, vivid.
"Hello there Ajnido..." The voice, warmer than any flame he could conjure, softer than sunlight. "I have brought some flowers for you."
The scent of pollen and dew ghosted in his nostrils. "They are yellow, your favorite color!" The smile he saw; the same smile he had watched twist in agony as his flames consumed it, flashed before him.
Her smile… that… No matter. It did not matter. He had killed her. Her. From that day, all changed. His… no. Never mind. It did not matter. The memory was a knife twisting in the hollowness of his heart and mind.
These trees looked like those flowers. Insignificant. Mocking. His mind shifted, shifted to refuse his warmth he could have. He hated this color. It disgusted him… an instinctive revulsion churning his gut.
He snapped. A single, decisive crack. Gone. The vibrant yellow vanished, replaced by sterile nothingness. But then… it came. The scent. Rich, woody, unmistakable. Cedar. The scent of his brother's room. Of him.
He smiled, a grim, joyless stretch of lips, as all the trees were erased. He had accomplished something! It made him feel… a sickening surge of pride, thick and cloying in his throat. Burned away, he told himself savagely. He deserved no pride. The pride curdled instantly into self-loathing.
There it loomed. A tree. Not yellow, but enigmatic, shimmering with the deep, living hues of fire itself; crimson embers, molten gold, searing white heat, smoldering orange.
It did not burn. It did not even falter under the oppressive heat radiating from him. This defiance ignited a profound, cold hate within him, settling like lead in his stomach.
"You dare defy my fire!?"
His eyes narrowed, bloodshot veins stark against the whites. His face remained a mask of terrifying neutrality.
With one snap, sharp as a cracking whip, he conjured forth white flames, the kind that could unravel the essence of lesser gods. They washed over the tree.
Nothing.
Not a scorch mark.
Not a tremor.
He tried again, a roar tearing from his throat this time, pouring more fury into the inferno.
Nothing.
The tree stood, serene and immovable, its fiery colors glowing with an inner light. It defied him. It defied his being.
He could not stand this. He closed his eyes, a tremor of pure rage running through him. He called forth the thing he hated most.
The name tasted like ash and betrayal on his tongue.
Sefron.
The Primordial Flame. He snapped. A sound like reality tearing. Reality fractured around the tree, unleashing pure, annihilating primordial heat, a miniature Big Bang contained.
Nothing.
The tree absorbed it, drank it in, its colors glowing brighter for an instant before settling.
The Tree refused. Ajnido's rage was a silent, a tremendous pressure within his chest, threatening to collapse in on itself. Unfathomable. He gave up. The fight drained out of him, leaving only a crushing fatigue.
His body radiated heat like a dying star, the air crackling faintly around him. He gave up. Sighed, a long, ragged exhalation that held the weight of eons. He hovered closer to the tree.
His mind, strangely clear of fury for a moment, realized this was Daaeem's Tree. The Tree of he who created all, even Thrones. The knowledge settled with heavy finality.
As Ajnido touched the bark, a shock ran through him; not pain, but a profound, deep warmth, like sinking into a warm bath. He collapsed onto his knees, his body suddenly weak, unaccustomed to the grand cost of futile rage.
He felt… a pain. Deep down in his being, an old, familiar ache, the ache of the hollow place. This tree felt as if it was metaphysically embracing him, the warmth seeping into his bones, a comfort he hadn't known since…
Ajnido let out a sigh, a shuddering release of breath, and felt an overwhelming, uncharacteristic urge to ask something of the tree. Almost like a prayer, something he had spat upon when demanded for Sefron.
"Why? WHY!?"
The words burst out, raw and scraping.
"You created Sefron! You created EVERYTHING! Why did you make me? Why did you create something as vile, as broken, as monstrous as me!?"
His voice dropped to a harsh, pained whisper.
"I don't deserve to live."
His heart beat a single, heavy thud against his ribs.
"Why Daaeem? I have killed so many… snuffed out so many sparks… I have tortured so many in the name of what? For who? To fill this… this emptiness?"
He slammed a fist against the bark, but it yielded softly, absorbing the blow like felt, radiating soothing warmth.
"You think I like to live like this? A furnace of rage walking in a shell? You think I live everyday without the screams echoing, without seeing their faces in the flames? How my life could have been if I did not snuff out their fires long ago? If I was not born under the accursed shadow of that Flame?"
The thought of Sefron sent a fresh wave of corrosive hatred through him. He punched the bark again, the impact soundless, absorbed.
"I just wish… I… Stars damn me… I was born in a normal… a caring family…" The admission hung in the sudden, absolute silence, thick and fragile.
Silence.
No wind. No breath. Nothing.
The world held its breath.
Not a tear of fire, the burning festering of rage he knew, but a single tear of cool, clear water rolled down his cheek, tracking a path through the faint ash smudged there.
The oppressive weight… almost lifted. For a single, small moment.
Then he let go of the Tree.
The warmth vanished instantly, replaced by a chilling vacuum.
There he was. Materializing from the shadows beside the Tree.
The void.
The nothing.
The Lightless.
His presence was a sudden drop in temperature, a sucking silence.
"Burn it all, Ajnido."
The voice boomed not in the air, but within Ajnido's very being, a psychic flamethrower scorching his thoughts.
"Every reminder. Every lie. Only ash is pure. Only ash is free."
The words seared away the fragile confession, the momentary warmth, the traitorous tear.
"Remember who broke you free from the chains. Who gave you the greatest fuel one could ever hope for. The fuel of betrayal. The fire of vengeance. I freed you! I gave you a new path. A path with Purpose. A path where you could defy any who see you as lesser, crush them beneath your heel, to end all those that disgust you! I gave you everything!"
Ajnido chuckled. A low, deep sound in his throat. He laughed. The laugh grew, harsh and barking, devoid of humor, echoing with a lifetime of bitterness.
"You lying piece of shit!"
Raw, unfiltered anger, finally finding a target outside himself, surged through him, hot and cleansing. For the first time since becoming a puppet, defiance flared like a beacon.
Laughter.
Only Ajnido's bitter, defiant laughter answered the oppressive silence.
"Fine."
The word cut his laughter short, flat and final.
Ajnido's newfound clarity shattered like glass. His mind, so briefly clear, became instantly flooded with thick, sickening fog. Flooded with the familiar, crushing nihilism.
He lost the spark in his eye; the spark that had, for a heartbeat, found the trees beautiful, glimpsed what he truly wanted. Gone. Extinguished.
The Lightlessness inside him, that cold, devouring void he carried like a second heart, surged back, filling every crevice, drowning the defiance.
The pain, the trauma; all the old, familiar wounds, ripped open anew, raw and bleeding. The Tree's warmth was a distant, impossible memory.
He sat down heavily, the impact shaking his bones.
"I will kill the one who seeks to cure this worthless existence of the nothingness…"
His voice was a monotone scrape, devoid of fire, devoid of life.
"…of the Eternal Darkness…"
The final words hung in the air, cold and absolute, accepting the abyss.
Waiting for the one who dares to defy the Lightless.