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OC SPOTLIGHT: Akhuru // sfw
🕑 Added 2020-04-30 21:38:13 +0000 UTCthe story of akhuru and ilan takes place in our underground desert empire setting, and relies heavily on certain pieces of lore and mythology. for that reason it was challenging to write the following OC spotlight in a way that’s informative but still pleasant to read. i did my best to include and explain all the lore necessary to make the story below self-sustained, so you don’t *need* to have read any of the others before reading this. however, it might make even more sense if you have, or at least allow you to connect even more dots. so if you want to dive deeper, may i recommend the iskandar spotlight re: people’s attitude to light as something unsettling, scary, and dangerous; the nehaneru spotlight re: the lore surrounding the gatekeeper; and perhaps the tha’ra spotlight re: his broken heart and the nature of mezfirah.
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To enter the afterlife, you need both your body and your soul. When someone dies, their physical remains should be preserved in one way or another, and rituals performed to ensure the eternity of their spirit. The dead should be entombed in the proper way, where they will be safe for all eternity, and anyone who disturbs or disrespect a cemetery must be punished.
If your body is not given a proper burial, or if your spirit is not granted the necessary ritual, you may end up stuck between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The same applies to if either your body or your soul is harmed, cursed, or destroyed. You could become a restless soul without a body, or an undead body without a soul. Sometimes, such ghosts and walking dead are created because of misfortune or accidents--other times, there’s ill intent, negligence, or forbidden magic involved.
There’s workarounds, of course. A destroyed body can potentially be ritually replaced by a statue or doll, to give the soul a new home to nest in. A restless soul can maybe be placated and given the help it needs to move on. But if it’s broken and shattered, there’s no repairing it. A broken soul is full of pain, rage, and sorrow, and suffering usually follows in its wake. A shattered heart easily gives in to grief or wrath, and whether it ends up hurting others or carrying the hurt all on its own, it’s a tragedy. If ever a soul shatters completely, breaking into a thousand little pieces, it just … ceases to exist. Forever.
A broken soul is fate worse than death, feared by all beings, whether living or dead. Mortals fear it. Spirits fear it. Monsters fear it. Even the gods once feared it, because Khuthlya was created broken. The clay that formed his body cracked when fired in the divine kiln, and they thought his “imperfection” would lead to ruin. Instead Mezfirah healed him, filling the hollows in his soul with love.
Some mortals have tried replicating this feat, but who can ever hope to emulate the power of a god? There’s one old story that few remember, about a sphinx who could put broken souls back together. But none of their pupils could ever learn their master’s craft, and so it died with them.
Millennia later Mezfirah, ever a god of compassion, studies the mortal realm with concern. There had always been shattered souls, and always will be. Not every soul can be saved. But lately, there has been a rising number, and it doesn’t seem to be coincidence. Daiva shares her insight into the future with him, about the rise of a predator that’s turning mortals and spirits alike into prey, feeding off the shards of their souls.
Mezfirah decides to find a champion--someone who can defeat this fiend and, more importantly, heal that which has been broken.
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Sphinxes were originally sun spirits, serving Shamassah, the god of the sun. Shamassah sacrificed his sanity to win the war against the Gatekeeper, and many of the spirits of his realm went mad with him. But the sphinxes were spared from this fate because his sister Daiva gave them a second pair of eyes, granting them the gift of clarity, insight, and the ability to tell truth from lie and real from unreal. It’s still a common saying that you can’t lie to a sphinx.
After their god fell into madness, the sphinxes came to rest in-between sister and brother, using Daiva’s gift to see through the illusion, cunning, and trickery that Shamassah (now Hel’wusah) tend to inspire in mortals. They revere their creator still, remembering him as he once was, but refuse to follow his path of insanity. Instead they patiently wait, hoping that one day he will become himself anew.
With time, the sphinxes turned more mortal, but never fully so. They’re shapeshifters, with many forms between human-faced felines and something like a human, but you can recognise a sphinx by their four eyes and various catlike features. Though rare they’re very long-lived, and tend to use their unique talents to leave their mark on the world.
They’re well suited for it, since their four eyes allow them to see much that others can’t or won’t. Of course they each have different skills, talents, and personalities, but they tend to be logical, intelligent, and decisive, with great leadership skills. Like most felines they often have a regal air to them and may come off as intimidating or cold, inspiring respect and sometimes fear. But there’s extremely few malevolent sphinxes. Most of them are just and fair, capable and willing to shoulder great responsibility, not out of personal ambition but because someone has to, and they’re supremely fit for the job.
They aren’t territorial, per se, but you rarely find several sphinxes in the same area. They tend to eventually find their place in the world, taking an area or group of people under their wings, and it’s an unspoken agreement that one sphinx doesn’t interfere with the business of another. One might be truth teller of a nomadic clan, solving disputes between its members and passing judgement on crimes; another might be an imperial advisor, offering their insight to the empresses; a third might serve as a strategist in the army; a fourth a lead scientist in a laboratory. In short they tend to end up in positions of influence and power, where their insight and determination adds maximum value to their chosen field.
The only place where you’ll always find several sphinxes at once is in Duat-Heru. It is basically a kingdom within the empire, buried under the desert sands, as ancient as the sphinx who still rules it. His name is Nesu, and he’s viewed as the spiritual father or grandfather to all sphinxes--and as the literal relative to some of them. Duat-Heru is sovereign but Nesu and the empresses have an amicable understanding and in any case, Duat-Heru is a kingdom of knowledge more than political power. It is said that in it’s halls there is at least one copy of every book that’s ever been written. Scientists, poets, writers, and artists all dream of visiting Duat-Heru, but only the worthy are allowed to enter and learn from its wisdom.
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One of Nesu’s daughters is named Biaru. She had long been the sphinx of the Scoundrels, having found her calling in helping this group of outcast improve the world in ways that don’t always comply with imperial law. For decades she had been a constant presence among the Scoundrels, often working closely with Chidimma, the Duchess of Cards. Once she decided to have a child Biaru moved back to Duat-Heru, where her pregnancy took a turn for the worse. A skilled physician named Soha was called on to assist, successfully delivering the baby and saving the mother.
He handed Biaru her son and she saw that unlike other sphinxes, he had a fifth eye, and markings resembling eyes covered his body. Four eyes are a sign of Daiva’s gift of Sight to the sphinxes, a mark of the responsibility she entrusted them to see clearly where others can’t. An uneven number of eyes on any creature, however, is viewed as unlucky. It’s associated with the Gatekeeper, the god who started a war by stealing one eye from each of the other gods. But Biaru didn’t care, nor did Nesu, or any of the enlightened inhabitants of Duat-Neru. They know that your existence is what you make of it, so they loved the baby dearly, and named him Akhuru.
Despite all their ancient wisdom, there’s things not even sphinxes know. In fact, no mortal knows the truth about sphinxes with five eyes: it is actually a sign that they have been chosen by a god. Just as Daiva had granted them two eyes to see clearer with, a deity may give them another gift, and with it a fifth eye. Soha had been none other than Mezfirah disguised as a mortal. Akhuru had been born with four eyes, but before anyone else could see him, Soha had kissed his forehead, and it had split to reveal a fifth.
It would be years before Akhuru discovered his unique talents. He spends his early childhood in Duat-Heru, where he and his half-brother Sadua were a pair of beloved little menaces. More often than not they’d be busy causing mischief, infamously getting away even with pulling pranks on the dignified Nesu, their grandfather.
Biaru eventually deems it time to return to the Scoundrels, and though Akhuru is sad to say good-bye to his partner-in-crime Sadua, he’s excited about seeing more of the world. Once they arrive to the Scoundrel headquarters, it’s not long before Akhuru makes a new best friend.
There was an orphaned boy there named Ilan, who was shy, demure, and lonely. If Akhuru had never suffered much for his “unlucky” fifth eye, Ilan had suffered plenty for being born with albinism and with a talent for light magic. In this dark, underground world, shadow is safe and familiar while light is unsettling, scary, and dangerous. Albinism was variously associated with the god of death and the pale god of killing (our dear khuthlya), and light magic--though not forbidden--is usually met with suspicion and fear. There’s many outcasts among the Scoundrels, sure, but even then it was difficult for Ilan to feel safe and welcome among them.
Akhuru immediately saw that Ilan desperately needed a friend, and appointed himself to the job. Even as a kid, Akhuru had such a good, selfless heart and lots of gentle, emotional intelligence. He showers Ilan with kindness and acceptance, and cares for him with childlike innocence, making sure he has food and clothes and a warm place to sleep. More importantly he’s always at his side, offering joy and laughter, support and comfort, and protection when needed. There were other kids who used to bully Ilan, but now all of a sudden there’s a big sphinx lad in their way. Akhuru never liked like fighting people unless it’s necessary--but when it is, he usually comes out on top.
Ilan goes from being utterly alone to having an unwavering friend who likes him just as he is and never treats him like anything’s wrong with him. As they grow up together, Akhuru is a solid rock to lean on, the calm in the storm, a shelter from all things threatening, and a proverbial light in the dark.
But in their mid-teens, everything changes.
The time leading up to it had been confusing enough. Puberty had done to them what puberty does to most people. Little by little their close friendship had turned into wondering why looking at each other made their stomachs flutter, sitting a bit closer than perhaps necessary, suddenly noticing the warmth of each others bodies, perhaps even ... holding hands.
But before this budding puppy love was given a chance to blossom, Akhuru has to take part in the ancient sphinx tradition of going on a pilgrimage.
Since time immemorial, it’s been how sphinxes find their place in the world. When they’re around fifteen they leave their homes, and venture into the unknown to explore and learn. They seek out mentors and masters to learn from, both other sphinxes who can teach them the accumulated knowledge of generations of their kind, and different beings willing to share their wisdom. They hone their Sight and other abilities, develop their own talents, and their pilgrimage only ends once they find their Calling.
Akhuru has no choice. Tradition dictates he has to go, and that he has to go alone. When he hugs Ilan good-bye, his heart feels like it might break, but he promises Ilan that he’ll come back to him. One day.
His pilgrimage ends up lasting for about ten years.
He wanders the wide expanse of the desert, visiting ancient temples half buried by the sand, reading the secrets engraved on the walls. He travels with nomadic clans, learning about magic from their shamans and about responsibility from their leaders. He visits the capital, and he hadn’t planned it but as kin to Nesu he’s ushered into an audience with the empresses themselves. He meets the imperial triad--Kayin, the seer and dream interpreter; Imran, the foremost general of the army; and Sekai Zuri, the keeper of secrets.
He manages to track down the ancient witch Mesta, who has a house on a floating rock that travels all over the empire, and she tells him about the extinct stargazers and how to find his way to a village where the last starbeast has recently married a certain rabbit spirit. He learns from Weshau and Minoru about forgiveness and fairness, and even visits the ruins of Adan’s vile palace, if only to see if he can calm some of the spiritual resentment that still lingers there.
He visits the sanctuary of Ubdyi where an infamous convict has somehow managed to become a priest, and where a naga known as Kamau agrees to mentor him for a while. He stops by villages and towns, tiny shrines and huge temples, dotting the emptiness of the desert or crowding around the fertile banks of the rivers. Everywhere there’s someone he can learn from, whether a wise woman, a witch, a scientist, a doctor, a teacher, a captain, a mayor, or anyone else willing to share their knowledge, experience, and insight--which is most people, because it’s good luck to help a pilgrim sphinx.
All the while, Akhuru is waiting to feel the tug of his Calling--to find a path where the pieces fall into place, where his talents could best be put to use. But it never happens. Older sphinxes tell him to be patient. If he won’t find his Calling, it will find him.
And then he meets Te’oma, a huge spider spirit, whose speciality is dealing with angry ghosts--and with the mortals who may have angered the ghosts by disrespecting their tombs.
By then Akhuru is about twenty-five years old and just as kind as when he had been a kid, with the added maturity and sensibility of adulthood. He’s a very practical person, better suited for hands-on work than a desk job, intellectual pursuits, or complicated magical theory. He’s always been drawn to helping vulnerable people, whether by using his physical prowess to fight off dangers and threats or by putting his emotional intelligence to good use. If he spots someone in need he won’t stand idly by and do nothing.
Travelling alone for ten years has left him very capable of dealing with dangers both mortal and supernatural, but without losing his deeply rooted sense of empathy and compassion. The desert is a dangerous place, as is the city. Sometimes you have to wrangle a monster, weaken a dangerous ghost, or neutralise the bandits that were trying to rob you blind in a dark alleyway. Like any sphinx he’s decisive enough to do what needs to be done, even if it means killing a spirit that’s tormenting a village or punishing a mortal murderer. But he only resorts to violent solutions of there are no other options. More than most people he has a capacity for viewing a situation from many different angles and that allows him to empathise with people that others might have written off as unforgivable. He can recognise when it was suffering and pain that lead the angry spirit to turn on the mortals, and feel pity that it had to die where others might just feel relief that it’s gone.
Part of the reason for this is that he’s always been able to … see people’s souls. It’s not just like he’s reading their aura--he can see when someone’s soul is whole and full, or when it’s hollow and empty. He can see if it’s thriving and happy, or if it’s drained and fraying at the edges. And lately he’s been seeing more and more souls, of people and ghosts and monsters, that looked … broken. Some of them had just a crack or two, while others looked like shattered mirrors, on the verge of bursting into a thousand pieces. He had noticed that the more broken their aura seemed, the more they burdened by anger, resentment, bitterness, and violence--but also by sorrow, grief, suffering, and loneliness. In a sense, Akhuru can see someone’s pain by reading the state of their soul, and that makes him more compassionate than most. Rather than defaulting to destroying or killing such troublesome entities, he first asks if they can be helped.
Te’oma has a much more unforgiving approach, but even if Akhuru is there to learn from him, it doesn’t mean he has to agree with him. Te’oma teaches him to deal with a troublesome ghost the hard way, but Akhuru insists on learning more peaceful methods to put a spirit to rest as well. And when he tells Te’oma about the broken spirits he’s seen, the spider teaches him about the tragedy of broken souls, and how it has been the undoing of many things. Akhuru asks if there’s no way to mend a shattered spirit, and Te’oma says that unless you’re Mezfirah--no.
In that moment, for the first time during his pilgrimage, Akhuru feels something call out to him, like a murmur deep in his core, or like a lightness behind his fifth eye.
However, before he has a chance to understand it, another feeling takes over. One night he wakes up with a cold panic yet covered in sweat, a restless and needling sensation under his feet, his heart racing as if from a nightmare but with no memory thereof and just this … awful weight in his gut. He can’t explain it but he just knows he has to go, now. He has to go home.
Akhuru sets out towards the Scoundrel headquarters, leaving most of his things behind and changing to his four-legged form so he can run through the desert as fast as his paws will carry him. It’s a long way, but the feeling of dread grows stronger and stronger and he barely allows himself any rest.
He finally crests the last dune and sees the rock formation that hides the Scoundrel hideout--there’s smoking billowing around it, and strange patches of light moving inside, like bioluminescent ants in an ant hill. The sphinx rushes to the closest doorway and as fate would have it, that’s when Ilan stumbles over the threshold.
Akhuru’s heart bleeds, seeing what has become of his childhood friend.
Ilan is like a walking skeleton, thin and frail, with maddened eyes and shivering hands. He’s injured, blood clinging to his clothes, and worst of all--his soul looks completely shattered. Ilan seems to be fleeing from something, but when he sees Akhuru he falls to the ground and starts incoherently mumbling about how he must be dead, because how else could his sphinx friend finally be back?
Akhuru has to choose between helping the Scoundrels deal with whatever is tearing the headquarters apart from the inside, or helping Ilan--the friend he had been so ready to love. Who, in a sense, he has always loved. It’s not an easy choice, but moments later he’s managed to get Ilan’s weak self onto his back and carries him away, into the desert.
He sets up a temporary camp and treats Ilan’s physical injuries, but it’s clear that his suffering goes so much deeper than his body. Something is nesting inside him, something bright and dangerous that Akhuru recognises from a few sad encounters he’s had during his pilgrimage--it’s the incurable light disease.
For days Ilan slips in and out of consciousness, his eyes empty except for during sudden fits of inexplicable frenzy--Akhuru can only hold him, gently, to keep him from hurting either of them until he calms down. Other times Ilan seems completely lost and confused, his hands shakily reaching for Akhuru’s face, as if he can’t believe he’s real.
Once his wounds have healed enough to travel, Akhuru sets their course for Dorousk, a small town that’s sacred to the gods Mezfirah and Khuthlya. They should be safe there, and hopefully the priests and priestesses can help Ilan. It’s there that Ilan starts regaining some lucidity, and where it sinks in that Akhuru has come back to him. Like he promised. If Akhuru had hugged him for minutes when they had said good-bye ten years earlier, the way he holds him now, sitting beside his sickbed, makes it seem like he’s never going to let go. It’s painfully slow but with time, more and more of his friend seems to come back, even as so many ghosts still haunt him. The care of the healer priests helps (especially a certain gentle soul by the name of Sarnai), and something about the temple itself is soothing for both the body and the spirit. But at the end of the day, it’s Akhuru’s presence that really makes the difference.
Little by little, at his own pace, Ilan tells Akhuru about what happened after he left.
The Scoundrels are guided by a set of so-called royals, who each have different areas of expertise and who serve as leaders for different types of criminals. One of them, Hymns, had once been a priest. He had tried to expose the corruption of his peers, but they had outmaneuvered him and forced him into hiding, wrongly accused of terrible crimes. Hymns then decided to join the Scoundrels, as an alternative way to help the vulnerable and the sick who most needed it. His caring kindness was a welcome addition and after the passing of the last leader of the spiritual branch of the Scoundrels, Hymns had been appointed a royal. He was a safe harbour for anyone in need, whether they needed help sorting out an existential crisis or just a hand to hold on their deathbed.
Hymns had always been especially concerned with helping victims of the light disease. In truth there’s several types of this affliction, some of which attack the mind and soul, and others which attack the body, but they all have in common that the outcome is fatal and that there’s no cure. There’s only been a few freak incidents of people surviving it, and even then nobody knows how or why. Most people won’t go near someone who’s “sick with the light,” but Hymns never shied away from personally treating these patients, even when all he could do was to make them more comfortable in their last hours.
There’s some people who think that light magic is the same as the light disease, but that’s not true. However, better understanding light-related magic might provide important information needed to better understand the light disease. For that reason Hymns had reached out to Ilan, who had been born with that kind of magic. He treated Ilan like something special, and viewed the light in him as an asset rather than a bad omen. Hymns took him under his wings, and Ilan followed in his footsteps of trying to help the sick and the dying. A few years later, he’s appointed Hymns’ Knave--his right hand and his successor to the royal title, whenever it’s time to pass it on.
Ilan misses Akhuru terribly and in his absence ends up having a crush on Renza. The feelings are not mutual, however, and when a handsome stranger by the name of Tzial enters the stage and starts flirting with Ilan, he easily fell for his charm.
If you’re thinking this all sounds too good to be true, you’re right.
Tzial is a snake disguised as an angel. Bit by bit the charade of affection subtly gives way to manipulation and several types of abuse, masterfully executed by a selfish narcissist who uses every trick in the book to break Ilan down and put him back together ‘the way he wants him.’ He drowns Ilan in vinegar and yet keeps him desperate for the few drops of honey he’ll grant him on occasion, making him dependant on this objectively horrible excuse for a ‘relationship.’ I honestly don’t want to go into any details but Tzial is a cruel and irredeemable person, who takes pleasure in putting Ilan through trauma he’ll never entirely recover from.
And that’s only part of it. As for Hymns, he’s fooling everyone--including himself. Beneath the surface of a kind man with a grizzled beard and crow’s feet around his eyes rests the soul of an obsessive fanatic, who thinks that the light disease is not the problem--it’s the solution. Hymns believes that the light disease purifies people, preparing them for entry into the afterlife, and that getting infected with it is a blessing. In secret he has been abducting people nobody would miss (beggars, slaves, orphans), locking them into secret laboratories and experimenting on them to develop the most potent form of the light disease. With a weaponised form of it he could infect everyone, and it would sweep the empire like a cleansing flood.
Hymns eventually tells Ilan about how light is the salvation, and by now Ilan is suffering so badly at Tzial’s cruel hands that he just … asks Hymns to take the pain away. If light is the cure, then use it to stop his suffering.
Hymns injects Ilan with a type of the disease that will affect his mind, not his body, near undetectable until it’s too late. Of course, it doesn’t give him peace. On the contrary, it gradually drives him mad. His behaviour is subtly erratic at first, but gradually accelerates into outbursts of panic and uncharacteristic aggression. The sickness eats away at his mind, filling it with hallucinations and horrors, making all his anxiety implode on itself. It culminates when he attacks Renza, mistaking him for Tzial, at which point the Queen of the Scoundrels confronts Hymns about the behaviour of his Knave.
Hymns promises to help his troubled accomplice and confines him to their camp, but Ilan keeps acting out against its members. The shaman Mirza attempts to talk to Ilan about what’s wrong, but Ilan doesn’t want to tell him anything, because he’s paranoid that Mirza will replace him as Knave. Hymns is still so subtle and clever that nobody has a reason to suspect him, but Mirza can’t shake the hunch that something is amiss in their camp.
Ilan desperately begs Hymns to inject him with more of the disease, thinking it will ‘fix him,’ but as a result he gets even worse and long story short they have to restrain him in a straitjacket. It’s only then that Ilan, in a moment of rare lucidity, gives Mirza a clue to investigate. It ultimately leads to Mirza making the horrific discovery of what Hymns has been doing all along.
Mirza reveals Hymns’s scheme to the other royals, and when Hymns realises that the game is up, he sets chaos loose upon the Scoundrel headquarters. He releases all the people he has infected and kept caged up in the laboratory, all of whom are basically walking undead by now, powered only by the light that’s eaten them up from the inside. While he sets loose this hoard of insane and violent creatures on the Scoundrels, he personally breaks into the guts of the headquarters, his sight set on the ancient shadow entity that sleeps deep below it. Destroying her is is ultimate goal, but … that’s a different story.
In this chaos, Ilan escapes his confinement, and runs for the exit.
And that’s where Akhuru found him.
And now here they are.
They eventually get word that the Scoundrel headquarters is safe again and that Hymns is dead, but the sphinx silently vows that one day he will end Tzial’s life, too. Not even Akhuru can find it in him to have any compassion for that vile snake.
The servants of the Mezfirahn temple do what they can to help Ilan, and reach the puzzling conclusion that Ilan is not contagious at all, but … unlike their god, they can’t work miracles. They can’t cure the incurable. He has fewer and fewer fits of violent madness, but instead he has periods of emptily staring at nothing, his eyes completely vacant.
Whenever he stirs out of it, however, blinking himself back to lucidity, the first thing he sees is always Akhuru’s concerned face. The sphinx rarely ever leaves his side, hovering by his sickbed or offering him an arm to lean on when they walk through the temple gardens together. Whenever Ilan is feeling most like himself they talk quietly with each other, Akhuru gently holiding Ilan’s frail hands in his, always treating him like something precious and like he never wants to let go of him again.
The love that had been ready to bloom between them had never been forgotten, by either of them. Now, even during such painful circumstances, it takes root. It’s an unspoken thing, and nothing they act on beyond the tender touches, but they both know of it. It’s written all over the gentle way Akhuru kisses Ilan’s forehead, and in how Ilan wraps his arms around his neck and whispers that he’s glad Akhuru came back. That he got to see him again, before he dies.
Every time he says that, Akhuru’s kind face hardens with resolve. He swears to Ilan that he won’t let him die, and packs their bags.
It’s a long shot, but it seems the best option--Akhuru takes Ilan to Duat-Heru. Normally, his return to his birthplace should have been a cause of welcoming celebration, but instead Akhuru rallies everyone he can think of to help him look for a solution. Every day Ilan grows weaker, and his shattered aura looks more and more broken. He’s running out of time, so they have to work fast. Somewhere in the endless library there has to be a cure, a ritual, something that can save Ilan’s life.
He’s not wrong, but he’s also not entirely right.
After tirelessly searching through ancient scrolls and books that haven’t been touched in centuries, they find something … interesting. It’s little more than an illustration, but it depicts a sphinx reaching into the chest of a sick person, healing their spirit from the inside--and the sphinx in the drawing has five eyes.
Through bits and pieces of text they piece together the story of a sphinx who once had a unique ability to mend broken souls. Perhaps it’s just coincidence that they had five eyes, like Akhuru… and even if it isn’t, there’s no guarantee that mending Ilan’s soul will allow him to survive the light disease. He’s already so frail, and even if it can be patched back together, his soul might not be strong enough. However, what if they combine it with a soul binding…? Which, yes, is normally the most intense ritual available to a couple who wants to get married, but with the added strength of Akhuru’s soul intertwined with his own, Ilan would have better odds of surviving.
Akhuru says that if they give it shot, it has to be Ilan’s decision. Nnothing like it has been attempted before. It’s terribly risky and it might end in failure, and pain, and death, or his souls shatteirng. Plus it basically entails them getting married, and even though they’ve developed a strong emotional and romantic bond, it’s a huge step to take so soon after reuniting. He doesn’t want Ilan to feel uncomfortable by something like that.
But Ilan assures him that for the first time in a decade, he knows he wants to do something. Not because someone else is forcing him, or because he thinks it’s expected of him, or to avoid suffering. He wants to do it. With Akhuru. But he’s also equally concerned that Akhuru has to want it to, and not just attach himself to Ilan out of guilt for leaving him so many years ago. But Akhuru just smiles, and puts his forehead to his, and assures him that “Choosing you is the easiest decision I ever made.”
So they go through with it.
After the fact, Akhuru is not really able to describe exactly what he did, or how he knew what to do and when. He just … did it. What began as a soul binding ritual had turned into something very different when Akhuru had put his hand on Ilan’s chest, sinking it into a pool of light and tenderly wrapping his fingers around his heart. Few others had been able to see it, but as the cacophony thrumming against his palm slowed down and settled into a soft harmony, the broken pieces of Ilan’s soul had welded themselves back together in front of Akhuru’s eyes, creating a pattern like stained glass--more beautiful than a normal soul, in a way.
A few days later, Akhuru hears Ilan laugh for the first time in over ten years. It’s just a little chuckle at a stupid joke, but not even a hundred poets would be able to describe how elated and happy and relieved it makes Akhuru feel. It has him burying his face into the sheets of his sickbed, shoulders shaking with tired laughter and finally admitting how exhausted he is. But it’s okay, because Ilan wraps himself around his shoulders and nuzzles his head. It’s okay, because they’re together, and Ilan is going to live, and he just laughed, and all is well.
… also, an unexpected side effect of the ritual is that Ilan gets cat-like ears and peets. It delights everyone in Duat-Heru, since it’s basically a kingdom of different kinds of cat people, ranging from shapeshifting sphinxes to anthropomorphised cats and all the way to housecats who can talk and walk upright. Did i forgot to mention that detail earlier…?
It’s still going to be weeks before Ilan is physically healthy, and years before the wounds on his mind and heart begin to close. He has gone through horrible amounts of trauma and has many scars that will never fully heal. But he’s already looking so much better, and there’s life in his eyes again, and Akhuru is always at his side, helping him treat the stubborn wounds and soothing the scars when they ache. His love and support is endless and tireless, and the soul bond allows him to carry some of Ilan’s metaphorical burdens for him, so he doesn’t have to suffer their weight alone. Sphinxes may be sun spirits, but there’s so much of Mezfirah in Akhuru.
… on that note, Mezfirah is also a god of love. Now that Ilan is fully back to his senses, and with his body regining its health, the love between them can springs into full bloom. The emotional and romantic aspects of it had long been there, but one night Ilan makes it very obvious that he wants it to extend into the physical plane too, and Akhuru is very happy to oblige.
The mending of Ilan’s soul had been more or less a miracle. Aside from the mysterious sphinx in the ancient text, the only other person who could heal shattered souls was Mezfirah--a god. Akhuru finds his presence wanted in Duat-Heru’s grand chamber, where a somber council of ancient sphinxes tries to impart of him the magnitude of this feat. If he had healed one broken soul, perhaps he could mend others, too…?
As it turns out, the soul binding and the soul mending didn’t eliminate the light disease from Ilan’s system--but it tuned it into the frequency of his spirit, turning it into something that can exist in harmony with his soul, rather than feeding off of him. It goes from being a parasite to existing in symbiosis with him, and in fact it seems to make his innate light magic abilities stronger, but with none of the pain and insanity that had plagued him for so long.
In fact his unique circumstances turns Ilan into a miracle-worker as well. Some time after they leave Duat-Heru to travel the empire and find a place to call home, Ilan accidentally discovers that his presence seems to soothe people who are sick with the light disease. It’s as though his symbiosis with the light inside of him allows him to manipulate the sickness in others. With time he figures out how to draw the light out of those who are sick and dying from the disease, and with that he’s the first person who can reliable cure it.
Akhuru, on the other hand, finds his Calling in his unique ability to mend shattered souls. There’s no masters of this craft to learn from, no books on the subject, so he has to figure it out on his own. The closest he can get to learning from existing knowledge is reverse-engineering forbidden curses used to shatter souls, but the rest of it is trial and error and trusting his gut. As mentioned earlier, spirits, ghosts, monsters, and people with breaking or shattered souls usually end up consumed by rage, or grief, or sorrow. Ultimately it’s pain and suffering that turns them malevolent, and even as they caused even more pain in their wake, Akhuru was somehow always able to recognise their own suffering and to pity them for it. Now that he’s unlocked the gift Mezfirah bestowed upon him, he can try to mend the souls of such malevolent entities. Sometimes it allows him to reach non-violent solutions and bring angry spirits back to a state of balance and harmony; other times it at least lets him send them to the afterworld with intact souls, so they can find peace in the beyond.
In other words, they both manage the impossible. For millennia, the light disease was invariably fatal, and a shattered soul could not be mended. Yet here’s Ilan curing the incurable, and here’s Akhuru mending the unmendable. They both become healers, in each their own way.
For Akhuru, mending Ilan’s spirit and honing his gift is only the beginning. Something is stirring in the far reaches of the desert, where more and more ghosts and monsters and people with shattered souls start pouring out of what used to be a thriving town. The rising number of broken spirits is not a coincidence. Mezfirah and Daiva had know that, and now the mortals start coming to the same conclusion.
Someone is using forbidden magic to shatter souls and turn them into their thralls. Who better to face such a foe than a good-hearted lad with the unprecedented ability to mend broken spirits?
But that’s a whole other tale in and of itself. For now, let me end this story on a note of righteous vengeance: Yes, Akhuru eventually hunts down Tzial. He thinks about shattering his soul and ending his foul existence for good, because if ever anyone deserved it, it would be him. Ultimately, Akhuru doesn’t want to cross that line--but that’s the extent of the 'mercy' he has for Tzial. Let’s just say he makes damn sure Tzial will never hurt anyone again.
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phew! that was another long one. i hope the weird lore makes sense but if it doesn’t, i encourage you to ask questions in the comments below, i’ll be happy to answer! <3
// art + akhuru © me; ilan © kubi. (i’m not even gonna try to list the heckton of other characters mentioned in this spotlight lol but basically some of them belong to me and some of them belong to kubi so??? jdhfnbj)
