Stardust

P R O L O G U E

Ten years prior, the Abyss, old Khanri'ah

Staggering darkness pressed down on Ajax. He strained his ears, trying to follow Master Skirk's quiet footfalls before he was left behind. Ajax could feel his fingers trembling, but he could not see them in the darkness.

It pressed in around him, and Ajax had to breathe, promising himself not to scream. Screaming meant fighting and he was so tired he could barely lift his feet. So Ajax did what he usually did–he drew blood.

Stuffing his fingers into his mouth, Ajax bit down hard. The blood-tinged his tongue, making it far too full to scream. Every footstep felt like agony on his broken ankle.

Here, in his weakness, a sweet song filled his ears. This time it almost sounded like laughter. 'Ignore it,' Ajax thought.

Ajax bit down harder, shutting his eyes against the void of darkness as if that would keep the song at bay. "The Abyss is a cunning creature," Skirk told him many times. "It will prey on your flesh and rot your mind."

Ajax was determined to get as good as he got, and when the lull of the song became too strong, he focused on the Abyss as it ripped into his soul. While it took so much of who he was, simple moments ice fishing or building snowmen he would never enjoy the same way again, Ajax clawed back. Any power he could grasp he took.

Still, the Abyss played its games. At its center, or perhaps because of who Ajax was, at his center were two children.

Even now, Ajax saw the wisps of two boys in the darkness, their laughter blending into the song. Either the Abyss was finally taking away his sanity or he longed for his siblings that much. These two were nothing like them though, they whispered in a language he did not understand.

Ajax wondered if that's what they were, ghosts, or perhaps figments born from his loneliness. They could not be much older than him and it made him yearn for home. Ajax could not hold Teucer or Tonia so he held onto this 'Kae' and 'Bedo.'

Even though it was darkness so thick he could not see his own hand, Ajax saw them. One of gold and one of starlight standing in the reflections of Irminsul's roots. He heard them where he lay underneath the ley lines, trying to keep himself alive through their power, trying to remember who he was before the fall. When he could spare a thought, it was always of them. Of what it meant to be lost to the Abyss instead of simply in it.

Were they lost here like him, once upon a time? Was the Abyss a place that looked like that once–still shrouded in darkness but with great halls and food that did not make you want to retch? 'What happened to them?' Ajax thought. 'Is that what's going to happen to me? Will Teucer see my reflection down here someday?'

Ajax would not allow that. So even though Master Skirk beat it into him to let the visages be, he could not help but seek them out.

Ajax had always been weak to beautiful tunes.

Before he knew it the sound of Skirk's footsteps faded completely replaced with echoing footfalls down an old corridor. The darkness twisted in on itself, showing him eyes so blue and void, Ajax may have mistaken them for his own. Maybe before, when his own eyes held a bit of light, but the glimmer in them, like little orbits of planets, could not be mistaken.

From afar, Ajax could hear splashing but all he could touch were ruins of stones. Still cold they were smoother than he expected, his hands fluttering along the carved letters. They were foreign letters, but the stars always felt the same. Were these ruins from the same place the boys were? Ajax searched for the seven-pointed star as he listened to the melody play out, those laughs echoing within it. He could not understand the language but he knew love when he heard it.