Forgotten; Worshipped (Imported from Ao3)

25

Aaron flew upwards shortly before dawn, entering the realm of the gods with ease. He blinked, the realm was bright, he had forgotten how this realm knew no night. He hushed back to the palace and almost stopped dead in his tracks as he felt the presence of a god not too far behind him. With a panic making his heart beat quickly he rushed to the tornado, waving his staff counter-clockwise and rushing through the hole he created, closing it off quickly. With wide eyes he flew back, body hunched over. He felt the presence come closer and he heard the god's voice, but couldn't make out what he was saying. He didn't know this god and he nigh growled as he clutched at the tornado staff. He could finally make out the voice.

"Finally that weed is taken care of. It was about time. I wonder, though..."

The voice grew farther away and Aaron couldn't make it out again. He stared at the spot, glaring it down, where the god had been. With a last suspicious glare, he turned around and flitted to the palace, opening the doors with a flourish of his hands and stepping inside, taking out the map from a pocket in his cloak and looking if the room he had created for the instruments had changed halls. He smiled and hummed when he saw that it didn't, silently celebrating his success. Before, every time he had come back to bring the next instrument here the room he had created for them had changed positions. He had destroyed and recreated the room over and over again, but until now it had not yet properly worked for him. Now the room was in the north hall of the palace. This hall had the distinct trait of having weather. If he was lucky, it would just be slightly sunny, but he knew that this hall was the most dangerous one, because the weather in this hall could be lethal. One day it had rained acid. That had been the day when he had found the cloak and had put the door close to the entrance to the hall, in case it ever rained acid again.

He had also noticed how the north hall had only red and purple chained doors. He had noticed soon that the blue chains were the weakest, whereas black chains, only found in the centre hall, were the strongest. Red were only stronger than blue, but weaker than purple, the second strongest chains. He entered the north hall and sighed. It was raining acid again. At least he was wearing the cloak already. While the acid didn't actually hurt him - Alexander hadn't been kidding when he had said how being in the realm of gods made Aaron both immortal and invincible while he was there - it was a weird feeling, almost like burning, more of an itch that he couldn't scratch and it became worse and worse by the second until he would opt to scratch off parts of his skin to finally get that itch but it wouldn't work and- he shook his head. He really didn't want to remember the first time he had been caught in the acid rain. He shuddered as his mind forced the memory upon him and he shook his head violently trying to rid himself of the horrible phantom sensations the memory made him feel. He looked around for the door, quickly storing the bell lyre under his cloak to protect it from the acid rain. He found the door and flew up to it, knocking on the red chains he had wrapped around it. The door was beige and shaped like a fish. He didn't know why he had shaped it like a fish but he just had.

Inside there were four pedestals next to each other, three of which already held the cursed instruments he had collected. He placed the bell lyre on the empty one. The drum was placed on the first pedestal on the far left with the koto next to it, followed by the flute and then the bell lyre. For some strange reason, Aaron couldn't quite fathom why he had placed them not in the order in which he had found them. He thought nothing of it, though, and turned the bell lyre so the bottom of it pointed away from the other instruments. From this angle, the bell lyre almost looked like a fish's tail. He shrugged and figured it was because this bell lyre was longer than most bell lyres are supposed to be. He turned the drum around and only now really examined it. It had an odd shape, its bottom was round, but not a perfect sphere. It was weird and felt, under the skin of the drum, like there were weird holes there. The skin of the drum, which was around the entire drum for some reason, was riddled with odd motives and pictures, mostly of fish and spears or arrows, he couldn't make out which of the two weapons they were, like tattoos. Now that he thought about it, the drum felt just like a skull, and he almost didn't like how he knew that. A skull with its teeth missing. He turned the drum in a way that made it 'look' to the left. Suddenly uncomfortable, he went on to the koto, examining it closer, now that he had the time to. It looked weird like the other instruments did. It looked a bit like a broad spine, and the strings... They shimmered oddly, almost as though there was oil on it or something like that. He touched the koto, and shuddered away. He ignored it and examined the flute, shuddering again. It felt so much like actual bone. And it looked so much like it, too. Was this a human's body? he wondered. Was this perhaps why these instruments were cursed? He gulped and put the flute back on the pedestal, laying it down vertically and going back to the bell lyre. He examined it again. It shimmered oddly, but not like there was oil on it like with the strings of the koto, but... Something else. The bell lyre was purple, scaly, and it looked like the keys were made of thin bones with... with teeth holding them to the bell lyre. He put it down again, sensing a sudden, electric tension in the room. Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light, rapidly changing colours and he instinctively flew to a corner of the room and shielded his eyes. But there was something powerful there, a powerful presence, and its arrival overpowered him. It wasn't long until everything turned pitch black and he hit the ground.