Prompt: Sunrise-Sunset
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Khun Aguero Agnis is brought to the world as the sun rises. The miracle of birth takes place on an enormous house, shut from every side except a small window facing the woman giving him birth. The sun is in her eyes. An omen, the woman thinks and screams as the doctors help her deliver the baby.
“
It’s a boy.” The doctor says and doesn’t bother handing the mother her child. She sighs, knees weak and trembling. A boy. An omen indeed. A future Ranker. At best. “Inform him.”
The Agnis family had managed to deliver only one girl, one future candidate for a Zahad Princess, thus failing both Khun Eduan and the King. The mother glances at the newborn baby. Small and fragile. A chance to rise above; lost and wasted. A sad sight.
Nevertheless, the sun rises.
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“When the sun rises, devastation reigns.”
Aguero listens to every word of his mother’s without batting an eye. She knows best. She gives him a map of a world Aguero didn’t want to explore. For that, he’s thankful. And so, no matter how absurd some things that his mother told him were, Aguero always listened.
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He kills every other Khun child when the time comes. Girls and boys. Children older than him. Children younger than him. He holds a knife tightly and pictures his mother’s proud smile. A man approaches him and Aguero waves his knife. The man chuckles.
“We have a winner.” He smiles at Aguero but the action itself doesn’t make the boy feel relaxed. He doesn’t see a kind man. He sees a predator and Aguero feels like a deer caught in the headlights. “What’s your name?”
“Aguero Agnis.”
The man nods while lost in thought. His eyes widen as soon as he’s remembered what he wanted. He put his hand on Aguero’s, the one gripping the knife, encouraging him to hold on tighter. Aguero, still a child and still a Khun, felt a red thread around his throat connecting it to the knife.
“You’re Khun Aguero Agnis.” The man brands him with a pride similar to his mother’s when he did well in training. “Wear the name and make them bow.”
Khun Aguero Agnis is crowned the winner of the Khun Competition as the sun sets.
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“Help your sister get to the top.” His mother says as she grips his shoulder tightly. His sister is by her side looking at him. He searches for something in her eyes. Love. Acceptance. Yet the older Agnis child only looks at him like a weapon. Aguero tells himself it doesn’t matter. “If you need any help, use Kiseia.”
The sun sets and Aguero and Kiseia make plans for bloody wars.
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The sun hasn’t set yet when he meets Maria. The night refuses stubbornly to come. Aguero is having fun like a small child discovering a new part of the world. Maria is something entirely new, something entirely different and something that he could never hold on to.
He looks up to the shinsu sky. The sun shines still. And Aguero thinks, Aguero hopes, that because he can’t see the sunrise yet, maybe devastation won’t come. It’s true, in a way. When Aguero meets Maria, there isn’t a sunrise nor a sunset. He never understands what that meant.
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Maria leaves as a Princess when the sun rises, and his biological sister takes her own life when the sun sets. Despite everything his mother said, Aguero can’t help thinking that it should have been the other way.
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Khun Eduan kicks him out of the family when the sun rises and Aguero doesn’t seem to care for the superstitions. His mother stops him at the exit. Aguero doesn’t find Kiseia by her side as she used to. She opens her mouth to speak. Aguero feels a pain in his chest.
“You were born at sunrise.” She simply says and it’s the one thing Aguero dreaded to listen. He’s the devastation of the Agnis family branch. It’s a burden he didn’t ask for.
As the sun settles on the fake sky, Aguero—Khun—decides to be the devastation of Khun Eduan.
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When he meets the Twenty-Fifth Bam, the sun shines brighter than it should. The atmosphere is lighter. Khun, himself, feels lighter even with the burden of three people inside his bag. He extends his hand for the other boy to shake. Bam smiles at him and Khun can feel wings of wax slowly and steadily melting.
(He never sees the sun going down nor up.)
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The biggest moments in his life happen during the sunset.
The lowest instants in his life happen during the sunrise.
He never observes what happens during the night.
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“Well, difficulty is,”—Khun pushes Rak off the bed—“my speciality.”
Bam smiles. Khun isn’t sure if it’s because he had pushed off Rak or because he was happy for Khun’s statement. He didn’t care. The important part was that he smiled for him.
“I will escort you to the top of the Tower in the most evil and sneaky way possible.”
Aguero can’t stop himself from thinking of his mother when Bam’s smile shines brighter than any gold he had seen in his life. The woman had warned him of the dangers that hid moments before the arrival or the departure of the sun. She had never mentioned the threat that was the night. And as Khun watched Bam going after Rachel, no matter how hard she pushed him hard, a realization was made; the sunrise would bury him, but the night would leave him bleeding.
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“The sun is setting,” Khun tells Rak who looks down at him. They are not alone in the room, even if no one else had talked for the last two hours, and Khun can clearly hear Shibisu pacing back and forth.
“It always does,” Rak tells him. It feels almost like a scolding. A sad reminder that the world doesn’t stop because Khun’s did.
“It isn’t meant to be setting right now.” He whispers bitterly and leaves the room. Khun goes to Bam’s room, or what used to be his room, and sits on his bed. He buries his face on his hands. “It isn’t meant to be setting right now.”
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Khun Aguero Agnis had stopped believing in superstitions. Still, with him being trapped with a FUG Slayer, a rabbit-girl, Ran and Novick far from his reach and in danger he can’t help being cautious. His eyes catch a glimpse of the other side amid the chaos.
The sun is ready to rise. Khun looks at Ran—the words of his mother ringing on his head—and Novick, his new team, ready to perish.
(The sun starts rising.)
Khun can see Ran looking at him expectantly. Waiting for his big brother to get them out. Khun can’t. He always failed at meeting the expectations of those that mattered.
(There is a golden aura.)
“Mr Khun” the FUG Slayer screams at him desperately “Run away, mr. Khun!”
(The warmth of its rays visible even with the Hand of Arlene on the verge of collapsing.)
“It’s a trap! Run away! Now!”
Aguero knows that voice. He could never not recognize it. His mind screams at him, yelling that he’s gotten it wrong. His heart thinks of Emily. Emily, Emily, Emily and Rachel, and the lies, and ‘he’s alive’—
The world collapses.
(The sun has risen.)
