Without warning, the air itself began to shift—an unseen current stirring as though the very breath of the cosmos had paused. The tale, once alive in the minds of the listeners, began to unravel at its edges. Reality dimmed, the stars overhead flickering uncertainly like candles in a breeze. All around, the world grew strange and soft—as if the sky were dripping like dark ink across a parchment left too long in rain.
The brilliance of shattered galaxies faded. The roars of gods and echoes of eternity dulled into a low hum.
And then... stillness.
The scene melted away—like a dream on the edge of waking—and in its place, a quiet warmth returned. Crickets chirped softly beneath the rhythm of crackling firewood. Shadows danced along the worn stone walls of a humble village nestled in the cradle of distant hills. The moon hung heavy and golden above, wrapped in a tapestry of stars. The scent of pine and smoke mingled with cool night air.
A child sat wide-eyed by the flickering fire, the red-orange glow lighting the soft features of her face. Her lashes fluttered, and slowly, her eyes opened fully—pulled from the dream she'd drifted into with the story.
Around her, other children sat in a circle—some cross-legged, others curled up in blankets, their faces lit with wonder and soot smudges. They looked up expectantly, as if caught between awe and impatience.
And then, breaking the hush like a stone tossed into still water, came the indignant voice of a boy:
"Hey! Why'd you stop the story, you old geezer?!"
Laughter followed—sharp, playful, bouncing through the cool night like fireflies set loose. Some of the younger children giggled, while others hushed them with wide eyes, still clinging to the spell the story had cast.
The old man—his beard silver and tangled like windblown clouds—sat in a crooked wooden chair just beside the fire. His cloak, stitched with fading runes and time-worn patches, hung loosely around him like the night itself.
He looked up slowly, eyes like twin embers hidden deep in a hearth. A knowing smile curled at the edges of his weathered face.
"Aye," he said, his voice as gravelly as the mountains and twice as old, "Patience, little fox. Even the stars take their time to rise."
He leaned forward, feeding a log into the fire, the sparks leaping into the air like scattered thoughts.
"You must understand," he continued, voice low and solemn, "this is no simple tale of heroes and monsters. This is the story of the beginning—the birth of time, the clash of the firstborn. The kind of tale that doesn't end so easily… and not always where you expect."
The children leaned in, their faces aglow with firelight and anticipation.
The old man looked into the flames, as though seeking something far beyond them.
And then he whispered, more to the night than to the children
One of the older children, his patience worn thin by the slow, winding rhythm of the tale, suddenly stood with a huff. His arms crossed, chin tilted defiantly in the firelight.
"Hey, you old fart!" he barked, earning a gasp from a few of the younger ones. "Just tell the story already—and give us their names!"
The night seemed to hold its breath.
The fire cracked, sparks popping into the sky like startled birds. Crickets paused their song. Even the shadows seemed to lean in.
The old storyteller didn't flinch. He sat still for a long heartbeat, gazing at the boy with eyes half-lidded, the flickering light painting soft valleys in the creases of his face. A long, slow grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. Then, a faint chuckle rose from deep within his chest—low, amused, as though the boy had just stepped into something far older than he realized.
"You want names, do you?" the old man said, voice gravel and smoke. "You want the truth behind the tale?"
He shifted forward in his seat, the firelight casting strange shadows across his weathered features. Around him, the children fell silent again, wide-eyed, caught between awe and the edge of something... ancient.
"Very well," the storyteller murmured, his voice suddenly colder, heavier. "You shall have it."
He stood—slowly, but with a quiet strength—and lifted a hand to the flames. The fire flared, rising as though called by something unseen, throwing dancing patterns of light onto the faces of the young listeners. The night seemed to lean closer.
"Know this," the old man said, his voice now thunder wrapped in velvet. "This is no mere campfire tale. No bedtime fable to soothe your dreams. This…"
His eyes shone now, ageless and deep.
"…this is the story of the Void's Fall… and the Sun's Reign. Of balance broken and born anew. Of brothers eternal who shaped the stars with their fury. Of light and shadow, of silence and song. This is the moment the scales tipped."
The fire crackled louder, the wind whispering through the trees like forgotten voices.
The fire crackled softly, casting flickering halos of gold and amber over the faces of the wide-eyed children. The old man leaned in, his voice low and reverent now—no longer playful, but ancient, like the echo of something remembered by the stars themselves.
"These beings…" he began, his gaze drifting upward toward the endless night sky, "…are not gods as you know them. Not spirits. Not monsters."
His voice deepened, textured with awe.
"They are the architects of balance itself. The eternal flame and the unyielding void. The radiant force that gave the suns their breath… and the abyssal silence that gave the void its mind."
He turned slowly, his eyes catching each of the children as if weighing their souls.
"The eternal sun, born of unending light—the fire that dreams of creation. The eternal void, shaped from the formless dark—the silence that knows all must return."
A gust of wind passed through the trees, and the fire danced higher, casting long shadows behind the old man.
"They are not merely beings. They are the balance. The pulse that keeps the Realmic Tree rooted. The boundary between something… and nothing."
He paused, letting the silence grow heavy, then whispered as though sharing a secret not meant for the waking world:
"The suns were given life… the void, consciousness. And in doing so, the scale was forged."
He tapped the center of his chest.
"And ever since, it has trembled with every heartbeat of their war."
The fire popped—loud in the sudden silence—as the old storyteller's voice fell to a hush, weighted by memory and something older than grief.
"But that war," he began, his words like frost creeping across a windowpane, "came at a price."
The children sat still now, the earlier giggles gone, their eyes wide and reflecting the firelight.
"The balance…" he continued, his voice nearly a whisper, "is no longer even. The scales that held creation together have tilted. For now… only one Eternal remains."
A hush swept through the circle. The trees around them, once swaying gently, seemed to still as if the forest itself listened.
"The sun…" the old man murmured, his eyes locked on the flames before him—not truly seeing the fire, but something far beyond it. Something distant. Lost. "It shines ever brighter since the war's final breaths…"
His voice trailed off, like a whisper carried away on the wind. The crackling fire cast flickering shadows across his weathered face, and for a moment, even the children felt the air grow still.
"Brighter than it ever should," he continued, softer now, as if confessing something sacred. "As though it burns not to warm, but to hide. As though it stretches itself across the heavens, trying to drown out a silence so deep... so final... that it threatens to unravel all things."
A long pause hung in the air—thick and heavy.
"It shines," he whispered, "not in triumph… but in mourning."
His eyes finally returned to the circle of children—tired eyes, old eyes, that had seen too much. But before he could say more, a soft, tentative voice broke through the quiet:
"Who won the war?" a young girl asked. Her tone was gentle, innocent—curious in a way only a child could be. Her small hands clutched her knees, her eyes reflecting both wonder and fear.
The storyteller looked at her. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, slowly, almost painfully, he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. The fire dimmed, shadows curling tighter around them.
He leaned forward, the firelight painting deep lines across his face, each wrinkle a story etched by time. His voice dropped to a hush—so low, it felt as though the night itself held its breath.
"Child…" he said, not unkindly, but with a weight that pressed into the soul. "That… is the wrong question."
The flames crackled in the silence that followed, their light casting long shadows that swayed like ghosts across the circle of wide-eyed children. The night air was still, as if reality itself paused to hear the truth.
He looked up slowly, his eyes glinting—not with light, but with memory. With loss.
"No one truly wins," he said, each word carved from sorrow, "when the cost… is balance."
His gaze returned to the fire, and though his mouth was silent, his eyes spoke of suns that burned too bright, of darkness that had learned to weep, and of a world forever tilted—slightly, but irrevocably—off center.
The girl, still wide-eyed and brimming with innocence, looked up at the old man, her soft gaze a mixture of hope and quiet wonder. Her voice, though gentle, carried a thread of curiosity, an eagerness to understand the tales of a time long past.
"Well, if no one won the war," she asked, her brows furrowing slightly as her small fingers twirled the ends of her worn shawl. "Then who lived? Someone must've survived, right? Was it the good guy?"
The old man's eyes shifted, his gaze lifting from the fire to meet the girl's, his expression momentarily caught in thought. There was a quiet, almost imperceptible shift in his features—a flicker of distant memory, something buried deep within his tired soul. Slowly, his lips parted, though his voice was calm, as though contemplating a riddle that had no easy answer.
"Good guy?" he echoed, his words gentle yet laced with an undercurrent of something darker. There was a pause before he continued, his voice carrying an almost imperceptible weight of hesitation.
The girl, ever hopeful and eager to understand, smiled—her bright eyes shining with the clarity of youth. "Yeah, the sun guy. He had to be the good guy, right? After all, he wanted to create existence, to create life. That has to be good, doesn't it?"
The old man's lips twitched into a slight, dry smile—more out of fatigue than humor. He leaned back slightly, his aged hands trembling as they reached for the air in front of him, as if searching for something just beyond his grasp. His fingers were gnarled, the lines of time etched deep into his skin, but there was a certain sadness in his gaze that seemed to pull the warmth from the fire and dim the light in his eyes.
"Child…" he murmured slowly, the weight of his voice carrying the burden of years—centuries, perhaps—of wisdom and sorrow. "Life is not always as simple as light and dark, good and evil. You see, the sun you speak of… he did not only give life. He gave change. He sacrificed the balance that held everything together. And now… everything rests on him. The weight of it all… it is a burden."
His eyes drifted down to his hands, worn and calloused from a life of hardships. His fingers curled slightly, as if in thought, before they fell still—an image of someone who had long carried the weight of loss. He looked back at the fire, its flickering flames dancing like memories long buried, each flicker a shadow of something that could not be undone.
"Creation," he continued, his voice thick with a heaviness that seemed to resonate in the very air around them, "is both a gift and a curse. To give life is to change everything—to disrupt the delicate balance that sustains it all. When that balance is lost…" He paused, the weight of his words settling like dust in the quiet of the night. The flames seemed to grow dimmer, as if in acknowledgment. "Nothing… nothing can ever be the same again."
The girl, her face soft with confusion and curiosity, looked at him, but she did not speak. The silence stretched between them like the vastness of the night sky, as if the fire itself were waiting for her to understand something far beyond what her young heart could grasp.
The old man sat in silence, the crackling of the fire filling the air with its steady rhythm. His gnarled hands rested on his lap, the weight of centuries etched in the deep lines of his face. His gaze seemed distant, as though his mind wandered far beyond the small circle of children gathered around him. The stars above shone faintly, barely visible through the smoke and mist of the fire.
A young boy's voice broke the quiet, soft but persistent.
"Can you finish the story? Me and my friend came all the way here to listen to your stories." The boy's tone was eager, but there was an unmistakable curiosity, a hunger for knowledge that glimmered in his eyes.
The old man turned his gaze toward the boy, his eyes narrowing slightly. The faint flicker of the fire caught the lines of his weathered face, illuminating the subtle shift in his expression. For a moment, there was a pause, an imperceptible recognition in the air. Something stirred in the old man's eyes, something he couldn't quite place. He tilted his head slightly, a small furrow crossing his brow.
"What is your name, boy?" the old man asked, his voice soft, almost cautious.
The boy, a bright-eyed child no older than eight, smiled with a warmth that seemed to light up the darkness around them. His face was youthful, full of the optimism and eagerness only a child could possess.
"I'm Adonis, sir," he said, his voice carrying a soft pride, as though the name itself held some special weight.
The old man's eyes widened slightly, his breath catching in his throat for a brief, fleeting moment. There was something in that name that struck him, an echo of something long buried, something he couldn't entirely place. He leaned forward slightly, his voice now tinged with a touch of curiosity—and perhaps something more, something unsettling.
"Adonis… what?" The question hung in the air, and his gaze fixed on the boy with an intensity that seemed to pierce through the layers of time itself.
Adonis, the young child, looked down, his smile fading into something quieter, more somber. His fingers fidgeted with the hem of his worn tunic as he shifted uncomfortably under the old man's stare.
"Adonis… no… just Adonis, sir," he replied, his voice a little smaller now, as though the weight of his own name carried a burden he hadn't fully understood.
The old man's eyes searched the boy's face, his expression a mix of doubt and suspicion, as if he were piecing together a puzzle that had no clear solution. The flickering firelight cast shadows on his wrinkled face, making him seem even older, even more ancient than before.
A young girl, no more than seven or eight, couldn't contain her impatience any longer. She stood up from the circle, her small hands planted firmly on her hips, her brow furrowed in playful frustration. Her feet shifted restlessly, as if the weight of the old man's long pauses had become too much for her youthful energy to handle.
"Just tell us, you old geezer!" she exclaimed, her voice ringing out in the quiet night air. Her tone was bold, but there was a mischievous glint in her eyes, as if she were daring the old man to finally give in to her impatience. "We all want to hear the story!"
The other children, wide-eyed and eager, stifled their giggles at her boldness, watching the storyteller's reaction. The old man paused, his weathered hands stilling in his lap as he turned his gaze toward the girl. There was a long, thoughtful silence before he let out a deep, almost resigned chuckle—a sound that seemed to come from deep within, as if he hadn't laughed in a long time.
He looked at the girl, a small grin tugging at the corners of his lips. His eyes softened for a moment, the weariness of his years fading into something else—something like fondness for her youthful spirit.
"Ah, so it's impatience you're after, eh?" he said, his voice carrying a certain warmth now. "You'll find, little one, that stories have a rhythm of their own. They cannot be rushed." He leaned forward slightly, his eyes twinkling in the firelight. "But... it seems you've won this round."
The girl smiled triumphantly, her hands dropping to her sides as she settled back into the circle, the firelight flickering against her face. The old man chuckled again, this time with genuine amusement, his eyes glinting with something both playful and wise.
"Very well, then. You want the story, eh? The story you shall have," he said, settling back with a deep breath. "But know this... the tale I tell tonight is not one for the faint of heart."
The children leaned in, their attention rapt, as the old man began his tale anew. The crackling of the fire seemed to grow louder, as if even the flames themselves were eager to hear what would come next.