deep-black-dreaming

Casper had returned to the usual spot the last day of her visit, she told Shane she had lost the ring, and while he was disappointed he said he’d get her another. It was awkward, she knew where it was, and away she was going to get it. It was surprising to see the tree was gone, and for a moment she felt a pang of fear.

Not so much for the world around her, but for him.

“A-aku?” She asked softly, making her way over to the scorched ground. Carefully kneeling down, she reached down digging for the ring. “Aku are you there?” She asked again, finally finding the ring she picked it up. Looking up, she glanced around the area trying to figure out what happened.

“Aku!” She called, louder now.

The ring was caked in mud and no matter how much Casper might try to wipe it clean, the jewelry would remain tarnished a deep, burnt black. Whatever had happened here had caused permanent changes to the ring. 

Casper’s shout was met with silence. There was no psychic response from the connection she’d shared with Aku and no sense of his foreboding presence. Rather, the ground around her emanated a sense of purity as if it had been recently cleansed of evil. 

In the distance, the Emperor’s palace stood serenely among the mountains. Surely, had Aku escaped, the palace would lay in flaming ruins by now. It had been his first choice of target, after all. Instead, there was only a bright sky above and an atmosphere of peace over the land, devoid of evil. 

It was as if Aku had simply been… erased. 

@deep-black-dreaming

The day had come. The sun and moon were about to align in a total eclipse and in the path of totality was Aku’s prison. As the minutes passed by, he could feel his power strengthening. The sky grew darker as the moon began to cross the sun. This was it. His chance to escape was nigh. 

The moon continued on its slow path toward the center and when the sun became a ring of fire, Aku pushed against the walls of the prison with all his might. The tops of the tree branches trembled as they stretched toward the sky. Treacherous roots snapped apart and pulled themselves into the earth. Thick bark began to crack and split. But as Aku came close to freedom, he realized he was not alone.

Three glowing lights appeared in the sky above, one white, one gold, one blue. From these glowing patches of light emerged the gods Odin, Ra and Vishnu. They had found him. And after all these eons, they’d returned to finish the job. Aku was terrified but more than that, he was incensed that they would arrive at this moment as if they’d seen it coming. So enraged was he that the tree’s naked branches were suddenly enshrouded in a complete foliage of flames. 

Impassive, the gods drew their divine weapons and began their ambush. The long-range attacks split the tree asunder, exposing the darkness within and burning it away as it attempted to take form. There was no time to run or fight back and nowhere to hide. The dark entity had no chance under the barrage of energy blasts and arrows.

When it was over, there was nothing left behind but a smoking crater in the earth. As the moon pulled away from the sun, the gods retreated silently back to their glowing patches of sky and were gone. The tree was no more and neither was Aku. There was only smoke rising from a scorched earth.

deep-black-dreaming

“I’m sure, but I’m not sure I’d want to be sealed in the tree either.” She frowned, realizing that when she left, that would mean she’d be leaving the entire country behind. And with it, Aku.

It was stupid. But she was trying to figure out how to take the other with her if she could.

“If there were something I could put you in and take you back with me, I would.”

‘Unless you can dig up this entire tree and transport it whole, that’s not gonna happen.’ And given the roots of the tree ran deep beneath the earth, Aku knew it would be impossible. Unless she meant transfer him into a smaller object but the demon wasn’t fond of being transferred from one prison into another even smaller prison. Yet, he wasn’t exactly thrilled about being plunged back into total isolation once she left. 

‘Why on this earth would you want to do that, anyway? Am I some souvenir or interesting trinket to you? Or is it because the demons that plague you avoid my presence?’ 

deep-black-dreaming

“Yeah, I guess I am.” She acknowledged, the shield from the wind was welcome. Though the rain cascaded down, freezing her, she remained right where she was. No use going back just yet, she’ll go back eventually and say she dropped it while walking. She was covered in mud and soaked, but she refused to go anywhere.

Right now she and Aku had no where to hide, it was weird, to relate to a monster who would very well end her if he was freed. Still, she felt a connection to him, even if it was small and faint.

The trunk behind Casper, while not toasty by any means, was notably warmer than the surrounding air and rain, as if something within the thick bark was radiant with a heat source of its own. But as walled off from the world as he was, Aku would welcome the driving winds and rain outside.

‘Regardless,’ he spoke, ‘If given the opportunity, I would trade places with you in an instant.’

deep-black-dreaming

“There is a lot of things bad about saying no.” she answered. Despite the horrible thoughts of darkness and death, the rain cascading around them, she just remained in the mud holding close to the other’s trunk.

“Its dangerous to say no a lot of the time. I’m too passive I guess. But saying no is terrifying. Violence is one possibility.”

Casper shrugged. “But it is what it is now. I’ll leave the ring here for a short time. See where things go.” she was treating it as her only choice in this scenario.

‘I see,’ his thoughts traveled through their telepathic connection, undampened by the sounds of rain and wind. ‘You are also imprisoned.’ 

In a sense. She could always run and hide. That option was available to her. But Aku knew what it was like to run and hide yet still be found by those determined to hunt and destroy him. And humans, though they lacked the power of the gods, were equally as cruel and vengeful toward those they could not control. 

As he thought of the gods, glimpses of his past encounter with them, eons old, might drift across the telepathic bridge between he and Casper.

Aku’s tree prison had little to offer in terms of protection from the rain, but its solid trunk acted like a wall between Casper and the driving winds.