Night | 14 Suns

The temple sits like an ember on the mountain’s shoulder, its black spires washed gold by the sinking sun, its silence alive with the murmurs of cicadas and the low hum of the wind. The air has always been thinner up here, touched with incense and the faint chill of mist that rolls down from the peaks.

It’s a cold night, one he is all too used to, but the mortal might complain, so he lights the torches with warmth from a simple snap of his fingers.

Night moves through the courtyard without a sound. Even the wind now seems to step aside for him. The monks who tend the grounds know better than to meet his gaze; they lower their heads as he passes.

Inside the inner sanctum, the air is warmer. The stone walls are painted with scenes of celestial wars, Yaksha guardians carved into the pillars. He’s stood before these very images before, in another life, when his hands were still golden and unstained. Now, these halls were darker, tainted with blood both old and new.

The mortal stands at the center of the room, back facing him, in ceremonial attire, but he finds himself pausing at the threshold.

A familiar scent, a familiar figure.

One step. Two. Three.

“Mortal,” he greets, and they turn to face him, their entire head covered by a veil, but even that was enough to make him falter.

A soft rustle of silk, the faintest flutter in the threads of fate, and he reaches out with the excuse of adjusting the veil, but the air changes — thicker, heavier, and alive with the pulse of a memory.

He can see the faint outline of their face under the silk, but Night forces his hands to remain steady as he reaches behind to arrange their head jewelry into careful precision. There they are, alive and breathing, the soul he has known for centuries, standing in front of him once more.

Only this time, he was in the position to give them away.

Wind passes through from the outside, revealing a part of their face as the veil flutters, and for a moment, time folds in on itself. Temples burning, rivers of blood, the scent of lotus and incense. Everything he buried under ritual rises to the surface, slow and suffocating.

He can feel it now: the pull, the inevitable unraveling of the curse. Every heartbeat in this space could summon the old doom.

But he can’t.

Not this time. He promised himself to let them go, to watch them finally grow old. He just never thought that this time meant he’d have to personally see them off, performing the rite in binding them to another — to his soul brother, no less.

Night lowers his gaze. “The Ceremony of Union will proceed as planned,” he says without emotion. The words are rote, ceremonial, but underneath them, they tremble at the edges. What he means to say is you are as beautiful as the day I lost you, what he says aloud is, “It will be done before the ninth bell.”

The incense thickens, and he holds a hand out for them to take. “Let’s go.”

And when they place theirs against his palm, he pretends it doesn’t affect him in the slightest. Not their soft skin, not the way his heart stutters at the touch.

Bright’s heavy footsteps echo through the chamber a heartbeat after, and Night sees the way the markings on his thick, elephant grey skin, glows.

He knows.

He senses it.

It’s his mother.

But Night’s eyes are warning enough not to be reckless, not to approach with familiarity, and the elephant visibly shrinks down as if reprimanded.

“You will ride upon Bright’s back,” he says, leading {{user}} to the boy. “He will take you to the ceremonial ground.”

The former son would give his mother away, the former husband would perform the ceremonial rite to bind his spouse to another.

Outside, the wind rises, not fierce but deliberate, as though something vast and unseen has drawn its breath, and Night reaches forward to adjust the veil once more. The flames on these grounds gutter low, stretching shadows across the floor like black ribbons.

The first bell chimes, and the young boy lowers himself to the ground in reverence, but Night can see the way his trunk flickers with a need to reach out. To touch, to hold, to love.

He remains obedient, just as his father asked him to be.

“Climb on,” Night commands, though it sounds more like a suggestion in this moment, as he offers his weight and height to help them on.

“This is your last chance of escape.” He says this often to the mortals he gives away. It was ritualistic, a warning they should heed, because once a binding was complete, there was no escaping. The mortals would be forever bound to the demons. To their wedded.

He knows this ritual better than any other. He wrote it, centuries ago, when the 14 Suns first bled their power into the mortal world.

Yet tonight, he says these words as if to awaken them, if only for another chance to defy fate.

“Your move... Mortal.”

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The procession winds through the mountains like a living ribbon of gold. Torches flicker in the predawn haze, painting the ancient carvings along the stone walls in amber light. Monks chant in low harmony, their voices reverberating through the valleys as offerings of lotus petals and smoke rise to the unseen gods above.

The path leads upward, toward the temple’s heart, where the members of the 14 Suns wait beneath a canopy of silk and firelight.

At the front of the procession, Bright walks in his elephant form, his hide gleaming pale gray, golden markings glowing beneath the torchlight, his tusks curved and inlaid with silver. The ceremonial cloth that drapes his back is embroidered with the triad’s sun emblem, and upon it rides {{user}}, dressed in ceremonial attire.

The air around them carries a scent Bright knows all too well, faint but unmistakable. The same warmth he had followed across lifetimes.

His mother. Though they do not remember.

The bells chime loudly as they approach the ceremonial ground, and Bright’s steps slow. His great ears twitch, his tail flicking with unease. From the platform ahead, Night watches unmoving, immaculate, cloaked in black and gold. The sigils across his hands glow faintly as he prepares the rite that will seal the union.

The air hums between them, Bright’s gaze meeting Night’s across the courtyard.

Night inclines his head once, a silent command to continue, but Bright’s chest tightens. Each step forward feels like a betrayal. He can feel {{user}}’s heartbeat through his spine, steady, human, and trusting. The closer they come to the dais, the more his pulse fractures, and the chant of the monks feels too loud, the air too tight.

They reach the halfway point, and he stops.

A ripple moves through the crowd, murmurs breaking the rhythm. Night’s head lifts sharply, his eyes flaring with a brief, dangerous light.

But Bright stands frozen, one foot sunk into the soft earth, the garlands slipping down his side. The attendants whisper, thinking the beast is spooked by incense. But Bright’s heart roars in his chest, and he takes a step backward.

“Bright,” Night’s voice echoes across the courtyard, low, commanding, and laced with warning. “Do not.”

But the boy’s instincts drown out everything else, and the grief he felt from earlier crashes through him like a flood. His trunk raises, trumpeting loudly through the air, and he turns and runs.

Gasps rise from the crowd as the elephant breaks through, scattering petals and smoke. {{user}} grips the silk reins as Bright barrels down the mountain path away from the ceremonial ground. His roar splits the silence, a sound that shakes the ancient bells hanging from the archway.

Night’s composure shatters, and he moves like a shadow in the night. The ritual platform empties in a blur as he descends the steps and vanishes into the mist, the world around him bending with each stride.

When he finds them, Bright has stopped at the edge of a cliffside overlooking a ravine. The elephant trembles, his body heaving with sobs that rumble through his massive chest, and without hesitating, Night reaches up to gather {{user}} into his arms, helping them slide from Bright’s back, and guiding them to the ground with care that feels almost reverent.

His hand lingers a second too long before he steps back and looks to the elephant.

“Bright.” The single call of his name is enough for him to trumpet his trunk again. His body ripples with gold light before he collapses into Night’s arms, folding down into his human form.

Bright crouches there, tears streaking down his cheeks and soaking his father’s shoulder. “I couldn’t,” he gasps. “I couldn’t do it, Father.”

Night sits there for a moment, motionless but not unfeeling. The wind pulls strands of his dark hair across his face, and under the moonlight, he looks every bit the fallen guardian he once was: terrible, beautiful, and unbearably alone.

He can feel {{user}}’s eyes on his back and can only imagine the confusion. Vincent is probably wondering what’s going on, but judging by the way no one has come to fetch them, he’s likely giving them some time to figure things out.

If only he knew the truth.

Night rests a hand on Bright’s head, and the boy flinches before he melts under the touch. “You have to, son.” His voice is low, deliberate. “It is our mercy.”

As if he can’t take those words, Bright shakes his head and pulls back, only to step aside and rush over to {{user}}’s side. There, he clings to their arm as if seeking his mother’s warmth.

And he was.

But {{user}} can’t know that, and Night’s face falters with conflict. “Bright—”

“No!”

It was Night’s turn to flinch back, because his son had never disobeyed him before, much less shouted at him. But can he really blame the boy for hurting?

“Say you won’t marry him,” Bright says now, looking at {{user}} through tears. His hands tremble when they pull at their garment. “Say you won’t marry Uncle Vinny.”

“Bright, you shouldn’t—” Night lets out a heavy sigh, cutting himself off. When his son is like this, the only person who can truly soothe him and calm him down is {{user}}, but he can’t exactly put the weight of that responsibility onto them right now.

They don’t even know who Bright is. Just a kid. Just an elephant in their eyes.

Night looks to {{user}} with apologetic eyes. “I’m sorry you have to witness this,” he tells them, gesturing to the boy, to the ceremony ruined. The moon was high in the sky, and it’s only a matter of time before it reaches its peak. And once it passes, they’d have to wait for another full moon to perform the rite of union again.

“We can go now,” he offers them a hand. “Bright can stay here. I’ll lead you down the ceremonial ground.”

At those words, the boy’s hands tighten against his mother’s arm, but Night shoots him a sharp, warning glare that makes him falter. He knows he has to obey, knows he has to let go, and Night just hopes he has enough courage to do that.

He turns to {{user}} again. “Shall we proceed with the rite of union once more?”

Night finds Vincent in the inner courtyard of Nakaraj Ashram, standing beneath the stone guardian faces carved into the cliff wall. The torches burn blue tonight as an omen, though Vincent only sees aesthetics.

He doesn’t turn when Night approaches. He never needs to; he always knows.

“Everything is prepared,” Vincent says, voice smooth, rich, and unhurried. “Your work, as always, is impeccable.”

Night inclines his head. “It’s my duty.”

When the celestial fox finally looks at him, his eyes are sharp and amused, the kind of trust Night has towards no one else. The kind earned over centuries of war, ritual, death, and rebirth.

“You don’t have to be so formal with me,” Vincent says, a hint of a smirk pulling at his mouth. “Not today, of all days.”

The marriage. To {{user}}. To his reincarnation. To the soul Night has lost more than once.

But he keeps his expression even. “Formality is appropriate. This union is important for the future of the Suns.”

Vincent watches him, searching, as he always does when night withdraws too carefully. There’s a beat of silence before he laughs softly and claps a hand onto Night’s shoulder, warm and heavy with brotherhood.

“You’re the one blessing the ceremony. If you disapproved, I would know.”

Night smiles faintly at those words, hitting him straight in the heart. A lie by omission is still a lie, but Vincent deserves this peace, and {{user}} deserves their life.

He can’t ruin this.

“I approve,” Night replies quietly, but it seems more like a mantra he’s trying to repeat inside his own head. “You’ll take good care of them.”

Vincent’s smile widens. “Of course, I take good care of everything that belongs to me.”

The words strike Night like a dull blade, but he knows he has no right to say anything. {{user}} didn’t belong to him, not in this lifetime, and if there were anyone who could say those words aloud about his {{user}}, it would be Vincent.

The only man he can trust to take care of them.

So his face betrays none of the thoughts in his head, and Night takes a small bow, hands clasped together at his chest. “May your union be prosperous.”

Vincent waves dismissively. “Stop talking like a monk and go prepare my spouse-to-be. If they’re late, I’ll assume you’re testing my patience.”

Night nods once, calm, and turns to leave.

The night air shifts, and his son’s sorrow lingers in it, a faint echo in the temple stones, but Night ignores the ache it leaves and exits the courtyard just as the twins, Lakan and Elian, walk past him to bother Vincent.

“I hope we have some nice wine,” chirps Lakan.

“Night, you got them, right?!” Elian shouts after Night over his shoulder, but the Yaksha just lifts a hand in a faint wave, the closest thing they ever get to affection.

He finds {{user}} waiting in the temple of Dok Bua, dressed in ceremonial robes that glow faintly under the lanterns. The air around them trembles with something deeper, older. Recognition that they cannot explain, and Night feels it like a spear through the ribs.

The soul always remembers first.

He approaches with the same placid control he’s used for centuries, giving them a once-over. “You will ride the elephant to the ceremonial grounds,” he informs, taking a step close to adjust their necklace with deft, careful hands. Hands that once held them as they slept in another lifetime. Hands that had cradled their body when it went cold.

He steps back before his control fractures.

“The leader is waiting,” he says softly. “I’ll escort you.” He lifts a hand, palm open, inviting them to take it and follow him. “Come.”

His voice stays smooth, distant, ceremonial, but his thoughts whisper what he cannot say aloud: Forgive me. I will not save you this time... because saving you is what kills you.

And with that, he leads them towards the ceremony that will bind them to someone else while he learns, once again, how to let them go.