In a galaxy as distant as forgetfulness itself, Akasha was lost in his thoughts—his conquests, his creations. An empire of matter and glory surrounded him. Amidst the chaos he sowed, he did not notice his brother's absence. Until, the moment Tribal was born, something awakened him.
He felt it.
As if a fragment of his own essence had been torn away—stolen.
Unease spread through his senses. He searched for Elshua but could not find him. He felt him everywhere, as if woven into the very nature of things… but he could not touch him. Akasha wandered through countless planets, crossing galaxies, interfering in the civilizations tenderly shaped by Elshua. He took for himself what he found—molded it, distorted it, corrupted it. But still, nothing filled that void.
His rage grew.
He was vain, attached to form and the senses. Always traveling like a king, surrounded by creatures that worshipped him. He loved thrones, applause, reverence. And with every conquered planet, his brother's absence became more unbearable.
Until one day, in the midst of his frustration, one of his subjects approached.
"My Lord…" he said with a faltering voice, "may I show you something?"
Akasha shot him a piercing glare, his eyes overflowing with wrath. For a moment, he thought of disintegrating the audacity with a breath. But something held him back.
"Bring it," he ordered.
Two guardians brought forth a prisoner. An old man. His body broken by time, his clothes torn, his skin marked by wounds and neglect.
"What kind of joke is this?" Akasha asked, irritated.
"My Lord…" said the subject, "this being does not eat, does not drink. His appearance now is false. When we took him from his cell, he was clean, strong, and dressed with dignity."
Akasha approached, intrigued. He observed the old man more closely… and then he saw it. A spark. A subtle trace of Elshua's energy ran through that fragile body.
"Leave us," he ordered.
They were alone. And in the silence, Akasha's presence altered everything around them. The old man trembled, and his true form was revealed: a proud, serene being, with eyes shining with wisdom. He was whole.
"Why did you disguise yourself?" Akasha questioned. "How can you stand before me without being consumed?"
The elder smiled simply.
"I feel Elshua in you, my lord. I did not wish to disturb you with my true form."
Akasha, for the first time in millennia, fell silent.
Something inside him broke—or perhaps remembered what it once was, whole.
"Teach me," he said at last. "Show me the path Elshua walks. Be my guide… my friend."
Akasha rose from his throne. For the first time in ages, he abandoned his elevated position and stood side by side with his prisoner. They walked through his realm as equals. The Lord of Fire, the God of Confrontation, now wished to absorb everything that elder had to teach.
The elder, because of his deep beliefs and convictions, could not simply abandon Akasha. He needed to use that rare opportunity to try and make him see the other side of creation.
Akasha, in turn, tried to convince him—not with shouts or threats, but with demonstrations of the science hidden in the depths of matter. He showed the grand feats of his machines, the civilizations raised with iron and fire, the advances that broke natural laws.
The elder listened to everything with serenity. He knew the science, but he saw beyond it. He saw the essence, the soul of all things. For him, everything was an expression of a superior thought, an eternal dance between energy and intention.
Akasha then witnessed something he had never imagined: a simple creature, fragile and limited, altering the course of the universe with a single act of will. It disconcerted him. How had Elshua dared to grant such freedom to such inferior beings? How could they touch the same threads that only he, Elshua, and Adargas could handle?
But… there was a feeling. A warm and silent wave passed through Akasha's body. It wasn't anger. It wasn't fear. It was something ancient and forgotten. A suffocating longing. For Elshua. For Adargas. For himself.
And then, he allowed himself.
He allowed himself to be taught.
They had time. Enough time.
The elder transmitted to him everything he had learned in the presence of Elshua's essence. And Akasha learned. He learned quickly—as if he were just remembering what he had always known. The mind was the new machinery. Thought, the new forge.
Until, one night, on the edge of a garden created solely by the force of imagination, Akasha asked:
"Why didn't you flee? Why did you remain a prisoner all these years? You could leave, teleport at any moment, and I wouldn't even notice."
The elder gazed at the horizon of the imagined garden, where impossible flowers danced in the wind from nowhere. His voice was low, but firm:
"Because I was sent."
Akasha arched an eyebrow, confused.
"By Elshua?"
The elder shook his head with a slight movement.
"By something greater. Something that still dwells in you, even if asleep. I was sent to wait. So that, in due time, you would listen to me."
Akasha felt his chest grow heavy. Those words were not just any answer. They carried a destiny he did not yet fully comprehend.
"Wait for what?"
The elder looked at him, and in that gaze there was tenderness—not submission, not fear, but a kind of love that Akasha had forgotten existed.
"Wait for your return."
Silence.
A silence so absolute the universe itself seemed to pause.
Akasha took a step back. The ground beneath his feet trembled slightly, as if the balance of his essence was splitting apart. A storm was forming inside him—not on the outside.
"I did not leave… I was left behind. I was ignored!"
"No, my lord," said the elder with serenity. "You distanced yourself. And now you are returning. Little by little, gesture by gesture."
Akasha clenched his fists, as if fighting something invisible within himself. His eyes shone with conflict.
"What if I don't want to return?"
The elder smiled sweetly.
"Then nothing will change. You will continue winning wars that need not be fought, raising empires that will not last, seeking outside what has always been within."
Akasha fell to his knees. For the first time in his existence, not as a king, nor as a god, nor as a lord of matter — but as a son. A son lost within himself.
And he wept.
Not physical tears, but a kind of cosmic, silent weeping that swept through the far reaches of the universe like a wave of longing. Elshua felt it. Adargas, wherever he was, felt it too.
The elder approached, knelt beside him, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"There is still time."
That night, after the silent weeping that reverberated among the stars, Akasha withdrew. But he found no rest. An ancient call vibrated within him—an echo of childhood, a sigh from when he still walked hand in hand with the Father and his brother among forming galaxies.
He stood up.
He looked into the void between the stars... and he knew.
He knew where Elshua was. And more than that — he knew where Adargas had been.
Driven by an impulse mixing longing and need, he tore space with his thought and arrived on Earth. The planet pulsed. Every stone, every leaf, every molecule vibrated with the Father's signature.
But He was no longer there.
Akasha walked across seas and deserts, through jungles and volcanoes. He felt the presence... but not the encounter. As if Adargas had dissolved his form — and with it, his embrace.
Reaching a valley covered in blue mist, he felt something different. It wasn't the Father. It wasn't Elshua. It was... another.
A new presence, silent and profound.
He approached.
And in the distance, he saw two beings. One of them was Elshua—the same serene countenance, the same eyes filled with light and responsibility. The other... was strange. Too human to be celestial. Too divine to be merely human.
Tribal.
Akasha watched, hidden between dimensional veils, as Elshua held the new being with tenderness. There were no words. Only that silence which pained Akasha so much.
He understood.
Adargas had created another son.
And He had not called him.
He had not asked for his presence. He had not asked for his help. He had not even allowed him to know.
Akasha retreated.
An abyss opened inside him. The elder, with all his wisdom, had not prepared him for that. No meditation, no imagined garden would protect him from the pain of being forgotten once again.
First Elshua was chosen. Now Tribal.
And him? The firstborn? The one who had shaped galaxies with fire and iron? The one who clamored for the Father's gaze?
He had been left behind.
Again.
His face hardened. The hands that had learned to create with delicacy became fists. The warmth inside him was no longer light—it was magma.
Elshua, in the distance, raised his eyes.
He felt it.
But he did not see him.
Akasha disappeared amid the shadows of space, without a sound, without a trace.
But in his heart, something broke.
And something new was born in its place.