The Tragedy of the Sun God
Long ago, before humanity rose from the ashes, the gods departed from their creation.
The brothers of light and dark deemed humanity unworthy and in an act of divine judgement, wiped them off from the face of the world.
But mortals are resilient creatures. Over time they came to recover from the cataclysm, unknowing of the heights they had once reached. They played and lived in the mud and dirt, for they knew nothing better.
Always was a great eye watching. A golden orb in the sky, the bringer of day and life. The Sun, for he was the Son of the Light.
It was in his nature to care and to nurture, to bring life to a barren world. He had watched humanity repopulate after his uncle’s cruel punishment, he had watched them crawl out from the sea foam once more.
The Sun could not understand why his father and uncle would leave like they did, nor did he understand why they forbade any interaction with their creation.
And so the Sun, always the most brilliant light in the sky, always one to follow the beat of their own drum, visited the world below. It was a Remnant of what it once was, but there was life there, and where there was life there was potential.
Thus the Sun began to visit humanity under the cover of night, when his family would expect him to be resting from his long day of work. He took a human form to walk among the humans, and he took a human name per the custom of the people.
The Sun had a name now, one he had chosen for himself: Ra.
The more Ra interacted with the primitive peoples, the more he became sure of their potential. If only they had someone to guide them out of their squalor!
Thinking that he was quite clever, Ra began his conquest of the fertile river valleys in the far west. But only at night, to keep his cover. Were his family’s attentions to be turned to his antics then all would be lost. Over time the people began to worship him and call him Pharaoh, the great house which the kingdom rested on.
At night, Ra would rule justly and fairly, bringing civilization to the primitive remnants of humanity. By day, Ra would retreat to the heavens to keep the Sun in the sky. A god did not need to rest. For centuries he ruled, and ruled well, but it was not to last.
One day, a witch from the east came to his court. Her skin and hair were as pale as freshly fallen snow, and her eyes were the color of blood. She greeted him pleasantly, always smirking as if she knew something he didn’t. The witch admitted that she became interested when she had heard of a king that did not age, one that held up the Sun in the sky.
Ra quickly realized who this woman was. It was the blasphemer that had angered his father and uncle, the one that had gotten humanity destroyed the first time. Panic overtook Ra. It would be so easy for this woman to ruin him.
For the first time since humanity rose out of the dirt once more, the names of the Brother’s Grimm were invoked. It happened in an instant. Humanity should not know they exist, so of course it caught their attention. They appeared in the courtroom that was far too small to hold their grandeur.
The God of Light glanced at the witch, the blasphemer he knew all too well, and then glanced at his errant son, who he knew even in this human disguise. Understanding why he was summoned, the gods dismissed the witch without punishment. She would not be rewarded for good behavior, but neither would she be punished. She lived to see another day, though that was not her intent.
The Father told the Son to come home. The Son refused. The Son argued his case, but the Father would have none of it. But the Son refused once more and held his ground. The Father found himself forced to deal with his troublesome child.
The struggle created a vast desert, one that stands there even to this day. It is a symbol of the Sun’s hubris.
Ra’s human disguise was torn from him, his body destroyed but he was a god - his spirit remained. He was dragged back to the heavens where he belonged and chained to his star. There he would remain while his father and uncle deliberated over his punishment. But eternity passes in the blink of an eye of divinity. By the time the punishment was decided a handful of millennia had passed in the world below.
The Sun struggled and screamed as he was told his punishment. As he had loved humanity so much, he would live among them. He would be the lowliest among them. His memories would be stripped from him and he would be forced to permanently take the form of a human, until such a time his father decreed otherwise.
Ra was cast down out of heaven, but he was not Ra anymore. The spirit remained, but those memories were gone, in the grasp of his father. The Sun was born a small human girl in bondage, a slave. Thus the story of Amateru began, unbeknownst to even her.
She could not have known that the Lamp, that catcher of light, she thought was her destiny was a trap. The relic was designed to beckon to her and her alone, to lure her in and make sure that the troublesome child of the Light could never interfere with the gods’ plans again.
When Amateru touched the Lamp and accepted the mantle of Jinn, she could not comprehend what she had done. Perhaps if she had still retained the memories of Ra, she would have stayed far away.
The Lamp tore her in two. The divinity of Ra and the persona of Amateru stayed with the Lamp and became the Being of Knowledge. The immortal and fiery spirit of the Sun could not be contained by such a paltry toy. It reincarnated and continues to do so over and over again, an endless cycle of power and uncertainty, always becoming a mortal that Ra loved so much.
It is an unnatural thing. A cursed thing. The Sun’s very soul scream in agony at being torn asunder, but the host can rarely tell. It is something they live with all their lives, after all. How can they be expected to know the difference?
Still the Sun and the Lamp call to each other, desperate to be one again but fated to never be.
