Mortuus Mundo (Hololive EN Fanfiction)

Chapter - 6: Incense and Instincts

Every cycle, every fire that returned to soot, it will always leave a mark on this world. Burying forefathers, burying ancestors, into a single shell made of sap. The wafting aroma that permeated the Temple of the Sun before the soaring screech of the phoenix.

Though ash is not everything that is left upon this world. Nature still existed. An empty meadow with the mourning wind breezed through the leaves, playing like instruments on the tree branches. Some of them sometimes plucked off, falling atop of Aephery's head as he watched them like a spectator in an orchestra.

The unreformed law of the wild and the law of nature still persisted even after humanity went extinct. Aephery had seen a couple of animals before coming to the sunken city in the sands, before meeting Mori Calliope and Nanashi Mumei. Most of them ran away from him, some of them ate him, some didn't really care about him.

Aephery's friend, the owl, sat nearby on a mossy rock. They had been travelling for almost a week straight, sharing stories among one another— mostly Mumei. The only tales that Aephery could tell was like uncomplete parts of a film, sometimes he recites it from the beginning, sometimes he recites it during the conflict, rarely remembering the end of anything he's been through.

Although Mumei could understand that feeling of forgetting something important as more and more glyphs and books disappear through time, she still somewhat dread becoming something like Aephery. Acting more like an Alzheimer's patient, too-child-like.

Hopefully, when they finish this and bring back humanity from its death, Mumei could still remember her name.

"Aephery." Mumei called, gentler than the rustling wind but audible. "I think this is enough rest. Let's continue."

The vessel turned and nodded before they wandered deeper into the forest they had found themselves in. As they did so, Mumei thought of the old deities, the council she and many other lesser gods were a part of.

Ceres Fauna, mother nature incarnate. An entity as old as when plants started to grow on the planet, protective of animals and flora. She was protective of Mumei as well, always so kind to her, but she wasn't kind to the humans Mumei protected.

Her wrath upon the human race was just, and Mumei could not blame her, Mumei could not blame anyone. When fire, a destructive energy that can burn away plants became a figure of worship amongst humanity, there was a dim in her bright eyes. Mumei could remember it.

And when the worshippers of the Everlasting Phoenix started to be thrown into anarchy, those fires were guided to anything that they could get their hands on. The planet was scorched in flames, and Fauna wouldn't have any of it.

Sandstorms, earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons, she threw everything at them to make sure they would stop. Mumei would beg her to stop and allow her to do something, but a decisive mother fueled by fury would not listen to the pleas of other people. The world was her child, and she will take any measures to stop the force that was harming it.

Ceres Fauna loved many things, but she loved the world more than Mumei, love nature more than humans who would trample on it. Mumei had already accepted that painful truth and backed away from her ever since.

A left drifted in front of Mumei's face, gently hovering down onto the blades of grass. The world was now green, greener than ever, but it never felt so empty.

"Temple." Aephery spoke, his finger pointing towards a ruined entrance in the middle of the forest.

"Ah!" Mumei quickly perked up. "I don't really remember a temple being so secluded from a settlement like this."

"There's ash." The vessel remarked. "I smell myrrh. I have to. Collect."

"Huh? Wait! Aephery!"

His white cloak flapped in the wind as he suddenly started leaping forward to the ruined temple. Mumei quickly gave chase, passing by the debris and concrete buildings that were surrounding the temple. It appeared there really was a settlement in this dense forest, only ravaged by nature it seemed.