Amid the darkness after death, Orion drifted.
He was weightless, suspended in a void that stretched beyond comprehension. There was no up or down, no forward or back. Just an endless hum of nothingness pressing in from every direction.
He couldn't feel his body.
He couldn't even tell if he still had one.
Time didn't exist here. Or maybe it existed too much. One moment felt like a single breath. The next felt like an eternity stretched thin.
'So this is it,' he thought, his voice echoing pointlessly through the hollow expanse of his own mind.
'No judgement. No angels. No heaven or hell.'
A pause.
'Just nothing. Figures.'
If he still had lungs, he might have laughed.
Then something changed.
Far off in the distance, two shapes emerged.
At first, they were indistinct, little more than distortions in the void, but they drew him in all the same. Not through force, but inevitability. The emptiness itself was guiding him toward them.
As he drifted closer, understanding settled in.
Eyes.
Two massive eyes floated before him, each one blazing with blinding golden radiance. Their pupils spun slowly, intricate and endless, like living galaxies turning within themselves. Light pulsed outward from them, illuminating the void in waves, as though reality itself bent to acknowledge their presence.
And with that light came a voice.
Not sound.
Meaning.
It didn't enter his ears. It pressed directly into his existence, vast and overwhelming, vibrating through whatever passed for his soul.
When the heavens darken and the sun surrenders its crown to shadow,The Eyes of Dominion shall awaken once more.
Born beneath the shroud of an eclipse,The soul of two lives shall take form anew.
He shall bear the gaze that pierces all things,And the colours of Ether shall bend before his sight.
Through his eyes, the world shall tremble and yield,For with his awakening begins the Age of Dominion.
The words rolled through the void like thunder wrapped in prophecy, each line heavier than the last.
Orion's first reaction was not awe.
It was annoyance.
'How can sound even travel in a vacuum?' he thought irritably. 'And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?'
Before he could dissect it further, the golden eyes flared.
Their pull intensified.
The void collapsed inward.
His soul twisted, compressed, and then tore forward, dragged into a blinding vortex. It felt like being pulled through reality itself. Every shred of his being screamed as he was sucked through, until...
He could feel again?!
Warmth. Pressure. A steady rhythm, slow and alive.
'What…?'
He tried to move.
Nothing responded.
His limbs were numb, uncooperative. The air felt thick, muffled, as though he were submerged. Panic flickered briefly, sharp and unfamiliar.
Then light exploded across his senses.
He was forced outward, expelled violently into a world of sound and colour, his first breath ripping through tiny lungs that definitely were not his own.
'Oh, you've got to be kidding me.'
It didn't take long to understand.
The warmth around him wasn't spiritual. It was physical. Flesh and blood. He was being held, cradled against something solid and impossibly large.
He'd been born...
Again!?
'Reincarnation,' he thought dryly. 'Classic.'
The person holding him was an elderly woman with calloused hands and a stern, unimpressed face. Her grey hair was pulled tight into a bun, her movements efficient as she wiped him down with a damp cloth.
"It's a healthy baby boy," she said crisply.
"A boy?!" the woman who had given birth sounded startled, almost disbelieving.
'Why is that surprising?' Orion wondered. 'It's roughly a fifty-one percent chance, statistically speaking, at least it should be...'
A darker thought followed.
'Please don't tell me she wanted a girl badly enough to make this my problem.'
His thoughts raced, sharp and intact, even as his body remained helpless.
He felt trapped in this fragile and useless new body.
Then the woman laughed, a small, trembling sound filled with relief. Tears gathered in her icy blue eyes.
"A boy," she whispered. "His name will be Orion."
'Huh,' he thought, relieved. 'Same name. Convenient.'
She took him from the nurse's arms.
Even through his hazy newborn vision, she was striking. Pale skin, white hair spilling down her shoulders like silk, her beauty carrying a quiet, almost ethereal stillness. His eyesight couldn't focus properly yet, colours blurring together, but he felt her presence all the same.
Warm.
Comforting.
It stirred something deep inside him, something old and unwanted, tightening his chest in a way he didn't like.
'Don't get soft on me now,' he warned himself. 'You know how that ends.'
She smiled down at him, unaware of the calculating mind peering out from behind those unfocused eyes.
"Welcome to the world, my little Orion."
He would have smirked if he could.
'So this is my new mother. Fitting, it looks a little like my old one.'
She was Selene Frostborne, though he wouldn't learn her name until later. Even now, he could sense the strength beneath her delicate appearance. She smelled faintly of snow and flowers, and her warmth seeped into him like a drug he hadn't known he was missing.
The nurse, whose name he caught as Marn, frowned as she studied him.
Orion's stillness was eerie.
Selene noticed the concern immediately. "Why isn't he crying? Shouldn't he be crying?"
"It's unusual," Marn muttered after a brief examination, "but he seems healthy. Perhaps he's just calm."
Then she pinched his arm.
Hard.
Pain exploded through Orion's senses, sharp and immediate.
'Back off, bitch,' he tried to snap.
What came out instead was a piercing newborn wail.
But beneath it, something else surged.
A flash.
A spark.
Golden light flickered behind his dark, newborn eyes. It lasted only an instant, but it was enough.
Marn stumbled backwards with a gasp, her face draining of colour as if she had seen something impossible.
Orion's strength vanished just as suddenly. Exhaustion crashed over him, heavy and absolute.
His last coherent thought before darkness claimed him was simple.
'What the fuck was that?'
He went limp.
Marn scrambled away, trembling, her breath uneven. Selene looked up sharply, alarm flaring across her face.
"Are you alright?"
"I-I just need some air," Marn stammered, already retreating.
Outside, she staggered into a small open courtyard. Cold air filled her lungs as she looked up.
The sky was wrong.
It was midday, yet the sun was gone, swallowed by shadow. A perfect black disc hung overhead, surrounded by a ring of burning light.
A total solar eclipse.
Her unease deepened into dread - it was hard not to see it as ominous.
"Let's hope that child doesn't bring ruin to this family," she whispered.
The words vanished into the still air.
Inside the infirmary, the newborn Orion slept peacefully in his mother's arms, unaware of the omen unfolding above.
His face was calm.
Too calm.
And beneath his closed eyelids, faint golden light continued to pulse.