Story of the Dead

The Story of the Dead is a fanfiction written by Toa Auserv on BZPower. It takes place before the other three stories he's written, and serves as a continuation of those earlier stories. You can read the original source here.

For more, please see /chapter one, /chapter two, /chapter three, /chapter four, /chapter five, /chapter six, /chapter seven.

Prologue
''It was that time of the decade again. The Story of the Dead. Every day for one month, once every ten years, the Turaga-Kal told in thirty parts the life story of one of their former comrades who had died as a hero. The tradition had started exactly fifty years ago, which to the best of everyone's memory was five years after the Matoran had first moved to their home, Tolliwam from...what was that old island?

Toa Mehikir knew that it was going to be bugging him for the rest of the day. But Matoran are not particularly noted for their memory. Toa are, a bit more so, but Mehikir--as well as his friends Nejodis and Hibuthil--had only been a Toa for the past two years.

In any case, he needed to head to the Marble City with his Pa-Matoran, Matoran of Plasma. Since the move to Tolliwam, the Matoran lived in three villages organized by types, something that had simply never happened on the old island. Mehikir didn't really have any friends among the other Pa-Matoran, but now that he had become a Toa, he was sure he had some admirers at the very least.

Idle thinking had distracted Mehikir from the task at hand... Two Pa-Matoran were having an argument. After it had gone unattended long enough, it had become a fist-fight. Mehikir was on his way there. He reached the site of the fight a few minutes later, where two other Pa-Matoran had stepped in, each one restraining one of the fighters. Mehikir gave them a polite nod for saving him the trouble of having to get violent.

"What is this?" demanded Mehikir.

With vicious hate in his voice, one of the original two fighters said, "He stole a blade from me last night."

"Do you have any proof of this?"

Then the second fighter spoke up. "He saw me using a blade to cut some vines when I was wandering in the forest today, and automatically assumed it was his just because his went missing."

"But you never had a blade before today!"

"I bought one this morning, with money I have been saving for a few months now."

One of the Matoran who had helped to restrain the opponents was able to verify this. "He bought it from me. I have the coins he used right in my shop if you want to see them."

"I don't need to," Mehikir said. "He didn't steal your blade, you lost it. Case closed."

"So he should be punished for attacking me!" insisted the Matoran accused of blade-stealing.

"Both of you should be punished for fighting," said Mehikir. "Can anyone here tell me what day it is?"

"...The first of the month?" timidly suggested the shopkeeper.

"Yes, but not just any first of the month. It's the first of the sixth month of the 55th year we've been here. It's the halfway point of the decade."

"The Story of the Dead!" cried the Matoran who had lost his blade.

"Yes, exactly. You two are threatening to kill each other during the month that we are supposed to be paying our respects to the heroes that have fought and died to keep you--this island--this universe--around. What greater disrespect could you possibly show?!"

"I'm sorry, Toa Mehikir," said the first Matoran.

"My deepest apologies," said the other.

"Don't apologize to me," Mehikir said. "Apologize to the heroes whose memories you have stained. Turaga Onathei, Toa Barnoka... And then the one being who I owe my life to: Toa-Kal Guutana."

The name struck a chord in the hearts of the Matoran. They still remembered, vaguely, how upon arriving on Tolliwam, there had been no sign of Toa-Kal Guutana. They still remembered the horror on the other Toa-Kal's faces when Desurk, Toa-Kal of Thought, had announced that Guutana had been crushed by rubble in order to save Mehikir. They still remembered the hollow, empty feeling that was associated with the first few years on the island, knowing that their savior, deliverer from certain death by the evil being called Sihnozu, had not made the trip.

Guutana had been the first one to have a Story of the Dead dedicated to him, and indeed was the reason the Story of the Dead tradition had started. The second had been Roqini, Toa-Kal of Health, who had died of radiation poisoning. The third was Desurk, who had wandered of into the forest and killed himself five years before the Story of the Dead dedicated to him, and no one to this day knew why. The fourth and most recent had been Barnoka, Toa of Rahi Control on the island of Dyteeli, who had died to save that island as well as the Toa-Kal who were visiting there. The fifth? Mehikir would find out soon.

Mehikir was fairly sure the fight would not continue. "Let's get going to the Marble City," he said. "Get the others together and meet me at my house in an hour. Then we'll go."

*_*_*

Turaga-Kal Krakana began the first part of the story from a large pedestal in the center of the stadium. The pedestal was shaped like a right triangle, with a steep, long stairway leading from the top to the ground. Krakana's voice was ancient-sounding, as if he had been through a thousand battles in his lifetime and came out of them a little worse for the wear.

"Have those ten years already passed?" he began. "Is it already time for another Story of the Dead? The hero that we will be discussing this month is someone who is very familiar to me... Moreso even to Turaga-Kal Xironu and Grunekt. He led a hard life and fought hard for all of you... More than anyone, our friends of the Plantlife element, the Palif-Matoran. Later in his life, this hero became something of a father to me and the other Toa-Kal. Would anyone like to make a guess as to who I'm talking about?"

Thousands of hands went up in the audience around the large marble stadium, which the Turaga-Kal had noticed was unsettlingly similar to the place where Guutana had died. Only a few hundred Matoran lived on Tolliwam, but the Tirrakir (native inhabitants of Tolliwam, of which the Turaga-Kal's friend Tekarou was one), also took part in this tradition. While the Matoran lived on remote spots in villages, the Tirrakir inhabited the Marble City. It had originally been a fortress made to safeguard the Tirrakir from their Skakdi rivals, long since driven from the island by the Toa-Kal. Most of them had nothing better to do than attend this Matoran event.

Krakana chose a Tirrakir--he had been paid a good sum of money by the island's government to make the Tirrakir feel welcome during these Stories of the Dead, in order to gradually improve the relations between the Matoran and Tirrakir. It was a young red Tirrakir, who had only recently gone through the process of rebuilding his body into a bigger more powerful one as a sign of becoming an adult.

"Turaga Onathei!" he cried out enthusiastically.

"Exactly," Krakana replied. "I'm glad to see that the Tirrakir are beginning to care about our humble Matoran heroes." Mentally Krakana slapped himself--suggesting that the Tirrakir had not always cared about Matoran would probably mean a considerable chunk out of his paycheck at the end of this story. "Anyway, I believe that it would be more appropriate for Turaga-Kal Xironu to continue the story from here. Undoubtedly, he knew Onathei better than any of us."

Xironu took Krakana's place at the pedestal in the center of the stage. As Krakana passed the former Toa-Kal of Speech on the long descent to the ground, he said "If there was ever a best time to use your Speech power, it would be now."

"Trust me," said Xironu, his voice sounding as young and healthy as ever, "I can handle this without having to use powers."

Krakana smiled. "Good luck. Especially with the ending."

"Thanks." The two long-time friends hit their fists together, and then each went on his way.

Xironu made it to the top of the pedestal and began his story. "Friends, Matoran and Tirrakir alike... Some of you probably know how difficult a story this will be for me to tell. I was Onathei's right-hand until I became a Toa... And in the end, I was there in his last moments. I will tell you all the story of his life to the best of my ability...but if I become a bit tearful towards the end, please forgive me."

Xironu paused for a few seconds, running over the first part of the story in his head quickly before he began. "If one wants to tell a story about Turaga Onathei, one must also tell a story about Toa Onathei. And if one wants to tell a story about Toa Onathei, as with many other stories, we must start at the beginning. The day that Onathei met Feyain, almost seven thousand years ago."''