#anhar

Okay, this takes place after Atumu has died, like 400+ years ago. (Won't get into the details of that)

So King has had 400+ years to mourn his death and move on. He has changed his name now (to Omar) as he often does, and has made a life in the black market of like....exotic pets. Essentially wealthy people like to buy things from supernatural creatures. King acts as the middleman, connecting these wealthy people to... Parts of the supernatural creatures. (He would never willingly desire to traffick a peer. So he asks them to give things they have - like extra bones, horns, scales, fur, eggshells, etc.) He also negotiates the release of living creatures (i.e. "selling" them back to their own populations or just buying their freedom).

So that's what King is up to. He has built up quite a reputation for himself and has considerable wealth. He is a mysterious figure who has been around for as long as anyone can remember. He has also gathered a very very very close family of humans who serve him (he only has two servants, but basically their families have always served him). They are incredibly loyal, know he is a Gorgon, and are the only humans to know this. They will guard his secret even if it means killing.

At one of the trading events, King senses a familiar presence. It's hard to place, but he follows it like a faint smell. After a while, he finds the source -- it's ...ATUMU??? that's impossible. Atumu is long dead. And this boy looks much too young to be Atumu...but the energy is so familiar. Atumu has quite an unmistakable look, especially since King had spent centuries with him.

He eventually learns that this boy is a teenager named Anhar, who is a slave with musical talent. He wants to buy Anhar, but the human who owns him is new to the black market scene and doesn't really have the respect for King that everyone else does. He massively extorts King, leaving everyone shocked by how much King would pay for a random human slave, and leaving King very angry. Still, he has his Atumu lookalike, so....

Cue the next few months of absolute frustration. King tries to supply this boy with absolutely everything he could ever want. A nice place to stay, excellent treatment, and an education. Things a slave would never have. Things he could never give his Atumu half a millennia ago. He tries to allow Anhar to warm up to him, but Anhar won't. He is frigid and distant. He only opens up a little to the two servants, Danica and Radu, especially Danica. He doesn't feel comfortable here, and doesn't know what King wants with him. He has never NOT been assigned a task. Now he is just....free? But not ? Like a ward. Needless to say Anhar doesn't appreciate his liberties.

One day, months later, Anhar accidentally sees King without his turban. He sees the snakes. Anhar is HORRIFIED. He is being held captive by a MONSTER. Danica and Radu try to quell the situation by calming Anhar down, but Anhar is inconsolable. Not only is King a monster holding him captive, but the two human servants he trusted are in on it. He decides he must flee, and he will try to kill anyone in his way. He doesn't want to hurt Danica especially, but he will if he has to.

The relationship between King/Danica/Radu and Anhar changes. They need to figure out how to contain him. They can't let him escape and tell everyone King's secret. But King refuses to kill the boy. They have to just keep him....prisoner essentially. It's a bad time for everyone, but eventually they manage to restrain Anhar and keep him essentially locked up.

Finally the confrontation happens. King has some time in his busy schedule to talk face to face with Anhar. He brings Anhar down to the basement (dungeon? Caves? Cellar?). Anhar is restrained and blindfolded. King tries to talk calmly to Anhar at first, but Anhar is not having it. He is thrashing violently and threatening King. King is a monster. He belongs in Hell. Humans will come and slay him. It's a heated and horrible confrontation. Being called a monster is SUPER triggering to King, and he grabs Anhar by the back of his head and slams his head into the ground in anger.

(cue one of the rawest lines I have ever heard in my life: "You don't deserve to wear his face!" as he slams Anhar's head into the floor)

It takes King only a moment to calm down from that. He didnt actually mean to hurt Anhar...he didn't want to kill Anhar. Seeing Anhar's limp body on the ground, he goes to check on him.

The head trauma triggered some sort of awakening that allowed Atumu's ancient long dead spirit to finally inhabit the vessel that was Anhar's body. It's like he had been asleep for 400 years and was only just waking up. Head throbbing, disoriented... The blindfold had slipped off by now, but his vision was too blurry to focus on anything. But he thought he saw his master? He manages a weak "Master...?"

King mishears this to be "Monster". Whatever calm he had, is gone again. "You think me a monster? Let me show you what a monster can be--" and he removes his turban, letting his snakes flow freely. They writhe in anger. King pulls out his dagger and drags it across Anhar's throat.

He immediately regrets it. Hearing the boy choke on his own blood, he grabs Anhar's neck to stop the bleeding. King has this ability to heal with his arterial blood (it's like a life for a life type of thing. He can give life, but if he loses too much, he'll die), so he knicks the artery in his own neck to bleed onto Anhar's fatal wound.

Atumu's head is spinning. It was already spinning from the head trauma of being smashed into the ground. And then he thought he saw his Master? And then he felt a sharp hot pain across his neck and found himself unable to breathe. He was choking on his own blood when he sees his Master - he's sure of it now - bleeding from an arterial cut. Atumu refuses to let King die - even if it is the last thing he does. (He doesn't know about King's life blood). He wrestles with King to stop King's bleeding, regardless of his own gashed neck.

Cue a very bloody strangling match, where Atumu is trying to stop King's bleeding, King is trying to bleed into Atumu's wound. And King doesn't realise this is Atumu now and not Anhar. And Atumu has no idea what he going on. King yells at Anhar to stop struggling. "Can't you see I am trying to save your life, you stupid boy?" Atumu retorts weakly "Your life is worth more than mine--" which King does not understand considering the vile words that Anhar was spewing at him just minutes ago. "Don't change your tune now, Anhar."

Anhar seems exceptionally strong, to the shock of King (it's because it's not Anhar...), but eventually Atumu loses enough blood that he can no longer put up a struggle and passes out. King finishes bleeding onto the wound and bandages his own neck up. The scene is a bloodbath.

King eventually goes up to get his two servants (who are HORRIFIED to see all the blood, but even more horrified to learn that King eventually spared Anhar -- "Master, you are too forgiving" -- Radu says with disdain) and they help with the cleanup.

They bind Anhar to a bed to let him heal and recover (but stay secured). When Atumu wakes up, he easily escapes the tight bindings and is confused about the situation.

Uhhhhhhh I'm gonna fast forward because the next part is like....YEARS OF BAD SHIT. LIKE LITERAL YEARS. (I could elaborate at some other point. But this is already long enough) They still don't realise he is Atumu and not Anhar. King is really busy with his work, so he can't be around. They essentially starve and dehydrate Anhar so he is less of a danger. Atumu doesn't understand what's going on at any point and thinks maybe he has done something wrong... He is eventually kept in such a delicate comatose state where his body has shut down from the resource deprivation. It's really really really fucking sad because he was in surprisingly good health when he came into Anhar, but was never really given the opportunity to talk to King for King to find out that he was really Atumu. And like some 2 years or so later, his body is just wasting away on death's door.

It's a Whole Thing when King finally realises that this is really truly Atumu, somehow come back from almost 500 years of being dead. Atumu doesn't blame King for anything and he just seeks forgiveness for whatever he did to deserve this. He just wants to serve King, if King will still have him... King is in tears about this. "You really are as wonderful as I remember..."

So that scene happens after ALL OF THAT. WHOOF. SORRY. King has to figure out how to sell it for his servants, since they don't know Atumu. So he just explains it as: Anhar got brain damage. He has amnesia. Doesn't remember anything. We will call him Atumu now. He is not a threat. You can treat him like an equal." (Needless to say, Radu doesn't like this. Danica is hesitant.)

Before the many years of wasting away, Anhar had last tried to escape and kill them. So Danica first keeps her distance when visiting Anhar. But Atumu, bed bound, is super polite to her and calls her Mistress at first (she corrects him and says he only needs to use her name) -- he still calls her miss. She leaves the interaction feeling hesitantly good. Anhar does indeed seem completely different. She is willing to try.

Radu, though, thinks this is all a ploy. It seems fake and too convenient. He doesn't trust like that. But his interaction with Atumu makes him feel a little otherwise. Anhar seems wildly delusional, but this delusional form of Anhar is better than the dangerous one.

Uhhhh-- this got so much longer than I anticipated. I cant believe I excluded everything about Atumu wasting away bc that is so so so fucking long and miserable, but it was a huge thing.

anhar as a standalone character is different in that he doesn't have that journey - he's been kept alive by temporary companions and friends who take pity on him and he doesn't see any reason to change his way of living and thinking. i guess he starts down that path of figuring out that he doesn't have to die for a cause to have worth when he meets selvan and probably the people he was traveling with before selvan too? he's still pretty confused about it all

anhar is a precious thing who probably dies in more aus than i can remember