Chen doesn't know how long he sits by Suho's body. It feels like an eternity. But when a hand on his shoulder makes him jump and look up, the light has barely changed and everything looks the same.

Kyungsoo leaves his hand on Chen's shoulder as he looks sadly down at the curled body.

"We should take him to his family," the sylphid murmurs. Chen nods mutely, gathering Suho into his arms and standing up slowly. Suho feels so light.

Lu Han steps forward and places a soft kiss on Suho's forehead. There's a subtle silver glow around Suho's body before the blackness seems to slough off, revealing Suho's pale skin and dark hair, his eyes closed as if in slumber.

Chen half smiles at the still face before looking at Lu Han, an accusation on his lips.

"I couldn't have healed him," Lu Han says, eyes fixed on Suho. "This is an illusion. It shows him as he was. I thought it would be better for his family."

Chen nods, suddenly grateful.

The flight to Suho's home is solemn, Chen flying in front with the other two Adar on each side and slightly behind, Lu Han and Wu Fan trailing behind, hands clasped. It's still raining. Chen doesn't think it will ever stop. 

Yixing, wearing his horse form, is waiting for them at Suho's home. When Chen touches down lightly, Yixing surges forward, dropping the facade, hope shining in his face. But when he catches sight of the still form in Chen's arms and sees the sorrow on the thunderbird's face, Yixing sobs and drops to his knees in the mud.

Chen stands frozen as the door to Suho's home opens and three figures step out. He recognizes them by sight, but not by name. There's Suho's brother, and his sister, and his mother. They stand stunned for a few moments, overwhelmed by the figures of myth standing in front of them, but then Suho's brother sees  Suho lying in Chen's arms and runs forward, eyes wide.

"Brother!"

Chen resists the urge to pull away. This is Suho's family. He should be given to them. Suho's brother reaches out and presses a hand to Suho's cold arm and yanks back, understanding and horror washing over his face.

"Brother?"

The boy looks up at Chen, and Chen looks away. It seems that is enough of an answer. The boy steps back, desperation and fear mixing as his mouth works soundlessly, trying to say something, anything.

"Sehun…" Kyungsoo says gently, stepping towards the stricken boy. Sehun shakes his head stubbornly and backs away, tears glistening in his eyes.

"You said," Sehun says, voice rising in pitch. "You said he'd be okay! You promised!"

Kyungsoo's expression twists and he looks down, winds stilling around him.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

Sehun makes a noise somewhere between a sob and a scream and runs, taking off towards the little spring that Chen knows so well.

He watches the little boy go, and doesn't notice how Suho's mother has moved close to him. He jerks in surprise when the woman tries to take Suho from him, sparks dancing along his skin and thunder rumbling overhead.

"We need to bury him," she says quietly, holding Chen's gaze with such unnatural calm Chen almost feels tranquil himself. When Suho's mother reaches for the body again, he doesn't stop her, and she cradles her son to her chest, eyes fixed on his pale face. Her hair falls away from her ears and Chen can see the glint of silver studs.

"When he first met you, I told him what you were." She's not looking at him, but Chen knows that her words are for him. "He was so happy. You should have seen the light in his eyes. And then, when I saw his arm…saw the scars…I think I knew that it would end like this."

She finally lifts her head, and the look in her eyes is broken. Chen wonders if that's how he looks as well.

"Humans always suffer when the gods fight."

Without another word, she turns and starts to carry Suho back to the house. Chen watches her go, hands hanging limply at his sides. None of the others leave. It would disrespect the boy who died to wake the sun.

When the woman finally emerges from her house again, Suho's body is wrapped in white cloth. She walks past Chen without a word, but he follows her anyway. He will bury Suho.

It's a funeral procession fit for a king, Chen thinks as they walk down the well-worn trail to the spring. Suho's sister clings to her mother's skirts, silent, eyes wide and lips thin.

Suho's mother pauses at the edge of the water, rain soaking her clothes and hair.

"He'd want to be buried here," she says quietly.

Chen agrees. This was Suho's favorite place on the farm. Lu Han steps forward and taps the earth with his foot. The ground ripples and collapses, leaving a hole large enough for Suho's curled, white-wrapped form.

His mother simply stares at the hole, arms tightening around Suho's body as tears threaten to spill down her face. Chen steps forward and holds out his hands, making eye contact with the grieving woman. She nods slightly and Chen takes Suho from her, cradling the boy in his arms for a few more seconds before kneeling and placing the body in the earth.

He wishes he could see Suho's face. Another glimpse, one last look before he's sealed away forever. He swallows around the pain strangling him and stands back up. He feels like he should say something. But when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out.

No one speaks. There is much that could be said, and it will be said someday, but somehow, thunder and the sound of rain seem a more fitting eulogy for Suho than anything else. Finally, Lu Han taps his foot again, and the earth shudders, closing over the body and hardly leaving a trace except for a long scar of dark soil in the grass covered banks of the spring. It's like Suho has been erased from the world.

Chen can't stop himself from crying.

Wu Fan, dry and bright even in the downpour, raindrops sizzling on his skin, walks to the head of Suho's grave and kneels, placing both hands on the damp grass. Chen feels the ripple of his lord's light and heat that precedes one of his workings, and steps back.

Something white erupts from the ground, pushing up to the sky. It's a huge marble slab, ten feet high, and as Chen watches, the sun and the moon approach it, placing their linked hands on the stone. Light shoots through the veins of the marble and with a deafening crack, huge chunks of stone fall away and sink into the ground.

Chen stares. It's Suho. A statue of Suho. It's so lifelike, Chen half-expects the stone boy to step off his pedestal and ask why everyone looks so sad. At the foot of the statue, words are carved in the rock.

In honor of his sacrifice

Suho, the One Who Woke the Sun

"He will not be forgotten," Wu Fan says, touching the statue gently. "I promised him."

The sun turns to Suho's mother, and she bows, sinking to the ground. The little girl clinging to her mother's skirts follows her mother's example.

"I owe your son a debt that I can not truly repay. Is there anything you would ask of me?"

"Take care of my family, lord," the woman answers, daring to look up. "Do not let us starve."

Wu Fan nods, but Chen isn't paying attention anymore. Sehun, Suho's brother, peeks out from behind a tree, eyes wide and face grubby and wet with tears and rain.

Chen remembers how Suho used to comfort his little brother, and it compels him to walk around the spring and stop in front of the boy. Sehun shrinks back, face scrunching up, and Chen kneels, looking at the boy's face. There's some resemblance, same dark hair, same pale skin, but Sehun is gangly and thin and tall for his age where Suho was smaller but more muscled.

"Hello," Chen says quietly. "My name is Chen."

Sehun doesn't reply, face still twisted as he clutches at the hem of his muddy shirt.

"Your brother probably never told you about me," Chen continues, "but we were very good friends."

"He kissed you," Sehun blurts, and Chen blinks in slight confusion, before the memory comes to him. A jeering crowd, a knife dropped in the dirt, and Suho's lips pressed to his. He nods, inexplicably shy.

"Did the phoenix kill him?" Sehun whispers, edging closer, eyes b with tears and lip quivering. Chen nods again and tears start to drip down the human boy's cheeks.

"Why?" Sehun asks, twisting his shirt in his fingers.

Chen looks down at his hands. Because I claimed him as mine, he thinks, clenching his hands and looking back at the little boy.

"Would you like me to tell you the whole story?"

And when Sehun nods, Chen tells him.

True to his word, Wu Fan makes sure that Suho is not forgotten. Within a year, the story of Suho and his tragic death spreads across the entire land, and within five, the world knows of the boy who died to wake the sun. Not everyone believes it, of course. They dismiss it as legend and hearsay, but the statue and the dissolution of the Church of Light serves as a reminder to the people of the village that it was all very, very real.

Baekhyun and the other priests are disgraced and exiled, and the churches are torn down, shrines to the Adar and the sun and the moon built in their place.

The statue of Suho becomes a holy place itself, drawing pilgrims from all over to make the journey to the little village and visit Suho's grave. Almost six years after Suho's death, a nomad caravan arrives and a man steps out of one of the wagons, his left arm scarred and his face sharp and foreboding.

Zitao approaches the statue and bows in front of it, face softening into an expression of sorrow. A cold wind creeps around him and frozen fingers press against his own. Xiumin takes Zitao's hand and looks up at the white statue, face unreadable.

They stand silently for a while until Zitao speaks.

"I wish I could have helped him."

"You were halfway across the world," Xiumin reminds him gently.

"I could've saved him," Zitao insists. He doesn't know if that's true, but perhaps Suho would've stood a better chance if Zitao was at his side.

"His sacrifice wasn't in vain," Xiumin says. "Lu Han and Wu Fan are grateful."

Zitao nods slowly and swallows the retort he wants to say. If the gods were so grateful why didn't they save him?

Instead he turns around and walks to the little farmhouse that has not changed much throughout the years. The woman who opens the door meets her nephew for the very first time, and Sehun finds himself intrigued by the dark stranger with silver in his ears.

The years pass and the world keeps turning. Wu Fan chooses a new phoenix, a peregrine falcon who calls himself Minho. Chen avoids him, not able to face the flames that ended Suho's life, even if they belong to a new Adar. For a long time Chen can't face Suho's grave, because when he stays away he can almost convince himself it was all a bad dream. But every storm over the land sweeps him over the white marble statue and reminds him of reality.

Time slips away from him, now that he has no reason to keep track of humans. The village grows and expands like a living thing, discoveries accelerating the growth by leaps and bounds and somehow before Chen realizes it, a city has grown around the spring and the statue.

The final time they meet is fate.

Chen feels the urge to walk among humans one cloudy evening after he finishes singing his rain song. He hasn't felt this way in centuries, but he decides to indulge it, catching a thunderbolt and jumping to the ground with a flash and crackling roar. He shakes his hair out and begins walking, feather cloak ruffling in the light wind. It takes a few strange looks from passerby before he realizes that cloaks are no longer the fashion, and he pauses in front of a large glass window showcasing clothing.

As he stands there, purple white sparks flicker over his body and his feathers melt and ripple into a well-fitted black suit. He tugs on his sleeves and smiles lightly at his reflection. He wonders what Suho would think and then frowns. Even after centuries of separation, the pain of Suho's death has not stopped aching.

The ache in his chest sends a rumble through the clouds and Chen turns on his heel, walking briskly down the paved street. He walks without a destination, simply pushing through the tide of people and smiling to himself whenever someone tries to push him back and is shocked for their efforts.

He frowns when he reaches a green patch. It feels familiar, but he isn't sure why. A path paved with river stones winds through the grass and he follows it, brows furrowing as memories he thought were long gone rise to the surface and by the time he reaches the spring, and sees the white statue towering over the pool of clear water, he remembers.

This is Suho's grave.

He has to take a moment to remember to breathe. The statue looks as new as the day it was created, the lines of Suho's face achingly familiar.

He's so lost in his memories that he doesn't register the person climbing on the pedestal until they almost fall off of it, grabbing onto the marble arm with a strangled yell. Chen blinks and then steps forward, anger rushing up within him like a storm front.

How dare they touch Suho? Who does this human think they are?

Lightning is already snapping in the air around him when the person clinging to the statue rights themselves and turns around with a breathy laugh.

Chen feels all of the air leave his lungs as though he's been punched in the stomach. Time stops as he stumbles to a halt, eyes fixed on the laughing face of the man on the pedestal.

"Suho?" he whispers, not daring to believe it. It has to be a dream or a trick or something. The man standing in front of the statue has dark red hair and is taller and older than Chen remembers but there's no mistaking that smile and those eyes and the way he carries himself and Chen almost falls to his knees because it's Suho.

The man looks up at the statue's face and laughs.

"Yeah, that's this guy," he says, and gods he sounds just like Suho. Chen doesn't know whether to laugh or scream. "My friends say I look like him, but I can't see the resemblance."

He's starting to lean towards screaming.

"Who," Chen asks, his voice hardly more than a croak. He clears his throat and starts over. "Who are you?"

"Me?" The man hops down from the pedestal and smiles, brushing off his pants. "My name is Joonmyun. Who are you?"

Joonmyun. Not Suho. Joonmyun. He could be Suho's twin. Joonmyun.

"I'm Chen," Chen says faintly, unable to move from his spot, eyes moving from the statue to Joonmyun to the place where he buried Suho and back again to Joonmyun.

"Nice to meet you," Joonmyun says, and he extends a hand to shake Chen's. Chen mirrors him on instinct, and starts when a spark jumps between their fingers, unbidden by him. Joonmyun shakes his hand and smiles in apology.

"Sorry, that happens a lot. I'm like a walking battery."

Chen doesn't know what a battery is but that spark between them causes some mad desire to seize him and he grabs Joonmyun's left arm, shoving the long sleeve up and revealing a patchwork of scars running up the entire length of the arm. Joonmyun shakes him off, a frown creeping across his face as he pulls his sleeve back down.

"I hide my birthmark for a reason," he mumbles, and Chen tells himself that this is impossible but a stupid smile is spreading across his face and he steps forward, tears starting to brim in his eyes.

"Suho," he whispers. Joonmyun's frown deepens.

"I'm Joonmyun," he repeats, backing up, but Chen keeps moving forward and Joonmyun keeps moving back until his back hits the pedestal and Chen is standing in front of him. Chen can't stop the smile on his face or the tears streaming down his cheeks and something flickers deep in Joonmyun's eyes. Something makes Joonmyun reach out and touch Chen's cheek gently, confusion plain on his face.

Chen cups the man's face and seals their lips together. It's chaste, nothing heated or passionate about it, but when he pulls back from Joonmyun, the other man still has his eyes closed and his cheeks are flushed pink.

Chen Joonmyun's face with his thumbs until Joonmyun opens his eyes, brows furrowing together.

"Have…have we met before?" he asks softly, and Chen can almost see Suho the boy in Joonmyun's eyes. His face softens into a smile and he Joonmyun's cheek again.

"Yes. A long, long time ago."

"Who are you?" Joonmyun asks, and Chen knows he doesn't mean his name.

As an answer, Chen picks up Joonmyun's left hand and pushes his sleeve up slightly, fingers dancing over the scars, and when he's sure that Joonmyun is watching, Chen sends an array of sparks shooting across Joonmyun's skin.

Joonmyun gasps, and when he looks at Chen again, something akin to recognition glows in his eyes.

"Chen?" he breathes, and Chen smiles.

"I missed you so much," he says, tracing Joonmyun's cheek. "We have a lot to talk about."

--------

A/N: I will edit this later because it's 3 am and I'm functioning on three hours of sleep I'll see you tomorrow I promise

Edit: Thank you so much for reading. It's taken a while but this is the end of Shattering Light. Part of the reason why I was putting off finishing it was because I had another possible ending in mind where Suho becomes the new phoenix, but after a long consideration I decided to go with this because frankly I thought it was much sweeter. I do plan on writing a few side stories for this, mainly the Xiumin/Tao sidestory and maybe a little something about Wu Fan and Lu Han. I'll probably take a bit of a break from longer fics for a while (watch as I start a novel haha weeps) but I do have a few new ideas I'll be working on. Thank you again for all of your support and your kind words. I'm so glad you enjoyed Shattering Light and I hope to see you again soon!