The Silence Before Thunder
I. Cracks Beneath the Surface
The temple grounds of Nouvo Lakay buzzed with tension.
Thalia and the priestesses stood firm, but the strain was showing.
Whispers bled into council meetings.
Even the most devout began to wonder aloud:
"Have the gods left us?"
"Why does the Gate remain still?"
"Why hasn't Zion returned?"
Ajima spoke more boldly now, cloaking her challenge in reason.
"With the gods silent, we must act with clarity. We need voices that answer to the people, not vanished men and fading myths."
The Open Flame faction gathered strength.
The Velek-Tu, once rebuked, found new sympathy.
Yet still, Thalia stood tall, despite the silence in her soul.
"Zion will return," she told them.
"And the gods are never truly gone."
Even she, in the quiet of night, began to doubt.
II. A Return Unseen
Beneath the waxing moon, on a path long sealed by time,
a breeze stirred without wind.
And through the old road that twisted beyond the Gate,
Zion stepped back into his homeland.
Behind him, cloaked in shadows, walked the gods—
Papa Legba, Ogou, Erzulie, Ayizan, Maman Brigitte, and Baron Samedi.
No one saw them.
No priestess felt them.
Not even the temple sensed their return.
They walked not through the living world,
but through its folds—the liminal edges of reality,
between now and almost-now.
They said nothing.
They did not reveal themselves.
But where they stepped, the air grew still.
The earth trembled softly.
And the spirits of the land stirred, whispering:
"They are home."
III. Ember and Serpent
Across the southern horizon,
Kasa emerged from flame.
His second trial was complete.
The Serpent God no longer coiled in smoke—
now it flickered beside him, walking on clawed feet of fire,
a divine being awakened by mortal will.
He returned to his people not as a prince, but as their flamebearer.
The elders knelt.
The warriors lit their torches.
The valley of ash burned bright once more.
Kasa lifted a hand toward the black sky:
"We are no longer waiting for the gods.
We are becoming them."
IV. Kalonji's Departure
Far out in the blue vastness of the sea,
where storms spun with no cause,
Kalonji, the turtle god of deep balance, stirred.
His shell, like a living island, rose from the abyss.
On his back, homes and temples clung like moss.
His people, sensing the shift, began to gather.
Without fanfare or farewell,
he turned from the known world,
and sank once more into the ocean's ancient roots,
carrying his people to a hidden place beneath the waves.
They sang only one thing:
"When the sky tears and the stars scream,
the Deep Path shall rise."
V. The Gathering of Unseen Powers
Across Bassoon,
gods returned in silence.
None declared themselves.
None spoke.
But omens bloomed.
The earth split in dry lands.
Dreams grew strange in quiet villages.
The animals began watching men again,
as if remembering something they had once feared.
The Beast Gods stirred.
Rifts blinked into being across forgotten places.
And Ejimo, hiding within the heart of Nouvo Lakay,
smiled quietly in the dark.
No one noticed Zion had returned.
No one knew the gods walked beside him.
But the storm was already here