The Hundred-Year Fermentation

Time passed—but not as mortals understood it.

A day.

A week.

A month.

Then decades rolled in like thunder over the eternal sea, and still the rum flowed.

The coliseum had long since faded back into stone. The gods' chosen had gone on to shape new orders, found new cities, and usher in an age unlike anything Bassoon had ever seen. Civilization surged ahead by a century, carried on the backs of knowledge and fear.

But at the heart of it all, two unlikely figures remained constant.

Tijan Petro, god of chaos and now reluctant brewer.

And Zion, the flame-bearer of Nouvo Lakay, distiller of defiance, and voice trusted by gods.

Their distillery had grown into a living temple—a network of fermentation chambers carved from volcanic glass and treebone. Runes pulsed across its halls, sealing in the power of every bottle crafted under Zion's hand. They had made thousands. Tens of thousands. Fire in a bottle—rums that could banish despair, wake the dead, or tame the wild madness of Ginen itself.

Tijan, now with gray in his dreadlocks and humility in his eyes, muttered as he stirred yet another bubbling cauldron:

"I thought chaos meant fun. Not labor. Not decades of peeling sugarcane and boiling molasses until my bones ache."

Zion chuckled, still youthful, but his eyes held ancient fire.

"You laughed too loud, remember?"

Then came the whisper, as cold as the void between stars:

"A hundred years more," the hive pulsed through the quiet between worlds.

And for the first time in almost a thousand dreams, the ocean floor quaked.

In the Deepest Layer of Ginen

Below all the forgotten names and drowned stars, Maman Ginen opened her eyes. Salt dripped from her hair like tears that the universe could no longer cry. Her skin was the seafoam that birthed islands. Her gaze made coral turn to bone.

Beside her, Papa Ginen, older still, rumbled with the sound of a continent shifting. His beard dragged the remains of galaxies past, his breath smelled of first creation and the last silence.

They had never truly slept.

They had only waited.

Now, the time had come.

"Call them," Maman Ginen said. "All of them. No more hiding. No more pretending we forget what hunger tastes like."

"Even the ones bound in bone?" Papa Ginen asked.

"Even them."

All Lwa of Ginen Heard the Call

In the sky above Nouvo Lakay, storm clouds formed into twisted veves.

Beneath waterfalls, under roots, in mirrors and in marrow—every Lwa, sleeping or wandering, awoke. Twaile was the first to arrive, fish still slung over her shoulder, grinning with all her teeth. Bosou stomped through walls, dragging dry peanuts and a new barrel of rum.

Even Tijan, weary and worn, paused his stirring. Zion looked up from his work.

"It's time?" Zion asked.

"No," Twaile purred, stepping into the distillery, "It's almost time. But now, we make ready the table. The real feast is coming. Maman and Papa are hungry."

The world trembled.

Pantheons who once watched from afar now scrambled, realizing they had not feared the right gods.

Not the hive.

Not the chosen.

But those who had never moved, because they had always known that the feast was inevitable.