Madara Uchiha loved his life.

It might be considered strange, someone loving their life on a cold, dead stony planet with no light to speak of and thus not even any greenery. But Madara Uchiha had never known anything else, neither fields nor forests, and could thus not miss it. But he would also argue that that description, of a lightless earth, wasn't entirely true.

There was, in fact, light, coming from all of the stars in the sky. They formed ribbons above his head, billowing like the ocean but in the sky. 

And even if there hadn't been any starlight, he wouldn't have minded, because there were lanterns he could make with the help of his little brother, Izuna. Izuna could create fire by taking two of his hairs and rub them together. Madara had the same long, thick, coarse black hair as Izuna had, although Madara usually let his be free while Izuna braided his, but no matter how many times Madara had rubbed his own hairs together, nothing happened. But he had Izuna, and Izuna's fires were easy to place in small lanterns that Madara could carry.

And even if there hadn't been any firelight, he wouldn't have minded, because there seemed to be a glow wherever Madara walked, as if he himself was emitting light making the grounds visible before him.

But liked carrying the lanterns anyway while he was exploring the world, mostly because he wanted something to do with his hand. 

Madara loved exploring the world. He didn't know how much of it he had yet explored, but he guessed it was a lot of it. He couldn't measure how long he had been exploring seeing he had no way of measuring time, but in human years to come, it would have been many millions; he was that old.

Izuna, who was several million years younger than Madara, was with him for most of the time, but not always. Madara preferred when Izuna was with him, because then he could tease him.

"Have you tried rubbing two eyelashes together? Two eyebrows? Does it work? What happens when you sleep and move around and your hair rubs together?"

"I've told you!" Izuna burst out, innocently enough believing his big brother to be stupid instead of understanding that he was just messing with his beloved little brother. "Only the hair on my head works! And there's my intention that needs to go with it. That's why you can't steal my hair and rub it together to create fire."

Madara had only stolen Izuna's his twice, while he slept. And he was right; it didn't work. 

They had explored the dead, salty oceans and the deserts, the hot, humid surfaces in the volcano areas and the ice-covered poles. Izuna liked this life, not knowing what else there was, but Madara loved his. 

Then, one day, the life as he knew it would be taken away from him.

Madara stirred as he slept, murmuring something incomprehensible. Of course, he hadn't known this, but a lover who slept next to him would have. 

At first, he didn't understand what had woken him. He usually didn't wake up until he was entirely rested, which he definitely wasn't now, so something must have woken him. Was it Izuna? He hadn't seen him for some time (although humans would not consider thirty thousand years "some time" when it came to not meeting your little brother, but time worked differently when you held no clocks and had already lived for as long as Madara had), but Izuna was too polite to wake him up when he slept. 

Then, he sat up bolt-straight. He suddenly saw, as he blinked himself awake, what it was that had woken him. There was light! So strong it made all of his surrounding light up as if a million of Izuna's lanterns had been spread out throughout the area. 

But it wasn't lanterns. The light had only once source, and it was what humans would call a flower, but Madara had no name for it. 

Madara saw that the flower that he didn't know was a flower was a soft orange colour, with a fuzzy middle that he wanted to touch. There were droplets of something on the edges of the soft petals, something the humans would call nectar but that Madara didn't have a name for, either, but some instinct within him was still desperate to taste it. 

He took the flower in his hands, brought it to his face.

And just as the first taste of sweet touched his tongue, and his entire body shivered in ecstasy over something so delicious, the ground beneath him opened up and swallowed him whole, and Madara Uchiha was taken from the earth soundlessly.