[center][@rechonq][@Ace of flames01][@Cuccoruler][@BlackPanther][@OtomostheCrazy][@Zelosse][@PerseusArchean][@Trevor1001][/center]

The picnic in Asgard concluded with no god, not even the nonsensical madness god Sheogorath, having acknowledged the presence of a subtle lurker.  With no interest in or need for food or company, the unseen Great One merely observed.  Looming over the assembled gods, its senses probed into them, not only understanding and committing to memory the more obvious of their attributes by prying into their dreams and wants even as they were awake.  

Aforgomon examined the god of death and love, embodied as a jackal never satiated, playing at the emotions of the others in order to learn more about them.  Alec's primitive methods of espionage amused the dimensional shambler greatly.  

Aforgomon looked upon Rhona, with her menagerie of celestial spirits.  Her meekness and normality befitted an insignificant human girl, not a being tasked with responsibility beyond responsibility and given power beyond power.  But perhaps the goddess's mind was yet immature, even as the Merged went.  One could not expect a dragonfly larva to soar as its parent did.  Her terror at the sight of Aforgomon's debtor caused it to bristle in particular.

Aforgomon found itself in the presence of the nightmare god once again, and used the light of the Nordic holy plane to illuminate the dark recesses of his mystique.  Of every so-called deity present, the Great One most respected the formless, writhing manifestation of Thalios, who unlike the others dared to dip into the sea of incomprehensibility that defined godhood.  Most tellingly, Thalios paid homage to the powers from which he came not only by taking on a semblance more remarkable than a puny human, but also by recognizing through ominous dreams that they would soon cause disaster for the Merged.

Aforgomon might have burbled vile, whispery remarks about the being that styled herself Cia if only it existed in Asgard enough to speak.  Like Rhona, Cia did not at all fit the mantle of godhood, instead coming off as naïve and childlike.  In a world where the shambling lurker held some sort of responsibility over Cia, it might have been disappointed as well as underwhelmed.

Aforgomon observed the cold one briefly.  This godling imagined himself to be a protector, but what did he protect, if anything?  The fallacy could be seen by even the least of those wise to the world's true workings.  Every minute of every day, suffering ran rampant among the people of the world.  Nations diminished, tragedy occurred, and disaster brewed.  Landon might have done well to instead simply be sympathetic in spirit, answering when called upon, but as he idly picnicked he already wallowed in his self-made doom of hypocrisy.

Aforgmon's eternal grin seemed appropriate when aimed at Yato, though the fortune god couldn't see it.  Here stood a deity who fondled no pretenses for responsibility, instead running with the realities of chance and change, employing his vast powers for personal amusement.  This, the Great One could appreciate, if not respect.

Aforgomon cast a withering look at the paltry dancer, thinking no deity more undeserving of their station.  Such occurrences invited even the utterly alien to better understand humor, so as to determine whether or not Yuki's status as a Merged was some sort of divine joke.

After learning all it craved to know about these gods and goddesses, Aforgomon disappeared entirely, leaving not even a last breath in its wake.

[center]-=-=-[/center]

Something new...

The humans assured from time to time, faced with a regrettable deprivation of creativity, that there was nothing new under the sun, but this day they were proven wrong.  As thousands of mortal eyes looked skyward, seeking a visitor from beyond the realm of all they knew, Aforgomon looked upward as well.  It sought in the newly-arrived abyss travelers a concept no other did: companionship.  Though it had never seen them, the Great One always assumed that in the far-flung reaches of nebulous space, beyond the grasp of mathematics and philosophy, there lived its kin—kin of the cosmos, as beyond physical form and deplorable human semantics as Aforgomon itself.

Ignoring the useless and wasteful meeting of the Merged, the dimensional shambler sought a far more direct yet less conventional approach.  The haughty and contentious voices on Olympus rang with the same shades of pretension and self-satisfaction that plagued the mortals.  As long as the Merged emulated the lesser beings, they would never amount to anything more than they.

In the void of space, the tears of light seemed more like miniature stars; when they appeared from nothing, they brought to mind the scintillating creation of the abyss's vast but lonely fireflies.  They shimmered experimentally at random points in the emptiness, like a prairie dog poking its head up from different holes in the earth to find the best spot, all the while honing in on the Amgetoll Forces' divine emissary.  After some time, a brilliant and extravagant light appeared not too far away at all from Amgarrack, and from the rift floated Aforgomon.  It remained wordless and motionless, a testament to the angular, gleaming anomaly that hovered beneath the vessel of its own lesser beings.  A few moments passed before the Great One moved its arms, holding one straight upward and the other straight out to the side in a form of celestial greeting.

In this fashion Aforgomon made contact.  Once the greeting had been performed, Aforgomon attempted to seed Amgarrack's mind with communication.  [i]Welcome, sojourner.  I have walked long and far in search of those who came from the sky, but you have found me.  Among the starry hosts we have met, a fortuitous collision, we who though different are united by Greatness.  For the sake of the young gods, whose eyes are yet to open, I have wandered this earth and its alternates.  They may detest you, but I will stand by you always, my kin.[/i]