A green otter was gently floating in the middle of the Bay of Zelios. Above Phelenia could see the Palace of her father drifting across the sky. But its light was dimmed so it almost looked like a moon. Though a vastly less scarred one. She wondered who had made the darkness surrounding the planet. Though only around the equator. Did they hate her father? Or was there another reason? Questions to ask later.

In the water she was surrounded by the song of life. Glowing plankton clung to the sides of her fur. Every time she moved even an inch, the rippling water would make the rest of the plankton alert. Causing ripples of bioluminescent light to travel with the elsewise near invisible ripple of water.

She felt peaceful now. Life had been seeded into the water. Across the whole planet there would be fishes, sharks, lobsters, shrimps, octopuses and other aquatic fauna. As above, so below. The world was now teeming with life. And she was the queen of it all. Of the tallest trees and the deepest, blind fishes.

There was the sound of something skipping across the water, something small, a little shell? It would skip right over the goddess merely inches from her snout, before arching back towards the water and vanishing. Another little thing would come zapping across the water, this time a little bit of gravel, almost miss the goddess and vanish away. The third object to be launched was a small pine nut, once again arriving in small arches before making a bigger one just above the goddess. If the first was weird, the third of these small objects left no doubt that someone, or something, had been launching them at her.

Phelenia frowned. What was throwing things at her? Perhaps a chimp that saw her? Or something else that one of her brothers or sisters had made. None the less her curiosity was peaked. Still in her otter form she started to swim towards the shore that the glowing plankton marked so beautifully.

It would take some time to actually reach the shore, although it was visible in the horizon, Phelenia had been previously in the open sea. The shores were empty of any living being however, even the buzzing shining insects that seemed to so often lurk everywhere in the pale forests under the shadow ring were not fluttering by nor chirping their songs. Among the expanse of marble white sands however, there was a pile of small objects, much like the ones thrown against her, some of it stood out for being from other areas, clearly visible from how the shells and nuts had not been adapted to the dampened light.

A bit further deeper into the beach there was a small trail of such items leading to one of the trees with colorful leaves already inland, at the border of the forest, the pale bark of the tree had been marked with a red pigment, which went up until it led to a juicy looking fruit, bound by a small vine rope against the tree trunk.

The goddess had no idea what was happening. The vine rope was clearly made by something. No such thing existed in the natural world. Phelenia transformed into a more terrestrially fitting form. That of a large, black cat with stripes of green on her back. The eyes were much more fit to see through the dark. Though she didn’t spot anything immediately. She kept herself low as she approached the fruit to sniff off any smell of it, so she could track whatever had bound the fruit there in the first place.

Not soon after she approached, the flimsy hope that was barely held together would give away, the fruit for its part had cuts in it only closed by the binding, with those weakening a splash of bioluminescent fruit juice would fall right into the goddess’ face, causing someone to laugh at the scene hiding quite farther from the scene than their pride as a sneaky hunter would allow them to admit.

Greetings. the masked figure would tell, now actually approaching. I am sorry sister. I saw you coming to the shore and felt the need to play around. they bowed lightly. I will say however the shining coat of orange pigment does look quite stunning on your face, almost makes me want to tell the local wildlife to dip themselves in these shining pigments more often, albeit I do not think that would help their survivability.

Phelenia, for her part, didn’t find it that funny. “A joker.” She sighed still in her cat form. How uninteresting. And one that seemingly reveled in disrupting the natural flow of life and death considering the comment he made. Perhaps he was even the one that made those strange rodents up north built those disgusting things. “I hope you’re here with a purpose.” She said as she sat down. Showing no real desire to even approach him.

”A grump.” The deity answered, continuing to approach Phelenia, until at an acceptable distance. ”And do I need a purpose to be here? This beach does not seem to be sacred ground to any god and the crabs and fireflies that live here did not forbid my entrance. I was merely trying to see if I could hit these small rocks all the way across the bay, I made sure to aim it in a way that they would miss you while you swam, I am sorry I couldn’t increase the safe space between the shots and you, it would cost too much momentum from them and I could not see enough waves to do such thing.” they not so humbly bragged”.

”But where are my manners? I am Tuku Llantu, deity of the hunt, curator who shaped this continent’s fauna and flora.”

The goddess wasn’t at all impressed by his tossing. Though the work he had done on the continent did earn him a little praise: “I admire your work, Tuku Llantu. This land, all of it, is beautiful. However, you yourself are clearly a liar.” Phelenia added dryly. “Or am I supposed to believe that fruit was put up on its own? No. No, you were here to play a trick on me and laugh.” But she was in no mood for tricks or laughing. The pause of her work had been cut short. Now she’d have to return to her duty of guiding and beautifying the world.

“But if you have no purpose other than playing tricks then I must bid you farewell.” With that she got up, turned around and headed back towards the marked shore.

The deity’s expression showed some shock beneath the expressionless mask for a moment before some relief as Phelenia detected the harmless one among the two lies told. Ignoring the fact she had announced her leave, the god continued speaking casually. ”Thank you sister, your work is also very venerable. We really need to appreciate them in this early state of untouched natural beauty, after all, soon enough, in a few millenniums or so, so much of it will have been altered by either disaster or the hands of the more intelligent creatures who appear at faster and faster rates. they baited with each word.

It stopped Phelenia dead in her tracks though. At first she reveled in the compliments for her work. Yeah! She had made this world more beautiful than before. Finally someone recognized that. His later comments struck a cord though. The Goddess of Life had already encountered sinner-beasts. How long until more of their kind would be made by whatever sibling?

She turned around again to face Tuku. “Disaster is only part of nature. Change - even in the scale of the world - is inevitable.” She stated. Animals would have to adapt to their circumstances. Of course, some of them would die. But death was the price of life. Even if all other things remained equal. “As for the hand of so-called intelligence, I will make sure that will not come to pass. Even if I have to wage a war upon it.” In a way she was already at war with the sinner-beasts. And for a moment she wondered if they had already renounced their sinful paths or if they needed a harder lesson.

“So what about you, Tuku of the Hunt? Will you side with prey or predator?”

The masked deity rubbed the side of their mask as if that was their actual face. ”Hmm. Hierarchy wise I would say Predator but it's notably difficult to have a hunt without both sides, no?” they leaned back slightly. ”And the line between both can be quite thin, the dragonfly is at times a predator to other insects but may find itself a prey to frogs, which in turn may be eaten by oh so many creatures.”

”But anyway, I will not stand here talking about things you already know. You must be absurdly busy if you are to eradicate intelligent life, as it spreads so quickly, north, south, beneath the land and the seas itself and I am sure soon enough in the skies and the void as well. Not to count the oh so many allies they have, for our siblings who could not hear the voices of nature these mortals are quite a marvel, beings who are able to worship them, honour them, plead for help when they are being quickly murdered by savage beasts. We may be diverse but we are all children of our father’s exploded bowels, and much like our father, we are attracted to praise and reverence like moths to a flame.”

The god shook their head. ”I cannot quite say I have the same courage as you have, to go out and claim all of the lands and the oceans as yours and pick a fight with, hmm. One, two, three…” they counted on their hand ”Eight? Nine? Of our siblings. Quite a lot. Not counting the ones that are always on the offensive for matters outside of the fight between natural and mortalking. Oh and the ones that pick up a fight by surprise. Like Yesaris! Have you seen those parasites they made just to mess with the food chain? Nasty creatures, surely not of their own design, but convinced to wage war on nature by a sibling.

Never in her yet short life did Phelenia feel this much of a need to kill someone, while at the same time agreeing with almost every word they spoke. She knew, of course, that she would have opposition. She didn’t anticipate so many to turn against her though. Alas, she would fight the just fight. Even if the numbers were daunting.

“What is it you want, Tuku Llantu? Are you here to mock me? Persuade me away from my war?”

”Nay. It would be bad manners to intrude myself upon your work and realm. Especially a god as reliant on your realm as I am, after all, it would not be of my wish to ever see you lose this war, to have nature become an orphan or a puppet of an imprisoned god. the god landed their staff upon the sand and drew a small globe, starting to make the shape of continents in it, and then move those colorful foreign shells to spots within it.

”What I really desired is to share with you some of my work, know that in this continent you will always be welcome, especially here. they pointed to the spot where the core of the wildlands were, their homestead. ”The eternal wildlands, where the tools and craft of the intelligent species are of little to no use due to an enchantment of my own.” they then traced the line about, crossing oceans and continents. ”Now, see how these lines connect this spot? This is the flow of energy within this world, areas where the more wild and untamed forces congregate. We have varying beliefs on whether we the wild god can claim the world, but these spots, I believe, would be better off in mine or your care.”

They then stepped back. ”Of course, we are only one entity, powerful but limited in numbers. It is in these times I think we should look upon the bees and ants for inspiration. Gather allies, or create them, more hands to do more work. Of course… the ones closest to satisfying the needs of a god would be the intelligent species of this world. You know, I know you dislike them, but they are a diverse sort, many with many different ideas, I found some who were willing to give away their natural greed to follow my rules, I am sure there are some that would too would agree you are right, their kinsmen are sinners, albeit some might be reluctant, after all, their intelligence is their advantage, to ask them to unconditionally give up their ways is to ask a fish not to swim or a cheetah to take it slowly, as in, they will quickly die. Well, that is none of my business anyway. Nevertheless, I think that is what I wanted to communicate.”

The goddess wouldn’t admit it but the mere mention of her imprisonment conjured an unholy fear in her. They wouldn’t dare, right? They wouldn’t dare chain her up and abuse her creation for their own goals. Galbar was meant to be beautiful. For the first time Phelenia truly, fully, feared for her own existence. Maybe it was time to think about protection.

With that in mind she kept quiet as Tuku told his story. Phelenia - in her cat form - remained utterly expressionless as the hunt god talked. The gathering of wild forces caught her attention though. If she could wield those forces she’d have a potent weapon. No, not a weapon. Just an insurance that none would be foolish enough to try and capture her.Of course that meant laying claim to several of those points.

And how would she do this? It would seem like the good Tuku Llantu had it all figured out already. Which made Phelenia suspicious. Would she be acting out of her own interest or dancing to the tune of the hunter-god? Tuku would have her use the curse of intelligence. The goddess, for her part, was not convinced. After all that was exactly what laid at the root of the problem. At the same time though, she could hardly disagree with the hunter that they wouldn’t make useful servants. In times of war some rules had to be broken.

“Some subtlety would suit you well, Tuku Llantu. You seem to have thought out an entire plan and would want me to play a pawn in it.” She noted dryly. Still, it was a suspiciously good plan. One grand enough in scale and magnitude. “It might just work though.” Phelenia’s form shifted again. She turned into a familiar sight. That of a giant eagle. With the same green tipped wings she had back in the Giant Lands. “I’ll head for the other continent to find these spots of power and make sure they remain in the right hands.” And with that she flew off towards the horizon with godlike speed.

The Cold Hunger

In contrast to the lands far behind them, Yesaris found these new lands very, very cold. Which, in truth was fitting, as they believed this was as far north as they could go, well, at least go and there to be some sort of food waiting for them. There was some worth to these lands, a land worthy to host some of their spawn, but, they felt something strange here.

The sensation was odd, it was something they had not felt before. Everywhere else, their children fed uninterrupted, some hiccups here and there, but nothing like this. Here, there was a hole, a gap, somewhere, or something that was refusing the feast. This, this could not be allowed to stand. Yesaris was determined to find the source, and so they crept along the cold swept lands of the north, eager to find this gap that had forbidden them their sustenance.

To their surprise, it was not an arduous search. They had confirmed it was something, something they were, not at all quite sure of. They were such ethereal beings, ones that only floated and twisted about in the cold air, crafting such intricate dances alongside the frozen wind that swept from the far north, creations of this land and such natural parts of it.

Yesaris hated it.

What was this! These were not creatures of flesh and blood! There were no places for their spawn to infest, no systems for worms or microbes to make their homes, not even a single drop of blood to consume. They were spirits through and through, and spirits were not any kind of feast to Yesaris. There was no way they could feed upon them. This, in truth, confused and angered Yesaris, so they sat amidst the trees, pondering this development. Before now they had not at all encountered something that just could not become any sort of host, how would they even go about that! Their mind twisted through any sort of ideas, what could be done? Was there anything that could be done??

Yesaris sat there and thought for a good while, this was proving to be a conundrum they had not anticipated. They could just let these beings go, but that would be no fun, and what would that tell anything else that may decide to avoid their spawn? No, these creatures had to be taught a lesson, a sign that nothing could avoid the maw of the Devourer.

And so, it hit them, why try to parasite upon such creatures, when merely, they could be turned into the parasites? Now that, was an idea, one that might just work. Of course, this was another impasse, spirits were not the best parasites. Perhaps they could feed upon one’s mind? No, too obvious, and not as showy and punishing as they wanted it to be. As Yesaris stared upon the floating group of spirits, they danced along the winds, but one did a peculiar thing. It came across a pile of rocks, nearly frozen with the chill breeze that came from the north. Then, it seemed to, possess them, using them as a shell for their form, if only for a brief moment before they moved on, seemingly discontent with them.

If Yesaris’ smile would widen, it surely would at that moment. Finally, an idea they liked. It would be simple, a curse to place upon these spirits, grant them just a portion of their own ceaseless hunger. Now as spirits, surely they would be utterly unable to sate this alone, and so, they could possess corpses, wherever they may be found, and from there, they could feast upon the flesh of those mortals. Of course, if they couldn’t find a corpse, they would starve, and the more they ate, the more they hungered, this was a punishment after all.

They would need some resistance though, sure this was a punishment for them, but they were also a reminder to fear the Devourer, these spirits were clearly of the cold, and Yesaris was sure fire was already quite the force against them. So why not make it so these cursed forms could only be killed by fire while within their host? That way they could keep going even if those pesky mortals killed it. As for the creation of others, this was simple enough, they would just make nests from their kills and implant some essence into it, Yesaris was not one for semantics here, the easier it was, the more could be infected.

Now, all that needed to be done was to corrupt these spirits, and what better first subjects then the ones in front of them! Yesaris grabbed at their mouth, forcing it wide open with a creak, from within erupted a putrid cloud of green gas that rapidly moved to encompass the spirits as they danced around. It seeped into their skin before they could even react, worming its way through their forms, it snaked around in long strands, wrapping itself everywhere it could reach, seeping its corruption deep within. The spirits writhed as it took hold, many fell to the ground, clearly unable to comprehend just what had occurred, and why they felt this searing pain within them, a desire for something they had never experienced before then. Yesaris could not help but laugh.

They had been humming before, chords that ran wholly apart to Yesaris' own beat but now those hums turned sour, discordant- hungry.

As their gaze looked over the writhing spirits, their focus fell upon one specific one, the one who had for a brief time, possessed the rocks. It’s ethereal body was shaking violently as the green veins pulsed within it, but it seemed to hold some semblance of will left within it, it was fighting back. It clearly had a greater will within it than the others, and well, Yesaris found that appealing. Not enough to end its suffering mind you of course not, this one would be perfect for other reasons.

With a twisting of flesh, bone, and exoskeleton, Yesaris transformed once more, away from their insectoid form, and this time into the form of a great white bat, almost dog sized with fierce red eyes in its sockets. They outstretched their wings, and took their place upon a branch just above the rock spirit, there, they would speak, their hissing, buzzing, voice breaking the silence of it’s suffering.

”Oh us, quite the will this spirit holds, yes yes.” They gazed down, though, entirely unsure if these creatures spoke at all.

The spirit did not reply, merely rolling about in the frozen dirt further, seemingly fading in and out of possession with the land and not. almost like a creature being shocked to death. Yesaris sighed, well this would be less fun than they wanted, no matter, they could speak by themselves.

”Such fight, such determination, such a perfect spawn for us,” they chuckled once more ”It would be such a waste to let this go, just another beast, so, we shall reward you.”

They outstretched their wings, and once more opened their mouth impossibly wide, this time, a pure white gas erupted from within, swirling around the spirit. The gas quickly forced itself within the being once more, fusing alongside the green to further twist and worm itself around, but this one would do something far different. This spirit would be elevated, given a much higher calling, one to serve the Hive and Flesh in all of their needs. In short, they were the first champion of Yesaris.

”Rise great spawn,” Yesaris creaked, slowly dropping themselves onto the floor in front of them, ”Look into the eyes of your creator, and tell us, how do you feel?” They hoped this would give the spirit some form of speech, monologuing was far less fun at this moment.

It did more than that. The blue mist that it had been before, muddled by green poison now blessed with white, grew larger and dim. Like a blackness that snuffed out anything that came into view of it in ceaseless hunger. The mist contorted, if mist could do such a thing, and became crazed. Screams were its first words, deep, disjointed and numerous. Two blackened arms burst forth and grabbed at what Yesaris could only imagine was its forming head. Large jagged spikes of black ethereal burst forth and it became as if a beast in appearance, crosses of the creatures it had perhaps seen before? Or something else entirely but when the screaming stopped, the creature let out a low growl, animalistic in nature.

It looked at the God with an unnatural snap of its neck, a position that if it had been of flesh, would have killed itself. Instead, green eyes akin to flame looked forth upon its creator and it spoke but one reply in a voice as twisted as its appearance.

"HUNGER."

Yesaris laughed at this, not a laugh at their pain, but a laugh of joy, of celebration. ”Good, good! You are very hungry yes yes. And we can help that, can help sate that pain, you would like that no?” Their bat head titled some, their ever present smile growing even upon their animalistic form.

The creature twitched erratically.

"YES."

”Very well, we will tell you a simple way to fix this, and tell your new kin this as well. Find a corpse, any one will do. And then, feast upon the flesh of that species, alive flesh might we add. That, that will sate you.” They outstretched their wings, flying upwards and landing back upon the branch of a tree. ”With that, you will be great spawn for our hunger, and you will be a special spawn, yes yes.”

If the creature knew the depth of what it had been told it gave no mention at first, then unprovoked, it slammed itself into the tree that Yesaris roasted in. Or at least it tried, for it flew through the tree and hovered on the other side. It had no legs, only a mass of black mist that wafted. It looked up at the god with the same burning hunger that they felt.

"Flesh." It demanded, in a voice no less deranged and guttural then the few words it had uttered before. Like a snake, it began to coil around the tree, climbing higher.

”Now now,” Yesaris began, looking down at the writhing mass ”You must find a suitable host first, we’re sure there’s some kind of corpses around here.” They turned their head about, looking throughout the frozen lands that surrounded them. Perhaps they should go find some hosts, but again, this was to be a punishment after all.

So, they merely rose higher into the tree, looking down upon the creatures they had created, waiting to see if they would actually listen to their orders. They didn’t want to linger here long, there was still more to be done elsewhere, but these creatures, especially this great spawn, were proving difficult.

It slithered further, taking no heed of the orders. "Pain…" It moaned in a small voice, interwoven with whines before thrashing it's ethereal body against the air. Shaking so violently as if it was in death throes. The others began to circle the tree, like sickly mists that hung about in the air. Taking the shapes of animals but twisted. Some had deformities, others had extra appendages and all them circled like vultures beneath the tree.

The champion righted itself and tried to attack the others but it seemed it was less than fruitful. Like everything else, they simply passed between each other, making terrible, vicious noises as they did.

Yesaris sat upon the tree, looking first down upon their spawn, and then, back to the lands that surrounded them. Surely there must be something out there. They smelled the air around them, searching for something to give them a sign. Ah, there it was, the scent of death, it was there, now this could be of help.

They extended their large, white, wings, and began to waft the scent of the dead down to their spawn. It wasn’t much at first, but more and more it came, that sickly sweet smell that drew both god and creation, fueling that ever present hunger within them. Soon enough it was ever present, its scent swirling along the tree in tandem with the spirits that threw themselves upon it. Yesaris was sure this would give them the idea, and they could finally begin their work as their spawn.

A change came upon them, slow and certain. As the smell wafted between them, mingling with the putrid mists. One by one they lifted their heads, taking deep breaths of the smell. They grew quiet at first, woefully so but then, the champion amidst them growled deep. Then sprang forth in a flurry as the rest rushed after him like wolves on prey.

The god of Parasites couldn’t help but chuckle at this sight as they took flight after them. Now this is what they had wanted them to do, glad to see all that it took was just the scent of death to drive them into a frenzy. They kept just behind the writhing beasts, watching them from the sky as they shot forward towards that delicious scent.

It did not take them long to find the source, in a small clearing amongst the thick trees and brush, there were the carcasses of two large deers, antlers interlocked, it was clear they had died because of this, their antlers were locked in such a way that it was clear they couldn’t release themselves from the other’s grasp. But, there was something else as well, a group of cave lions, large ones, were feasting upon the two carcasses, clearly eager to have their fille upon the beasts.

Oh this, this could be lots of fun. Yesaris merely took their place within a tree, making sure they were clear of the mess that was about to be made. Though with a clear view of it, just so they could get enjoyment out of seeing their spawn in action.

The champion was the first to arrive, skittering across the ground and stone with fluid ease. The lions spooked at his arrival and appearance but quickly took back their senses, fighting for the closest carcass with deep growls but it was too late for the closest corpse. The champion hovered above it for a few moments, then flew inside. The deer corpse itself was almost bones but there was just enough meat on the ribs and shoulders that it would still work. An otherworldly glow began to seep through the cracks, where flesh and hide had given way to ferocious appetite. It became more animated with each passing second, body heaving to undeath. Green eyes snapped to focus and the champion rose, as did its host, but not as it had been. For the champion had been a large spirit and it needed to grow…

The snapping of bones startled the lions, who were still pawing at the other deer. Arms and legs broke in half, replaced in the middle with a black substance that oozed and dripped something foul. Hide and fur stripped and stretched as flesh dangled and dropped, forming a sort of strange stomach from where there had once been emptiness. It’s spine snapped in no less than three places as it began to stand upright, breaking the other head of the deer off as it climbed higher. The champion's own antlers grew longer like some macabre deity of horror. Then finally, it unclenched its jaws and from the terrible maw of the creature, it let out a shriek, half deer, half…
The champion ripped free the other deer head and took one long look from it before ripping what little flesh remained from it free. Devouring it as if it hadn’t even swallowed.

By that time, the other children had arrived. One was lucky enough to be first and possessed the corpse of the other deer. Its head was ripped free from the champion’s grasp and reattached by a green mist that seeped from its wounds and flesh. The lions jumped it and began to tear into the hind as it too began to transform. The champion bellowed and went to attack the one who had stolen its food but stopped as if something unseen barred it from claiming what it wanted. Instead, its attention fell upon lions.

It was a grisly sight and one that allowed for no further nourishment, for as soon as the hungry spirits had ripped to shreds a lion, it became possessed by a free spawn. It went on like that until the last lion fled, chased by its reanimated kin, now warped by a hunger none could know save Yesaris. The champion did something odd next, it looked upon its hands, as if awareness was taking hold but quickly scampered off into the trees in an unnatural gape.

Yesaris cared not to follow, the spirits had found their hosts, and their great spawn would surely become something worthy of their creator. For now, the lord parasite could feel their own hunger satiated, it was little, and they knew it would vanish in no time, but it was something. They were content in their actions, those pitiful creatures thought they could’ve escaped their grasp, now hopefully this would prove to be a message for others, nothing could escape their maw for long.

Regardless, their work was done, now, they had to leave for other matters. Already they could taste the scent of something else upon the horizon. A new thought was forming into their mind, they just needed to find something, no, someone desperate enough. They outstretched their wings, and took flight once more, heading off into the distance, letting their spawn perform their savage hunt, they would do just fine.

---

These stones were engraved by I, the Tlatotoque Teotl, who is also called the Smoking Mirror. You will have heard of my infamy, I am sure, even if I have fallen; eternal victory -- though within my grasp -- no longer seems so certain.

Few remain that have heard and remember all of the ancient tales, and fewer still who have Seen the beginning of time. I shall record all, in defiance of my supposed lord, so that even if I cannot seize immortality then I might still best him by enduring through legend.

Morality and the sentiment of others do not concern me, so I shall write plainly and tell only the truth, as all things began and happened and ended. My glory is already evident; still, this is a dark tale. I am no hero, and know further that I think little of those ‘heroes’ whose tales I recount for context; they were fools and in the end they did not endure.



The legends begin long ago, harkening back to a time before the gods. A hundred myths exist to explain the coming of the first Tlatotoque, but I have looked into the stone lenses and seen the truth of it: when the Shards were ripped from the Great One’s breast and cast out across the sky, their flights were sporadic. A few collided, and when they merged the lesser Shard’s divinity was oft subsumed by that of the greater, and two became one. But there was one small Shard of divinity that instead was deflected off another and only partly drained, cracked but not broken.

This sliver of godly might was left to fall down upon Galbar. As an egg too weak to hatch, it was inert, little more than a stone. In time it came to rest deep below the ground, in the warm bowels of the Galbar, and when Yoliyachicoztl eventually stirred the magma to life, this Shard found its way into the heart of one nascent Achtotlaca who would rise from the life-bearing magma pools alongside the other progenitors of my kind, and this most auspicious of ancestors was named Tlanextic.

But ‘Great’ Tlanextic, for all his might and beauty and claims of divinity, was not the first who had been birthed from the liquid flame -- he was the last to be born of magma and stone, or at least the last born in such a manner to rise up from the infernal depths. Perhaps he meditated within the warmth for a long time and there came to See, but that is neither he nor there. Know only that for a time, the Achtotlaca survived -- nay, thrived -- even without his ordination.

In the deep-caverns and lava tubes many Achtotlaca already skittered back and forth in the earliest of days. They were in the dark and without purpose, until one called Tonauac gathered the rest together and assumed leadership. Under his guidance, they explored and mapped the black subterranean depths; they found that tribes of others just like themselves had similarly arisen in connected magma chambers, that there were seven such great chambers and lineages within the subterranean realm that would come to be called Chicomoztoc, and that the tetlacuicitli could be hunted or even domesticated for sustenance, and that the comohuacen and other plants could similarly be cultivated for nourishment.

Still, they were not without worries in those times. There came a time when the whole of the Galbar seemed to tremble: the black and tellurian bowels of the world churned, and from the infernal sea deeper still came disturbances. The increased volcanism saw parts of the depths flooded by fire. The tunnels collapsed in many other places, and in this mayhem and din, a once-dormant calamity was stirred.

Nameless this horror was, and faceless too. It devoured effulgence, and about it the shadows came to life. It was darkness and flame wrapped together into some aberrant and abominable corporeal form, anathema to all life, a being of black fire that emanated no warmth and no light, only clouds of black smoke that choked out away life and light.

This was an evil that had been called into existence long ago, alongside the rest of its kindred, to scourge and hate and mutilate all that it saw, and so it did. Mighty are we Tletzintli, but powerless were we before its wrath. When it struck it left none in its path alive, delighting in the cruelty and indiscriminate slaughter. The horror’s onslaught could not be contained by any number of brave warriors; all were eviscerated by its countless claws or ripped asunder by its horrific maw, and their screams and wails echoed all through the caverns. And those that tried to hide met with no luck either, for they say it could smell life itself. Corridor by corridor, chamber by chamber, it brought forth darkness and extinguished all that it could find.

Tonauac did not lead the fighters into battle with the beast, as would be expected a warchief or Tlatotoque. Do not doubt that he was wise indeed, for he was instead the first to flee, to lead his followers as far away from the horror as they could go. Few tales even deign to mention Tupoc, the hero whose brave last stand against the beast bought the Tletzintli a whole hour and doubtless saved hundreds. Alas, that great hero died a horrible death and no doubt spent his last moments despairing at his people’s apparent doom: for in that time the tunnels were not so vast and far-reaching as today, and the last of the Tletzintli there reached the end of their world. They came to be trapped deep within the Galbar’s entrails. With the darkness behind them and only a pool of the world’s molten blood ahead, they could only cast their eyes down into the inferno, or else turn back and face the oncoming apocalypse with as much bravery as they could muster.


Perhaps they had contemplated trying to dive into the depths, to swim and swim and hope to find an opening somewhere where they might emerge again. In all likelihood they would have succumbed to the heat; their husks would have sank and been melted and made one with the Galbar once more.

But instead, their deliverance came as Tlanextic erupted forth from the depths. He was like no other Achtotlaca that they had seen, or that has ever been seen since: amorphous and ever-changing was his form, like coruscating flames, and he had no legs upon which to walk, for his body was borne forth by a rising tide of magma. He was aural too, with a golden radiance that was unimaginably bright, more blinding than anything any Achtotlaca had ever seen, until the first of them would later feel the cold air above the Galbar and behold the Great One’s sun. And this hideous and beautiful and awesome and terrible being -- Tlanextic -- was alight with smokeless fire.

Tonauac and all the others immediately worshiped him as a god, begging and pleading their great savior to smite the darkness that hunted them -- I did not understand how this could have been, not for a long time, but a mere hint of divinity is all one needs to cow mortals… I am sure that it also did not hurt that they were so desperate and afraid. “Save us and we will marvel at your brilliance, baske in your warmth, and obey your commands until the end of days,” the tales would have you believe Tonauac intoned. And they say that Tlanextic retorted only, “Swear it.”

Bowing their heads, all did, and so he clambered further from the pool from whence he had been spawned, advancing towards the darkened tunnel where the horror approached. Before his light, that abomination was made to feel trepidation. Before his commanding voice, that which decreed the aberration submit, the demon was made to feel pain. A dozen hands and arms erupted from Tlanextic, and he surged forward, riding a tide of magma. The darkness fled before him and he seized the writhing horror, and even blinded the thing clawed and gnashed and gouged at its adversary, but Tlanextic’s searing form could suffer no injury.

Tlanextic threw his nemesis down into the scoria, and banished him to the most forsaken of magmatic depths -- but he could not truly kill that monstrosity. I shall not begrudge him that, for neither could I.

The planet was in pain. Deities and mortals alike suffered death and misery, the ground cracked, the oceans heaved. A buzzing nest in the north drew ever more attention and others caused cataclysmic change in the west. All about the Monarch-of-All's jail, chaos and strife saw a rejuvenation. It was impossible not to notice. To feel the wave of destruction or hear the calls of pain or warnings.

That is, unless your name was Zenia. The golden-haired goddess slid over the sea at what she would consider a sedate pace, taking in the scenery from afar with a dull smile on her face while carrying the load of dormant humans she'd received from Homura. She took her time, investigating each little dot in the landscape with the same eager curiosity as a newborn kit viewing the planet's secrets for the first time. Either unwittingly or by intentional focus, the goddess ignored the cries and alarm of strife to go on her own investigative journey.

That journey led her far east, until she spied a wild land of deep forests and untouched wilderness. She sped towards it like a golden bolt of light, precariously carrying her quarry all about her. Soon after she slammed into the ground in what she considered a good distance from the shoreline, leaving a small impact crater under her feet. Content with her own landing, she proceeded to gently set her dormant humans down on the untouched landscape. Only now that her journey was done did she look up towards the dark clouds in the sky, spurred to cover ever more by ash, battle and eruptions.

"Hm," the goddess mustered, summoning all of her available internal foresight. Her grin faltered momentarily. "A little cloudy today." Her statement carried the same serious matter-of-factly tone as Homura had when lecturing her on the nature of good and evil, in Zenia’s apparent attempt at imitation. Then the goddess shrugged and her smile reappeared as though nothing could faze her. Such distractions were short lived indeed, as Zenia immediately set to work preparing a mental list of all the things that her dormant mortals would need. After studying the wildlife she and Chailiss had created - and then the cute triplets Homura showcased during their meeting - she reasoned these new mortals would need water, flora and or fauna for food, and some kind of artificial covering to protect from the elements. She glanced down at herself speculatively and considered the white rags that remained of the original copy of Jiugui’s white robes. She had torn most of it off for better mobility, and the rest was in tatters due to her adventurous explorations (and crashing into things). The goddess hummed in idle appreciation, dreaming up improvements to her makeshift tunic as she tapped her chin, working her mind hard to consider all the possible designs and how the mortals would like them, based almost entirely on how Courage, Fear and Kindness had acted during their meeting. So deep was her thought that day turned to night and back to day again without the goddess noticing, before she finally broke out of her daze with a confident hum and a fist of determination clapping into her hand. She had - in her opinion - solved the equation of neolithic fashion. First however, she had to attend to the other matters surrounding the mortal awakening.

The golden-haired goddess skipped away from her collection of dormant humans to find herself a good high point in the land. Squaring her feet firmly in the soil and surveying the landscape of nascent greenery, she lifted her hands towards the sky and beckoned the hills and valleys to come alive with the same force she had called upon in the north. ”I know you’re, like, eager to shift and grow! It’s time to get going!” she coaxed the land smugly, and stomped her foot. The land beneath her groaned and shook as her divine might suffused itself in the dirt, and around her small buds and lean stalks of grass grew mighty and tall, warping to respectable trees and underbrush. The hills groaned and rocked, lifting the landscape to create new hills and mountains. Zenia impatiently stomped her foot again, and the ground beneath her splintered and cracked, giving way to a flood of water that rushed down from her perch to fill new valleys and flee outwards towards the faraway coast. Zenia pointed at random points in the landscape with an accusatory finger that silently suggested ‘shooting’ the place in question, and wherever she pointed, the ground cracked and erupted to give way for large lakes to form and rest.  

Content with the shifting landscape doing its own work after her cursory intervention, Zenia once more departed to leap far south. Rather than create animals out of thin air, she reasoned, she could just borrow some and let them adapt. So that’s what she did. She took scaly many-toothed reptiles as big as herself, furry things that looked super cute, long and thin wriggling ropes that bit her arms when she grabbed them, some birds that looked very pretty, and some kind of tiny rodent that somehow seemed the most powerful of them all. This journey of grand theft fauna was erratic and hasty, carried out with all the powerful genius of someone who makes things up as they go - which was exactly how Zenia operated. It took many trips of jumping back and forth, landing in different places each time, but eventually she was content she had displaced a sufficiently large amount of animals for them to adapt and survive - probably.

With her main goals mostly accomplished, Zenia finally returned to her dormant humans where she’d left them, now safely nestled in a gentle valley with a stream of water running through it, and cradled by a safe barrier of woodland and mountains. She clicked her fingers together, and shimmering cloth covered each of the sculpted mortals in their sleeping state, a perfected variant of her own homemade tunic that was made of a glittering warm fabric. Each got their own pattern in lieu of names, made up on the spot by Zenia from a mix of all the flowers she’d seen and could imagine on the fly. With that done, the golden-haired goddess took centre stage among the dormant mortals, raising her hands to feel the field of souls surrounding her, and taking it upon herself to awaken them. She’d make only light edits to Homura’s original design, she told herself, as she let her divine energy flow into the nearly four-thousand sleeping humans. The animals she’d permanently borrowed communicated in high-pitched frequencies and trills, so Zenia naturally concluded it would be very beneficial for these mortals to be able to hear such otherwise difficult-for-average-dull-minded-mortals to pick up. She altered their ears both for directionality, high-frequency reception, and physical shape to accommodate this new biological quirk. Further, due to her declaration of teaching them to fight for good, Zenia reckoned these mortals would need both the capability to perform great feats and the fortitude to remain able to perform the tasks required of them. Thus she imparted upon their form a natural aptitude for athleticism and the love for physicality that was deep-seated in herself. To give them fortitude she imbued them with a tinge of divine energy that would keep them youthful and hardy even beyond what would normally be their typical expiration date. Finally, she turned their hair white because it was pretty and it went well with her designed clothes.

With all her changes implemented, Zenia exhaled slowly, breathing life into the reshaped mortals. The first elves began to rise from their slumber, confused and wary. A grand awakening commenced, scores of waking mortals rising from the ground to examine their surroundings, themselves, and their compatriots. The goddess swelled with pride as her army of good began to take shape, the first step of fulfilling her promise. Opening her arms wide, she uttered a decree that could be heard for many miles. ”Arise, guardians of all that is good and valuable. Children of Homura, awaken now to, like, begin your fated purpose - to defend against evil and, uhm, you know, other bad things that are no good. Erh… So! Rise! Meet the dawn with pride, for under your lady’s care you shall know all-... things and learn to celebrate… uh, life!” Zenia pressed both hands against her hips, standing proud amidst her freshly awakened elves. She expected an uproarious cry of celebration, a clear ambition to face the world and begin the party of a lifetime - an appreciation of the act of being brought into the world. Instead there was mostly silence. Someone coughed, which started an epidemic of muffled coughs and sniffs. There was some awkward shuffling, with big eyes beholding the valley around them and Zenia in particular. Too impatient to wait, the goddess pointed at a particularly muscular zenit who had been peering at her, causing him to shuffle his white hair out of his face and tuck it behind his ears. ”Yes? Don’t be, like, afraid! I can see you have questions.” she coaxed, and the zenit cleared his throat and tugged at his slightly too small tunic. The simple act of being pointed at made other elves around him clear the space around him, big eyes watching the goddess and the man.

The man rubbed his ear and frowned, sizing up the goddess and his kin with some wariness, before finally making an attempt to talk. “...You are our lady.” He concluded crisply, and Zenia nodded eagerly. “Homura…?” 

”Oh! No,” Zenia immediately shot in to clarify. ”I am Zenia, the goddess of revelry! Homura is, uhm, the mother of mankind? And she, like, made you. And then I, you know, like, changed you and gave you a home - this valley and, like, everything around it, and a purpose.” Even though they were freshly awakened, newly shaped, the word goddess had been imparted with some small shard of Zenia’s power, and many of the gathered gasped in reverence. Some bowed their heads. Others knelt, or just sat down. The elven man nodded slowly.

“Zenia. Lady of the Valley. Do I have a name?” He questioned soon after. A few oohs and aahs came from those crowding around them.

"Oh. Well, like, Homura’s mortals had names like, courage, and kindness. You know, like, how you are as a person. So your name could be, uhm, Muscle?" Zenia pondered out loud.

"..You honor me, Lady of the Valley, but I'm not su-"

"Come on, Muscle! Stop hogging the goddess! Do me next!"

"No, me!"

"Can my name also be Muscle?!"

A hundred voices flooded over the conversation as more and more elves found their voice, and their confidence. Zenia laughed heartily, and answered each in turn by striding among her new people and touching each of them, giving them each a unique name almost as swiftly as word and basic language convention spread beyond what knowledge she had imparted upon sharing her essence. She begun with distinguishing features, but began to struggle with unique ones after twenty. At eight hundred and ninety she had exhausted body parts and color combinations and flowers and instead begun to craft elaborate combinations like Red Rose, Tall Nose, and Stinky Toes. When all the elves were named, there was only a single common denominator; all of them were dumb and crudely cobbled together by Zenia as she delved the depths of her imagination to mete out proper names. Fortunately, due to the massive crowding and Zenia's hasty and shoddy work, nearly noone heard their proper name, nor fully understood the context of the words, and instead interpreted their names in elven variants like Reyrose, Talnos, and Stientose. Those that heard their name, like the much maligned Muscle, simply lied and came up with something better as day turned to evening, or subtly twist it to fit the crowd. Before Zenia had returned to her starting point, Muscle had convinced the kin closest that what she actually said was Masol.

When nightfall came calling, Zenia taught the elven men and women to make fire, or at least she tried before she realized she also did not know how to make fire without divine power. Instead she relied on her divine essence and raised countless black obelisks for them to huddle around. These tall obsidian monuments shed enough heat to keep the valley comfortably warm in a sizeable radius around each of them, and Zenia diligently encouraged huddling together and cuddling as methods of socializing. She created food for each of them out of divine energy - she'd teach them to hunt later probably.

It took time, but the newly awoken mortals took to her ideas, and soon the elves were giddily discussing their own existence and the wild events of the day, most of which for them amounted to standing around or wandering off and almost drowning in the river. 

Zenia had founded a people. The reality of such a burden had yet to hit her, as she lay back in the grass and grinned lazily.

Jiugui would be super impressed. 

---

---

The droning hum of a hundred wings broke the silence over the battered, craggy land. It faded for a few instants, and in that brief spell the rocky hills could have been mistaken for a view of the moon’s face, devoid of life or sound, cracked and uneven and shrouded in fine pale dust. Then the hum awoke again, and a thin cloud of black bodies streamed from one half-buried rock to another. It poured into its every crack, licking at its foundation where the angle of its thrust into the ground left it open. The living smoke was looking for something, feeling its way across the impact valley one fissure at a time. Again it did not find what it sought, and again it buzzed up and over to the next splintered boulder.

Crouched like some emaciated gargoyle on the remains of a monolith that might once have been as large as a small mountain, Iqelis idly watched the flies take to the air after another failed sweep. He extended an arm to point at another gigantic shard that lay by his perch, and the insects flooded over it with their ever-fresh curiosity, waving their feelers over every inch of its base. Yet again, no traces. He pointed elsewhere, and they followed. In their guileless enthusiasm, he thought, they would end up outlasting his own interest in the search.

Finding what, or perhaps who, had been the victim of Yudaiel's earth-shattering rampage had begun as a whim, a fancy to refine his mockery with precision. As time flowed by without his flies uncovering a single track of the carrion presence they were all too glad to root out, the whim had turned into resolve to spite the doubts he had about whether scouring every crater in the wasteland was worth the while. It was not as simple as drifting through the currents to his goal, for where that was remained unknown, and the ripples on the Flow had long grown too faint to follow them. This was a challenge, and the novelty of it amused him, used as he was to certainty in all things; but it was also tedious, and he doubted that he would last another two valleys before tiring of the suspense and leaving whatever vestiges lay buried there to their course into oblivion.

His scavenging was interrupted by a voice that reached him from afar - a voice that shattered the silence that had lingered too long, and awoke the world with its power. The stone seemed to sing quietly such a deep and chthonic melody while the air all around swirled with cosmic lucidity. The voice announced itself as it arrived from the north west, and evoked reverence in all whom heard it, but could not willfully combat its cadence.

"I am Homura, and though we have not encountered each other before; I know your name, Iqelis. You seem preoccupied, brother." The voice proclaimed.

She was within his sight, striding towards him with powerful leaps and bounds across the blasted landscape, exuding a red radiance that hummed heavenly music and danced with divine grace. Her physical form shimmered and shifted in the celestial light, but her ever visible eyes remained still and steadfast as they focused with keen clarity upon the great god of doom. Her eyes conveyed complete conviction and a fierce defiance of nonsense and foolishness as she approached with the weapon she held in her hand point lowered to the earth.

She stood atop a broken spire of stone as she halted and bowed before him. "I have not come to bring you harm, but to bring gifts, should you accept them." She said after she had arisen and then awaited his answer.

The One God turned upon his rock, head swivelling over, as the flies hurriedly drew back behind him in a disorderly jumble. It was not evident whether his eye met Homura’s gaze, or whether it lingered more on the tip of her spear, but its cold white glow poured out to push against the edges of her fiery presence as he looked appraisingly at her - or perhaps her reflection in the unseen river.

”Is everything not already destined to fall into my hands?” he replied with a short crackling laugh, as he vaulted to the ground and stepped closer. It might have been an effect of his sudden straightening, or an impression woven by moving shadows, but he seemed that much taller now. ”I may never refuse what is proffered me, just as none may ever refuse to give unto me. But I appreciate the eagerness.” Two identical arms came forward, palms turned upwards in either greed or blandishment. ”What would you consign to the Flow?”

The red goddess imitated his gesture, but in her palms there was sacred fire and its presence seemed to beckon the world to come closer, to peer deeper into the flames. The earth cracked and fragments arose from the ground, while water began to fall from the sky as wind whispered in its circling around her hands. The elements coalesced in her palms as she brought her hands together, and forged something anew.

“Humanity will be our instruments, a physical manifestation of our divine will and desires. They are malleable and will conform to the aesthetic you desire, but they are still mortal. You stand here commanding these creatures when you could be serving the Monarch of All in a greater capacity. You should have servants that tend to these more mundane tasks, yes?” Homura held out the small shape she possessed for Iqelis to examine. Its familiar form resembled the goddess, but lacked the features that expressed her character. It was unsculpted and undefined, awaiting purpose and meaning.

“I have created many humans, and intend to offer all of the divine my work. Do you accept my gift?” She allowed the homunculus to drift through the air towards the god of doom, and grasped the golden spear that levitated near her. All of her emotions seemed silent behind a stoic visage as she spoke, but the intense heat of her aura revealed her ire though it never directed itself towards his own cold presence.

”For them to be our drudges, and us their taskmasters under Him of the heavenly palace?” Pointed fingers seized the tiny quasianimate creature and held it by its four extremities, raising it to the view of Iqelis’ eye. Though not awoken to true perception, it seemed to shrink ever so slightly under the inquisitive glare. The god ran a finger along its front, and its outlines briefly quivered, threatening to revert to a raw elemental amalgam. When he spoke, his tone was amused. ”What a petty vision you have for one with full two eyes, sister! Would you have these little flames haul stones and carve the earth for us while we sit by, with nothing to do but sing praises to our maker? Do you not see how much more they could become?”

He let the simulacrum awkwardly stand on the narrow, uneven palm of one hand, and swept another around it. Abruptly, the disgregation that had appeared imminent before flared up again and overtook the little being, sending its four spirits bursting to the surface of its body one after another. It was fire, and it burned with rapturous exaltation, falling to its knees and raising its arms in invocation; it was water, and it sank down in churning despair; it was earth, and it prostrated itself in humbled submission; it was wind, and it spun and howled and wracked itself in tempestuous grief. Then the spark of discordance receded, and it dropped flat, once more impassive in its sterile unity.

”Impress them with their fragility, their insignificance before us, our omnipotence over them, and you will reap the harvest of their worship. They will scamper over each other to please us, raise ever taller shrines, turn the world itself into the altar of their immolation if we so wished! Why harness their bodies alone when it is their spirits that can yield untold riches? Why let all praise ascend to the Monarch, when he is bound by the same laws as we? If we shall give humankind no other master but us, we and we alone shall be the lords of the nascent Galbar. Give me your gift, and I will show you how it may be done.”

Homura remained impassive after his questions and proclamations, as a sudden silence lingered between the two deities despite the presence of the large swarm which flew in the sky around them. The red goddess allowed her gaze to wander while she contemplated her response. “You have proven to be what I expected, Iqelis. I am willing to give up to ninety-thousand humans to you. Do you accept my gift?” She said to the god of doom when her gaze returned and set upon him like two suns which revealed the world with their light.

”I loathe to disappoint.” There was a crooked smile in the One-Eye’s voice, even though his features could accommodate nothing of the sort. He let the hand that held the now quiescent homunculus drop, trailing close to the ground as if forgotten, as the other seven coiled into grasping talons. ”Numbers are the most ephemeral of all insubstantial phantasms. However many you deign to offer, I shall take them.”

“Then seven you shall receive.” She replied.

The god did not speak, but merely made an exhorting gesture with one hand, the amused glow never leaving his eye.

Homura simply bowed before she turned to the west with purpose. “I will return with haste, Iqelis.” She said, and then she departed as quickly as she had come. The lack of her presence left the land less bright, but less scrutinized as well. Her aura of light seemed to judge the land, measuring every facet, weighing each piece, comparing it to an unseen and unheard criteria. She had traveled far until she was beyond even the sight of the god, and only the memories of her severe red radiance remained.

Left to his own devices, Iqelis once again raised the mock-human to his eye. He raised a hand over it, ready to shatter it into fading elemental echoes, then halted it mid-motion and set the creature down to the ground upon its feet. It wobbled, empty of strength or drive to hold itself upright, but some dim sense of adherence to duty kept it from toppling over, despite ostensibly having nothing to cling to within its coarsely formed body.

”The likes of you should seek the buried dead for me, then?” the god asked the small construct, expecting no answer and receiving none. Then, on a whim, he reached for its head with a claw, and cast his ideabstraction into its thoughtless shell.

The world was grey. Grey skies overhead, one of those times when the clouds fade into a featureless shroud high above, stifling the daylight to a pale, half-hearted glow, but never showing themselves. Grey earth underfoot, dusty and gravelly, yielding yet hard and cold. Grey mountains looming around, fractured in haphazard ways, yet also oddly alike, as if they had all been painted in a few broad strokes by an apathetic hand. And that was as it ought to have been, for it was not the mountains that mattered, but what was beneath them. Under one of those faceless giants, it was known, lay the bones of that which lived no more _{and that was their place now.}

The shell walked. It was through no impulse of its own, but because the world, the sky, the earth, the mountains, its own body, resounded with the truth that this was its purpose _{and its duty.} To go from mountain to mountain, to find that which had met the end, to know its name. _{And no more than that, for that was the order of things.} What would it do when that was done, when that name had been spoken for the last time? Remember that it is gone, remember the end that comes for all things, said the sky and the earth and the mountains. _{Let it rest untroubled, for that is the law that binds the dead, said its own body.}

The simulacrum stood unmoving still. Iqelis turned away from it, displeased with how his wordless bidding echoed and rebounded in odd ways inside its husk. High in the sky, the palatial Sun continued to seethe. His shoal of verminous black crept up and down cracks in the parched schist as if tracing the flow of invisible waterfalls, tumbling down from the mountain.

It was the throb of the flies that alerted him to the fact that something was wrong.

---

Standing in the sea, north and west of the land struck by the calamity, were the three colossi that carried the sleeping humans upon their massive backs. Atop their high heads amidst archaic crowns of stone stood the three champions of Homura: Courage, Kindness, and Fear, as all three awaited the return of the red goddess.

“There!” Courage shouted, as she pointed towards the land where the celestial light of Daybringer shone and announced the arrival of the goddess of honor. Her two sisters stirred from their stillness, as their maker came closer and closer and seemed to revitalize them with sudden vigor.

From the shore, Homura aimed her golden spear, and threw it towards the section of sea that stood between her and the three colossi. The celestial weapon extended as it soared through the air, and then sank into the water with a great splash, but it did not strike the seabed. Hidden beneath the waves was the shimmering path the colossi tread upon to not disturb the denizens of the ocean throughout their travels. Daybringer had increased its size and upon piercing the path, it had become long enough and wide enough to form a towering pillar that emerged from the sea.

The red goddess leapt from the shore to the top of the reversed spear, its base acting as an improvised platform level with the height of the colossi. The three champions similarly leapt and greeted her. Homura held up her hand, and her voice compelled their silence.

“The path is clear, and ahead there is another god that awaits. I shall gift him with humans, and you three shall remain on your colossi.” She spoke and they bowed in response. Uncertainty flickered in the eyes of Fear as she arose, and words escaped her mouth before she could suppress them.

“You’ve been avoiding us after Chailiss, and now you’re avoiding us again...”

Courage and Kindness halted as they heard their sister accuse their maker of secluding herself from them, and tension simmered around them. Fear placed a hand upon her mouth hoping she could silence the song of shame that shook her being, and afraid it might slip free for all to hear.

“I am protecting you from those that would see you needlessly suffer, Fear. I will alleviate any of your concerns when we return to Keltra. For now, I cannot allow anything to halt the spread of humanity across Galbar. Forgive me if I seem to isolate myself for the duration of our journey. There is much I must think upon as we travel.” Homura replied, stepping closer and placing a hand upon the shoulder of Fear. Her words seemed to alleviate the champion’s concerns.

Afterwards, the three champions began the process of directing their colossi towards the shore while Homura placed her palm upon Daybringer causing the weapon to swiftly shrink and fit in her hands. The goddess descended upon the sea, the waves reached upwards to catch her, and she allowed herself to be seized and carried to the coast.

The land shook with each step of the colossi as they walked past her towards the east, and Homura amused herself as she recognized that this would be the first time they had traveled across earth for their journey. The lack of life in the aftermath of the cataclysmic attack upon this realm assured her that there would be no collateral damage as the massive creatures marched onward.

When they neared their destination, it became apparent from afar, thanks to the view afforded by the immense beings’ stature, that Iqelis had not been idle. The crater valley, earlier filled with scattered boulders and shards of uprooted mountains, was now sharply split between the chaos of misshapen stone and a waste of coarse dust and smooth pebbles. Wide swathes of rock mounds and looming monoliths, which seemed destined to stand for millennia after being haphazardly arrayed by the whims of fate, were now gone. It was not as though they had been wrenched from their places by force; no grooves remained in the ground where they had stood, but only a layer of fine detritus. One could have sworn that they had crumbled under the weight of ages a long time before.

Indeed, the strange plague was still raging at that very moment, and its newest victim fell under the eyes of Homura and her chosen. A tall, uneven slab of rock, which had evidently broken off from a larger mass and embedded itself in the soil at a stable if dangerous-looking angle, began to shrink at a pace visible even from high above. Its jagged angles lost their sharpness, smoothing down until only cracked and levigated surfaces remained; its upper side became perceptibly flattened, before a large piece of it broke away and toppled to the ground, dragged down by no more than its weight. At last, mere instants after the decay had begun, the slab’s midsection yielded, collapsing a good half of it and leaving the lower remnant leaning even more precariously, so that it soon followed. Nor did the destruction end there, for the heap of rubble that was left continued to shrink as if sinking into the ground, and at last became invisible over the strata of refuse littering the ground.

Only when the colossi had reached the cusp of the valley did the one responsible for this become visible. A spindly black figure was sifting through the remains of the vanished stone, reaching out with a multitude of snapping arms like some great prowling spider. Thick dark clouds confusedly hovered around it, now and then briefly settling onto the time-ground dust. Having ostensibly failed to find anything, Iqelis turned to the gargantuan procession and raked the air with an impatient beckoning gesture.

At the front stood Homura, and with Daybringer she directed the three colossi to continue their trek through the shifting sands and crumbling mounds. As she guided them, the strands of her hair stretched and flew towards the sleeping humans like red serpents of the sky seeking prey. She strode towards the god of doom after she had collected the seven humans she had promised him. When she came to a halt before Iqelis, she raised her weapon once more and celestial light glimmered and gleamed. The colossi ceased marching, and waited for further commands from afar, as Homura nodded to the deity in front of her. The humans she carried were placed upon the ground before him.

“Your gifts, brother.” She said with strict adherence to etiquette, evident was the struggling of her inner thoughts to express more. Her eyes wandered to the seven still forms between them, and her light seemed to bend and shift so that it might shine upon them more fiercely. “If you desire more, you need only ask, but I must know what your intentions are with them.”

The One God cast only a cursory glance at the humans, impatience shimmering in his eye, and looked about the landscape around them again before he answered.

”If they are all as receptive to our touch as that first one, even seven may be too many.” There was a vaguely lost tone to his words, layered with grinding irritation, as though he had just been caught by surprise by something and that fact incensed him. ”Did you see any trace of it from your contraption?” He raised a hand to point at the nearest colossus.

Her firm features finally shifted in bemusement, uncertain after hearing his question and considering his words for a time. “Do you mean the simulacrum? It must have dispersed. These humans shall be much more; receptive to our touch, our words, our being. You are more attuned to them than I had thought, it seems.” The impassive mask returned, but her voice was less sharp than what it was before.

”All things end in me. They must know it, in the very fabric of their substance.” Iqelis’ erstwhile amused air briefly returned in his moment of aggrandizement, but it was soon subsumed once more under a pall of ill-humoured puzzlement. ”Yet it seems that your image has avoided that. I can see the ripples it leaves in the Flow of time and destiny, somewhere close by here. They are no trail such as a lesser thing ought to have, least of all a hollow eikon. Deep and murky, the mark of one fated to burden the face of the Galbar for a long time yet. An aspiring eternal, perhaps.” He all but spat out the word in a whiff of cold venom. ”Do you not feel it? Can you hear it wallow in the dust?”

Homura softly smiled. “I hear nothing, however my senses are not obscured by sin. You can continue your pilfering, but I believe you will find nothing.” The red light that illuminated the seven humans receded, and sorrow seeped into the red goddess as she spoke. “Even seven sacrificed is too many, and I will never forgive myself. Iqelis, when war comes, and you stand in judgement for your crimes, remember this moment and that it is the only opportunity you will have to attain mercy.” Haunted were her eyes with visions of violence and anguish of otherworldly ordeals, yet she still smiled.

The god’s mind seemed at last taken away from the fugitive homunculus, and he craned forward like a great curious insect, clawed hands leaning on the shoulders of the two humans closest to him as he brought his eye level with her gaze. It glimmered inscrutably, and far in its depths the black Flow swallowed her radiance and reduced it to formless shadow.

”Mercy,” he crackled, low and sardonic like a gathering landslide, ”Is there truly such a thing? Shall we not all fade away with no need for war nor castigation, with none to implore but the uncaring void? What is mercy but a protraction of our death throes, an extension of our hours of agony?”

Then he drew up again, leaving behind a trail of creaking laughter.

”What do you believe I shall do with your little flames, gnaw on them like some brute? They will thrive no less nor suffer more than any you will seed elsewhere. Did you not listen when I spoke of the riches of their spirit? Or did you think I lied then? There is nothing but truth in Doom, and deception is a game for lesser shades, unworthy of a true God.”

Homura quietly chuckled without mirth. “Indeed; unworthy of a true God. Hmm, until we meet again, Iqelis. I must deliver the remaining humans to the rest of our siblings.” She bowed before she stepped back and turned to leave.

The One-Eye gave a halfway wave with a hand, as curious flies began to settle over the quiescent humans.

”Until then. Remember your lost simulacrum. We will hear of it again sometime yet, that I know.”

The red goddess recalled the pitiful beasts that would birth of their kind in the forsaken realm of the north, and the strange sight of a mother watching her children leave her in order to find their own homes and begin their own families. The hypocrisy of her own thoughts tore at her in paradoxical pain, pride and shame, joy and sorrow. She would not interfere with what was created. She could not.

“Honor demands sacrifice.” She whispered to herself, and then leapt into the sky and towards the three colossi. There was a burst of bright light, and the great delivery of humanity across Galbar resumed once more.

The throne felt cold as the Monarch of All continued to gaze out upon the Galbar, occasionally shifting over to the moon that had been crafted by Yudaiel, only to then inevitably stare upon the spot where Ao-Yurin had been struck down by His hand. Two clawed hands ran themselves over the armrests of the Jade throne, causing a high pitched scraping sound to resonate throughout the empty palace halls. It had never occurred to Him what it would feel like with the weight of murder upon His shoulders, He had never considered such a thing before, but in the moment, be had thought it to be an act of kindness to end Ao-Yurin’s suffering. The thoughts weighed upon the Monarch of All as He continued to gaze upon that spot, yet, He knew that inaction would continue to perpetuate the feeling that was gnawing upon His soul.

With a sigh, the Monarch of All stood from His throne and opened the bridge to the Galbar, stepping forth until His feet stood atop the calm waters of the oceans. There was nothing but the open seas, even the horizon displayed nothing more than the creation of a now dead god, save for the occasional hole that had been brought about by Ruina’s hand. The Monarch of All looked down upon the ocean, seeing through the waves with perfect clarity, seeing the fish go about their meager lives and the reefs that occasionally dotted the sea floor. Yet, there was a further darkness deeper into the seas, one that was impenetrable even to His own absolute and indomitable gaze. Normally, nothing on the Galbar could hide from His sight, however, this darkness did not seem to be normal and appeared to be the antithesis of His divine light. He already knew what that meant, for there were few things that could have brought one of His subjects so low.

The Monarch of All dove into the water, His body compressing into that of a terrifying creature: an elongated snout filled with teeth gave way to a rotund body, six flippers dotted its sides, and a tail longer than any whale propelled His new form. The great tail swaying back forth sent the Monarch of All deeper and deeper, coming towards that impenetrable darkness that His gaze could not seem to move through. Then, with a sudden turn, the Monarch of All began to circle the darkness, knowing that it was not all-encompassing amongst the sea floor, before one of His eyes focused on the darkness and noticed that while He was looking at the darkness, it too was looking upon Him. It was a hideous creature, one that ate all the light that touched it and spat out the hideous fumes that coalesced around it. Such a sickening display brought nothing but hatred and anger to the Monarch of All, and He knew at that moment that He must strike first before the beast attacked.

The form of the Monarch of All’s beastial form turned and launched itself at the beast, though He had not expected the creature to launch a counterattack. Smoke billowed into the glowing eyes of the Monarch, causing the supreme god to veer off His course and slam into the sandy bottom of the ocean. However, such tricks were little more than a nuisance to such a being like the Monarch of All, who launched Himself at the monster, His teeth clamping down upon its arm and ushering it to release a bellow of pain. The smoke became deeper and blocked more light, but the Monarch would not lose His grip upon the being, not while He had it right where he wanted it. Then, a force only capable of being produced by another divine slammed into the top of bestial form, dazing the great Monarch of All and forcing him loose before a hand grabbed the back of His head and threw Him back.

Transforming back to His true form and reorienting himself, the Monarch of All let out a snarl to the creature, disgust and an anger unseen filling the air.

”So, you finally show yourself, pariah. I am impressed you show such strength.”

Yet, the beast bellowed out yet more of its black smoke as it spoke back to the supreme god, definitely responding in a low guttural tone and in a tongue unknown to reality, as the Monarch of All had decreed it. Then, it launched itself upon the ruler, who caught the beast as the two flew through the oceans, each moment that passed the two beings hitting each other with such force as to cause miniature earthquakes and pockets of the ocean to temporarily recede before collapsing back in upon itself. For a moment, the Monarch of All seemed to gain the upper hand in the bout, as one his clawed hands dug itself into the skin of the beast and spilt ichor into the ocean, choking out life and blacking out the sun. The creature responded in kind by slamming a fist into the Monarch of All’s side, causing the deity to buckle before the supreme deity grasped onto its arm and flung into the ground with such force as to split the very ground in twain.

Unrelenting, the Monarch of All advanced at such speed that the water parted before Him and when He impacted the creature, a great explosion ruptured the ground even further. Yet, such a blow was not enough to fell a creature made with divine intention, as the blackened monster loosed yet another wail and leapt upon the Monarch of All, and the battle continued, the two fighting their way towards the surface, striking and knocking each other all the while as more dark ichor spilled into seas. Then, the creature sent a mighty shock into the Monarch of All, delivering a punch into the great wound upon the chest of the Monarch, causing the divine being to recoil and gasp for air that He did not need. Staggering backward, the Monarch of All grasped at His chest, feeling as if He were unable to breath.

The creature advanced, but with all the energy the Monarch of All could muster, He sent the palms of two His hands into the beast’s chest, sending it flying backward. He hunched over, tracing the edge of His wound, expecting the creature to mindlessly come and attack Him once more. Yet, it did not come as He had expected and He waited and waited, until He had regained His breath and when His vision was no longer blurred. The great Monarch of All let out a pain groan as He straightened himself, looking to the horizon from where the pariah had been found to.

With a hiss, the Monarch of All looked to His chest to see a singular trickle of blood roaming down towards His abdomen. He took a single claw to it, dragging some of His divine essence to His eyes and merely gazing upon the sight of such divine ichor, the life blood of all that existed upon Galbar. Anger resonated as He looked upon the blood for He was immortal, how could it be that such a being of perfection as Himself could be brought so low by nothing more than a mere beast of burden. The anger boiled over as He let loose a scream into the air, nails digging into balled fists that brought out yet more of the divine ichor that now openly fell into the waters below Him.

As He loosed his cry of pain and anger, a small sea serpent came across the divine substance but knew better than to touch the blood. Yet, the serpent, flicking its tongue, could taste the poison left behind by the beast that had fought the lord of everything. It saw the devastation of its hunting grounds and now the pain of a god. Wanting to better serve the great Master of All, the small, but determined, sea snake turned back to the divine substance and threw itself into it. The serpent felt the divine ichor surge through it, driving it to become more than it was. Its body grew and grew, enough to swallow a whale then to more than two, then larger enough to fit a mountain but its slender back.

Two frontal legs sprouted from the limbless form, giant gliding wings erupted on either side of the great beast, and tendrils swayed from the beast’s chin. With a maw of middle filled teeth, the serpent looked upon the Monarch of All gazing upon its master before it bowed its head out of obedience and respect for the ruler of the gods.

The Monarch of All looked down at the serpent, feeling His anger leave Him for a moment before folding His arms behind His back.

”You are a brave little creature, serpent. For that I shall reward you; first with a name, Zhongcheng, and secondly, with a task.”

The Monarch of All paused in thought as the bridge to the Divine Palace opened behind Him, the Heavens in full view for Zhongcheng to see just passed his master. It was a beauty that no true mortal had seen, and yet, the beast knew not beauty or grace for he could only comprehend the great supreme one and his orders.

”Find the pariah, track it to wherever it has decided to crawl to. Then, let loose a roar to the heavens and summon me.”

With those orders, the Monarch of All turned and walked through the bridge, leaving the beast to its hunt

---

Ruina blinked softly as she observed the wall of water that surrounded the area. She could sense her own power holding the wall up, but strangely felt no pull from her divine power. Was it self-maintaining? Perhaps. She did not know for sure, but it was unimportant for now. The swirling water produced interesting patterns, and the occasional creature that flit by was moderately intriguing. What was more intriguing was the message she had gotten back from Yudaiel. With a dazzling display it had warned her to tread carefully, but seemed to carry nothing more. With no more responses received or visitations had it would seem that her warning would garner her no immediate allies.

She would have to do things herself, then. Fair enough.

Even with her taking a moment to lay low and remain unimportant, Ruina's senses were not blind. She could sense the death of at least three divine beings, and it was a natural assumption that she might find herself rather disliked by her divine peers for her chosen role in life. Perhaps then it would be wise to invest in her own capabilities before an attempt was made upon her life. It was fortunate, then, that she knew of someone who possessed an instinct dedicated to the slaying of divine beings: Her sister.

Even within the womb of creation, before their minds had fully developed and awakened, her sister had done her best to take her life. It was only by the random whims of fortune that Ruina had survived such an attempt, and even though the mind of her sister was long banished Ruina could sense the lingering murderous instinct within the suit that she wore. Knowing that what she was about to do was risky, Ruina looked down at her hands and upon herself for a few moments. What if the instinct turned against her once again? Could this idea just be one that her deceased sister had somehow implanted within her mind as a way to gain revenge from beyond the veil?

There was only one way to know, but to march on with reckless abandon was unwise. Perhaps there was indeed a more thorough way to go about this. Sitting down with her legs crossed, Ruina wrapped her tail around her legs before closing her eyes and folding her hands in her lap. Turning her divine senses inward, Ruina began to examine the instinct within the suit. At first it lashed at her, and Ruina’s brow furrowed as she entered into a brief mental battle with the suit. Dodging away from its assault, Ruina kept moving and twisting away from the assaults that were launched at her remorselessly.

After a few moments, Ruina began to follow where the attacks were coming from, and soon thereafter saw an ominous black sphere that oozed with hatred and malice. Twisting away from another volley, Ruina steeled herself. If she was to be the sole master of this suit, it would need to be taken care of. There would only be one chance, and Ruina held the impression that if she failed, she would cease to be.

Waiting for an assault to begin, Ruina moved out of the way again before launching herself forward. Twisting and dodging as she approached the sphere, Ruina found herself capable of laying a hand upon it, and so she did. With only a word, she ejected the sphere from within her being. ”Perish.” With this command given, Ruina sent a pulse of destructive energy into the sphere, causing it to vanish.

Ruina’s eyes snapped open, and she began to cough harshly. Grasping at her throat and crawling upon her hands and knees, Ruina coughed for several moments before vomiting up a small black sphere the size of a marble. She recognized it immediately, and wisely decided not to touch it. Taking a moment to catch her breath, Ruina rose to her feet and examined herself once more. For the first time in a long while, the suit had actually felt comfortable to wear. No longer did her nerves ache and burn at random, and the suit felt like a true extension of herself at last.

With this newfound mastery of herself, Ruina decided to test the capabilities that she had gained. Bringing her arms forward, Ruina jabbed her elbows backwards as if she was seeking to ward off an ambush from behind. A painless twisting sensation formed along her arms, and with a slight pinching sensation Ruina felt a pair of bone-like spikes grow from her arms and jab behind her. As she brought her arms forward again, they vanished as quickly as they emerged. These observations were repeated a number of times with various motions: Attempting to smack someone with her forearm resulted in a row of spikes growing. A punch caused a trio of spikes to emerge from between her knuckles. These growths weren’t limited to just her arms, either. Bringing her knee up sharply resulted in at least a dozen small spikes forming, and a roundhouse kick caused a large blade to emerge from her heel.

Even her tail was weaponized now. Before it was merely a blunt hammering weapon, but now it could produce spikes, blades, and even a stinger. Indeed, her entire form had become weaponized. With a bit more practice, the creation of these additional weapons was also brought under her mastery. Now she could create them at whim, and choose not to create them if she found them unnecessary. Good. Her mastery of herself was now fully complete.

But still there remained one small hazard that Ruina was not about to forget. Using a tiny spark of divine power Ruina pointed at the orb on the ground before telepathically bringing it up to her eye level. She examined the formless orb for a few moments before erasing it from existence. It was too dangerous to destroy in any other fashion. With that remnant of her sister now gone, Ruina felt the arrival of Voligan in the area. Feeling the area fall under the influence of his divine power, Ruina assumed that the land was about to be shaped and changed. Perhaps it would be wise to avoid being here, then…

Picturing the divine palace once again, Ruina teleported away. Likely before Voligan even knew that she was there. She found herself once more in the courtyard. Thankfully, she was alone, at least for now. Using the artifact granted to her, she began to scan Galbar as a whole, catching up with what she had missed during her brief time of hiding.

The Ao journeyed northward. Age began to exact its toll from the first Merfolk, all except for Leviane, preserved by the holy eminence of the pearl. They would soon discover birth and death, thus beginning the cycle. After the first Ao died, it caused great confusion and panic. Age had weakened him, and it made the simple work of the long travel swimming and pulling kelp from the ground to much for him to bare. His death was only the first. Whispering echoes reverbed through the mer, threatening to tear apart the unity of the Ao. Leviane carefully considered the issue, and reflected and waited for divine meaning. However, her pause gave room to treason. In the ultimate act of foolishness, one Ao murdered another. Through tragedy, Leviane found revelation. The murderer was cast from the whole, their presence lessening it. Leviane explained that death was natural and a part of the great and mighty Ao-Yurin's will. To die was become closer to the God of the Mer, and join her in their dreams. Except, to prematurely kill an Ao was a grave crime, as it was to interfere with the will of Ao-Yurin. Only Ao-Yurin had the authority to determine when an Ao should join them in their slumber. Leviane was chosen to stay awake for longer, as they had a duty to protect the pearl and to teach the next generations. However, Leviane did not believe that she would be separate from the great god of the oceans forever.

With that matter resolved, they continued further north and encountered something new -- fish. This was a matter of great concern of the merfolk, mostly out of practicalities however others began the whisper echoes of theological discussion. Hearing discordant thoughts among their people filled Levinane with great concern.

Her hesitancy had meant the death of a young Ao, her judgment would need to be swifter to ensure that disunity could not claim another. She called forth her remaining followers. They had forced everyone who contributed to the whispering to speak openly, forcing those who said the most foolish of things to confess that they had made it up and plead for forgiveness from their fellow Ao. After using a few days to reflect upon the issue, she had appreciated how no-one acted rashly and the whisper echoes had stopped.

She addressed the main concerns brought up regarding the theological matters of fish. They were not created by the great and powerful ocean god, or else they would have swimming around where the Ao were first born. They could not have been created afterwards, because after creating the Ao, the great and powerful Ao-Yurin began their rest. They had not stirred since to create such creatures, the pearl-keeper would have known about such an event. However, the fish were clearly of the mer. The only sensible conclusion was they were created by a subordinate god of the great and powerful Ao-Yurin.

Leviane was relived that the dissonant noise had ceased.

Each thunderous step shook the land as three colossi marched from the western wastes of northern Termina to the eastern lands protected by the intervention of Homura during the calamity. The presence of the goddess of honor had permeated throughout the region as the flora all around grew a myriad of red akin to her visage, a veil of scarlet leaf upon numerous pale branches dancing in the wind like her hair and clothing. Homura herself guided the procession of giants towards the vermilion forests and flowery fields, focused upon reaching the eastern edge of Termina with haste, so that she might make further progress towards completing her pilgrimage. Nigh two-hundred thousand humans still slumbered peacefully upon the three colossi, awaiting to be awakened by the touch of the divine.

Before their trek brought them to the threshold of the fields and forest, Homura held Daybringer aloft and the three colossi came to a halt. The land that lay between that which had been ravaged by the calamity and that which had been preserved by herself was littered with debris; scorned stone and uprooted trees ripped apart during the violent storm. A vast plain strewn with the pieces of the world that she had failed to protect - their destruction a result of her ineptitude and ignorance as a goddess. She could not even protect her own creations when they were close to her, when she could see their faces and hear their hearts.

The mockery of Iqelis and the cannibalism of the north weighed heavily upon her, but such burdens would wash away once she created the Inverse Fire and held the key to paradise. She would seek atonement soon and award the world with what waited at the end of the Sacred Path, but for now she must continue her quest to spread the seeds of humanity across Galbar.

Beyond the broken corpses of the once-mountains and the tall trees was a living land that would be surely be trampled by the three colossi should they press onward, so Homura sought a means to traverse the verdant realm peacefully. She closed her eyes as she contemplated, and her champions descended from their positions atop each colossus, then approached the goddess.

"These are the trees near Keltra! Are we returning now?" Courage asked, alone as her sisters seemed to preoccupy themselves with observing the terrain or looking back towards their massive mechanical beasts of burden.

"No. We are traveling further east for now." Homura replied, and turned to face her three champions. Courage, Kindness, and Fear proceeded to bow before her as her eyes shimmered with heavenly light and her voice resonated with power. The world seemed to warp as the wind around them silently pressed and pushed against them, lifted them, and held them. Though they were free and filled with motion as their loose garment and long hair billowed slowly, an unseen force kept them from moving.

"We won't be walking over the trees, will we?" Fear asked, her eyes peering over the shoulder of the goddess to the scarlet forest that stood silently, and the champion felt dread upon consideration of its potential demise.

"Why not simply turn back and avoid this. Navigating the sea seems the appropriate course, I think." Kindness offered in an attempt to alleviate the concern she could glean in her sister's tone.

"That would be inefficient regarding time. This is an opportunity." The goddess spoke firmly, and refrained from mentioning that she could not recall the exact path she taken to arrive at their current location. Such information was deemed unnecessary.

The world was much larger than even the goddess could comprehend, and she ascertained that there was truly no wrong direction to take aside from backwards which seemed to insinuate either a mistake or cowardice. Memories of the northern realm and its profane circle of life caused Homura to include the act of not choosing a direction and remaining fixed as another wrong direction... or lack of it, she concluded.

"An opportunity?" Courage asked as she felt curiosity supersede her worries, and allowed herself to grin with excitement. Neither of her sisters shared her enthusiasm though, but that would not bother her.

Three sets of red eyes focused on the goddess of Homura and awaited an explanation.

"It is time you three learned to dance."

There was a brief moment of bemusement between the three champions after hearing those words. Courage, Kindness, and Fear considered what their maker meant, but found themselves only further confused.

"Hmm..."

"Dance?"

"Sounds like fun!"



"Enough! Attempt it once again from the beginning."

Homura had quickly discovered that teaching did not come easily to her, but she refused to surrender to the ire that had steadily increased as her three champions demonstrated what she imagined a colossus would do if you continually punched it in the head for a long period of time. Perhaps it could be said that the barely functional mechanical creature could still perform better than whatever the trio in front of her were trying to accomplish.

Kindness was just repeatedly rotating...

Fear would flail with flimsy reluctance and almost seemed to stumble when she leaned too much into any motion.

Courage was close to understanding rhythm and certainly conveyed her passion, but she was also a safety hazard to those that were close to her which prevented any cohesion with the other two.

Homura felt pain from observing them and wondered whether she should just ask Iqelis to end her suffering.

"Look at me!" Courage exclaimed as she slammed her rear into Fear's back, her victim thrown to the ground with her assailant laughing nearby. The prone champion sighed before she rolled onto her back and turned her attention to the sky. It was easier to accept defeat, it seemed.

"Courage, you have interrupted our practice and have yet to apologize to Fear." The quiet voice of Kindness cut though the laughter of her sister, and ushered an uncomfortable silence.

"Why? It looked like she was going to fall anyway."

Kindness chose to ignore that remark with an empty expression much more potent at conveying her displeasure, and then moved to sit beside Fear. Courage turned her gaze away with anger, and grumbled to herself as she returned to her dangerous attempt at dancing once more.

Both quiet champions simply rested with their gaze upwards, taking in the vast majesty of the heavens above them. Both thought the same to themselves, truly beautiful. The sight brought them tranquility and eased their troubled minds.

"Would you like to practice with me?" Kindness asked the suddenly anxious Fear, a small smile upon her face as she saw her sister hesitantly consider the request.

Fear nodded, and then the two stood up.

The red goddess watched the duo as they prepared to dance with each other, amused by the unexpected development. She had stared up towards the sky as well, to the pale moon scarred from foolish fights between the divine, and wondered what the Monarch of All thought of all their petty squabbles and conflicts. Iqelis had reeked of divine death, the stench of godblood upon him. It had sickened her.

"Hold my hand, Fear, like this." Kindness took hold of her sister's hand and softly chuckled.

"Are you sure? I, uh, don't want to trip you." Fear averted her eyes from her sister, and felt heat rise from her chest and warm her cheeks. It muddled her thoughts, and paradoxically frightened her in a way that she wanted to welcome.

"You won't." And Kindness once again began... rotating. Homura sighed as her most reticent champion slowly pulled her most meek champion in a circle around herself. Homura agreed, there was definitely no risk of anyone tripping.

Courage became discontent to continue her thrashing, and dashed towards the three colossi. "I'll be back!" She shouted behind her as she leapt and bound further and farther away.

Fear felt herself tremble and recede into her mind where she could pretend she was gracefully guiding her sister through a wondrous weaving of ephemeral motion and melody.

"Something is bothering you." A gentle voice interrupted Fear's thoughts, and she saw that her sister wore a soft smile. She did not think that Kindness was capable of mockery or violence, and such a thought brought the anxious champion comfort. Enough to speak.

"I want her to trust us. To rely on us." Fear confessed.

"Why would you think she does not trust us?" The subtle shift in her sister's smile reminded Fear of the times when Curiosity would ask about Homura and the sorrow of the past. Kindness had inherited her haunted smile, it seemed.

"Because we're a burden. We're too weak to be reliable. All that we've done, she could've done by herself much faster. She doesn't actually need us, it feels like. I don't understand; Is she disappointed in me? Have I done something wrong?" Fear struggled to hide the hurt and the doubt within herself, lest she become nothing more than a burden for Kindness as well.

"She would not have created us if we were only a weakness to her. I think that she is afraid... of losing us. You heard her when she spoke with the other makers; their concern for death and destruction spreading across the world." Kindness contemplated her next words with an enigmatic expression that Fear found both curious and concerning. "To garner faith with our maker, we must become worthy of it. Fear, we will have to become brave. For our own sake, and for her as well." She proclaimed.

"How?" Fear asked.

They continued their boring and languid twirls that could only be compared to a broken gear during its death throes as it eventually grinds to a halt. The duo seemed determined to carry on their awkward act while they conversed.

"Why not prove yourself? Ask if we could navigate the colossi by ourselves while she seeks some required respite. Surely she will value such usefulness and when she returns, she is more likely to be quite affable, I think." Kindness offered after a moment of quiet pondering. Her words had tempted Fear, and the bashful champion felt conviction rise within her.

"I can be brave." She whispered to herself with newfound resolve, as her eyes flashed with sudden levity and she grinned. Kindness could almost mistake her shy sister for the much more brash Courage then.

Kindness let out a small surprised gasp as Fear reversed her pull without warning, and altered the repetitive rotation of their dance; its direction and its pace.

Then she altered it again, returning to the previous direction, but increasing the speed further. Kindness was forced to use more of her strength to keep hold of Fear as she seemed to heel and careen back and forth.

Homura observed how the stability of Kindness prevented Fear from leaning too far, though she still stumbled quite often, but those slips always stirred and shifted Kindness out of her stiff movements. She wondered if Fear would truly approach her again with her request despite her command to leave such alone for now.

Slowly, but surely, the two tapped and stepped in rhythm, their limbs stretching and shapes swaying, attuned to the laughter of Kindness and the happiness of Fear. They were dancing.

Then the earth shook, and the two champions fell to the ground.

They all looked towards the west where the three colossi began striking the land with their immense metal hooves, then rising to stand on their rear legs and unleashing a tumultuous bellow. Leaping between the glittering crowns atop each colossi, Courage struck swiftly all of the pillars. Her hands were a blur, and a ringing chime reverberated through the air - an ethereal and chthonic melody that awoke the melody of the massive, the chant of the colossal.

Homura simply smiled as she saw the three titans succumb to the song and danced.



The red forest stood still and silent. The trees and the flowers were respectful as an audience, allowing the procession of performers to peacefully step forth onto the metaphorical stage before them. Homura held Daybringer in her hand, the golden spear had shorten itself to the length close to her forearm. She then brought the small weapon close to her mouth and spoke. "Hello Kel-Phenalah! It is an honor to be here!"

The red goddess gracefully gestured to herself, and then to the two behind her, Kindness and Fear. Much farther back was Courage leading the three colossi. All of them seemed apprehensive, nervously twiddling their fingers, even the ever stoic Kindness blinked repeatedly with anxious energy.

"My name is Homura and these are my heralds; Courage, Kindness, and Fear!" There was a lack of applause since plants could not clap with excitement.

"Allow us to captivate your souls with our performance, and awaken the beauty of love and joy within them. We are not trespassers in your realm, we are pilgrims seeking passage through. Let us show you!" Homura announced and then held Daybringer aloft.

Rivers of light emerged from the spear tip, flowing and weaving through the air, forming a veil that shrouded the goddess and her entourage. Great radiant pulses sailed across the sky, and suppressed booms echoed. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Serpentine streams of light arose from the blinding veil, hissing as they arced and waved with the wind. Upon growing to immense lengths, they would burst and release a soft sound - a crystalline inhaling sound, fractal and lethargic, but building in intensity until it merged with the repetition of the larger booms. A myriad of more and more streams had risen and replaced their shattered forebears, differing lengths and shapes resulting in various volumes and sounds.

The celestial light from the center of the veil peeled back, unfolding like the many petals of a flower as it bloomed, and revealing the red goddess standing still. Then she stepped towards the forest, her elegant stride laced with movements in sync with the beat of the booming waves and ethereal melody of the starry streams. Swinging her feet, and bending her arms, with measured strength and divine grace. Homura reached a point where the light encircled her, and she danced in the center. Her hands and feet would clap, her hair following her form, and her face painted with enraptured bliss, she was powerful and free.

Splash - Clap! She seemed to guide the rivers of light with her body and its enchanting motion. It imitated her, clashing and twisting, swiftly soaring only to enter into a lulled tranquility then surge once again in a cycle. A colossal canvas of colorful cadence and chords created the stage she performed upon and a beautiful background behind her. She sang as she danced, her words were both demanding and playful:






Homura held out her hand to the trees and the flowers, and their natural beauty was reflected in her red eyes. She smiled with predacious yearning, and exuding an arrogance that the pretentious and narcissistic could only dream of achieving. Her mien seemed to suggest that it is only expected that everyone else should be as equally delighted by her presence.






The red goddess pouted, and walked along the inner length of the circle of light. She shook her head with frustration, and her hair fluttered in agreement. Back and forth, around and around, she vehemently conveyed her ire as she lashed out and sulked like an angry and confused child.

She stopped, and looked back at the forest with concern. Her demeanor had suddenly changed as she brought her hand daintily towards her face, and attempted to hide her cheeks that turned bright red. She glanced away.







The circle collapsed and the rivers of light surged towards the singer. She was swept into the current and pulled beneath the blinding tide, her voice drowned in its intense symphony of sound. The music roared; it continued to marched forth and resonated with power.

"Be brave." An encouraging whisper went unheard over the otherworldly orchestra.

The light parted and formed into a circle once more. In its center stood Kindness and Fear holding onto each other. The latter was trembling, anxiously looking in every direction. "I can't do this." The meek champion mumbled to herself. The music soared, rising higher and higher, the same sounds repeating and repeating, tense became the tune.

"I'm with you. We can do this together." Kindness pressed, her eyes peering deep into the depths of Fear, reaching out towards something inside... a far away hope.

Then they began to dance. They swirled and swayed, the glimmer of their hair and their dresses illuminated by the light, skin gently glowing, and with expressions of euphoria. Fear lifted Kindness from her feet leading her through the air in her arms, and when she leaned too much and went too far, Kindness pulled herself back, and the two resumed their twirling on the ground. The voice of Homura mingled with the melody once more.






The music and the singing became quiet, then both breathed in before unleashing the crescendo of the performance. The crystalline chimes quietly flowing swift like the wind as it whispers through the woods. The reverberating booms, steady and slow like the stone in defiance of the transient touch of time.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The three colossi reared and stomped as they marched and cantered around the luminous circle. Courage leapt from crown to crown, whirling and twisting with fierce agility. Her hands were a blur as she struck outwards upon landing, and she let the massive machines merge with the starry streams that shattered and echoed all around. Kindness and Fear simply waved at their sister as she soared high above them across the circle.

The light was then carried further, the sounds stretched to last longer, and allowing the emotion to endure - the cry from Homura's heart continued to persist. Howling and broken, her words were woven within a desperate and distorted filter.






Time then turned slowly; the light languidly poured forth and flickered like flying embers from a bonfire, freed from the weight of the world. The intensity of the melody lingered, yet also drifted away akin to a dream when morning comes. It seemed far away. Homura had yet to awaken from her slumber, and enjoyed the serenity offered in the moment. She arose from the lake of light that formed beneath the performers.




The music faded into the forest, beckoning the goddess to follow it. It suffused the flora and the earth, and ingrained itself into their souls. There was no resentment or scorn. No violent rejection.

"We may pass through the forest without hindrance." The red goddess looked back to her champions, and smiled.

Before Courage, Kindness, or Fear could react, they suddenly sank into the liquid light underneath them. Even the immense colossi were consumed by the celestial water, and the procession found themselves falling through the void faintly illuminated by stars and shimmering symbols. They fell along a path that was repeating their performance to them, and the champions saw themselves through the eyes of their audience.

They fell towards another sea of light, but found themselves alighting on their feet - upright and unharmed from the great descent. Before them was Homura and the forest, as though they had never moved at all.

"Let us continue onward." Homura said as the strode towards her confused champions with her familiar stern expression.



They traversed the red forest, heading eastward. Twilight bathed the land in lulling light, gentle and quiet.

Courage looked across the vast stretch of treetops in search of its end, and perhaps a familiar place. She glanced down to the strange sight of massive hooves merging and passing through hundreds of plants without disturbing them.

She watched as the three colossi simply walked through the forest, without anything to mark their passage. There was no shaking of the earth, nor thunderous roars from each step. Just the whisper of the wind as they wandered farther and farther. Courage could not explain how the difference to their means of transportation had occurred, nor could she quite articulate her feelings on the change.

She found that the rumble and booms of their journey had become a welcome way to relax when neither of her sisters chose to converse with her, and the lay of the land had become too much for her to try take in all at once.

It would be fun to come back, and take time to really see everything, she thought to herself.

She struck the pillars of the crown as many times she considered would direct the beast of burden forward a great distance, and then she leapt to where her sister stood atop her own colossus.

"Hey Fear. I'm bored. Come with me to ask our maker about the weird walking through the woods without stepping on anything, ya." Courage asked as she poked her sister.

"No... let's not, Courage. She would've called us if she wanted to explain." Fear replied, but her twin simply sighed. Courage couldn't help but find her sister's aversion to confronting the unknown an annoying trait.

"Come on. Come on. I know you wanted to speak with her as well." She tried, refusing to let go, and aiming at the desires she knew her sister tried to conceal.

"We can't just leave our positions. How will the colossi move then?" Fear shot back, emphasizing her words with a strike against the forward pillar. Its chime resonated and the colossus continued its march.

"Just hit it more than once." Courage said, as if explaining a basic concept to an idiot.

"Huh?"

"Like this." Courage proceeded to demonstrate, and seemingly timed her attacks in sync with the steps of the other colossi. Fear merely watched her sister with a sense of awe. She felt foolish for never realizing that such an efficient way was possible. "That should do it, for a while at least." Courage continued, and chuckled at the sight of Fear. "Now that you lack such a flimsy excuse, let's go see our maker." Then the brash champion grabbed her sister, and leapt towards the canopy of the forest where Homura was.

The red goddess remained still and silent as they approached. The branches beneath her bent, and curved upwards in defiance of gravity, reaching towards the deity with their wooden hands adorned in scarlet leaves.

The two champions bowed before her, continually reminded of the power of divinity when in her presence. Courage was the first to speak.

"Yo! You've been keeping to yourself lately, and Fear is all worried for you. Stop being so distant with us, so she doesn't have to worry. Oh, and what's with the quiet walking? What happened to the loud and powerful steps of our colossi?" Fear fought to silence her sister, pulling on her hand, but the other champion was too strong with reckless resolve, so she simply surrendered and stood ready to face the oncoming wrath.

"She need not be concerned, as I have previously said to her. As for your question, we are walking upon the sacred path. Our song became a spell that rewrote the rules of reality. While we tread through Kel-Phenalah, our forms will be effectively intangible as a result. The forest will remain respected and unharmed, while the colossi can safely pass through their domain. That is what happened." Homura answered calmly, and then looked over her shoulder at the duo. The shadows beneath her eyes chilled them to their cores.

"Oh." Was all Courage could say.

Fear felt compelled to challenge the goddess, as she could not accept being told to let go of her fears. Her hand clenched Courage's, and her sister noticed.

"Don't ignore us!" She suddenly shouted, and her voice seemed so much more stark in the profuse silence.

"Please... can't you trust us?"

Homura seemed to contemplate what her champion had said, and the two mortals hoped that she would open up to them. Courage could admit that though the goddess was with them all of the time, the deity had started to seclude her thoughts from them. Explanations had to be asked for, and banter was started solely by them since leaving the northern realm. Courage realized that their maker was willingly keeping secrets from them then, and wondered what that truly meant.

"What do you mean?" Homura asked.

"You want us to help you, right? But you haven't let us do anything on our own yet. You've told us what to do each time. We won't become reliable if we always depend on your guidance, so let us do something to prove ourselves. Please." Fear let herself plead before the goddess, desperate for her maker to understand. She had bowed a second time, and saw that her sister had joined her.

"So be it."

Both champions looked up to see Homura facing them. It took them a moment to realize that they had received permission, and then they jumped with joy. Neither could contain their excitement nor pride upon being bestowed the opportunity to prove worthy of their maker's faith. Zenia is likely to blame for such silly displays, but Homura kept that thought to herself.

"We won't fail you!" Courage proclaimed, and Fear nodded in agreement beside her.

"Very well. When we reach the sea, I shall depart for the pale orb above. You are to protect your sleeping kin from danger until I return. Should any of the divine approach, you are to reveal yourselves and comply with whatever they say. The colossi are to remain still, as I cannot protect the sea from their crossing from afar. Do you understand?"

"Understood!" Neither of the two champions would complain aloud that Homura was still directing them around, as this would be the first test. The trial of proving themselves was only just beginning.

"Then inform your sister. Also I do not approve of your reckless piloting of the colossi, Courage. I expect you to adhere to caution when controlling them as there is still much we do not understand regarding their nature." Homura gestured towards the third colossus - the only one with a champion controlling it. She could see Kindness watching them from afar, and hoped that between the three of them, nothing would go awry.

Courage and Fear leapt towards their sister, and hastily told her of their task ahead. The gentle champion was happy, and congratulated her two sisters for their efforts in acquiring more work for them. They laughed and spoke for a moment before returning to their respective posts. Afterwards, all three champions were back to directing their colossi and night descended upon them as they finally reached the sea.

Homura had not immediately left, and accompanied them farther out to sea where the light of the moon was reflected in its water. Homura gazed upon its marred face in the shifting mirror, then looked up to the bright piece of heaven itself.

"I will return when the sun rises. Stay safe until then." The goddess announced before she extended Daybringer, the golden spear stretching skyward all the way towards the moon. Homura ascended as the weapon pulled her along its length, and the three champions were left alone to prove themselves.

However, the night was young, and none of them could have foreseen what would wait for them in the darkness...

Voligan sifted his massive hands through the devastation, spreading his senses throughout the rock and dust, searching for whatever it was that had caused such a physical explosion and a magical tearing. He knew frustratingly little. It was divine in origin. There had been an attack, or an accident. Both, maybe. It had changed the entire universe on a fundamental level, ripping something away and tearing it into pieces. Throw in the fact that Iqelis’s touch was all over the sea not too far away, and Voligan had more than enough incentive to figure out what had happened. Not that he was having any success in that.

Chucking another large piece of mountain away, Voligan continued his slow steps towards the center of the devastation. Perhaps he would find answers there. At the very least he would be able to say that he tried to find the truth of whatever had happened here. After a few minutes he stopped and placed his hands in the dust again, digging through the earth as he extended his senses. Every piece of gravel, every grain of sand, every boulder, and every speck of dust he examined thoroughly and then moved on from. Each one was useless. They all told the same story. Something of terrible divine power had destroyed them. Whatever had happened had either included so many gods that it was impossible to differentiate, or one very careful god had covered their tracks.

He had almost disregarded another piece of gravel when he noticed something odd about it. It only had the touch of two gods on it, rather than many. More importantly, it was moving. Well, attempting to move. It seemed to struggle with purpose, despite failing to move past the pit of dirt it had fallen in.

Voligan moved quickly towards the struggling gravel, scooping the earth around it and bringing the entire pile up to his eye level. With a gesture, all of the dirt and rock disappeared and left only a very small simulacrum of Homura’s standing in his palm. It was different though. Something was off. Another god's influence, perhaps.

Voligan’s head tilted in slight confusion. “You are very far from home, little one. Where are you going with such determination, in this cursed graveyard of land?”

“...-”

The little shell jerked forwards as if wracked with nausea, jelly-legged and quivering. Its head rolled, trying to direct its eyes up towards the sound of the great voice, but it could make no steady movement. It seemed barely to move under its own power at all- some queer impetus threw it around from inside, almost bulging from the skin, as if animated by the flailings of the newly blind.

“I- heard- her-” the simulacrum’s lip shook, its body thrown stiff and then slumped forward. Its eyes bulged. “-crying...”

The shell’s movements changed in character. Something pushed from inside its thorax, splitting the skin of its upper back, twitching as it emerged, black as jet. The tiny shell sagged as its stuffing drained out of it, the grisly erection sucking away the fire that had filled its skin, starting from the fingers, and the face; when it was finished, only the outer layer remained, an oily, dead splat of empty skin heaped around its base in a sagging inhuman mess of lips and limbs.

The chrysalis stood silent. Now as tall as a man, it stretched up to the sky as if embedded in Voligan’s steady hand, and throbbed slowly, irregularly, filled with unseen fire. It was an obsidian monolith- it was a figure clothed in dense black silk, veiled by its hat- it was a suit of heavy armour, crawling with scrapes- it was a seething pillar of flies- it was a tower of macabre motifs cast in an iron sarcophagus- it was a drop of ferrofluid, stretching and straining on the natural magnetism of Voligan’s body.

And there it stood, soaked in the gaze of the gods, unable to answer.

Voligan stared at the chrysalis for a few moments more, waiting to see if there would be any more changes. There were none. Its shape only melted and reformed in simple cycles, breathing. At least he had discovered something in his trip here, though what he was not sure of yet. He looked over in the direction that the shell had been heading, musing aloud to himself.

“Hmm. Crying is more than I have to go off of, little Shell. Let's go see whose crying you heard, and perhaps you will come out by the time we arrive.”

He began walking in the direction the shell had been attempting to go to, talking aloud to the chrysalis. “The flies and general dark choices of your shell tell me that Iqelis had something to do with your creations, though if it was intentional or accidental, I am not sure. The iron and fire could be Astus’ touch, though I doubt he has left his workshop since he had a place to put one. One could argue that the iron and ferrofluid were my influence, but I would hope that I’d remember creating you. Especially in this devastation.

“But nonetheless, there are two gods who took part in your creation, willingly or not. We will have to find the other one later, as it is important to know where one is from. You do not need to meet Iqelis, though I suspect he will shove his way into your matters. He is self important like that. If you’re lucky, you will only ever hear of the Monarch and not meet him. Our creator, and ruler, is quick to temper and strikes me as harsh. Not someone you want to be interacting with regularly.“

Voligan continued like this, telling the chrysalis of the gods, goddesses, and the various goings on that he knew about until he noticed it’s shifting form begin to change again.

Before it had time to settle into any one shape, however, a dim blur swept by at the edge of his vision. A loosely measured fraction of a moment later, a large rough-hewn stone stood suspended on empty air by his arm, held aloft by a palpable sense of intimidation more than by any concrete force. On top of it squatted the all too familiar crystalline figure of Iqelis, surrounded by a throng of agitated flies. The god's eye was fixed on the shifting cocoon so intently that he appeared oblivious to the titanic Earthheart's presence altogether.

"The Flow brings us together once more," he greeted, his gaze unmoving even as one arm gestured widely around, "A strange lodestone you have there. Did you pry it out from under one of these rocks?"

Voligan’s fingers closed around the chrysalis, blocking it entirely from view. He shifted so that his body was mostly between Iqelis and the chrysalis.

“I found it wandering this devastation. Searching for someone’s crying. You wouldn’t have anything to do with this destruction, would you? Perhaps you found another god that ‘went against the Flow’. Though I must admit, blowing up an entire peninsula doesn’t strike me as something you would do.” He glanced over his shoulder back towards the Tlacan sea and its floating mountains. “Quietly poisoning an entire sea and then floating mountains over it seems more within your preferences. Anything is possible, I suppose. Especially if your victim wasn’t already beaten down and caught off guard.”

The light in Iqelis' eye flared up with the wrathful glow of a dying star at the mention of his exploits over the great water.

"For that," he snapped with uncharacteristic vitriol as he pointed almost accusingly in the Tlacan's direction, "You have to thank the noxious meddling of our dear sister of the moon. She would sooner tear up the entire Galbar than let me work without her verminous webs sapping my every effort."

He quieted down somewhat, the light in his eye fading to a less scorching intensity, before continuing. "And it is her, I suspect, that wrought this ruin around us, surely to crush some other wretch that had displeased her. I have been seeking their name, as well as something that walks and should not." He did not budge, but a few flies sat down on Voligan's closed hand.

From between those azoic fingers, inaudible to any mortal ear, came the finest, faintest little voice: “Her name was Ashevelen.”

Voligan let out a deep sigh, foregoing his reply to Iqelis as he uncurled his fingers and raised the chrysalis back to eye height. “I see you’ve found your voice, little Shell. You say her name was Ashevelen. Do you mean Ashevelen, the goddess of Luck? And do you know where Ashevelen’s resting place is?”

The chrysalis continued to morph in silence. For a few seconds, the stone-god appeared to have spoken to nothing. But the voice within only hesitated so long. “I think so. She was... the little lady, who rests between the mountains now. I just...” Another soft pause. “...can’t see.”

”It speaks.” Whatever Iqelis’ interest in the victim of the world-quaking rampage had been, it had evaporated in a moment under the unexpected rejoinder. His words were harsh and cutting, not charged with the same spite of when he had spoken of Yudaiel, but laced with a wholly new shade of menace. ”And it knows the annals of the dead better than us. Just as I feared, it has become much more than it ought to be.”

Voligan ignored Iqelis’s ramblings, bringing the chrysalis closer to his body as he began walking once more. “Well little Shell, we will continue heading in the direction that you were attempting to head before I found you. That might lead us to these mountains that Ashevelen is laying in. If not, I’m sure you’ll be able to guide us when you come out and can properly see.” He turned to look at Iqelis. “You are welcome to come along. I imagine you are as curious as I am as to where the final resting place of our sister lay.” The words, as was Voligan’s habit, were spoken calmly. No malice, no excitement, just an unwavering rumble that remained unperturbed in the face of Iqelis’s venom. The other god drifted along in silence on his rock.

No more than two of the Earthheart’s great footfalls had dented the dust before the hidden voice chimed in, once again, from its silk-iron-charcoal cocoon. “You won’t find her this way. I… was dizzy…” The speaker was soft, distinctly human, muffled but perhaps female, and underlaid by a faint crackling buzz that came neither from the cocoon nor from Iqelis. “I’m sorry… Voligan. I-” Another violent twitch shook the structure from within as it morphed from whirring scarabs back to iron-oil, and the voice seemed to break. “I’m stuck.”

”Some things should not be uncovered,” the One God thrummed without looking.

“Hmm. We can’t have you being stuck if you are our guide to Ashevelen’s resting place.” Voligan mused. “We’ll have to rectify that.” He gently tapped on the chrysalis until a crack appeared along the top of it, careful not to bring too much force down onto the chrysalis. A strong white light shone through, flickering like a candle made of snow.

“Come along, little Shell. The world awaits your arrival, and we need you to give our sister proper rest.”

The sarcophagus shuddered. Two sets of almost human fingers emerged from the top of the crack, curled outwards to grip the crystal surface, and tore the peak of the chrysalis wide. The hair it revealed was filthy, soaked in fly ichor and tar. The crack widened, exposing the light that shone from a twisting mass of clay simulacrum-flesh that boiled like bitumen.

One eye- one white, blazing eye of crystal fire inherited wholesale from the Lord of the Flies. It could not survive. Drowned in mortality, the eye flickered, dividing again and again into twin globules of white that crawled outwards across the face before fusing or sinking or shattering into smaller spheroids as the white fire flared once more, filling the wet ash of the Shell with dozens of rejected imitations created and resorbed in moments. The grey skin churned tirelessly, drawn like water to settle into its natural human shape, only to be boiled away by those eyes. Again and again the one-eye of the One God refused to be subsumed into the two-eyes of Man.

But this little spark was not the Eye, and this one little god was not the One God.

The face raised itself up to the imperial Sun, uncovering the black lips below, its hair falling wetly away to reveal the profile of a face so like its mother. There, under the dry light of Heaven, the boiling slowed, and the face hardened. The white crystal burned itself off, dulled by the brighter light, and tarnished to grey-brown, then, slowly, to black. The eye continued to bifurcate as it cooled, once, unevenly, then again, the larger sphere yielding three more- and there it settled, divided into four, unable to reform, locked in place.

The grey fingers holding open the chrysalis wavered, and the obsidian skin forced itself shut, again, sealing tightly. From within, pounding- then a scream.

“Hurrghh- aah- AAAAAHH!”

The chrysalis tore open, revealing empty air. A pale white body staggered somewhere on Voligan’s raised forearm, dripping odious fluids, cradling her head. It sealed itself, and she was nowhere to be found in the puddle- until there she was, crouching on the Earthheart’s titanic shoulder, rocking back and forth with her face in her arms. The broken sarcophagus melted, only to surge, leaping upon its escaped contents in an inky streak, knocking her back and staggering almost off Voligan’s shoulder as it wrapped itself around her, swathing her in black, unable to let go.

And there, at last, she lay, clothed now in a veil of carcass-flies, and now in a long coat and boots of finest black, holding in limp fingers a wide-brimmed hat as her uncovered hair dripped onto the living stone.

Voligan’s voice rumbled, pleased that she had been able to free herself. “Well,The flies, glowing eye, and human form answers the question of who helped make you. Welcome to Galbar, our canvas. What is your name, little Shell?”

While he waited for the newly created demi-god to gather herself, he turned his attention towards Iqelis, turning so that the shoulder with the little Shell was away from the god of Doom. “I’m going to assume that Homura came by and gave you some of her humans. Does she know what you and her have created? Or is it a surprise to the both of you, the path that the Flow has taken?”

”She knew no more than I did when she left this place,” Iqelis, who had been following the newborn with a grimly intent gaze until she disappeared behind Voligan’s mountainous bulk, craned his head forward in an absent nod, a faint bitter sheen in his voice. ”And had I foreseen that this might happen, I would have cut its germ in the bud while it was in my hands.”

He raised his eye to look into the stony visage that towered over him, its glow curious, prying. ”Tell me, brother, what would you do if in a thoughtless moment you sank all the lands you had raised back into the sea, and then plunged its bed so far into the deeps that no scrap of earth might ever see the light of day again?”

“I would raise new lands, or recover the old ones. It wouldn’t be difficult, since that is why the Monarch created me. I have control over all the lands on Galbar, just as you have control over all the ends of Galbar.” Voligan replied, casual certainty filling his rumble. “I do not know why you wish to destroy her. She is the only thing guiding us towards Ashevelen’s resting place. Unless you’d rather wander aimlessly through these shattered plains for who knows how long.”

”Ashevelen is a thing of the past,” Iqelis waved a hand dismissively, startling a few flies, ”Now that I know who has gone out the mouth of the river, I have no more need to dredge out her memory. She, however…” He jabbed a finger towards the stone-god’s far shoulder.

”Do you remember when, over the body of that living mistake, I named myself the attendant of the inevitable?” He pensively looked ahead again. ”I serve the law of the one truth, which says that nothing can be endless. None can overcome it, but even to attempt that, to try and bestow eternity on a shard of existence, is sacrilege. That hatchling has all the markings of what passes for an immortal, and it was I who made her so. I have transgressed in the gravest way against my own highest purpose, and the only expiation is her doom.”

“I’m sorry.” The new voice, still backed by that alien drone, was still as soft as it had been a minute ago. The newborn godlet had sat up with her face buried in her knees and her arms wrapped around them, darkened by her hat, facing outwards and away from her divine seniors.

“You have nothing to apologize for, little Shell.” Voligan reassured, not taking his eyes off of Iqelis. “If you have no desire to find Ashevelen, you may leave then. I intend to find our sister and mark her burial place. It is a dark thing, to lose three gods so soon after their creation.” Walls of metal rose from his shoulder and surrounded the godlet, protecting her, and muffling the words he spoke to Iqelis.

“Before you go, I have a question. You say you are the servant of the one truth. That you ensure nothing is endless. Does that mean, brother, that you intend to actively ensure the ends of the Monarch, yourself, and the rest of us? If yes, then that is a dangerous game to play, especially with our ruler. You will have made enemies of everyone, and only given Yudaiel allies in the quarrel you two have. I would request that you leave now, lest I have to fight a second god before the sun has even set.” He turned to fully face Iqelis, still calm and relaxed. “If no, then I see no reason to bring doom upon the little Shell. We will all face our doom in the end, and there is no need to force what will happen naturally.”

"That is the one truth, brother," the One-Eye spoke tonelessly, his voice the sussurrant sliding of a mirror over ice. His gaze had dimmed, barely brighter than the mere refraction of the sunlight above. "Things must run their course before they meet their end, that is not for me to change. Aletheseus was an anomaly, opposition to the highest law in the flesh. There is no other divine fate that I must sweep along by my own hand," he stopped, staring into the jagged horizon for a moment, as flies hummed around him, "Besides one that was thrust into the Flow by that same hand, in defiance of its duty. She is sinless, and yet…"

There was a long spell of silence and buzzing, before Iqelis turned to meet the larger god's eyes again.

"Let me see her, Voligan." His words could barely be distinguished from the wind tearing itself as it blew over stone spikes and broken gulches, a low, hollow, almost lifeless hiss.

“There’s no need for that,” said the woman who stood there, unbound by such simple walls as iron, facing the One Eye with four as black as pearls. Her stance was tall. Her coat whipped in the alpine wind, spun over grey skin the shade of boiling water, over bones as white as marble. The air inside her fizzed with alien power, and black fire was her heart. “Here I am- Father.”

Iqelis slowly rose from his crouch, crystalline joints grinding and crackling as he drew himself up to his full height. Against the sun, he was a gaunt, uneven shadow, looming over the godling like the echo of a troubling dream despite the distance between them. Then his hands, which had been resting by his sides, snapped up, manifold and faster than the eye could follow.

He was before her, a hand's length away, before the fragment of stone his foot had dislodged in leaping away had the time to fall the minuscule span below it. His arms were a canopy of skeletal branches around them, outside of which everything, from the flies to the wind to the distant extremity of Voligan's limb, floated in an invisible sea, sluggishly forcing its way with agonizing effort.

"Swear it," came the urgent, almost imploring whisper of fine quartz breaking far away in the night, "Swear that when the day comes, you will not flee from the end, that you will not refuse what you will know was meant to be. Swear it," the quartz shattered into a thousand tinkling shards, "my child."

“I’m not afraid,” said her lips the shade of bitumen. Even her hat lay in mid-air, unable to fall before she had spoken her vow. “I knew what was coming from the moment I heard your voice. I swear it, father. It is no burden.”

The one eye lost its dimness and blazed from within, blindingly white, and it was gone. After the passing of its glare, the silent ocean was abruptly no more, and the wind howled and the flies buzzed and the pebbles fell. The day itself seemed brighter, as if a shadow had been washed away that no one had noticed while it had been there, but all perceived keenly in its aftermath.

Iqelis was crouching on his rock again, eye fixed on what was, beyond anyone's doubt now, his daughter.

"The stain I take on my hands may never be washed," he crackled somberly, "Make it worth, somehow. I will ask no more."

The demigoddess picked up her fallen hat. “I will deliver no less,” she said. She shivered, slightly, as if the light of Heaven were cooler than the haze which had passed. “I can already hear bones clattering from every corner of the world. They weren’t like me. They didn’t remember that they would die.”

“Then it is settled.” Voligan spoke into the silence, leisurely dropping the massive boulders he had raised into the sky and his skin around the demigoddess descending from its sharpened form. “I am going to find the resting place of Ashevelen. Little Shell, I request your help in finding it. Iqelis, you are welcome to come along. If not, I hope our next encounter is less tense.”

The ground far below trembled faintly as a would-be bludgeon returned to its place in the peaceful earth. The demigoddess rested a hand on a retracting outcrop, staring back up at the titanic face shadowing her, smiling a small smile. “I’m sorry, uncle. I didn’t mean to worry you.” She planted a boot firmly against his skin, catching something in the arch of it: the cocking-stirrup of a large arbalest, which she cranked with a short grunt. She raised it to her shoulders and loosed a bolt, scratching a thin line of black far across the sky.

“That way.”

Voligan followed the black streak, ambling along at a gentle pace. “You have nothing to apologize for, little Shell. It is not your fault you were created.” A moment passed in silence before he spoke again. “What do you call yourself, child of Doom? I can’t imagine little Shell is your name.”

“I call myself Ea Nebel,” said the woman, her gaze fixed far on the horizon. “A god for the grave. I don’t have a name yet.”

“Is Ea Nebel not your name?”

“No matter who I am, I would still be Ea Nebel,” said Ea Nebel. “The rest… I think that might take some more time.”

”And time you shall have,” Iqelis mused, drifting along on his rock.

“Fair enough, Little Shell.”

They soon came to where the black contrail ended, gently resting in the center of a massive crater that was taller than Voligan himself. The walls of the crater were covered in glittering blood red diamonds that each radiated a small piece of divine power. Voligan knelt and gathered a handful of the gems into his hand, bringing them closer for all to see. “Hmm. It would seem that Ashevelen didn’t go without leaving her last mark upon the world. Luck is gone, but her presence is not.”

“It was a cruel fate,” said Ea Nebel, staring at the misshapen core of rock at its centre. It might not have been easy to spot, but from this close, even she could recognise the remains of the twin hammers that had crushed her in a stolen memory. “It’s over now. Nothing left but an echo.”

”It was what it had to be,” came the crackle from above. Some flies set down on the gemstones, rubbing their forelegs and marvelling at the absence of carrion in a place of death. ”Fate is never cruel, though those who enact it may be.”

Ea Nebel tightened her mouth, slightly, remembering the child’s yell that had sounded from underneath those rocks mere days ago. Cruel, indeed.

Voligan looked over towards her, ignoring Iqelis’s dramatic ramblings. She was now somewhere about his feet, though she had neither climbed nor fallen. “I am going to make a mountain range to both mark her grave and help this battered land heal. Do you have any ideas or requests about marking Ashevelen’s resting place?”

A voice fizzed up at him. “I think we should cast the dice, and let them land as they will,” said Ea Nebel, rolling a tiny red diamond back and forth between her fingertips. “It’s sad to see a bright heart stilled. But the little lady wouldn’t have wanted us to cry too long. Let fortune have its last play.” She looked up to Voligan from his shoulder. “There will be people here, one day. They should have a chance to get lost, or be found.”

“Hmm. Very well.” Voligan created a small plateau that mimicked the crater with a pile of blood diamonds on them. “Roll your dice, and we shall see how they create fortune’s refuge.”

She nodded, taking up a chunk of chalk that lay in the stone altar and, with a few strokes, dividing a flat part of it into larger and smaller sections, marking each one with a little sign. Taking the diamonds into her hat, she shook them briefly, inclined her eyes to the Sun, and let them fall among the symbols. “In the north region… Six caves. Eleven arches. Nine lakes… but only one valley. Two waterfalls. Thirteen peaks, one double. A scarp. A tor.” She counted all the fallen diamonds, then scooped them up again. “In the western region...”

The plateau rose and crumbled as she counted its landforms, one by one, modelling her words. It was crowded, chaotic, and, by the time she was finished, densely packed with more shapes than she could easily count. Every hidden corner of the land would have its own hideaways, wonders, and perils, carved in rock and snow and river-gravel. A wild garden it was, rich in sights for the bold fools who would one day dare to map it.

Voligan raised his hands and as he shaped the area around and in the crater as the rolled dice dictated, the blood diamonds sinking into the earth and across the destroyed land. Voligan continued to spread his fingers and send more mountains growing across the horizon, creating a mountain range similar to that of the Bones of Fortitude. “The blood diamonds would only bring greed and conflict here. She would not have wanted that.”

Ea Nebel nodded, watching the horizon far as Galbar creaked and rumbled and shaped itself all around her. “It is done.” A chorus of flies sang its assent.

Voligan nodded, pleased with what they had done. It wouldn’t make the crime go away, but it would help the world heal from it.

“Hmm. It is. And I believe we have answered our questions and settled disputes. I must go back to what I was doing before her death. Iqelis, I hope that our next meeting involves less death than the other two. Good luck in your endeavours.” He turned his attention to Ea Nebel. “I imagine you have things you wish to do as well, little Shell. Do you want me to drop you off anywhere before we go our separate ways? Or would you prefer to stay here for a little while?”

“I need to find my feet.” Ea Nebel raised a hand to the light, watching red sunlight sparkle away from the tiny diamond set into a grey-iron ring on her finger. “I need time to pace every corner of Galbar, so I will know it. I can find my way.”

A distant crash joined the rumbling of the final ground-shifts as Iqelis' rock went plummeting down, no longer compelled by incorporeal threats. The god landed on the Earthheart's mighty shoulder, close by the younger divine, this time with no distortions of time's flow to hasten him along.

"Sometimes, you will be the one who must deliver something to its end."

One of his hands took hold of another's finger and wrenched, snapping it off with a dry crack. Severed and struck with a deeper rigor than was even usual for its glossy skin, it looked like a short, recurve obsidian blade more than anything else. Iqelis tapped its base, and a length of porous grey stone slid out of it, as though it had impossibly always been inside it.

"I am sure you will know when to use this." He tossed the curved dagger to Ea Nebel, holding an intact hand outsplayed behind it to slow its flight to a leisurely crawl.

The godling raised a soft, pale hand, allowing the hilt of the glass knife to settle between her fingers as lightly as a feather. Ea Nebel wrapped her fingers around it, squeezing her fist as she turned it around; they oozed with tar as the darkened blade reflected across the featureless surface of her three right eyes. When she loosened her hold, a rubber coat had bonded to the scoria. She saw the light of Iqelis’s eye glint in its surface.

“Without flinching,” she murmured, and meant it. She looked up again, the white fire now glinting on her own tarnished eyes, where before they had been dull. “I… I will honour you, father.”

“Hmm. One should never walk the earth without companionship, even if she does have weapons for protection.” Voligan leaned down and touched a finger to the earth, pulling a large porcine figure crafted from hematite to the surface. A small moment of concentration and he filled it with life, igniting the eye holes with a soft green glow. It’s shoulders matched Ea Nebel’s own and it looked over at her expectantly.

“They will be your companion as you pace through the world and lay to rest those who require it.”

Her eyebrows rose. Ea Nebel tilted her head, took a hesitant step towards the sculpture, watched the green fire within follow her, its sleek ferrous body unmoving. She lifted her hand, then lay it on the figure’s back. For a second it was cool- then she recoiled, the glossy mineral body burning a dull incandescent red, the boar’s back licked by a mane of green fire as it forged itself into life. The hematite settled swiftly into a hard skin of iron and rust, and grey metal dust spiked into fierce bristles along its back as if clumped on a magnet; Rippled crucible steel were the tusks that sprouted from its maw, and glossy were its hematite eyes. It dipped its head as it examined her, breathing and pawing the earth, embers of green fire flying from its footprints.

The godling grabbed its tusk, and the boar allowed her to pull its mouth slightly apart before shaking her off, a single heave of its neck throwing her almost to the ground- and she laughed. “I love it!” The beast grunted dismissively as she took a nearby spike of Voligan’s skin between her hands and kissed the stone. “I will call it the Iron Boar. Thank you, uncle.”

“Hmm. There is no need to thank me. It will help you find your way and aid you in your purpose.” Voligan rumbled, pleased with himself. “But now I must take my leave. Unless you wish to come to Aletheseus’s gravesite as well, you will have to hop off my shoulder.”

"I have seen enough of that one," Iqelis gave a macabre chuckle to the notes of snapping bones, "Farewell, brother."

He took a stride forward and lay a cold, hard hand on Ea Nebel's shoulder with a low "Keep afloat, daughter," before vaulting off the titanic god and vanishing beyond the crater's embellished edge in a gleaming blur.

Ea Nebel watched the empty space where the One God had been. Her hand was raised slightly, but he was already gone. She clenched it briefly, but still waved, a little, to the empty space. “Goodbye...”

The hog grunted again. It was time for her to depart.

“Farewell, uncle,” said Ea Nebel. “I will always remember you, as long as there is earth beneath my feet.”

“Hmm. I would hope we’d meet again so that you don’t need to only remember me. If you ever want my assistance, simply call out. I’m always listening.”

She smiled. “I will.” Ea Nebel hauled herself onto the back of the hog, who accepted her without a shrug, and cast out her arm to the many mountains of Serendipity’s End. “Fly!” The stones did not yield to her command, but she flexed her grip around her father’s fingernail, and they quickly fell in line. The hog’s feet clattered against stone after stone, the great weight of it tilting the platforms one by one as the goddess descended, holding firmly to her hat.

They struck the ground in a cloud of dust, and then there was no sight of her.

---

In a little gulch, under a tree above a pool filled with the brightest of blue water, behind a garden maze of stones that stood and leaned and tumbled about in a thousand sheltered sanctuaries that the sun would not reach at its highest and hottest, there stood a little buff stone. It had fallen from a sprouting mountain and been washed clean by a waterfall, and at the end of its journey it lay here, sleeping in a sunbeam, warm as a laugh.

That stone beckoned the lost, the lucky, the castaways of fate, calling them to hide among the many hollows of its home, and find their way out again. They would all find their way out, in time- maybe not home, for the spell on the stone made few promises, but always somewhere with a hint of good fortunes, or at least exciting ones.

Luck is gone, read the woman in the veil, her eyes resting on the sacred symbols written in the rock. But her blessings remain.

She looked around one last time at her uncle’s work, the seen and unseen magic of a grave for a goddess they had never known. For a moment she thought she saw something sparkle at the bottom of the pool. Then she sighed, lifted her gaze, and was gone.

---

---

The solar palace no longer sat at the zenith of the sky. It had, slowly and inexorably, drawn down to scorch the land in the far horizon; its yellow hues turned a burnt amber as it sunk into the land beyond. Their creator -- they knew him, instinctually, as their creator, had given them a command they did not understand and then had left them. Deep in their bones, they were obliged to obey. If a meaning could not be derived, then they would have to decipher it themselves.

Biluda was a ranger; clad in metal, fabrics, and wood alike. They had been given their name, seared onto their identity with the care a carpenter might provide a table or a chair. Their gaze wandered across the library, and all of the ambling Kynikos within. It settled upon another group that had congregated across the hall; mostly fellow rangers like Biluda, but a few scholars and guards mixed in as well. Striding forward, he went to find out what they were talking about.

A guard spoke as Biluda walked up, his tone heated, “We should stay inside! Our creator gave us no permission to leave this library. To leave would be blasphemous.”

Biluda butted in before any of the other rangers could speak, “Your purpose is obviously not to leave, but how can you ever apply that ruling to us? It is burned into our being; we must leave this place.”

The guards turned to glare at Biluda, and one of them rebutted, “We can apply that ruling because we are the enforcers of our creator. If we declare something is banned, then it is banned.”

Biluda tilted their head, “You are the enforcers; that much is true. But how does enforcing the laws of our creator mean you can also create those laws? Enforcement is an entirely separate beast.”

There was a brief silence as the guards sought a way to counter his argument. One threw up their hands in exasperation with a clank of metal, and eventually, one responded simply, “Fine. But don’t think I’ll be watching you. Break one rule, and you’re going down.”

Biluda turned away, motioning to the other rangers to follow him, as he said to the guards, “You are lucky there are no rules against being a sore loser. We’re heading out.”

They threw open the front gates of the academy, two massive wood-and-gold doors that dwarfed them five or six times over. The balancing was good; they felt nearly weightless to open. Biluda stepped out into the cool night air, the first Kynikos to leave the library. They felt something pulling on their mind, but they continued down the steps and into the field. They gazed out at the nearby pine trees, and their head began to ratchet up almost on its own. Something was calling to them.

The moon caught on the edge of their sight, and Biluda suddenly found themselves irresistibly attracted. Their head flung the rest of the way, so that the scarred and cratered jewel in the sky sat central in their vision. The world around them dimmed with their senses as they felt themselves focused solely on that object floating peacefully in the sky. They didn’t notice the others around them following their example. All they could think of was the moon.

Hours passed, they thought. The moon slowly moved in the sky, and they tracked it diligently with their eyes. Biluda felt an empty soul, and something about the moon filled them. Watching the moon felt right, as though it gave them meaning where once there was none. Their instincts, their slaving to their creator screamed in fury; entirely unheard by the conscious mind or the gut. Vaguely, Biluda could feel a pounding ache, familiar to them. Was their creator watching? They heard the great door slam, muted as though a thousand miles away, and they found they could not focus on it.

---

Namshita clutched the door, a great rage filling them as they watched the blasphemy unfold before them. Two glowing eyes emerged from an inky magical haze, covered by layers of cloth. Those eyes darted around the landscape, at the thousands of Kynikos staring listlessly to the sky. Nobody in the academy had noticed, until their creator, the golden-masked benefactor, had gone out and seen what had happened. The rest had found out when he had stormed back inside, muttering to himself as he locked himself in his private collection.

Knocking on the creator’s door had elicited no response. Some Kynikos relayed what they saw outside, and slowly the crowd rallied into a fury. Namshita was at the forefront, giving fiery damnations of the blasphemy and calling for retribution. They channeled all the despair of seeing their creator so clearly devastated, and forged it into a fiery, iron purpose.

None of them went out. Fear wracked their souls as they avoided the call of the moon. If they went out, would they catch the curse as well? Namshita commanded the doors shut and the windows shuttered; they would wait for day, and then they would go out and make the blasphemers pay. The rest followed Namshita’s instructions, their furious drive evident to all.

When day came, the door was flung open; guards emerged first, guarding the scholars and rangers that had remained inside. They brought their weapons to bear against the blasphemers, forming a wall of weapons. The blasphemers, meanwhile, gathered into a ragged group, with Biluda at the helm.

---

Biluda snapped out of their trance as the moon sank below the horizon, replaced by the warm fires of the sun. He looked over to find the mob forming outside of the academy, and with a few shouted calls had formed his own gathering. They shouted out to the mob, “What is the meaning of this? Why do you bear weapons against your fellows?”

Namshita responded, calling from behind the guards, their ruby-red eyes poking out from the magical haze that was their body, “You have blasphemed against our creator! Our holiness hides in private; furious at your transgressions!”

Biluda shot back, their tone indicative of shock, “We are still loyal to our creator! If we had displeased them, would they have not struck us down on the spot? It is within their power!”

Namshita yelled in response, enraged, “You can’t know what our creator can or can’t do! It is not our place to guess! You blaspheme again!”

Biluda shouted, their voice hoarse, “Then let us back into the academy! If we have committed blasphemy, we will accept the punishment only from our creator!”

Namshita wanted more than anything to kill the blasphemers on the spot, and be done with it. But a gnawing reason ate at them; Biluda’s request made sense. Surely Epsilon would deal with them, and then Namshita’s followers would be assured in their righteousness. To kill them now would only invite doubt in the future. Slowly, they turned to one of the guards, and, their voice faltering, they ordered, “Let them through. Keep them separate from the rest of us.”

The loyal Kynikos murmured as they parted, allowing Biluda’s group to walk past into the academy. They all followed behind, the guards keeping a clear distance between the loyal and the disloyal. That day they waited for Epsilon to emerge; he never did. It was tense, the library split into two sides, weapons drawn. Insults were slung, but ultimately it did not come to battle. Eventually, the day had to end.

Biluda’s fascination flared again as they felt the draw of the moon. They walked into the central atrium, along with their group. The loyal Kynikos, fueled by shouts from Namshita, bore arms, backing further into their side of the library, fearing an attack. That attack never came, as Biluda and their people walked out into the cool night air once more. Their eyes focused up on the moon, and they froze in place, the world dimming.

Namshita, desperate, fled to the doors to the private atrium, pounding their fist against it as they cried, “Blaspheme! Help us, blaspheme is being committed!”

The doors to the private atrium slowly opened, and Namshita was briefly shocked into silence. With a glance back at the loyal Kynikos, some of which had eyes on Namshita, they entered. The door slammed shut behind them. They slowly stepped further in, a pounding headache emerging to torture their senses. There, in the study hall; their creator, sitting on a chair, looking anything but divine.

“They’re corrupted,” Epsilon said as he gazed down at his creation. Namshita responded, “Do you wish for their destruction? We can kill them all.”

Epsilon shook his head, almost sadly. He ordered, “No, they will live. You will not harm them. This is a setback, but it does not need to be such a damaging one.”

Namshita raised their voice for a split second, “But they--” the Kynikos paused, lowering their head as they remembered their place and their tone returned to reverence, “they blaspheme. Would it not be more damaging to let them live?”

Epsilon slammed his fist on the table with startling intensity, saying back, “It is not your place to question me. I have decreed they live, so they will live. So long as they agree to the rules I will put in place, they may leave as well.”

Namshita continued to look at the floor as they asked, “What are those rules, my lord?”

The answer came quickly, “They must agree to never research the divine; they must agree to never share their findings except to those in the know. And they must cooperate with the academy when demanded.” Three rules, simply and quickly stated.

---

The inspiration finally clicked for Biluda. Their old body was limiting; it was holding them back. They turned to the academy, half-crazed, as the image of a new body filled their mind. They skittered past the loyal Kynikos, who shouted in panic. Nobody could seem to get hands on Biluda, their hyperfocus permitting them to dodge and weave between people as they shouted, “I need cloth! I need one of those masks!”

The loyal group parted around Biluda, evidently fearful, as though the inspiration was contagious. Biluda grabbed spare cloth, and unhooked one of the decorative metal masks from the wall. They gathered small tidbits of other Kynikos’ experiments, and fled to a study nook. They could hear the guards just outside, boxing them in, but they didn’t care.

Biluda’s entire world was this body. A spare wooden core, dressed thickly in cloth hastily stitched into clothing. Small bits of experiments separated and beaded into necklaces and prayer beads. The work was furious and unending. They worked with no regard for anything but their new body. Once they were finished, they applied the mask atop the head. Biluda regarded their work, and with a trembling hand reached out to touch it.

They let their soul flow out. It felt natural. Their sight faltered and their hearing silenced. Excitement washed over them. The world became nothing but their body’s transfer. When Biluda once more opened their eyes and heard the world, it was in their new body, their old one crumpled on the floor. They could hear more shouting outside, the shuffling of feet. They poked their new masked eyes out of the study nook, to see their example had been followed; Kynikos were running about the library, grabbing various materials.

The loyal Kynikos were still shouting and dodging out of the way of the inspired Kynikos, but they did not fight back. Biluda could feel Namshita’s withering gaze on them from across the room. They walked over, asking, “You have not ordered us killed as I would expect of you. Why?”

Namshita’s voice dripped with hate as they answered, “Gather your blasphemers when they are lucid. I have spoken to our creator, and have an announcement to make.”

Biluda dipped their head in acknowledgement as they watched the chaos in the library. The sun had begun to rise once more when things finally quieted down. Empty bodies littered the library. Biluda shouted out to their flock, “Hear me, and listen! Namshita, that zealot, has spoken to the creator, and has an announcement! Listen!”

Their voice echoed across the library, and slowly all of the Kynikos gathered in a ragged semicircle around the two. Namshita glared at the gathering briefly before they began, “I have spoken to our holy creator! He has offered you redemption for your corruption; you may leave, unmolested, should you agree to his laws!”

Namshita continued, “First of those rules: You will not research the divine! It is not our place to investigate our betters, and all are to understand that! Second of the rules: You will not freely share your discoveries! Progress is dangerous, and unchecked, the mortals beyond our walls will destroy all there is! Third of the rules: You will not deny the academy its due! If the academy demands, you will obey!”

A murmur went up among the crowd. Kynikos on both sides looked unsure, and hostilities seemed to flare. Biluda’s voice cut through it all, “I accept these rules! I will take my leave from this place, and seek my destiny in the world!”

Biluda walked forwards, the crowd parting as he went. Step by step, they went down the central atrium and through the door into the sunlight. At first, only a few Kynikos followed them. It cascaded outwards, each Kynikos leaving with Biluda inspiring two more to leave as well. Within minutes, the only ones left in the academy were the loyal or the cowardly.

They spread out into the land beyond, Kynikos going in every direction. Some would float across the seas to new continents; others would walk the seabeds among the life within. Others would settle on the Academy island itself. The diaspora had begun.

A quick message to whoever’s reading this -- Gosh, after last night’s talk with Ryder I decided to follow her advice and try my hand at working on a hobby. I still don’t like the way she assumes things about me, but… Whatever, you know? So I guess I’m hoping that you can read Prime Astalonian… Otherwise, uh, how would you even be reading this bit in the first place?



The seas posed no obstacle. Propelling ourselves to our maximum speeds, the three of us whizzed past a group of dolphins and towards the massive machine peeking over the horizon.

Night served as cover from watchful eyes, and the water and wild waves of the sea served to muffle the sounds of our approach from sharp ears. Like the well oiled machines that we were, we deftly made our way to one of the Colossus’ legs and launched ourselves out of the water and at one of the many openings along it, transforming mid air into our more versatile Homuran forms and finally landing onto a large metallic cog at the lip of our entry point.

Linked as we were, there was no need to exchange looks or words even as I sensed something unexpected.

Change of plans. Sensing active consciousness at original target location. I will be heading to position 718-B.

Understood, Evoker. All else proceeds as planned.

With only the faintest sounds of grinding metal, we split up and headed to our objectives. It was going to be my first time retrieving goods by myself so I was a bit nervous, and being on a team with Night Terror and Nocturnal did NOT help my nerves either.

I could sense my surroundings better than ever, and my body was oiled and maintained to perfection. Still, I could not help the clinking and clanking of my feet as I ran and stepped on the occasional exposed bit of metal inside of the Colossus.

With the help of my new echolocation systems, I eventually arrived at position 718-B. It was time to get to work.

In position. Redirecting Vitae to motor systems. Keep your sensors on me, Night Terror.



The God-light was beginning to awaken. That meant that it was time to finish up.

At the time, I was on my way to grab our last two Homurans of the night.

Second active consciousness sighted. It’s interacting with the first.

Upon reaching position 718-B, I grabbed the nearest two out of their respective alcoves and prepared to run back--

Only to stumble and drop them as the Colossus suddenly jerked around.

A strange feeling enveloped my core and spread throughout all my Vitae conduits. As the movement died down, I became aware of a distant whisper trying to reach me.

.. Turn… off…

I shook my head. I ran a diagnostic of my systems and wrestled back control of my Vitae.

TURN THAT ALARM OFF, EVOKER.

The message came in so strongly that my core overloaded--A spark inside of my head caused a mini explosion upon coming into contact with one of my main Vitae conduits, and white smoke billowed out of the cracks along my skull. Suddenly, I couldn’t hear the others anymore. I did, however, notice the incredibly loud alarm coming straight from my body. I turned it off as quickly as I could. Upon realizing that my Link had completely burned out, I redirected some Vitae back to my sensory systems.

The two active consciousnesses were approaching my location, fast. With my systems as overloaded as they were I knew that trying to run away would only lead them directly to me, so I did the first thing that came to mind.

I looked for a small, dark crack in the walls and hid there, hoping the two Homurans wouldn’t find me.



“I apologized, isn’t that enough? You’re acting like I did something wrong when I was just having fun, Fear. Come on! Don’t be like that!”

The closer the Homurans came, the more desperate my calculations became. I didn’t want to be caught, not by monsters that had the ability to hijack the Boss’ Colossi. Had I been made of flesh and blood, I’m sure I would’ve been shaking like a newborn kitten.

“You’re just imagining something is wrong. I didn’t hear anything.” The first voice continued, and it seemed they stood at the entrance to the hall. For some reason, they stopped.

Then I remembered the two Sleeping Homurans that I’d dropped just moments before.

“You were saying.” The second voice said, and walked towards the two fallen bodies, stepping into sight. I shifted my form, preparing for contact. The conscious Homuran had red hair tied back in a long sort of ponytail and wore a similarly red garb.

The first voice then approached. “I said I was sorry, but how did this happen? They were secure in their…” A pair of red eyes suddenly peered into the hollow at me.

I wasted no time.

The grinding of metal echoed throughout the Hall as I shot up the walls of the narrow hollow and jumped over the head of the red-haired Homuran.

Mid-air, I shifted my body back into a Homuran form and landed close to the ground in the cat-like fashion that Ryder had taught me. My sensors glinted dangerously at them, following their every move. While I stared, a million different scenarios ran through my core and I rerouted my Vitae accordingly.

Their faces contorted, brows furrowing and jaws tightening in a display of Homuran emotion. They were quick to respond. “Did you drop them!?!” The one that was closer shouted.

My sensors must’ve flashed yellow, as I could see the colour reflected in their own. “No.” I answered, subtly shifting parts of my form to allow for faster movement. I made use of the cat posture to scratch my razor-sharp fingertips on the floor. Animals usually were deterred by shows of aggressiveness, according to Knuckle.

The loud one opened her mouth, and bared her teeth, then lunged. Only to be held back by the other Homuran, making the two of them crash onto the floor. “Courage! Calm down!” Shouted the more timid one, struggling to keep the fire-haired Homuran in check. I took the opportunity to run away--Only to crash into a wall face-first. My Vitae overload had corrupted my mapping data.

A projectile -- an arrow made out of the same metallic material as me -- suddenly landed between me and the Homurans. I immediately knew to cover my sensors. A massive flash of light ensued and the Homurans reeled, I felt myself being hoisted up onto someone’s shoulders. It was Night Terror. He easily held me with one of his arms around my waist even as I wildly swiped my claws at the Homurans.

“Cease your Feline protocol, Evoker.” He commanded. One of the Homurans was chasing us so I just let myself go limp, keeping my sensors on the Homuran at all times.

“Get back here!” she screamed as she charged into walls blindly, then resumed her haphazard chase still disoriented.

“No.” I answered again, Night Terror barely staying ahead of her. I felt him squeeze my waist harder, eliciting some warnings from my internal systems. Eventually, we reached our exit point and Night Terror jumped onto our escape vehicle--Nocturnal himself, the only Prime Astalonian capable of transforming into large vehicles.

As soon as we landed on Nocturnal, Night Terror threw me onto the ship’s deck like a sack of potatoes and turned to aim his bow and arrow at the exit we’d come out of. I scrambled onto my feet and held onto whatever I could find, right on time for Nocturnal to start accelerating towards our escape.

It didn’t take long for the Homuran to emerge from the exit. Her red hair and eyes seemed alight with rage, and her piercing gaze directed straight at us stirred something new in the depths of my Core. A second Homuran soon emerged beside her, and watched the rise and fall of waves across the sea. They only stood there, and allowed us to escape.

After we had moved so far away that I felt safe, I turned to Night Terror and felt the triangular ears on top of my head twitch. Yep, the triangular, metallic, feline-shaped ears on top of my head.

“Night Terror, how do I abort the Cat protocol?” I asked him, flicking my ears and listening to the metallic clink that ensued each time. “I can’t get a hold of it.”

“Sigh.”

“Did you just say ‘sigh’? We don’t breathe, Night Terror, so I know that you’re just being antisocial.”

“Sigh.”

“Not you too, Nocturnal.”

“Sigh squared.”

“Abort your Oxidation protocols, geezers.” I scoffed, throwing myself down onto a corner of the deck, my knees to my chest.



Eventually, we arrived back at our HQ. With the help of the rest of the Industrious, we quickly unloaded the Homuran seeds and I was sent to the Boss for maintenance. He didn’t even ask how the mission had gone, and he was done fixing my systems and tuning me up in less than five minutes.

And obviously, as soon as I stepped out of the Boss’s workshop I was bombarded by a massive wave of messages teasing me about my Feline protocol. A couple of the cleaners even offered to let me hunt the mice infesting the Boss’ workshop, which was definitely not funny and not tempting.

“Sigh.” I said to no one in particular, slouching slightly as I walked to my charging locker. That day, I spent all of my free time hidden away in there.

---

"I don't understand. If the Lady and the Laughing Man had such deep kinship as you say, why did they part?" A solitary voice broke into the respectful silence of the encampment. It belonged to a snub-nosed woman with gaunt features, sitting at the edge of the gathering. The woman next to her raised her hand to flick the snub-nose's ear in punishment for interrupting, something that had already begun to spread among the elvenfolk as a gesture of admonishment.

Masol, the muscular elf who had first dared to try his hand at using words and speaking to the Lady, halted the punishment with a raised hand. The motion rustled one of the women who laid draped along his side, who sighed with irritation. "It's a valid question," Masol offered, giving the snub-nosed elf a direct look that burrowed deep and set her cheeks alight. He straightened his back ever so slightly and pressed himself back against the smooth and warm obsidian monument around which they'd gathered. Only after his right-side companion had settled back to resting against his bicep did he deign to continue. "Not all of us were present when the Lady told her tales, after all, and what she gave us on waking are more like feelings. There is of course a simple explanation for your concern."

"Is there?" Another man broke in quickly, challenging Masol's hegemony of the conversation readily. His lip was already split from a similar altercation with another group a few days ago, and the man known as Serrat was already known as a troublemaker. That did not hamper his apparent popularity with both men and women. "I was in the second row for this tale and I cannot recall the Lady ever speaking of any such explanation."

The group of almost two dozen shifted their eyes between Serrat and Masol, some more tense and expectant than others. Even though there were less than five thousand of them in total, there had been plenty of fighting the last few days, especially after the Lady had departed. Masol however remained unbothered, clawing a strand of long grass from the ground nearby to rest between his lips. "Of course. The Lady trusts us to be clever enough to hear the words and the emotion, and understand what is not said."

"And what is that?" Another man cut in from the crowd, from his sedate resting place in the lap of a woman who played with his hair.

Masol presented a confident smirk. "Why, their kinship is so deep that being together would tear the land asunder! They parted because of their devotion to the world below." His bold claim coaxed out a wave of excited breaths from the crowd, a handful of them eagerly drinking in his words with big eyes.

Others seemed less convinced by the boastful elf, chief among them Serrat who looked outright irritated. Not wanting to be outdone, he interrupted the idle chatter that followed the claim with a sharp clearing of his throat. "Ah. You mean like that. Yes, of course, everyone could see that. What is more impressive is what the Lady truly meant in her tale of the man on top of the world."

His comment earned him the attention of the crowd and the burning gaze of Masol, who watched him with a set jaw. Serrat gave him a confident smirk before continuing, eyes flitting over the crowd as he spoke. "She referred to him as the most perfectly round shape. How his gentle spirit cradled all he created. It is obvious that even now, he watches over us." Serrat concluded with firm concentration, and gestured up above to the bright light of the moon sailing across the night sky. This entirely erroneous conclusion created a smattering of awed gasps in the crowd and lively but hushed chatter as the matter of theology kept the elves intrigued. Serrat smiled with smug ferocity at his chosen opponent, and Masol did his best to remain stone-faced in this onslaught.

"Wait," a woman burst out from the crowd, hushing nearby chatter and drawing the attention of the competing men. It was the snub-nosed elf again, bursting with questions as ever. "If the Father of the North is… the moon, as the Lady called it, and the Lady left to go visit the moon…"

There was a long silence in the crowd. Serrat looked taken aback, apparently not having considered this contradiction. He glanced around the crowd and found Masol smirking at him. Despite having a clear shot at defeating his opponent, Masol instead took the chance to stand up and gesture towards the moon, stealing the moment for himself. "Indeed, the Lady has gone to court the Father of the North himself. Or should I speak his true name; Father Moon!"

As the crowd gasped and cheered at this false revelation, the muscular elf met the gaze of the troublemaker. In that moment an alliance was forged, not of reason or respect, but of mutual benefit. The deal was sealed when Serrat pushed himself from his seat in the soil to join Masol standing above the others. "Indeed! Despite her eternal kinship with the Laughing Man, Father Moon has sung to her heart with his kindness and generosity. The tales are an intricate bush, with many hidden berries for those who know to look."

Masol nodded to Serrat firmly. Together they continued to spin a story for the captivated crowd that only existed in their unspoken bond, letting the moon quietly settle over the horizon unbothered by their outrageous interpretation.

---

Leaves rustled aggressively as two lithe shapes forced themselves through the underbrush at the far side of the valley, stepping further into the forest that divided one of the open meadows from the valley itself. The two white-haired stalkers cracked branches underfoot and disturbed every bird, even though they did their best at being careful. They stepped into a small clearing, where the first of them abruptly stopped to pinch her nose. "Urk. This smells worse than the last one. Over here, Wyte." She pushed out with maximal pitch in her voice to elevate her disgust, squatting down to examine the source of the stink; a massive pile of relatively fresh dung. Her companion came to squat down beside her, and without shifting his expression began to poke at the feces with a handy stick he'd brought with him. The mere action made her gag and she turned her head away before pushing back up to a stand and crossing her arms. "I still don't get what your obsession with animal excrement is."

The man sighed to accompany some internal thought, and furrowed his white brows as he focused on studying dung with his little stick. Eventually, he deigned to respond. "Remember Leephe from Faukons group?"

The woman narrowed her gaze in thought. "The one who died? Sad, I suppose. I heard he was trying to touch all the women under their yarene." She muttered with no shift in her disgusted expression, subtly moving her hands to adjust her sole piece of fabric and pull down the very short hem ending at her thighs.

"I-... yes, I heard that too. But that's not why he died. I asked around, and the last thing he did was eat flowers and berries." The elf called Wyte explained, continuing his restless attempt to analyze the pile of dung. Eventually he released a disappointed sigh and motioned onwards. The two of them trampled onwards soon after. "So I thought," he continued after a time of silence. "If we can see what the animals eat, that would give us an idea of what we can eat safely."

"That's why you dragged me out here? We have food already, remember? The Lady gave us more than we need." The woman concluded with a disappointed pitch shift, pulling hair from her eyes as she battled branches and saw blade-like leaves walking beside her companion.

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Koulde. How many of us are there?"

"I'm not going to guess if you're going to be a waterhead about it."

"Alright- well, there are many black pillars, right? And around each of those is at least ten of us. The celestial food will last us at least seven more passes of the sun. But we had to pick it up. There's no guarantee others have as much as us. They'll come asking, or demanding. Soon, if they haven't started already on the other side of the valley."

Koulde sniffed quietly, refusing to acknowledge his words until she'd considered it properly. As such, the pair crunched through the dense forest in awkward silence for a time, until she had thought of an adequate comeback. "You worry too much, Wyte. The Lady will give us more if it runs out." It was a reasonable assumption, at least according to Koulde, who had quickly reasserted her condescending frown.

"And where is the Lady now?" Wyte rapidly replied, raising a hand to stop their loud procession in another small clearing. He had found his next piece of dung, this time firmer and less deadly to the nose.

"She went to the orb in the sky, they say. But she'll be back to give us what we need."

"You're sure of that?" Wyte continued to press just as he pressed his stick into dung in the dirt. Koulde pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation. She dared not argue the point, and refused to give him the satisfaction of further discussion. When it became clear she was resolute in her silence, Wyte spoke again. "Maybe the Lady will have returned when we leave this forest. You could be right. But if she doesn't, I'm not going to go hungry."

"Waterhead," she admonished quietly in return, but squatted down beside him to pay just a little more attention to his work in the dung.

---

A bony knuckle rattled along Faukon’s cheekbone with a streak of pain that shot through his eye straight up into his brain. It blurred his vision and jellified his legs. Within seconds, the once-proud elf felt the soil of the earth rub into the back of his scalp as the world spun around him. He felt the warm liquid of saliva strike him in the face as his opponent spat on him where he lay. Stunned, he had no mind to do anything but raise his hands to try and shield his face.

"By my name as the Lady's most trusted, Masol, I declare you, Surain, the worst of the worst. Word of your despicable ways have reached all across the valley. Forcing your kin to wayward acts in return for a simple meal. Forcing yourself upon your fellow zenii. You have spread such anguish that it goes against all that the Lady imparted on us." the voice of his enemy boomed above. Pain spread from his cheek and formed itself into a deep fog at the front of his head, making it hard to distinguish words, or react properly. Maybe if he just laid there, it would be okay.

A firm foot struck him in the stomach, and crippling pain bloomed out from his abdomen like a gust of rolling wind. The foot came down again. And again. “Nothing to say to defend yourself, scum? How could you use the Lady’s advice in such a disgusting way?” Another voice demanded with enough venom to foretell of Faukon’s imminent death. A crushing foot struck him in the chest, stealing the air from his body and what little power he had to defend himself. No words would come out, no movement could be done beyond protecting his face. His body was frozen in rigid pain.

“That’s enough, Serrat,” Masol commanded and the beating let up before death came. “Disgusting as you may be, Faukon, it is not up to me or my comrade.” A wave of relief ran through Faukon, but it quickly turned to dread when he realized what that meant.

“W-Wait-..” he managed with a rattling breath. It was no use.

“I turn to you now, those of you who trusted Faukon to keep you safe and fed.” Masol’s voice boomed above him, drowning out his meagre plea. ”If you have been wronged by this man, then follow Serrat’s example and judge him the only way he will understand. If you are scared he will punish you, or that you will be judged by others, do not be. Our group is large and you may live with us. None shall be forced to live in a way that demeans us. This I swear upon the Lady herself.”

A shuffle of feet inexorably followed, though there was a certain caution pervasive in the air. Faukon awaited his doom, and when it did not immediately come, his chest filled with panic, hope and cloudy thoughts. Someone would speak on his behalf. Protect him from these blinded men shouting about virtue. He wanted to defend himself, clarify the truth. It wasn't just him. It was Ila's idea, Leephe who started it - though he choked on his own idiocy five nights ago - Uglee and Treytoar who found weak-willed zenii. Even Jem was in on it because she thought it was funny. The weak people they'd brought in had accepted their fate. Done whatever was asked of them or forced on them. It wasn't his fault they were without self-worth.

When none of his companions spoke up, Faukon hoped for salvation from the crowd. One of these worthle-... misguided kin would speak. Not in his favor, maybe. It would be enough to implicate someone else. If they pushed the blame on someone else, it'd be enough to spare him from further pain. To give him time to clear his head, to breathe without suffering. But no one spoke. The quiet shuffle continued. Masol and Serrat held a hushed exchange that he could barely make out. Faukon parted his lips in a daze, if no one would speak he would command the group to attack the two fools.

Then the pain returned. Someone kicked him firmly in the side with a vengeful foot, stealing the air out of his body once more with a splitting groan. Another hit him in the right shin. His leg felt like it would fall off. Then came three more. Countless blows from countless feet, stomping and kicking and shoving. The pain made it impossible to think. He begged them to stop but his words never came. "T-Thank you… We didn't dare challenge him…" he heard a woman's voice - Jem's voice - ingratiate herself, and Masol's following assurance that she was safe now. This was wrong. This was all wrong. He wanted to shout, to beat them, to scream them into subservience. But he couldn't feel his body, and his head roared in pain.

Someone stomped on his cheek, and his blurry vision went black. Little lights danced in front of him. He felt his body shift and tumble under a battery of feet, but did not feel the pain anymore. Or had he forgotten what it felt like to feel anything but pain?

He floated in that dreamlike realm, until he felt nothing and thought nothing more.

---

---

Long they walked under the trees of the land, broken only by the dark and light of passing days. Through newborn eyes did they see the world in wonder and amazement. Every fallen branch was a cane or plaything, every leaf was a cup, every pine needle a bitter taste. They felt what was around them, to the rough bark of the trees, running streams, hard stone and soft grass. Every shout was of excitement, every laugh was in good company and there was a great deal of talking as they learned of their voices and found names that fit their liking.

Avata the thinker, Canowicakte the runner, Dohasan the stick finder- All names came with meaning that were paramount to the ideals of the fledgling Childan people. He or She who did something well, and enough of, was added to their name in those early times. This could also change for they were a people finding themselves changing, growing as their Guiding Spirit showed them the lands they would call home.

They heard sounds never heard before, from the caws of birds, to the stampeding of mighty animals. The air was fresh and full of pleasant smells- but also of those not. To the scent of pine, the scent of sap, the scent of decaying leaves, of honey and flowers. To the stench of carrion, bogs and death. These were all lessons to be passed on, so said the Father Spirit, he who guides.

There was still fun to be had though, for learning and adapting did not need to be so dull. Every thin rock could be skipped across the waters they drank from, while they still could wash and play within. Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and more could be plucked while plump and eaten with juices so delicious to be had that not a single one of them did not smile at the taste. Nuts were gathered from trees and plants, while roots were gathered for feasts under the stars. There was joy unfounded in those dawning days and all was good for a time.

The Father Spirit taught them many things as they journeyed deeper into his land. Where they walked, there were lessons and warnings. Advice and admonishment. He was kind but stern and only the bravest asked the wildest of questions. But they walked and they learned nonetheless. Under the tall trees, fledgling plains, flowering prairie- to the lowest of rivers to the brimming peaks of hills and mountains. He taught them what was edible, what was not and what could be with time. He taught them what could be used and what could not be used. Tree branches became spears and leaves became hats to keep out the rain. He gave them simple clothes that many had already altered to fit themselves better. For they were never cold but it was nice to keep out other things. Like biting flies and hungry suckers. The Father Spirit had cursed such things as bad spirits, to be wary of any creature whose purpose was to take without giving.

His solution to that problem was a strange one, he left one day and did not return for three nights. He left them within the clearing of a dense forest, where large cats and bears would not find them. Then upon the fourth day a great white eagle descended as the Childan collected food and sparred with spears. The Father Spirit changed before their eyes as he landed and a great murmur ran through the gathering crowds, for he had brought two flattooths, much smaller than they had encountered before. The Father Spirit nudged them forward as the crowd was in awe. Some tried to touch the flattooths but were denied by the Father Spirit with a stern growl. The little ones were able to do their work in the safety of his shadow and what a work it was. Before their eyes they watched them work quickly, gathering small sticks and dry grass before slamming two rocks together over their odd pile. The stones had the quality of a shine to it but they were dark, flaky. Soon, small brights burst for, before there was a triumphant crackle and a wild light ushered forth!

The Childan panicked and with great cries fell backwards into one another. What was it they saw so terrible before them? Who could conjure such a thing? The Father Spirit blew a wind between them, guiding them upright and with calming words did they settle, stepping forward into the light of a new sun. There was nothing to fear, for it was flame the Father Spirit said. A tool, dangerous as it was useful but a tool nonetheless. A gift from the small flattooths- who were named Bjork. But such a gift was one that would be taught to them and wielded correctly. And so the Childan did learn of fire with the Bjork’s as helpers. They became known to them as the Bijjiork, or Helping Spirits.

After several days the Bijjiork grew restless and homesick, as the Father Spirit said, and so there came a great feast with a roaring fire. It was a time of celebration and joy and lovemaking but like all things, it came to an end and the Guiding Spirit took them home upon the dawn.

It was then that the trouble came upon the Childan, in that absence of their Father and the abandonment by their Mother. Many would weep.

---

Her name had been Lansa, firecharmer. For none were so talented at managing the kindled flame as she. None had been so apt to brave the teachings of the Bijjiork and succeed so well as she. It was a talent that many of the women grew jealous of, not because they wanted the fire for themselves but because of the attention it gained from the men.

It had grown as the days passed by, even when their Father had been their watching. Small chats became longer, a passing touch became an overbearing hug, while the slight grab of her wrist became like a vice. Lansa, for her part, wanted none of this. She was content to watch the flames and keep over them. She had no time for the men who wanted to lay with her. The fire was the only warmth she needed but the other women did not want to see this. They saw what they wanted to see- and like a twisting snake, a rift began to grow. Her friends came less and less to see her, or when she came around they would be too busy to talk.

She felt alone, her fire the only one who would listen. Only for short times did she go to eat berries and nuts, and to drink from the streams. Soon they would leave, for the land was growing depleted, despite the Father Spirit’s touch. They had more lessons to learn after all and perhaps with that new excitement, Lansa thought her friends might bond with her again. Those would be good times, like before.

When the father spirit had left them, the men became relentless however. Their advances came at every passing shadow. She told them off but it was getting incessant. An annoyance to her and her flame. She looked to help but none would give it, the women sneered and shook their heads. She was alone with her flame, but she was at least warm.

Upon the first night, her flame went out.

It started like any other. She sat next to her fire, away now from her friends and group. Men began to come to her, offering pebbles, food, and other things they found. She declined all offers but soon enough, the men would not leave her. Some left, most left, but those that remained cast longer shadows then the rest ever had. It was then, when no new offers came forth and great light in the sky was dimming,, did they finally act.

Lansa protested at first as two men grabbed her but when they did not let go she panicked. Struggling to break free, biting and yelling before they gagged her mouth with a ripped piece of cloth. One punched her in the stomach as the others stomped out her flame so that none would see what was happening. Into the woods they went, dragging her by her long black hair. Lansa's muffled screams were lost in the dark, as she was cut by sharp rock and biting sticks. Her cloth dress became torn and dirtied bit still she fought against her captors.

They entered a small clearing, the only sounds were her muffled pleas and pending heart. They punched her and kicked poor Lansa as she tried to escape, speaking terrible words of death and killing. She became powerless and daze as true fear set in. And it was there in the quiet of the night, so far from the comfort of fire, that they had their way with her...

It was a terrible act, a violation of Childan kind and spirit. A loss of innocence that would run deep like ugly scars, echoing through all time. In the end, as daylight broke through the trees upon the third day of their Father's absence, Lansa did not emerge from the forest in the morning. Nor the afternoon nor the evening. It was only when, by chance, their fires went out from a strong wind did they realize her absence at last.

They called for her, those old jealous friends of hers. No longer jealous but afraid. It began to dawn on them, in the dark as they searched under moonlight, that they perhaps had driven the girl to run away. They had neglected her and for what? Because the men had shown her more affection? Stupidity! And now Lansa was gone but how wrong they were…

It was Tehya, the seeker who found her. The girl's screams alerted them all and they arrived to a grisly sight. There are no need for details describing such a scene. Only know that it was a loss, deep and unsettling. For Lansa was dead and the signs were obvious. One of Childan had done it and tried to destroy the evidence by burial but had given up. It was profane and beyond disgusting.

The women would not let the men carry her body back. Instead, she was carefully held as they walked and weeded. Profound was the loss that weighed so heavily on their hearts. When they arrived at their clearing home, all eyes fell upon her body. A great sadness bloomed, many men grew angry with one another and fought but it was the women who stopped them. For their fury was only beginning. A great pyre was set and from the embers of her smoldering fire, did they light it to send Lansa to that which she loved most.

Then a great meeting was called between all of the females. Some men grew heated at this sight and demanded to be included but calmer heads prevailed and they let them be. For there could be no future without women. No future at all. For they had all been wronged by such an act.

Upon the dawn of the third day did Wapeka the brave call forth to the men. She was a fierce fighter and as tall as any man. She asked for those responsible to come forth but when none did she shook her head. Again she asked, but not a man moved forward. They glanced at each other and only shuffled awkwardly. She berated them after that, calling them cowards and other unsavory names but it was her right to do so for Lansa was dead at their hands. When angry men gave protest to such accusations they were silenced by their peers with elbow jabs.. And again, she quieted, before asking them to come forth.

None did.

So Wapeka sighed and spoke.

"Then so be it you Childan men, you breakers of trust and takers of life. If none come forward then you are all to blame! The same as we, for the death of our firecharmer." There were tears in the eyes of her steely gaze. "Here forth, upon this day, we women of the Childan shall split into tribes and venture forth into this land of our Father. For this crime… You men are not welcome with us. You shall take no wives, you shall share no beds, you shall raise no children… There will be no future for our people. Now be gone, before those amidst you become rash with anger and hatred. You will never again take life in this place… This site of the first sin!"

With her words declared, Wapeka and the other women began to depart. The men stood in stunned silence before one came forth- Patamon the leaf cutter.

"This is not fair!" He shouted. "You cannot blame all of us for this crime! We will all die and our race will be no more without you. Please! Please reconsider!" He felt o his knees and cupped his hands. Many of the men followed suit and their pleas filled the sky with sound.

After some time and with a smug grin, Wapeka raised a hand and silenced them. "Only now do you see the weight of this crime. These are our bodies, our spirits and you shall not partake of them! Not until the sky dances! Now farewell!"

The men could only watch as the women gathered their things, lit branches from the fire of Lansa and left them completely. In five directions they went and so to did the men. Perhaps there was a fleeting hope that they could be taken back or perhaps it was out of desperation. Maybe Onda day the sky would dance. They would have to be ready.

---

Upon the fourth day did the Guiding Spirit finally return. He had been searching for another with no luck and never wanting to be overly late, he had returned to nothing but a blazing fire. A small band of women sat around the flame, feeding sticks into it. They stood when he walked to them, brow raised in surprise.

"Where are all my children?" He asked.

Gone, they said and recounted what had transpired those last few days. They who had remained had sworn to keep the flame going until their dying days, as repentance for what they had done, or lack of, for Lansa. The Guiding Spirit was saddened by this but thought their cause a noble one. He said little to them and did not convey his thoughts only that he was sorry for not coming back sooner.

He gave them one last bit of help however, for he told them of another Great Spirit, the Heat Giver, Yoliyachicoztl.

"Pray to her, for she may help you in this endeavor. I cannot for I am a being of Cold. Be well daughters and take heart- You will feel warmth again." with that, the Guiding Spirit transformed into a large waterfowl and flew away.

The keepers of the flame gave each other looks then began prayer.

"...Run us through that one more time."

The grey goddess took a deep breath, pressed her flat hands tightly together, fingers over her mouth, inclined her eyes towards Heaven, and exhaled. "You need," she said, very slowly, "to take a long stick, with a wide tip, dig a hole with that stick, put her inside the hole, and then- listen very closely- you need to cover her up again with the dirt that was in the hole." She stared intently into the eyes of the two elves standing in front of her, her own elf-ears stiff with trepidation.

The two elves looked at one another. The male one, Phathed, briefly looked down at the ground and scratched the back of his neck. "Does... the tip of the stick have to be wide?"

"No," said Ea Nebel, her hands still pressed together, punctuating her words with a downwards movement, a nod, and, still unaccustomed to this body's remarkable sensory apparatus and its delicate musculature, a little ear-wiggle. "The stick doesn't have to be wide. It can be a pointy stick or a really blunt stick. It doesn't matter. You just need to dig the hole." Preferably a few feet deep, but over the last minute and a half Ea Nebel had lowered her standards... appreciably. Another pause transpired.

"I prefer digging with my hands," said the female.

Ea Nebel clenched her teeth behind her lips and made no further movement.

"If the stick doesn't even matter," said Phathed, frowning a bit, "why did you tell us about it? Is there anything else about this whole thing that doesn't matter? Does... does any of it?"

"We can find you a stick if you really want," the woman said hurriedly. Her name was Tohnayl. Previously it had been Clover, but she had swapped it with another elf, who hadn't been too happy with his for some reason. She raised her hands reassuringly. "Really, we can get you all kinds of sticks. There are lots of them about. This is a forest," she said, gesturing helpfully to the canopy around her. Phathed nodded. It was clear that they would have to take things slowly with the stranger.

"I told you about the sticks because I thought you might have some tools," said Ea Nebel, rubbing her forehead, her free hand clenched tightly around the hem of this impossibly short dress. On top of covering barely her shoulders, it was just... hideously white, glittering so bright she felt she could outshine the Moon. "Tools would help you dig faster, and some sticks might help you dig without getting your hands and clothes filthy. If that doesn't matter, you can use your hands."

"We can wash in the lake," said Phathed. "It doesn't matter if we're filthy. We can rub it off, see? Our clothes all clean up nice and easy, too- hold on, wait." He tapped his lips with a finger, then raised it. "Hold on a minute. Didn't you say, right at the start, that we had to bury the body because it was 'unclean'?"

"We don't mind if it's not clean," added Tohnayl. "We weren't going to touch it anyway. And Ternyp doesn't mind either. Because she's dead. Dead people don't care about that kind of thing very much. I think."

Ea Nebel laced her fingers tightly, turning around to the Iron Boar for help. The giant hog, for its part, had selected a warm patch of sunlight, laid on its side and made itself very comfortable. It met her eyes (still four) for a moment and then closed them again, untroubled. She turned back.

"Ternyp," she began, "is very dead, and that means she's going to stink. She'll stink to high Heaven and attract all kinds of wolves and raptors that you don't want anywhere near your obelisk. She'll also bloat, and rot, and fill up with maggots, and that's going to be a horrible thing to look at for anyone who walks past her, especially any of her friends. And if you don't put her in the ground now, while she's fresh, it's going to be much harder to put her in the ground later. Because she'll stink. And- let me be very clear on this- if you handle her with your bare hands once she is rotting, you will get her juice all over you and you will start a plague. Did you get any of that? Please, please, Heaven help me please, tell me you understand."

The two elves pondered, then slowly, solemnly, began to nod. An exhausted, broken smile began to leak from Nebel's lips. Then they opened their mouths.

"Once she stinks, we won't go anywhere near her. Promise."

"No one else will go there either. She'll be too stinky."

"The raptors can have her. They'll be too busy to bother with us. Everyone needs to eat, right?"

"Ternyp didn't have any friends anyway. She was too busy climbing trees all the time."

"That's how she died, you see."

"You can bury her, if you really want."

"We won't stop you at all. Really, be our guest."

"Would you like a nice stick?"

Ea Nebel chewed on her knuckles, hot tears welling in her eyes. She turned around to lean her head against the nearest tree and let out a defeated sob. When she realised what that was probably doing to her clothes, she quickly grabbed the back hem of the dress with a fist and held it down. A second later she dispelled the elven form and garb altogether, grabbing the sides of her broad hat and pulling it down around her face.

"Just leave her for the vultures," she mumbled, walking quickly away into the woods where the Iron Boar stood waiting.

Tohnayl waved. "Bye-bye!" When Phathed, feeling rather bad for the bizarre yet clearly well-meaning apparition, moved to follow her into the woods, he saw that both she and her animal had somehow disappeared. With a sigh and a shrug, he turned to Tohnayl, who was smiling happily.

"What's a plague, anyway?"

The mists of the Tlacan coiled and spun about themselves like a forest of writhing pillars, gently swaying under the breath of a mournful breeze. The sea was a dark mirror, unmoving save for the reflections wavering on its surface, eerily perfect on their undistorted canvas. Even along the shores of the barren, grey island, which in any other sea would have been frothing upon its many jutting rocks and low, sharp cliffs, it was still like oil, not even a drop splashing up to run through the crags carved in more turbulent bygone days.

Perched on a stony protrusion thrust out into the indifferent black waters, Iqelis stared out into the hazy labyrinth, now and then raising an arm to send a bank of fog scattering without a stir of wind. Even the flies that surrounded him sat about apathetically. Some paces behind him seven human bodies stood arranged in a semicircle, still nearly featureless and untouched in their primordial state. After what had happened with that first, ever so unassuming shell, the god had been hesitant to lay hands on them. Ending a life had been nothing but elating, but birthing one had brought a swirl of contradictory and painful sentiments.

He knew which one he preferred by far.

“Good day, Iqelis. It is not often I see you sitting around in a malaise.”

A familiar voice spoke to him, a rift opened in front of Iqelis, showing nothing more than the Monarch of All sitting upon His throne and gazing down upon the stagnant god. He had spoken with no outward emotion, nothing dictating on why the ruler had decided to contact one of His lords. The Monarch of All tilted His head to the side as he observed Iqelis, though, it seemed more of a ponderance as to why Iqelis was merely sat in deep thought that He had never truly seen in the entropic god. This did not stop the Monarch of All from straightening himself to allow an air of menace to coalesce as He spoke again, this time in a more authoritative tone that wrought yet more of that menace that gathered around the supreme god.

”You and Yudaiel are testing my patience; twin murderers in this realm of mine. Tell me, why did you kill your peer?”

The One God turned up his eye without rising from his crouch, giving him the appearance of a ghoul caught by surprise in the middle of its meal. His dull gaze flared up as it met his Maker, its dusky pensiveness overtaken by the blazing, mocking bravado that it had spat onto the world since the dawn of its birth.

”As the treacherous Eye has no doubt given her account, so shall I.”

He raised four arms at the window through sidereal space, and spoke in the tongue of thought and vision.

A river flowed through a verdant plain, caressed by the rays of a small yet vigilant sun high above. Its waters were placid and murky, but its touch was no less vivifying than if it had been of the clearest crystal. Along its banks, tall grasses and reeds swayed and drooped, crowned with strange and beautiful flowers, and from them life spread to flourish across the land in a mosaic of stalks and shrubs of many colours. Shimmering insects danced above the water, sapphire dragonflies and emerald beetles, and bright and plump fish splashed through the current.

But then there was a rumble, and a huge grey boulder came rolling across the meadow before landing in the river with a splash. So large was it that the water could not flow around it, no matter how it twisted and churned and mounted. It gathered itself up in heavy waves, trying to push the obstacle out of its way, but the obstinate boulder would not budge from its spot, and every shove only made it more and more entrenched in the silt.

Starved of motion, the river quickly began to die. On one side of the stone the water kept rising, until it flooded out of its banks, uprooting and drowning the flowering reeds on its two sides. With nowhere for its refuse to flow, it pooled and stagnated, growing foul and malodorous. The grasses and bushes rotted, poisoned by the rank tide, and no more did dragonflies and beetles dance over this putrid marsh, but only the ugly gnat and the noisome mosquito held their feasts there. On the other side of the boulder, the land fared no better. No more water came to quench its thirst, and little by little it became parched and dead. Yellow grass and faded flowers lay choking in the dust, and the riverbed was empty save for the decomposing carcasses of fish.

Then a hand of black glass struck down from the darkened sky and shattered the boulder into tiny pieces, and the river breathed a sigh as it began to flow again. The impurities of the swamp were carried away downstream, never to be seen again, and the banks and the land around them were reborn to flowering bounty, stirred only by the joyful dances of insects and fish.

With a snap of a claw, Iqelis spoke again.

”There is no virtue in pure obstinacy. I have struck down one who would in time have hampered not only my work, but your own designs as well.”

The Monarch of All’s eyes flared with an intense glow as He allowed the words of Iqelis to stew before offering His own response. Though a sigh seemed to signify annoyance at having to once more sit through visions and thought, rather than speech. With a clasp of two of His hands together, the great Lord of the Gods spoke once more in the same commanding tone, offering little respite, His voice boomed in frustration.

”You are out of line to say that my design would have been hampered, Iqelis! You know not my will other than my orders to create a world and fill it with life, not to kill another god and bring about more of an ending!”

He stopped for a moment, holding His speech before slyly leaning back within His seat and bringing the tips of all of His hands together. Once more, speaking but this time with a voice that conveyed a sneer and mockery, He said with a light chuckle.

”Yet, for a god so bent upon entropy and decay, you have created life. I have seen it. That ‘thing’ that came from the shell. You truly are bold for allowing such an abomination to exist, surely for a half-breed to exist would be against my design, no?”

”Do not taunt me over that, Lord of Beginnings!” Iqelis drew up, the many pairs of his hands folding together at the knuckles one after the other. Though he was still dwarfed by the Monarch’s presence, by some trickery of the light his shadow stretched over the mouth of the rift like a long arm. ”I know full well that her life is in breach of laws far greater than us both. And still I will not have one of mine suffer for a mistake that was not hers. Would you turn your hand against yourself, if you happened to unravel a corner of your creation’s weave? You may not shrink from sacrifice,” a dark finger pointed at the shining wound in the Great One’s chest, ”But bloodshed is not the only guise it may take, nor the integrity of creation the only cause it may honour.”

The Monarch of All was silent for a moment, contemplating the words of Iqelis in an air rife with tension and growing anger before it was quickly cut by the Monarch of All’s shadow appearing behind Iqelis, His visage gone from the rift within a fraction of a second. His gargantuan form loomed over the entropic god, standing just beyond the island and within the oceans of Sala. The four hands of the Monarch of All bore claws far fiercer than Iqelis’ own, though now they rested at His side. His voice cast out all other noise; the wave, the wind, all gone.

”And yet you do not share that same mercy towards your fellow lords. Why should I impart any mercy upon you at this moment? After all, I could merely end you just as you had to him. They share your blood, just as you share blood with me. Clearly, a kinslayer such as yourself does not care, though.”

Under his withering glare, the lesser divine lowered himself into a ghast-like crouch again, arms folded at his sides like a crystalline spider’s segmented legs, but still he stared up with the symbolic defiance of a lurking snake.

”Without me, who would turn the Flow?” hissed the friction of a glacier against the granite mountainside, ”Who would ensure that your universe was not washed away faster than your thralls can build it? Aletheseus contributed nothing to the workings of the cosmos, but I am not him, and I cannot be drowned in the Last Sea as easily.”

”You have done nothing but bring destruction and turmoil to my realm! You, Iqelis, have done little more than be a pest! You do not ensure that things are erased for you are the very cause of it!”

His voice split caused waves of water to erupt, the very land of the island that Iqelis was splitting as the Monarch of All’s anger grew and grew. The great one pointed to the moon of Yudaiel, a single claw pointing at the enemy of Iqelis, as He spoke in anger once more.

”She was punished for her sins and now it is time for yours!”

As He spoke, the supreme deity allowed a moment for the lands to stop their trembling and for the waters to calm themselves before He spoke once more upon judgement. Animosity was held back within His voice, a clear desire to end the God of Doom like the very insects that he had spawned, though he did not act upon it. The Monarch of All gave His statement in a near quiet hiss towards His subject.

”You will send your abomination, Ea Nebel, to collect the shard of Aletheseus for me. However, for her, you will impart four separate trials to prove her worth so that she may not be ended by my hand. Yet, should you hold back upon any of these trials, I will end both her and you. Am I understood?”

As the waves and tremors settled around them, there was stillness for a moment. It was not merely the silence of the Tlacan, but the ominous torpor of a gathering tempest, the fog itself darkening as it collected after being stirred and the sky turning anxiously leaden.

Then the clouds burst.

Iqelis was no longer crouching, nor was he standing low at the Monarch’s feet. His umbral body stretched to the heavens, a skeletal mountain of many-armed night, rivalling the stature of the Prime God himself - though unlike in him, there was no true substance in its fluid darkness, but merely the illusionary embodiment of wrathful pride. Atop this terrible eikon there shone a beacon of cold, hungry light, which drew all radiance from the world into itself and spat out chilling scorn and suffocating shadow. The sky swam with the distorted view of a rushing tide of stygian water, whether vomited out from the one-eye or pouring out from unseen angles of existence which had until then mercifully concealed its rippling and roiling. Towering clouds of buzzing vermin whipped around this figure of apocalyptic prophecy, threatening to fill the world with swarming legs and bloody bulbous eyes.

”Challenge me all you will, Old One, and I shall put every petty trial to shame,” the One God’s voice was the wail of all terrestrial and astral spheres crying out in the grip of preternatural torment, ”But leave her out of your games, or you will rue the day when you rashly spilled your ichor into the void. Every drop and every pebble of the Galbar will come unwound before your eyes, your sun will putter out like the most pitiful of sparks, and your despair alone will remain to mourn when you pass into oblivion.”

”I have spoken my will, Iqelis. Thus, it shall be done, lest you’d rather me end you here and now for your transgressions. You cannot challenge me through might, you know such things, that is why you prey upon the weak.”

”Perhaps not I alone,” the immense shadow grew longer and thinner, its voice more dry and sibilant, ”But what would your vaunted champion the Earthheart think if you snuffed out the one he cherished so? What would be the word of she of the spear, so devoted to your service now, if you dissipated that which bears her essence? Your loyalty does not reach as far as your hand, First Source, and you know that. Will you stoke that flame further to satisfy your whim?”

A scoff came from the Monarch of All, gazing upon the form of Iqelis as if He had a cruel grin crossing His blank features. He wrapped His arms around His back, unafraid of the threats that Iqelis made to His face, almost admiring his boldness for such a display. Then, as if the silence returned in force, He spoke in a snide, condescending tone.

”Four trials, Iqelis. I will have Ruina, She who Tests, watch to ensure you do not interfere with the success of your progeny and ensure that you do not hold back after all. Additionally, Homura will make sure you uphold this.”

The Monarch of All took a singular step back, the bridge to the Divine Palace opening behind Him and casting a light that was too much for the hungry light of Iqelis’ form to consume. He allowed a few parting words to grace the One God, His words echoing and consuming the thoughts of Iqelis as what could be a threat resonated through the air. Once the utterance was finished, the Monarch of All stepped into the bridge and disappeared from Iqelis. Despite no longer being there, His words continued to echo.

”I look forward to meeting Ea Nebel.”

The great white eye glared at his tracks for a few more instants, then the shadows melted into the sea, and the otherworldly penumbra was gone. All that was left was Iqelis’ spindly silhouette, no longer swollen with horrid glamours, but staring out at the immobile wastes once again. Yet now his sight was no more darkened with despondent meditation, for a bright and cruel resolve had taken its place, woven with the sneering eagerness of arrogance rising to a challenge. The god loped over to where the seven unmoulded humans still stood, miraculously intact after the titanic altercation that had shaken the world around them.

”Your doom was always sealed, Old One, as was that of us all,” he creaked, a familiar crooked smile finding its way into his voice.

He reached out with seven arms, and seven taloned fingers plucked out an eye from each of the stolid faces. None of the seven would ever vaunt a wider sight than that of their master.

”But I did not guess you were so eager to meet it.”

Tamo was a Scholar, and never one to travel much. He was also an Exile. This moderately awkward juxtaposition had left him in rather tense standing among the Academy faithful, who seemed sometimes uneasy around him, and other times angry that he hadn't left yet. Was his kind a spy, an infiltration by blasphemers? Would he wriggle into their heads with innocent words, undermining their loyalty and tempting them to gaze up at that sinful orb? The Moon was very beautiful, thought Tamo, and it was a shame that his brethren quite refused to acknowledge it. But he never spoke about it. In time he was glad he didn't, because, despite their differences on the lunar question, the Archive Kynikos grew accustomed to his comings and goings, and the guards, once again, felt more like a shield than a threat.

"Good day, brother," called a somewhat familiar voice, and Tamo looked. The Ranger's name was Meritala, if he recalled correctly (but he always did), one of the many exile rangers who had remained on the Academy island to map it thoroughly. Much of the preliminary scouting being now finished, Meritala had spent the last few weeks combing the rocky shore for sea-caves. "When I last drew maps in the Archives, I saw you here, in this very spot, facing the same way. Have you moved at all since?" For most species, this would be considered a 'joke'.

Tamo shook his head. "I am watching whales," he announced. Meritala's hood tilted a little. "I have been watching whales for some time," he elaborated. "Look over there," he said, pointing out far into the ocean with a gloved finger, "I see some now."

The glow of Meritala's eyes dimmed in a long and earnest squint, but he saw nothing. The whales were there, he was sure (a particularly hard-headed true believer might have attributed it to lunacy), but he didn't quite understand what he was looking for. "Pardon my ignorance, Tamo, I'm not sure I understand. What is a whale?"

"It is a particularly large breed of fish," said Tamo, still staring out at the unknown seas. "They are gill-less, with horizontal tail-fins. For this reason, I believe they must be closely connected with dolphins, as are the orcas. You can recognise them by their puffing at the water's surface. There- they are puffing now." Meritala looked carefully, and saw that it was true: large, smooth shapes were disturbing the water, blasting tiny clouds of mist as they went.

"There are many kinds," Tamo continued. "The ones you see now puff a distinctive bifurcated spray, as if blowing from two nostrils. In fact, the spray emerges from the back of the head. They are further known by their rounded body, which has a disproportionately large mouth, and black skin, patched with white. They call often under water, like songbirds. In this they are not to be confused with another singing whale, which I call the joyful kind, for its jumping and splashing. It is also common, and frequently has irregular patches of white that may cover much of the body; but they have narrower snouts, an angular build, and long, notched fins."

Meritala nodded. The knowledge was delicious to him. He could feel it whet his appetite for more. Such books, that could be written of the sea! "What of that one, Tamo? I think I see another approach."

"Ah! Well sighted, my friend. That is another kind altogether, of the thin, fast variety, which we call rorquals. I recognise it by the ridge towards the end of the tail, but it is coming towards us, and you will soon notice, if you look carefully, a pale, twisted streak on its back. I call it the pale-jawed kind, for when it rolls onto its side, you see the same kind of marking on the right side of the jaw- but not the left. It is easier to spot from underwater, or from the high towers of the Archives- You should try it, Meritala, they are quite delightful to see from above. The guards don't bite."

The ranger shrugged, shook his head a little. "Ahhh, I should rather prefer to try it from the top of some cliff or mountain. Tell me more about this whale, Tamo, my journey's not been fruitful, but I am yet to experiment with the patience of the faithful for mere sustenance. It seems curious."

"Indeed," said Tamo, "a little oddly so. The pale-jawed kind does not typically make much use of its eyes above water, but this one has looked our way twice now. They do not call so much, either, especially the females, but there is a particular one about every few months that doesn't seem to shut up."

"Perhaps it sees us," said Meritala, listening for the sound of a distant tail-slap on the sea wind. "Perhaps it is hungry for knowledge, as we are."

"Indeed. They must be quite clever."

"What a blessed animal."

"Absolutely."

---

---

---

It was a dark day over the storming seas of the Galbar, a day so dark that it seemed to consume the very lands of Voligan. A dark miasma threatened the lands with inescapable dark clouds and yet, its source was constantly shifting, always on the move. From Termina to the outer banks of Thousand Lakes and Orsus, the clouds seemed to concentrate to blot out the Divine Palace from view. Panic struck mortals, animals whipped into desperate frenzy knew what the darkness meant, and plants refused to bloom. A battle was coming and the Galbar itself seemed to know as the inner mantle of the planet seemed to echo with battle cries.

Yet, there would be no battle this day, not as long as the great sea serpent was still hunting its elusive quarry, a constant game of cat and mouse. It was a tedious frenzy of movement, the oceans themselves churning as the great war beast of the Monarch of All refused to relent and the Pariah refused to be caught. However, up in the Divine Palace, the Monarch of All sat upon His throne and gazed down upon the growing darkness. He saw that darkness swirled over the world and He could not help but feel the need to investigate where His new enemy had decided to come from. So, the Monarch of All stood from the Jade Throne and opened the bridge once more, yet, he did not step through it.

The Monarch of All hesitated in stepping upon the Galbar, not out of fear or threat of the great Pariah that distantly loomed, but of the sight that He came upon. He saw a mountain range, Serendipity’s End, and could nearly gaze upon the gravesite that had been erected for Asheleven. It seemed that He was right to chastise Yudaiel when He had, but He knew that, in a sense, He had essentially killed off a part of Himself as all the gods were an extension of His very being, whether they liked it or not. The murder of Asheleven was nothing more than Him continuing to weaken and deteriorate; the wound ached at the thought. Worse yet, He could see that the shard of Luck, the very being of Asheleven, was not something that He could recover as the shard had been smashed and ground to dust compared to Him; now it was nothing but bloody diamonds scattered across the mountains.

Finally mustering the strength to step into the graveyard, the Monarch let loose a single breath as the lands parted beneath Him once more, forming a great stairwell that descended into the dark rock below. He continued walking, taking His time to inspect the walls as He descended before turning and making a long hallway that stretched beyond what would be the horizon of the planet. The Monarch of All came upon a sphere, one that was sinister and imposing, yet shined as if it were made of onyx. At a time before the gods, He had once thought it had been impenetrable, unable to be opened from the inside, and yet, here He was, gazing upon a part of the sphere that had been shattered and broken.

To think that such a seal could be broken by the likes of nothing more than a mere beast of war. The Monarch hated the thought, but knew that He had to come to terms with such a fact that the seal had indeed been broken. Though, He noted that the cracks had formed along the outside of the cage, not fully penetrating the onyx sphere; the gods in making Galbar had weakened the structure. The Monarch of All reared His head back and let loose a call to the gods, His divine will being carried by the very winds themselves.

”Homura, Highest Judge of the Monarch, I ask of you look to maintain the law of my realm, ensure that none dare break the bounds the tie us. Chailiss, whose Breath bears Icy Winds, make known that Homura’s judgement reaches all should she say so.”

The Monarch of All let loose a breath before looking to the ground and seeing the great tracks left behind by the beast, the pariah, and decided to look to where it led. He saw that it led straight up, He needed not track where it went, however, as He had already fought and sent a hound after the beast. Yet, He knew it to be better safe than to regret it later, but He was no hunter tracking a quarry to the ends of the planet. His voice became quiet, only carried by the softest winds so that no other would be able to hear His message.

”Tuku, my Master of the Hunt, I require your aid.”

Violence shook the world. Great and terrible forces played out across the land, rending and tearing at Galbar, opening wounds on its surface as great as those sustained by the Lord of Reality himself. In any direction she could sense the spawn of that great being fighting and dying. Creating and destroying. It was as it had been from the very moment Sala was born.

She paid it little mind. The reverberations of powers bound and unleashed pushed and pulled at her, but not as more than waves upon the surface of the sea. Sala had returned to the world, released by her fallen brother and her creator, but her thoughts remained in the palace where she had seen the consequences of her own reckless creation.

Of her existence. It bothered her. She and Ao-Yurin were as close to siblings as any of the Monarch’s court. Their aspects combined so readily that she struggled to feel the wrongness of the pairing. When she had first touched water it had been bliss. To allow herself to dissolve and be carried across the world in the tides and currents was a joy she’d hoped to share with her sibling. Now? She alone experienced it, and it felt hollow. Ao-Yurin had died for her to feel what had been only natural to them.

Sala felt the ocean as she spread through it. She’d allowed herself to be washed away after returning to Galbar, meaning to fulfill her promise. Intending to assume her stewardship. Instead she’d sat, languid, listening to the world in the language of waves. Unable to move forward so readily. Unwilling to ignore the truth of what she heard happening all around her dispersed being. That the world her Lord had created was dangerous, unfair, even cruel. Sala stewed, the irrefutable evidence of her realization spelled out in the distant chaos that moved even the sea, even her. In the death of Water's first master. She had been created in a way that doomed Ao-Yurin, and she felt conflicts of the same nature playing out everywhere. Their consequences dooming more besides.

She watched as seeds of intelligence were cast aside and left to drown, victims of an aggression far beyond them. One that never considered their presence. It was terrible and inevitable, Sala felt. Aspects that clashed and the full powers of divinity unleashed in the struggle, what could hope survive that? She hated it. She hated the kindness the Monarch had shown her after she had contributed to it. The way things were could not stand, or everything would find itself a victim of circumstance. Everyone.

She wouldn’t accept it. She was not born integral to the world, nor had Ao-Yurin been. If they both could change that, damn the consequences, then why not this? Why secure only the seas? Sala, a mind spreading through the water of the world, hatched upon an idea. Her promise could serve to do more than secure the seas. Thinking beings desired their careless annihilation no more than she did, they only required the tools.

Sala began to reform, at last, with the solution to her troubles growing clearer in her imagination. She directed herself to grow into a unified being once more at the precipice of Ruina’s ignorant ‘test’ of the ocean. One of a number of vast expanses of the ocean floor left exposed, the water that should have obscured the desolate land held back by an unseen divine power. It would be the first to fall.

If destruction was too easy, too appealing, then she only had to make it harder. The Goddess of Salt sat, whole, beneath a mile of water. Before her, the edge. She poked and prodded at it, and she knew its mere existence had doomed countless creatures already. Beyond the wall of water sat a pile of corpses, mummified by salt that rained down from the turbulent ocean as it raged against its confinement.

Sala took shape as a woman with countless arms, grasped a passing fish, and reached into its being as she started to weave. She’d come to know flesh, and she knew it to be too weak for what she needed. So she extracted every muscle, every fiber, every minuscule strand of matter that made the fish what it was, and imbued them all with the tiniest shred of divinity. The fish could not thrash as she remade it, but she felt its desire to.

A price. It would emerge greater. Scales became milky white crystals, bones turned to shimmering iridescent metal, and the animal's flesh began to glow with bound power. When she was done a brilliant shining creature sat before Sala, an immortal being that carried her power, her intent. So long as there was power for the creature to eat, it would endure.

When one was done she simply allowed it to swim away, and when it swam towards the barrier Ruina had erected? The edifice of divinity began to leak as the humble fish nibbled at it. Soon the fish was left flopping on the dry land beyond, but where it had breached the vast unseen wall? A torrent of water erupted out. It's circumstances wouldn't harm the animal too badly, but if they did? Sala did not need that one.

Moving walls of precipitating salt herded millions of fish towards her, and one by one she worked upon them. Mortal blood dyed the water around her dark red as she disposed of it. All that the fish were had to be changed, and much needed to be discarded. And every time Sala finished one of her creations? Another hole was torn in Ruina’s barrier.

When it finally shattered and the ocean rushed back in, Sala hardly even noticed. Ruina’s influence would extend for countless years to come, the fish had only broken the barrier, not undone the divine working. Smaller holes would open at random all across the ocean in the future, but they too would be found and destroyed. Her creations made certain of that.

Of course, fulfilling her promise had only been half the effort. Oh yes, the fish blessed with a shred of her divinity would seek out and consume the energy of that which threatened the seas, but that was only the beginning. Their flesh was what Sala had poured her energy and thought into, and that was not without reason.

Those mortals who consumed the fish would grow stronger, less vulnerable. They would not sicken from poisons, nor would they choke on water. Their muscles would grow stronger in a way only the influence of divinity could explain, and their skin would resist all but mortal blows. It was a litany of blessings, but in a way Sala’s gift was her absolution. A way to atone for a crime she'd never intended. But it was not a gift without cost. Agelessness like the fish had could be obtained by feasting on nothing but their bodies, but only if one was willing to withdraw from the chaos and danger of land. The ocean was to be Sala’s, and those who wanted her protection would have it so long as they remained within her power.

The world was a cruel place, and she would ensure the willing survived it. A promise as great as the one she’d made to Ao.

In those days the seas grew lush- lush beyond measure.

Vast was the expanse of blue sea that stretched beyond the clasped hands of the continent, and bright colour swirled therein as if stirred in by a paintbrush. Fish they had known, and water-bugs too, the little cyclopes, but never such a bounty as these: whirring, kicking animals, their stalked eyes black and fearful, cast about in the cold water like a muddy cloud, as abundant as raindrops.

The whales gorged. Fish alone had allowed many a race of whales to make far forays into the endless ocean. Now the gift of krill had shattered the chains that bound them to shore, and there was no limit to their travel; they crossed the planet whole, freer than condors. Even the lonesome giants of the ice had come to wander south, lording over all others with their unspeakable bulk. The whales grew fat on that bounty, and the sea did not cease to provide; swallowing shoals of plankton and forage-fish without number, they became mothers, and soon they were countless.

Hot with passion was the young bull then. The whale grew and grew until its very bones would let it grow no more, and then, one day, it was not a young bull at all but a mighty one, a titan of song and muscle, stoked with the fire of life and hunger. It leapt from the warm green waters of the southern summer, and the crash of its fall was an avalanche. Many were the rivals that heard it, and answered with strong song; no longer alone would this great bull be!

And yet, even in the battle-season where bulls won cow and heifer, the whale did not throw itself into the lifelong company of its kind, for which it had so yearned in the north. Even now, this bull was a wandering bull, a straggler, a stray, and the breadth of the unknown ocean called to it.

By day the imperial Sun did rise, and the whale gave chase as it fled to the West; by night travelled the injured Moon, and the whale followed, swimming through a sleep rich in dreams. So far west the whale travelled that it circled Galbar, and arrived on the rich coasts of Orsus.



There in the East the whale did play, and feed, and roam the bright coast, filled with life long before the wide ocean had ever been seeded. An abundance of rivers washed curious smells down from the forests, and strange shore-fish had grown to be shoal-fish, as they had in the sea of giants. The wandering bull met many whales there, most quite like itself, sleek blue and grey rorquals filling the water with pulses of their low, mumbling song. Skilled fishers they were, and they showed the whale how to cage whole shoals in the bubbles of its breath, a fine dance in which the joyful singing whales of the central sea had not permitted it to take part, their white-black wings guiding them to spin elegant circles the rorqual could not hope to match.

Friendly were those eastern whales, but distant, and they were not its own. Their song was not the same, no matter how the whale twisted and turned its working ear, and their bodies did not bear the markings of its race. Every time it lifted its eye from the surface, the fin of their backs reminded the whale that it was not among family. Their bulls would not challenge it, nor was there any sport in challenging them, for there was no cow among them suited for the northerner, and the only tension was the far cooler matter of food. For many years already had fish filled these waters, and of ordinary size they were, though their shape be primitive. There was only so much room for yet another whale to come and forage in these populated waters.

So the whale travelled on, far to the south, until the sun one day rose, and did not shine.

Caught in the queer dimness, the whale turned and tossed and lifted its eyes up from the water and could find no source for the haze, not even a smell. It skimmed the water for cyclopes, and found them in plenty. It sang out to the fishing rorquals, and one answered with lazy calm. The whale returned north, a little way, and the sun soon brightened again.

Most puzzling was this darkness cast by no cloud! The whale had seen quite enough sorcerous water-borders in its youth, and was wary of this one. But all was well. The shade of heaven left the tropical sea no less warm, and the whale learned those seas to be safe. It entered the shadow, and crossed it without fear, once more emerging into light.



The whales of the south were small compared to the bull. They were vocal, fond of repeating their curious songs, now a long string of brisk beats flowing up and down like the tide, now a drumming growl, ba-brmm, ba-ba-ba-brrr... They ate what they could find, be it krill or forage or cyclopean plankton or prickly rock-fish roaming the shallow shore in schools, and were little troubled by the large stranger, though it swept up at once forage-patches that would take them three passes to clear.

The whale had encountered them before, and knew that their lot was a troubled one. Small enough to thrive on seas that would starve a giant like itself, they were small enough, also, to fall frequently prey to the all-conquering hunger of the orca. Perhaps it was that hunger which had chased them to travel so far south, in some vain and desperate hope to run from the invincible rip and tear of those hunters.

To the wandering bull, they were like children, perhaps trapped forever in the calf's nightmare of drowning and death- and yet, they travelled alone, swift and fearless, their hearts as bold as the great titans of the icy north. Strange indeed! Still, they were rorquals, like itself, even patterned in much the same way, and it was grateful for their occasional company.

Having lived in the open waters of the far south for longer than itself, the whale faintly expected their range to continue as the southern waters became cold again, the winter nights long. It swallowed down krill and fish at leisure at that far latitude, uncontested, singing its low beat all on its own.

A fell current found it there, alone in those waters, and the whale's appetite began to wane.

It did not cease its journey south, seeking another clear bright shore among the well-salted ocean, as it always had before. The sea remained quiet, and the krill was bitter in its mouth. The wandering bull would have journeyed far, even alone, even on an empty stomach, as it had done when it was young. The memories of that hungry voyage to the island-of-air grew clearer and clearer, poisoning its dreams until they became real.

Once again, a sorcerous barrier corrupted the waters in front of the whale.

There was no celestial enchantment casting this haze. It hung in the waters before the wandering bull, a noxious green stain that mocked life. It was like a cloud of silt that did not settle, but rose instead to loiter at the surface, another cruel trick of demented gravity. The water there was foul in the whale's mouth; its blowhole burned when it surfaced, and even the lice on its skin, grown thick again from its long journey uncleaned, seemed to writhe and die at the touch of the cloud.

The wandering bull did not touch that streak of corruption. It followed, cautiously, the westwards path of the cleaner waters beyond the cloud, occasionally circling to turn its good ear towards the cloud. The only sound came from far ahead. It might have been mistaken for the song of some still more bizarre race of whale, had it not been so relentless, and so stationary.

It clicked, and growled, and moaned low, unspeakably angry and pained, horribly un-alive. Wary of sorcery, yet afraid of nothing in these orca-less waters, the whale approached, and as it did so the cloud grew ever lower, tighter, darker, its corruption concentrated in one narrow stream- a single line of monstrous pollution billowing from a deep reef, a stunted island that had never grown tall enough to touch the surface, or feel moonlight.

Anger!

The noise was deafening. The shape was unlike anything the whale had yet seen. The whale dived deep into the blue dark, shielded by its ruined ear. It dared not approach this growling monster, shuddering and breathing yet sunk like a carcass. Such a poison that had been laid upon the ocean by a curse no larger than its own body-

Anger! Pain!

The whale levelled its eye at the light of the blue ocean beyond the curse, beyond the cloud, beyond the reef. There, somewhere, was a new sea, a clean sea, on the other side of the barrier. The whale twisted and twisted and listened for something it did not know, something it knew lay there where the night was so long the sun never rose, for the alien song of eldritch whales that knew no shore at all-

-but the sound of the curse was deafening, and the whale had only one ear.



So ended the journey of the wandering bull. Starving and sickened, the whale fled north to the bright waters of the central sea, where green meant life, and so did song. Its appetite returned with a roar, and its flaking skin grew back clean. By the time it returned to familiar shores, the summer call of mates had lit fires in its heart, and young bachelors flinched back from the song of the bull who had travelled the world.

It was a wanderer, like no other whale- but it was a whale, still, proud! Great was that whale, and is still, crossing these oceans to this very day!

Aye, it is a whale!

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