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Enzayne
Goldeagle1221
wintersoldier
Cyclone
Vec
Tim the Yeti
Fetzen
Crusader Lord
Timemaster
It wavered with uncertainty, hanging over a lifeless barren world, with a cold, dead star. It was a smothering blanket, destined to snuff out a fire it could never start. There was nothing here. Nothing but a broken dream. A failed purpose. It was time to move on, to begin again in another part of the vast, but empty, canvas. Perhaps then it would succeed.
No.
It watched it fail, time and time again. Watched it build, and it watched it break. Slowly it began to feel sadness, pity, remorse, and longing. With such feelings, came other emotions. Things it had never felt before. For that stemming consciousness, it began to realize it wanted nothing more than to help what it was apart of. It wanted it, the struggling thing, that which lacked purpose, that which smothered the flame--It wanted it to be happy and to succeed! When it could bare to stand by any longer, she became.
She reached out into the dark, a golden hand, tearing apart the fabric which held her. Another slender hand next, followed by her naked body as she pulled herself up and out. She stood upon the space between spaces and blinked as she looked around. A smile slowly etched itself onto her lips as her blue eyes surveyed what could be.
Then came the first laughter. Small and rising, like she was being tickled all over. She could hardly contain herself. A wonderfully joyous thing, like an ember in a dark night, slowing building to a roaring flame. For she was alive!
And she was Life! It rang with crystal clarity, her purpose, her very being. For that was what had been missing all along. She could finally help what it was, what she knew it to be, the blood of creation… The Lifeblood.
In the same moment, as if mirrored in a lake, the fabric behind her tore open, too. A contrast to the bright, glistening ember manifested as a deep blue glow, before a minute flash of clear white exploded behind her back. That light disappeared nigh immediately and left behind a purple shadow, patterned with stripes and rings of the colour of the earlier flash. Its eyes of the same light blue sheen blinked at the emptiness of space, before dark lips parted to reveal pale, grinning teeth. She turned at the sound of laughter, eyeing up and down the sunlike flame, and she knew she loved it immediately. With burning twinkles in her eyes, she floated over to the creator of Life, grabbed her by the hands and exclaimed: “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen - what’s your name?”
At the onset of the touch the girl turned to the new figure, one just as beautiful as she was, even more so. Her eyes widened as she touched the smooth face of the girl, eliciting a feeling of cold that gave her a shiver. A joyous laugh escaped her throat as she hugged the girl, exclaiming, ”Sister! It’s so good to meet you!” she said pulling away and taking both her hands within her own. She seemed lost in her own thoughts, for she did not speak right away, but a flash of recognition came across her face followed by a look of surprise. ”Oh! My name?” She went silent, as she scrunched her nose and contemplated such a thing. What was a name? And then she knew, for all things needed names, and she was no exception. With a sudden twinkle in her eye she smiled again and proclaimed, ”Oraelia! My name is Oraelia. Who might you be, oh beautiful?”
“Who-... Who am I?” The dark girl blinked away in a flustered manner before a seemingly obvious answer lit her face up once more. “Why, I am your sister, of course! That’s what you said, right?”
Oraelia giggled. ”I know that, silly. But what should I call you? You call me Oraelia, I call you…” she said, waiting.
The girl seemed unclear. “Is, is there something wrong with the designation you’ve given me? You’re Oraelia - I’m your sister.” The girl cocked her head to the side and put on a wry smile.
”Oh, I see!” Oraelia said enthusiastically. ”You’re thinking too hard! You see, you are my sister. We are siblings. This is correct. But it isn’t your name. Just like I am your sister, I have a name. Oraelia. Perhaps you need a little help? OOOOH! Can I give you a name? Can I?” she said, jumping up and down in the void.
The girl’s smile widened and she instantly joined in her sister’s enthusiasm. “Yes! Yes, please! Give me a name, sister!”
She gave her a quick hug and looked upon her sister with a ruminating gaze. ”Let’s see… Xi- No no, that doesn’t fit. Yu- No, that doesn’t fit either.” Meanwhile, the dark girl seemed close to exploding with excitement. “G-Gib… Gibbou!”
“Gesundheit!” the girl replied faithfully.
Oraelia blinked before she bursted out laughing. It took her a moment to compose herself before she looked at Gibbou again. ”No-no, your name! That’s you, you're Gibbou! Do you like it?”
Gibbou blinked and spoke the name to herself, tasting its syllables, its vowels and consonants. A soft flash seemed to pulse in her eyes, empowered by an ever-widening smile on her lips. The bright eyes focused on Oraelia’s own grin and Gibbou unleashed a euphoric squeal and plunged into her sister’s arms for another embrace. “I’m Gibbou! I’m Gibbou! Your sister, Gibbou!” She purred a giggle. “Thank you, Oraelia, for calling me such a beautiful name.”
She held Gibbou tightly, stroking her hair. ”No no, thank you, Gibbou. For existing with me. I did not know that I needed you before you arrived, and now, I could not imagine what’s to come without you.” she said softly.
Gibbou pulled away somewhat and raised a curious brow, her bright eyes staring intently into Oraelia’s. “What -is- to come, Oraelia?”
The Goddess of Life smirked. ”Something wonderful. Even now I feel its pull. Calling to me, to fulfil what is needed.” she then pointed at the cold dead thing, far past the barren rock, small yet huge in her eyes. ”I shall create light, and with it-” she then pointed to the brown canvas before them, ”Comes life. Precious, beautiful life. Can’t you feel it Gibbou. That need, deep down inside, to create and build? It’s our purpose here, to help the Lifeblood. To be it’s painters. Won’t it be amazing?” she said, her voice dripping with anticipation.
Gibbou blinked at the stone in the distance. She then looked back at Oraelia’s excited expression. She shifted back and forth once more before nodding frantically. “Yes! I don’t know -when- I started feeling it, but I suddenly have an indescribable urge to create - just like you do! When do we start? Right now? Right now, right? Oh, I just have a million different ideas about what I wanna make! Something black - like, really black. Oh, but it glows in the dark, which somehow is even blacker!” She looked back at Oraelia. “What’re we waiting for?”
”Right!” she said letting go of Gibbou. ”Let’s see! If I focus…” she said, raising a hand toward the dim light so far away. She shut her eyes, and reached out to it. In a matter of seconds she felt the dying mass of dim light and cold fusion. A sad smile crossed her lips, as she looked in and saw its potential, unused and untouched. This would not do.
“Go, sis!” Gibbou cheered in the background.
She began to pour her energy into it, bit by bit, and the Lifeblood helped. Gradually, the small light became larger, warmer and began to radiate the same golden hue that comprised her own body. What was once a dead thing, became alive in a torrent of heat, blazing into an inferno unrivaled. For to give life, it needed to be the ultimate beacon for it. A champion to bring wondrous light into the canvas. With a final push, the sun was born in a chorus of solar energy, that stretched it’s rays across the horizon of space. It illuminated the barren rock before the two, like never before, giving it a better picture, or more defined reason. Oraelia faltered for a moment when the task was done, but her smile never left her lips as she looked upon her first born.
“Woah!” exclaimed Gibbou a distance away. “It’s so warm! And bright!” She toned down the excitement a little and her voice was flavoured with light pain. “... Actually, it’s really bright - I…” She turned her back to it and rubbed her eyes. “Oh, that’s just… Ow. Ow.”
In a flash, Oraelia pulled Gibbou into her chest and rotated them, so her own back was to the sun. A worried look was on her face. ”Oh Gibbou! Are you okay? I didn’t know it would hurt you.” she said with remorse in her voice.
Gibbou squeezed back for an instant, but seemed to squint no matter where she looked, closing her eyes almost entirely when looking towards her sister’s first child. “No, it’s okay, I-... I didn’t know it’d hurt me, either.” Her lip began to tremble. “Why is it that when my sister makes something so beautiful, it hurts so badly to look at it? Why, Oraelia?”
It was a question that gave Oraelia pause. Why did the light hurt Gibbou so much? She looked over her sister, truly gazing upon her features. So like her own, yet different, and it was that difference that gave her the answer she sought. ”Gibbou… I think I know. We are sisters you and I. I am of the sun and I think… I think you are the opposite. You said so yourself, how you wanted to create something black, really black.” she said playfully. ”Something so black that it glows in the dark. You need to create something that blocks the sunlight, so that it does not hurt you when you wish to look upon it.” she said, patting her on the back.
“Opposite?” Gibbou asked with hard-closed eyes. “You mean… I’m anti-you?! But I don’t want that-- ow!” She gave her left eye a soothing rub. “... Okay, something to block the light… Like, like a shield?”
”Yes! A shield Gibbou!” Oraelia encouraged as she wondered if Gibbou was anti-her. She didn’t want that either.
Reaching out blindly, she eventually managed to coordinate her hands to clap together. A deafening shockwave blasted outwards, hammering and drumming at the walls of reality. Lifeblood coursed around her body like streams of invisible water defying gravity and coalesced between her palms, forming a molten mass of rock. Gibbou, eyes still closed shut, pulled her arm back and threw the molten rock in front of herself. As soon as it left her palm, it expanded violently, shattering and reforming over and over as the cooler surface cracked open from the pressure of the berserking core. Gibbou opened her eyes for a moment to look at her work, and lost all colour in her face when she saw the growing rock was propelling itself straight towards the distant planet they had been tasked with safeguarding. Darkness warped around her and in the blink of an eye, Gibbou blasted through time and space, appearing between the speeding rock and the planet. Now that the sphere was between her and her sister’s child, she could see clearly. She raised her hand and boomed, “STOP!” And stop, it did - a comfortable 384 000 kilometres from the planet behind her, if her measurement was accurate. She took a deep breath and floated down to the lightless surface of her little sphere, where she unleashed the longest sigh of her lifetime.
Oraelia soon arrived, with a large grin on her face. ”You did it Gibbou! You created!” she said, embracing her again. ”I’m so proud of my little sister!”
Gibbou giggled proudly to herself. “How did I even do that? Okay, nevermind that, actually - I just really want to do it again!” And so, she grabbed a hold of the darkness around her and pulled it over her head and arms, forming a long-sleeved shirt; she did the same over her legs, forming a pair of trousers. “Hah! It’s so easy!” She pointed at the ground by her feet and a colony of mushrooms, whose only visible indicator of existence was an extremely faint outline of purple, bioluminescent light. Gibbou clapped excitedly to herself. “Everything’s so dark! I love it!”
As soon as she saw the small mushrooms, Oraelia fell to the ground and positioned herself on her stomach, placing her hands to hold up her head as she stared at them with a wide eyed grin. She was fascinated by them, the first of their kind to ever exist and Gibbou had done so on a simple whim. Oh wonderful!
“Oh, check this out!” Gibbou shouted and snapped her fingers. A tiny voice from her hands made wheezing sounds and she knelt down by her comparatively radiant sister to show what she held. It was a tiny, furry, oblong ball, limbed on each side with furled up wings. Its face was tiny, at least in comparison with the disproportionately large ears and triangular nose. Gibbou rubbed it affectionately on the head as it looked around - or rather, didn’t, as it had no eyes. “Isn’t it adorable?” However, as quickly as it had come, the wheezing stopped, and the creature fell limp in her hands. Gibbou gave it a little shake. “Wait, what happened?” She poked its unmoving head gently as her lip began to quiver. “No…”
Oraelia brought herself to her knees and looked upon the furry thing. She blinked rapidly, trying to process what she had just witnessed. After a moment, a pained expression came across her face. She took her hands, and hovered them over the small thing, afraid to touch it. A golden droplet fell upon Gibbou’s hand, followed by more as Oraelia spoke in a voice beset with sadness. ”Gibbou, my love…” she folded her hands around Gibbou’s and looked at her sister, the first tears streaming down her face. ”We have to be… Careful. Don’t you see? That small thing. That was life. More precious than a thousand suns. It’s not your fault, you did not know what would happen. I did not know what would happen. But we do now, don’t we? It needed a home, a place to call it’s own. Where it can survive, and thrive and be beautiful.” She finished with a small smile through her tears.
Gibbou’s own eyes welled up with tears white as quartz. She looked down at the mushroom she had made earlier - it had frozen to death. She pressed the ball of the fist not holding the animal corpse into her left eye and took a number of sharp breaths through her teeth. “It-... It was life - and… And I--...” She sniffed, sobbed and sniffed again. “I won’t ever let it happen again - never!” She put her tear-soaked hand on her sister’s shoulder. “All life that’ll ever be made - I swear, sister - I will keep it safe, see it thrive!”
Oraelia’s grew a small smile, as she wiped away her tears. ”You see… You aren’t my opposite, sister. Just another part that makes the whole greater.” she paused before saying, ”But still… You will tire yourself out if you seek to protect life every waking moment. So… I propose… Only when the night comes, when you are in your element.” she said, nodding.
Gibbou furrowed her brow. “But… But what about life in the day?” She paused to dig two small graves in the lunar soil to house the little animal and the frozen mushroom. “Who will take care of it then?”
”I will, Gibbou.” she said proudly. ”You will safeguard the night and I the day.” she stood up, offering a hand to Gibbou.
Gibbou’s eyes lit up again, but just as she was about to open her mouth, a presence, or perhaps multiple, began to course through the fabric of space and time. The Lifeblood seemed to bubble with energy, and despite its most abstract existence, it felt eerily tangible from all the power coursing through it like an oozing gas. The dark girl looked around before asking her sister, “What’s happening?” as she took her hand.
Oraelia looked up and closed her eyes as she squeezed Gibbou’s hand. She then opened them and looked at Gibbou again with a wry smile. ”Come, GIbbou. We have work to do, and we won’t be doing it alone.”
