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creation myth 2
Nothing.
Nothing was so much.
It- they? she- thought this, and then thought many things, more things than could be told or put together coherently, a cacophonous whirl of sentience which would overwhelm her, if she were something contained, something small, something insignificant.... but she wasn't.
She isn't.
Yes, that's right, she thinks- and yes, thinks, occurring, present, not a one-note thing that had happened and would never happen again. She can think now, is something instead of part of the eternal neverending expanse of nothing. Yet what is she- they? She cannot fill nothing, cannot fill the void which still wraps itself around her so tightly, envelops her so sweetly, but she feels too engulfing, too vast, complex and entwined and conflicting, to be only one thing.
Void is void is stable, permanent, with nothing shifting or twisting or changing it. It's safe, to curl in it for a while longer, a something with no name yet and no form. With time endless and forgiving, she begins to discover herself, themselves, patiently and carefully. She isn't one, she isn't two, but three somethings, three new existences wound in one. Something bubbles through her, erratic but good, a shift in their existences that is- hot, warm and light, joy, yes, that's what it is, and they wind tighter together, elated.
Nothing is so much, but, together, it is a little less.
Yet there should be more than only her and, for the first time, she looks outside of herself. Nothing still stretches infinitely, more than even her boundless existence can see.... but if she simply is, then surely...
Quietly, with purpose, she draws herself together closer, firmer. Nothing has no shape, a formless encompassing thing, but she is not Nothing. She is formless now, but she does not have to be. And so she draws herself together, guides herself, and reaches-
Nothing breaks.
Nothing shatters, and she is not nothing, she is everything, all of it springing into existence, faster and faster and sweeping the stagnancy of nothing away. She is in the brilliance of bright green plants. She is in the jagged sharpness of mountain cliffs. She is in the aching depths of the waters.
She is, she is, she is.
For a while, that is enough.
All of it would be enough, even if she brushed over it with a casual eye, but she doesn't. She takes in every little thing, through breath, through sight, through touch. Everything- what a concept, what a beautiful and amazing reality, one that she is filled with an endless adoration for. Time is not kept track of as she indulges in simply being and all that now entails. So it is impossible for her to say how long she spends playing with this new bud of a world before she finally looks up...
And she realizes that all she has delighted in is, in so many ways, just as stagnant as the void from which she had escaped.
She breathes, and it is the only thing which moves.
Around her, the world is perfectly still. In truth, she knows that it has only moved up until this point because of her attentions. It's only become because of her, and, somehow, that drains the wonder. Even as she kneels there, surrounded by a myriad of color in the form of dozens of different flowers, she has to admit that this is merely "nothing" but in a different shade. She can pretend all she wants, but that's the truth of the matter.
Earth and water can be put together, but it all drifts inch by inch from itself the second she turns her back. Nothing binds it.
Greenery and beasts alike live, but it is a weak existence. They're there, background noise to her burning life. True, there is no ache to them, but there is no need in them, no want.
Perhaps most importantly of all... It is simply static. No stimulus exists outside herself. None of that which she called "life", although created solely from her hands, invents things separate from her own ideas.
And that, she thinks, is the problem. Even being of three minds, she can only surprise herself for so long. Not to mention...
She reaches down and cradles a flower in her palm, the stem sliding so neatly inbetween two of her fingers. So pliable, like so much else in this half-finished world, and its softness tickles at her skin. "It could be an entertaining past time for a while longer," she muses to herself, star-spread black petals brushing the inside of her wrist. "Except that wouldn't solve the problem in the long term, would it? Ignoring all of this doesn't make it go away. In the end, all of this is as unchanging as it was before. But...." She considers how the light splays across the petals, the way it reveals the veins which compose it. "If I can exist, then surely others can, as well."
Surely. It's a thought that, even as she is looking downwards at earth and grass, she is looking upwards toward the sky. Void still stretches, domineering, over everything that is not connected to solid earth. It is nothing. There should be nothing for her. Yet of her eyes, hers are the widest, and the most hopeful, and she sees so much which is not and yet which could be. She sees possibilities.
Most of all, she sees their hair, dark as origin, winding gently up and up and up into it all again. She sees it, and she feels the thrumming of other things longing. Yet there is no push, like her hands shattering the world awake. No power is behind the hum, only potential.
"Surely," she whispers, and stands up.
How does one contain something so massive and encompassing into such a small form as to cusp a flower so delicately? Impossible; she is all and eveywhere and everything, in the end. Yet for a second, in that space, she is tall with shoulders squared for work, and her hair feathers about her shoulders- and then she is all, and reality, and reaching once again.
Past void's veil, she can feel them. She can feel them because they're her, too, in a way, or at least there are the specks deep within her being. (And what can be called specks in an existence that spans as deep and far as hers does?) There is that spark which bore her, the bonds which tied her together, her want of seeing so much more, that painful ache of loneliness, the idea to create at all...
And, swirling it all together....
She presses herself against the void, much how she had first pressed her hand against it once and shattered it. Not so easy this time- there's not even a splinter. Only a ripple shudders at her touch, shivering, wind faintly disrupting the water of a still lake. Beyond, she can feel the others, her kin, stir. It's the creation of the world all over again, flowers turning towards her and mountains springing up in the wake of her footsteps. Yet with them, it's
different.
All the things she creates are empty, yet her kin are anything but. In her, a different spark aches, sighs out different messages to her that she must decipher. I want to change. I want to want. I want to suffer. I want to bind. I want to think. I want discord. The messages beat in her, a rhythm as steady as the pulse of her heart, her core, and her breath would come out shivering if she had breath to give.
Her touch presses in harder. Harder still. Harder, stronger, deeper, and-
She dips into the void.
Oh, how it calls to her. Its first daughter, its only child, breaking all things that were and turning all that is on its head, yet still loved. It calls to her to return, to fall asleep wrapped in nothingness and disperse once more. For just a split moment.... it's tempting. Creation is as empty as the void; why not just rest instead? There's no guarantee that this will work, or that the existence of others will make creation worth living.
But she is not alone. She is herself, and there are other pieces of her: gripping tightly on reality so that she does not fall into enticing oblivion, wrapping firmly around herself in a child's hope. "Not yet," she murmurs to herself, and repeats it again, another voice that is firmer and more certain. "Not yet."
The Void won't have her back just yet.
It won't have these others anymore, either, and she feels something wrapping about her void-entrenched touch. It takes all she is to pull it out, but she is Creation, the beginning of all, and nothing can stop her now. It- they, plural, a pair- stumble out while still holding onto her tightly. They are not like herself, three bound in one, but they are bound regardless, and she can sense the Void quiver. Something vital has been lost for it.... but it's her gain.
Behind her, she can feel the world draw tight, no longer slowly drifting apart while she ignores it. Good- she can't pay it any mind right now as she thrusts a part of herself into the void once more. No time at all is wasted before she's being grasped again, and, while in this form she has no lips to do so with, some part of her smiles. That which is gripping her is so ravenous for the world that is before it, a feeling she knows too well, and she pulls it from the Void as if it were water, the transition is so smooth. Is it because of who she pulled out, or because of who she has in her hold right now?
In the end, it doesn't really matter. She lets her new companion- her new kin float to the side, and, again, dives her touch in. Again, and again, and again, she works on pulling them out.
The one whose form burns-stings-bites at her, painful.
The one whose touch send lightning crackling along her, thoughts sparking along.
The one who twists in her grip, never the same for long, fire as much as ice as much as stars.
And, finally.... One that hums in her grip, energy building up, waiting to be unleashed- that one, when she tugs it forth from the void, makes everything snap, much as she had done once upon a time, and in the pit of her being she can tell that everything has changed once more. She can tell that like she can tell that the void has closed itself off to her, having suffered too much loss from those she has released from its embrace, but that's alright.
All she wants, now she has.
It has not been an endeavor without sacrifice, however. How tired she is, left to drift back down to her newborn world and kin. Yet there is not a bit of her that regrets what she's done. As she lets herself be drawn back to earth, she watches the shapeless soft forms of her kin fall with her. Much like her own existence, they too are spread out through the world and a part of its very foundations. She can feel the changes they have brought even now.
The world is better for it.
Being born is tiring too, she knows. It had been hard to tell, when it was only herself who existed and not even the world, but she supposes it must take a very long while to gather into a solid form. Perhaps they will have difficulty, her new kin, but... she'll just have to trust that they will become as she is: something that is both one and many things.
Although, just judging by how they had felt when she had pulled them all out... She doubts that they are anywhere close to her strange triplicate existence. Perhaps, this way, it is for the better that it will take some time for them to settle. That's time she can use to introduce herself properly. Quietly, she smiles to herself.
She can't wait.
It's easy to pull herself together.
Easy as the ocean joined in crushing waves, easy as birds of the air joining for life, easy as bones to flesh to blood working in tandem. She's not made of any of that, no, but she can still draw herself into a solid form- a solid representation- as simple as anything can be. And as she does it....
There's a mirror before her. No, not a mirror- her double, her partner, and as she forms, so does he. His eyes, brilliant blue. His hair, wheat gold. She can tell that he's not an exact copy of her immediately, because she shapes into existence longer hair that brushes against her shoulders whereas his stays short, and yet.... In sync, perfectly aligned, they form together. As if they were always meant for it, she and him lace their fingers and then look to the rest of the world.
Both of them are in a sprawling field, wind rustling through the grass gently, and, far off in the distance, feeling almost as much as seeing, there is a mountain whose point reaches up desperately to the sky. Yet their surroundings are almost unimportant in a way, especially when compared to the beings directly around them.
It's.... difficult to describe, how pure primordial energy looks like, twisting and gathering, simultaneously a part of the world and yet so other that it can't quite belong. Not purified like this, anyway. All she can describe is how she feels, minuscule little parts of herself being tugged as if caught on spider silk. Somehow, as certain of it as she's certain of the ground beneath her feet, she thinks her counterpart feels exactly the same.
They're connected. All of them.
With their existence solidified, akin to a single rock starting a landside, the others soon quickly follow suit. Fascinated, she watches and feels and hears each new life decide upon itself.
Nearest to her and him- for a given of what near even is with their existences as they are- comes into being someone whose very presence makes her teeth ache. Even as two pairs of eyes watch him, as his skin forms, so too do a myriad of scars warping it before they seem to disappear. Seem to- something deep in her says they're there still, jagged painful things, and that the person with a messy flop of purple hair will always be feeling them from now to eternity.
Besides him, there's someone more pleasant, more wanted, and it takes only a second for her to realize that this is something inherent to the petite figure developing just as much as suffering is to the one between them. Yet knowing the source does not diminish the effect, even as the figure- warps. Changes, twists, still so strongly connected to the frightening unknowable void, still so strange. Yet in the blink of an eye, there they are, an individual with deep purple hair fluttering into place along their shoulders, and glimmering silver eyes surveying all of them.
By the time she can tear her eyes away to the next, he's already settled himself, collected as you please, dark eyes glimmering in fascination. Or... maybe it's not how long it took her to look away, but that he was formed even before then. Something in her seems to click as their eyes meet, like how existence came to her. Sharp, sudden, and changing. He's already smiling, secrets tucked away in the expression like how his long dark braid is wrapped loosely around his shoulders.
Giving him attention seems to be exactly what he wants. Maybe it's petty, but it's for that reason that she looks to the next. He's only partially born, the faintest outlines of a figure in his mess of essence. His eyes are the clearest things, brilliant burning green as he flexes and stretches out his fingers. A hunger much like that of the one in indigo burns in his gaze as he picks apart himself, learning every little thing before he lets it exist solid and defined.
It's going to take him forever before he joins the rest of them, she figures, exasperated, so she finally looks to the last.... and has to stop. He- and, much like the others, she can tell what he is deep in the pit of her- hasn't even bothered to compose a shape for himself. It is there.... she thinks. Chaos twists about him, a swirling mist to obscure anything else, tearing apart grass and making it grow and so much else in equal measure, with no apparent thought or care to whatever really happens. But to let things stay the same...
Is he an antithesis to what she is? To what she is together with her double, her partner? She thinks that, and yet, at the same time, she knows that's not true. Not entirely. Just like all the others gathered here in this plain, there is a part of him within her.
Whatever he is to her, he's not focused on her, or her partner, or their kin. That much, she can tell. With herself completely settled, and everyone in close pursuit if not done yet, she looks to what has his attention so much.
She loves her.
Before her mind has even taken in the appearance of the person who has been so patiently waiting for them, she knows that above all else. The rest- what she looks like- doesn't really matter. She loves her, has perhaps loved her before she could even feel the world beneath her feet and in her core. Perhaps her thoughts, her feelings, her love can all be seen so plainly, because the one who has been waiting for them smiles. In that smile, a simple message.
I love you too.
In her hand, her partner's fingers wind all the tighter around hers. Whatever the others might think- the guy with the scars, or the one smiling- she can't tell. Her eyes are locked on the woman waiting for them.
Besides her, a reflection sending her emotions back to her, she can tell he feels as she does. In this, they are united. Perhaps all of them gathered here together are.
"I'm so glad you're all here.... You're everything I could have hoped for."
Her voice is everything- literally everything, somehow making her think of the smallest things like specks of dirt which press against her knees to her own massive sprawling existence that covers every little bit of this world. Ah. She knows, now, who this person is to her. When they were all tangled up in each other, drowning in the Void... It was this voice which called them.
No wonder she loved her upon first sight.
"I hope it wasn't too difficult to take a form like this," she continues, the smiling curve of her lips pointing to the small brilliant orange mark on her cheek. Her gaze is settled on the guy in green, finally catching up to the rest of them, and the chaotic mess who hasn't bothered. Endless amusement is abound in their savior's stare, and it's enough to make her smirk a little too as if it's contagious. Ridiculous fools, both of them. "But.... we're together now, like this. So I know we'll manage." There's a secret in those words, something that's not being said... but maybe it doesn't need to be.
There's a connection, unseen but there like the air gently brushing against their bodies, that is twined between all of them. If even one manages, then, surely, the others will as well.
And that one is already before them.
"What are we?" asks the green one, sharp and to the point, perfectly in time with indigo's demand of, "I want to know what we are." Both of them pause, sizing one another up, his eyes sharp and curious towards something else now that he's gotten satisfied by investigating his own body, and their head quirked sharply to one side. When their savior speaks, however, both of them look back to her.
"This world." The laugh which follows after is beautiful; she thinks she could listen to it all day. "Or... parts of it." Gently, she rises, and all their eyes track her every movement. "I've had so long to figure out that answer, so that.... I can tell you that much with confidence."
And the first people she lays her hands upon.... are the partnered pair of them who formed first. From the corner of her eye, she can see her partner crack a grin up at the one before them, but his fingers still have not loosened their grip on her. They're there together as she murmurs their name softly. "Loyalty. You're the reason this world has come together, why dirt sticks and beasts connect." Her lips are warm and sweet against her forehead, and then his. "Thank you."
Gratitude. Shouldn't they be the ones giving that to her? Before she can say as much, her loyal partner grins widely and jabs a thumb at himself. "You can always count on us, hey!"
Well, that was an easy way to snap out of it, and she rolls her eyes, not even having to think about the action. "You say that now," she mutters, socking him firmly in the side as their beloved passes them by with a giggle. "But you're such an arrogant idiot, to give that kind of promise when we didn't even know what we were more than a few seconds ago!" As he grumbles and curls in on himself from the force of her hit, she turns away from her partner in Loyalty, and watches as their savior approaches the next in their group.
Or maybe, Loyalty thinks as the petite figure eagerly reaches up to twine their arms around their beloved savior's neck, it's the other way around. There's no protest at the action, at least, only more laughter, and there's an air of smugness around the little figure as she wraps her arms around them in return. "Desire," she says, loving and longing, "because there is no point in things keeping together if there is not a unified want to stay together. The want to know, the want to live, the want to change... You give it all meaning."
The smugness intensifies. "Of course I do," they purr, easing up their grip as their eyes shine now instead a deep blue to match their beloved's own gaze. It follows her movements all the way to the next who has her attention.
She can't even say anything before he's reaching up, fingers curling around the ones which had gone down to cup his face. The look on his face is so- young seems inappropriate to say here, because aren't they all young? Aren't they all still newly created? Yet his seems younger, more immature as he furrows his brows miserably at her. "Why?" he asks, and they all know what he means. There can't be a single straggling crumb of doubt. It's clear in the way the one in red rubs at his fingers, or the newly minted Desire twists their mouth as if tasting blood on their tongue. Loyalty both grind their teeth together.
Why be something that's the embodiment of pain and misery?
From where Loyalty sits, it's so difficult to see her expression, but her thumb glides slowly across his cheek, and somehow that says so much in itself. "If nothing were to change," she says softly, "if all were well with nothing disrupting it, then we would be nothing more than the Void once more. There would be no difference in any existence. Loneliness, pain, misery.... It is not kind, but these things must exist. If there is any kindness to your role... It is that for those and that which will share of you, at least they will not truly be alone in their hurt. Remember that." Leaning in, her lips touch his forehead. "And remember that you are made of more than that, Suffering."
Maybe it reassures him. Maybe it doesn't. All that's obvious is that he eases up beneath her touch, and she sweeps her fingers through his messy hair before leaving Suffering behind.
The one in red is still rubbing his hands a little as she approaches him, but his smile doesn't show any pain. "So much change, so quickly," he says, voice quietly approving, and he laughs alongside her. There's a joke here that Loyalty doesn't think she's getting, and her other half appears to be just as oblivious.
"Do you disapprove?" In response to their beloved's teasing, he only chuckles into a long trail of red fabric.
"Would such a thing even be possible, with what I am being so entwined with this?"
"This and other things," she hums, and, yes, Loyalty is absolutely lost, but neither of the two talking right now seem to be paying much mind to any of the others gathered. This is something for themselves. "Catalyst." Another smile, and from this angle, Loyalty can see her eyes sparkling in amusement. "It says all it needs to, doesn't it?"
"A million words in a thousand ones," he agrees, and ducks his head again as she moves on with a giggle.
Even as she's moving onto him, the one in green is musing aloud to himself. "Loyalty, Desire, Suffering, and Catalyst.... Clearly fundamental aspects of this version of reality, of this universe, however, that leaves two of us as unknown components, although it is only considered 'unknown' to our fellow newly created massively powered entities, as we ourselves each know on a visceral level what we as individuals are, it is simply that we do not have a word to function as a label..."
She raises an eyebrow, but seems just as amused and fond and loving as she has been when she's looked at the rest of them gathered here. "Shall I leave you to theorizing?"
Immediately, carelessly, he swats his hand through the air. "Oh, no. There's so much new information to delve into and organize and consider. While I won't accept it all the time... Having one of the largest of mysteries solved right now would certainly free up my time, wouldn't it?"
Chuckling, she catches his hand, and that conceited analyzing look on his face vanishes in favor of something a little more flummoxed as he stares at their entwined fingers. "Ingenuity." She squeezes his hand in hers in time with that single word. "Throughout everything else, when there exist thoughts such as yours which wish to know more, which wish to change things with that knowledge, it is from you that those thinkers will draw from. I would tell you to never stop, but..." Her grin is impish. "You wouldn't anyway, would you?"
Getting a hold of himself, he huffs out an amused sound of his own. "It goes without saying." This time, his sharp gaze goes to her, and lingers. "You.... You're the base of it all, aren't you?"
There's no answer. She only smiles and moves on to the final member of their ensemble.
The shifting changing mass before them slows somehow, calms at her approach, and for just a moment.... There is the outline of a figure there, a smile.
"Chaos," he says.
It's a response that makes absolutely no sense, both halves of Loyalty wrinkling their brows, at least until more of her laughter rings out. "It's not as dramatic when you do it," she says, scolding tone nowhere near convincing, and the reaction throughout the rest of their group is an immediate ripple. A cacophonous mess of noise erupts from them all, from Catalyst's laughter to Ingenuity's dismissive "So I see who among us was born with bad taste", Desire's aggravation to Suffering's complaints.
Loyalty keeps their words simple. "You obnoxious show-off," one half groans, and her partner shoots, "How long did you know, hey!?"
No answer, just that implication of a smirk, and there has never been anyone Loyalty has wanted to kick more. By all means, they've just been born into the world, but that's the truth. A kick, straight into whatever is most solid of him. Before this can be vocalized, their laughing love is hushing them all with soft touches, and returning to where she had first sat while waiting for them. "Well, he's definitely a show off," she says breezily, smiling wide, "but it's a part of his nature as much as anything else, I suppose."
"What about your nature?" asks Suffering, and their noise goes quiet. In the depths of all of them, they know what she is. They know their connection to her, where the strength of their love comes from.... but none of them had asked just yet for confirmation.
Her smile says she knows this, and was just waiting for the first curious soul.
"Creation," she says, simply.
That would be enough. That is enough, telling all of them everything they need to know. But she isn't satisfied with that, it seems, because she continues to speak. "But what I am.... is only a small part of the whole. It's not who I am, not entirely. I... am Luce."
And the world.... shifts. Or maybe it's not the world, but their perception of it, of her, and she's different now. Or maybe she's the same. It's hard to comprehend, even for beings like them. After a second, however, one half of Loyalty thinks she's figured it out. The person before them is still Creation, of that there is no doubt, but it's not Luce. Her hair is still dark as the Void, her eyes still that deep welcoming blue, a mark on her cheek.... But her hair is longer, falling feather-like down her back and over her shoulders, and she holds herself so much more playfully than the hints which had been in Luce's confident frame.
"And Aria," she says, and winks, and there she is. There's the last of Creation, so similar to the two before her but especially Luce, only smaller, younger, smiling and wide eyed and innocent.
"Yuni, as well." She tilts her head, beaming, and Loyalty knows that both of them would tear anyone or anything apart to keep her and Aria and Luce safe. "It's a little difficult.... But you all understand, don't you?" That, too, is a given, and she ducks her head, smiling. "Who you are... is something only you can decide. But this world is so young, and we are, too, aren't we? So...." Her hands spread out, fingers parting to show them the whole world that is theirs to learn and love. "You don't have to stay here. Go and find out who you are."
There's little holding them back now, and, in a heartbeat, Desire and Catalyst are gone, whisked away by their own interest and curiosity. Then goes Ingenuity, followed by Suffering so desperate not to be left behind. Loyalty, their hands still intertwined, turns to go as well.... But they both look back.
Chaos is lingering there before Yuni, massive and dangerous before such a tiny figure, but she isn't afraid. There's only that smile on her face as she meets his gaze, and then, tenderly, she reaches up into him, a child's loving embrace, and he returns it.
It's not meant for them to really see, although they doubt either would care. Loyalty turns, and goes.
"So, have the two of you come up with something for yourself?"
Two things feel natural in this world.
The first is being in a place like this: the rock-scattered coast where earth and sea meet, waves crashing into them, spray scattering through the air, and gorgeous fat clouds heavy with rain and dark with thunder covering the sky completely. It's all connected, the water from the ocean to the skies to the earth. Loyalty. Bonds. Things that are bound together, tied, facilitating the cycle which helps make this newborn world grow. With their feet following the curves and points of each rock, they traverse together.
And that is the second thing. They are the second thing, together. So long as she can look to the side and see him- sun kissed hair, eyes blue as the sky that is hidden from them.... So long as he can look to the side and see her, with hair as deep a shade as the ocean and eyes warm like blood... Then things are as they should be. Oh, she doesn't doubt that there would still be a connection between them, even if they were on opposite ends of this world. A grain of sand doesn't stop being sand just because you take it away from the beach it began at.
But this is better.
Aria can tell as well. She's smiling as she looks upon her loyal mirrored pair, lips quirked, eyes soft, and she traverses the rocks down to them with easy skips and hops. "Just a gut feeling, of course," she says, smacking him on the back with a laugh, and he's too solid to do much more than shake a little bit at the impact. There's a grin on his lips, too, directed to both women. "But am I wrong?"
"Lal Mirch!" he announces proudly, only to pause a split second before hastily adding, "Not me, her. We've been talking about it since everyone parted. It only felt right that we would name each other. Right?"
Being named is a strange thing, but only in how new it is. 'Lal Mirch' settles in her, water filling up the cracks and paths down a mountainside, and she shakes her head at him. "Once the idea came to Colonello, it wouldn't leave him alone, and thus he wouldn't leave me alone. Even when I forced him down onto the ground with my foot between his shoulder blades."
"Hey!" he protests, even as Aria laughs into her hand.
"Lal Mirch and Colonello..." She takes in the two of them, the way they draw close, the way she reflects him, the way the sea reflects the sky, and smile at what she sees. That alone spreads a warmth throughout Lal's chest. "It suits you both perfectly. So how do you like the world as it is so far?"
The world as it is... Together, they look out to the horizon, how the water disappears around the curve of the planet, the clouds chasing after them all. Above them, the rain finally begins to fall, weighing down their hair and dancing over their skin.
"It's still a little bit of a mess," Lal muses, and doesn't bat an eye as a familiar set of fingers slide inbetween hers.
"But I think it'll look great put together," Colonello finishes, all easy confidence.
"Mammon."
Along the shallows of a river, water flowing over their petite frame and a salamander skittering across their breast, the being of Desire tilts their head back to look at Luce and smiles. The air is pale here, washed out by the sky and thin layer of mist which ghosts along the water's surface. Because of this, Mammon looks all the more brilliant there, purple hair and the marks curving along their cheeks, eyes bright, plush lips pink. Luce's feet sink softly into the dirt as she follows its slope down into the waters, kneeling down into them until Mammon can drape shamelessly across her lap. They wear their smugness as daringly as flowers their color, and outright purr when Luce laughs softly.
"I didn't even say anything!"
"I could feel it in you." Mammon twists in their place, fingers fluttering up in the middle of her chest and pressing in right over her throbbing heart. Every rise of breath, they follow and rise with her body. "You wanted to know if I'd decided, if I'd tell you." Tilting their head to the side, they hum thoughtfully, curling in closer, and are rewarded with Luce's arm wrapping loosely around their waist. "I suppose I should have kept it a mystery for a little longer.... Keep you wanting for a little longer." At the finger sliding under their chin, they allow Luce to tilt their head back. Her smile shines with teasing- or is that the mist?
"Perhaps you wanted to give the game away yourself." Her lips flutter against theirs, brief and chaste, and Mammon closes their eyes with a smirk. In them, desire is woven in every strand of hair, hums beneath every inch of skin, and there is nothing they do not want. However, Luce's attention, her presence... They want that especially.
For that, they try to snatch another kiss, and she allows it with a giggle. "Maybe," they admit flippantly. "I want what I want."
"What you want is everything," she points out, laughing and her fingers twirling deep violet strands around them. "Incorrigible."
"What is that? A new word?"
"A new word, made with you in mind," she confirms, voice so singsong it could rival the birds, and it's clearly a tease, clearly meant to jerk them around, but the idea delights them. A word made just with them in mind- perfect. It's not the first time this has happened, no, it's just not something they'll ever tire of. To show their appreciation, they lean up close, kisses covering every little piece of skin that's been made slick from the mist. Luce welcomes it, her fingers so warm as she smooths them out along Mammon's spine. When the two of them come to a stop, Luce is splayed back along the earth and water, sighing, and Mammon is curled along her side, head tucked in against her neck. That much is enough; there's no need to rush. In the quiet washed out paleness of the river, they tell her things- not secrets, simply things.
She is Creation- anything that happens in this world, she likely already knows. They tell her anyway.
"There's a new group of creatures, now... I can feel them, their wants getting more complex, more vast. There's a longing there for more than shelter, and more than food, and even more than just one another. And from that want..."
Mammon smiles.
"I can already feel something churning."
He breathes, and the air is so clear it stings his lungs, and the chill eats away through him down to what would be bone in any other living creature. It would wrap through them tight, the full weight of the mountain bearing down on them, and they would perish slowly. Not the most painful way to fade away from existence, but agonizing in the time it would take. There's something to be said for slow and steady over immediacy.
It's a 'something' that he summarizes in a long drawn out groan as he crumples down onto Yuni's lap, flopping until he can bury his face against her legs. Snow blankets the ground around them, beautiful but suffocating, and it hurts. No, that's not wrong- hurting is just a natural state, and it would be with him, in him, him, no matter where he could be. Being on a mountain like this, clouds gliding against their bodies as they pass along, seems fitting for the scope that he feels. Disease wracks itself through a predator, every bite cracking teeth and filling its mouth with blood. Elsewhere, starvation claims something else entirely, leaving it gasping on the ground and vulnerable to whatever spies it first.
A heart breaks.
"There's always something," he whines to Yuni, indulging in her patient pats to his hair. "I know it's what I am, but still!"
"That is the way of things." Her fingers thread through, and in their wake more pain sparks along his scalp. Creation can be as cruel as it is kind. That, too, is the way of things. He knows this, and he wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world. "Things are always happening. Even the things that hurt. Is it that bad?"
Really, it's not. He'll complain, and whine, and he's maybe more than a little envious of creatures like Desire, but in the end... He is as he is. There's a thrill to that edge of pain, a rush of energy at every ache even with those echoes of being dragged down. Yet more than any of that, there's a connection between him and every other thing that suffers as well.
He'll cling to that until his fingers are torn ragged, and long past it, too.
His lack of answer is as good as one, and Yuni laughs again as she ruffles his hair. "Have you decided on a name?" she asks, sparing him a little bit of his dignity by changing the subject, and he rolls onto his back once more. This high up, they can see past even the clouds, into the sky, into the void. Another breath, and he can feel his chest be cleaned out, sweeter than any fire.
Of course he has.
"Skull." It's solid on his tongue, a weight that forms in his mouth and leaves imprints- on people as much as the world. "That's good, right?"
Yuni's smile shines. "Of course it is."
Howling wind, crackling lightning, pounding rain- it’s all a game to him, one he indulges her in gladly. His steps are as light and quick as air as he guides her along, flitting from every bit of debris that’s been torn up from the earth, and Aria thinks she’s only seen his eyes this bright when he first came into the world formed. When electricity strikes him, humming through his braid and shining in his teeth, all he does is chuckle softly. Perhaps it’s the rain that keeps him weighed down at all; she knows better than to think it’s their linked hands.
“Fon, huh?” she muses aloud, the storm no obstacle to her voice even at the height of its strength. While she can follow him easily, Aria doubts it’s with the kind of easy grace he’s demonstrating as he takes her back to earth. “It’s nice and simple, for a nice and simple guy.”
That makes him laugh louder, his hand brought up curled to his mouth. “Oh, am I nice?” he asks, voice still shaking a little bit and making her shake her head in amusement. “Well, that’s certainly one way to describe me, I suppose.”
The storm is subsiding, now, wind softening and rain easing, and the mud welcomes their feet with relief. Teasing, she flicks his braid back around his shoulders and static dances up her fingers. “Nice can mean a lot of things,” she says, rubbing her fingertips together to watch the sparks leap. “Or, it will, anyway. It all depends on who’s saying it.”
“Who’s saying it…” Fon echoes the words, gaze distant and thoughtful. Aria knows he’s not looking off into the horizon- at least, not exactly. He’s looking farther, and deeper. She can tell what he’s feeling, what he’s thinking about, if only for this moment. Every single one of their number has been feeling it from the beginning, tugs to their cores, things that have drawn them even if just a moment to the tiny outcroppings of new life. Changed life- changed from their solidified existence in the universe.
Change…. Catalyst. Of course it draws his attention.
Just like it’s drawn loyalty, and suffering, and desire. Just like she’s certain it’s drawn ingenuity, and chaos.
That it’s drawn her should go without question. But then, tied so strongly into the tiniest bits of existence, how else can she be?
Something in the world happens, something that lights up his dark eyes, and Fon smiles again. A different energy than that which had bubbled through him just a few moments ago, by all means. It makes his eyes dark, and brings an edge of anticipation to his lips. What’s going exactly through his mind is a mystery, one he only offers a hint of- “It’ll be interesting to see just how many voices change that word and so many others, and how many times. Who knows?” Tilting his head to the side, braid swaying, he lets his eyes drift shut. Now, the storm has moved on entirely.
“Perhaps even our voices will change.”
“Well, it’s an interesting theory,” her ingenious beloved admits as they sit in the smoldering remains of a forest, lightning tapped and still bright hot. It’s not a fact which has stopped the wildlife any. Short fat hooved creatures shove their way through wet flora and dried dead brush alike without stop, and brilliantly colored birds flit from the branches. What he’s drawn her attention to right now, however, as she sits daintily on his lap, is a creature tinier than all of those.
Eight legged with just as many eyes, its movements are distinctly unique compared to most of the other shows of life in the world. Every step, whether sharp and snapping or slow and dragging, carries with it a predatory consideration. Such a statement is true even now, as it skillfully constructs a web.
In many ways, it reminds Yuni of the one whose lap she is sitting in. His eyes are deep, absorbed in what he’s focused on, and there’s that same particular slowness in how he leans close and stretches out his fingers. “Of course,” he continues, “the only way to prove or disprove it is to continue forward. The problem with that is, considering our very natures and connections to reality, being that we are an intrinsic part of it, the result may take a considerable amount of time to discover. Now, observing the creatures born of our creation…. It is much easier to keep track of whatever changes emerge… Or, of much more fascinating interest to me…”
This whole time, she’s been steadily tilting her head back and up to watch him as he’s spoken, but now he taps it down so that she’s looking at the spider again. “Watch.” Web spun, it lays in hiding, long legs tentatively plucking at its own creation. “It’s mimicking the vibration of prey caught…. The idea being that another of its kin will venture closer until it can capture that instead… Predator becomes prey.”
It’s not the conclusion which has his interest, obviously, but the direction the route had taken. “It’s amazing,” she agrees, not only because it’s what he wants to hear but because it’s true. Power and speed isn’t enough to sate the lives which are coming into their newborn world. Tactics and cleverness- those are developing too. The proof is before them. No…. That’s wrong. She’s sitting on the proof that this sort of thing was inevitable. “But, you know, you didn’t answer my question.”
“Well, Fon’s line of thought is likely spurred on by the progression of that particular line of beasts, which I do have to admit are showing a more notable and intriguing preference for inventive thinking-”
“That’s not what I mean!” she says, giggling and thumping back against him. “I mean your name. You got sidetracked.”
“...Ah.” Fingers loosely curled, he brushes the heel of his palm against his temple. “Right. Verde. Now, ignoring such a trifling matter, if you’ll look closer…”
Luce stands before him, all of existence in her long flowing tail, and creation laces every bit of her smile, her steps. From the very beginning, he’s been drawn to her, and he doesn’t see any reason to hold back now. Especially now, actually. He slips inbetween her fingers, curls around her back, all to her laughter.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” she teases, iridescent and ethereal herself. Is he responsible for the way she comes undone? How she’s shifting back to her true form, body stretching and warping, limbs too long, hair rippling with color in its deep blackness? Hard to say. Each of them knows that they have bits and pieces of one another in their own essences. Loyalty within desire, catalysts and ingenuity twined tight, on and on. However, it is her that perhaps is most intune to all of them, whether as a young maiden or a glowing mother or this glorious matriarch who came
before every single one of them. That’s the key of it, isn’t it? Before Chaos, before Ingenuity, Loyalty and Desire and Suffering and Catalyst, there was her.
So, as much as he’d like to take credit for the way she shifts against him, pure Creation and pure Chaos wound tight in each other, well. It’s truly up in the air which of them is affecting the other the most. All he can be certain are of his own words, sly and playful. “Well, you, are here, Luce. Help make it an even better one.”
They burn together, glittering gold and amber alight. Fire pales in comparison to their brilliance, flickering along the earth, reality twisting under the impressions of their feet. Sand flies through the air, kicked upwards by the pair of them, and winds together- grains of gold into grains of gold, a field of wheat swaying in time with them. Impressive as it might be, it’s only a mild show of their power, really. Haven’t they both been contributing so much to this minuscule world by this point already?
There’s something much stranger that’s arisen from their playful courting.
He almost doesn’t realize what’s happened, for a moment. To be Chaos is to be ever changing, a tumultuous existence that no other creature can truly comprehend, and loss can be considered a part of that. And yet… It’s not quite loss, not quite himself, and not quite like anything else in the rest of existence thus far. His and Luce’s wildfire dance suddenly twirls to a stop, and she sees it before he does: a unique spark of existence crackling and popping at the hems of their own essences, more hers than his. Delicately, so unlike the carefree motions she had been indulging with him a second before, she takes shape again with deep blue eyes forming and her hair draping over one shoulder. As she does, she draws in their unexpected creation all the closer and, in time, they form together while he stays wary and curious by her back.
When she finishes, so does the product of their union: a handsome youth with surprised brown eyes and hair as messy a gold as the fields.
Nothing was so much.
It- they? she- thought this, and then thought many things, more things than could be told or put together coherently, a cacophonous whirl of sentience which would overwhelm her, if she were something contained, something small, something insignificant.... but she wasn't.
She isn't.
Yes, that's right, she thinks- and yes, thinks, occurring, present, not a one-note thing that had happened and would never happen again. She can think now, is something instead of part of the eternal neverending expanse of nothing. Yet what is she- they? She cannot fill nothing, cannot fill the void which still wraps itself around her so tightly, envelops her so sweetly, but she feels too engulfing, too vast, complex and entwined and conflicting, to be only one thing.
Void is void is stable, permanent, with nothing shifting or twisting or changing it. It's safe, to curl in it for a while longer, a something with no name yet and no form. With time endless and forgiving, she begins to discover herself, themselves, patiently and carefully. She isn't one, she isn't two, but three somethings, three new existences wound in one. Something bubbles through her, erratic but good, a shift in their existences that is- hot, warm and light, joy, yes, that's what it is, and they wind tighter together, elated.
Nothing is so much, but, together, it is a little less.
Yet there should be more than only her and, for the first time, she looks outside of herself. Nothing still stretches infinitely, more than even her boundless existence can see.... but if she simply is, then surely...
Quietly, with purpose, she draws herself together closer, firmer. Nothing has no shape, a formless encompassing thing, but she is not Nothing. She is formless now, but she does not have to be. And so she draws herself together, guides herself, and reaches-
Nothing breaks.
Nothing shatters, and she is not nothing, she is everything, all of it springing into existence, faster and faster and sweeping the stagnancy of nothing away. She is in the brilliance of bright green plants. She is in the jagged sharpness of mountain cliffs. She is in the aching depths of the waters.
She is, she is, she is.
For a while, that is enough.
All of it would be enough, even if she brushed over it with a casual eye, but she doesn't. She takes in every little thing, through breath, through sight, through touch. Everything- what a concept, what a beautiful and amazing reality, one that she is filled with an endless adoration for. Time is not kept track of as she indulges in simply being and all that now entails. So it is impossible for her to say how long she spends playing with this new bud of a world before she finally looks up...
And she realizes that all she has delighted in is, in so many ways, just as stagnant as the void from which she had escaped.
She breathes, and it is the only thing which moves.
Around her, the world is perfectly still. In truth, she knows that it has only moved up until this point because of her attentions. It's only become because of her, and, somehow, that drains the wonder. Even as she kneels there, surrounded by a myriad of color in the form of dozens of different flowers, she has to admit that this is merely "nothing" but in a different shade. She can pretend all she wants, but that's the truth of the matter.
Earth and water can be put together, but it all drifts inch by inch from itself the second she turns her back. Nothing binds it.
Greenery and beasts alike live, but it is a weak existence. They're there, background noise to her burning life. True, there is no ache to them, but there is no need in them, no want.
Perhaps most importantly of all... It is simply static. No stimulus exists outside herself. None of that which she called "life", although created solely from her hands, invents things separate from her own ideas.
And that, she thinks, is the problem. Even being of three minds, she can only surprise herself for so long. Not to mention...
She reaches down and cradles a flower in her palm, the stem sliding so neatly inbetween two of her fingers. So pliable, like so much else in this half-finished world, and its softness tickles at her skin. "It could be an entertaining past time for a while longer," she muses to herself, star-spread black petals brushing the inside of her wrist. "Except that wouldn't solve the problem in the long term, would it? Ignoring all of this doesn't make it go away. In the end, all of this is as unchanging as it was before. But...." She considers how the light splays across the petals, the way it reveals the veins which compose it. "If I can exist, then surely others can, as well."
Surely. It's a thought that, even as she is looking downwards at earth and grass, she is looking upwards toward the sky. Void still stretches, domineering, over everything that is not connected to solid earth. It is nothing. There should be nothing for her. Yet of her eyes, hers are the widest, and the most hopeful, and she sees so much which is not and yet which could be. She sees possibilities.
Most of all, she sees their hair, dark as origin, winding gently up and up and up into it all again. She sees it, and she feels the thrumming of other things longing. Yet there is no push, like her hands shattering the world awake. No power is behind the hum, only potential.
"Surely," she whispers, and stands up.
How does one contain something so massive and encompassing into such a small form as to cusp a flower so delicately? Impossible; she is all and eveywhere and everything, in the end. Yet for a second, in that space, she is tall with shoulders squared for work, and her hair feathers about her shoulders- and then she is all, and reality, and reaching once again.
Past void's veil, she can feel them. She can feel them because they're her, too, in a way, or at least there are the specks deep within her being. (And what can be called specks in an existence that spans as deep and far as hers does?) There is that spark which bore her, the bonds which tied her together, her want of seeing so much more, that painful ache of loneliness, the idea to create at all...
And, swirling it all together....
She presses herself against the void, much how she had first pressed her hand against it once and shattered it. Not so easy this time- there's not even a splinter. Only a ripple shudders at her touch, shivering, wind faintly disrupting the water of a still lake. Beyond, she can feel the others, her kin, stir. It's the creation of the world all over again, flowers turning towards her and mountains springing up in the wake of her footsteps. Yet with them, it's
different.
All the things she creates are empty, yet her kin are anything but. In her, a different spark aches, sighs out different messages to her that she must decipher. I want to change. I want to want. I want to suffer. I want to bind. I want to think. I want discord. The messages beat in her, a rhythm as steady as the pulse of her heart, her core, and her breath would come out shivering if she had breath to give.
Her touch presses in harder. Harder still. Harder, stronger, deeper, and-
She dips into the void.
Oh, how it calls to her. Its first daughter, its only child, breaking all things that were and turning all that is on its head, yet still loved. It calls to her to return, to fall asleep wrapped in nothingness and disperse once more. For just a split moment.... it's tempting. Creation is as empty as the void; why not just rest instead? There's no guarantee that this will work, or that the existence of others will make creation worth living.
But she is not alone. She is herself, and there are other pieces of her: gripping tightly on reality so that she does not fall into enticing oblivion, wrapping firmly around herself in a child's hope. "Not yet," she murmurs to herself, and repeats it again, another voice that is firmer and more certain. "Not yet."
The Void won't have her back just yet.
It won't have these others anymore, either, and she feels something wrapping about her void-entrenched touch. It takes all she is to pull it out, but she is Creation, the beginning of all, and nothing can stop her now. It- they, plural, a pair- stumble out while still holding onto her tightly. They are not like herself, three bound in one, but they are bound regardless, and she can sense the Void quiver. Something vital has been lost for it.... but it's her gain.
Behind her, she can feel the world draw tight, no longer slowly drifting apart while she ignores it. Good- she can't pay it any mind right now as she thrusts a part of herself into the void once more. No time at all is wasted before she's being grasped again, and, while in this form she has no lips to do so with, some part of her smiles. That which is gripping her is so ravenous for the world that is before it, a feeling she knows too well, and she pulls it from the Void as if it were water, the transition is so smooth. Is it because of who she pulled out, or because of who she has in her hold right now?
In the end, it doesn't really matter. She lets her new companion- her new kin float to the side, and, again, dives her touch in. Again, and again, and again, she works on pulling them out.
The one whose form burns-stings-bites at her, painful.
The one whose touch send lightning crackling along her, thoughts sparking along.
The one who twists in her grip, never the same for long, fire as much as ice as much as stars.
And, finally.... One that hums in her grip, energy building up, waiting to be unleashed- that one, when she tugs it forth from the void, makes everything snap, much as she had done once upon a time, and in the pit of her being she can tell that everything has changed once more. She can tell that like she can tell that the void has closed itself off to her, having suffered too much loss from those she has released from its embrace, but that's alright.
All she wants, now she has.
It has not been an endeavor without sacrifice, however. How tired she is, left to drift back down to her newborn world and kin. Yet there is not a bit of her that regrets what she's done. As she lets herself be drawn back to earth, she watches the shapeless soft forms of her kin fall with her. Much like her own existence, they too are spread out through the world and a part of its very foundations. She can feel the changes they have brought even now.
The world is better for it.
Being born is tiring too, she knows. It had been hard to tell, when it was only herself who existed and not even the world, but she supposes it must take a very long while to gather into a solid form. Perhaps they will have difficulty, her new kin, but... she'll just have to trust that they will become as she is: something that is both one and many things.
Although, just judging by how they had felt when she had pulled them all out... She doubts that they are anywhere close to her strange triplicate existence. Perhaps, this way, it is for the better that it will take some time for them to settle. That's time she can use to introduce herself properly. Quietly, she smiles to herself.
She can't wait.
It's easy to pull herself together.
Easy as the ocean joined in crushing waves, easy as birds of the air joining for life, easy as bones to flesh to blood working in tandem. She's not made of any of that, no, but she can still draw herself into a solid form- a solid representation- as simple as anything can be. And as she does it....
There's a mirror before her. No, not a mirror- her double, her partner, and as she forms, so does he. His eyes, brilliant blue. His hair, wheat gold. She can tell that he's not an exact copy of her immediately, because she shapes into existence longer hair that brushes against her shoulders whereas his stays short, and yet.... In sync, perfectly aligned, they form together. As if they were always meant for it, she and him lace their fingers and then look to the rest of the world.
Both of them are in a sprawling field, wind rustling through the grass gently, and, far off in the distance, feeling almost as much as seeing, there is a mountain whose point reaches up desperately to the sky. Yet their surroundings are almost unimportant in a way, especially when compared to the beings directly around them.
It's.... difficult to describe, how pure primordial energy looks like, twisting and gathering, simultaneously a part of the world and yet so other that it can't quite belong. Not purified like this, anyway. All she can describe is how she feels, minuscule little parts of herself being tugged as if caught on spider silk. Somehow, as certain of it as she's certain of the ground beneath her feet, she thinks her counterpart feels exactly the same.
They're connected. All of them.
With their existence solidified, akin to a single rock starting a landside, the others soon quickly follow suit. Fascinated, she watches and feels and hears each new life decide upon itself.
Nearest to her and him- for a given of what near even is with their existences as they are- comes into being someone whose very presence makes her teeth ache. Even as two pairs of eyes watch him, as his skin forms, so too do a myriad of scars warping it before they seem to disappear. Seem to- something deep in her says they're there still, jagged painful things, and that the person with a messy flop of purple hair will always be feeling them from now to eternity.
Besides him, there's someone more pleasant, more wanted, and it takes only a second for her to realize that this is something inherent to the petite figure developing just as much as suffering is to the one between them. Yet knowing the source does not diminish the effect, even as the figure- warps. Changes, twists, still so strongly connected to the frightening unknowable void, still so strange. Yet in the blink of an eye, there they are, an individual with deep purple hair fluttering into place along their shoulders, and glimmering silver eyes surveying all of them.
By the time she can tear her eyes away to the next, he's already settled himself, collected as you please, dark eyes glimmering in fascination. Or... maybe it's not how long it took her to look away, but that he was formed even before then. Something in her seems to click as their eyes meet, like how existence came to her. Sharp, sudden, and changing. He's already smiling, secrets tucked away in the expression like how his long dark braid is wrapped loosely around his shoulders.
Giving him attention seems to be exactly what he wants. Maybe it's petty, but it's for that reason that she looks to the next. He's only partially born, the faintest outlines of a figure in his mess of essence. His eyes are the clearest things, brilliant burning green as he flexes and stretches out his fingers. A hunger much like that of the one in indigo burns in his gaze as he picks apart himself, learning every little thing before he lets it exist solid and defined.
It's going to take him forever before he joins the rest of them, she figures, exasperated, so she finally looks to the last.... and has to stop. He- and, much like the others, she can tell what he is deep in the pit of her- hasn't even bothered to compose a shape for himself. It is there.... she thinks. Chaos twists about him, a swirling mist to obscure anything else, tearing apart grass and making it grow and so much else in equal measure, with no apparent thought or care to whatever really happens. But to let things stay the same...
Is he an antithesis to what she is? To what she is together with her double, her partner? She thinks that, and yet, at the same time, she knows that's not true. Not entirely. Just like all the others gathered here in this plain, there is a part of him within her.
Whatever he is to her, he's not focused on her, or her partner, or their kin. That much, she can tell. With herself completely settled, and everyone in close pursuit if not done yet, she looks to what has his attention so much.
She loves her.
Before her mind has even taken in the appearance of the person who has been so patiently waiting for them, she knows that above all else. The rest- what she looks like- doesn't really matter. She loves her, has perhaps loved her before she could even feel the world beneath her feet and in her core. Perhaps her thoughts, her feelings, her love can all be seen so plainly, because the one who has been waiting for them smiles. In that smile, a simple message.
I love you too.
In her hand, her partner's fingers wind all the tighter around hers. Whatever the others might think- the guy with the scars, or the one smiling- she can't tell. Her eyes are locked on the woman waiting for them.
Besides her, a reflection sending her emotions back to her, she can tell he feels as she does. In this, they are united. Perhaps all of them gathered here together are.
"I'm so glad you're all here.... You're everything I could have hoped for."
Her voice is everything- literally everything, somehow making her think of the smallest things like specks of dirt which press against her knees to her own massive sprawling existence that covers every little bit of this world. Ah. She knows, now, who this person is to her. When they were all tangled up in each other, drowning in the Void... It was this voice which called them.
No wonder she loved her upon first sight.
"I hope it wasn't too difficult to take a form like this," she continues, the smiling curve of her lips pointing to the small brilliant orange mark on her cheek. Her gaze is settled on the guy in green, finally catching up to the rest of them, and the chaotic mess who hasn't bothered. Endless amusement is abound in their savior's stare, and it's enough to make her smirk a little too as if it's contagious. Ridiculous fools, both of them. "But.... we're together now, like this. So I know we'll manage." There's a secret in those words, something that's not being said... but maybe it doesn't need to be.
There's a connection, unseen but there like the air gently brushing against their bodies, that is twined between all of them. If even one manages, then, surely, the others will as well.
And that one is already before them.
"What are we?" asks the green one, sharp and to the point, perfectly in time with indigo's demand of, "I want to know what we are." Both of them pause, sizing one another up, his eyes sharp and curious towards something else now that he's gotten satisfied by investigating his own body, and their head quirked sharply to one side. When their savior speaks, however, both of them look back to her.
"This world." The laugh which follows after is beautiful; she thinks she could listen to it all day. "Or... parts of it." Gently, she rises, and all their eyes track her every movement. "I've had so long to figure out that answer, so that.... I can tell you that much with confidence."
And the first people she lays her hands upon.... are the partnered pair of them who formed first. From the corner of her eye, she can see her partner crack a grin up at the one before them, but his fingers still have not loosened their grip on her. They're there together as she murmurs their name softly. "Loyalty. You're the reason this world has come together, why dirt sticks and beasts connect." Her lips are warm and sweet against her forehead, and then his. "Thank you."
Gratitude. Shouldn't they be the ones giving that to her? Before she can say as much, her loyal partner grins widely and jabs a thumb at himself. "You can always count on us, hey!"
Well, that was an easy way to snap out of it, and she rolls her eyes, not even having to think about the action. "You say that now," she mutters, socking him firmly in the side as their beloved passes them by with a giggle. "But you're such an arrogant idiot, to give that kind of promise when we didn't even know what we were more than a few seconds ago!" As he grumbles and curls in on himself from the force of her hit, she turns away from her partner in Loyalty, and watches as their savior approaches the next in their group.
Or maybe, Loyalty thinks as the petite figure eagerly reaches up to twine their arms around their beloved savior's neck, it's the other way around. There's no protest at the action, at least, only more laughter, and there's an air of smugness around the little figure as she wraps her arms around them in return. "Desire," she says, loving and longing, "because there is no point in things keeping together if there is not a unified want to stay together. The want to know, the want to live, the want to change... You give it all meaning."
The smugness intensifies. "Of course I do," they purr, easing up their grip as their eyes shine now instead a deep blue to match their beloved's own gaze. It follows her movements all the way to the next who has her attention.
She can't even say anything before he's reaching up, fingers curling around the ones which had gone down to cup his face. The look on his face is so- young seems inappropriate to say here, because aren't they all young? Aren't they all still newly created? Yet his seems younger, more immature as he furrows his brows miserably at her. "Why?" he asks, and they all know what he means. There can't be a single straggling crumb of doubt. It's clear in the way the one in red rubs at his fingers, or the newly minted Desire twists their mouth as if tasting blood on their tongue. Loyalty both grind their teeth together.
Why be something that's the embodiment of pain and misery?
From where Loyalty sits, it's so difficult to see her expression, but her thumb glides slowly across his cheek, and somehow that says so much in itself. "If nothing were to change," she says softly, "if all were well with nothing disrupting it, then we would be nothing more than the Void once more. There would be no difference in any existence. Loneliness, pain, misery.... It is not kind, but these things must exist. If there is any kindness to your role... It is that for those and that which will share of you, at least they will not truly be alone in their hurt. Remember that." Leaning in, her lips touch his forehead. "And remember that you are made of more than that, Suffering."
Maybe it reassures him. Maybe it doesn't. All that's obvious is that he eases up beneath her touch, and she sweeps her fingers through his messy hair before leaving Suffering behind.
The one in red is still rubbing his hands a little as she approaches him, but his smile doesn't show any pain. "So much change, so quickly," he says, voice quietly approving, and he laughs alongside her. There's a joke here that Loyalty doesn't think she's getting, and her other half appears to be just as oblivious.
"Do you disapprove?" In response to their beloved's teasing, he only chuckles into a long trail of red fabric.
"Would such a thing even be possible, with what I am being so entwined with this?"
"This and other things," she hums, and, yes, Loyalty is absolutely lost, but neither of the two talking right now seem to be paying much mind to any of the others gathered. This is something for themselves. "Catalyst." Another smile, and from this angle, Loyalty can see her eyes sparkling in amusement. "It says all it needs to, doesn't it?"
"A million words in a thousand ones," he agrees, and ducks his head again as she moves on with a giggle.
Even as she's moving onto him, the one in green is musing aloud to himself. "Loyalty, Desire, Suffering, and Catalyst.... Clearly fundamental aspects of this version of reality, of this universe, however, that leaves two of us as unknown components, although it is only considered 'unknown' to our fellow newly created massively powered entities, as we ourselves each know on a visceral level what we as individuals are, it is simply that we do not have a word to function as a label..."
She raises an eyebrow, but seems just as amused and fond and loving as she has been when she's looked at the rest of them gathered here. "Shall I leave you to theorizing?"
Immediately, carelessly, he swats his hand through the air. "Oh, no. There's so much new information to delve into and organize and consider. While I won't accept it all the time... Having one of the largest of mysteries solved right now would certainly free up my time, wouldn't it?"
Chuckling, she catches his hand, and that conceited analyzing look on his face vanishes in favor of something a little more flummoxed as he stares at their entwined fingers. "Ingenuity." She squeezes his hand in hers in time with that single word. "Throughout everything else, when there exist thoughts such as yours which wish to know more, which wish to change things with that knowledge, it is from you that those thinkers will draw from. I would tell you to never stop, but..." Her grin is impish. "You wouldn't anyway, would you?"
Getting a hold of himself, he huffs out an amused sound of his own. "It goes without saying." This time, his sharp gaze goes to her, and lingers. "You.... You're the base of it all, aren't you?"
There's no answer. She only smiles and moves on to the final member of their ensemble.
The shifting changing mass before them slows somehow, calms at her approach, and for just a moment.... There is the outline of a figure there, a smile.
"Chaos," he says.
It's a response that makes absolutely no sense, both halves of Loyalty wrinkling their brows, at least until more of her laughter rings out. "It's not as dramatic when you do it," she says, scolding tone nowhere near convincing, and the reaction throughout the rest of their group is an immediate ripple. A cacophonous mess of noise erupts from them all, from Catalyst's laughter to Ingenuity's dismissive "So I see who among us was born with bad taste", Desire's aggravation to Suffering's complaints.
Loyalty keeps their words simple. "You obnoxious show-off," one half groans, and her partner shoots, "How long did you know, hey!?"
No answer, just that implication of a smirk, and there has never been anyone Loyalty has wanted to kick more. By all means, they've just been born into the world, but that's the truth. A kick, straight into whatever is most solid of him. Before this can be vocalized, their laughing love is hushing them all with soft touches, and returning to where she had first sat while waiting for them. "Well, he's definitely a show off," she says breezily, smiling wide, "but it's a part of his nature as much as anything else, I suppose."
"What about your nature?" asks Suffering, and their noise goes quiet. In the depths of all of them, they know what she is. They know their connection to her, where the strength of their love comes from.... but none of them had asked just yet for confirmation.
Her smile says she knows this, and was just waiting for the first curious soul.
"Creation," she says, simply.
That would be enough. That is enough, telling all of them everything they need to know. But she isn't satisfied with that, it seems, because she continues to speak. "But what I am.... is only a small part of the whole. It's not who I am, not entirely. I... am Luce."
And the world.... shifts. Or maybe it's not the world, but their perception of it, of her, and she's different now. Or maybe she's the same. It's hard to comprehend, even for beings like them. After a second, however, one half of Loyalty thinks she's figured it out. The person before them is still Creation, of that there is no doubt, but it's not Luce. Her hair is still dark as the Void, her eyes still that deep welcoming blue, a mark on her cheek.... But her hair is longer, falling feather-like down her back and over her shoulders, and she holds herself so much more playfully than the hints which had been in Luce's confident frame.
"And Aria," she says, and winks, and there she is. There's the last of Creation, so similar to the two before her but especially Luce, only smaller, younger, smiling and wide eyed and innocent.
"Yuni, as well." She tilts her head, beaming, and Loyalty knows that both of them would tear anyone or anything apart to keep her and Aria and Luce safe. "It's a little difficult.... But you all understand, don't you?" That, too, is a given, and she ducks her head, smiling. "Who you are... is something only you can decide. But this world is so young, and we are, too, aren't we? So...." Her hands spread out, fingers parting to show them the whole world that is theirs to learn and love. "You don't have to stay here. Go and find out who you are."
There's little holding them back now, and, in a heartbeat, Desire and Catalyst are gone, whisked away by their own interest and curiosity. Then goes Ingenuity, followed by Suffering so desperate not to be left behind. Loyalty, their hands still intertwined, turns to go as well.... But they both look back.
Chaos is lingering there before Yuni, massive and dangerous before such a tiny figure, but she isn't afraid. There's only that smile on her face as she meets his gaze, and then, tenderly, she reaches up into him, a child's loving embrace, and he returns it.
It's not meant for them to really see, although they doubt either would care. Loyalty turns, and goes.
"So, have the two of you come up with something for yourself?"
Two things feel natural in this world.
The first is being in a place like this: the rock-scattered coast where earth and sea meet, waves crashing into them, spray scattering through the air, and gorgeous fat clouds heavy with rain and dark with thunder covering the sky completely. It's all connected, the water from the ocean to the skies to the earth. Loyalty. Bonds. Things that are bound together, tied, facilitating the cycle which helps make this newborn world grow. With their feet following the curves and points of each rock, they traverse together.
And that is the second thing. They are the second thing, together. So long as she can look to the side and see him- sun kissed hair, eyes blue as the sky that is hidden from them.... So long as he can look to the side and see her, with hair as deep a shade as the ocean and eyes warm like blood... Then things are as they should be. Oh, she doesn't doubt that there would still be a connection between them, even if they were on opposite ends of this world. A grain of sand doesn't stop being sand just because you take it away from the beach it began at.
But this is better.
Aria can tell as well. She's smiling as she looks upon her loyal mirrored pair, lips quirked, eyes soft, and she traverses the rocks down to them with easy skips and hops. "Just a gut feeling, of course," she says, smacking him on the back with a laugh, and he's too solid to do much more than shake a little bit at the impact. There's a grin on his lips, too, directed to both women. "But am I wrong?"
"Lal Mirch!" he announces proudly, only to pause a split second before hastily adding, "Not me, her. We've been talking about it since everyone parted. It only felt right that we would name each other. Right?"
Being named is a strange thing, but only in how new it is. 'Lal Mirch' settles in her, water filling up the cracks and paths down a mountainside, and she shakes her head at him. "Once the idea came to Colonello, it wouldn't leave him alone, and thus he wouldn't leave me alone. Even when I forced him down onto the ground with my foot between his shoulder blades."
"Hey!" he protests, even as Aria laughs into her hand.
"Lal Mirch and Colonello..." She takes in the two of them, the way they draw close, the way she reflects him, the way the sea reflects the sky, and smile at what she sees. That alone spreads a warmth throughout Lal's chest. "It suits you both perfectly. So how do you like the world as it is so far?"
The world as it is... Together, they look out to the horizon, how the water disappears around the curve of the planet, the clouds chasing after them all. Above them, the rain finally begins to fall, weighing down their hair and dancing over their skin.
"It's still a little bit of a mess," Lal muses, and doesn't bat an eye as a familiar set of fingers slide inbetween hers.
"But I think it'll look great put together," Colonello finishes, all easy confidence.
"Mammon."
Along the shallows of a river, water flowing over their petite frame and a salamander skittering across their breast, the being of Desire tilts their head back to look at Luce and smiles. The air is pale here, washed out by the sky and thin layer of mist which ghosts along the water's surface. Because of this, Mammon looks all the more brilliant there, purple hair and the marks curving along their cheeks, eyes bright, plush lips pink. Luce's feet sink softly into the dirt as she follows its slope down into the waters, kneeling down into them until Mammon can drape shamelessly across her lap. They wear their smugness as daringly as flowers their color, and outright purr when Luce laughs softly.
"I didn't even say anything!"
"I could feel it in you." Mammon twists in their place, fingers fluttering up in the middle of her chest and pressing in right over her throbbing heart. Every rise of breath, they follow and rise with her body. "You wanted to know if I'd decided, if I'd tell you." Tilting their head to the side, they hum thoughtfully, curling in closer, and are rewarded with Luce's arm wrapping loosely around their waist. "I suppose I should have kept it a mystery for a little longer.... Keep you wanting for a little longer." At the finger sliding under their chin, they allow Luce to tilt their head back. Her smile shines with teasing- or is that the mist?
"Perhaps you wanted to give the game away yourself." Her lips flutter against theirs, brief and chaste, and Mammon closes their eyes with a smirk. In them, desire is woven in every strand of hair, hums beneath every inch of skin, and there is nothing they do not want. However, Luce's attention, her presence... They want that especially.
For that, they try to snatch another kiss, and she allows it with a giggle. "Maybe," they admit flippantly. "I want what I want."
"What you want is everything," she points out, laughing and her fingers twirling deep violet strands around them. "Incorrigible."
"What is that? A new word?"
"A new word, made with you in mind," she confirms, voice so singsong it could rival the birds, and it's clearly a tease, clearly meant to jerk them around, but the idea delights them. A word made just with them in mind- perfect. It's not the first time this has happened, no, it's just not something they'll ever tire of. To show their appreciation, they lean up close, kisses covering every little piece of skin that's been made slick from the mist. Luce welcomes it, her fingers so warm as she smooths them out along Mammon's spine. When the two of them come to a stop, Luce is splayed back along the earth and water, sighing, and Mammon is curled along her side, head tucked in against her neck. That much is enough; there's no need to rush. In the quiet washed out paleness of the river, they tell her things- not secrets, simply things.
She is Creation- anything that happens in this world, she likely already knows. They tell her anyway.
"There's a new group of creatures, now... I can feel them, their wants getting more complex, more vast. There's a longing there for more than shelter, and more than food, and even more than just one another. And from that want..."
Mammon smiles.
"I can already feel something churning."
He breathes, and the air is so clear it stings his lungs, and the chill eats away through him down to what would be bone in any other living creature. It would wrap through them tight, the full weight of the mountain bearing down on them, and they would perish slowly. Not the most painful way to fade away from existence, but agonizing in the time it would take. There's something to be said for slow and steady over immediacy.
It's a 'something' that he summarizes in a long drawn out groan as he crumples down onto Yuni's lap, flopping until he can bury his face against her legs. Snow blankets the ground around them, beautiful but suffocating, and it hurts. No, that's not wrong- hurting is just a natural state, and it would be with him, in him, him, no matter where he could be. Being on a mountain like this, clouds gliding against their bodies as they pass along, seems fitting for the scope that he feels. Disease wracks itself through a predator, every bite cracking teeth and filling its mouth with blood. Elsewhere, starvation claims something else entirely, leaving it gasping on the ground and vulnerable to whatever spies it first.
A heart breaks.
"There's always something," he whines to Yuni, indulging in her patient pats to his hair. "I know it's what I am, but still!"
"That is the way of things." Her fingers thread through, and in their wake more pain sparks along his scalp. Creation can be as cruel as it is kind. That, too, is the way of things. He knows this, and he wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world. "Things are always happening. Even the things that hurt. Is it that bad?"
Really, it's not. He'll complain, and whine, and he's maybe more than a little envious of creatures like Desire, but in the end... He is as he is. There's a thrill to that edge of pain, a rush of energy at every ache even with those echoes of being dragged down. Yet more than any of that, there's a connection between him and every other thing that suffers as well.
He'll cling to that until his fingers are torn ragged, and long past it, too.
His lack of answer is as good as one, and Yuni laughs again as she ruffles his hair. "Have you decided on a name?" she asks, sparing him a little bit of his dignity by changing the subject, and he rolls onto his back once more. This high up, they can see past even the clouds, into the sky, into the void. Another breath, and he can feel his chest be cleaned out, sweeter than any fire.
Of course he has.
"Skull." It's solid on his tongue, a weight that forms in his mouth and leaves imprints- on people as much as the world. "That's good, right?"
Yuni's smile shines. "Of course it is."
Howling wind, crackling lightning, pounding rain- it’s all a game to him, one he indulges her in gladly. His steps are as light and quick as air as he guides her along, flitting from every bit of debris that’s been torn up from the earth, and Aria thinks she’s only seen his eyes this bright when he first came into the world formed. When electricity strikes him, humming through his braid and shining in his teeth, all he does is chuckle softly. Perhaps it’s the rain that keeps him weighed down at all; she knows better than to think it’s their linked hands.
“Fon, huh?” she muses aloud, the storm no obstacle to her voice even at the height of its strength. While she can follow him easily, Aria doubts it’s with the kind of easy grace he’s demonstrating as he takes her back to earth. “It’s nice and simple, for a nice and simple guy.”
That makes him laugh louder, his hand brought up curled to his mouth. “Oh, am I nice?” he asks, voice still shaking a little bit and making her shake her head in amusement. “Well, that’s certainly one way to describe me, I suppose.”
The storm is subsiding, now, wind softening and rain easing, and the mud welcomes their feet with relief. Teasing, she flicks his braid back around his shoulders and static dances up her fingers. “Nice can mean a lot of things,” she says, rubbing her fingertips together to watch the sparks leap. “Or, it will, anyway. It all depends on who’s saying it.”
“Who’s saying it…” Fon echoes the words, gaze distant and thoughtful. Aria knows he’s not looking off into the horizon- at least, not exactly. He’s looking farther, and deeper. She can tell what he’s feeling, what he’s thinking about, if only for this moment. Every single one of their number has been feeling it from the beginning, tugs to their cores, things that have drawn them even if just a moment to the tiny outcroppings of new life. Changed life- changed from their solidified existence in the universe.
Change…. Catalyst. Of course it draws his attention.
Just like it’s drawn loyalty, and suffering, and desire. Just like she’s certain it’s drawn ingenuity, and chaos.
That it’s drawn her should go without question. But then, tied so strongly into the tiniest bits of existence, how else can she be?
Something in the world happens, something that lights up his dark eyes, and Fon smiles again. A different energy than that which had bubbled through him just a few moments ago, by all means. It makes his eyes dark, and brings an edge of anticipation to his lips. What’s going exactly through his mind is a mystery, one he only offers a hint of- “It’ll be interesting to see just how many voices change that word and so many others, and how many times. Who knows?” Tilting his head to the side, braid swaying, he lets his eyes drift shut. Now, the storm has moved on entirely.
“Perhaps even our voices will change.”
“Well, it’s an interesting theory,” her ingenious beloved admits as they sit in the smoldering remains of a forest, lightning tapped and still bright hot. It’s not a fact which has stopped the wildlife any. Short fat hooved creatures shove their way through wet flora and dried dead brush alike without stop, and brilliantly colored birds flit from the branches. What he’s drawn her attention to right now, however, as she sits daintily on his lap, is a creature tinier than all of those.
Eight legged with just as many eyes, its movements are distinctly unique compared to most of the other shows of life in the world. Every step, whether sharp and snapping or slow and dragging, carries with it a predatory consideration. Such a statement is true even now, as it skillfully constructs a web.
In many ways, it reminds Yuni of the one whose lap she is sitting in. His eyes are deep, absorbed in what he’s focused on, and there’s that same particular slowness in how he leans close and stretches out his fingers. “Of course,” he continues, “the only way to prove or disprove it is to continue forward. The problem with that is, considering our very natures and connections to reality, being that we are an intrinsic part of it, the result may take a considerable amount of time to discover. Now, observing the creatures born of our creation…. It is much easier to keep track of whatever changes emerge… Or, of much more fascinating interest to me…”
This whole time, she’s been steadily tilting her head back and up to watch him as he’s spoken, but now he taps it down so that she’s looking at the spider again. “Watch.” Web spun, it lays in hiding, long legs tentatively plucking at its own creation. “It’s mimicking the vibration of prey caught…. The idea being that another of its kin will venture closer until it can capture that instead… Predator becomes prey.”
It’s not the conclusion which has his interest, obviously, but the direction the route had taken. “It’s amazing,” she agrees, not only because it’s what he wants to hear but because it’s true. Power and speed isn’t enough to sate the lives which are coming into their newborn world. Tactics and cleverness- those are developing too. The proof is before them. No…. That’s wrong. She’s sitting on the proof that this sort of thing was inevitable. “But, you know, you didn’t answer my question.”
“Well, Fon’s line of thought is likely spurred on by the progression of that particular line of beasts, which I do have to admit are showing a more notable and intriguing preference for inventive thinking-”
“That’s not what I mean!” she says, giggling and thumping back against him. “I mean your name. You got sidetracked.”
“...Ah.” Fingers loosely curled, he brushes the heel of his palm against his temple. “Right. Verde. Now, ignoring such a trifling matter, if you’ll look closer…”
Luce stands before him, all of existence in her long flowing tail, and creation laces every bit of her smile, her steps. From the very beginning, he’s been drawn to her, and he doesn’t see any reason to hold back now. Especially now, actually. He slips inbetween her fingers, curls around her back, all to her laughter.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” she teases, iridescent and ethereal herself. Is he responsible for the way she comes undone? How she’s shifting back to her true form, body stretching and warping, limbs too long, hair rippling with color in its deep blackness? Hard to say. Each of them knows that they have bits and pieces of one another in their own essences. Loyalty within desire, catalysts and ingenuity twined tight, on and on. However, it is her that perhaps is most intune to all of them, whether as a young maiden or a glowing mother or this glorious matriarch who came
before every single one of them. That’s the key of it, isn’t it? Before Chaos, before Ingenuity, Loyalty and Desire and Suffering and Catalyst, there was her.
So, as much as he’d like to take credit for the way she shifts against him, pure Creation and pure Chaos wound tight in each other, well. It’s truly up in the air which of them is affecting the other the most. All he can be certain are of his own words, sly and playful. “Well, you, are here, Luce. Help make it an even better one.”
They burn together, glittering gold and amber alight. Fire pales in comparison to their brilliance, flickering along the earth, reality twisting under the impressions of their feet. Sand flies through the air, kicked upwards by the pair of them, and winds together- grains of gold into grains of gold, a field of wheat swaying in time with them. Impressive as it might be, it’s only a mild show of their power, really. Haven’t they both been contributing so much to this minuscule world by this point already?
There’s something much stranger that’s arisen from their playful courting.
He almost doesn’t realize what’s happened, for a moment. To be Chaos is to be ever changing, a tumultuous existence that no other creature can truly comprehend, and loss can be considered a part of that. And yet… It’s not quite loss, not quite himself, and not quite like anything else in the rest of existence thus far. His and Luce’s wildfire dance suddenly twirls to a stop, and she sees it before he does: a unique spark of existence crackling and popping at the hems of their own essences, more hers than his. Delicately, so unlike the carefree motions she had been indulging with him a second before, she takes shape again with deep blue eyes forming and her hair draping over one shoulder. As she does, she draws in their unexpected creation all the closer and, in time, they form together while he stays wary and curious by her back.
When she finishes, so does the product of their union: a handsome youth with surprised brown eyes and hair as messy a gold as the fields.