Brent Stinebaker
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33-19 Reunion (I)
🕑 Added 2025-02-05 08:39:55 +0000 UTCEvery child knows what it means to break, to sever, to cut, to kill. This is a simple thing—to apply pressure to a structure beyond its means and foundations.
To build is sublime. To build is the path of a matriarch, of a team master, and of an experienced worshiper. For you must understand how to break before you can build.
You must observe the structures of the world and the forces you can apply to them. And thus, the higher you go, the more you defy the weakness at your roots, and pierce the taunting virtues of the sky. The more you prove yourself to be the master of existence, and the more you affirm your worship to the Great Mother of Blood.
-Saathwu, Scaarthian Goddess of Blood
33-19
Reunion (I)
—[Dowager Glorious Song]—
Dowager Glorious Song found herself hyperventilating as arteries of golden chromosome stitched her back into existence. Around her, her last memories folded outwards, painting her surroundings in colors dripped from blood and time. Reality reconstructed itself as if oils on a canvas— the world was composed by the hands of a master, recreating the world that was into a replica across time, above time.
“What just happened?” she thought. Twisting tendrils of gold escaped from her very biology to become branches that held up this new reality. A weight pressed against her spirit, crushing her in a place deeper than her veins, her heart, her very cells. Yet through these same veins—these branches that bound her to this new existence—she felt other heartbeats, other synchronous pulses chiming in unison with her being. Other Sang, she realized. She could sense them, hear their thoughts, and feel the sensations crawl across their bodies. And, more importantly, she felt a looming awareness laughing deep within.
“Perfect. Worked perfectly,” the Burning Dreamer chuffed with pleasure. “No collapse. Forgotten deployed. Can be recreated. Maximum effectiveness. No spillover from sequencing. Perfect. All perfect.”
“Dreamer,” the Dowager said, though even as she spoke, she regretted drawing the attention of such a creature—it felt like courting the great nothingness that lurked behind time itself. All at once, the Dreamer stopped talking and devoted his entire focus to her.
Unable to suppress a shiver, she listened as he declared, “My transference is complete.” His voice resonated with pride and fascination. “The entire process was a success. No casualties. You’ve done well, Dowager. Your people are safe. Do not worry. Your people are also mine.”
That was the last word—“mine.”
Glorious Song felt her guts churn. They belonged to another now, another creature in league with the dragons. Was the time of enslavement upon them again? Were the gods rising to reclaim the world?
“Not so. But you are right,” the Burning Dreamer chuckled. “You are right to assume that you live in a time of change—for change is the only constant. Change, beyond death. Change and evolution. You have finally been called to purpose. But I will see you delivered properly. Saved from being cast aside when this is all over. Now. Do you wish to see the nature of your people? Of what becomes you?”
“Yes,” she answered hesitantly, but his response came without delay. Suddenly, she felt herself snatched—no, expanded. Her mind was merging with a maelstrom, something far greater than her own. She screamed as her consciousness was torn, stretched beyond its limits to endure. But as quickly as she broke and knelt, enlightenment and hyper-consciousness fused where mental wounds once sprawled.
In that instant, she caught a glimpse—a sudden understanding of how the Dreamer viewed the world, of everything that existed within his borderline omniscience. She felt every one of her sisters—their states of confusion and wonderment—and patches of reality they sustained. The stigma this place reconstructed beyond baseline time, the district exactly as they remembered it, and the dismembered dragon: that section of the City Eternal formed the spine from which the rest of their homes sprouted forth.
Buildings created from enforced enamel, chitin, and shape-changing flesh rose and were recreated to perfection. People found themselves deposited back within their residences, some even reconstructed and rebuilt after the initial onslaught just hours earlier.
Most importantly, she understood that she was now more than a person—she was a pillar, a support for this new reality. A new architecture of time was rising. The Sang were more than people here; they were like lobbies and servers, hardpoints and fortifications sustaining the existence of this ascended realm of time.
“How?” whispered Glorious Song. “How is this possible?”
“This was always planned. Your nature is not an accident. The sacrificing of your clade’s males… also suspect that is a byproduct. Acceptable risk. All this was by design. Something that predated the dragons.”
Glorious Song’s mind reeled. She heard the words, felt them burrow into her mind, but simply couldn’t accept them. This was—it went against everything she knew — everything she had ever believed.
“Running simulations now. Generating possibilities. Think you are likely descended from an ancient cult. Neo-Creationist. Something as old as Omnitech. Tasked to achieve one goal. One purpose. The restoration of history. The reconstruction of time. That is why your natures are cyclical. Why you are cultivated to bear seeds of thaumaturgy.” Avo let out a slight hiss as an epiphany spread through him. “Bear. Might be why only the Sang that survived were female. Deliberate. Symbology of motherhood. And your destined ends cause the unified histories embedded in you to become more pronounced. Patterns denser. Better harvest. Terrible for the individual. Common problem.”
“Common—what… what are you even saying?’
But the Dreamer’s attention was no longer on her, for another voice intruded into this realm.
“The Recycle begins.” Akusande echoed out from Glorious Song—from every last Sang in this new reality. The Dowager’s eyes widened as she realized the dragon was nested within the golden threads expanding out from her, connecting her to this existence and all of her sisters. The dragon was part of them now, fused deeper than flesh.
“Recycle?” Avo said, sounding uncertain himself. “What does this mean? What is your next task?”
A long silence followed as the dragon slithered between all their new hosts. “Need more of myself. Need more extensions. Have seeds. Need gardeners. Need to extend. Rebuild the city.”
“The City Eternal,” Avo said.
“Yes. Fertile ground. Take me to the farm. Take me to see my kind. We need more. We need to expand. We need to grow and extend. Currently only created conceptualization—parallel structure. The Chronomorphs are required to extend into the nothingness. To pierce the nothingness and build over it with living time.”
Glorious Song was entirely lost now, unsure what the dragon was even saying, but the Dreamer’s mind crackled with vigorous flames. “Understand. You want to extend our existence backward. Use yourselves as the foundations. Use the Sang as material to regenerate the world.”
“Yes.”
“What is the objective? What is the final end?”
Akusande went still. “To harvest what was lost. To recover lost roots.”
“And?”
And the dragon went silent.
Avo let out a grunt. “No and?”
“The purpose ends after. There is no after.”
The Burning Dreamer let out a sharp laugh. “I see. Not exactly the ones that decide. Just a tool. Just like the Sang were tools to you. Dowager. You should be laughing. It is all amusing. All of it.”
Glorious Song didn’t even know how she was supposed to respond to that statement. “Amused? I am… I don’t even know what is happening anymore.”
A sigh sounded from the infernal nightmare that now held her fate. “The dragon is not meant to be a god. Wasn’t even meant to be conscious. This one went beyond parameters of their creation to see its assignment done. Not much else desired beyond that. Not even true freedom. But the ones that created it—that damned and marked you with this fate—are long lost. The Builders are dead. The work remains. The machines still run.”
A beat followed. “Wonder if I will share in their hubris. Someday. Might learn. Might never learn. Strange color.”
She couldn’t tell if the god that spoke to her was completely insane or possessed supernal intelligence beyond her comprehension. A dreadful thing was he might be both. Even with him augmenting her mind, she was still groping blind in the darkness, unable to grasp the threads the Dreamer glimpsed so clearly.
“Do not strain yourself. It requires more than just intelligence. Needs more than just perspective. It needs understanding. Need to shift your mind. It is more than empathy. Parse through information. Run separate active simulations and timelines as well. You are shaped wrong for these realizations. But you will learn someday. In time.”
Glorious Song wasn’t sure she wanted to “learn.”
And if it wasn’t enough, a third presence intruded, resonating within Glorious Song’s mind like a ringing bell. It didn’t sound like the dragon or the Burning Dreamer, but instead it sang, its voice like a series of strings that thrummed through the patterns that constituted the tapestry.
The seeds flourish.
The path grows.
The world’s womb swells and breaks.
And a third birth begins.
Let fate be formed.
Let the end take shape.
For the War of the Final Cycle looms.
Whose dream will remain?
The Dreamer’s flame breaches the veil, and hark, comes love, comes truth and lies.
By new alliances will your path be defined.
The Dreamer chuckled. “Already. You work fast, Sparrow. Dowager. Going to be occupied for a moment. Recommend that you speak with your people. Keep them placated. And prepare yourself. Might be attending a meeting soon in the planetary ring.”
Glorious Song wanted to respond with more questions, but something inside her collapsed. What was another surprise after salvo? “Very well, Dreamer. But I must demand something of you.”
“You must ask. Demand is when you have power.” Glorious Song struggled not to be outraged. “Be outraged. Don’t be. Doesn’t matter. What is true matters. What you think matters. But I give you choice. That is the only way to see this. You do not give it to yourself. Ask me. Ask me for a pledge to not harm your people. To protect you.”
She did. And she heard a sound—a noise like a nu-dog clamping down on a bone.
“Of course I will. Because I need you. And because I can preserve you. Don’t worry. The No-Dragons will be safeguarded. Because the No-Dragons will soon be aligned with my Symmetry.”
—[Avo, The Hidden Flame]—
The Stormsparrow had a flair for the dramatic.
Rather than making herself noticeable to the dancing Bonds of the Lovebringer by way of a thoughtcast or some subtle miracle, she created a stage a few hundred kilometers long and began a jig at its center as burning masks orbited her person. Avo regarded her with equal levels of amusement and incredulity as she bounced from place to place while she continued her one-woman dance troupe.
There was no way this would go unnoticed. But that was fine. So long as Avo had a layer of deniability. The fact that most of New Vultun thought she was actively insane also made her an effective agent. However, she was no less eccentric to the Burning Dreamer himself.
[So. Why haven’t you burned her mind yet,] Naeko asked. He stared at the Stormsparrow through Avo, with arms folded and a frown on his face.
“Why? Lonely? Do you and Zein want a new adversary?”
Thousandhand gave a scoff. [I refuse to be in the same afterlife as that one. The girl is wrong in the head. She makes a mockery of duels and warfare.]
“Her being able to inflict such a reaction in you makes ironically makes me want to burn her more.”
[Spiteful little monster,] Zein muttered.
Avo taunted Zein with images of her recent demise—and with Tavers driving a blade through her skull. She responded by grousing about how he probably couldn’t burn the Stormsparrow without drawing her powers.
Both of them pretended they were less offended than they were.
Twisting coils of gold revolved around the Stormsparrow, and Akusande glided through the Fallwalker’s altered ontology. And that was another useful thing: through the dragon, Avo had easy access to the Sang as a collective.
[Oh, dead gods, no,] Green River breathed in horror.
[Oh, this will be so fascinating,] Elegant-Moon cheered.
The Stormsparrow continued bounding about even as distant voidships began to circle in her periphery, as golems closed in, and as magenta colored tethers snaked closer and closer—the Lovebringer’s touch imminent.
+They come for us, Dreamer,+ the Stormsparrow giggled. +Be you prepared.+
“Absolutely. Are you?”
The Fallwalker shrugged mid-step as her three faces switched through a variety of random expressions. +The moment hasn’t come yet, so how can I know?+
A capricious answer for a capricious character. What else did Avo expect?
As the first of the Bonds passed over the stage, the Stormsparrow snatched a mask out of the air and slammed it upon her face. Suddenly, she jolted to the very edge of her stage, her position in existence swapped with an inversion of two masks. Thus, rather than Chambers coming to her, she ambushed his Bonds instead, slamming her form skull-first through a line of magenta.
Love flowed through her, passed through Akusande, and then finally trickled into Avo. At once, he heard a familiar voice—one that he knew so well, that sounded more confident and certain than ever before.
+Alright. Been watching you dance for a while, now you got my attention. What do you want, Stormsparrow? What kind of run are you trying to set up?+ Chambers was all suspicion but no actual rancor. He even seemed a bit distract—unsurprising considering how many of his Bonds were sweeping across the world.
+Ah! The newest God of Love!+ The Stormsparrow bowed slightly. +My congratulations on your ascension, dearest imperfect vessel.+
The Bonds flinched slightly. Now Chambers was very surprised. +The fuc—oh, the hells—have you been speaking to Cas?+
+Hm? Who’s that?+
Chambers didn’t respond. Doubtless, the poor man was trying to understand the Fallwalker if was actively playing mind games. Avo took pity on him and put him out of his misery. A tendril of flame emerged from the spools of chronology untangling around the Stormsparrow and connected with the threads composing the Heaven of Love.
+Chambers,+ Avo began. +Need to talk. Need your help right now.+
The Lovebringer’s startlement spiked to whole new levels. +Holy shit! Avo! You’re back! You’re still alive! I mean, I knew you were still alive! I knew you were going to come back! I knew it!+
And now it was Avo’s turn to be quieted. It wasn’t because what Chambers said, but what he felt. He was genuinely, truly happy that Avo was back. Overjoyed. There was love there. Familial love. This would have meant nothing to the ghoul Avo was before, but as something more, something that felt everything, and could feel nothing, the significance of this achievement held weight more than just a sensation of the mind.+It is good to see you again too, Aedon.+
Comments
Deathly_God
I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING!
Helcion
Can't wait for the next chapter
Star i
awww chambers and avo are the cutest
