Chapter 4:34 The Awakening, and Second [Words] |
The Oshun stirred, and I was there to greet them, even as the second [Word] was building within my children. They would each choose different words this time, I could tell. Already they were tugging on different pieces of my Dao, understanding the concepts they were trying to convey through creation; ironically, this was easier than the first [Word]. Whereas them all saying [Home] meant I had to explain one concept four different ways to four very needy children, each time equally as deep, this was four different topics I didn't have to explain quite as roundly.
Not because I couldn't, thanks to Mr. Boxes, which, now that I was no longer panicking and struggling to hold everything together, I was able to properly give my thanks for, but because they didn't need as much. They needed a very specific depth of understanding for the [Words] to follow their intent properly, not the entire concept. It was really quite funny how, as a god, multitasking was easier than things that needed my full attention for. Far easier.
Like always, I did not have time to be patient for the Oshun, however. I floated above them, my body a tiny speck compared to their colossal form, the Rival teleported safely back to the Four Realms despite his protests. And she opened her eyes.
They were gorgeous. All the colors of creation reflected in her irises, glittering and swirling like a kaleidoscope. Her hair, once a stony grey color, was a warm honey-brown now, her skin warm olive toned and tanned. She sat up and entire mountain ranges moved around her, sliding off of her silk-clad form like water to fall exactly where they had been. What I had feared would happen when she moved had not come to pass - the world parted around her, like it should for a true Origin Deity, and laid itself back in place without a single speck of dust out of place.
Slowly she stood, dusting herself off, rising up, up, the crown of her head nearly breaking the atmosphere of the One World and touching the Void beyond it. She was eye-level with me, now, and she met my gaze. The massive, multicolored orbs were filled with all the wonder and joy of Alala, the curiosity of Curie, and the creative gaze of Yueya. She was all one again, but I did not know how the Rot would affect her personality.
"It is done," she said softly, voice at once rumbling and deep, and lyrical and musical. Her power washed out over me like a blanket, fractured by strengthening, rustling my hair. I let it, feeling it out, and dismissed it with casual ease. She would have more power than I once she was properly healed, assuming I didn’t grow even more, but my quality was far and above better.
"I can see that. How do you feel?" I asked, crossing my arms. She smiled thinly, sadly, almost apologetically.
"Whole. Broken. Like I’m getting better. I also need to apologize," she said, head bowing. The motion took nearly twenty full seconds her head was so large. "We underestimated the Yueya part of me's involvement in the collision."
I was silent, waiting for her to continue. She chose her words carefully, meeting my eyes and clasping her hands together before her, feet rising off of the ground as her body began to shrink to a more manageable size, so she no longer physically dwarfed me.
"That was why she insisted on being the one to go to the meeting, instead of Curie or Alala. She needed to find someone to latch onto, to balance out the coming troubles." She said softly.
"And she found me," I said. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"No. She found Riley, the God of Luck. You were a balancing force, but your domain wasn't quite what we needed to right ourselves. Your presence helped keep Yueya's mind calm, and fight the Rot actively, which is why she stuck so close to you at the start." She explained, sitting cross-legged in the air, then standing, then shifting from foot to foot awkwardly. "Unfortunately, it was Riley's luck that was too good. The God of Luck couldn't see through your domain because all of his good luck was being spent on keeping Yueya away from him; so she tied what little fate she could to Riley to balance herself, and latched onto you instead."
"Why does it sting to hear I was the second choice?" I asked lightly, not really hurt by the idea but saying that anyway to lighten things a bit. The Oshun did not smile at that, shaking her head.
"You and the rest of me both underestimated Yueya's intelligence." She said, frowning a little. "Sorry, it's a little weird to be talking about myself like this. The memories are still a little fuzzy; she locked them down in a separate part of herself, specifically to prevent the Rot from accessing them. I'm still unravelling some of the locks. But the point I'm trying to make is that she was a Goddess of Art, and War, is an Art."
My brows furrowed, thinking of Atreum. He was a God of War, wasn't he? So Yueya had been the bigger version of him.
That tracked. I hated how that tracked.
"And the key to war is deception, and information." I deduced. The Oshun nodded.
"When she figured out she would have to bind herself to you - the Rot making the falling for you far quicker and stronger than it should have been - she started planning. She laid traps for the rot, gave advice to your children, pushed you and yours in a direction that would directly benefit the One World." She explained.
"I remember the advice given to Morgan," I said, nodding slowly. She had been a direct influence on Morgan getting the powers of Time and Space. "And how she treated Kei."
"The first steps," she said softly. "It was quite brilliant, actually. The advice to Morgan was to shore up one of your perceived weaknesses. How she treated Kei was to get you information on the Rot before it could get information on you from her. Even during the time when she visited the Four Realms, she talked to and manipulated people in very specific ways, but could only do so much without longer, more direct access."
"Typically, you don’t call yourself brilliant. That's something other people call you." I told her, and she flushed a little, coughed in her fist, and forged ahead.
"But she also engineered the collision." She said softly, and I nodded.
"We knew that already. Her getting pregnant snapped the Fate thread in place that caused it." I reasoned, wincing slightly as Reika tugged on my attention. The [Word] was half-formed on her lips, practically already out, but not quite there yet.
"Not to this degree. She decided, in her 'wisdom,' that the only way to successfully plan against the Rot was to eliminate possible other outcomes so there was only one or two paths. If she couldn’t be present to properly react, she had to engineer a catastrophe. She sabotaged the Four Realms’ growth some, preventing it from getting bigger. The part of her that knew she was going to be compromised blinded herself to other paths, and you as well. Your absence from the Four Realms so you could heal your arm? That was your idea, but she tried to blind you to another path of healing so you could learn different lessons. We don’t actually know if that one worked, since you were inclined to do it anyway. She blinded herself to her actions, Curie and Alala to theirs, and even infected Atreum personally."
This brought me pause. "What?" I demanded, eyes narrowing. She had infected Atreum, herself? Her own people.
"So she could control his infection. So she could drive him toward obsessive aggression, when she knew defense would be the Four Realms' strongest suit." The Oshun continued, picking up steam now. "She flicked bits of blindness at your children when they came to the meetings. Your angels, as well. She didn't even know she was doing it; hiding her actions behind instinct, something the Rot would believe was aiding it, but was really a...sub-program she had written in her own mind. You don’t understand, Statera; the collision was engineered by Yueya. The only miscalculation she made was you."
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"Me?" I asked.
"Sacrificing yourself at the beginning. Blocking everything. The Four Realms was in a far better spot than she originally believed it would be after colliding. Amari Ren, our little one, was supposed to steal the Authority away from Curie and Alala both, and hold it until the rot was defeated. Astraea was quicker, more immune to the Rot than she expected. Amari Ren not as magnetic to the Authority. And your world stronger. Our universes were supposed to combine, and out of it would come two, equal Origin Deities." She said softly.
"Equal." I repeated, eyebrows rising.
"That cannot happen now." She said, head lowering. "The Four realms is undeniably in a far stronger position than the One World - the One World is leaning on you far too much, rather than them leaning against each other."
"I see." I said, and I did. Because there was elegance in the plan, in the architecture of it that she was describing. Perhaps not all of it could be attributed to Yueya, she was likely being a bit heavy-handed in attributing the full planning of everything to Yueya. I suspected some of Riley's luck rubbed off onto her and myself, as well. Perhaps some of the other gods’ domains had effects on us as well; and what of the Paradox that had caused the collision in the first place? Chance? Would she have done it, if that hadn't happened randomly? There were still pieces missing. Or maybe not. Maybe the fate cord would have dragged us together either way, and the Paradox only sped up the collision. "If we were supposed to be equal, were those first shots taken on the Four Realms, the actual attack, Yueya’s doing?"
"Yes," she said softly. "They were. It was mostly the Rot, but she gave permission. I am sorry, Statera. Had I not blinded myself, we may have been able to find another solution."
"Had you just asked, I would have helped," I argued back.
"There was no way for us to. Curie showing Kei the Rot was the last chance for us to ask for help indirectly; Yueya organized that hoping you would see through her blinding beauty to the rot within. Unfortunately, her beauty, my beauty, was the perfect counter for your vision." She replied, a little defensive, but mostly apologetic. I breathed out through my nose, considering everything I had learned. Considering it. Feeling nothing. Literally nothing.
Then my children spoke. Reika's word was [Movement]. How the hell she came up with [Movement] I don't know, but it sent me stumbling; the Primordial Chaos Reika produced contracting and expanding rhythmically.
Alexander’s was [Flow] and, like a river, the Primordial Chaos began twisting and carving pathways in the faux void of the One World's core, creating a new reality.
Elvira's was [Support], and everything she was building firmed up. The Primordial Chaos condensed between Reika's and Alexander's, solidifying, ironically providing support for the other two's more nebulous creations, despite being an entirely different universe.
Keilan's was [Control], and his changes were the most subtle. In fact, at the moment, I didn't have time to pay full attention to how his changed - I stumbled, hand going to my head, and the Oshun reached out to me with trembling, nervous hands.
"Statera -"
"Don’t touch me!" I snapped, glaring at her - ah. There was the anger. White-hot and spiking, roaring in my ears like the thundering of my heart in my chest, my vision tinting red. The Oshun froze, breath frozen in her throat, holding up her hands and taking a step back, sweat beading her brow. I straightened myself with visible effort, smoothing out my perfect robes and running my hands through my hair, pulling the few strands that had fallen into my face back into its usual, respectable slicked-back look. I let the anger rage, but never let it consume me.
"I just -"
"I know," I said, with more heat than I intended. Fury bubbled in my gut, but it was, however unfortunately, tamped down on by the need to focus on my children. "I know your intentions were relatively harmless. Yours. Most of you. Just one third was treacherous."
The Oshun looked down, took a deep breath, and met my eyes with a firm, accepting expression.
"Is there anything else you're not telling me?" I demanded, firmly. She shook her head.
"That's the long and short of it. I - Yueya, who is still me, but not - did...a lot." She said softly. "To both my own people and yours. We sabotaged the One World, to make it safer for the collision. Intentionally weakened the crust. All while selling it as obsession with you, and fooling the Rot."
"All of it done when you were mentally ill," I allowed, acidly, biting back the venom I felt. I had to remember that part. Despite everything, Yueya had been under the influence of a substance that, technically, made her not herself. I was still livid, still absolutely furious to the point the red-hot rage was bleeding into my aura. The air distorted once, just once, before I got a handle on myself again. My mind traced the Authority I had been given from Curie. "Was Curie giving away Authority part of the plan?"
"Yes. No. That was unexpected. It was supposed to go to Amari Ren, but Astraea's...nature, of freewill, messed it up. She held onto it to give it to you. Something about her resisted Amari's natural magnetism toward that Authority. Either way, the result is the same, however. The Authority was given to a being that could not be easily infected by the Rot, preserving it." she explained. I nodded, having expected as much. The 'equals' statement was what was catching my attention the most, and the Oshun knew it. That was why she'd brought it up.
Yueya's plan had been for us to be equals, so in the aftermath, we could build a relationship, whatever form that may have taken but most likely not romantic for quite some time, on equal footing. Without one over the other.
She was not my equal right now. She was too injured, still, still reeling from the Rot, and I? I was more powerful than ever. She would spend time healing, and I would only continue to grow.
"You," I began, but the words died in my throat, caught on some block that even my anger could not push through. I pinched the bridge of my nose, and she waited patiently. "I am in no position to be making a decision right now, but you are going to force me, aren't you?"
"No," she said softly. "I will not. I will simply abide by whatever you decide."
"You need help, don't you?" I pressed. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, obscenely bright and white teeth as they were, and met my eyes again unflinchingly.
"Yes," she said softly. "I'm sorry. Merging with the Shadow is proving more difficult than - I mean, there's a lot..." she trailed off. "I'm still missing pieces of myself. Things are still merging together. I need to find peace within my own being before I can be of any help to you."
"I understand," I told her, and I did, genuinely. "I understand. But you have to understand that you cannot go unanswered for all that you've done. You being insane at the time thanks to mind-altering substances does...help is the wrong word, but help. That's me being blunt." I said firmly, arms crossed. "The full extent of your involvement will remain between us. Some of it will likely be shared regardless - there's a particular goddess of wind in my Realms that loves keeping secrets, but some will still be told. I would say it might be best for you to go into the Void for a time, to recover and also to serve as a faux exile, but that might not be the best idea for you at the moment."
"Faux Exile?" She parroted. I nodded, hands clenching tightly against my biceps to control myself, even while my voice remained steady.
"Yes. Healing hidden as temporary banishment. I'm not going to lie; the karma built up between you and me right now is very strong, very tough, and needs to desperately be resolved. Between you and the realms as well. Something needs to happen, to shift the perspective of my and your peoples, which will greatly help that. We're stuck together now, for better or worse, so I'm not going to pretend that you will be permanently banished or exiled or any of those other words being whispered in the back of your mind, and the minds of our people." I reasoned, trying to soften my tone, and failing miserably. These were things I would normally say, perfectly reasonable and thought out, but my tone was anything but. I couldn't do anything about that. There was a long way to go yet for true forgiveness from me. "Frankly, though, you need help, and I cannot be the one to provide it. Because I have two universes to bolster, four new ones to watch be created, and a dragon hurtling towards us with malicious intent.
"I cannot babysit you, and prepare for all that at the same time. And right now I cannot bring myself to trust you, nor do I have any inclination to try." To her credit, at my words the Oshun simply closed her eyes and took a deep breath, nodding almost imperceptibly. "You are also right, by the way. We are no longer on equal footing. So! Here's what I think should happen. You're going to accompany me to the Meeting coming up in the next few thousand years. Maybe to the next meeting with Sehuyun, before our collision, and we'll see if anyone is willing to give you shelter until you're properly healed."
Her eyes snapped to me, now, bottom lip trembling.
"Ok," she said softly. I softened a little, just a touch, because I am a bleeding heart at my core - but one had to know when to be firm.
"Then we will revisit this, and you will spend the rest of eternity making up for your mistake. Until that time, however, I am giving you one job and one job only; finish the [System] so I can give it Authority." I told her. "Astraea will help you. Fu Hao and Stilicho, my angels, will be beside you. I expect you to stay in the Four Realms and not move during this time. Understood?"
"Yes," she agreed. I stood, watching her for a moment while my children continued to tug on my awareness, the way she trembled not just from emotion, but also from exhaustion. She was still putting herself together. I stepped forward, crossing the distance between us in one simple movement, and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"I understand why you did what you did," I admitted. "But this has to be resolved. And Amari Ren deserves to grow up knowing their mother, so long as she's not a crazed psychopath," I smiled, and she smiled weakly, recognizing that was a joke even if it was in bad taste. "Now come. Let's get you sat down. You look like you’re about to keel over."
Together, we walked to the Four Realms, letting her see what had become of the One World during her time asleep. The way it was mending, Astraea taking over many of her duties if only in proxy. As for me? I tried not to hate myself. I wanted to rage and lash out at her. I wanted to be petty and chew her out and do a thousand other things - never see her again first and foremost on my mind. But I had to be the bigger person, and I had to see the bigger picture.
The One World needed the Oshun. I could not deny that, even if it was in a diminished capacity. All I could say, was I was looking forward to getting her out of here, out of my house, for a time. I needed a me-damned break.