RE: Deity - The Breath of Creation

4:26 Where We Come From

"We are missing something," Elvira said, staring at their creations. Reika and Keilan stood beside her, arms crossed, watching the movements of energy as it extended around the Four Realms and reached toward their constructs. Her angels drifted through the lattice-like support structures of what she'd been trying to build, checking the integrity of it all. She already knew it inside and out, it would not collapse, but they had been interested. "I do not -""Like a painter looking at a sketch, you are looking at a half-finished project, not even half-finished, and claiming you do not like the results." Reika chided, shaking her head. "This is the basic of the basic. Relax. It will all come together."

"I'm not saying the current result is wrong," Elvira argued.

"She's saying the plans are wrong," Keilan finished for her, surprising Elvira as he had been characteristically quiet until now. "We jumped into this without fully understanding what we were doing. No - we did, but now that we have begun, we are seeing more than we could have possibly." Elvira nodded rapidly, placing one hand against her growing belly, her wings flaring. Keilan always knew when to speak up. "We started this by asking ourselves what Mother would do, then by asking what we, ourselves would do."

“Yes, and?" Reika pressed. "You two are overthinking it. Don't think, just do,"

Elvira hummed her disagreement, stepping forward and laying a hand on one piece of her creation. It was hard, like bone, in contrast to the fluffy clouds of the Heaven Realm she had made when she was a girl. There was power here. Her power. But despite the difference of solidity, it was just the Heaven Realm all over again. White strength, divinity, the power of the gods...she could feel her holy power infusing the essence, the supportive structure that was what she was building, branching out like...

She frowned harder. She didn't want to just make the Heaven Realm all over again. She wanted to do more than that. With a little sigh she took a step back, rubbing the back of her neck and turning away. She needed to take a metaphorical step back and focus on something else for a time. She still had incarnations running about in the Four Realms - perhaps if she sat down and meditated with her true body, she'd find the answer she was looking for. It was tickling the back of her mind, like a little feather, constantly on the edge of her awareness yet remained frustratingly distant.

"I’m going to take a break," she grumbled, and her true body teleported back to the Holy Palace. One of her incarnations was holding what could only nominally be considered "court," the few gods that could speak to her right now, as in, the few not still rebuilding and adjusting to the changing Realms, chattering about what was and was not happening.

Aeriel drifted above overhead, carefreely bumping against the ceiling, watching the wind swirl through the upper dome of the palace where a great mural depicting Father's creation of the Realms was painted. She smiled at the goddess, gaze drifting to one of the pillars in the throne room. The entire palace had expanded quite a bit since those first years. Yet the pillar Aeriel had once broken when she was a freshly born goddess remained.

Threads of gold bound the white marble together, a constant reminder to Elvira and to Aeriel that sometimes, when something broke, it could be made beautiful once again. It was a fond memory. One from so long ago…

A hand on her back startled her.

"Gilles! Don't sneak up on me like that!" She complained, glaring at her husband for giving her a start. Her pale-faced husband smiled at her warmly, leaving his hand on her back as he looked out over the "court" himself.

"Shows how distracted you are, that you were unable to sense my approach." He teased. She huffed and crossed her arms.

"Shows how strong you are getting, that you could." She argued back. He slipped an arm around her waist with a little smile, and she wrapped her wings around him, pulling him closer into a side-hug. He truly had changed, and changed fast, in the past few years. He was still the Deity of Shadows, the Pillar of the Mountain, but now he stood taller, stronger, more secure in himself and his position.

Elvira knew what her problem was.

Her "new world" didn't have him in it, just like it didn't have a place for her unborn child yet. She was building a home, and had forgotten to build her life into it. She wasn't like Father, who had been torn away from everting to make her new house. She was Elvira, and she had a family and duties.

Her grip around Gilles tightened, and she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.

"Have you paid much attention to the Celestial Empress lately?" Gilles asked. Elvira shook her head, thoughts still dominated by her construction project. "You should go take a look. It's fairly amusing, to be completely honest. She seems to be under the impression that she's going to become the next Empress of Heaven the moment she gets up here. I can’t say the conclusions she’s coming to about her Empire are wrong, but once she gets up here? That’s a different story." Elvira snorted in amusement - an incarnation already diverting to go observe her. But her true body stayed here, in her home, an arm around her husband.

This was her home. It was, and always would be. She'd built it from the ground up with her own two hands, under Father's watchful gaze. She had memories here, a life here, duties here - and that was why she had begun her project. To stabilize the Realms more, to expand it, to give new life to her home, to expand it for her ever-growing family.

But also, she wanted to take what Father had taught her, what she had learned over her life from the dawn of creation to now, and build something new with it. To move out of her father's house, even though she'd helped to build it, and start something completely new. Not because she wanted to be out from underneath her Father’s thumb, He'd always been very loose in letting her and her siblings feel like they could do whatever they wanted, within reason, but to, well, honor everything He'd given them by being the absolute most she could be.

What she'd started building didn't feel quite like that.

She pulled Gilles tighter. "Come on," she said, "Let's go for a walk."

***

Despite not having a family the way that Elvira did, Keilan understood wholly what she was getting at. The connections that bound everyone was what made them, them. Completely forgetting that and trying to make something wholly their own wasn't just impossible, it was, quite frankly, stupid and a disservice to everything they had gone through and everything that made them love their home.

In addition, they were not Mother. He was not Mother. He did not have eight mortal lives who shaped him from the very beginning of his existence. He had sent incarnations to live down in the physical Realm, of course, and had experienced life from the eyes of a mortal numerous times, but it was not the same. He had been born a god capable of wonderous, amazing things, and had only come to appreciate that power after the fact.

Keilan was a god of karma, lord of connections, and he of all people knew that some connections could not be severed, and should not be ignored or forgotten.

These were the thoughts that plagued him as he walked through the halls of his Palace, specifically the Archives of Memories. Blue books, glowing with runes and the power of a mind, filled bookshelves taller than mountains. Spirits and souls drifted about the nigh-endless library, containing individual records of nearly every soul's journey through existence. All were the same size, the magic of the mind allowing them to not be overly large or thin, and each were marked with the record of a soul’s truth, so they may be found and not mixed up, upon the spine.

These were the memories souls discarded when they reincarnated, and potentially gained again when they achieved immortality. Such was a gift that could be freely rejected or accepted. His fingers ghosted along the covered, feeling each and every one individually, and as a collective whole. Just as the memories of a single person or being was important, so was the collective memory of the Four Realms.

With a thought, his true body teleported out of the archives, to float above the Sea of Memories. The black ocean was peaceful at the moment. Spirits floated the waves, manning boats or simply drifting along. Memories of the Four Realms appeared beneath the surface, ancient ruins and echoes of battles long past, or simply memories of stone. Mountains that had been ground into dust by wind and rain over eons rose from the depths, only to disappear in an instant as mere echoes. Ruins of civilizations that had risen and fallen in the Physical Realms, before the Celestial Empire had become the dominant civilization.

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Whereas the archives remembered the souls, the Ocean recalled the passage of time. Ironically, something his wayward sibling, Morgan, had chosen to drag into its domain. Keilan stayed there for a time, just watching.

"You are thinking too much," Keilan nearly jumped at the sudden arrival of another, dragging his thoughts from his mind and forcing him into the present. Solana soared in the air beside him, in her bird form. Golden flames licked up and down her sides, her very existence proof of what he was talking about. Connections made them; even Solana had not been able to completely lose her connection to the Sun and fire.

"I always think too much. It is in my nature." He argued, nodding to the great bird. She clacked her beak at him, annoyed, eyes narrowing.

"No, the overgrown lizard thinks too much while believing himself wise. You know better," she snapped, circling him with beats of wings, her round body suffused in fire. He raised an eyebrow at her, amusement curling in his chest. Did she just call Alexander an overgrown lizard? She had, hadn't she? That was no way to talk about Alexander, even if she was right. He did tend to get stuck in his head and forget to act sometimes.

"Oh? And you know all about overthinking things, do you?" he asked.

"No, but I've been watching you brood over the ocean for the past two days, and enough is enough." She argued. Keilan chuckled and crossed his arms, flaring his wings as he looked out over the ocean again.

"I was merely admiring the view, not brooding," he said.

"Semantics. You were brooding and you know it. Now, I don't care what's on your mind, and frankly I don't want to know. But I do know that I couldn't stand you just staring there, looking out over the water for much longer. The Rival always told me that if you start thinking too much, go work on a hobby or something." Solana paused. "Do you have a hobby?" the question was so innocently phrased, Solana cocking her head to the side and clacking her beak, ruffling her feathers that Keilan couldn’t help but laugh at her a little.

"That sounds like advice Mother would give me," Keilan told her, shaking his head as she came to stop in front of him, folding her wings against her side as she floated mid-air. Below them, a barge full of Asura floated along, their minds expanding to search for any lost memories or relics. They were researchers, fairly young for their race considering Asura were immortals, cataloguing the flows of memories below. "My hobby is drawing."

"Drawing?" Solana cocked her head to the side further - so far, actually, that Keilan wondered if she was part owl.

"Yes. Not with divine power, but with my hands. It's pleasing, using only charcoal and parchment, or perhaps colors, to bring life to an image that exists only in your head. There are a million and one ways to create that image with my power, but using my hands is...cathartic, in some ways." He explained, shrugging. "Would you like to see some?"

"You are offering to show me your drawings? When I don't think anyone in the entire Four Realms knows you like to draw." Soalan deadpanned.

"Now that's just untrue. Many of my angels know. Reika has a drawing of mine, of her and Kei, hanging in her workshop. And Mother of course knows," Keilan immediately disagreed. Solana made a face of disgust, which was quite amusing to see on a flaming bird, and clacked her beak again.

"...Fine. But only because I have nothing better to do!" she snapped, and, while clearly a lie, Keilan still led the way.

And he examined more closely, the connections worth holding onto.

***

Alexander understood better than his other siblings what he was looking for, or so he believed. That was why he was neither in the Four Realms nor the One World, but out in the Void.

Golden fire lanced out as he roared, his breath containing everything he was, is, and would be. He was a Dragon, a true Dragon, an expression of Father's own nature. The Void rent before him, writhing and twisting, shattering beneath the might of his breath and rage -

The flame cut off, lungs burning as he coughed, his breath sputtering out in fitful bursts. Alexander bared his teeth, frustration mounting. He'd managed a proper Roar, the kind that Sehuyun could do, during the war a few times on instinct alone. But now, when he called upon it consciously, when he wanted it, it wasn't coming.

Instinct was one thing. It was good to know he could do it. But he had to be able to use his Dragon's Breath on command, whenever he wanted, not just on instinct. That was the difference between the truly talented and the merely skilled, even though that wasn't the only reason why he was practicing like this.

His tail thrashed, the tip snapping against the Void, cracking it.

"Breath, breath, breath, that seems to be all I can think about," he grumbled, glaring at the Void itself, nothingness that it was. There were not many things he actively disliked, but the Void was one of them. Why Morgan had been so obsessed with it, when they were younger, he’d never know. It was…uncomfortable, and actively hostile. Even now, as powerful as he had grown, it pressed uncomfortably against his scales, trying to grind him down into nothingness. Of course, powerful as he now was, it posed no real threat to him. He would wager that even the juvenile Paradoxes posed no threat to him.

For a moment, he sat there, staring out into the Void, knowing what his siblings were doing below. Elvira was Elvira, reminding herself of those she could not leave behind. Keilan was tracing connections, watching them flow like waves in an ocean. Reika was....well, Reika probably already had it all figured out, if he was honest. She could be annoying like that.

What did he have? He did not have Elvira's duties or family, or Keilan's connections and memories, nor was he like Reika, who frustratedly knew exactly where and how to sit in her own world. Or perhaps she struggled too, and hid it behind frustrated focus.

"You are disturbing my stars," Astraea, the goddess of stars of the One World, told him, as she finally approached. She had been watching for a while, Alexander knew.

"That is because I am disturbed," he agreed, turning to face her. In his full form, at his full size, he absolutely dwarfed the tiny goddess. She was perhaps the size of half a scale, looking up at him from far, far below. Her eyes shone like stars. Her hair was black as the night, glittering with starlight, moving between the strands in sharp, glittering waves. For the first time since he’d first met her, her hood was actually down, giving him a good look at her face. Something, he realized with a start, he had never actually seen before.

She was, in a word, beautiful. Sharp, angular features designed to draw the eye. Her skin was pale, a sharp contrast to her pitch-black hair. Youthful, but mature. Wizened, but with the general carefree look of a young woman. She was nowhere the beautiful look of Yueya, but she was clearly crafted, designed to be looked at and admired.

She was, also, not just a goddess of Stars. As Xing Wu was a god of stars and the Path, she was a Goddess of Stars and Freedom.

"What brings you here?" he asked.

"You are disturbing my stars," she repeated, gesturing backward. Alexander looked up, at the One World, and immediately winced.

The planet itself looked relatively whole, save for the large hole in the side form where the Four Realms had punched through the crust. To his eyes, he could see the cracks beginning to form, even as parts of the One World stabilized. So he cut back that part of his vision, and looked only at what was before him.

A dozen suns were pulled over the horizon by chariots of fire, moons following behind in a dizzying array of silver light. And behind all that, glittering in the void, were tiny motes of light. Stars.

Stars that were nothing but pretty lights hanging in the Void, not eternal save for a few. And he had carved a path straight through them.

"I apologize," he said sincerely, looking down at the little goddess. She had her own gaze fixated upon the One World, expression unreadable.

"Do not worry. They are meant to fade away. They are empty little things, meant only to look pretty and adorn the sky." She said, reaching out and touching one of the lights. It was easily twice the size of her, and flickered and faded, the light returning to her. “Some things are beautiful because they fade away. And, as I am sure you know, just being a goddess of stars is not all I am.”

Alexander rumbled his agreement, letting the silence stretch as they watched her stars dance around the One World, some consumed by the Void, some fading away, one or two even falling to the One World below.

“That was what ended the Oshun, in the end.” She said. Alexander watched her out of the corner of his eye as she floated up to be eye-level with him, not facing him, but not turning away, either. “They focused too much on one thing. Science. Sport. Art. The Oshun is more than that. She is all of that and more. You are lucky that your parent taught you the same…and I am fortunate they saw fit to grant me that same gift. Thank you, Alexander, for all you have done for us.” She said, bowing. The thanks sat heavy upon Alexander’s head, especially as he looked out at the crumbling One World. It was going to be stabilized, but…

“Thanks is too early. I am sorry I cannot do more,” he told her, pride stinging at the admission. The One World would fall, its pieces absorbed into the Four Realms, and the Realms he and his siblings were creating.

“No, we’ll be ok. A little bit of cracking will be good. It will allow us to make our own Worlds, I believe. More freedom.” She said, nodding sagely and smiling sadly at him. Her hands twisted together awkwardly, eyes shining as if she didn’t know what else to say. Her mouth opened and closed once, twice, thrice, then she pulled her hood up again. “That’s all I came to say. Thanks.” And she shot off into the air, down toward the surface of the One World. Alexander chuckled at her awkwardness, though something she’d said still resonated with him.

That was not all she was. Just as he was not just a Dragon. He did not just have the Dragon’s Breath. He was the River, too, and more. That was Father’s gift to all His creations, the ability to be everything, and nothing. His teeth bared themselves in a smile.

Maybe he’d just been thinking too much.

***

Reika knew her siblings were overthinking things. She knew it, as she watched the Four Realms, the way it was changing, tendrils of power reaching out even now to touch upon their creations.

Silly brothers. Silly sisters. She smiled to herself, feeling the thing in her chest, the [Word] that was trying to form, and had not yet. A [Word] of Mother’s design.

Oh, well. They’d reach the same conclusion eventually. Now, where was Kei? She had a daughter to annoy and embarrass.