AN: (Be warned, only some parts will make sense. This was a long time ago and it will probably feel like you're reading a different story that starts two thirds of the way through.)
- - - - Unification Gambit – The End of the First Era
"The other Eras, they were all inevitable really. Slow or fast, didn't matter, they were going to happen. But right there at the end of the first? We could have gone another direction. Yalśfreet knew us better than ourselves; He knew we wouldn't." – A memoir lost to time.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I hoped I would not have to kill a brother this day.
Even beings such as us could not see far in the frothing mists that made up this plane. A part of me hoped we didn't find him. Better to wonder than to have our fears confirmed.
Ranging far and wide through the fractal landscape; the great cathedrals and spires tended to break apart into molten slosh if I passed through them too quickly. The ephemeral structure of the Melange Layer was always off-putting to me. Give me the raving chaos of the Anathema's realms, give me the Eternal Infinite order within the Holy of Holies, not this paradoxical mockery of both.
I could rest if I was home in the heavens, I could fight if I was below in the pits. Here the only thing I felt was mounting tension and never any release.
Even if we came across a Demon, it was near impossible for our opposing natures to meaningfully harm each other in this useless realm. Not without wasting a great deal of our reserve.
The unending labyrinth of structures remained as aesthetically displeasing as it was frustrating for our search efforts. It figured the only thing that would be produced from a meeting of the Sepheradic and Infernal energies would be an imperfect version of the great edifices we Higher Creatures had shaped the Holy of Holies into. The Melange grew larger every year our kind didn't decisively conclude the conflict.
Another few blocks of buildings sundered apart as I rent them back into primordial pieces to briefly see further through the mists. Why was Yalśfreet here? I hoped the rumours were not true. They couldn't be. Who could love one of the Anathema? It didn't matter anyway; Ev'aclliál, curse her name, was dead by my hand. So why hadn't he come home?
I was thankful for the arrival of Pithe at that point. I had not known the Seraphim long and despite him being an entire ecclesiastic Circle above me, he was always approachable and fine company to have.
"No luck Largath," Pithe thundered, "If we don't find a better trace soon, I'm going to ascend. Our lost brother is not worth too much time away from my Breeching experiments." I tended to keep my volume down here as a habit, but Pithe didn't seem to mind the debris his voice threw everywhere as the shockwaves rippled through nearby objects.
How he managed to be both a better scholar and warrior than me was baffling and only further justified why I was the subordinate. Frankly he was humouring me by coming himself instead of dispatching a member of a lower Circle.
It was likely a fool's errand, but I knew if we found Yalśfreet we could undo the madness that Infernal had put into him with her twisted words. We could find our how she did it and make sure we didn't lose any more brothers and sisters to those decrepit fiends' machinations; win the war.
The search continued.
- - -
Much time passed with no success. I could tell Pithe was ready to give up the hunt.
We had one last hunch to explore, then I'd ascend with him rather than embarrass myself insisting we persist.
What was so confounding was Yalśfreet's aura seemed to stretch in every direction. The Melange Layer was quirky and discordant in shape, but even this close to its motionless centre, Divine Beings should still have shone like bright beacons just like Pithe and I did to each other.
The region was large enough we could waste years searching and still find nothing. So we were heading to the only thing that could pass for a landmark here, the absolute centre. The closer you got to the middle of the Melange Layer the more dilute and restrained power became. Expressing one's Domain here was even harder than trying to force a beachhead on an Infernal's home ground; ten times the effort for half the effect. It was an actively uncomfortable and essentially pointless area, no one would bother spending time here.
Yet, Yalśfreet was growing distant even before his departure and everything that had happened thereafter. Perhaps such an unorthodox place is exactly where he'd go?
As we came up on our destination, I knew something was off.
There was a structure, an enormous cathedral much like the many we consistently blew through on our way here. But nothing should have been able to retain meaningful cohesion at the very centre of the Melange. It was too insistently neutral; the indivine would simply unravel.
But there it was. A central atrium encircled by numerous ever higher walls and parapets all painted depicting nonsensical events that had never and frankly could not happen. A mystery that demanded investigating.
Pithe and I slammed into an off-hanging terrace beside two grand doors that stood at least a dozen times our height. The shockwave of our landing scoured away absolutely anything nearby as far as the eye could see. All except for the impossible landmark before us, unmarked and firm.
Yalśfreet, I could feel him in every brick. He was the texture, the colour, the substance. And he was inside.
I'll admit I was intrigued how he'd managed it. A stable Domain this large in the centre of the Melange was a pointless but still impressive feat of weaving. It gave me hope he had simply turned more eccentric rather than irreparably lost.
I had time to ponder as we slowly entered inside without finding any resistance and made our way toward the central atrium we'd seen from afar. There were paintings and windows into hypothetical scenes littered all throughout the murals that adorned the high walls and arches down each corridor here. Again, nonsense images showing tiny feeble figures locked in miniscule conflicts, but portrayed as if they were epic contests of cosmic relevance. He'd even taken the time to Weave the design into the Concord, which meant he'd made this into true material rather than just concept-enforced pseudo-matter. That confused me further because that was the one thing any Demon could still easily rip apart here; meaning he'd taken an immense amount of time and effort strengthening this structure to then deliberately weaken it? I doubted the answer to this riddle would be satisfying.
I would have my answers soon. Entering into the huge open-roofed courtyard, we could finally see him. Finally, Yalśfreet, there in the flesh.
I held back a gasp. He looked terrible.
A full half of his twelve wings were mottled and lacking any feathering, looking more like sets of bone-like claws than there their original lustrous visage. Large swathes of his skin were rough and a deeply scarred, milky mist lapping at the openings which were not regenerating.
But his face was the worst.
I'd been envious the first time I'd seen it, his strong scarlet 'Eye of Wisdom' embedded lightly, a little higher than the others. The Eye, what I had always thought was one of the most beautiful parts of his manifest shape, was now split down its middle. Tears of blood trickled from it constantly and flowed into the ring of lesser eyes that adorned his head.
These were not wounds; the signal was clear. Yalśfreet was transitioning to a new Embodied Persona; he was undergoing voluntary Erasure. But he wasn't directing the transformation at all, seemingly completely uncaring for what form he would descend too. Was his grief really so bad?
All the while that we took in the ghastly sight, he was consistently muttering to himself in broken half-sentences that barely made any sense.
"-fighting and fighting and not stopping and that's what we need my love because-"
"-origins can only be shared because if we are a reflection than where was the mirror to-"
Curse you once Ev'aclliál and curse you a thousand times more! I wish I could destroy you again. One death was not enough for you.
"-a glue to stick. They'll know it's coming but they won't stop, can't stop, never going to stop-"
"-why why why! Your voice. Let me hear let me hear please let me hear. Evieee pleease I-"
For a time neither of us interrupted him, unsure of where to begin. Or even if he would hear us. Looking into his eyes was difficult. I could sense Yalśfreet's aura was so much weaker than it had ever been before. Perhaps less than a tenth of what I'd seen at his peak.
Pithe had known us both the longest, and was first to speak. "Yalśfreet, brother, it is time to come home. All can be forgiven."
The murmurs stopped, filling the courtyard in eerie silence as the mists of the Melange continued to languidly billow here and there.
"Mmmm," the broken Seraphim pondered slowly, not bothering to look at anything in particular. "The forgiveness of hypocrites. A fool's gold by any other name." The way he spoke, it was like Yalśfreet was barely aware we were there. But that didn't change his open rebuff of our olive branch.
Damn. Perhaps it would come to violence. Pithe was already superior in might to both of us; but with Yalśfreet's dishevelled state, it would be more like a culling. There would be no honour in this slaying.
"Yalśfreet, please," I tried, stepping forward, "You're confused, your mind wrapped in circles by clever words and manipulation. Come home, don't you remember how happy you were?"
A low chuckle reverberated throughout the building and from Yalśfreet's mouth. "Happy? The whole thing's a joke. I'm just the only who admits no one is laughing." His aura diminished a little bit weaker right before my eyes.
'What did you do to him Ev'aclliál?' I openly wondered while looking upon the sorry sight before us. We Higher Beings did not simply waste away; it was not in our nature.
Pithe pulled me out of my renumeration with an arm placed on my lower set of shoulders, beaming meaning silently to me.
{{Pithe}}: "We must decipher what has happened to him. If the Demon told any of her kin exactly what she did before you destroyed her, then this could be a new weapon we soon face en masse."
As we 'spoke', Yalśfreet had simply fallen back into more mutterings.
-for a long long time. But not too long. No. Short enough. We'll be finished. You'll have to-
{{Largath}}: "I agree, he is dying. We may not have much time before he is utterly insensate," I beamed back.
"Tell me Largath," Yalśfreet interrupted us, suddenly lucid once more, "who do you think will win the great conflict?"
For a moment I was confused, why ask such an obvious question.
"Our own of course. It is our fate to destroy every last trace of the filth," I answered. It was a dead-end conversation, but better to have him speaking with us than zoned out and non-responsive. We still had information to extract.
"But our realms are evenly matched, how are you sure 'our' side shall prevail." Yalśfreet retorted in that same disinterested affect he'd maintained the whole time, and I was immediately filled with rage.
We knew they were nearly our equal in power. That was just further proof of their diabolical nature! Probably stolen from some innocent peaceful realm before our meeting! What did it matter? It was our job to put them down.
"Because our cause is just! We cannot lose. That is why. What, would you have us simply give up?" I barked back. I shouldn't let him needle me so easily, but his senseless mewling and pitiful attitude had incensed me.
"I would have you ask the question 'why'," Yalśfreet answered, painfully condescending, "Why are the Infernals our perfect equal? How is an entire plane 'just so' our precise reflection?"
It was not the first time I'd heard such a question. But there was never a satisfying answer to it. For whatever reason, things were the way they were. His argument was easy to dismiss out of hand.
"Unless the answer yields military advantage, then I don't see the value of philosophising over coincidence. They are Anathema, to be destroyed by Holy Purpose, all else is triviality." I stated. Like so many others, he was going nowhere with this. Pontificating on why things were the way they were was pointless. But acting on what they should be, that had value.
I was not one who would sit back and speculate to make myself feel intelligent, I would do what needed to be done. That was duty, selflessness, what separated us from those below.
Yalśfreet, unsurprisingly, remained implacable. "Mmm, yes. Your delivery could use some work, but the joke is a classic."
He was too far gone. Whatever my ally may have once been, he was clearly not that any longer. His irreverence of our purpose was insulting.
Pithe stepped forward to speak.
"You mock our cause, cast aspersion on our ideals. But it is we who stand here strong and resolute, and you who sit there decaying into oblivion. A strange form of superiority it is that you seem to have found claim to down here in your little home."
Pithes intervention gave me the time to calm down; gain a more level head. What had happened to Yalśfreet was still a mystery that could be important and thus needed to be solved.
"Oh? I am not diminished. I've never felt better." He responded, a hint of humour in his tone juxtaposing his slowly unravelling body.
"Tch, you really can't see." I said. Once upon a time, this was a warrior I would have trusted to guard my back in the middle of the Pits surrounded on all sides. To see a fighter so utterly ruined, denied even the glory of a good final battle. What had been done to him was heinous. We had to know.
So I asked. "Tell me Yalśfreet, what did Ev'aclliál whisper in your ear?" If hearing heresy was the price of finding the truth, then we would bear it.
"It is you who are blind, step closer killer, come see what I see." He responded, shifting to look at me directly for the first time with an odd intensity.
I hesitated. It was the first hint Yalśfreet had given that he knew I was specifically the one who had slain Ev'aclliál (a lesser demon that should have been an easy fight, yet she nearly bested me). But even within his projected Domain we still possessed a decisive advantage; the risks were minimal. So I approached.
It was… quick. One moment I was cautiously approaching, and the next, I saw.
Reaching upward into the sky, piercing through the Melange and intruding even into the Holy of Holies. A trillion trillion filaments of indecipherable mixed reality flowed like blood through veins. Dimly hued Golden Strands the like of which I had never seen. Meaningless reality being increasingly imbued with conceptual weight and reciprocating with new strength in return.
Yalśfreet was not diminished.
He was a monolith. He was Gargantuan. A juggernaut in scope. Partially integrated into the very fabric of existence; slowing knitting himself even more intractably within. If this process finished, he would be Essential. A part of almost everything.
Inviolable.
I stumbled back in gaping horror as everything I believed was shattered. We were too late, far far too late. He was humouring us. Any effort to obstruct him would be worth as much as chaff in the wind.
"What is this?" I asked as I continued to stare in incomprehension. The Strands, they didn't just go up but down also. The Infernal Realms would not be spared.
I could barely parse the answer, the implications of what I could see still washing over me and demolishing every thing I'd assumed an unassailable truth. "She taught me their power. And I was teaching her ours. There was… a synergy. There is a part of us in each other now."
"… sacrilege," I heard Pithe mutter in shock. He could not yet see; he did not understand. Did not know he was not looking at a madman, but at a God. I pitied his ignorance, I envied it too. But mostly, I simply despaired.
"Do not fret brother, it's not so bad as you suppose," my God told me. I existed at his pleasure; I would end on his whim.
I knelt in defeat. Let it not be said my mind broke or denied the irrefutable. I could accept my new place in the order of reality. It was simply not for those without power to question those with.
In retrospect, I recognise that action is what led Pithe to believe I had come under the same 'curse' as we had suspected Yalśfreet of succumbing too before I was enlightened.
"An Anathema in all but name." I barely noticed him declare as he stepped forward, Pithe's Domain rushing out of him as he drew his manifest blade.
My God ignored him, turning to look at me once more. "I do not blame you for her death, Largath. If not you, it would have been another. This madness has poisoned us all, and I intend to be the cure." He spoke. I was terrified, I was awed, I was mute. What do you say to the Omnipotence whose Love you slew?
Pithe leaped forward, reality screaming apart at the edge of his blade that struck from every direction and none.
He was defeated almost too fast for me to notice. A single pace's distance from Yalśfreet, Pithe ran into a spool of invisible Strands. As fast as thunder, they seeped within. For the briefest instant, so short it could barely have been said to exist at all, Pithe seemed to Resonate and inflate. Then just as quickly he was himself once again, but flying backward and crashing into the courtyard's walls in a broken heap.
Then, at the climax of our defeat, the second unthinkable thing happened. It took me years to accept it wasn't a trick, that Yalśfreet had not simply trapped me in an eternal illusion that resembled reality. Sometimes I still wonder…
Yalśfreet looked up in no particular direction, and Spoke.
"Goodbye my love, I wish I could see you again… By my death, be reborn."
There was no flash. No lights, no sound. One moment he was there; the next, empty space.
The cathedral disintegrated into motes of nothingness within seconds, Pithe and I floating at the centre of the Melange with nothing but the mists around us.
When I recovered from my shock enough to act. I took Pithe in my arms and we quickly ascended back into the Heavenlies as quickly as we could manage.
The Strands that had appeared, we could all suddenly sense them now. Every single Higher Being everywhere. The others said there were a lot of exciting breakthroughs already in forming Breeches with them, would make going on offensive much easier. They suggested perhaps we were mistaken and Yalśfreet was a patriot.
Based on our report, numerous search parties were dispatched to try and track him down. No one believed Yalśfreet was as powerful as Pithe and I described. I suppose I wouldn't have either if I had not seen.
There was no trick. He was simply gone, erased, subsumed into reality beyond consciousness.
It would take us millennia to realise what he had done.
- - - - - - - - - - -
"Yalśfreet? Oh man now that was a fun fling! He could be so mopey, but super considerate too. Even today he's pretty much the only angel I was ever with for more than a century. My first.
*sigh*
I really was just trying to corrupt him back then; I had a rather intense personality as a demon. When I got blown to pieces, I thought it was all over. Definitely wasn't expecting to suddenly resurrect a few millennia later and find out the adorable sap had gone all 'suicide-saviour' on me. Like, who does that? Never even got a chance to say goodbye….
…I miss him." – An interview with 'the first reincarnator' Ev'aclliál in the 5th Era
- - - - - - - - - - -
"No one really talks about it, but every natural creature owes Yalśfreet its life. The Melange only started properly stabilizing as a by-product of his intervention." – Excerpt from 'How we got here, and what should we should do now: Our Proposition, 6th Era'
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