[centre][img]http://i.imgur.com/FrBbmhd.png[/img][/centre]

[centre]The End[/centre]

One of them was shouting. Pleading.
The other was too far gone. It had seen the great beyond and could no longer turn away from its siren call.
[color=6ecff6]'I will have it! I [i]must[/i] have it!'[/color] It was the latter that spoke, looking towards him, for it could see him now.

[color=fff200]'Brother! Cease this foolishness at once! You know not what you do, you will see us ruined!'[/color] More pleading. Could it not see the futility of speech? There was nothing that could be done. He could hear their discourse, each trying to dissuade the other from their set path. It was all so very, very futile. For he had come now, bearing Punishment and Retribution against these transgressors. There was no going back. It had been over for all of them from the moment he set out, but it could now be said, with utter certainty, that it was truly done. Finished. Complete. Sealed.

The one who had gone too far now reached the great light and was extending a hand towards it. Its desire, euphoria...its ambition...pulsated throughout the dying Universe. Even now with the end in sight, it still thought to dream. 

[centre][color=black][i]The best-laid schemes o' gods an' men
Gang aft agley
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy![/i][/color][/centre]

He cocked his head and raised a trained and disciplined arm. The mere movement caused the fabric of existence to shriek in incomprehensible pain and tear itself apart. Then he spoke, and all shrieking stopped. And all that was and could be were silent. And what all thought could not be shattered...was rent asunder.

[centre][h3][color=black][b]'Get Thee Down from It.'[/b][/color][/h3][/centre]
[centre]***[/centre]

It was a simple word that awakened them and summoned them to him from every dark corner of the unknown, every hole and haven, every torment and pain. It was one word, one command, and they all obeyed.

[centre][h3][color=black][b]'Come.'[/b][/color][/h3][/centre]

He stood there in the nothingness; the only reality. He did not merely hang there - like the other which simply wavered beside him, ethereal and so dim that it could have slipped away into the nothingness at any moment, yet still remained - no, he [i]existed[/i]. And around him even the nothingness of pre-existence trembled.

He raised a sword arm above him and cut slow downwards. The nothingness parted and the wound wailed and from it they emerged. It spat them out, one by one - from wherever they had been or wherever they were going. They rise, they rise, they return.

They Come.

[hr]
It was all a dream. Or dream-like. Or maybe it was all real but was on memory as a dream...he (or was it she? It? They?) saw things, snippets of past - or were they future? - lives. Were they his lives? His pasts and futures? He was not certain. It was difficult to admit, but he was not certain. Something about not knowing - about not being certain - irritated him tremendously. He did not know why, he could not know why. He was not even sure who he was...or what he was. Maybe he was just memories, snippets of memories floating in this tender nothingness. He heard something - was it another memory? Or a vision of a future? Or was it a dream? Or was it real?

[i]'Oh Great One - have mercy on us. Please have mercy,' one of them was sniveling at his feet, the other held a child to her breast and was also on her knees, head bowed. They were strange creatures, immediately familiar and unfamiliar, loved and despised.

'Mercy...' he repeated. It was not a question, more of a statement, but the one sniveling chose to reply.
'Yes Great One, mercy. Please be kind to us, we are beneath you and in need of you. Please be merciful,' his weeping intensified and he was now holding on to the god's feet of bark as though he were a drowning man and they were all that kept him afloat.

'But...you do not [i]need [/i]mercy,' the god stated, 'it is of no use to you. You will invariably, with certainty, die. Your existence is of no significance in the great scheme of things. You are nothing, not even a speck. If mercy were water and you a seed, then it would make sense to give you mercy, but mercy is water and you are but a pebble - the only thing mercy will do is wash you away. Your very existence is a mercy from us, and your very death is a mercy from us - what more do you need?'

The man sniveling at his feet lay there, shocked by the words of the divine. All he could do was whimper, and the woman started to cry, and the child - sensing its mother's distress - let off its primal infant screams.
'But...but...' the man was struggling for words, 'but...you don't have to be cruel, right? We don't need cruelty...do we?'

The god cocked his head of bark, the wooden features seeming to soften ever so slightly - but then again, how could a wooden face soften? It clearly could not. Without a word, he faded away like mist. The man gave a shout of desperation and attempted to keep his hold of the deity's feet. But it was to no avail. There was no deity there, and they were alone.[/i]

Mercy, he had said. Cruelty he had said. Could one be cruel if one just...did nothing? Were omissions a form of cruelty? He could not dwell too much on the matter, for now he could see something. What was it? He could not quite make it out. There were two...

[centre]A pair of eyes.[/centre]

Such angry, accusing eyes. Such pained, tormented eyes. What had he done to gain the ire of such eyes? What had been his cosmic sin? He saw her, he saw her all too well. Those eyes, oh God - God? - those eyes. And the blood, yes, the blood. And her hands, those hands which had reached out for him and the hope that he had watched die. The hope that he had waited on, until it was completely extinguished. Then he had left, though she whimpered still and screamed. 

[centre]Those eyes.[/centre]

He tried to back away from them, but there was no escape - there was nowhere to go, nowhere to flee from those eyes so full of blame and anguish. If eyes could sear the essence and scar one's being, then those eyes did - those eyes were the only past, they were the only future, and the only dream - or was it a nightmare? - and they were the only reality. Yes, those eyes. They would have him.

Then the command sounded. His body - had it been there all along? Or had it just now, upon being ordered, manifested? - reacted before his ears heard and mind could understand, it moved before his mind willed. The world crumpled around him, crushed him, pulled him apart and opened up before him...and then it spat him out as though he were nothing but an insect - and maybe he [i]was[/i] nothing but an insect.

But then he Saw and the insolent thought was forever cast aside.

[centre]There was Nothing. A virgin World.[/centre]

A creature of almighty power hung there in the nothingness, wavering and ethereal, but with power supreme. Beside it stood a terrible thing indeed. He could not say he knew much about either being, but what he did know was enough: they were far beyond simple gods, their power was incomprehensible to beings like him and...the others. The ones who were on the way. His...siblings. 
And he also knew their names, he had not at first, but they had willed and he had Seen and he had learnt their names: The Supreme Being was none other than Fate - and he felt a certain familiarity and a certain affection for this being. The Terrible One was none other than Amul'Sharar.

It was Fate who spoke.

[i]'You are become Time, the Creator of Worlds,'[/i] with its words, absolute calm and serenity washed over Vowzra, and he was suddenly very aware of himself, consciousness spread throughout his body and he felt the familiar wood and bark. It was good to exist once more - yes, for he had always existed and would always exist. He and Fate, Fate and He. Yes, they were the ultimate pairing, where Fate went, so too must Time follow. Yes, for Fate and Time were interlinked and related, a future could not exist without Fate, and no future could ever be without Time. And without Vowzra, the Universe - when it came, and it would come - would not have Time. And without him, the Universe - when it came, and it would come, for he Saw with an Eye - would not [i]be[/i]. Who could muster those creative energies but he? Who thought themselves capable? Let them come (and they would come), let them challenge his authority if they dared. They would all be cast aside.

Slowly, Vowzra turned and stared into the great gash where-from he had emerged , and as he stared into it, he could feel that living, breathing, all-consuming darkness staring into him. His very essence shriveled before might and power that dwarfed him in untold ways. If a god could feel fear, then it was fear that Vowzra felt in that moment. Then he gathered all his disdain and lack of emotion within his essence and willed himself to face the writhing wound of creation. 

His siblings were coming and, together, yes, [i]together[/i], they would defile this virgin world with their energies, they would bring about their Universe and they would go on to forge it. The command of Amul'Sharar rumbled behind him, and the voice alone seemed to pry into his ears and enter his mind and see into the greatest depths of his essence. The wooden frame of the Master of Creation, the Lord of Time, trembled ever so slightly. [i]'Tis...'tis but the wind...[/i] he told himself, all too aware of the truth.

[centre][h3][color=black][b]'Come.'[/b][/color][/h3][/centre]