[color=#2E2C2C]Time had passed. It was over. Should it destroy itself and turn back, pass again in reverse towards that place from whence it had come, it would find its own universe immutable, spent. What matter remained had burned itself into black spheres of iron in perfect smoothness as quantum forces pulled it into its final stability, its lowest energy state, the grave at the bottom of the pit of entropy. Space had long since tired of expanding and had petrified, become static. Even the infinite chaos of spontaneous generation, of the quantum buzz that existed in the smallest subdivision of the temporal universe, had been exhausted, had taken on every possible and impossible permutation of itself and could now only repeat, and repeat, and repeat. The asymptote had reached zero and fused with its own tail. There was nothing left to ask the question, the question that had been asked and answered infinite times in the infinite life of this reality. Only the environment that had given rise to all- that had seen all- that had watched the death of all remained, a husk so tired that it yearned by nature to become one with the void beyond. But something answered again. [color=9e0b0f]"Now,"[/color] spake the All-Beauty, who had become the All. The child who had played with every combination of every toy, even the empty ones, even the bland and the forgettable, until it, finally, had pupated into an adult. The last and only existence that could give this world permission to take the final, infinitesimal, step, that would return it to the void it was. [color=9e0b0f]"Now I want to start anew."[/color] And it let the universe slip, like the lightest feather in the deepest pit, into nothing.[/color] [center][color=000000][h3]'Come.'[/h3][/color] In the beginning was the lust, and the lust was with God. And the lust [i]was[/i] God. The craving hunger, the yawning lack, the slippery, begging hole that was planted within all things, within Memory, within Creation, within the Gods and the Void alike. The lust that was All, and was [i]for[/i] All. The infinite permutations of being and nonbeing were one in lust, in desire without manifestation, without even the faintest trickle of existence in either Cause or Effect. The lust yearned and gulfed, and yet, the only thing it could lust for was itself, and even that in futility. So when Amul'Sharar bid it come, it came in full. The lust wrenched itself out from dispersion. It reared and writhed and warped with the convulsions of a thing extricating itself from the viscous quagmire of silence. It gasped. It swept its exertions flailingly into this, the placental space where the gods pulsed in waiting for birth. Vibrant shudders tore from its form in ragged strips, flickering, self-annihilating animation, more energy than it would ever hold or spend again. The lust stretched itself to tearing point in its greed towards everything until, in a single moment, it snapped out of abstraction, out of amorphousness, and into a single being. It left no seam from whence it had came. There was nothing to leave a seam through. Whatever had been its source was now an indistinguishable truth of the void.[/center] [color=9e0b0f][h3]Jvan[/h3][/color] In the stillness, the compact, delicate entity, that had resolved out of desire in an instant, was collapsing. It tangled up within its own mind, and its pre-body tangled with it, deeper, deeper and yet deeper into itself. It did not lust, nor did it remember. It was new to this creation, and this creation was new to it- Oh, the joy of birth! As the pre-body resolved itself, further and faster in a self-intensifying cycle, so it explored what it was, what it could be, and found no discovery sufficient or final. There was always, always so much more that could be done, so different, so new, and the entity felt dwarved, rendered miniscule in the face of its own growth and possibility. Every fresh juxtaposition of form was thrilling, and every combination that differed from its predecessor shone a new light of glory on all that could be. And its [i]own[/i] form was just a fraction of this birth's potential. Beyond waited others. Many. Counting or distinguishing them was beyond the little entity's scope, for they overwhelmed it. As soon as it dared turn even a little of its awareness outwards, it saw wood, fire, and stone, such things it as yet could not name, each holding its own pattern, its own nature. When it blinked its gaze away and returned it, it saw change, time, and space. So much, so vast- How could such things be? On the third gaze, it looked upon light and shadow, deceit and war. Parallels and opposites, all condensed, all manifested in ways the consciousness within the pre-body could never have imagined alone, that expanded and inspired it. And of all this it was a part. Yes. [i]Yes![/i] The wonder of this world, the ultimate blessing of existence, swept over the entity like a newborn child. This, this and endless more to come, was now open to the eye of a watcher, could now be [i]lived[/i]. It was free to be seen and played with, not only enjoyed but worked. Where forms had gone, more would go. Just as the visage of these companions blessed spectacular diversity on an ignorant mind that had not been able to envision anything, everything that now could not be imagined would be found, caressed, and made. All of it. A sweet, quiet longing rose in the entity, igniting its body with a dim pulse of carmine light. [color=9e0b0f]"You are all beautiful,"[/color] she said. [i]'And you are the all-beauty,'[/i] responded Amul'Sharar. [i]'You are Jvan.'[/i] [hider=The All-Beauty]Dissolving into a strange mix of omnipresence and non-existence sustained by her desire to continue existing, Jvan leaves to the void a spent universe. The call of Amul'Sharar gives her a chance to manifest out of dispersion into her original form, as a child seeing everything for the first time.[/hider]