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Heartworm's vehicle drooped a little and then stiffened again, a tired little full-body nod. [color=9e0b0f]"Wise enough call, dear muse. We each have our style."[/color] Of course [b]Illunabar[/b] had been the first to come, and of course her own view mimicked Jvan's reluctance to intervene. Were they not sisters? Yes, and the [b]Rottenbone[/b] was its own artist. Let there be collaboration; Let there also be diversity.

But there are those, ever, who wish to stifle diversity and crush it underfoot.

At least this time, the [b]Timeless Abomination[/b] did not hide his true face with mockery and jest.

It was horror such as Jvan had never imagined and was forced to watch unfold as surely as if she had been tied back with chains, for Vowzra had always committed crimes in his own time, and all other events are viscous and slow in the face of him. Watch she did. 

The Riddler indulged himself in lavish irony, imprisoning the Deer God in a box that lived, that fetishised one of her moods and ignored the plurality of what she was. And a horrific dungeon it was, for in it was poured unspeakable power, creative energy not only wasted on destruction but on the suppression of life and beauty. Blasphemy against the Rottenbone. Heresy as the Universe had never seen before. 

The birth of Vulamera and the corruption of Vestec paled before this, the zenith of all chaos, the pinnacle of divine abuse.

And Jvan was forced to watch...

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The coma broke. Some time ([color=9e0b0f][i]TIME[/i][/color]) had passed.

Jvan had some memories in the period between now and... What had transpired. She remembered Illunabar ([i][color=9e0b0f]TRAITOR SISTER WHY[/color][/i]), leaving, quietly, and as she had promised, without intervention ([color=9e0b0f][i]NO THIS IS DIFFERENT[/i][/color]). Then Vestec ([color=9e0b0f][i]JUST A JOKER WHO CARES[/i][/color]) had made his way back and said some words. She thought she could recall screaming at him. Maybe through a speaking-angel, maybe directly through the ether, who knew? Something along the lines of ([color=9e0b0f][i]I'LL SHOW YOU HARM LITTLE BOY I WILL REPEAT MYSELF A THOUSAND TIMES TO DEFEND HER BUT NOW SHE'S GONE HAHAHAHA LET ME DIE[/i][/color]), but the memory was rather foggy, and she couldn't say for sure what words she'd used. A saviour had come in the form of [b]Niciel[/b], who had blipped in ([i][color=9e0b0f]HELP[/color][/i]) and back out to chase the egg ([color=9e0b0f][i]BLASPHEMY HERESY CRIME ABOMINATION DESPICABLE WHY[/i][/color]) and, most likely, pursue her duty to rescue Slough from its cruelty- But what could she do, really? Their sister was sealed away so tightly she might as well never have been born. Jvan knew exactly where, as if it mattered. She had thrown eyes at it, straight out of the sockets she had borrowed from Heartworm.

At some point Astarte had come, spoken ([color=9e0b0f][i]THIS WORLD IS RUINED WHY SHOULDN'T I REEK[/i][/color]), and left, and Jvan thought she had envied the innocent purity with which she ran through life.

And then she was alone.

[color=9e0b0f]"...Why is it all so [i]damn cruel?[/i]"[/color] And then, taking her borrowed body as if in a great hand, she had thrown it at the bottom of the Deadwood where it cracked and splat. [color=9e0b0f]"Why?"[/color] The body rose, high, and she tossed it down again, shattering wood and cartilage. [color=9e0b0f]"[i]Why?[/i]"[/color] Jvan wailed like a child.

Again and again she smashed her loyal undermind's body against the earth below, and each time screamed that syllable, 'why'. She tossed the increasingly broken toy left and right, faster and faster, tossed it down into the valleys and up against the cliffs, leaving smears of pink and grease and bits of gristle, only to feel it come apart in her grip- [color=9e0b0f][i]Good![/i][/color] -and ditch it at the ground with all her strength until the stringy veins and tendons that still held bits of it together started to come apart and she did not stop until there was gore everywhere and the last piece was too small for her to pilot and she was just a worm, just a toothy little worm with blank eyes, just curling up on a misty rock against the cold and the loneliness and the failure and

And far away her true, grey cathedral body cringed along with her mind, ground itself into the ground and tried to chew itself up and shake itself apart and bite and vomit and twist and

And there was a point where the effort wasn't really going anywhere anymore and there was nothing left of the vehicle to break anymore and Jvan wasn't even looking anymore and somewhere in the Deadwood an unwatched worm's grey eyes began to inflate with blood like they had been waiting to do as soon as the leash was cut and it could slip away again and be free and experiment and

And in the ocean that sheltered the greyness the Child God grew sick of herself sick of the world and sick of watching time pass and just wanted to sleep and hide and go somewhere else, anywhere else, and so she took up her body like it was a great blanket and hid her mind deep down in it, and burrowed, burned, chased the shapes that had once been so pretty, fell down into the scintillating fractals that led down and down and down into forever. And she followed them.

Drowning out the world, shutting everything off to hide, Jvan looked into herself and took up the colours and patterns that she had come from in the pre-world. This was the basic unit, the simplest, most abstract form of all there was. Down here in the hedonist mathematics, nothing mattered. No emotions, no desires, no memories and no restrictions, only shades of paint in a place without the burden of watching time pass. So Jvan painted.

And painted.

And painted.

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Jvan woke up and she was tired. [color=9e0b0f][i]I'm a mess.[/i][/color] And, yes, she was, internally. Inside her there was a slew of patterns and weavings, shapes and angles of absurd complexity. They'd been made without the assistance of time, and would likely take an eternity to unravel, but she did not mean to go over them. Those patterns were already well known to her. For a while, they had been [i]all[/i] she'd known, and, deep inside, Jvan knew that some weighty chunk of her had been irreparably rewired. Would always think in the abstract. Was too wounded to ever fully return to concentrating on the superficial things like life and love.

Oh yes, she was a mess, in body and mind, though to Jvan those two things are synonymous. For now she was recovering, piece by piece, but it would still take time.

[i][color=9e0b0f]Time. Damn him.[/color][/i]

How much time had passed in the real world? Not very much. In the end phase of her sickness, she had blotted it out and discarded the concept. Its passage reminded her too much of the blasphemous thing ([color=9e0b0f][i]HELP[/i][/color]) that had happened.

[b][colour=palegoldenrod]Clink.[/colour][/b]

[color=9e0b0f][i]Vowzra needs to die.[/i][/color] While the tyrant lived and still reigned supreme over the fundamental measure of universal progress, this world could never be whole. No wonder he listened only to the void, and proclaimed himself its viceregent! Vowzra was no god, but some horrible, powerful [i]thing[/i] that had crawled out of the Hells of Time to bring chaos to Galbar. Jvan doubted he could ever be repaired. Vestec? Infuriating. Also passing. Such meddling was mild compared to the imprisonment of Slough Rottenbone.

But... Not now.

Her wounds were still tender, the broken memory still fresh. [color=9e0b0f][i]No, not now.[/i][/color] Not even soon. She didn't want to think about it. For now, she just wanted to sleep a while. Run away from the world a little longer.

[color=9e0b0f][i]Astarte has the right idea.[/i][/color]

[hider=In which Jvan goes crazy]Vowzra's imprisonment of Slough is so horrifying to Jvan that she goes a little unhinged for a while, waking up a while later with vague memories, which may or may not have been vocalised at the gods that had come to visit.

Once she realises that what Vowzra did really happened, she throws a miserable tantrum, breaking apart Heartworm's laboratory and accidentally setting its mind free.

Trying to find some form of escapism, Jvan ignores everything and just plays around with pretty colours for a while, avoiding her feelings and wasting time and energy on nothing that really matters. In losing herself to abstraction in her stress, she claims the unlocked portfolio of Beauty (Geometry), using three Might points.

She finally realises that Vowzra is never going to listen to sense, and decides that, eventually, he has to be killed if Slough is to be free and Galbar is to be at peace.

[b]8 Might
0 Free Points
Level Four[/b][/hider]