[center][img]https://txt-dynamic.static.1001fonts.net/txt/b3RmLjcyLmYxNjcwNC5VR1Z5YVd4c2FXRnUuMAAA/springmarch.roman.png[/img][/center]

[hr][hr]


She awoke.

She stretched out, feeling her form return to her after so long asleep. She let her legs and her arms stretch out, her neck cricking as it felt itself form again. Ripples burst along her skin, the marks that she had etched so long ago returning to the surface. Fingers, toes, ears... She was whole again. 

She straightened herself, feet landing on a surface that only she could walk upon. Around her swirled detritus and debris from what had been around her- her arms and her tools. Holding out a hand, palm reaching to the ether, she watched as it swirled and coalesced into a ball of mixed metals. She squeezed down, her fingers bending and crushing it into a ridged pancake, and then she looked down at the word below her. Undefiled. New. With a slight childish glee she threw the metal forward, watching as it began to heat and burn. It vanished, burned up brightly, but that didn't matter to her.

Her hand extended again, palm raised up. Another ball, this one smoother, ticking and whirring in her hands formed itself. She looked at her Core with satisfaction, nodding slowly to herself. The machinery clicked a few more times in her hand as she examined it for any blemishes or changes, but it seemed the same as it had always been. Turning away, she examined the shapes around her. The gods that had yet to wake, but would no doubt be doing so soon. She was the first then. Excellent, it gave her a little time.

Her Core slipped away once more, and she placed her hand flat against nothing. Carefully, she pushed her middle finger forward, feeling it glide through a seemingly thick substance, and then burst through. Her index followed, then her ring and lastly her pinky and thumb. Clenching hard, she yanked the nothingness aside, pulling apart an entrance to a new realm. This would be her domain. Already her sheer presence had caused it to be influenced, the walls shaping themselves into her preferred positioning. Metals rising out of nothing, stockpiles preparing herself. Everything would be ready... Apart from the spark.

The forges had to be lit. The constructs had to be made. She walked through the forming halls, a distant chugging starting up, but it was... Cold. Dead. Empty. She already missed the last cycle, where the forges were roaring, the gnomes were tinkering and the noise was that comforting, blanket-like deafening. Here it was everything she had come to know, or rather, it [i]would[/i] be everything she had come to know, but there was nothing of the familiar about it. 

Even the Forge... She sighed. It was all there. The twin figures standing over the great altar-come-anvil. The onyx staircase twirling around and up, the rivulets to direct the magma wherever she pleased. The walls themselves were forming jagged and rough as they always were, but the flames were not here. There was no direct blast, no sheer [i]intensity[/i] that defied what most considered reasonable. It was... Dull. Remarkably dull. Placing her core carefully down in the centre of the Forge, she returned back through the halls and outside, into the realm where the world hung below them, staring around at the others. She counted them carefully, but each time came up with a different number. Was there a new God? If so, had anyone Faded away? 

She examined them again, as carefully as possible, and felt something grow in her stomach. Something that Gods did not often feel. Something, some[i]one[/i] was missing, and they should not be missing. Only time, it seemed, would tell who exactly it would be, but she knew deep down that it would not be someone forgettable. Anacahe jumped to mind- but she didn't quite believe that death could die. Perhaps Novissime then. Yes, it would be her. One of the original Forebearers, and yet she felt no real issue at her Fading.

The others were awakening now though. She would have to greet them.