[center][h1][color=Maroon][b][u]Fe’ris[/u][/b][/color][/h1][/center] [hr] He was in the air when it happened, as he often was. The thermals over the Blood Basin were particularly turbulent, bouncing him around the cloudless sky like some sort of amusing ride, tossing him one way and the next without him even having to flex a digit. It was a breathless sort of fun, the kind you couldn't have if you were afraid of dying, of plummeting into the sand and becoming nothing more than a stain in the dunes. Perhaps that was why Fe’ris enjoyed it so, the dangerous-yet-harmless joy of being battered by gusts of searing wind. Or perhaps it was the view at sunset, when the already orange land was awash in warm colors, a golden and inviting paradise before the chill of night gripped in its claws. The bat god wasn’t much for art, but even he could appreciate the beauty of it. It began to fade. He blinked, wondering if perhaps he had stared a little too directly at the sinking orange fireball for a little too long, but no. A wave of unease washed over him, and he tucked his wings, determined to reach the ground and figure out what was going on. But the thermals turned even more violent, actively fighting to keep him away, and that was when revealation dawned on him. There was nothing wrong with his eyes. The Lifeblood had turned on him; the Lifeblood had turned on them all! Actively panicking now, he flapped with all his might, beating his leathery wings with enough force to punch a hole miles deep into the sandstone. It was to no avail. The Lifeblood had had enough, and with one final blast of scalding wind, it all went black. [hr] Darkness. The darkest darkness, blacker than a black Vrool smothered in coal dust inking itself at the bottom of the ocean. He sent out nervous chitters, hoping to hear the frequency bounce back toward him, but there was nothing for it to bounce off of. It was like being unborn again, in that state after Gibbou but before escaping the Lifeblood. The God of Ambition, titanic in size and cunning, curled his wings around himself and wept. He had never even worked up the courage to greet Mother Moon, and now he never would. He floated there, awash in sadness and self-pity, for uncountable eons, a ball of fur and flesh in the great nothingness. If only he had made that voyage to the Moon, felt its rays up close and personal. If only he had approached her, swearing his love and loyalty, promising to keep her happy and safe all their immortal lives. If only, if only, if only. A light pierced the abyss; hauntingly orange, yet calm and cool. He raised his head, letting the beams trickle over his sensitive eyes, allowing them to soothe the pain within. Then, a question. Where had this come from? It was no moon he had ever seen before. Gibbou’s was large, but far away, and it certainly wasn’t orange. Nor was the more recent moon, which hung fat and pink in the night sky. No, this moon was gargantuan, hanging low and heavy, blocking out any stars or sun that might exist. ...Where was he, anyway? He had always thought it to be the null world of the unborn, but that clearly wasn’t the case. Curiosity began to whittle away at the crushing depression that had filled him for so long. Had he done this, somehow? Had his pining for Gibbou created an imperfect representation of her beauty, her kindness? How intriguing. He needed to do more, to test this theory. He thought of the Blood Basin, and it assembled from the nothingness, each sand particle and wayward stone exactly as he had left it. But there were no Alminaki, no Mananuki, no true shrubs or ferns or grasses. Each time he sculpted one from his will, it fell flat. They were like puppets. They moved and breathed and lived and died below the light of the harvest moon, but it was hollow. He knew they weren’t truly alive, not any more than the copycat biome he had willed forth. Frustrated, he beat his wings, and it crumbled back into the nothing. He swiped a wing through the air, and a channel appeared in the black, wide and red and dusty. Another swipe, and it widened, branching off into the blackness as a snarl of tunnels, each begging to be explored. He stopped his irritated flapping and dropped into the pit he had carved. Tall, striated walls arced around him, pulsing like the beat of a heart. He looked down at what he had landed upon. It was simple, nothing more than a marble cylinder, floating above the void. Perfectly smooth, it made something very obvious to him: he had absolute control in this pocket dimension. He could make it adhere to his every specification, down to the quarks and atoms. Fe’ris flexed his wings, enjoying every crack and pop of their many joints. For the first time in forever, the God of Ambition had purpose again, and it was better than any drug. He set to work. The twisting, tunneling caverns took on minds of their own, hewn into rock of all kinds. Some systems were wide and airy, with large enough diameters to allow entire armies through. Others were cramped, chilly, and pungent, barely wide enough for the worms. Tunneling creatures of all kinds filled the earth, and flittering bats came to follow them. Rivers of blood and acid ran through the infinite tunnels at random, sometimes oozing from the banded stone walls. Lakes of magma and mercury bubbled up from the incomprehensible depths. It was chaotic, exciting, and volatile. He was so caught up in creation that he failed to notice the giant tear in reality, right where the orange moonlight filtered into the caves. [hider= Summary] Fe’ris gets yeeted out of Galbar while cruising on some thermals in the Blood Basin. He wakes up in the void all panicked because of when Gibbou made him alive and then space made him unalive, so he gets kinda fucked in the head and cries about it for like two thousand years. Then a moon appears and he’s like “did I do that???? :0” and decides to create more shit. He gets all caught up in making his caves and forgets to be depressed. The end. [/hider]