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[color=DC143C][h1][b]Homura[/b][/h1][/color]
 
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The droning hum of a hundred wings broke the silence over the battered,  craggy land. It faded for a few instants, and in that brief spell the rocky hills could have been mistaken for a view of the moon’s face, devoid of life or sound, cracked and uneven and shrouded in fine pale dust. Then the hum awoke again, and a thin cloud of black bodies streamed from one half-buried rock to another. It poured into its every crack, licking at its foundation where the angle of its thrust into the ground left it open. The living smoke was looking for something, feeling its way across the impact valley one fissure at a time. Again it did not find what it sought, and again it buzzed up and over to the next splintered boulder.

Crouched like some emaciated gargoyle on the remains of a monolith that might once have been as large as a small mountain, Iqelis idly watched the flies take to the air after another failed sweep. He extended an arm to point at another gigantic shard that lay by his perch, and the insects flooded over it with their ever-fresh curiosity, waving their feelers over every inch of its base. Yet again, no traces. He pointed elsewhere, and they followed. In their guileless enthusiasm, he thought, they would end up outlasting his own interest in the search.

Finding what, or perhaps who, had been the victim of Yudaiel's earth-shattering rampage had begun as a whim, a fancy to refine his mockery with precision. As time flowed by without his flies uncovering a single track of the carrion presence they were all too glad to root out, the whim had turned into resolve to spite the doubts he had about whether scouring every crater in the wasteland was worth the while. It was not as simple as drifting through the currents to his goal, for where that was remained unknown, and the ripples on the Flow had long grown too faint to follow them. This was a challenge, and the novelty of it amused him, used as he was to certainty in all things; but it was also tedious, and he doubted that he would last another two valleys before tiring of the suspense and leaving whatever vestiges lay buried there to their course into oblivion.

His scavenging was interrupted by a voice that reached him from afar - a voice that shattered the silence that had lingered too long, and awoke the world with its power. The stone seemed to sing quietly such a deep and chthonic melody while the air all around swirled with cosmic lucidity. The voice announced itself as it arrived from the north west, and evoked reverence in all whom heard it, but could not willfully combat its cadence.

"I am Homura, and though we have not encountered each other before; I know your name, Iqelis. You seem preoccupied, brother." The voice proclaimed.

She was within his sight, striding towards him with powerful leaps and bounds across the blasted landscape, exuding a red radiance that hummed heavenly music and danced with divine grace. Her physical form shimmered and shifted in the celestial light, but her ever visible eyes remained still and steadfast as they focused with keen clarity upon the great god of doom. Her eyes conveyed complete conviction and a fierce defiance of nonsense and foolishness as she approached with the weapon she held in her hand point lowered to the earth.

She stood atop a broken spire of stone as she halted and bowed before him. "I have not come to bring you harm, but to bring gifts, should you accept them." She said after she had arisen and then awaited his answer.

The One God turned upon his rock, head swivelling over, as the flies hurriedly drew back behind him in a disorderly jumble. It was not evident whether his eye met Homura’s gaze, or whether it lingered more on the tip of her spear, but its cold white glow poured out to push against the edges of her fiery presence as he looked appraisingly at her - or perhaps her reflection in the unseen river.

[color=778899]”Is everything not already destined to fall into my hands?”[/color] he replied with a short crackling laugh, as he vaulted to the ground and stepped closer. It might have been an effect of his sudden straightening, or an impression woven by moving shadows, but he seemed that much taller now. [color=778899]”I may never refuse what is proffered me, just as none may ever refuse to give [i]unto[/i] me. But I appreciate the eagerness.”[/color] Two identical arms came forward, palms turned upwards in either greed or blandishment. [color=778899]”What would you consign to the Flow?”[/color]

The red goddess imitated his gesture, but in her palms there was sacred fire and its presence seemed to beckon the world to come closer, to peer deeper into the flames. The earth cracked and fragments arose from the ground, while water began to fall from the sky as wind whispered in its circling around her hands. The elements coalesced in her palms as she brought her hands together, and forged something anew.

“Humanity will be our instruments, a physical manifestation of our divine will and desires. They are malleable and will conform to the aesthetic you desire, but they are still mortal. You stand here commanding these creatures when you could be serving the Monarch of All in a greater capacity. You should have servants that tend to these more mundane tasks, yes?” Homura held out the small shape she possessed for Iqelis to examine. Its familiar form resembled the goddess, but lacked the features that expressed her character. It was unsculpted and undefined, awaiting purpose and meaning. 

“I have created many humans, and intend to offer all of the divine my work. Do you accept my gift?” She allowed the homunculus to drift through the air towards the god of doom, and grasped the golden spear that levitated near her. All of her emotions seemed silent behind a stoic visage as she spoke, but the intense heat of her aura revealed her ire though it never directed itself towards his own cold presence.  

[color=778899]”For them to be our drudges, and us their taskmasters under Him of the heavenly palace?”[/color] Pointed fingers seized the tiny quasianimate creature and held it by its four extremities, raising it to the view of Iqelis’ eye. Though not awoken to true perception, it seemed to shrink ever so slightly under the inquisitive glare. The god ran a finger along its front, and its outlines briefly quivered, threatening to revert to a raw elemental amalgam. When he spoke, his tone was amused. [color=778899]”What a petty vision you have for one with full two eyes, sister! Would you have these little flames haul stones and carve the earth for us while we sit by, with nothing to do but sing praises to our maker? Do you not see how much more they could become?”[/color]

He let the simulacrum awkwardly stand on the narrow, uneven palm of one hand, and swept another around it. Abruptly, the disgregation that had appeared imminent before flared up again and overtook the little being, sending its four spirits bursting to the surface of its body one after another. It was fire, and it burned with rapturous exaltation, falling to its knees and raising its arms in invocation; it was water, and it sank down in churning despair; it was earth, and it prostrated itself in humbled submission; it was wind, and it spun and howled and wracked itself in tempestuous grief. Then the spark of discordance receded, and it dropped flat, once more impassive in its sterile unity.

[color=778899]”Impress them with their fragility, their insignificance before us, our omnipotence over them, and you will reap the harvest of their worship. They will scamper over each other to please us, raise ever taller shrines, turn the world itself into the altar of their immolation if we so wished! Why harness their bodies alone when it is their spirits that can yield untold riches? Why let all praise ascend to the Monarch, when he is bound by the same laws as we? If we shall give humankind no other master but us, we and we alone shall be the lords of the nascent Galbar. Give me your gift, and I will show you how it may be done.”[/color]

Homura remained impassive after his questions and proclamations, as a sudden silence lingered between the two deities despite the presence of the large swarm which flew in the sky around them. The red goddess allowed her gaze to wander while she contemplated her response. “You have proven to be what I expected, Iqelis. I am willing to give up to ninety-thousand humans to you. Do you accept my gift?” She said to the god of doom when her gaze returned and set upon him like two suns which revealed the world with their light.

[color=778899]”I loathe to disappoint.”[/color] There was a crooked smile in the One-Eye’s voice, even though his features could accommodate nothing of the sort. He let the hand that held the now quiescent homunculus drop, trailing close to the ground as if forgotten, as the other seven coiled into grasping talons. [color=778899]”Numbers are the most ephemeral of all insubstantial phantasms. However many you deign to offer, I shall take them.”[/color]

“Then seven you shall receive.” She replied.

The god did not speak, but merely made an exhorting gesture with one hand, the amused glow never leaving his eye.

Homura simply bowed before she turned to the west with purpose. “I will return with haste, Iqelis.” She said, and then she departed as quickly as she had come. The lack of her presence left the land less bright, but less scrutinized as well. Her aura of light seemed to judge the land, measuring every facet, weighing each piece, comparing it to an unseen and unheard criteria. She had traveled far until she was beyond even the sight of the god, and only the memories of her severe red radiance remained.

Left to his own devices, Iqelis once again raised the mock-human to his eye. He raised a hand over it, ready to shatter it into fading elemental echoes, then halted it mid-motion and set the creature down to the ground upon its feet. It wobbled, empty of strength or drive to hold itself upright, but some dim sense of adherence to duty kept it from toppling over, despite ostensibly having nothing to cling to within its coarsely formed body.

[color=778899]”The likes of you should seek the buried dead for me, then?”[/color] the god asked the small construct, expecting no answer and receiving none. Then, on a whim, he reached for its head with a claw, and cast his ideabstraction into its thoughtless shell.

[color=778899]The world was grey. Grey skies overhead, one of those times when the clouds fade into a featureless shroud high above, stifling the daylight to a pale, half-hearted glow, but never showing themselves. Grey earth underfoot, dusty and gravelly, yielding yet hard and cold. Grey mountains looming around, fractured in haphazard ways, yet also oddly alike, as if they had all been painted in a few broad strokes by an apathetic hand. And that was as it ought to have been, for it was not the mountains that mattered, but what was beneath them. Under one of those faceless giants, it was known, lay the bones of that which lived no more[/color] [sub][color=FF0000]and that was their place now.[/color][/sub]

[color=778899]The shell walked. It was through no impulse of its own, but because the world, the sky, the earth, the mountains, its own body, resounded with the truth that this was its purpose[/color] [sub][color=FF0000]and its duty.[/color][/sub] [color=778899]To go from mountain to mountain, to find that which had met the end, to know its name.[/color] [sub][color=FF0000]And no more than that, for that was the order of things.[/color][/sub] [color=778899]What would it do when that was done, when that name had been spoken for the last time? [b]Remember that it is gone, remember the end that comes for all things,[/b] said the sky and the earth and the mountains.[/color] [sub][color=FF0000][b]Let it rest untroubled, for that is the law that binds the dead,[/b] said its own body.[/color][/sub]

The simulacrum stood unmoving still. Iqelis turned away from it, displeased with how his wordless bidding echoed and rebounded in odd ways inside its husk. High in the sky, the palatial Sun continued to seethe. His shoal of verminous black crept up and down cracks in the parched schist as if tracing the flow of invisible waterfalls, tumbling down from the mountain. 

It was the throb of the flies that alerted him to the fact that something was wrong.

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Standing in the sea, north and west of the land struck by the calamity, were the three colossi that carried the sleeping humans upon their massive backs. Atop their high heads amidst archaic crowns of stone stood the three champions of Homura: Courage, Kindness, and Fear, as all three awaited the return of the red goddess.

“There!” Courage shouted, as she pointed towards the land where the celestial light of Daybringer shone and announced the arrival of the goddess of honor. Her two sisters stirred from their stillness, as their maker came closer and closer and seemed to revitalize them with sudden vigor.

From the shore, Homura aimed her golden spear, and threw it towards the section of sea that stood between her and the three colossi. The celestial weapon extended as it soared through the air, and then sank into the water with a great splash, but it did not strike the seabed. Hidden beneath the waves was the shimmering path the colossi tread upon to not disturb the denizens of the ocean throughout their travels. Daybringer had increased its size and upon piercing the path, it had become long enough and wide enough to form a towering pillar that emerged from the sea.

The red goddess leapt from the shore to the top of the reversed spear, its base acting as an improvised platform level with the height of the colossi. The three champions similarly leapt and greeted her. Homura held up her hand, and her voice compelled their silence.

“The path is clear, and ahead there is another god that awaits. I shall gift him with humans, and you three shall remain on your colossi.” She spoke and they bowed in response. Uncertainty flickered in the eyes of Fear as she arose, and words escaped her mouth before she could suppress them.

“You’ve been avoiding us after Chailiss, and now you’re avoiding us again...”

Courage and Kindness halted as they heard their sister accuse their maker of secluding herself from them, and tension simmered around them. Fear placed a hand upon her mouth hoping she could silence the song of shame that shook her being, and afraid it might slip free for all to hear.

“I am protecting you from those that would see you needlessly suffer, Fear. I will alleviate any of your concerns when we return to Keltra. For now, I cannot allow anything to halt the spread of humanity across Galbar. Forgive me if I seem to isolate myself for the duration of our journey. There is much I must think upon as we travel.” Homura replied, stepping closer and placing a hand upon the shoulder of Fear. Her words seemed to alleviate the champion’s concerns.

Afterwards, the three champions began the process of directing their colossi towards the shore while Homura placed her palm upon Daybringer causing the weapon to swiftly shrink and fit in her hands. The goddess descended upon the sea, the waves reached upwards to catch her, and she allowed herself to be seized and carried to the coast.

The land shook with each step of the colossi as they walked past her towards the east, and Homura amused herself as she recognized that this would be the first time they had traveled across earth for their journey. The lack of life in the aftermath of the cataclysmic attack upon this realm assured her that there would be no collateral damage as the massive creatures marched onward.

When they neared their destination, it became apparent from afar, thanks to the view afforded by the immense beings’ stature, that Iqelis had not been idle. The crater valley, earlier filled with scattered boulders and shards of uprooted mountains, was now sharply split between the chaos of misshapen stone and a waste of coarse dust and smooth pebbles. Wide swathes of rock mounds and looming monoliths, which seemed destined to stand for millennia after being haphazardly arrayed by the whims of fate, were now gone. It was not as though they had been wrenched from their places by force; no grooves remained in the ground where they had stood, but only a layer of fine detritus. One could have sworn that they had crumbled under the weight of ages a long time before.

Indeed, the strange plague was still raging at that very moment, and its newest victim fell under the eyes of Homura and her chosen. A tall, uneven slab of rock, which had evidently broken off from a larger mass and embedded itself in the soil at a stable if dangerous-looking angle, began to shrink at a pace visible even from high above. Its jagged angles lost their sharpness, smoothing down until only cracked and levigated surfaces remained; its upper side became perceptibly flattened, before a large piece of it broke away and toppled to the ground, dragged down by no more than its weight. At last, mere instants after the decay had begun, the slab’s midsection yielded, collapsing a good half of it and leaving the lower remnant leaning even more precariously, so that it soon followed. Nor did the destruction end there, for the heap of rubble that was left continued to shrink as if sinking into the ground, and at last became invisible over the strata of refuse littering the ground.

Only when the colossi had reached the cusp of the valley did the one responsible for this become visible. A spindly black figure was sifting through the remains of the vanished stone, reaching out with a multitude of snapping arms like some great prowling spider. Thick dark clouds confusedly hovered around it, now and then briefly settling onto the time-ground dust. Having ostensibly failed to find anything, Iqelis turned to the gargantuan procession and raked the air with an impatient beckoning gesture.

At the front stood Homura, and with Daybringer she directed the three colossi to continue their trek through the shifting sands and crumbling mounds. As she guided them, the strands of her hair stretched and flew towards the sleeping humans like red serpents of the sky seeking prey. She strode towards the god of doom after she had collected the seven humans she had promised him. When she came to a halt before Iqelis, she raised her weapon once more and celestial light glimmered and gleamed. The colossi ceased marching, and waited for further commands from afar, as Homura nodded to the deity in front of her. The humans she carried were placed upon the ground before him.

“Your gifts, brother.” She said with strict adherence to etiquette, evident was the struggling of her inner thoughts to express more. Her eyes wandered to the seven still forms between them, and her light seemed to bend and shift so that it might shine upon them more fiercely. “If you desire more, you need only ask, but I must know what your intentions are with them.”

The One God cast only a cursory glance at the humans, impatience shimmering in his eye, and looked about the landscape around them again before he answered.

[color=778899]”If they are all as receptive to our touch as that first one, even seven may be too many.”[/color] There was a vaguely lost tone to his words, layered with grinding irritation, as though he had just been caught by surprise by something and that fact incensed him. [color=778899]”Did you see any trace of it from your contraption?”[/color] He raised a hand to point at the nearest colossus.

Her firm features finally shifted in bemusement, uncertain after hearing his question and considering his words for a time. “Do you mean the simulacrum? It must have dispersed. These humans shall be much more; receptive to our touch, our words, our being. You are more attuned to them than I had thought, it seems.” The impassive mask returned, but her voice was less sharp than what it was before. 

[color=778899]”All things end in me. They must know it, in the very fabric of their substance.”[/color] Iqelis’ erstwhile amused air briefly returned in his moment of aggrandizement, but it was soon subsumed once more under a pall of ill-humoured puzzlement. [color=778899]”Yet it seems that your image has avoided that. I can see the ripples it leaves in the Flow of time and destiny, somewhere close by here. They are no trail such as a lesser thing ought to have, least of all a hollow eikon. Deep and murky, the mark of one fated to burden the face of the Galbar for a long time yet. An aspiring [i]eternal[/i], perhaps.”[/color] He all but spat out the word in a whiff of cold venom. [color=778899]”Do you not feel it? Can you hear it wallow in the dust?”[/color]

Homura softly smiled. “I hear nothing, however my senses are not obscured by sin. You can continue your pilfering, but I believe you will find nothing.” The red light that illuminated the seven humans receded, and sorrow seeped into the red goddess as she spoke. “Even seven sacrificed is too many, and I will never forgive myself. Iqelis, when war comes, and you stand in judgement for your crimes, remember this moment and that it is the only opportunity you will have to attain mercy.” Haunted were her eyes with visions of violence and anguish of otherworldly ordeals, yet she still smiled. 

The god’s mind seemed at last taken away from the fugitive homunculus, and he craned forward like a great curious insect, clawed hands leaning on the shoulders of the two humans closest to him as he brought his eye level with her gaze. It glimmered inscrutably, and far in its depths the black Flow swallowed her radiance and reduced it to formless shadow.

[color=778899]”Mercy,”[/color] he crackled, low and sardonic like a gathering landslide, [color=778899]”Is there truly such a thing? Shall we not all fade away with no need for war nor castigation, with none to implore but the uncaring void? What is mercy but a protraction of our death throes, an extension of our hours of agony?”[/color]

Then he drew up again, leaving behind a trail of creaking laughter.

[color=778899]”What do you believe I shall do with your little flames, gnaw on them like some brute? They will thrive no less nor suffer more than any you will seed elsewhere. Did you not listen when I spoke of the riches of their spirit? Or did you think I lied then? There is nothing but truth in Doom, and deception is a game for lesser shades, unworthy of a true God.”[/color]

Homura quietly chuckled without mirth. “Indeed; unworthy of a true God. Hmm, until we meet again, Iqelis. I must deliver the remaining humans to the rest of our siblings.” She bowed before she stepped back and turned to leave.

The One-Eye gave a halfway wave with a hand, as curious flies began to settle over the quiescent humans.

[color=778899]”Until then. Remember your lost simulacrum. We will hear of it again sometime yet, that I know.”[/color]

The red goddess recalled the pitiful beasts that would birth of their kind in the forsaken realm of the north, and the strange sight of a mother watching her children leave her in order to find their own homes and begin their own families. The hypocrisy of her own thoughts tore at her in paradoxical pain, pride and shame, joy and sorrow. She would not interfere with what was created. She could not.

“Honor demands sacrifice.” She whispered to herself, and then leapt into the sky and towards the three colossi. There was a burst of bright light, and the great delivery of humanity across Galbar resumed once more.

 [hider=Summary]

After polluting the Tlacan Sea, Iqelis is searching the Nalusan wasteland to find out who Yudaiel’s victim was. Homura catches up to him and offers him a few humans, showing him what they are with a little model replica. He immediately starts thinking of how he could use them to feed his own vainglory and elevate himself above the Monarch; not liking the sound of that, and finding him all-around untrustworthy, she cuts down her offer from ninety-thousand to a mere seven.

While she goes to fetch them from where she’d wisely left them out of his sight, and has a brief altercation with her champions, Iqelis decides on a whim to give the mindless replica an ideabstracted order to find the one buried under Nalusa. While it doesn’t seem to do anything at first, by the time Homura returns the replica’s gone and Iqelis is fruitlessly scouring the place for it, having sensed that something about it’s changed in a strange way. She’s not interested in his paranoid grumbling about it and admonishes him about the weight of his misdeeds, which he doesn’t take very seriously, before leaving.

[i]No Vigour spent here.[/i]

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