[center][h2]The Last Trial[/h2][/center]

A cold wind swept over Ea Nebel’s face, dragging her into wakefulness like a splash of chilly water. As soon as the comparison struck her, she could feel that it was no mere obvious simile, for the back of her head rested on a bed of damp snow. Stinging as it did, its grudgingly creaking softness was less sore than the hard stone beneath the greater part of her body.

Straight before her eyes was the sky. Not a gentle grey nor a glaring white, but the clear, rarefied mountain air, marred by cloudy streaks, which she had left behind so long ago. The sun had begun to set, stretching every shadow into a rivulet that coursed eastwards, eager to be swallowed by the gathering tide. The outcropping she lay on was one of the last islands of light in a lake of dusk that covered most of the mountainside, a hand raised to eagerly catch the last rays that would fall its way before phantom twilight set in.

Around, the Bones loomed, grey bodies of giants with the weary white heads of elders. It was not a side of the range she had seen before, not these three massives leaning so close, as if wedged into each other, with even chains radiating out from their ragged circle. The stony slope of one propped itself up on another, diverging from a narrow lip strewn with dead trees and mossy boulders, and was met halfway by the sheer wall of the third. Between them, in the very middle, they formed a small cauldron, as broad and deep as a well of titans. In the spring, when the snows on the lower slopes melted, its bottom would be hidden by dirty water. Now-

Now, there was no bottom at all.

The cauldron was a stain of darkness so deep that it starkly broke out of the mountains’ shade. In the last few stray glances of sunlight, she could see that it was a pool of inky black, still despite the wind’s angry moaning. Nothing could be seen past its surface, but it was clear that, whatever the limits of the earth, its depth was beyond fathoming.

[i]The Last Sea has no end.[/i]

Words rang out over the unnatural well, dry and unreadable in expression, a shattering in the wind.

[color=778899]“The path of adversity, which duty must tread.”[/color]

Then, others joined them, from the mountaintops and the sky.

[b]“Failure,”[/b] came Homura’s somber voice.

[color=#a6cb99]“Unworthy,”[/color], Ruina sharply rejoindered.

A towering cloud drifted over the peaks from the north, and it was a vast figure with an awning gash in its chest.

[b][i]“Answer for your father’s crimes,”[/i][/b] it thundered, [b][i]“Be ended by my hand!”[/i][/b] Then it melted into tatters, but its shadow remained, drawing closer.

[colour=gainsboro][i]Rot in hell…[/i][/colour]

A breeze brought a choking whisper to her ear. [sub][color=778899]“Meant to be…”[/color][/sub]

Then, silence. Only the black well far below remained, as certain as what is most inevitable in the world. Ea Nebel seated herself on an ice-scoured rock on the edge of the near-vertical slope into oblivion and looked down. Her head throbbed. She wiped away a fresh tear and shook it off her fingers into the pit, watching it fall into forever.

It hadn’t occurred to her that she could fail. Now, everything fell into place on the snow. A life for a life: Ea Nebel for Aletheseus. Whether she lived or died, Iqelis would be punished, and the Law of Heaven vindicated, without the Lord of Creation ever needing to put His own offspring in any danger. She who had sprung from nothing could be returned to nothing, and no Shard of His own body would need to be returned before its time. 

[i]‘I am sorry that it is you who must answer for your father’s crimes.’[/i]

In the end, only Ruina had really mattered, the blade and hammer hung over Iqelis’s throat to ensure his adequate self-flagellation. The Emperor had given Ea Nebel every possible chance to escape. Her own father was the architect of the absurd games, and her mother had been her judge. He had even given her a talisman. She reached up to her throat where the Banner had been wrapped, but it was long gone, and she knew not where. Had He sent the mushroom vision, too? Had He sent its architect?

All for nothing. Homura was unyielding. Iqelis had been too clever and too cruel. The true failure was his, for not understanding the game.

[colour=gainsboro]“...Thank you,”[/colour] she prayed, not making a sound through the lump in her throat. She dug her fingers under a crack and lifted up a tall stone, covered it in her coat, and revealed it to be a stele. She scratched four gently curved lines on its surface with the doom-claw: four eyes shut. [colour=gainsboro]“For letting me meet both of them before the end.”[/colour] She left her blade and rings in a sealed urn under the stele and stood, draped now in her full regalia. [colour=gainsboro]“Goodbye.”[/colour]

Ea Nebel had no intention to stand around and allow herself be executed. Her life was already over. She could not return to her wandering ways with this pain in her chest. Nor, she now realised, did she ever want to. Her heart of fire had been doused in ice-cold water and could never be relit. There was nothing Ea Nebel wanted more than for it to finally be finished. She was ready to sleep forever.

Her sleeves caught the wind as she fell, and she spread them wide, imagining, for a moment, that she was a bird.

Then she struck the water, and it closed silently over her. It was like cold smoke, thin yet cloying, drinking out all strength and all warmth. There was nothing to see as she sank, nothing to hear, nothing to smell, and at last nothing to feel but the numbing cold.

Then that, too, was gone, and so was she.

Far above, faint and muffled, the husk that had been Ea Nebel heard the voice deliver its eulogy.

[color=778899]“The virtue of [i]courage[/i] is the strength to face that which all living things dread. Many are the guises of fear, but all their roots lie in the One Law that binds the world, the destined end. There is no greater force of resolve than to know its Truth in heart and mind alike, to step forth to embrace it under one's own will.

And it is the virtue of [i]faith[/i] to fulfil the direst of oaths, were they even the path to Doom. For from every godly word is truth born into the universe, and its potency is sealed by the bindings it lays on the one who speaks it foremost.

These are virtues of the divine.”[/color]

[hr]

There were chains around her.

Taut, hard, cutting, bound around her chest and neck, slung about her shoulders. They held her upright, would not let her fall, would not let her rest. Would not let her- 

Die?

No, not die. She was not dead, and it was her, not a scrap that had floated up to the surface. And those were not chains, but arms, tens of arms around her, rigid and faceted. A shadow loomed over her, dark against the crepuscular sky.

[color=778899]“It is not your time,”[/color] it whispered, like the snow crunching under her head, [color=778899]“Not yet. Not now.”[/color]

Her eyes screwed shut. She let her forehead tilt forwards and press against a spindly bough of black glass. She was exhausted beyond words.

[b]“With that, we are done here, yes?”[/b] Came a second voice; the familiar stern tone of Homura, as she projected the words she spoke aloud for all to hear. [b]“These trials are over now.”[/b] 

[color=778899]“Yes,”[/color] Iqelis hissed, quiet but no longer gentle, [color=778899]“Deliver your judgement.”[/color]

[b]“I see no reason to annihilate Ea Nebel. She has passed your trials, brother. Let it be known.”[/b] Homura answered, and nothing had changed with her proclamation. The red goddess refrained from saying anything more.

At first Ruina was silent. She had taken a few steps away to observe the horizon and surrounding area. In truth she cared little for how Ea Nebel went about completing her trials. She was not the reason why Ruina was here. Upon hearing Homura give her judgement, Ruina nodded to herself silently. It was time.

Turning to face Iqelis, Ruina lowered her hands to her side. Her hands were curled into fists, and behind her her tail wove side to side gently. It was fair to see that Ruina was preparing to deliver news that would likely not be received well. Quashing her hesitation, Ruina began to speak. [color=#a6cb99]”You have failed, Iqelis.”[/color]

The delivery was blunt and concise. Ruina’s gaze drifted into a glare as she began to render her full judgement upon Iqelis. [color=#a6cb99]”In a grand majority of the tests you provided there was either no limit, or the test was itself reliant upon abilities already natural to Ea Nebel. You have provided little in the way of actual challenge and framed it all with a lesson upon what it means to be divine that could have easily been had within a simple conversation. I dub these trials unworthy, and will not spare you from whatever punishment comes.”[/color]

Her judgement given, Ruina waited to see what, if any, retaliation would come. But now the truth of her presence was known to both Homura and Ea Nebel: She had never been judging the trails, she had been judging Iqelis.

With a spiderlike rearrangement of limbs, the One-Eye withdrew one half of the arms he had coiled around the limp godling, letting her rest on a web of hands as he turned to face the Lady of Pain, and stretched taller as he moved. The white light of his gaze fell onto her from twice her height above.

[color=778899]“Yes,”[/color] he crackled, low and grave, [color=778899]“I should have known that trials of virtue would be lost on a brute. Can you only see adversity in cudgeling the body? The corporeal presence of the divine is inconstant, for it is the fiber of its spirit that makes it what it is. If you cannot grasp this nor sense the straining of that fiber, tell your Lord that He should have sent a worthy judge instead of a half-witted ghoul.”[/color]

Ruina could only let out a huff as Iqelis rebuked. Of course he would resort to insults so quickly. When he finished, Ruina rebuked. [color=#a6cb99]”To use your own example against you, this fiber should be something that each divine being develops on their own. At the end of each trial you have dictated the exact lesson that you sought to impart, and not once did you ask Ea Nebel what she had learned before feeding her the answer as if she was a helpless babe. You have coddled her and sheltered her at every possible turn rather than allowing her to forge herself. But then that would possibly lead her to hold views that ran counter to yours, would it not? The rapid nature of giving her the answer betrayed your intent: You wanted her to adhere to your thoughts and your ideals, not to step forward and present herself independent of you.”[/color]

[color=778899]“I am the One God over the world,”[/color] Iqelis' boast seemed to send air and earth stirring with indignation at his hubris, [color=778899]“I alone know the virtues worthy of divinity, as you even now demonstrate, and I have sounded for them in deed, not empty word. She stands here now because they have been with her from her very birth. This I have proved to the First Source, for He never willed for me to [i]teach[/i]. Godhood is inherited, not earned.”[/color]

Ruina’s eyes narrowed as Iqelis proclaimed himself to be the one god over the world. That certainly sounded quite a lot like a declaration that he was above The Monarch of All, which certainly didn’t sit quite right with Ruina. Iqelis’ arrogance made itself known once again, but Ruina had a surprising response. [color=#a6cb99]”Godhood is [i]granted[/i] to those who are worthy. And of this I will hear no more. Submit yourself to the punishment of The Monarch, as ordained by Him, or I will be made to bring you to his court myself.”[/color]

With this, Ruina’s arms produced blades quite similar to the ones she had produced before, and along with that her tail produced another stinger, equally like last time. Ruina was prepared and radiant with raw destructive power, but would Iqelis be swayed by someone capable of rending his form with impunity?

A crystalline hand rose and splayed its fingers. The growth of the nascent barbs' lowermost roots slowed perceptibly before the claw folded again, releasing the stymied currents.

[color=778899]“The trials were His punishment,”[/color] the god's voice was amused, [color=778899]“Failure was to be quelled by death at His own hand. Unless you can dispense this, your bluster is as hollow as your lonely decree.”[/color]

Slowly and deliberately moving to stand beside the two deities on the verge of a great and terrible confrontation, Homura announced her presence again. “Brother. Sister. Ea Nebel has gone ahead of us, to acquire the shard of our fallen brother, I presume. Shall we proceed onward with the last of our business here before you begin either bickering incessantly or have an unnecessary battle. Please.”

A score of Iqelis' arms snapped at their elbows, vainly groping for the body they had been cradling not long before. The god spun his eye to the nearby ledge and let out a stony crack.

[color=778899]“Not in her state now!”[/color] He stalked over to the rim in a stride, all tension forgotten. [color=778899]“Come, then.”[/color]

With a bound, he dissolved into the gathering night below.

Ruina blinked as Homura delivered the news that Ea Nebel was gone. As Iqelis bound away hastily, Ruina released the blades of bone and willed her weapons back into her form. Looking to Homura, Ruina spoke quickly to explain her next course of action. [color=#a6cb99]”I am going to inform Him of what my judgement is, though I will also inform you that I would vouch for the continued existence of Ea Nebel. With this in mind I would ask of you a favour: Please safeguard Ea Nebel as much as you reasonably can. She has suffered enough at the whims of Iqelis choices and I would prefer no further harm comes. Now, I must depart. Farewell.”[/color]

And with that, Ruina would vanish quite immediately to go and locate The Monarch of All.

Homura merely nodded, before she followed Iqelis into the darkness.

[hr]

The wind fluttered once again over Ea Nebel’s gown, sweeping her sleeves into wings as she fell. Her arms were outstretched, but this time, her hands were fists, and her eyes were wide open. She struck the alpine lake feet-first, and submerged in a splash. The meltwater was clear and chill. No pit this time. No descent into oblivion.

Not for her.

Too tired to swim, much less change her shape, she lay limp as black and white mana flared around her and swirled into a current, carrying her down deep into the ravine that this pond had once been, the train of her regalia rippling behind her like the feeding-arms of some exotic jellyfish. Everything around her was pure-water blue, even her own hand in front of her. She pushed her five fingers into the gravel at the bottom of the lake.

[colour=gainsboro]“Open.”[/colour] And it did. 

The rocks fell away, and Ea Nebel swirled down into the deeper and the darker pit. Around her, now-flooded stalactites loomed like curtains of teeth, and the blue shaft of dimming sunlight disappeared immediately into total darkness. The current swept her forwards at a brisk pace. She knew exactly where she was going. She followed it with blind certainty, like a hagfish following the scent of carrion. She snapped her finger in the water and listened to the echoes ricochet against pillars and false doors, into chambers and galleries. No hand had designed this cave, yet the architecture was intimately familiar to her. It was not a labyrinth. It was a crypt.

She breached through the lake’s true surface, still blind, breaking the cavern-silence of the abyss. Her hands reached for the shore of the island and pushed her up out of the shallow water, dragging her waterlogged gown behind her, streaming with sheets and droplets of melt. She groped the darkness until she found her torch and it ignited. Its light was small on the gigantic shape that lay before her, and yet the shadows were titanic.

There it was, in the pit of death, towering over her like a mountain within a mountain: the many-horned mask, the eyeless skull of Aletheseus. 

Yet seated upon it was another form, a hunched and cowled creature, their four arms picking away at portions of meat, flesh, and bone, and depositing them into a waiting maw filled with teeth. It crunched and chewed with the ferocity of a starving beast, gulping down every last bit of blue, spectral gristle it had gathered, only a few chews in between each starving bite. If it had noticed the sudden arrival of the Demi-goddess, it did not show it, only eating its feast. 

[b][i]KRAK[/i][/b]

Her gunshot shattered the silence like porcelain. Noxious smoke drooled from the muzzle of Ea Nebel’s slender [i]jezail[/i], her exhausted hand already sinking down again under its weight, water still dripping from the fist with which she raised her torch.

The shot cracked through the pile of flesh, tearing through and sending bone shards flying. Finally, the creature stopped its feasting to gaze upon the new intruder, their mouth forming a wide, tooth filled grin amongst the darkness that was its face. 

[color=CECECE]”And who, are you, to interrupt our feast.”[/color] It spoke, its voice clashed against itself, as if spoken by thousands of different voices all at once. 

[colour=gainsboro]“...”[/colour]

Her hands fumbled the torch and it splashed into the water, for a moment shining brightly on the monster as it fell, casting their hunched shadow high over the cavern wall, enthroned in the horns of the skull. A new, smaller spark lit up in Ea Nebel’s hands as she planted the pole of a small powder-rocket in the gritty cave sand, then gripped the surface of the battered skull and began heaving herself up with all her gown behind her, like a half-drowned caterpillar. [colour=gainsboro]“Stupid… vermin.”[/colour]

The vermin clattered their way to the edge of the skull, gazing down upon the demi-goddess climbing her way up. This was certainly not what they expected, but hey, they had been through weirder. They continued to eat portions of flesh, as they continued to speak with their countless voices.

[color=CECECE]“We didn’t quite expect another to come down to this depth. Must be an odd reason for one of the divine such as you to come all the way here.”[/color] Their grin showed no sign of faltering, eager as ever. Ea Nebel had never hated anything so much in her life.

[colour=gainsboro]“Spit that out,”[/colour] she grunted, hauling herself to the top edge of the giant skull at last. [colour=gainsboro]“Now. Spit it out. [i]Spit that out![/i]”[/colour] The fuse hissed into the rocket and it whistled up to the cave ceiling, where it burst with a snap and scattered magnesium sparks over the island, casting the two of them into unnatural light. Ea Nebel reached for her god-knife as she trudged towards the grinning devil, but it wasn’t there. [colour=gainsboro]“Spit it out! I’m sick of demons!”[/colour]

Instead of spitting it out, the demon merely tossed their head back, swallowing the flesh in their mouth in one fell swoop. They turned their gaze back towards the clearly angered god-being, a smile never dwindling. 

[color=CECECE]“For one, we are not a demon, we are god, like you. We also continue to be curious why you have brought yourself down here, and rudely interrupt our feast, we get very hungry, and this flesh is some of the best we’ve had.”[/color]

[colour=gainsboro][i]“Shut up!”[/i][/colour] Ea Nebel finally came close enough to swing a cutlass at the creeping scavenger, her long arm slashing left and right as she kept her balance, her shoes long lost somewhere in the tunnels. [colour=gainsboro]“Vermin- shouldn’t- talk! What are you? [i]Who are you?[/i]”[/colour]

The scavenger backed up, trying to keep the slashes of the blade away from themselves. [color=CECECE]“You ask us to keep quiet yet ask us questions regardless? And we have told you who we are, we are a god, and just because you think us Vermin doesn’t mean we are not divine.”[/color]

[colour=gainsboro][b]“IGNITE!”[/b][/colour]

Cousin or not, a whirl of fire leapt to envelop the scavenger as Ea Nebel’s arm finally faltered. [colour=gainsboro]“Hold your maggot tongue if you won’t answer me,”[/colour] she said, her gown steaming on her shoulders as she stood. The fire was already wavering out into smoke, depleted as she was depleted. [colour=gainsboro]“This tomb is mine. It will be mine until the end of time, just like the rest. Mine!”[/colour]

They yelped as the fire curled around them, patting out wherever their cloak caught aflame, yet not once did their smile falter as they continued to hold their gaze towards Ea Nebel. [color=CECECE]”We have answered you, yet you refuse to listen,”[/color] They lowered themselves, becoming even smaller in contrast to the towering goddess. [color=CECECE]“And if this is your tomb, you are being a rather bad host.”[/color]

She replied by thrusting a pike down at them two-handed. The wood splintered behind the steel as the spearhead screeched against the skull. Her strength was recovering faster than her aim. [colour=gainsboro]“If you are my cousin, give me your name and begone!”[/colour]

Despite her terrible aim, the beast still sidestepped away as she jabbed at them with the spear’s long cue, not willing to take any chances with her. [color=CECECE]“We will tell you our name, but we have a feast to finish, and would much appreciate yours in turn. We, are Yesaris; and who are you, oh aggressive guardian of tombs?”[/color]

[colour=gainsboro][i]“Shut up!”[/i][/colour]

Still in war-stance, Ea Nebel lowered the broken pike at last. Yesaris, the Devourer. The many-minded mould that rotted the root of the world. She sniffed, wiping her face. Even they had a name. Even this… [i]thing,[/i] this wretched, crawling, starving animal spirit, had a name, but she… she was just [i]Ea Nebel[/i], Maid of the Nebel. A goddess for the grave.

Her gown began to boil. Thick ferrofluid bubbled over her, creeping up and steaming as it melted on her skin. [colour=gainsboro]“I hope you starve, Yesaris,”[/colour] buzzed the voice now covered entirely under the boiling plastic tar. [colour=gainsboro]“I hope it’s painful. I hope I get to drown you in hot sulphur. La da daa, di da… I’ve already tried to die once in this hole, did you see that? Instead it just brought me grief. I don’t think you’ll die here. Shame. But this pit will bring you grief,”[/colour] she said, the iron tar around her congealing into new armour, black armour, rough iron rings and studs and spikes in irregular heaps around her limbs. Dense layers of metal, reddened by heat, with no face. [colour=gainsboro]“That’s me. I’m grief.”[/colour]

Then Ea Nebel screamed like a demon and leapt like an animal and seized Yesaris by the throat, cracking whatever chitinous windpipe lay under their grisly unflinching grin between her iron hands, shaking them, choking, crushing, slamming their little cloaked body onto the skull again and again and again and again…

Taloned steps stirred the water and scraped against the floor of the impossible tomb. A white light, colder than flame, drew their amalgamating shadows out anew.

[color=778899]“It is done.”[/color] A recurved obsidian blade arced across the vault at a pace easy enough to be caught offhandedly. [color=778899]“Finish that thing and let us away.”[/color]

One armoured iron claw sprung out from the parasite-monster’s hood, reached for her knife, and- fumbled. In the blink of an eye, Ea Nebel released Yesaris to snatch the doom-claw in two hands like a cat.

The parasite clung at their throat, their haggard breathing even more broken and scattered. They scrambled with their remaining three arms away from her, putting distance between the two of them, yet still remained on the mask, their feast still in sight. Slowly, they stood back up, their own chitin covered claws readying themselves. [color=CECECE]“Well, Kin Grief, you have a ferocity in you, but we have a feast we must attend to, and would appreciate no further distractions.”[/color]

She shot it with a pistol-bow. [color=778899]“It can speak,”[/color] Iqelis remarked with idle disdain.

[colour=gainsboro]“Hold the Flow while I gut it.”[/colour] Ea Nebel advanced on Yesaris swiftly, with deliberate steps across the dead god’s face. As she hounded Yesaris closer and closer to the horns at the end of the mask, Ea Nebel finally reached that point at the center of the mask, a rhombic hole like the niche for a jewel in a crown, where the now-lightless blue flame had shone the most brightly. She came to a sharp stop and sank her arm deep into the still-flickering mass. A strange, moaning boom resonated from deep in Aletheseus’s skull. His spectral body billowed a heavy cloud of smoke, and when it finally cleared, there was not a shred of it left. Only the mask, and the pulsing cyan Shard levitating over Ea Nebel’s palm.

Yesaris screeched an unearthly cry both as their feast vanished away in smoke, and as a small bolt from the pistol-bow stuck into their shoulder. Yet they could only continue to scramble themselves further and further away from Ea Nebel, beginning to climb up the horns of the mask to keep the distance. [color=CECECE]“Now why did you have to go do that!”[/color] They ripped the bolt free, now covered in the thick white blood that came from the wound, tossing it away into the depths around them. [color=CECECE]“Yet you do not seriously intend to kill us? The crime of killing kin is a serious thing, you know.”[/color]

[color=778899]“Your only kin are worms,”[/color] came the dry crackle from the One God below. An odd sound rattled in the eyeless steel armour. For the first time in far too long, Grief, too, was laughing. She sheathed her blade in her armour and called her musket once more to her hand, dropping a black pearl down its muzzle.

[colour=gainsboro]“Watch me,”[/colour] she said, slipping the ramrod from its notch one-handed and forcing a steel ball down the barrel onto the mana charge.

Any shadows of the tomb that remained were suddenly banished all at once, as Daybringer shone brightly with its celestial radiance from where Homura stood at the edge of the skirmish, watching while the scene unfolded. [b]“Ea Nebel, that is enough.”[/b]

The red goddess slowly approached, as her voice continued to echo all around. She spoke with clarity, and did not shout, yet with otherworldly power she made herself heard. Homura refrained from stepping onto the skull, keeping her distance, but her fierce gaze and the blinding light of her golden spear washed over Ea Nebel with a merciless heat - a heat akin to that of stepping too close to the imperious sun.

[colour=gainsboro]“...You wouldn’t do it.”[/colour] Ea Nebel turned her head away from the blinding light, shouldered the jezail and steadied the wandering barrel on Yesaris’s grin as best she could.

[b]“You stand upon a precarious precipice, the culmination of these trials, and now a choice. I will not decide for you, but I will inform you of the consequences. Should you strike now, I will defend Yesaris, and you will be punished. If you desist with this, I will defend you, and Yesaris will be punished. Now, the decision is in your hands. Choose.”[/b] Homura said, and awaited an answer.

Ea Nebel looked towards her again. The plates covering her head screeched and ground open, revealing four small, dark eyeholes. She looked back at her quarry, saying nothing.

[color=778899]“What is this wretched creature worth to you?”[/color] Iqelis’ eye turned to the goddess. [color=778899]“Let us quash it and be done with it.”[/color]

[b]“Yesaris is a god. One of the lords in our Lord’s celestial court. He is also our brother, and so one of us. I will not allow him to die.”[/b] She replied, still staring at Ea Nebel and the weapon she held.

[color=778899]“[i]That[/i] is a god?”[/color] the One-Eye repeated incredulously, [color=778899]“This is either the worst folly I have heard out of you yet, or damning testament that the Elder One has no notion of the honours He so largely and ignorantly bestows. Slaying it would at least silence His mortifying error.”[/color]

[color=CECECE]“Eager to add another slay to your list, Kin? Last we checked our existence was no crime, though we suppose that is no matter to you.”[/color]

[color=778899]“You displease my child. That is reason enough.”[/color]

Now it was Yesaris’ turn to chuckle [color=CECECE]“This is your child? We can clearly see the resemblance, she has your insolence. Kin-slaying must run in that portion of the family.”[/color]

[color=778899]“We are the only ones who do not let inane scruples interfere with our duty, much as I doubt you know that word,”[/color] Iqelis assented in a crackle that might have been either nonchalant or disgusted, before sharply waving a claw, [color=778899]“Enough. End it.”[/color]

Ea Nebel did not respond. Slowly she lowered the muzzle of the weapon, just a little, keeping it shouldered. Her eye remained at the sights. She turned, pointing it first at Homura, and then at Iqelis, and then at the glowing Shard that hovered beside her; the relic of the killing that had brought them all here, through so much suffering. If she angled her musket just right, she could deflect the ball against it, back up into her own eye, into her brain. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

The light shifted subtly and Ea Nebel glanced back up at Yesaris’s glinting teeth. [colour=gainsboro]“I don’t think you’ll die here.”[/colour] She locked eyes with Homura- eyes, indeed, that must have laid somewhere in that mess of steel- and let her left hand fall from the musket’s barrel, then raised it one-handed at Yesaris, and fired blind.

[b][i]KRAK[/i][/b]

[i]...splip.[/i]

The ball zipped somewhere past their head and bounced from the stone wall far behind, into the lake. Ea Nebel turned lazily towards them, hoping to see Yesaris drop dead, but unsurprised at the result of the wild shot. After all, Luck, too, was dead. [colour=gainsboro]“Get out of here. If you trespass again, I will make sure my mother gets no chance to save you.”[/colour]

[color=CECECE]“Mother?”[/color] Yesaris turned to the goddess of Honor, their grin somehow wider than ever before. Yet all they offered was a small chuckle, and they slowly descended from the horns of the mask. Their new gaze towards Ea Nebel unwavering. [color=CECECE]“Have no fear, Kin Grief, We are sure you and us will meet again.”[/color] Suddenly, they jumped from the mask, allowing their form to fall towards the lake below. As soon as their body hit the surface of the water, it erupted into a writhing swarm of Leeches. They descended back towards the tunnel beneath, leaving the family once more alone with each other.

[b]“Is this the Path you have chosen?”[/b] Homura asked Ea Nebel.

[color=778899]“There is no choice in these matters,”[/color] Iqelis spoke from behind her as he lowered his twoscore arms from a battle-dam stance, [color=778899]“The Flow guides our hand.”[/color]

Homura allowed herself a small-sorrowful-sweet smile. [b]“There is always a choice.”[/b]

[colour=gainsboro]“The only Path I choose is the one that leads home.”[/colour] Ea Nebel’s armour disintegrated into fluttering flakes of steel and rust, assembling into a dense coat she clutched tightly around herself. It was almost impossible to tell that her eyes were unfocused, but her eyelids sagged with exhaustion. She took the Shard of Fortitude and dropped it into an inner pocket. [colour=gainsboro]“I’ll travel up the rays of the Sun and claim my birthright. The penance has been served. This farce is over.”[/colour]

“An adequate answer. Go then.” Homura said, before she turned to face Iqelis with another neutral expression. She nodded absently in his direction, then proceeded on her way out of the tomb, only pausing once to speak with the one-eyed god. “For now… farewell, brother.”

Iqelis' gaze leapt away from the colossal hollow mask, over which it had been climbing and sliding, to follow her steps. He held up four hands, framing the vestige's empty eyes to her sight.

[color=778899]“Do you want to live forever?”[/color] Though he faced away from the skull, his voice seemed to bounce off it with a metallic murmur.

“Indeed. That is the Path I walk upon. You said that… even gods have their fated ends. Hmm… know that I will continue to persevere even when I am defeated, and I will continue to spread hope through this world, for I know that even the worst of calamities are merely temporary and that death is only a prelude to rebirth.” Homura answered, her eyes and the skin around them appearing a familiar blue for an ephemeral moment, before they returned to their original color, and she stared at Iqelis.

[color=778899]“Perseverance lies broken at our feet,”[/color] the One God raised two more claws, turned to point at the husk that the others encircled, [color=778899]“A flame extinguished while it blazes strong burns brightest until the end. One that obstinately clings to every last scrap of kindling will choke ignominiously on its own ashes.”[/color] He let his arms fall into a wheel at his sides. [color=778899]“Farewell, sister.”[/color]

Ea Nebel stood at the edge of the water behind both of them, facing away into the still lake, examining the back of her bare, pale, spidery hands, mumbling something. [colour=gainsboro]“May we not meet again… Homura. Not like this.”[/colour]

“It is the darkest Path you walk upon.” Homura said, stepping under the opening in the ceiling, and without any further words she leapt up and out of the tomb, leaving Ea Nebel and Iqelis alone.

The One-Eye glanced briefly after her before striding over to the godling in two scraping steps.

[color=778899]“Take these.”[/color] A talon rested on her shoulder, as another slid around near her own hand. Precariously balanced on its narrow, ridged palm were two jewelled bands, gold with jade and grey with blood-red. [color=778899]“It is not yet time for the earth to reclaim them.”[/color]

She looked up, around, and into the bleaching white light of her father’s face, reflected once more in the dark of her eyes. The corners of her mouth twitched, and they rested there for a moment. They were all very human, really, if only in shape.

[colour=gainsboro]“I must away.”[/colour] She pulled her rings onto her fingers, her coat already tightening around her upper body, her skirt below crawling and thickening into fins, scales, and muscle. [colour=gainsboro]“If Ruina is wise, she won’t have wasted any time bearing her judgement to the Monarch, but I might still be able to intercept her.”[/colour]

[color=778899]“Do not fret about that.”[/color] A third claw hesitantly ran over her forearm, the soothing gesture made inadvertently menacing by its stiletto-like tips. [color=778899]“This is your triumph, now. You are worthy, not of the First Source's pretensions, but of the world itself. Let none say otherwise.”[/color]

[colour=gainsboro]“...”[/colour] Ea Nebel looked down at her reflection in the water. Still standing. Despite everything, she was still standing. A mote of pride blew into her heart like an ember on a breeze. She ran her hand over the polished surface of his arm, fearing no edge on the glass. [colour=gainsboro]“...Until we meet again, Father.”[/colour]

Her feet disappeared from under her, and all that was left of her was a splash and the wake of a great mer-tail churning the still, dark waters, and the One-Eye was alone in the dark. He watched the ripples play with his glow on the surface, until they were stilled. A crooked black finger reached down, and met its counterpart from under the flow of the umbral waves.

[color=778899]“Who are you?”[/color]

Silence. The stirring raised by the fingertip subsided, and god and god looked each other in the eye for a creeping moment. Then both were gone, and death alone rested in the hoary vault.

[hr]

Grief dug herself out of the snow near the font of a mountain spring, a stain of black on the fluffy white. She gazed upwards, measuring the distance to the Sun with sore eyes. Try as she might, she couldn’t make out even the faintest outline of its hallowed rooftops through the blaze. Homura’s god-spear flickered in her vision, and she looked away, rubbing her hands to warm them.

[i]GROI-GROIIIII![/i]

[colour=gainsboro]“PIG!”[/colour]

She swung her head and dashed through the snow, throwing up a rain of white as the giant rust-brown warthog barreled towards her, slipping and stumbling on the ice-slick rock below, leaping about. She grabbed its tusks and pushed and pulled against its strength as it sniffed her up and down, laughing all the way to Heaven, laughing without end. She wrapped her long, tired arms around its neck. They didn’t even meet on the other side. [colour=gainsboro]“I missed you, piggy.”[/colour]

[hr]
[hider=PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW]
Ea Nebel wakes up in the snow near a cluster of mountains that form a deep stone cauldron or chasm between them. It’s filled with pure, refined, obliviating void-juice. She hears the voices of her various judges announce that she has failed, which she seems to already be completely on board with, given her meltdown in the last trial.

She meditates on the nature of the trials, and comes to the conclusion that none of this has anything to do with her specifically- the MoA is just using her as a tool to punish Iqelis for going against his will, without having to actually threaten him with destruction, and that the MoA tried his best to ensure her survival but cares more about the punishment than her existence.

Rather than wait for someone else to pop up and destroy her, she builds herself a simple little grave, has one last cry, and jumps down the hole, fully expecting to die. This isn’t an effort to save Iqelis or serve the Monarch or pass a hidden trial or anything, it’s just a plain old suicide attempt.

Psyche! Dad catches her and she respawns at the top of the hill. This was, of course, the Trial of the twin virtues of Faith and Courage. She passes on the grounds of fulfilling her oath and not flinching at death, but by then she’s already passed out and no longer gives a shit.

All the judges are there! Homura declares the trial over and delivers her judgement to a stressed-out Iqelis: Ea’s basically okay and can live. 

Ruina, of course, doesn’t actually care about Ea and is there to keep Iqelis honest. She declares that the big fly has [i]failed[/i] to deliver. According to her, the trials weren’t stringent enough, and the virtues were tacky. They immediately have a strongly worded argument about this. Iqelis says that he knows best and that she’s a philistine, Ruina accuses him of coddling Ea and spoonfeeding his own worldview. Things get pretty tense!

The Homura gently informs them that Ea has given them all the slip. [i]Again.[/i]

Her parents hurry to catch her while Ruina departs to tell the MoA, but says she’ll put in a good word for her niece.

Meanwhile, Ea disappears back into the Pit of Doom (really just a deep lake thing) and discovers that Aletheseus’s final resting place is in a flooded cave. Chewing on his delicious corpse-meat is no less than our buddy, Uncle Yesaris! Ea shoots him.

…but she’s a complete wreck and no real threat in her current state. A sort-of fight ensues in which Ea tries many ways of exterminating the grave robbing bug rat and fails. Yesaris, who literally just wants a square meal for once, thinks she’s rude, but between them they do figure out a name for her that isn’t just whatever ‘ea nebel’ actually is. The name is exactly the kind of thing you would expect from a goth with mommy issues.

Iqelis shows up, passes Ea her knife and tells her to get on with it. She messes it up again but does retrieve the Shard of Fortitude, ending the feast. Yesaris cry every time.

Homura shows up while she’s trying to shoot Yesaris again, for real this time. She threatens to punish Ea if she pulls the trigger. The three gods banter while Ea makes up her mind and wastes the shot, not before contemplating blowing her own brains out (with, i shit u not, a powder musket). She threatens the bug as it leaves, despite Homura’s disapproval.

Some final words are exchanged as they all say their goodbyes, some sweet, some less so. Ea Nebel plans to follow Ruina to the Sun. Homura hints at something unusual. Iqelis has a moment of solemn contemplation by himself. Ea Nebel reunites with her pig. Yesaris turns into fish food.

No points were spent that day. Probably.

[quote=sent at 3am]
AND THEN EA NEBEL FELL ASLEEP. SHE WOEK UP AND IT WAS ALL A BAD DREAM. NOTHING AWFUL HAD HAPPENED AND HER FAMILU LIFE WAS peACHY
[/quote]
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