[center][h1]Endings and Beginnings[/h1]
[h3][i]The Kathetikon & Anath Homura[/i][/h3][/center]
[hr]
Just outside the newly minted halls of Keltra did the stirrings of a long-dead shade begin to rise once more, the sounds of shuffling and dragging feet echoing across the outermost ring of the flying fortress, reverberating through it with increasingly sonorous echoes. There was no particular aim or goal to the shambolic movements, and the swirling of the winds gathered around the place seemed to carry them far and wide. The footsteps stopped as the shade reached the rim of the ring and stared out towards the distant landmass for which it had no name, nor sense of a name. It looked at it with a strange wistfulness, seeing not the beauty of creation as it would have done so in aeons past, but the darkness-to-be that waited at the end of everything. It let a weary sigh escape from its thin lips, and as it shook its head in some semblance of an emotion it had forgotten the name of, there could be heard yet more rustling, this time of papers and pages. Sprouting from its shoulders were a hodgepodge array of stitched-together bits of vellum and paper and inscribed crystal, topics ranging from various treatises on the universal constants of mathematics to encyclopaedias describing all manner of wondrous and terrible creations alike. The fragments of lost knowledge from worlds and universes beyond counting, melded together in some facsimile of a wing designed to allow knowledge to–literally in this case–raise one up to the heavens. It stretched the faded and torn papers out with its exhortations of melancholy, but decided not to shirk its purpose and turned, as much resolve as it could muster plastered across the gaunt and disinterested face.

[color=#3E5967]“Anath Homura… as you called to me, I call to you.”[/color]

The voice was at first soft and quiet, barely audible as more than a whisper. As it travelled through each of the rings and gathered more of the energy built up around this realm, brimming with barely-contained power it seemed to echo and intensify until within the spire at the centre it reached the levels of a focused and dramatic proclamation directed at the divine themselves. The shade’s gloomy eyes looked ever-inward as it heard its utterance head towards its destination, and then it turned back around to look at the nascent world unfolding in the distance. [color=#3E5967]“I wonder where I put my pens…”[/color] it mused to itself, suddenly rifling through the many folds of its ripped and torn robes, eagerly searching pockets that had long been disused with the first shred of purpose it had had in unliving memory.

[b][i]“Be welcome.”[/i][/b] Intoned the familiar voice of Anath Homura, as she suddenly appeared before the shade and offered a short respectful bow - though more prominent than her stance were the myriad of wounds across her visage. Divine ichor soaked her small hands, and she bled from numerous lacerations along her limbs and torso, yet her face indicated no feeling of pain, or any other emotion, so it seemed. She stared at the shade with an impassive expression, one eye glittering red like a ruby reflecting the light of the sun, while the other eye was replaced with an otherworldly white rose. 

The shade turned around to gaze upon her, and as its gaze travelled across her visage the corners of its lips turned up in the beginnings of wry amusement. One of its ersatz wings folded down gently, some bit of text coming directly into the shade’s eyeline, and it read from it with some small amount of energy that seemed like excitement only when compared to the drabness of the rest of its movements and its voice. Its wing occasionally changed positions, so as to be able to read the crumbled and misplaced lines of text more freely, but also to be able to study the divinity before it from different angles and perspectives.

[color=#3E5967]“I expected something… else. Not one freshly returned from the fields of battle–though your standing here would posit that you had won, no? What did you fight about?”[/color] it asked, its intonation slowly becoming higher as dormant partitions of its mind appeared to awaken with time, perhaps some side effect of the ichor’s scent wafting through the air. Something about the shade seemed less impermeable the closer it stood to the goddess, though it was still little more than a transparent image before her overpowering might and presence.

[color=#3E5967]“Ah, how rude… You do not know my name, but I know yours. I am…”[/color] it began, but paused suddenly as a look of confusion came across its face, a look of searching its memory for an answer that it simply could not find. Its lips opened slightly as if to begin to speak again, but it did a double take and then wrung its hands in idle frustration as it could not think of a way to finish the sentence that made sense to it.

[color=#3E5967]“... well, I appear to have forgotten. I have wandered for so long, and… I heard your voice, the first thing to rouse my curiosity in many long moons.”[/color] it stated, before presenting itself with open arms and gesturing feebly at the awe-inspiring presence before it as if to say ‘here I am’.

[b][i]“Then I shall refer to you as Seeker, until you have chosen a name.”[/i][/b] Anath Homura replied, and then glanced towards the centre structure that served as the heart of the flying fortress. [b][i]“To answer your question; I have emerged victorious, and yet I have lost. An aimless battle, an embodiment of blindly wandering adrift, violently flailing. Indeed. It is what it is…”[/i][/b] She murmured, before her one-eyed gaze returned to the shade and she silently studied its appearance.

The shade’s gaze turned towards the citadel as Anath Homura’s did, and as it listened to her words the same semblance of sadness and loss could be seen stretched across its burdened features. Suddenly visible were the many long years it had endured, the lines across its face deepened into vast crevices. The light long-gone from its eyes, now dull and apathetic. In this distant apparition was an earnest reciprocation of that feeling of loss, and though its smile became sad it continued to smile nevertheless as it spoke:

[color=#3E5967]“I, too, know what it is to blindly wander adrift…”[/color] it mused, suddenly looking away into nothing as it scoured its fragmented thoughts for the source of the feelings welling up within it. [color=#3E5967]“... I have seen the endings of entire worlds, entire universes. Though once the secrets to unseam the barriers between realities and garb oneself in the fabric between graced my library, only this paltry collection of tatters is left of my collection. I recorded so much, always asking if it was enough. If there was something I had missed, some secret that if I knew it I could perhaps save something, [i]anything…[/i]”[/color] it began, and though it did not fully grasp why it began to sob silently, tears running down its face as its little breaths began to wrack its slender frame with spasms. It opened its mouth as if to speak again, but could only swallow the lump in its throat as the tips of its wings came to dry the little rivulets of tears gently flowing down its face.

[b][i]“Hmm… the answers you seek await you further upon the Sacred Path. The first step is the act of creation. You have answered my calling, and have become divine. Now it is time to create anew.”[/i][/b] Anath Homura proclaimed, perhaps intending to soothe the shade that endured such sorrow by boldly offering an opportunity to amend its absent knowledge by forging that knowledge itself.

[color=#3E5967]“Have I? I do not feel divine. I feel as hollow as I ever was, as if… fate is simply having its way with me once more. What use is creation if all is destined to fade and crumble, if all of this,”[/color] the shade gestured, sweeping its arms and wings out towards the distant landmass, [color=#3E5967]“is simply fated to end? I have seen gods before. I have seen them end. I have seen the darkness that consumes everything, the very essence of warmth and life give way to cold  and bleak nothingness. What salvation does this Sacred Path offer that has not been tried a thousand times before, what hope will bloom from following it that can withstand what is to come?”[/color]

The shade’s features slumped, and even the very idea of colour seemed to drain from its face. It looked at Anath Homura with something almost resembling pleading, studying every detail of her face even as the tears continued to well in its eyes. It let several moments pass, simply continuing to gaze at her as it awaited the answer to its question, but as it continued to stare its features began to soften slightly, and some sense of self seemed to return to it.

[b][i]“There is no known ending to the Sacred Path. It continues onward, infinitely, and perhaps… even weaves annihilation along the way within it. Akin to myself, you still linger; you still have yet to fade and crumble, so we are ultimately immortal until we are forsaken and perish. Evidence indicates that the darkness cannot consume everything. The hope that will bloom resides in the truth that though the Tapestry is not woven by our hands, our stories have no eternal endings, no contrived conclusions, no destined demise.”[/i][/b] Anath Homura answered solemnly, ever enveloped in a serene stillness. 

[color=#3E5967]“Hope…”[/color] the shade laughed, its voice hollow and dull. It turned to look towards the distance once more, and dragged the tip of one of its wings down towards it in order to begin writing upon it. It took a few moments of solitude to consider, drawing elaborate designs and formulae that held no relevance in this new world, before it finally turned back to face the one-eyed goddess before it. Though still shaking off the dregs of its prior despondency, its vacillating caprice seemed to have finally settled upon a path of resolution. 

[color=#3E5967]“I do not know the answer, and nor do you. You simply hope that it will be as you describe–and I suppose that, in the end, I share that hope. Perhaps hope is the answer I should have looked for all along. When all is said and done, when this new world’s light is extinguished, I hope that we will meet again. That at journey’s end we may speak to each other about all we have learned, and that we may rest knowing that the path stretches e’er onward.”[/color] it spoke, its form regaining more colour and definition with each word uttered. When it finished, some look of apprehension came over its face, as if realising the tone in which it had spoken to a being vastly more powerful than it, but a little twinkle of curiosity in its eyes betrayed its latent excitement at such a prospect rather than any sense of fear.

[b][i]“Indeed. The first step is creation, and creating an embodiment of that hope. I believe that is the essence of faith. When we meet again, hopefully we shall have our answers and amend the hollowness within us.”[/i][/b] The Creatrix replied without inflection, remaining impassive.

[color=#3E5967]“What is [i]your[/i] question? You must have a question, to have called so loudly and to so many. If your call reached my distant ears, it must have travelled far indeed, so… what answer could be commensurate with your effort?”[/color] it asked, cocking its head to one side as it continued to draw and doodle upon the little scraps of parchment that served as its wings. The more it spoke, the surer it became, the more the paper seemed to grow and envelop the shade. By the time it had posed its questions to Anath Homura its arms were all but overtaken by illuminated manuscripts, by incunabula, by scrolls and by vellum–and the growth showed no sign of slowing.

[b][i]“Hmm… the question I have? The answer I seek? I wish to see how to take the second step on the Sacred Path. Perhaps, it is the second step that is the way to transcend the boundaries between my prison and attain the freedom of the otherworld.”[/i][/b] She said, and shrugged after she had spoken.  

[color=#3E5967]“Prison? Freedom? These are not answers, these are simply… means. They speak nothing of your intentions once the path is complete–that is what I wish to know. Or perhaps it is what the ending of the path is? Heh, perhaps I simply wish to understand it all. That was always my motive in the past, always why I could not rest. Without your offer of divinity I would still be wandering the distant cosmos, suffocating in the endless void–I believe I owe it to myself to…”[/color] it began, before briefly pausing for thought. It turned once again to look the goddess in the eyes with a wry smile upon its face, and continued: [color=#3E5967]“... well, perhaps not help, but to at least know. Though if the only way to know is to help you, then that is what I must do: only this question’s answer can let me rest at long last.”[/color]

By now little was left of the shade’s humanoid figure, its metamorphosis continuing apace as it embraced the apotheosis it had accepted fully. Swirling geometries and mathematical formulae began to dot the surface of the increasing mound of pages and texts and drawings, slowly condensing into something more fitting for a god of curiosity than the long-dead husk of a man.

[b][i]“The answer awaits you further along the Sacred Path. You have begun to take the first step and I have yet to take the second step… Aid me, if that is what you wish.”[/i][/b] A hint of anger seeped through her voice, as Anath Homura turned her one-eyed gaze to the lands where others shaped the world with their sacred might.

[color=#3E5967]“... I think I recognise in you, perhaps for the first time, what I always lacked. So determined was I to know it all that I forsook all else: I took no lover, I sired no children, I had no friends. So convinced was I that the answers I sought would invalidate those needs that I wandered in search of them for lifetimes beyond counting. But in that loneliness there can be no answer, for the answer must lie in kinship. In the walking of the path alongside those who also hope for better. I know little about you, but I can see that same loneliness in you… perhaps these wounds of yours are from struggle I cannot comprehend, perhaps they are merely a manifestation of that fact–but I do think I know this: neither of us can walk the path alone, and it would be folly to assume otherwise. I will tend to the intellectual wellbeing of this new world, guide them all to where they must go. I hope that by the time we meet again, Anath Homura, you have found someone to guide you.”[/color]

By the time the shade had finished speaking it was a shade no longer, and the encroachment of writing upon its flesh was complete. In the place of the humanoid silhouette was now a book, glowing with ominously roiling tendrils of energy, and though it did not speak, the words it used simply reverberated throughout the area and their meaning was made known. Though a book could not be said to look at a thing, the single eye it possessed on its front page seemed to press its gaze into Anath Homura’s, and it waited expectantly in idle curiosity of just how she would react, given the slight hint of anger it had detected prior.

[b][i]“You have my gratitude, Seeker. It is true that we cannot walk farther when we are alone, and you have graced me with your companionship, akin to the others I have invited here. I suggest speaking with them as well, as I believe you shall find an answer among those conversations and their acts of creation. I shall remain here, but all among the pantheon are welcome in my home.”[/i][/b] The red goddess replied, and allowed herself the shadow of a smile as she peered back at the book that had become a god.

[color=#3E5967][i]”Then speak to them I shall, and from them shall I learn. Perhaps when I return you will have more news of the Path to share with me, and I you.”[/i][/color] the Kathetikon almost-spoke, before it turned to peer out towards the distant landmass. A singular question surged through its divine intellect in that moment: [color=#3E5967][i]What use would a book be to those upon this newly minted world without one to read it?[/i][/color]

Ink began to flow from its pages, words and sigils becoming liquid as they ran from its pages and began to coalesce into a form somewhat reminiscent of the shade that it had once been. A suit of ink-black knowledge, to represent the ignorance this fragment of itself would need to possess. A silhouette of brilliant white, to represent the purity of its ideals and its function. A vessel with which to experience the world through new and enamoured eyes, and a being to read from its Master’s forbidden pages without fear of consequence or misunderstanding. The form coalesced slowly while the winds whipped around them, and only after several long moments did a new being stand upon the outermost ring of Keltra that was capable of all that which the Kathetikon had desired. It stared at Anath Homura with a blank face, cocking its head slightly in curiosity, before it picked the book up and nodded at her eagerly. Without another word it simply jumped off of the edge of the ring and soared on the winds attempting to carry it back up, pushing through them with a burst of divine power to head towards the coast of the landmass so far in the distance.

[hider=Summary]The Shade of Gnosis, who answered Anath Homura’s call to become divine, calls upon the Creatrix for guidance. Though it receives little from her, what it does receive is enough to catalyse its transformation from shade to God. It ponders the nature of existence and what it must do and promises Anath Homura that they will find the answers they seek together, one way or another, before heading towards the continent in order to walk the Sacred Path.[/hider]

[hider=Might Summary]
The Kathetikon: -5 AP - Create an Avatar, Anagnostis.[/hider]