"This is the only question that matters.

The words are written on veins. They are scorched into nerves. As everything else burns away only one question - one agonized, ongoing, constant question remains. A question whose answer is built upon galaxies of skulls. A question so important that another galaxy would be cheerfully consigned into the charnel pit if it resulted in even one micrometer of improvement. 

The question, of course, is the riddle of speed.

Two legs. Four legs. Curved musculature. Fat reserves. Sweat glands. Pressurized water pumps. High intensity jaw clamps. Hands. Wings. Paws. Claws. Bioplasma reaction. Null-friction slime. Six legs. THE PERFECTION OF THE CRAB. Fins. Sprinting. Endurance running. Rolling. Falling. 

Go fast. Go fast. Find out a way to go faster. This is the question that matters. This is the only question that matters. Fail to solve the riddle and you will die. Your loved ones will die. Your children will die. Your species will die. And everything you have, everything you are, will be rendered down into matter and remade in the form swifter beings."

"This is the only question that matters.

And isn't it just, baby doll? The scent of blood is in the air. You're running, and there's a lot of math and a lot of science behind that running. They boiled down those galaxies of skulls into a test tube and then grew you in it. No mommy. No mommy two. No one and nothing to distract you from the love that could save an Empire. You've got one job, honey, and one question to answer.

The question is, of course, the riddle of hate.

Because you've got a choice now, darling. You love, sure, we know that. You love so much that you want to die for it. But what if, and just hear me out, you could love so much that other people died for it instead? What if the everything you wanted didn't mean the everything you were never gonna get, what if it just meant... everything? What if instead of figuring out how to struggle back from the abyss of insanity that was built into your bone marrow, you expressed your love in the way that makes sense for what you are now?

Because, just putting it out there, you're going to lose them anyway. I'm a right bastard, what with this Rift of mine. Basically sentenced the lot of you to obliteration before your trip even began. So what's the harm in working it out with them properly? They're already killing each other, you won't even be the third wheel you usually are. Maybe before the end Sempai will give you the coveted Notice and you'll have a hell of a story to talk over down in the Underworld."

She steps forth from the hungry void onto hungry grass. A chimeric dragon, an apocalypse in obsidian. The harvest matron, glorious in flowers and tigerskin, and the old romantic, concentrating all light and colour in the world into the burning tip of a cigarette. It's a trial of the gods, and heaven help the tribunal.