Vec
TimemasterJvan
Nameless jitters of particles and waveforms without place or precedent streamed and glowed between Jvan and the sacred manuscript of the world to be. Her body gaped, stretched almost to its fullest to allow the flow of engineered potentiality to swirl unimpeded into the coming universe through the canyons and pits of her surface. The exertion was a recklessly large flex of her churning fractal engine, the first of its kind, and it left Jvan blind and mute to the screams of the one who had requested her service as a brother.
What a pretty pattern I'm becoming, thought a dim, imbecilic part of her mind as the divine geometry of her science wound themselves into the universal design. In the absence of pain, Jvan did not realise that the shapes and twists her body was forming was not a product of its own perpetual evolution. Like a single independent eye dwarved in a face of ten, that weak part of her perception gazed upon herself and was filled with shock that it could not properly comprehend and did not dare bring to the awareness of the Engineer as a whole. ...This, those clots, those strips of tendon, they are part of me- I- Brother, Toun, no!
The Porcelain Lord had matured and refined its childlike simplicity into something glorious, and it was hacking at Jvan. Her intricately twisted body was vulnerable and only opening further as connections were severed, but the core of the Horror, the bulk of its mind, was too far gone to halt or observe. Only the Sculpture could evoke any response as it dipped and bent and flourished. Perhaps Toun sensed this. Perhaps he was simply mad. Likely he was simply lashing out towards the source of his wild, unrestrained disgust. When the sleek body intercepted the passage of design between her and the fabric, Jvan came to realise in full what was occurring, but could not and did not let herself cease, and her power flowed around and through him with the might of an active god.
The disintegration of Toun seemed to bend time into a momentary halt, so tightly bound were the pair. As shards of perfection traced around her in almost gentle lines, Jvan looked, and saw, with tired, bittersweet joy, that Toun was looking back, and at last, he was whole. From a canvas, art. From a globe, fragments. He was broken, and he was beautiful.
Then the scything shards of porcelain flew into her, through her, and time took what it was owed. The moment collapsed into a stream of blurs. For the first time, Jvan felt pain, as the remnants of Toun's flawlessness fell deep into her cavity, jammed themselves between the spokes of her engine and burned like ice. The last of her energy boiled from her in a slick, falling into completion on the blueprint, and she tried in vain to contract and coalesce back over her wounds as they reverberated with a ceramic clink.
Perception sharpened, free of the burden of creation, and Jvan saw the vast form of Logos, the eyes of Oppression, and was helpless to stop herself from being tossed skittering over the surface of the pre-void. "Desist." His wingbeat threw her a considerable distance from the gods of Order, and she lay there, spinning at an odd axis, the carved and butchered surface of her body releasing fragments of flesh as it struggled to close. But they could only seal in the damage, not repair it.
Brother, my brother, why did you forsake our agreement? Within Jvan clung pieces that would never change nor be expelled, shards that would cut through the flesh that moved over them rather than assimilate into the visceral tapestry, an irritation that would only find rest when it was brought into the perfect shape. I must take more pains to preserve myself. From the reckless clash, she was forever scourged with the memorial of a god that had considered itself perfect, though it offered nothing of form until it reached breaking point and was corrected.
"I should have broken you earlier, Toun. I should have finished the aborted work you were!" Jvan's flesh was mending irregularly as Toun's heart was acknowledging the flaws in his work. She didn't know if her words would reach him. She called anyway, to hear what her own self had to say. Something deep and pure and innocent within her had been cut loose and lost, and as a child who matures without knowing what they are sacrificing, she felt bitterly melancholic and confused. Never again would she make the mistake of letting something remain when it offered nothing but the potential for betterment.
"Desist!" A second command, weaker than the first. Jvan struggled to interpret Vestec's babbling, but when the colour washed out from his garments, shed like the facade they were, he made his intentions clear. "I'd like to see you try."
I refuse! But Vestec moved, and Jvan was still far from recovered enough to block him, or to try and save Slough Rottenbone from damage in the crossfire. It was the engineering of Teknall, pragmatic and loyal to creation, who repelled as much of the onslaught as could be done, and it was the purifying light of Niciel, precious Niciel, who transfigured herself into a multi-winged creature for the benefit of the great artwork, who made the move to cast him down. Jvan found herself deep in appreciation for the resilience of the Mother Goddess. Truly, her values were strong as her new form as inspiring.
Ull'Yang was having perhaps the most success at reconciling the damage Vestec had done, playing it off against the work of Toun and Logos, blending it with the more harmonious work of Zephyrion. A lurking god, a figure whom Jvan had barely seen, handsome in his mystery, came forth to debate with Logos. Jvan didn't much care for the King of Gods, but at least he stood against Vestec, the deceiver.
If Julkolfyr had anything right, however, it was this: Peace was naive. And words were weak.
"Complete your work, brothers and sisters," she mused, remaining not much closer than where Logos had cast her, taking up orbit around the grand design. Julkolfyr could claim what he liked, and to him every blessing, but Jvan kept only the borders that power had decreed, and in this moment, power lay with Order. "Let those who will, defend against the Flawed One." The spirals of her asymmetrically scarred form whirled and blossomed into bone and gristle, casting a net of toughened flesh around the egg of Rottenbone Slough. Blue shadows splayed themselves around the cartilaginous basket and over its wooden surface as Jvan's core burned through what energy it had left. "I will not see our gallery harmed."
