FFXIV Write 2024, Prompt #25: Perpetuity
By all accounts, the End of The Universe should have been a place where I'd want to spend the rest of eternity. Somewhere one could watch dynamis interact with aether; a living laboratory; a place of solitude.
It was everything I should have wanted.
I hated it.
The place felt surreal, and not in an interesting way. It was like the proximity to the Meteia's nest flattened reality into caricature. Normally, death turned beings into things, but it did not remove their histories, all of the marks time left on them even as Althyk-
(Chronos, my Echo hissed at me, Qo'nos - huge ships in the emptiness of space, reminiscent of raptorial birds, battling demons of air and darkness atop bone white thrones; I was at the helm of one such ship, and-)
...even as Althyk devoured their carcasses until there was nothing left. Until that final moment, everything about their lives remained written on their remains.
But here the dead worlds seemed torn out of the passage of time. Everything except the Meteia (and perhaps Jammingway, and to a lesser extent the Omicrons) felt flat, their history stripped away, leaving less than a sliver of bone. The dragons hung on by a claw; the Karellians had factions, but not names; the Ea, not even that....
The Meteia were real, though, and even with their fury broken, there were still a great many black birds roosting in the cracked egg. Perhaps that was what created the dizzying flatness I felt.
Von Neumann drones, an Echo supplied. Starships are not supposed to have daddy issues.
"Yes, Hermes was a fool to send them into space, but otherwise I have no idea what you are talking about," I answered aloud tiredly, as if my voice could chase away the vision.
The Meteia remnants were unnerving enough, but that was not the worst of it. My Echo was far stronger here. Encountering neither resistance from the surroundings nor something concrete to latch on to, it kept running in the background, rising and falling at the slightest provocation, and bringing me more and more strange flashes, visions that I'd guessed did not come from Etheyris, but from the dead worlds. More than that. It kept bringing me places. I'd blink and be halfway across the damn-
Demiplane.
Shut up!
And yet there I was. Standing in a field of elpis flowers, and staring at the cracked egg and the remnant shadows roosting within, and listening to someone's serene anger. Not flashes, not images, not stolen moments of someone else's life. It was almost like they were talking to me, even if it felt nothing like the musical communication with the Ancients. A surprisingly mundane voice that spoke in measured tones of quiet rage.
To create a young Society, only to throw it directly into Shar's maw... How unthinkingly cruel, this Hermes. We would make him understand the full scope of what he has done.
That name. I remembered that name from the battle with the Endsinger. A manifestation of the same force, that someone else had stood against, somewhere else.
Was this actually one of those someones?
"If you're talking to me, I'll need you to introduce yourself," I said aloud.
Echo, the voice replied with a tinge of humor.
"How self-aware," I growled, feeling a headache coming on. This place was playing tricks on me, and now I was talking to visions like an utter-
Ah. Echo is what I am called, the voice said. But to you, it means something else, I see. My apologies. I did not mean to confuse. I saw you - heard your thoughts on their fate - reacted - you heard me. And now we are talking.
"Thal's balls," I said slowly. "You really are talking to me. Who are you?"
Someone presently traversing another end of the Shadowfell and dangerously distracted by one of its visions, the voice gave a low chuckle, and I saw my own body, standing in front of the cocoon, looking frazzled and confused. I felt a sudden stab of fondness - aimed at myself?
But before I could process it, the shadows of the Meteia roiled inside their cocoon, and the feeling changed. For them, my collocutor felt intense pity, and anger on their behalf.
I do not know if what I am seeing here even really exists, they said, carefully. I do not know if I am speaking to a shadow.
"That makes two of us."
I see. But if one shadow is willing to lend a hand to another - then may I impose on you? I would help them, but I do not think I can affect the place you are in beyond our conversation. I'd ask you to be my hands.
"Help them how?"
They are a Society. I am like they are. I am an Echo of the Cosmic Echoes. They are?..
"...Meteia, singular Meteion? Is that what you mean?"
Yes. I have seen other Societies perish to spreading shock, when too many of their number met with overwhelming cruelty and the pain of their fate crushed the rest. But never have I seen one barely nascent dealt such a cruel hand, turned into a tool of the same despair which engenders its suffering. Still, this evil fate presents a road to their salvation. This Hermes... What did he charge the Society with?
"Uh..."
To seek out new life and new civilizations, another Echo voice said, confusingly.
"That wasn't me, but did you hear that? Seek out new life?"
Yes, my collocutor answered.
"It's a decent enough summary. Hermes was in invisible pain. He wanted to know if someone - anyone - had found a better, less cruel life. He wanted to see how different the world could be, that there were multitudes and hopes yet undiscovered. For this, he made the Meteia, to survive the emptiness between worlds and find his answer. And then they flew, and found only the dead and dying."
A seed of despair carefully sown and nurtured, my collocutor said thoughtfully. But the universe is not like that, not truly. There are worlds out there, as many as they are wonderful and terrible. The Meteia should have found far more than just despair. But they were led along a path prepared for them. I would take them from that path, give them a beacon and guide them to living worlds. Our worlds.
Can a hive mind be stupid?!
Occasionally, they said, chuckling. But what exactly is the problem you foresee?
"Forgot you could hear me. Respectfully, Echo of the Cosmic Echoes, but the Meteia in their current state have already decimated worlds. You would just bring them more fodder for their despair."
No. They would have Us.
A sharp vision blossomed in my mind. People, linked into a vast network. Across worlds - shards - planets - neon lights; glowing plants; steel and sky; cave and fungus. Hundreds of minds, old and young, experienced, new, chattering, concentrating, shifting, changing; I felt like I was falling in, drowning, parting from my body, seeing my own face-
It was gone.
First contact can be a touch overwhelming, my singular Echo smiled. But rest assured we know how to handle our own children. And they are well equipped for the journey.
"You can talk across shards," I breathed. "Are you fae?"
The voice laughed, amused.
If I had a coin for each time I was confused for a fae, an odd gap, as if they were counting, I would have two coins. No. I am a mortal like yourself. From a world called Toril originally, if you are wondering.
Somehow it was the name that convinced me. It had a weight to it; the same weight of reality that the Meteia's despair stripped away. There really was something beyond the edge of the universe. It was real.
And if it was real, it was worth seeing.
"If I help you. Can you teach me? I would need the capability to talk like that. For a project."
If I live, they answered, suddenly serious. For that is not a certainty right now. If I live, I will find you and I will teach you.
"Good enough. Find me on Etheyris," a silent feeling of consent; a promise. "What do you need me to do?"
An image flashed in my mind, a vision that was only readable to me in part. Coordinates, somehow written in dynamis, woven with a skill far surpassing my own.
Show them this.
I walked to the egg and the shadow birds perked up in cautious fear at my approach. Stopping at a respectable distance, I exteneded a hand and called - not aether, dynamis.
Connection.
My collocutor's voice sounded across Ultima Thule, a breath of Reality in this hollow place. The Echoes spoke, and as the Meteia, they spoke in Dynamis.
"Greetings, Meteia. Can you hear us?" Black heads, raised in unison. Staring - not at me, at the beacon. "Do not be alarmed. We mean you no harm." Wings stirring, feathers rustling. "We would touch minds. Share feelings. Mingle thoughts."
The birds stilled for a long moment. Then - a single surprised caw. Then - a flood of shocked, disbelieving caws.
When they quieted again, the Echoes continued:
"We would know what you would share. Pain and pleasure. Good and evil. All experience is of value. We would share what you would know. All experience is of value."
The stillness of Ultima Thule was no longer oppressive. It was pregnant. The egg before me had cracked, but only now did the shell really begin to fall away.
"We would meet you as friends and equals. Would you meet us?"
The birds - not all of them, no, but certainly over half their number - took to the air; roiled around the beacon, around me, and I felt them - felt their curiosity - the impulse that Hermes originally sent them out with - black feathers taking on the hues of dead stars, coming from midnight into twilight.
The beacon glowed with an octarine light. The birds cawed and roiled, and suddenly they jumped - and they were gone.
Thank you, my collocutor breathed, relieved. They are on their way. Thank you.
I breathed, too, and felt like the air somehow grew fresher. This place was no longer the End of The Universe, a futile perpetuity.
It was simply an edge. A point of contact with other living worlds. A place like any other. Some dark birds roosted still, but they were now simply residents. Jammingway needed to start stocking birdseed.
Oh, how good it was.
And thank you, Echo, I answered. But I do expect that lesson! So you'd best make it out alive, wherever you're walking.
We'll be in touch, my singular Echo said, amused. Walk well, traveller. Until then.
"Until then."
3 notes
·
View notes