#incoherent rambling and work in progress snippets? delicious

[oldxenomorph]

Noticed a theme, so of course I'm here to talk about it before it eats away at my sanity.

I’ve noticed this for a while, but I didn’t have the words to articulate it (I still don’t, really), but it’s interesting how the Emperor is at the center of multiple figures claiming ownership of her. It’s not a war over who she belongs to, but it’s interesting to recognize how the Great Family and Nyx see themselves in her and want her for themselves, for their own reasons. (By now in this development of the Emperor’s canon, I consider Nyx as a member of the Great Family, she has so much history with them and her relationship with the Emperor automatically makes her a member.)

The Emperor was created the same way Azathoth was, that is how she came into being in this universe. She is one of three: Azathoth the Chaos Worm, Shai-Hulud the Eternal Worm, and herself the Extinction Centipede. Two old worms that dote upon their youngest sibling, their sister who is the end of all things, adored, beloved. They do not need to constantly express their claim over her, they simply know; they are the ones who named her and placed her in the Black Palace, they have blessed her in their ways, secured her place and power by their side. However, the children of Azathoth want her for themselves, they must always and explicitly express how much she belongs to them.

Nyarlathotep will say that the Emperor belongs to him because he was the first to enter the Black Palace, the first to hold her, the first to call her “Precious Emperor”. Claiming the Emperor as part of his own line, becoming the guardian of the black tar of annihilation, her blood, is the ultimate prize. One could say that his line was already extensive due to his machinations in various worlds, but within the Great Family, it is not as big as his sister's. He and Yhoundeh only had one child: Lilith, who is his most prized possession, his pride. The Emperor is different: she is Extinction, she is Control, she is order, she is the end of everything, she is annihilation on a cosmic scale, she is the horror of a black hole. Nyarlathotep believes that she should belong to him, the Crawling Chaos, because only he can sharpen her, only he can shape her, only he can and should be the one to have influence over her; she can and will be even more powerful because of him. It’s his own greed, his own desire to claim her power for himself. At the same time, deep down, there is a genuine devotion to her, as family.

“I am your Great Emissary,” he said to her all those eons ago, smiling wide and full of many sharp teeth. “I am your prophet, your herald, your agent. Everything I do, I do for you. O Precious Emperor.”

Nyog'sothep will say that this doesn't bother her and she's above her brother's greed, but she is, in some ways, not that different. It was always destined for Extinction and Night to be together, that they would one day become the Great Lord of Extinction and the Eternal Night. I'd like to think the actual estrangement between Nyx and Chaos happened much earlier than Achilles claims: Nyog'sothep quietly, subtly pulled at Nyx's consciousness during those early years of the universe, until finally the goddess separated from her parent. Through Nyog'sothep, Nyx no longer belongs to Chaos. Nyog'sothep took her into the Sepulchre, nurtured her, taught her, and then presented her to the Emperor in the Black Palace. In everything but blood, Nyx became a daughter of Nyog’sothep, a jewel made into the perfect shape and given to the most adored member of the family, fulfilling destiny. It is the reason why Nyx has always bore a certain strangeness, why she has always seemed more in tune with the domains of the Great Family than the Underworld.

Both of Azathoth's children are beings with their own agendas, their own schemes, their own reasons for wanting to possess and control these two entities that would rule the entire family and the universe and every universe after this one. Nylarathotep claims the Emperor so he can have influence over her and the great power she wields both as the Reaper Emperor and the Great Lord of Extinction. Nyog'sothtep claims Nyx because she believes that the goddess truly belongs with the Great Family, that she should belong to the Nuclear Chaos.

The rest of the family like to claim bits and pieces of the Emperor because she is their youngest and they fuss over her constantly, but the two that actually have more of a claim over her are Lilith and Alucard. Nyarlathotep is proud of his daughter’s work for bringing the Emperor’s second shape into actuality when the time was right, when the Reapers were ready to be given to her. Lilith may not have given birth to the Emperor’s second shape, but she is responsible for her second form’s existence, for raising her, for making sure that she was ready for her inheritance. She is, by all accounts, a mother to the Emperor. Alucard has a claim over the Emperor’s second form biologically, he sired her, he is the blueprint for her physical appearance, he raised her alongside Lilith, he is her father. The two of them view the Emperor as their child, their only child. (Alucard doesn’t remember the actual children he had when he was human.)

"My little dragon." He reached up to hold her face with his bare hands. "You are mine. You will always be mine. My Emperor. My Master. My daughter." Emotion glazed the Emperor’s eyes, the death of stars trapped under glass, red and black shining like petroleum tar. “I am your beast of judgment, your weapon to use as you see fit. Command me to slaughter and devour in your name.”

Nyx claims ownership of the Emperor because they were destined to be together, they were literally made for each other. The Emperor is not just a prize for Nyx, not just an entity of immense power to align herself with; the Emperor was made to be her lover, her wife, hers for eternity and every eternity after this. The Night needs Extinction to thrive, just as Extinction does not exist without the Night. In the early eons of the universe, they were inseparable, Nyx always by the Emperor’s side in the Black Palace, always in her arms; in those days, Nyx did not have the responsibilities she has now, she did not have her children, she did not have an entire realm to manage. After 8 million years of being away from each other, Nyx holds onto the Emperor tightly, even if she does still have to help manage the Underworld. After 8 million years of yearning, 8 million years of not having her in her arms, the Night Incarnate is understandably possessive of the Emperor. She wants everyone, even the Great Family, to know that the Emperor belongs to her: a black band of matrimony and amethysts, earrings made from her own violet gems of darkness, no matter who looks upon the Great Lord of Extinction they shall know that she has been claimed by the Eternal Night.

A pair of earrings. Darkness crystalized into long teardrop shapes, elongated, hanging at the end of a short gold chain, beneath a smaller gem of darkness in the middle. Nyx secured the small hoops through the Emperor’s ears, fastened and secured with perfection. Slender fingers and long lavender nails traced the line down the entity’s jaw before holding her by her chin. “Never take these off,” she said, her thumb gently smoothing over one of the great entity’s brutal red scars. “Everyone who looks at you will know that you belong to me.” The Emperor took her hand and kissed the back of it, kissed her knuckles, kissed her pam and allowed it to cup her face. She leaned into the Nyx’s touch. “I belong to you, O Eternal Night.” She then placed the Night’s hand on her chest, over where her heart would be. Deep beneath the shiny, black, biomechanical exterior, a great yawning darkness, a black hole with an ever hungry event horizon. “Every part of me is yours, everything.” A smile graced the goddess’s dark violet lips, pleased with this affirmation. She felt the insides of the great entity underneath her fingertips, feels its endlessness; her insatiable appetite for her wife’s love, her flesh, her soul, a low ache that always yearns for satisfaction, that craves the Night and all her pleasures, all her touches, her voice, her kisses, kisses, kisses. All of this for her. And what is the Night if not the same in her hunger for this being that is hers. Made for her, just for her. The darkness around them pulsed, it pressed against the great being as Nyx wrapped her arms around her middle, her hands moving upward to feel every texture, touching every junction of where thick tentacles meet a hard and cold body, her fingers fitting perfectly into every pattern. Nyx had her own endless hunger, her own infinite desire, her own cravings for Extinction in both her forms. She held the Emperor closer, tighter, and relaxed when a hand delicately caressed her chilled, pale cheek.

(Hades is told mostly through the Zagreus’s perspective, and the second game through Melinoë’s. I just think it’s especially interesting to explore Nyx’s own interiority, especially her own desires and wants within the context of my canon.)

What about the Emperor’s own agency in all of this?

I don’t think she really minds if all of these forces within her family tug at her, claiming ownership of her for themselves. The Emperor knows that every member of her family has their own agenda, even if it is for the good of the family, their piece of the universe. Her main priority, aside from the cycles of extinction, is to love her family, to govern them; she is their Precious Emperor, she will always be the one they fuss over the most, the one they dote over the most, the one they will love the most. None of them belong to her, they are all much older than her, they have existed long before this universe came into existence, many of them are more powerful than her; there is a seniority within the Great Family that she is respectful. (Though, she could technically claim Alucard since she’s his master now, but she views him more as a parent. He will always belong to Lilith.) And that is all fine with her. Nyarlathotep can continue to pull her closer to him, Yhoundeh can continue to whisper her secrets to her, Lilith and Nyog’sothep can continue to be her mother-figures, Hastur and Cthulhu can continue to fuss over her, Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Gorgoroth can continue to be her teachers. She belongs to them, all of them, because she loves them with all her heart.

That being said.

The Emperor doesn’t necessarily claim ownership of Nyx, she wants to always respect the goddess’s agency and autonomy. She’s been in love with Nyx since Nyog’sothtep first brought her to the Black Palace, they were made for each other, their existences and powers are deeply intertwined with each other; their relationship is symbiotic in all things, they need each other, she needs Nyx and Nyx needs her. It is a love that nourishes her, sustains her; she is obsessed with Nyx, she will do anything for her, she loves being claimed by the goddess, she loves to worship her. She loves showing Nyx how much she means to her, how much her love has completely consumed her: kisses on her cheeks that leave black lipstick prints, tentacles that slip beneath her dress or wrap around her waist, impromptu moments of intense intimacy that cause the stars around Nyx’s head and in her hair to die and her eyes to glow brightly and the darkness of her gems to pulse. Every kiss tells Nyx: I adore you, I want you, I worship you, I love you.

At the same time, she also wants everyone who looks upon Nyx to know that she is her wife. The night they consummated their marriage, she claimed her by doing what she promised all those eons ago: by turning her into the Eternal Night.

In such a short time, everything has changed. The world has shifted, bent into the right order, the right place.

On Nyx’s left hand was a black ring of black metal. She wore new jewelry, the gems of darkness upon her form pulsing in the dim lighting, the violet and black peplos she wears is made of richer and deeper fabric, silk spun from the oldest black holes. Upon her new stephane was the Sign of Extinction, a sigil older than any of the symbols within this House in the Underworld, older than the lord than governs this realm, older than the titans that birthed him and his siblings, older than the very Earth, this precious and blessed blue planet. An elder sign. Those with a keen sight could tell that she had changed. Her starlight eyes were brighter and the whites had been consumed by blackness, her beautiful hair was a little darker, her skin was paler and colder. Nyx had been reunited with the great entity from the Eridanus Supervoid that she has loved since the beginning of everything, since the universe was young, since the collapse of the very first stars. The Emperor is awake and whole; Reaper Emperor, Great Lord of Extinction, the Mouth of God, Immortal, Infinite, Eternal. She now belonged to Nyx, every one of her atoms belonged to her; they were made whole, together, married and loved completely and utterly. Nyx was no longer the daughter of Old Chaos, no longer simply the Night Incarnate, no longer just the Mother of Death and Sleep, Fate and Doom, Retribution and Strife, Pain and Old Age, Dreams and the Day, Destruction and the Stygian Boatman. She belonged to the family of Old Nuclear Chaos. She belonged to the Emperor, who filled her with the black tar of annihilation, the dark material of extinction, the blessed essence of the end of everything; she became the Eternal Night, endless. Empress.

Nyx wears the Sign of Extinction, bears titles given to her by the Great Family, bears within her veins a version of the Emperor’s black tar, the material swarming and mixing with her own ichor. One cannot look at Nyx without thinking of the Emperor, without being subjected to a subtle, low-level Indoctrination due to the ring of matrimony on Nyx’s left hand being made out of Reaper technology. The Emperor loves seeing her wife enjoy herself more with her advanced state of being, more powerful than before. Together they are the numinous dread of the universe, the existential horror of outer space. Nyx who pulls new and young stars from stellar nurseries and sets them on their life cycles, the Emperor who harvests all organic life and devours stars to make way for new cycles; they are the order of the universe. Nyx, the vast of night. The Emperor, the end of everything.

But as I have explored before, the Emperor more enjoys the way Nyx shows her possession of her. The way she stands next to her, the way she sits next to her with a hand on her thigh, the way she kisses her that leaves violet lipstick markings on her face and neck, the way her darkness clings to her and slides beneath her robes, the way she is able to coax her out and make her ache with lust, pulsing desire that only Nyx can satisfy. The Night Incarnate is the oldest darkness,

If there’s anything the Emperor truly, deeply claims it’s the Reapers, the xenomorphs, the Princes of Entropy, the Ziggurat, and the Black Palace. The Reapers because they were made just for her, they are her inheritance, they are the greatest expression of her existence and her power, they are part of her as much as she is part of them. The Xenomorphs are her daughters, made from her blood and dreams, they are the absolute and perfect reflections of her as an individual entity, beautiful and horrific just like her in all their variations. The Princes of Entropy are the sons she sired with Nyx, they are the three possible ways the universe will end: Heat Death, Vacuum Decay, and the Big Tear. They are each a reflection and a combination of their parents, in their genetics and their power. Finally, she is especially protective and possessive of the Ziggurat and the Black Palace, her domains, they are expressions of her soul, they are her sanctums; the Black Palace is where she came into being and where her first form will always stay, the Ziggurat is the center of the empire and it is the place where her children were born. Each of these things are tied to her by literally being part of her, carrying some of her essence within them.

And perhaps, she is also possessive of her siblings, the Chaos Worm and the Eternal Worm. The three of them are integral to maintaining balance in the universe. But she also loves them, deeply, with all her heart. They do not need to be reminded about how much she loves them, but it has become a ritualistic behavior that she needs to perform. She knows they do not need her protection nor her to worry about them, so whenever she is in their presence she blesses them, just like they did when she was younger.