- skaianDestiny
- Jan 13, 2017
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beep boop
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I feel some would get a kick out of this:
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/aesma-kill-six-billion-demons-vs-the-endless-sandman.89542/#post-20018911
quote:
Thus it was that on the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the Nameless Century, Pree Aesma, the goddess of want, hubris and stupidity, presented herself before the Palace of the Endless.
This was before the Endless had broken up their lordly estates and elected to reside alone, in the days when they were as close as kin could be, and so their palace was beautifully carved out of pearl, diamond and bone, and had seven towers that joined in the middle. So forceful was Aesma's knocking on their door that one of these towers, which was home to Despair, crumbled immediately and killed a hundred servants, which was proof of the boundless genorisity of Pree Aesma, as death was widely considered a preferable alternative to service under Despair.
The Endless immediately hurried in their grand hall and opened the gates to invite in that foreboding visitor before she could do more damage with her furious knocking. Thus Pree Aesma appeared in all her glorious wickedness, night-skinned and ember-eyed with a great cloak of feather. She rose to her full height, which at the time measured four and a half feet, and declared:
"I have been made to know that you call yourselves the Endless, pillars of Creation, and I have come to show that I exceed all of you and you should all immediately bow and crown me as your queen. For indeed YISUN has named me Master of Want, in which respect I exceed Desire; and it was I who made humanity, the first mortal race, thus being the creator of Death; and I have once held the very rim of Creation's Wheel in my hands and prepared to smash it to splinters, making me the greatest in Destruction; and the master of time and space looked upon me and failed to foresee my future, meaning I am beyond Destiny; and I have been called a mad child whose actions defy sense, making me the very essence of Delirium; and I have shattered the world to obtain my husband love and been spurned anyway, such that none may exceed my Despair; and my Dreams are very good as well."
This was, by the standards of Pree Aesma, a shockingly eloquent speech; and had the Endless ever cared to learn who she was, this fact might have caused them some dismay and pushed them to act with caution. But alas, there were far too many gods in that age for the Endless to keep track of, and so they had never heard the name 'Pree Aesma,' nor the title of Master of Wants. Thus it was that her words caused great stupefaction in the halls of the Endless, and the seven brothers, sisters and siblings looked between each other, and finally Destiny the eldest stepped forward and spoke thus:
"This speech is as eloquent as it is stupid, and its eloquence and stupidity are both dwarfed by its arrogance. To start with, humans were only the first creature to not be ageless; Death was born with the splitting of YISUN, and long predates you and all your kin. You would know this, if you had the power over Destiny as you claim."
"Also," Despair said, gloomilly as was her wont, "being in love with someone who doesn't love you back doesn't make you special, it makes you ordinary. Which is very depressing."
"Also," Delirium started, but her worlds would be lost to history for at this point Pree Aesma, who had spent seven entire days working on this speech and had foolishly believed the Endless would take her at her word and make her their queen, was so put out that she elected to engage them in battle.
Pree Aesma took on the ultimate aspect of those who crave destruction: In this form she had twelve times twelve arms, in which she held the one-hundred and forty-four weapons which were forged at the dawn of creation to be the nails in the coffin of God. She was as tall as a mountain and her hair flowed in rivers of magma, while her eyes were two dim red stars such as will exist before the end of time. She had five faces such as to see her enemy coming from each of the cardinal directions and within (but not from above her or below, because Pree Aesma was very stupid and always left a weakness within her form). Each of her steps caused a forest to sprout out of the ground only for it to be set ablaze instantly, and thus was she perpetually surrounded by a shroud of burning leaves, and her opened mouths streamed rivers of blood. She was met in the field by Destruction of the Endless, who enjoyed nothing more than a good scrap, and which took the ultimate form of those who are destruction, which is that of a light-skinned middle-aged man in a very expensive suit.
For thirteen days their battle ravaged the land, burning down the better portion of two kingdoms, causing the formation of five separate doomsday cults which immediately scattered in search of the Son of Devils who would bring about the endtime, accidentally stepping on the millennia-old turtle that was making its slow way to reveal the prophet who would bring peace to all wolds, and generally causing all manners of mischief and disorder to the then-well-ordained course of fate.
At first Destruction's siblings had enjoyed the show, but it soon grew apparant that it would not end any time soon. Each novel act of destruction which Pree Aesma conjured out of her constantly-evolved form only served to reinforce Destruction's folio, making him just strong enough to overcome the attack; and each time Destruction withstood one of her terrible moves Pree Aesma grew a little more frustrated, and in her frustration found Want, and conjured a new battle technique to surpass her weakness. Five thousand five hundred and fifty-four new strikes, moves and battle-forms were designed in this battle alone, most of them unfortunately inapplicable to someone whose biology did not involve magma-hair and river-blood.
It was Desire who interrupted the battle; indeed, such was the force of Pree Aesma's want that Desire themselves had grown fat on it, stretching their beautiful and endlessly desirable form into new directions never-imagined, yet always-desired by human minds.
"It is clear that this battle can go nowhere," Desire said, smiling a mischievous smile. "Instead, I offer you to settle this matter with a wager."
Pree Aesma, who had been addicted to gambling since the first time she'd seen a dice, lowered her twelve times twelve weapons and considered the matter for a while; in considering it, her battle-lust left her, and soon she was standing in the grand hall of the Endless a mere four and a half feet tall.
"What kind of a wager?" she said, already anticipating the Hundredfold Hands of Cheating Form which she had mastered before knowing how to walk.
"It is simple," Desire said, sitting down in front of an ornate mat. "I wil reach into your mind and conjure forth your heart's desire, the thing which you crave the most in the world, and I will set it forth before you. You must look deep into this thing, and choose to reject it. If you do, you will win, and prove yourself the Master of Want as you claim to be. If you take that thing, you will keep it - but you will also forever abjudicate your title, and your power will be mine."
This sent shivers of fear through the Endless, who realized that they now faced the possibility of Desire becoming the most powerful of them all, stronger than Destiny itself, which would send all the words into disarray; but the terms of the wager were set and all they could do was wait.
Desire smiled cunningly while Pree Aesma furrowed her brow in deep thought, considering his offer, and finally said:
"I don't see how this is supposed to be difficult at all. Sure, let's do it."
With this, the hearts of the Endless sank, for they knew what their sibling Desire knew, and were certain of their victory. In this, they were fools.
Desire's plan was as all of Desire's plans ever were, at once very wise and very stupid. It was wise, because Desire had correctly assessed that Aesma herself was an idiot, incapable of understanding what her own title was supposed to mean; she was the Master of Want in that she most clearly embodied Want, but she did not in fact have any mastery over it in the sense of control; she could no more reject her desires than a man could reject his own mortality.
It was stupid, because as many had before them and many would after them, Desire had vastly overestimated Aesma and misjudged the depths of her mind. When Desire reached out to her face and pulled out of her ear a shiny little gem, they looked at it briefly, in surprise and confusion, then sighed deeply and put it down on the ornate mat.
"YES!" Pree Aesma shouted joyfully, "THIS IS IT! IT'S MINE!" And she snatched up the jewel in a greedy palm.
"So," Destiny said bemused, "Desire wins."
"No," Desire said ruefully, "no I do not. For this miserable's creature heart's desire, in the moment of our bet, was 'I want to beat this smug bastard.' And so since I gave it to her, now she has it, and so I am beaten. Pree Aesma wins."
The Endless were greatly baffled at this turned of event, and Destiny himself, who was cursed with foresight, mused aloud: "Oh! But to be such a simple creature, blind to anything but the next moment, the next breath, the next meal, the next night's sleep, and to exist this way not as humans do, but eternally. What a wonder that must be."
"So," Pree Aesma said, "what do I win?"
"Nothing, you dolt," Desire said ruefully. "You forgot to set your terms."
"But I defeated you," Pree Aesma said, uncomprehending.
"Yes, but you forgot to stipulate what would happen in that event. You only agreed to surrender your power if you lost, and nothing else, because you are an idiot."
Pree Aesma's left eye twitched in anger, which would have been comical, had she not already grown to six feet tall during this short exchange and were her eyes not starting to glisten like solid obsidian slates. Before things could head towards disaster, however, Death of the Endless, who is the kindest of them all, stepped forward and say:
"I will make you a wager, and this time it will be fair, for I am unlike my siblings and am equal towards all things that were born and will one day die."
"Speak," said Pree Aesma, though her voice was distorted by the many fangs growing in her mouth and the flames coiling around her tongue.
"The terms are this: you will incarnate yourself as a human being in a world of your choosing, devoid of your great power and manyfold martial aspects. You will live your life until it reaches its natural end, and then you will appear before me. If you have lived your life without striving to reclaim the power you once held - remained in your appointed station as a mere human, humble and patient - then I will reincarnate you as you are now, save that your death will be taken from you and you will never die. If you have succombed to the fires of Want and made yourself a tyrant upon the world, then however it takes for your long life to end, then that will be your last ending."
Pree Aesma scoffed at this term. The very thought of being reduced to a human amused her greatly; but then she paused to consider that humans lived for sometimes years (perhaps even decades?) and that this was a very long time to sit around doing nothing. This gave her cause for great thought, and for long hours she stayed there, sitting in the grand hall of the Palace of the Endless, her brow furrowed and her chin grasped in her fingers. Finally she said,
"Sure."
"Very well," Death said, with a kindly smile. "Allow me to-"
"No need," Pree Aesma said, "I can do it myself."
Death paused, briefly confused, and watched as Pree Aesma plucked a hair from her head and tossed it into the air, where it became wreathed in fire and began squirming like a snake, contorting into the twisted, pitiful shape of a human being, screaming as it was born in the full cusp of adulthood, naked and helpless.
In the first second of the new Aesma's existence, she opened her eyes and took her first breath, and awakened to life in a way that she never had in all her long existence as a god. The carnal knowledge of her own mortality, the blood pulsing in her vein, the ticking of her heartbeat like a clock counting down how many days she had left to live, it was all excruciatingly painful and achingly beautiful. Each mote of light, each grain of dust was imbued with meaning beyond anything she'd ever experienced as a god.
In the second second of the new Aesma's existence, she understood that such a life could not be lived without striving to encompass its totality. It was impossible to imagine life as a human being, transient, frail and full of untapped potential, as anything but the struggle to overcome that frailness, fulfill that potential, and make every single moment of that transience meaningful. To be human was to strive, and the world had to be one's opponent. In that moment she set her mind on the conquest of everything and the claiming of the throne of God.
In the third second of the new Aesma's existence, she remembered the terms of her wager, and became aware of several godly presences around her. Aware of her nakedness and powerlessness, she instantly withdrew within herself to find the inherent flame of consciousness and the memories of her past existence. She devised seven hundred seventy-seven lethal techniques which could be performed by the naked human body, and fashioned three war-aspects which could be borne by flesh alone. She then split her mind into seven ancillary battle-consciousnesses so that she might counter each of the Seven and braced to annihilate all of them at once in her opening strike.
In the fourth second of the new Aesma's existence, the true Aesma's sword cleanly separated her head from her neck, and she stared at the ceiling in brief confusion as she fell. Her last thought before oblivion was that she'd probably have lost the Throne of Heaven in a drinking contest or something anyway, so it wasn't all that much of a loss after all.
"There," the original Pree Aesma said, cleaning her sword of blood as the naked body next to her swayed and slowly fell to the ground. "You all saw it. She spent three seconds just standing around and blinking her eyes and I cut her head off when she started to twitch, and you can't prove that twitch was the first motion of an opening strike to kill you all and conquer the universe."
"I," Death said, "hm."
"Uh," Destiny eloquently added.
"Wow," Desire muttered under their breath.
"I don't think this qualifies as 'natural death,'" Death said, and you would think she'd be an authority in the matter, but Pree Aesma shrugged.
"The only universal truth is violence," she said. "I learned that from the Master of Aesthetics."
All of the Endless had to concede that the Master of Aesthetics was, indeed, one of the most reliable sources on the nature of truth.
"In that case," Death said, "I will abide by my terms, and take your death from you," which was a terrible idea which would go on to cause great trouble across all the worlds. She leaned down (for Pree Aesma was only five foot tall at this time) and plucked the breath from her throat; Pree Aesma gasped, eyes wide, struggling to breathe, and then realized that she no longer needed to. Death put her breath into a little jar, and concealed that jar, which would one day be the crux of a grand and terrible story which would bring tragedy to countless souls.
"Alright," Pree Aesma said, looking as smug as a peacock, fists on her hips. "Who's next?"
There was a great murmur between the Endless as they discussed what to do next, until finally their ranks parted and Dream stepped forward.
Dream of the Endless was the most subtle and the wisest of the Endless, and in that time before their splintering, the most respected of their number. This was a time when gods dreamed, and the dreams of even mortal men could shake the foundations of the universe; it was a time when Dreams were more powerful than Destiny, and as such Dream was stronger in this age than he would ever be again in any other age, and also much, much more tired.
Dream stood there in his midnight-blue cloak, half-slumped on his long staff for his fatigue, but the dark seas of his eyes drank in the gremlin-goddess before him and the fingers of his mind prodded the shape of her soul and there was no thought in the Endless that Dream might ever fail to overcome this challenge.
"The fruit of my wager," he said, his voice like the wind in the branches at night on the outside of a child's bedroom window, "is not one that can be seen with the open eye."
"Got it," Pree Aesma said, puffing up her chest and grinning. "What's it? Bird's call? Smell of baked cake?"
"No," Dream said wearily, "it is within. You must close your eyes, and see the darkness within your own mind."
Pree Aesma, who at this point was feeling even more smug and headstrong than usual, squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.
Then Dream reached over and knocked her on the skull with his staff-that-makes-people-fall-asleep, and she toppled over, snoring heavily.
"I do not know what possessed you all to think we should fight someone who can turn into a mountain bristling with swords, but it was an idea very nearly as stupid as Pree Aesma herself. Now let us all run very quickly."
There was brief consternation between the Endless, who all looked at each other sheepishly, and then they turned around and proceeded to run as quickly as their legs would carry them, which considering that they were the Endless and thus their legs pillars of the foundations of Creation itself, was very quickly indeed.
And when Pree Aesma woke up from a long and pleasant dream, she wasn't quite sure what she'd been doing here in the first place, but remembered that she'd won a wager that made her double-immortal, which was twice as much immortality as she'd had before, and she thought this to be satisfying enough on its own and left the ruins of the palace.
Thus ended the challenge of Pree Aesma to the Endless, and we are all poorer for this knowledge.
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May 5, 2021 04:41
