Chapter Text
Before everything, there was Destiny. Out of all of the Endless, he knew the most of creation. After all, he was the hand that dealt out each and every possibility. He was known by many names: God, Fate, the Presence. Each alias was a different lifetime, a different variation of the concept of Destiny. Rather than a man, Destiny was a concept that manifested in the form of a man. And after Destiny manifested, soon came Destruction. As there is something that can be destroyed, Destruction must always be present. And following that was Dream, and when Desire came, so did Despair and Delirium. For the Endless, the order of manifestation coincided with the tales spun by humans. The story of Pandora’s Box, however wrong it may be, captured perfectly the sudden manifestation of the rest of the Endless.
Dream, out of all of the Endless, loved the humans the most. Often mistaken as Prometheus by the Greeks, he decidedly basked in the fame and took many forms throughout different cultures. To be fair, he and Desire were some of the most social manifestations in the Endless. While Delirium and Destiny thrived in solitude, Dream and Desire basked in the spotlight. The others? Well, they were indecisive. Death initially was a kind young woman, holding humans at their deathbed and kissing their foreheads to send them off- respecting their beliefs and sending them to whichever afterlife fit their beliefs (with much assistance from Destiny and Dream). However, time jaded her into a cold and silent individual. She reaped in silence, and manifested as whichever abomination the humans represented her as at the time. Despair, while thriving in groups, also grew like mold in solitude. He sent most of his beloved humans to Death, and the ones he pitied to Delirium. Much is debated over his gender, a testament to his twin Desire. While Desire had no gender, Despair manifested as whichever would be the most unassuming. First, he manifested as a mid-30s woman. Then, he manifested as a businessman. In that second manifestation, he stayed.
Delight has long been dead. Or rather, manifested as a different being as a whole. As Despair had manifested in different ways but kept his purpose, Delight changed both. She became a crutch for those in pain, but instead of comforting them, she deluded them. Dream wasn’t very happy with this, but the Endless came to the decision that they should let Delirium continue fulfilling her duty.
The Endless did not interact with many religious deities. Those residing in the Bad and those residing in the Good were beyond the realm of the Endless. (Bad and Good being neutral names for most religious realms.) Etrigan, however persistent, only served as a terror towards humans. The Endless did not quarrel or interact with the demons of Hell, and the demons did not interact with the Endless.
It should have been kept this way. Unfortunately, the multiverse had other plans. Mortals and demons mingled with the Endless, and the equilibrium was thrown to the side. Branches of negative possibilities grew plentiful, and what the humans referred to as the world was now changing. And with these new branches came a new Endless. Or rather, a new manifestation. Deviation, a butterfly residing at the roots of the tree. Its wings spread to shatter branches and bloom new ones.
An interesting presence.