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Chapter Text

A Dusk Leviathan stretches its body, coiled silverlight unfurling and extending to a serpentine length of unhidden, sleek supremacy. Its translucent scales reveal flashes of consumed cosmic dust, scatterings of celestial indigo and cerulean shifting within its form.

Starlight scatters around it in the endless plane of nebula. Past itself stretches a sea of inferior lifeforms and Leviathans, coiling around the groupings ready to consume.

Its eyes flicker open, piercing through the infinite coldness of the cosmos, searching for the carcass of the shattered star being used to tempt it. It hones onto the location of the bait before soaring towards it.

As it travels through the universe it is hidden by its body of stars, visible only by the motion and blurring of the dusklight embedded between its scales.

Upon its approach and nearing, it dwarfs the attacking lifeforms. They attempt to corral the Dusk Leviathan but the strength and power coiled within itself cannot be contained by them.

The Leviathan yawns open its maw to devour. It is inevitable.

To the unbounded power of a leviathan in an eon without true threat, they are unstoppable.

Life is a flickering flame in a sea of void, unable to compare to the limitless luminosity of the stars that birthed the Leviathans. And like the stars, everything shall die. In the face of such power, all others are destined to return to the darkness within its jaws.

The cycle of life ends within itself, an end that will not wait. The Leviathan will consume, will bring upon destiny. The Dusk Leviathan undergoes a divine ascension.

Oroboros emerges.

THEY are the unsatisfied devourer, a black hole with thought, THEY are the drinker of worlds, THEY are the finality of an endless continuity of existence.

Oroboros leads the Dusk Leviathans against Dawn and Noon. The Night against Day. In their wake they leave destruction.

THEY leave chaos.

The clash of serpentine vigour crumbles worlds, shatters histories, collapses civilisations. And within that chaos Oroboros consumes.

For every devastated society, Oroboros devours the remains. For every Leviathan corpse abandoned, Oroboros engulfs them. Oroboros feeds on an eon defined by the insatiable hunger of Dusk Leviathans.

The destruction of inconsequential life continues until another ascends to preserve it. Qlipoth constructs walls, separating the Leviathans from the remaining universe.

Qlipoth, once the rocky barrier constructed for planetary conflict, ascends to fulfill the wish for survival. Qlipoth is the sheer will for endurance, the manifestation of the desire for protection. Qlipoth exists to ensure life beyond Leviathans stay.

THEY seal them away tirelessly, allowing the Dusk War to remain Civil. THEIR hammer strikes down, beginning the first Amber Age.

With each wall erected, a new Age begins. A new era defined, a new period of peace for the universe, a new confrontation between the Leviathans.

Oroboros cannot be destroyed, Oroboros continues to be preserved. Oroboros is unchallenged.

THEY clash with the Day, with Night, leaving only Dusk.

In the wake of the violence, only Oroboros and a scarce few prevailed.

THEY cannot be defeated, THEY cannot die. THEY are the inescapable darkness we all return to at our end. Within THEIR mouth is held the dark void You are predestined for.

Qlipoth may preserve the continuity of life, but THEY cannot quell the chaos that consumes the cosmos. THEY can maintain but they cannot define, THEY cannot control life nor guide it towards an ordered existence.

The chaos of after requires the guiding hand of another.

From that need, that belief, Ena ascends.

THEY are to forge the universe into ένα, into one.

THEIR birth marks the first day.

Ena carves beams of starlight, creating the hollowed husk of a grand lyre. THEIR hands mould the glow of the cosmos to adorn the structure, reinforcing its curves. THEY wield the duality of light and dark, pulling void and shine into pure keys. The lyre is strung by the light of neutron stars, forever in constant rotation and lacking entropy, ordered and predictable.

Ena strikes the keys in rhythmic bursts. As the white keys are struck, the sun rises across the universe. As the black keys are struck, the moon takes charge of the sky. Within Ena’s order, the great lyre plays itself, cyclical in its timing.

With the ordering of sun and moon, the forged duality and trade of position, the calendar is created. THEY did not create time but they defined it, THEY created a structure in which life could govern itself. Life could now be ordered by itself.

THEIR ordering of time marks the second day.

Ena grasps the stars again, crushing them and straining them into ink. The compressed cores distill down into liquidated void, transferable stain, transcribable feeling. THEY forge the stars into ink to create Words.

Ena creates universal communication, permanent records of sentiment. Through the creation of Word, THEY have made it easy to understand thought, articulate emotion.

THEIR ordering of concept marks the third day.

Ena moulds stardust into flowing rivers, billowing streams of shimmer and celestia. The rivers refract the cycles of sunlight and moonlight, glowing with the soft illusion of halos. The effervescence captivates.

THEY divide the rivers into equal halves of up and down.

The flow of stars upstream guides the righteous, motivating their elevation of good. The downstream rush filters in the unjust.

The flow of the rivers creates Values, separates the virtuous from the depraved.

THEY use order to define good and bad, decide the inbetween, dictate the moral grey. THEY provide the framework to order society and individuals by internal character rather than the external.

THEIR ordering of value marks the fourth day.

Ena loops the rings of worlds around THEIR numerous limbs, constructing arbiters of established values. Ena uses the rings to establish the existence of Rules, assigning liberty and punishment for action.

THEY create systems of judgement to lead society by value, guiding societies to self-govern under the need to abide by value.

THEIR ordering of retribution marks the fifth day.

Ena establishes order, THEY enforce it, but do not govern it.

Ena creates order from chaos to allow civilisations to not just preserve themselves, but improve. Ena allows them to forge new from old through structure and knowledge, creates the concepts of definition and justice through Word and Calendar and Rules to allow life to find meaning. While THEY do not help others trailblaze new paths, THEY give them the tools and understanding to do so.

Ena creates order so individuals can find meaning within it.

THEY are the arbiter of sequence, structure, and category to give others the ability to define themselves within it. Ena paradoxically creates chaos in the individual to create order in the society. Because order must exist within chaos, and chaos within order.

Ena allows the continuation of chaos to give others the tools to temper it. THEY establish order, THEY moderate mayhem.

THEIR gift of purpose marks the sixth day.

Ena creates Order for its own sake, not for harmony. And yet all beings, as defined by Ena, unite to cast THEM into the abyss of oblivion.

Within the abyss, outside of the abyss, human dignity is found.

Within order are those who defy it, those who do not like the feeling of being out of control, those who feel oppressed by systems that govern meaning.

Within order exists those who see the structure of words and time and values and organise to rebel. Within systems of order exist systems of defiance that systematically challenge the established.

Ena THEMSELF must face this reversal of position inherent to order and accept being cast into the abyss.

THEY gave the gift of order, now THEY will also give the gift of dignity, THEY give the gift of establishing one's own order.

Ena created universal Order, the people create their own.

THEIR fall into oblivion marks the seventh day.

The Seven Days Myth of Ena in themselves create an order for Ena’s creation.

The need for structure in the chaos of creation echoes THEIR essence. Within THEIR order, it breeds unity. With unity comes Harmony.

With the emergence of the Swarm Disaster Tayzzyronth propagates through the universe, infecting and corrupting the divided systems of stars.

The contamination of order and peace through the spreading of Tayzzyronth’s Swarm, the desire for Harmony strengthened until ascension. Xipe emerged as the herald of euphony, spreading hymns of celebration and synergy.

Xipe and Ena exchanged dialogue, mutually coexisting in Harmony in a space inaccessible to time and space, the limbo between belief and embodiment. Ena and Xipe came to an agreement.

Order creates Harmony, creates the ability to define it, to understand it, to follow it. Through Order all other Aeons exist, without it they are nothing. They are incomprehensible, to which only Mythus would enjoy.

Order can exist within Harmony, Harmony cannot exist without it. So when Xipe ascends, THEY consume Ena

Ena does not return to the dark abyss within Oroboros, THEY do not reach a true Finality. Through Xipe’s ascension, Ena defies the preconception of destiny, defies the perceived Order of life’s cycles, and becomes one with Harmony.

Order is absorbed by unity, Harmony works to resist Propagation and preserves life.

Tayzzyronth is sealed, the Aeons continue to coexist.

While Ena no longer has THEIR own path to stride, leaving Order without a master, Order ironically does not need a master to continue. Order does not need a power structure, a leader, as it is inherent to the existence of a path.

Ena guided humanity to meaning, and in the process defied the very rules of Finality. Aeon’s authority exists within the bounds of order, and cannot exist without it. Without Words, THEIR domains are not defined. Without the Calendar and the organisation of time, there is no true Finality or End or Preservation that can be understood. Without the creation of values, Nihility and Elation and Equilibrium and Beauty and Enigmata and Erudition and Abundance do not truly exist.

Order sacrifices itself to become intrinsic to the power everything else holds. Such is the life cycle of Order.

Chapter Text

Ena does not awaken when called upon once again. THEY listen to the whispered pleas of their child, the offerings of new life, but do not truly awaken.

To resurrect an Aeon is to attempt to seize its authority, it is asserting one’s will in an attempt to enact another.

Ena hears THEIR child and does not wake from a sleep. To remove an Aeon is to consume them, but never remove their domain. Ena may have slumbered, but never did Order. Order will always permeate the fabric of existence, will sit alongside HooH in the crystalline lattice that balances the universe.

Ena responds to the call as Order is destined to, one calls and another answers. One offers, one accepts. One begs, the other gives. Ena’s domain is Order, not fairness, not equilibrium. Ena has never dealt in justice, and will not start now.

Ena lends THEIR power, funnels it through THEIR child’s siphon. Ena powers their dream, their vision, as Order was always meant to.

THEIR child’s soul speaks, it wails in anguish. The child’s soul is weighed down by the singular, desperate question. Why does life slumber?

Ena chooses mercy and answers, Because it knows it will wake.

Ena’s animated lyre defined it as so. Just as the moon must rise to call upon slumber, the sun too must wake. Such is the cycle of living, such is the cycle to suffer.

To live is to struggle, to struggle is to live. To suffer is to embrace vitality, to suffer is to learn. HooH eternally links the duality of good and bad, peace and war, struggle and victory. Without one, the other cannot exist, the other will not be meaningful.

HooH ensures the duality, Ena enforces it, Xipe offers it by proxy.

Harmony desires for intelligent lifeforms to discard their cowardly selfishness and shed the differences between individuals to fuse into one singular melody, but music paints itself upon the definitive canvas that is time. The Family stands above all to conduct the melody, providing the structure necessary for harmonisation. A choir is only in symphony when directed.

To question why life slumbers is to question the essence of meaning.

Ena provides structure, provides the tools for understanding, but THEY cannot provide the purpose. THEIR child understands that Order is a tool, but they do not understand that it is a tool for the individual. Order cannot be used to define others, Order is for the internal. Order is the frame through which the external becomes a part of the self, of how the self understands the other, how the self processes its very own essence, its very own existence.

THEIR child represents The Family and understands the need for Order, but mistook their power for the authority of an Aeon. THEIR child mistook the striding of a path for its full embodiment.

Ena resurrects but does not reascend, Ena has always provided Order and will continue to do so.

As Ena’s authority is wielded and expanded, so too does it consume the universe. Ena feels it shrink and grow, alive in the way that the concept of Order is. It covers and accepts within itself every form of life, artificial or otherwise. Order brings upon Finality as the logical endpoint of the universe.

As the dream expands, so too does its resistance, so too do those forces fighting against it. Order once again creates its own resistance.

Why does life slumber?

Because nothing is eternal, neither dream nor wake.

An eternal dream is as insidious as eternal unrest, as malicious as eternal pain. An eternal dream defies its equilibrium and brings about its own misery. What is joy without suffering, victory without battle, recovery without process?

A dream cannot define itself, Ena constructed Word but Word cannot exist without the framework of life to give it meaning. A dream is not slumber without the wake, is not utopia without the apocalypse, is not paradise without somewhere to escape from.

THEIR child, THEIR host struggles against the self just as much as the external. IX’s emanator slices through Ena’s dream, erodes its very fabric into Nihility and mundanity, but this is not the largest obstacle to their vision. THEIR child struggles to comprehend the power granted through the channeling of an Aeon and cannot help but question the validity of their desire.

Why does life slumber?

Because it must.

As Ena’s child falls, THEY gazes upon them, marking them Aeonically. Ena acknowledges the true embodiment of Order in front of THEM. To rise is to fall, to live is to die, to resurrect is to be destined to fall once again. To assert one’s desire over other life is to incite their own fall.

THEIR child has lived this fully and come to truly understand the principle of Order. To temper chaos is to exist within it as Order comes from within and one must follow the natural flow of their destiny. Life may choose its own path, may blaze its own trail, but must always return to itself.

Ena returns to THEIR slumber, no longer animated by the will of THEIR child, but Order is never truly gone.