I stood and watched as life slowly returned to the Oshun. Color returned to her stoney cheeks, the cracks that had ford in her arms and legs and torso slowly nding as her great heart beat a singular ti. Bits of Rot, things I had saved rather than burned, dripped from my hand to fall upon the body in a controlled release. She was shifting, healing, nearly away, but not yet. My power reached down to touch upon those few creatures who had decided to nest on the mountain range that was the Oshun’s body, gently guiding them off of her form. Birds flew, a few of the peoples who had decided to build their hos upon her packing up and leaving.
If push ca to shove I’d just teleport them all off, but for now this would do, and I turned part of my attention elsewhere.
Far away, my children continued their work. Further away, Sehuyun's world hurtled toward my own, the dragon eagerly waiting for the day we collided.
Even further than that, the next eting lood.
Yet close at hand enough problems lay to keep occupied. Dozens of incarnations were hard at work rebuilding the One World's structures, all while my children worked to enhance them through their own efforts, and built their own worlds. The [System] occasionally bugged out, but it ran rather solidly, and guided a number of the One World’s gods in helping strengthen the One World with increasing efficiency.
Speaking of the One World’s gods...
My attention turned to an incarnation that was currently watching over a eting of the One World's most important gods – or at least, the ones not dedicated to coordinating with the Four Realms. A God of Math argued with a God of Sculptures about resource managent, while a God of Honor spoke about military issues – naly, continuing to provide for the families who lost sothing in the war, as well as rebuilding the command structures. Another God spoke about trying to bring another God of Death up, after the one who had died, the argunts going round and round as they slowly circled the solutions. I left them to it.
My attention flicked, then, to the one overseeing the gods I had captured, and was rehabilitating. Atreum most of all.
The war god sat, head between his hands, in a small chamber. There were no windows, and no doors to this chamber, hidden in Morgan’s Hidden Realm as it was. The walls were a muted white color, and Reika had set up a healing aura. Stars, crafted by Astraea, were indented in the ceiling above, their silver light filtering down and slowly clearing away the rot that had infected him.
As I watched he calmly poked his finger into the flesh of his forearm, and pulled out a spore that had been clinging to his bones. The red-haired god, his hair no longer the color of crimson rot but rather a more neutral, orange-red, studied the spore for a mont, then crushed it brutally, flaring his aura and watching the remains float unhard in the fires of war.
"It seems," he muttered, "I was damned from the start. War cannot resist obsession."
"That is incorrect," I said, my incarnation appearing before him and startling him. The god leapt to his feet, fists rising and on-guard until he saw who I was. His expression shifted through few rapid emotions as I calmly stepped forward, snagging the remains of the rot spore and watching it dissolve under my influence. "War can resist obsession, it is simply more susceptible to it. In fact, so obsession is necessary for minds to comprehend the horrors of war – but necessity and too much is a fine line. You know this, you are simply resisting the truth." I told him. Atreum slowly relaxed, though he still eyed suspiciously.
"You," he said. "Who are you?"
"You do not rember?"
"I rember you appearing and crushing my forces, and you demanding our surrender. But I have yet to learn who you are." He said firmly, shaking his head.
"I am Statera Luotian. I am the creator of the Four Realms, their parent and guardian. So call the Heavens, but that is what I am, not who." I walked around Atreum, looking him up and down, comparing him to the god he'd been before. He had lost weight, physically and taphysically. His chest was no longer quite so broad, the muscles that had filled him out sagging and weakened. His aura was far less dense from where he'd had to cut out parts of it, separating himself from the Rot.
Yet he was still dangerous in other ways. War was also about information, and deception, as much as it could be about sheer strength. Sothing the Rot had gotten wrong when it had used him.
"You are the one who conquered the One World," he accused.
"Why does everyone keep saying that? I have not. I intend to give Authority back to the One World, likely rge it with the [System] Curie designed. The child between Yueya and myself will likely keep the other third, unless they wish to give it away when they are older and more capable of making decisions, and the final third remains with the Oshun. I have no desire to rule you." I complained, despite knowing the hypocrisy of my words. My children were taking over the interior of the One World, rebuilding it and using its space for their own projects, and I was actively guiding the gods of the One World in reconstruction. There was so ruling going on – more direct ruling on my part than has happened since…well, since I was on Earth. I don’t consider what I did with the Four Realms ruling, unless you consider parenting ruling.
Not only that, but I would keep a shard of Authority within , no matter what I did. There was no helping it. Having absorbed the Authority ant I was going to keep part of it or have to tear pieces of my own soul off - skinning layers to tear it all out.
That, frankly, sounded way too painful, and I had no desire to do it. It was already hard enough fighting my instincts that wanted to devour all of Yueya’s Authority.
"You may not opt to rule us in the traditional sense," Atreum allowed, "but we will now live by your rules. Defer to you. Vassalized if not outright conquered. We will defer to you, and yours." I considered that for a long, long mont.
"Yes and no," I disagreed with a small smile. "The One World is too large to be properly conquered, or vassalized in the way you are thinking. The way our universes are balancing out, I highly doubt that the Four Realms will properly expand enough for us to completely vassalize you, especially when you start producing the necessary amounts of energy to keep the One World afloat, and produce more gods. Both of our destinies and fates have changed by this collision. Also, do you know why they call the Heavens?"
Atreum's eyes narrowed at the rhetorical question, his thoughts swirling through his mind freely. I could practically pick them out of the air, they were written on his face so plainly - and none of them were correct. Heaven was sothing above others, in his mind. A kingdom in the sky, the way Yueya and Curie had ruled. Funny enough, Alala was probably the closest in philosophy to my version of the Heavens.
"Everyone lives by the laws of the planet they live on." I said simply, holding out a hand and creating a miniature solar system upon my palm. The tiny sun burst into existence with a pop of light, planets circling it as I showed off my power; creating sothing from nothing. Atreum's eyes fixed on the display with sothing akin to terror. "And planets abide by the laws of the sun they orbit, which abide by the - well, ok, this example doesn't fully work for the One World, but - let's try this again. Even the Oshun abided by the laws of the One World, did they not?"
"What do you an?" Atreum furrowed his brows, gaze still locked onto the miniature solar system as if he’d never seen sothing like it before. Which, to be fair, considering the structure of the One World, he probably hadn’t. I tossed it up, letting it hang from the ceiling of his room as a little decoration.
"They were powerful enough to survive the destruction of the One World, if it ca to that, but they operated upon the planet, did they not? Desperately worked within the rules of her own universe. I, on the other hand, am the Four Realms. Their laws are mine, and I am the laws. It is my heart, while my soul remains . The Heavens is not a kingdom - it is where a kingdom is built. It is the ground beneath your feet and the air you breathe, it is you and mortals as much as it is the world itself. The rules are obeyed because, if they are not, the world is destroyed by you." I told him bluntly. "If your people wish to build a kingdom, fine. I will not and do not interfere - unless you do sothing that sses up the balance, and threaten to destroy what is basically ."
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Atreum flinched at the blunt accusation in my words, but, to his credit, he held my gaze. I had to hide a bit of a smile, I do like it when people have a bit of spine when talking to . That's partly why I like Xing Wu so much. He's just a grumpy dude who doesn't care that I'm the creator of all.
"This collision is a boon to both of us," he said softly.
"I view it more as a heavy interruption to what was going to be a brilliant evolution of my children's futures, and the future of the Four realms. I had already seen, or, at least, had a pretty solid guess, of how it was going to go down. Now that plan is almost completely shot off the rails, and sothing similar, but different, is happening. It is vexing because I was looking forward to what my kids would create. Still am, but. What can I do?" I told him. "Now, enough about that. How are you feeling?"
"Like myself again. Like I had forgotten who I was, and now I rember." He said imdiately, clenching and unclenching his fist. "But also weak."
"Good. The Rot that is left in your system is mostly inert spores - most of your colleagues are similarly clear, and have been for a while. But since you were the Rot’s primary agent, and not an Origin Deity, your infection was a bit more stubborn. I’ll keep treating you until the spores are all gone, but I am expecting it to be a non-issue relatively soon." I explained patiently. "Now, we're going to go through a few questions to make sure your mind is getting back on track, then we can focus on the other matter at hand."
What followed was a few hours of channeling my inner shrink far too much. Question after question was fired at Atreum, forcing him to think and do ntal gymnastics to catch his mind back up with being lucid and whole again. They were absolutely not for to figure out his ntal state. They were for him to learn his mind again.
"Now, I do have so exercises for you to complete while I am away. Once I am satisfied you and your cohorts have healed enough, we will go over the verdict of your trial and figure out what to do with you." I said, standing. "I'll be back every once in a while, or soone like Randus will be, to check in."
"Verdict?" Atreum questioned. "You an the war trial?"
"Yes, the very one." I said.
"Are we to testify?" he asked, and I smiled at him knowingly, tapping my chin.
"You won't have to, no," I said happily, setting my hands on my hips. "The trial is currently underway. We'll have a verdict in the next few years, I suspect, once everyone finishes arguing." Atreum raised his eyebrows at , sitting back down with a complex expression.
"...I am assuming that this ans I won’t be executed," he said.
"Executed? Don't be silly. I have far too much work for you to do to kill you, and you were out of your mind. My children were a little too riled up once we were captured to have a fair trial, so I put it off, and now this will give them closure. Seeing you hard at work will do more to ease the pain than anything else." I pat him on his head, the man flinching away and , suddenly realizing I got too ahead of myself and that he was, decisively, not one of my children. Not really. Flushing a little in embarrassnt, I clasped my hands behind my back and took a step away. "Relax. I have everything under control. I'll be back soon." And with that, I vanished, letting this incarnation fade so I could divert the power elsewhere, as needed.
***
To call the court of the Heaven Realm a court was an insult to judicial systems everywhere, in Alanna's opinion. In fact, to call what was happening a trial was an insult to genuine trials.
The gods were shouting at each other, feasting, drinking, displaying their powers and making rry, all while a nominal amount of work was actually getting done. Gods of the One World who had been summoned, Astraea among them, watched from the sidelines mostly, only occasionally being dragged into a conversation or, in a particularly muscular God of Knowledge’s case, a dance with the wind goddess Aeriel.
Alanna herself stood off to the side, her true body here, while an incarnation held court down in the Physical Realm. It was far easier to do that, than have her physical body holding court. People didn’t flinch away nearly as much. It was a trick Xing Wu had shown her not but a few years ago before dragging her up to the Heaven Realm for the first ti.
The only issue was, she wasn't anywhere close to where she'd thought she'd be when she first set foot into the Heaven Realm, even if the Realm itself was as close to the paradise she had imagined as it could get.
"So you see," Stilicho, one of Statera Luotian's first two angels, slurred, as he held his mug of ale, downing it in one go. "Karma is a bit of a complex bit of machinery," the silver-skinned angel swayed where he stood, one hand braced against the table.
Fu Hao, his sister, stood firmly beside her, back straight, shoulders set, and the scar in her neck from where she'd been pierced by an arrow near the start of the War Between Worlds plainly visible.
"Stilicho, go bother soone else. Our intern has yet to even figure out how to tamper with karmic strings, let alone the intricacies you speak of." Fu Hao deadpanned, earning herself a squint-eyed glare from her brother.
Alanna winced at the word that had been used to describe her. 'Intern.' She had been relegated to being an 'intern.' She was the Empress of the Celestial Empire, a Goddess who had risen to divinity through leadership and ruling - and here she was, a re intern whenever she found ti to co to the Heaven Realm.
The worst part? She couldn't even bla them for it. It was the objectively correct choice. She may have been given duties during warti, but she was far from ready to take over any actually important duties in the Heaven Realm. She still thought like an Immortal, not a god.
"Stilicho, Fu Hao, relax a little. Go have fun, and leave Alanna alone." Fang Xu, the God of the Realm Sun, drawled as he sauntered over, his wife conspicuously missing from his side. The red-haired man winked at Alanna, his fiery red robes fluttering in a non-existent breeze, the colors shifting like the surface of a Sun. "She's still running in the footsteps of her beloved ntor Xing Wu after all." He said conspiratorially. Fu Hao coughed into a fist. Stilicho smiled, still swaying, but already moving off. And Alanna scowled at the man who had once been her ntor, as well, back when she had been mortal and he had been rely Immortal.
"My ntor and role model was Dei. Xing Wu is a good man and dear friend, but he is not the leader Dei was." She denied.
"Sa person, kiddo. Don't let the teasing get to you though. It took Xing Wu ages to get used to his divine powers, you just can't rush these things." He said, coming to stand beside her, nearly two heads taller and twice as broad as she.
She had forgotten how big Fang Xu had been as an Immortal. Now, as a god, he was an order of magnitudes bigger. Gods above - which was a weird thing to say, considering she was now counted among that number - it had been ages since she’d last t Fang Xu. She had been but a girl last ti she’d seen him. Thank the Heavens her mory was nearly impeccable as an Immortal and Goddess.
"Where is Celene?" she asked.
"She decided she wanted to dance. I think she dragged so poor god of the ocean into it - they're sowhere in this ss." He said, gesturing vaguely at the crowd.
"It is a bit too loud for ," Fu Hao grumbled, snagging a cookie from a silver trail as a spirit walked past, serving.
"This is very different than what I expected when you all said I needed to co be present for the trial of the One World's gods. How does anything get done?" Alanna said, steering the conversation to the bits she was actually interested in.
"This is where all the work gets done, not in the etings and such. You forget, Alanna, that most of these gods see each other as family. These are siblings, cousins, love interests," Fu Hao paused and gestured vaguely at the God of Fire and Goddess of Water as they sauntered past, dancing to a waltz no one else could hear because Argent, the god of tal and Music, was playing a jazzy and upbeat tune on a saxophone, "and friends who have been together since the dawn of ti. We may be more in number now than before, but the dynamic has not changed. It is also a celebration of life and death for those we lost, like the God of the Tides." Fang Xu’s expression turned lancholy at the mory, if only briefly.
"Fu Hao is correct," Fang Xu said, his expression clearing. "There is a ti and place for etings and court, and Elvira is the Queen at getting those set up, but for what Statera Luotian wants this is the best way to get things on track. It is at these events that alliances are ford, friendships are made or broken, and opinions are changed."
That, at least, sounded familiar to Alanna. Balls, parties, that sort of thing was where the elite connected. Rarely did opinions change or were deals struck during the actual court sessions, save for final paperwork. It was in the back rooms and private conversations that the elite made alliances.
This was just...significantly more chaotic than what Alanna was used to, and it had caught her off-guard to see the gods of the Four Realms behaving so...freely. She ducked as two angels when hurting by overhead, wrestling with each other.
"I see," was all she managed to get out.
"In this case, though, the decision has already been made. All that's left is to hash out the details of reparations - which will be labor-based - and specific duties and tasks we expect them to complete. Most of those who had been braying for executions have been pacified now." Fang Xu explained. Alanna shifted, adjusting her robes, wings tight against her back.
"I understand how court works," she complained.
"Really? Because you were just pouting that you were being called an intern," Fang Xu pointed out, Alanna flinching at the all-too accurate statent.
"I am used to being more in control," she admitted. Fang Xu snorted in blatant amusent, downing a shot of sothing amber and strong he pulled out of...nowhere.
"This is not yours to control," he said, gesturing to the assembled gods. "We all stand on the sa ground here. The difference is how much and what responsibility we decide to pick up. This is not yours to carry," And with that, he, too, wandered off into the party, the gentle giant carefully maneuvering around so of the groups of gods he towered over before being roped into a dance with a few gods and goddesses.
Alanna shook her head, taking a few steps back and rely watching. She'd expected to co up here and beco Queen or Empress imdiately. Now, she couldn’t help but view that as arrogance, a genuinely silly expectation. Her gaze drifted a little, to the walls of the Holy Palace, as grand and beautiful as she had imagined in her wildest dreams.
Fang Xu was right. She wasn't here to beco Empress of the Gods. Her responsibilities lie elsewhere, and it sucked that only now was she rembering that. Being a Goddess had changed it a little, but the core remained the sa.
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