Chapter Text
Memories change worlds. Memories evolve, making worlds evolve. It is how worlds flourish. Its inhabitants always make memories and pass those memories along; then those memories change. However, there is something that never changes: Constants. Every world has at least one constant. A concept forever woven into the fabric of a world. A colour that bleeds into the fragments of the void, of my being. Although some of you may call these constants gods. Beauty lies in these constants. The concepts woven into every world dictate its story. Its beginning and end, then everything in between. It’s a beautiful cycle.
I have seen many worlds in my eternity. I have seen their small pinpricks of colour bloom, the hue shift as it lived, then watched it flicker out. Every world has a defining moment, one that I always remember. That moment is how it lives eternally, no matter how long the world has been gone. I store it in the one place that exists in oblivion, my archive. But there is one story you souls came to hear.
There was one world that has always stood out amongst the rest, one whose fracture burns an orange gold. Many worlds have stories that I wish to share because they stand out. Though this amber-coloured world is the one that I shall speak of. For the purposes of our story, I will be calling this world by the same name you have dubbed it: Bannerfall.
You souls are quite fond of it, aren’t you? Many stories took place in that world that will be held dear in many hearts for millennia to come. It’s always beautiful how you souls learn to love these worlds, whether you lived within them or not. You watch from your places among the shelves, from your homes between pages of worlds past, and learn to love these places. You experience these places as if they were your own. It is a beautiful thing.
However, I am letting my ramblings get the better of me.
I apologise. It is not often I get to tell stories except in these rare cases where the books shake and fall from their places. Just as you all have done now.
Regardless, there are many parts to this story. We will start where any good story should: the birth of the world. This amber world had two concepts woven into its fabric. Ones of wisdom and magic, but just as much war and peace respectively. The world wished to be a beautiful duality of opposite forces. Wisdom was the known, while magic was trust in the unknown. War was bloodshed, and peace was healing. Such a wonderful balance it was.
Those concepts gave way to the constants. But constants needed forms. Not always, perhaps, but these wished to be given a form. A constant’s form was chosen. It ebbed and changed as the divinity grew and evolved with its world. A form is the only thing that ever changes about the constants. It evolved just as its memories did, just as its world, but its concept is forever the same. That is because change is what I am, and worlds are fractures, fragments, pieces of my expanse. Therefore, its constants are, too.
I am going off, again, aren’t I?
For Wisdom, they were crafted from void. A small pinch of the cold evernight, shaped into something vaguely resembling a human. Wisdom donned a deep violet cloak, silver chains embroidered across the fabric. Their shoulders bore dark steel pauldrons. A helmet of the same dark steel sat upon their head, spikes lining the top. They wanted no distinct features. I found that strange at first, but did not question the request. It was not my place. A grand greatsword sat across their back. It was the first ethereal weapon they crafted. The metal was made from their own pinprick of oblivion, a testament to the violence they embodied. A symbol of sorts.
Magic wished for a more detailed form compared to her brother. I crafted her form from stardust. It was bright and warm, just as opposite from her brother as their concepts were meant to be. Her form was closely representative of an elf with swampy sage skin, with vines of white-flowering ivy climbing up bare arms. Hair made of moss cascaded down her back. Rings and cuffs of gold intertwined with braids, or were strung through curls. Horns grew out from the sides of her head to form an asymmetrical crescent with a tail tipped in gold accompanying it. An olive skirt was tied at her waist, flowing down to her ankles that were adorned with rings of gold. Two slits in the skirt crawled up about mid-thigh, revealing sigils in a language only constants would understand in glowing peridot ink. A shawl in the same olive was wrapped around her torso with gold trimming its hems. Her eyes were also the colour of peridot and glowed softly in low light, just like stardust.
Her brother crafted her a staff. It was made of ashen wood. Its top curved to form a circle, an emerald crystal affixed in the centre. The same vines adorning her arms wrapped around the hilt of the staff. Bones tied to the ends of string at the base of the curve echoed hollowly as they clanked together when she twirled the staff. A soft sound against the sharp shing of her brother’s greatsword when they stood together. Wisdom and magic. War and peace. Void and stardust.
However, conflict quickly arose between the duality. Constants often didn’t disagree with their world, but Wisdom and Magic did. Arguments shook their world to its core. Bannerfall was still an infant world, and the constant disagreements were threatening its ability to flourish. I never interact with worlds unless it is absolutely dire. But Bannerfall nearly ended its existence in its infancy, and it was not meant to die so early. So I stepped in, just as I had only twice before.
The conflict erupted into chaos swiftly upon my interference. There was no life beyond the constants, but it still shook the fabric of Bannerfall’s reality. The world began to fray at the seams, unable to contain my existence. Quickly, I morphed the chaos into a reminder. A third constant: humility. Wisdom and Magic stared at the artificial constant when its form materialised within their wilting fracture of oblivion. The chaos had asked to form a fox. Their fur a deep violet like Wisdom’s cloak, struck through with peridot like Magic’s sigils. A thick necklace of gold decorated its neck. The necklace seemed to shine even if there wasn’t light shining upon it. Silver dotted their ears. Some earrings had gems in varying sizes and colours, while others were plain, but they all carried that same constant shine. Gold rings encircled one of its tails, and silver encircled the other. One eye shone gold and the other silver. A mixture of the duality.
The natural constants questioned what I had done.
I said to them simply, “Learn to love your duality, or suffer the end of your world.”
Wisdom and Magic continued to watch the new constant, Humility, as I retreated and the fray began to mend. Or rather I should say Chaos, as it preferred to be called. But they understood. Not at first, perhaps. But they understood. Chaos gave focus to what their role as constants in an infant world was. The duality learned their balance. That was what these constants were together: balance. With their balance understood, Wisdom and Magic, with the help of the new constant, their new sibling, Chaos, they began to craft their world.