Work Text:
Hugo is the God of gods: A creator, but a child.
It is he who creates the elements.
It is he who creates a father, a mother: a King and a Queen, and they are gods.
They live with him in the world he’s made. They love him dearly, and they are happy.
But his parents are wiser than him.
They are adults, grown-ups, and they comprehend his power.
The Queen, in particular, cannot get it off her mind.
She loves her Hugo and wants more for him, more, more than he can make for himself
So she makes for him the things that little boys want and need.
She makes him cats, Pablo and Valerie, and they and Hugo and her husband live quietly together in the big red room.
And Hugo is happy, for she was meant to create,
And the Queen creates. She loves it.
She takes Hugo’s elements, simple things, and regulates them. Writes rules about them.
About how they can be acquired and used, and she gives them their own gods- Demigods, one for each.
Things that little boys want and need.
A bird sewn neatly with fire and smoke, one who will teach Hugo to read and write
A monster knit from cabled steel, one who will keep him safe if needed
A towering man stuffed bursting with soft plastic, one who gives cakes and toys and stories
And Hugo was always made from meat. For meat is life, and Hugo is life, and Hugo is important.
And with the small creator in mind, she ensures that the guardians are his friends.
They are friends, and they love the creator. They educate, protect, and spoil him.
But the Queen still aches to create.
Confident that the guardians can keep Hugo happy
(With the help of her loyal husband, of course)
She leaves his world to plan and create and regulate a new one. A better one. For Hugo.
She creates vast oceans, islands, skies: stuffed and flowing with her favorite son’s elements.
She creates elsen to populate her world,
And men need leaders, so the guardians are sent.
But Hugo is only so big, and the Queen is drawing so much energy it hurts.
Hugo begins to grow weaker, sicker.
The Batter, halfheartedly, cares for him on his own.
As time goes on, the Queen’s worlds grow larger.
She begins to forget where she draws her power from.
Progress marches on, and when Enoch creates sugar,
She jumps at the chance to create guardians for this element as well.
Sugar and Zacharie, twin guards for such a substance. Only one steps up to claim it, barely,
While the other abandons his post to wander a world
That is growing slowly but steadily, industriously, in the hands of a queen who is forever waiting
Until it is ready for hugo to see it.
So Hugo waits to see it. It's boring, but he knows his mama means well.
And he knows that his papa is suppressing destructive power
Though he can’t do much to help.
Hugo is small, and can only go so long without balance:
For all constructive energy spent, destructive energy must be spent too.
And Vader Eloha will not stop creating.
The Batter is all but drowning in the drawback.
It’s in his head, in his lungs, in his muscles.
It feels like anger.
It feels like hatred.
So after many years of holding back a need for destruction
(And taking care of Hugo, who is sick from Eloha’s power draw--
Bringing him things that the elsen have created and feeding him sugar pills to ease his cold)
He takes the spectres as a call to action,
Even if they are only signs of the small creator’s sickness.
With the Queen’s desperate blessing, he worms into the space between spaces to fight them.
And Hugo is finally all alone.
The Batter destroys much more than the spectres.
He destroys the guardians, he destroys his queen.
He destroys, in a steady and unrelenting rage, the little boy who gave him life.
His world was never meant to be this big.