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What is a word?
To Hakos Baelz, incarnation of Chaos, words represent order. Her opposite, but also her mirror image.
For concepts like her and the rest of the Council, words are everything. They are the most important part of Making, of feeding themselves. To speak their ideas to life, to Make, they must be worded.
The feeling of burning, for instance; the charring and blackening of materials; their reduction to smoking residue. These effects must have a cause, which Baelz names–
Fire.
She speaks it into the world, and the universe arranges itself as such. Now, a fuel may combust and rapidly consume oxygen to burn. Now, arid, bushy climates are at risk of bursting into flames, creating ash that may soak into the ground that will enrich it for new life, only to burn again. Now, mankind is not doomed to starve and freeze in caves; now they have their first, most important tool to grow a civilization, until they inevitably destroy it themselves.
Chaos into order into chaos.
This is how Hakos Baelz feeds. Of course she is not gluttonous; she is not heartless for the other Council members. They need to live for her to live; there must be something for the fires to devour. She takes from the Council’s other creations, not systematically and not wholly, but randomly, and she always leaves enough that she can take again whenever she wishes.
Fire. Lightning. Meteors. Plague. Hatred. Violence. Greed.
Everything she Makes is her agent– the words invoke her appetite, and the destruction they cause is her meal. Perhaps, from our point of view, she represents the most distasteful of universal concepts. But of course, none of her fellow members– her very good friends– see it that way. She is necessary. They all are like her– they Make, and the universe takes shape.
What, then, is Hope?
She wonders. Hope was not something Made by any of them. It was more like an idea that manifested itself and was given form. Maybe it was one of the many beings throughout the universe. Maybe the Council even contributed involuntarily. They never really knew how or when, but Hope was there one day, and Baelz had no idea what it was.
So she asks.
“What is hope, exactly?”
She asks this to the woman sitting behind her in her chambers, carefully brushing out her hair with long-fingered strokes.
“Hmm…” Mismatched eyes blink. “I’d say it’s hard to describe. Why do you ask, Bae?”
“It’s just… you spend a lot of time with us. You’re not as old as Kronii or Sana, but you’re probably as old as Mumei. A little younger. But we’re all universal concepts. I don’t know if… are you?”
A hum. “No. I don’t think I’m universal. Hope is… part of a consciousness. It needs something to feel it.”
“But what do they feel?”
“It keeps them going, even through disasters and fires. People– humans, for instance– might live not because of the present, but because of hope. That things will be better, in the future.”
Bae snorts. “Better? At the end of time, everything will be a primordial soup. Just as it was in the beginning.”
The nephilim behind her shifts her position slightly. The fingers running through her hair pause, just for a moment. “I mean, in their future, I guess. Things are uncertain for them, and they bet on the outcome being good instead of bad. Does that make sense?”
“A gamble. Sure.” That satisfies her, somewhat. “Are there other things like that?”
“Like hope? Sure.”
“Name one.”
“Maybe… love. It’s also something that needs a consciousness, and it also helps keep people going.”
“Then… What is love?”
“It’s hard to explain that, too.”
“Try?” she requests.
Another hesitation. “I can try to show you, if you like.”
She turns and cranes her head to look at the nephilim, who is wearing her customary coy smile, but with decidedly redder cheeks. “You can try to show me, Irys?”
“Yes.” She isn’t looking Bae in the eye, which raises her suspicions.
“Okay. Go ahead, then. Show me.” It feels like calling a bluff.
Irys’s smile fades and she gulps. Why is she so afraid?
“It’s going to take a while.”
“What? Why?”
“You’ll understand. I’ll keep coming back here, I’ll spend time with you, until I get to show you love. Is that… okay?”
Bae frowns uncertainly. “Okay? If you say so. Do you want me to brush your hair, too?”
“Yes,” Irys says quietly. “I do.”
They change positions.
///
“So. Why here?”
Bae is walking through the streets of Earth, among humans who seem to treat her ears and wild hair as more of an oddity than an indicator of her nature. The same seems to go for Irys, who has made no effort to conceal her horns, though her wings are dispelled. She hears mutters of "cosplay"; it seems to satisfy them as an explanation, so she pays it no mind.
“You don’t like Earth? Fauna and Mumei love it,” Irys shrugs. “They come up with some ingenious stuff over here.”
“It’s good food. At least it will be, when its sun expands and destroys it.”
“I’ll show you good food.” Irys elbows her lightly. “Here.”
“What kind of a name is ‘cheese’?”
“You know they think rats eat it here?”
Bae wrinkles her nose at the various white, yellow, and orange blobs, though she has to admit, the smell is nice.
///
“Ohh, gods,” Bae mumbles through a mouthful of cheddar. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”
Irys laughs. Tucked in her bag is an extra wedge of brie to go, the one Bae ate most of.
“Where to next?” Bae wipes off her mouth with a gloved hand. She catches Irys’s stare. “What?”
“You love cheese,” Irys states, smiling.
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?” Bae isn’t sure whether it’s an insult or not.
“How would you feel if that was the last cheese you ever ate?”
Bae narrows her eyes. “Is that a threat?”
“No, it’s an explanation, silly. Part of it, at any rate.”
She considers it. “I guess I’d be pretty sad. Not too bad, though. Lots of food out there.”
“You’re right about that.” Irys tugs on her hand, and sudden, inexplicable warmth runs over her.
“Whoa!” She almost lets go in surprise, but lets the nephilim drag her along. “Where are we going?”
Irys points as they run.
“What in the name of the Council is a doughnut?”
///
It’s well into Earth’s sunset, and the two have wound up at a boardwalk, looking out on the beach as Bae nibbles off the last ends of an ice cream cone (strawberry and vanilla, she decides, were the best of those eight scoops).
“That was nice, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” Bae admits, the wind blowing her hair in even more directions than normal. “It felt good.”
Irys leans into her shoulder, careful not to poke her with her horns. “People in love do that, sometimes. They spend a lot of time together, doing things they enjoy.”
Bae watches the waves ripple the horizon line, lapping at the sinking ball of glowing orange.
“In love? You can be inside it?”
Irys is careful with her next words. “When I say in love… it’s with another person. You love someone, and they love you back.”
“A pact?” She casually lays her hand on top of Irys’s, examining the nephilim’s fingers.
“I… sort of.” Irys glances down sharply at their hands, before relenting and intertwining them. “Actually, yes. It’s not a binding agreement, but they agree to devote themselves to one another. They try their best to make the other person… happy. To keep them safe.”
Bae shakes her head, bemusedly. “Why bother if it’s not binding?”
“It’s mutual, Bae. They kind of… make it binding, themselves. Because they love each other.”
“... My head hurts.”
Irys smiles and shakes her head. “If I told you we would go home now, and come back to Earth after we get some rest. Would you believe me?”
She lifts and lowers one shoulder. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well, then it doesn’t need to be binding, does it? We just do it.”
“Mm. Point taken.” Bae raises her index finger from the tangle of their hands. “So do I love you, then? Because we agreed like that?”
Irys makes a small, choked sound in the back of her throat. She turns to the horizon, and her eyes fixate on the sky for a long time. Bae sees the first star appear as the sun sinks deeper.
“... Well, that’s for you to find out,” Irys says softly.
She doesn’t say much else until their next meeting.
///
Bae seems to be feeling warmer.
This warmth isn’t what she’s used to. The warmth she knows is associated with that early creation of hers, Fire– things charring and melting into piles and pools. It’s unpredictable and destructive. Chaotic, of course.
This warmth is none of that. It’s not destructive. It heats her up like a power source, flowing within her physical vessel. It’s a similar feeling to when she feels something feeding her essence— a battle, a blaze, an apocalypse– but it doesn’t sate her appetite in that sense. It was fulfilling her in some way that was… harder to describe. And it wasn’t random– she felt that she knew what was causing it.
She takes that as a good sign. Hard to explain, didn’t Irys say that? Whatever she was doing must be working.
///
When Irys comes to visit next, she’s vocalizing something. It’s not in any language Bae knows.
“What’s that?”
Irys stops to smile, giving Bae their usual hug. Was it just her, or was her grip getting tighter?
“It’s music.”
“Ohh.” The word rings a bell. “I think Sana or Mumei have mentioned that before.”
“Yeah. D’you like it?”
“Go on.”
It’s a light, soothing melody that comes out of the nephilim’s mouth. Bae frowns in confusion.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Keep going.”
Bae closes her eyes as Irys resumes. After a moment, something forms in her mind’s eye.
“A beach. At sunset,” she says out loud.
She opens her eyes to Irys’s grin. “I was thinking that, too.”
“How? That wasn’t… words, was it?”
“No,” Irys shrugs. “It’s music.”
“But…” Irys is shifting slightly closer to her, and Bae is flustered all of a sudden, so she steps backwards.
“What? Do I smell bad?”
“N-no. Just…” She shakes herself internally. “How were we able to think of the same thing? Just through… music?”
“Bae. You don’t need words for everything.”
“... Words make it easier.”
“Not always.”
She looks curiously at Irys, who seems to be deep in thought.
“Here,” Irys says, reaching out a hand. Before Bae can be surprised, she’s pleased– a familiar hand is running through her hair. She closes her eyes again, leaning into it, feeling the strange, comforting heat fill her vessel. It seems to be coming from Irys’s hand, trailing from her scalp–
She opens her eyes and jerks backwards with a gasp.
“Oh! Sorry, Bae. Did I hit something?” Irys checks her fingernails.
“No, no!” Why is she panicking? “That… felt nice. It did.”
Irys stares at her, flushed. Then, suddenly, she laughs.
“Hey!” Bae converts her agitation into a glare. “What’s so funny?”
“Just…” Irys giggles. “Nothing. Would it be easy to say you wanted that? With words?”
Bae narrows her eyes further, but the point is proven. “Then how’d you know I wanted it?”
“I just did.”
“Wha– what’s that supposed to mean, you just did?!”
“I just did.”
They bicker for a while, eventually forgetting all about their planned trip, and they spend the next thirteen hours in Bae’s chamber, talking about nothing as Bae basks in newfound warmth.
///
“How do you like this one?”
They’re sitting on a field of iridescent red and yellow vines. The vines form a lattice of bridges around a tall cliff of white rock. The air is warm and thin, but of course, neither of them mind.
“Hmm…” Bae runs her hand over the vines underneath her, then glances up at the sky. “I don’t know. Nine suns is a bit too much.”
Irys laughs. “Isn’t it funny how Kronii loves this planet? You wouldn’t expect her to be a fan of permanent daylight.”
Bae can hear their hearts beating; there was no sentient life in the whole star system, just fungi and plants. The silence was absolute. “Yeah.”
Irys scoots a little closer. “So… should we go elsewhere, then? I have a list– ”
She’s interrupted by Bae, leaning on her shoulder. “We can stay a little longer.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
They sit quietly. Bae watches the suns slowly creep across the pastel green sky.
Irys yawns.
Bae questions, for a moment, her comfort in this strange planet, with barely anything to destroy so far. She feels just as comfortable as she did in her chambers.
She feels Irys shift to support her weight, and a thought forms in her mind.
“Bored?”
Irys’s head knocks lightly against hers. “A bit.”
Bae grins. “How about a contest?”
“A contest?”
Bae points to another pillar of rock, maybe a dozen kilometers away. “Race you there. On my mark.”
Irys smirks. “You’re on, slowpoke. Count it down.”
“Ready. Setfire.”
“Wha?”
A circle of flames burns a hole in the vines under Irys, and she yelps as she topples down.
“Go!” Bae shouts into the hole, before she takes off at a sprint through the air.
It’s not enough.
Bae can hear the nephilim’s angry screeching over the din of the wind as she runs, ignoring the fact that there’s nothing she’s running on.
She’s overtaken in a flurry of crystalline wings, touching the rock wall, and as Bae arrives Irys is in her path, sticking her leg out.
Bae trips, and suddenly the air can’t support her, she’s screaming as she falls, the wind roars as the ground looms below her–
A glint of maroon and black and white, and she’s hanging by her ankle in midair. An inverted glare greets her when she opens her eyes.
“I should drop you,” growls Irys, but something in her tone makes Bae’s skin crawl. In a good way.
“You won’t,” she retorts, smiling back, baring her teeth.
For that, she gets hoisted back up onto the vines by her ankle, but by the time she gets tossed onto the cliff, Irys is laughing along with her.
///
Bae’s starting to have favorites.
Earth cheese, Cygnian music, the mountaintop of Oblio’s fifth moon. Each one of them had formed significant memories in her mind throughout their interstellar adventures, and she had asked to revisit them more than once.
Irys, the common point among those memories, was happy to oblige her. Her chambers now sported several circles of brie and a Cygnian radio, gifted to her though she had never asked for it. She was beginning to wonder if love involved telepathy.
Irys is away now, for a few days, and Bae feels a strange emptiness, an unpleasant new cold in contrast to the pleasant new warmth she was feeling around the nephilim. She thinks back to their adventures, to their conversations.
Feeling bored, as well as something else besides, she steps out of the Council’s chambers and walks over to Earth.
///
Of the abandoned Atlantean structures, there is one with its sealing dome still intact- a building leaning against the wall of an underwater ravine. The Atlanteans themselves stay away from it now, but the water within it is as pure and depressurized as it ever was. Despite being beneath the hadal zone and surrounded by pitch-black depths, entering the sealing dome would illuminate the building to visitors, and they might even see several colonies of fish and crustaceans that would never be discovered by the humans far above.
Bae walks into the dome, and she finds herself standing on a crumbling abalone balcony. She jumps off, and the water takes her gently to the seafloor, scattering little white shapes with many legs.
There it is, preserved from the ages by some miracle and kept cycling by the bottom-feeders: a small portion of Atlantean garden, the corner of which had spilled out onto the seafloor, causing flowers to grow out in a radial pattern.
She reaches into a pocket and pulls out a die. She tosses it into the water, and it lands perfectly on top of a flower: one whose edges look almost sharp, striped in black and dark red. She smiles to herself, noting its similarities to Irys, as luck would have it. She picks up the die again.
A memory echoes in her mind: a field on one of the distant planets. Mismatched eyes stare down sadly at burnished petals.
“Flowers are beautiful, aren’t they?” Irys murmured. “So fragile, though. It’s sad that they don’t last very long at all.”
Even now her heart flutters at the memory of her voice.
Is this love, then? Is it love that trembles Chaos’s hand as she scoops the blossom into the prepared container? Is it love that causes her to begin to hum as she works, to remind her of the nephilim’s songs? Is it love that makes it so she is no longer comfortable alone, in her chambers or anywhere else?
And is it Irys’s love, exerting this on her? Or has her own love risen up, to meet it?
Love.
She tastes the word in silence.
Love.
She isn’t sure.
So, she will ask.
///
“So, why here?”
Irys hovers at her side as she walks out across the waves.
“It’s the same beach where you took me the first time. Remember?”
She nudges Bae’s shoulder. “Of course I remember. Why’d you want to come back?”
Bae looks out at the star-filled sky, and shrugs. “It just felt appropriate.”
“Appropriate for what?”
She takes out the glowing canister. “I got you something.”
“Whoa.”
Irys carefully takes it from her, eyes widening. “I’ve never seen a flower like this before.”
“It matches you, doesn’t it?” Bae smiles at the way the nephilim’s face lights up.
“Oh, Bae. It's lovely.”
“That’s a, uh… special container. I got it from Kronii. She says things placed in there won’t age.”
“Won’t age?”
“Yeah. It’s preserved in time.”
“Ehh? Really?” She looks it over again.
“I hope you like it.”
Irys holds her gaze. She tucks the canister into the crook of her arm.
“Thank you. I love it.”
Love.
“Love,” she says out loud.
“Hmm?”
“I… I think I’m starting to understand.”
The wind whips at their hair. Over the horizon, the first ray of dawnlight appears, and they both turn towards it at the same time.
“Did you miss me while I was gone?” Irys asks, softly.
“I… I couldn’t wait for you to get back.” Bae looks down at the water.
“While I was waiting, I thought… you’d given me all those gifts. I don’t think I gave you anything back. So… I wanted to get you something… and I remembered what you said about flowers.”
“You remembered,” Irys echoes.
“Yes. About it being sad that they don’t last long. So… “ she gestures with her palm at the canister Irys holds.
Irys holds a strange expression on her face.
“Did I get it right?” Bae guesses. “I… I can feel something different. In myself. With you. And yeah. Talking about it… it’s hard to explain.”
She steps forward, tensing up as she does. “Is it love?”
Irys’s mouth moves, but nothing comes out.
“Tell me, Irys.” Something wells up in her and blurs her vision with salt. “I… I want to know.”
They stand there for a moment, Chaos and Hope, as the dawn breaks beside them on the open sea.
“Can I try something?” Irys finally asks, her voice thin and frail. “Don’t freak out.”
“Sure.”
A hand cups Bae’s cheek, gentle as the sunlight. Irys is close now, so close it almost hurts, and yet Bae’s instincts are to push ever closer, to walk straight into the flames–
She feels an electricity lock her in place, tingling all over her body, and she realizes that their lips are touching.
She reaches out, grabbing onto Irys’s shoulders as they curve towards each other, and it’s scorchingly good– all of her nerves, all of her uncertainty burns away in the kiss. It’s such a small thing, the touch of their lips, but it forces her eyes closed and her heart to nearly burst from her vessel’s chest.
Irys pulls back. She’s smiling. “Do you get it now?”
Bae’s frozen for a moment, then nods. “A-again.”
Irys laughs, a single musical note. “I love you.”
The words strike a new chord in Bae. “I love you,” she says, tasting them for herself.
Irys kisses her again.
She pulls back. “I love you.”
“I love you.” The statements hang between them, and Bae feels as though they belong there, as though the moment they form in her head, they must be let out. As though she’s Making them.
“Again?”
Irys kisses her again.
Now Bae feels that she understands.
When Irys pulls back, she simply leans forward.
She no longer needs to ask.