Kicking my feet up onto my desk, my chair sprouts new, supporting legs and I lean back onto them. Sighing with a mixture of misery and joy, I fail to laugh off Undwote's anger towards what I did. He's not wrong, my word doesn't really mean anything these days, it hasn't for a long time. But, yet, I also kept my word to Motrtha on an even greater issue, so I am not really all that sure.
Oh, who am I kidding, they all want me to end this cyclical horseshit with Sair and Clohniq begged in person for me to...
"I was never going to be a good king." I mutter as I take note of how all the little things continue to bother me. Floating upright and planting my feet on the ground, I walk over to a cabinet tucked away in the corner of my office. Opening it up, I fiddle with the lock as I can't seem to remember why I came over here. Eventually, I lay a finger on a thick book, the recollection bright.
Pulling it out, I run my thumb over its spine, revitalising the faded colour in its now unworn leather. Opening it up, I stare blankly at the photos covering its pages to the absolute limit. Pictures of all my children as children, when they were first created and their first acts. I even went back in time and confused my 'younger' self just to get one of Thurnmourer and that before creation was properly remade.
Coming to a stop on the pages I set aside for Iderim-Ovi, I smile at the fact I can add more. But, when I turn to the next page, I see that I filled out what was meant for him with other memories. Before my powers can sort this, I stop. I glance at my hand as it glows with such masterful control over all.
"Sair with the others and my collection of lunar idiots." I say quietly as I fix the book, giving everyone the room they should have. Yet, I can't help but feel like I've already made a mistake doing this. Arhjor, Kuuin, Esatsym, Ngmannietdd, Omsukti, W'rrid, Jhrarda, Ametahl, Daeyhlos, Mahcoyol, Sinannan, Moanchra, Enzuoch... They're all going to be stuck in those moons for some time.
I try to laugh a little at the idea of it, their prisons being moons. I based them all off of Earth, each one being a different major geological period. Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Hadean, Devonian, modern-day and I want to pretend I don't know why I did it like that. But, I do, I miss my home and all of those I came to care for.
However, I cannot just leave all of this behind, this is my family and these are my children... Honestly, as if I have a right to think of them like that. Every single one from the greatest and most powerful to the most niche and easily forgotten. I am at an impasse, though, I do not want to part with any of them yet I must satiate my feelings on the matter. It's tearing me apart that I cannot have the cake I want and to eat it too...
"Is there anything I can learn from you, Nin? The first mortal I have ever talked to, someone completely separated from being a true know-it-all." I quietly let out as I close the photo album and send it off to a small chairside table. Pouring myself a diluted drink, I sit down on the chair and open up the timestream. Quickly going through it, I mindlessly consume the information with a dead, television-zombie gaze.
Nothing stands out to me and I move to close my observatory, only to catch a still image. I look at it closely and my hand starts to shake. Setting my drink down, I stand up and bring the viewing port with me. Steadily smiling as I look at what I am seeing.
A grey lunar orb, beyond the last mortal world and the Orbital-Halo I dwell in, only, it's tainted by burning cracks. It is exploding outwards, shattering into a trillion shards, some tiny continental pebbles, others grand celestial carvings. One of the prisons for my fourteen sons, someone has broken it and Nin sees it in his future. No...
The light of a Guardian Mountain blurs the view and I turn on the sound. A dragon roars in terrible pain and I reorient the view around the creature. With a dark cloak trailing it, something grips the beast's horns as planetary fire follows after them with a gnashing jaw of its own. A man-sized entity trapping the awful breath of one of my daughter's servile creatures.
"A witch doctor- no, plague doctor. Beak masks are theirs." I comment with a raised brow as I pause the future and clear up the image. This is Nin's future, a small part of it, anyway. A lot of misery and joy like all other lives, some of which I can even see similarities in. Reminds me quite a bit of my old life, really, going out and playing hero, getting the girl at the end of it.
I stroke my chin as I think about what the shattering of a moon will mean. None of my children can break them and I am not ever going to touch them because of the condition I set. Yet, I miss my sons and it keeps seeming like they'll never get out of those cells. Now, unless a mortal comes in and breaks them like what happened with Iderim-Ovi...!
"Seems like once again, Nin, I owe you too much." I say and I consider what moon it was this fight seems to destroy. The one that looks so close to modern earth, the one I destroyed all that time ago. A book shoots into my grip and opens up onto the scribbled-over page detailing the details in case I forgot about them.
Jhrarda the Mighty, it's his moon, his cell.
He can do it, he can break the others out of their prisons and a little bit of fixable violence can follow. But, I will have my family back, all of it will be finally back, some happy coincidences will and I will be where I once was. I smile deeply as excitement makes me jittery. It's all coming back, a full dinner table and all bedrooms will be occupied.
Holding myself back from weeping, I drop the book and head over to my desk. Opening a draw, I pull out Sair's compressed state. For some reason, I kept them all this time. As per the usual, it flashes with anger and tries to break free like it normally does.
"No, not this time." I tell her as I reinforce the locks sealing her in this state. Someone knocks on my office door and I start to shake my head. My powers over creation become active for the first time in a long time. Earth and all the Big Bang gave birth to, I remake it as it was and I cast the souls of those from that world back to it.
Sair. Okena. Kone. Iakb.
All of them, all seven billion humans and the endless more of everything else!
My door knocks again, "You in there, Dad?"
"I'm going out for some milk!" I joke, swallowing the drink I made earlier in one go. I take in a deep breath, coughing a little as my nerves catch in my throat. Staring the swirling portal to this remade world down, I slowly take a step towards it. My family will end up back together in this world, it is going to be whole again. But that's just fifteen more voices telling me the same thing.
Remake this old world and its people back to the way they were. That is what they will all say without a doubt, they all want me to go ahead and fix it without thinking twice. All thinking about it seems to do is make me miserable. I do not want to be miserable, I must go out and fix everything.
For their sake, for all of their sake.
Looking back towards the photo album, I smile, knowing how meaningful its contents are. I want more pictures in there, not just of Motrtha and Thurnmourer, not simply Undwote and his seven pups. I want Kone playing with Waionr's lion, I want Sair to put them to bed with me. Okena, Iakb and all the others, they can play and grow with everyone else.
"Oh, before I do so..." I mutter forgetfully before I pull something out of Nin's current future. I snicker at how stupid I find his costume to be and make some adjustments to it before tapping the otherwise the same beak mask. It fails to break and I nod confidently, tossing it all back into the present. Dark, crow-like attire, I like it, Nin made some good choices and some blatantly awful ones.
Nothing like taking from an old future and altering the present to make a new horizon to head to!
I huff bemusedly at the impact such a simple thing as a mortal has had on me. Taking a step towards the portal, I linger in orbit above a sight that once was a mere memory for me. Sol glowing yellow and bright, Mars on the bypass and the useless gas giants further beyond. My body shifts back to the way it once was and I slowly lean into the new mortal world, my powers shirking away so life can flow back into me.
Fighting back against the uncaring pain of the void of space, I make myself a hamster ball and close the way back to the Vightorhian so I can fall freely. Nostalgic re-entry surrounds and the circumstances of mortality somewhat come back to me. I scream in terror and insane, adrenaline-junkie joy for the first time in aeons. The sky starts to appear behind me and my powers wipe away some of the heat, opening up the kind of view that so recently only appeared in my head for the sake of my misery.
"Learn to love again, huh?" I remark quietly to myself as I cheat a little on this mortality thing, the rush of it all being almost frightening in a good way. Sair's smile flashes in my head and I comfortably lean into my flaming descent. I smile myself and cross one foot over another, a pondering thought in my head.