ENDLESS. In every moment, in every space did she reside. At the spark of Life and in cold quiver of Death, she held place upon the crux of all things. All storms that raged would quiet, all songs of jubilation faded, all things drew to calm as she watched. Her Virtue: Balance eternal. Rare was the occasion to remember herself so immersed in it all, and rarer still the comforts she could find to ease her burden.
"Fascinius," her consciousness whispered across the void; as her self awareness returned, so too grew the desire for her brother's company, and so she went. To imagine that she traveled from the void into and through the aether toward her goal would be a pale misconception: she need not travel at all, for no space existed in which she was not, and so she need only be PRESENT and conscious of any particular place.
Strands of starlight danced from her divine crown, a slender form cloaked in silky shadows. She woke fully in her haunting splendor, the only point of light or life in an abyss of timelessness and whispered her way into the streams of reality, the flow of time, and was invigorated by the cascade of life. From death to life she woke and spread consciously through the cosmos into all things, all minds, her virtue inescapable even for the lifeless, the dead, or the damned.
Through the seven abyssal hells she passed as a ghostly ripple, manifest a moment or less in the gaze of every sentient spark writhing within each, the prisoner-wardens raging familiar arguments and pleas in her wake. The sense of each Sovereign of Sin touched her, reminded her: Pride, Desire, Corruption, Treachery, Cruelty, Hatred, and Wrath. The three Kingdoms of Virtue felt only a chill wind as her awareness pressed through them, and their Spirits of Virtue reminded her: Honor, Courage, Strength, Love, Chastity, Justice, Wisdom, Fortitude, and Artistry.
At last and all too soon she was present at the celestial focal point of all existence, the gateways of reality, of all the pathways and prisons of all the higher and lower planes of the cosmos. She became conscious of an infinitely immense sphere of golden light that pulsed brilliantly along webbed pathways that rippled and roiled across its surface, and of the starry streams of aether that flowed in and out. This was the center of the realm of dreams and souls, where the infinite story of it all was written, the great dream, the living universe endlessly experiencing itself.
Ambulating her avatar, she approached the radiant twine surface that first dwarfed her on an immeasurable scale yet grew small and indistinct as she drew near, impossible to hold in gaze until she was at once looking THROUGH it, through a brilliant disk inside which was a silvery second orb of light. The disk became a tunnel of lit strands spiraling around and past her, closing in without clear transition until she found herself WITHIN. Her alabaster features softened at the novelty only she could ever enjoy. Once upon a time she would have smiled with delight.
Amber radiance framed her as she beheld then the blazing hexagonal lattice of the wall between the higher and lower realms, and in each space burned brilliant the spirits of the Guardians. All along the silvery pathways within she could see they patrolled on wings of white fire, streams of magical light trailing behind.
These she passed unperturbed and the second sphere gave way as did the first. Within, a distant star twinkled above a winged silhouette to beckon her. Across that nebulous expanse of dreamy aetheric fog she passed bastions of the Guardians arranged equidistant in rows and layers toward the center, massive winged statues of light held firm on wide platforms.
An island beneath the small star came into view as she closed upon it, a free floating mass of rock and dirt on the surface of which grew soft grass and a single mighty oak that shaded half. Above and between the island and the star she glanced to find a fierce being with leathery wings and slender horns grown from his brow, face upturned to bask in the light as he held his dutiful post. Here was her brother, Spirit of Diligence, Guard Captain of Eternity. He smiled a sharp-toothed smile without glancing and spoke a joyous verse.
"Sweet sister mine
Fine time to meet!
Why draw you here
Near to my eye?"
She took rest upon the turf beneath the tree, a shaded and twinkling piece of starry night alive and free. Into his soul she reached, indeed already there she crept, and so drew him from his work into timelessness and thus spoke directly to his heart and mind.
"All of time is mine to keep
To wander far or hide and weep
Or fade away, an endless sleep
To wake again with souls to reap."
A sense of unease and concern poured into her from Fascinius.
"Now Naenia, tell me clear
What troubles precious heart so dear?"
The goddess vibrated with an amused and familiar sense of melancoly.
"Will you not rest here as once before?
Shall you truly hang there evermore?
Would you ever shrug this eternal chore?"
A resonant, melodic laugh burst into Naenia's heart to warm her, to echo in her mind and cheer her to smile. And urge her to remember, to remember more than just Diligence, to remember truly her brother Fascinius.
"Should Diligence decay and become dismal
On what ground then stands the Virtues? Abysmal
This Virtue mine can thrive as curse or hymnal
Held firm within souls pious and sinful."
"And so employed you never sit
So enthralled, no wish to quit
Where then does this nostalgia fit?
Why then bother keep it lit?"
"To gladly gaze upon you as in memory
Of that time so far yet still so near to me."
Naenia smiled sweetly to him in her space outside of time, a mane of galaxies glittering as she shook her head.
"One other reason sure to find
Here in my shade hide those you bind
Kept so keenly out of mind
Ever reaching toward the blind."
"Fret not with fear the flight of those fiends
Virtue is verdant grown upon their path
Though mortal souls may find their sickly sheen
They shall not rise to face our holy wrath."
Naenia shuddered and released him from the infinite moment and rejoined him on his watch. They spoke no more and were simply present, a comfort in each other's hearts, but she could not help but drift from him while pondering no novel concern, once more in her conscience. Hidden in the darkest shade behind the trunk of the oak she located the third sphere, writhing and black, the pathways of the Sovereign, locked deep there in the heart of it all.
"How can Wrath be how goodness sings
When among the sins, Wrath is king?"