I was not born.
We, the coalesce, that is what the elder gods call it. A gathering of intent, a knot in the endless fabric where divine will meets concentrated possibility. I remember it only as a dark, a slow rippling vastness cradling me until color and shape made sense.
The Creator's voice was the first thing that reached me.
I opened my eyes to a chamber carved out of light itself. The Creator towered there: faceless and genderless. An outline drawn from cosmos dust. Surrounding THEM were the Thrones and The Elder Gods.
One of them stepped forward and touched my cheek.
"THEY are marked," they whispered. "Look."
Black.That was my first truth.
Across my hands, along my forearms, winding toward my neck. Ink-dark sigils that did not glow like the others' symbols did. They thrummed, like a heartbeat hiding its own intention.
"What do THEY mean?" I remembered asking.
The Creator only said:
I do not know.
And the Thrones exchanged looks they thought I could not read.
They were scared. Most of them were, at least.
I was allowed to live anyway. Celestials' usefulness postponed judgement.
They gave me a name in the tongue of divinity. Kvusha. A name that meant the one who bends through time.
Enalis arrived three cycles after my awakening. Young, bright, and soft-spoken, with silver lines that shimmered like water reflecting the moon. THEIR ability was gentleness itself: Luminweave, a power that stitched light into shields, threads, and memories. He could mend a broken celestial body as easily as mending a broken vase.
THEY visited me when others avoided me.
"You never scared me," THEY said once, handing me a cup of star-tea from the lower gardens. "Your markings are as pretty as you, you know? I admire them."
I laughed. I didn't laugh a lot.
Enalis became something close to a sibling. A constant presence. When my powers flared, THEY calmed them. When I disappeared into visions of stray futures, THEY held my hand and reminded me which one was real.
"You are our saviour." Enalis always insisted.
But I never believed THEM.
The Creator summoned us on the fifth cycle. The present day.
And we knew that it's urgent if The Creator demands it.
"Kvusha. Enalis," Vashari, The Creator said. "A disturbance has opened in the lower realm. Your presence is required."
Disturbance meant rapture. Rapture meant something had gone wrong with reality's stitching. And reality rarely unraveled on its own.
We descended through the astral channels. Rivers of slow-moving light that rippled around us as we traveled. The breach lay near the edge of a mortal dimension, a thin membrane separating celestial influence from Earth.
The closer we got, the stronger the trembling in my markings became.
"Kvusha..." Enalis murmured. "Your arms."
"I know.."
They pulsed painfully. Like claws scrapping under my skin.
The rapture was waiting for us. A jagged wound in the air. A smell like burnt dusk and old storms drifted out of it.
Enalis raised THEIR hand, weaving a protective layer around us. "This shouldn't be possible."
"It isn't," I said. "Unless-"
Unless the power within me had begun to wake. Unless something had sensed it. Called to it.
The thought made my stomach twist.
"We check the perimeter," Enalis said firmly. "Slow and gently. And don't-"
But THEY didn't finish.
Because the ground split.
Light burst from the rupture. A force swirling in spirals that clawed at the fabric of the realm. Enalis grabbed me, dragging me backward, weaving shield after shield.
"It's reacting to you!" THEY shouted.
"No–no–no–Enalis, I can't-"
My vision fractured.
Time bent. Forward, backward, sideways. Ten futures flashed at once: collapsing cities, shattered skies, Enalis screaming, me screaming, gods dying–
"KVUSHA!" THEY shouted, voice breaking. "Stay.. with me!"
But it was too lace.
The curse surfaced.
The ground cracked outward like a blooming flower of destruction. Light warped and folded, spiraling into a vortex. Enalis threw THEMSELVES in front of it, pushing me back with a shield woven so bright it hurt to look at.
"Run-" THEY choked. "Just run-"
"No! I can stop it, I can-"
"You can't!"
And then the light swallowed him.
A burst. Like a dying star imploding threw me off my feet. The rapture sealed itself with a hiss, collapsing inward until only the scars on the ground remained.
Enalis lay crumpled where the vortex had struck. THEIR body flickered. THEIR eyes were half-open, unfocused.
"Enalis..." My voice trembled as I crawled to THEM. "Hey. Hey. Look at me. Stay alive!"
THEY blinked weakly. THEY tried to smile.
For the first time, tears burned my face. "Enalis.. What are you doing? Stop acting... like you're about to die!"
His hand lifted, barely. And fell.
The light in his markings dissolved like dust.
The silence after was louder than any scream.
I held him until his form vanished into dissolving particles.
And the last thing I felt before my fellow celestials tore open the sky to retrieve me was the curse inside me...
Laughing.
Enalis' body was still warm when it hit the crystalline ground.
Kvusha's fingers were trembling. THEY weren't supposed to tremble. Celestials didn't tremble.
But grief mocked divinity.
"Enalis..?" Kvusha whispered, though Enalis' spirit had already been pulled away. Enalis died with THEIR hand reaching toward Kvusha.
Kvusha's knees hit the ground. THEY didn't care that it splintered under THEM. THEY didn't care about the screaming air or the way time warped into a suffocating spiral. THEY didn't care that the mission was over, or that the rapture they were supposed to stop had been nothing compared to what THEIR curse had unleashed.
The black markings along Kvusha's arms pulsed, lighting up like a burning coal. She didn't scream or cry. Kvusha simply lowered THEIR head.
And time froze.
Every celestial in the area lingered in suspended motion. Even the rapture's fractured terrain.
"Why," THEY said quietly, THEIR voice steady in the stillness, "did they send us here?"
"To a place where my curse would awaken.." THEIR jaw tensed. The markings on THEIR face darkened. "To a place where it could kill Enalis?"
THEIR breathing sharpened.
"Why send us?"
The suspended celestials around her began shaking in the stillness. Time bending too long, and too violently. Their bodies wanted to move but couldn't. Her curse enjoyed their fear, humming beneath her skin.
A sound cracked across the air–
KRKK–
Time began to fracture.
Someone finally broke free.
A booming voice cut through the frozen seconds.
"Kvusha!!"
The God Of Wealth, Ravion, appeared from a rip in the air. One of Vashari's closest friends.
Ravion landed hard, gold sigils burning around his fist. His voice echoed through the fractured realm.
"Stand down."
Kvusha did not move.
"You lost control, my child." Ravion said. "We have to–"
Kvusha lifted THEIR head.
"You sent us here," THEY whispered. "You knew the rapture was unstable. You knew my curse reacts to fracture in reality. You sent us anyway."
Ravion stiffened. "Those decisions came from Lord Vashari-"
"Don't," Kvusha hissed. "Don't give me that bullshit."
The air split.
Time snapped back into motion with a deafening roar. Dust exploding outward, crystals falling, celestials gasping for air as they were released from Kvusha's freeze.
Ravion surged forward, golden chains whipping through the air.
Kvusha didn't dodge.
THEY caught one.
The moment THEIR fingers closed around the chain, the gold dimmed, rusting black in seconds as the course devoured it.
Ravion's eyes widened.
"...Kvusha.."
Kvusha's expression barely changed.
"You killed him," Kvusha said quietly.
"Listen to me–"
"I am going to fucking kill you."
Kvusha's fist slammed into Ravion's chest.
The impact twisted time itself. Ripples bending reality as Ravion's body folded, bones cracking in unnatural directions. THEY flew backward, crashing through a crystalline spider that exploded into glittering shards.
Several celestials gasped.
"Get back!"
"Restrain THEM!"
"Someone stop THEM!"
Kvusha didn't hear the plea of the celestials.
Kvusha only heard Enalis' last breath.
Ravion staggered to THEIR knees, coughing out gold-rusted blood. "You.. are out of control."
Kvusha walked toward Ravion slowly.
"You are all the same."
Ravion raised a hand. Trying to form a golden armor, but it melted before it could shape, blackened and sloughing off like ash,
Kvusha's curse fed faster when THEY are angry.
Ravion realized too late.
"No–wait–"
Kvusha grabbed Ravion's face with one hand.
Time stopped around Kvusha's fingers. Then reversed, then split, then crushed inward like a collapsing star.
Ravion's scream was cut short.
Ravion's body twisted, folded and imploded into a shower of golden dust.
Silence fell over the realm.
The God of Wealth, one of the immortal pillars of the Thrones was killed brutally by someone who wasn't supposed to have that kind of power.
"Kvusha.." one celestial whispered in horror. "What have you done?"
Kvusha's markings flared violently. Crawling up THEIR neck to THEIR jaw. THEIR curse wanted more.
It whispered: Let me out. Let me finish it.
Kvusha shut their eyes.
"I will."
A spearing force struck Kvusha from behind. A spear of condensed light.
"Enough."
The God of judgement stood tall. THEIR light tore through Kvusha's back and out THEIR chest, burning the curse but not killing it.
Kvusha staggered, coughing blood.
More celestials swarmed in, binding Kvusha with layers of divine restraints. Solar chains, spatial locks, time-cages formed by beings older than stars.
Kvusha tried to rise. THEY managed half an inch.
A second spear struck THEIR spine.
Everything went dark.