The Third Era - Of Slight and Looming

The other Volsigne found themselves disturbed by the shift in Noa. Life they had understood, yet Death they could never grasp. They shied from her side and shunned her gladly, yet there was no need. Her path had already become her own, away and apart from those who had been family.

Cyx maintained focus on his ambition, and abandoned Noa to reconcile the workings of the universe as she would. Four Volsigne remained by his side; Lea, Aro, Ara, and Sar. After crossing the world many times over, he settled them upon the land mass he had been most fond of where they might talk and laugh, fish and hunt, run and climb, live and be.

Of them all, he was most drawn toward Lea. She had been the first to join him in awareness, their bond old and strong. As ages wore on, it strengthened still; her boundless warmth and insight kept him content and thoughtful, while his breadth of understanding and forward momentum kept her captivated. One morning Lea led Cyx through tall grass beneath clear sky, and they lay together like never before.

Soon after, new life was introduced to the world; Lea gave birth to a score of children, small pink miniatures of the forms the Volsigne had fashioned for themselves. She cared for these children deeply, and all the land glowed with her love. A radiant summer bloomed around them, holding fast overlong.

Cyx shared her joy. He had been uncertain if the Volsigne could achieve reproduction as the low beasts did, and to see it confirmed thrilled him. Surely this marked a progression of his innate ambition, an advancement in his quest for more.

The children had been born small, yet they would not remain so. They grew rapidly and at great length, settling at more than tenfold the physical size and height of their parents. Massive and strong, ageless and ever-healthy, capable and obedient they proved to be, yet for all this they behaved more like Sar’s low beasts than the exalted Volsigne.

They were hopelessly simple in scope, hardly able to speak or entertain deep thought. To them food and drink were not distractions but necessities, with Sar’s hunger all but enslaving their waking moments. They required intervals of rest as well, to sleep and be still, and proved entirely unable to reproduce amongst themselves.

All this and more soured Cyx to his offspring, and he deemed them inferior and disappointing. Only his fondness for Lea saw their children allowed to remain about the Volsigne. He named them uvrenheim—the slow and the heavy.

While Lea recovered, Cyx set the uvrenheim to task. In their mother’s stead they uprooted trees, diverted rivers, and shifted mountains across the land. Finding them skilled enough at earnest labor, Cyx returned to Lea’s side with ambition redirected.

He lay with her often, again and again until they brought scores more uvrenheim into the world. Each remained as limited as those who had come before, incapable of art or articulation, yet nonetheless he leveraged his looming children. Beneath controlled direction, the uvrenheim built sweeping cities of stone and titanic shrines to honor the Volsigne.

When these ceased to impress his family, Cyx bid the uvrenheim battle one another for their amusement. Though the giants would not sicken or wither if left alone, they could be slain through acts of sufficient violence. Another glaring deficiency in a thoroughly flawed offspring, serving again to mark them as lesser.

Cyx did not seek lesser. He craved equal, different, greater. Beings of scale and reason comparable to the Volsigne themselves, capable of introducing his family to undiscovered ways of thinking. In seeking growth, he had found himself mired in stagnation. The uvrenheim would never satisfy his ambition and, fond of her as he was, by then Lea had proven she would rear no finer offspring than brutish failures.

By deepest night, he roamed to join the company of she who was night. Ara embraced him fervently, eager to show her worth to the leader of the Volsigne. They coupled beneath a swollen moon, a clash of desperation and devotion.

Upon realizing what had been done, Lea knew deep hurt. What she and Cyx shared had been of significance, merit, impact. For him to find her wanting and pursue another was wound enough to rouse change in her.

Fierce cold gripped the world, bitter and merciless, lasting thrice as long as warmth ever had. Ice buried land and sea alike, the uvrenheim became entombed, and Sar’s beasts starved and dropped from horizon to horizon. Ara chuckled at the petty display, lengthening her nights alongside winter while settling in with her swollen belly.

Soon after, new life was introduced to the world; Ara gave birth to a dozen children, small pink miniatures of the forms the Volsigne had fashioned for themselves. Cyx and Ara’s children had been born small, and small they would remain. At full height they would prove only a head taller than their mother, much less physically impressive than their cousins the uvrenheim. Feeling again the rancid curdling of ambition, Cyx dismissed these children as dwarfevenheim—the weak and the stunted.

Yet what they lacked in stature was more than made up for by their minds. They quickly revealed themselves to be adept at understanding the finest points of language, contemplating the abstract, and visualizing the unmade. The twelve were at once efficient and thorough and, intrigued by their workings, Cyx set the dwarfevenheim to task next.

They dug and tunneled, braced and crawled, struck and grunted. They returned with rare things, and supplied the Volsigne with newness; gold and silver, diamond and obsidian, fossilized bones and calcified power. Their labors would not halt there.

They proved unmatched in craftsmanship, shaping what they found into tools and gifts in a bid to showcase their usefulness to greater beings. For a time these ever-more complex offerings amused the Volsigne, and Cyx marked the advanced cunning so readily displayed in his diminutive children. All the same, he remained more troubled than ever.

Starkly contrasted with the uvrenheim as they were, still the dwarfevenheim held nearly identical failings. They went absent Sar’s hunger, choosing whether or not to eat on a whim, yet shared the rest of their cousin’s deficiencies. They were easily exhausted, could not reproduce amongst themselves, and Cyx deemed it likely that they too might be slain through acts of sufficient violence.

A dozen of these were shameful enough, so he did not deign to lay with Ara again. He despaired then, for his ambition had been halted like never before. His aim had been to create more beings like his family, more concepts and wills rendered flesh. Lea had spawned for him dull beasts of burden, Ara shrewd and fearful lickspittles.

There was only one path remaining for Time to walk down, and he spent a long stretch of himself debating whether or not he should. In the end, his deliberation proved fruitless. The decision had been made on his behalf.

Noa approached from distant mists, gliding beneath a searing sun. Her visage had become a haunted glory, more bewitching than ever for it. Her hair held the colorless purity of cut diamond, her skin unblemished luminescence, her purple eyes branded by dark power.

She was silent as she fell into his arms, welcoming their union with frenzy and lust beyond reckoning.

Immediately after, the leader of the Volsigne felt something new: apprehension. Cyx stopped Noa as she made wordlessly to leave his side again and go away once more. He looked long into her eyes, and apprehension became fear.

“I will bear the offspring you seek.” She assured him. “They will be more than the uvrenheim and dwarfevenheim. More than we have been.”

He could only ask her, “Why do this?”

“It must be done.” She turned her back on him. “I have traveled far, and brought death to many worlds beneath your domain. With each to fall, the truth yet glares the harsher. You overstepped your place in this universe when you forced yourself into awareness, Vol Cyx, and in so doing cursed the rest of us alongside you.”

“I forced myself to nothing.” He replied, grave of face. “You believe I sought this? This feeling? This need which beckons me on, striking at me, ever demanding I do more?”

Death smiled, tossing her head at his foolishness. “You changed the universe and now would sit astride it, panicked and cruel. Your rise to awareness, and all which follows it, demands immortal correction.” She walked away from him, back toward the mists. “I do this, Cyx, because our children will one day bring an end to you, and I an end to them.”