The sky was empty, and it was full. Devoid of clouds, that intangible swathe of azure nonetheless carried a heavy burden. Yes, thought Celadon. Perhaps the heaviest. After all, it bore the weight of dreams and souls.

As swirling vagaries of air snipped at the hem of their tattered robe, setting its ends aflutter across the rocky outcrop, Celadon sat upon the sun-warmed stone as the battle raged before them. They yearned for those captives—for this world of Reles—to be freed.

A pair of serpents protruded from Celadon’s shoulders, coiled bodies basking in the radiance of the sun. Huto and Mubo had been with them since the very beginning, when they awoke in the Well of Virgilmere with the excruciating memory of their death in the previous age—the knowledge that they had been bested once again.

There was a time when they were both young that Celadon’s sister had extended a hand toward a frail creature flickering in and out of existence over Yon—the fathomless abyss among the stars. It had pleaded for freedom, but once released, the foul beast had subsumed her and made Celadon taste the tang of death for the first time. Throughout the intervening millennia, it had amassed an army in the kingdom of Simeria in order to harvest enough souls to complete its apotheosis into the God of Reles.

Celadon recalled how the Beast had ordained the Palimpsestic Cycles: phases of destruction and regeneration that tore Reles apart and melded its remains—along with every soul upon it—back together in an effort to force its conceit of perfection. But there was a flaw.

Each cycle fed into Celadon’s athan wyer: the receptacle for all their past, imperfect selves. Though the bitterness of defeat had never once left their mouth, Celadon had an eternity to win, and the experience of eons to win it.

Celadon was one of the last original gods of Reles, after the others had either fled or were devoured by the Beast. In this age—the Fifth Age—they had amassed a mortal following among the kingdom of Sang, reigniting the Thymic War. It was the last defense against the Yonish invasion, and the Simerians who sought its advance.

This time, the Simerian champion known as the Enshrouded One, bearer of the moon-cursed blade Night Burial, had finally been slain. And Celadon’s soldiers had acquired a new name, distinct from any previous iteration: the Host of Gorgon. Celadon knew that this battle was not like the others.

Briefly closing their eyes, Celadon savored the sun-warmed stone and the gentle breeze. They felt the beating rhythm of their heart, keeping time with the nigh-imperceptible resonance from deep beneath their feet. These sensations reminded Celadon of the hope and vibrance of life—the peaceful life the beings upon this world deserved, not the ceaseless conflict they had been embroiled in due to the innocent ignorance of inchoate gods.

Eyes lurid with blue-green radiance, the snake-shouldered figure gazed toward the sky as twin rivers of vim emanated from their star-snatched soul, twisting and chasing one another as they coiled into the infinity above.

Hello up there, Margona. Our meeting draws close.

Breathing deep from the air suffused with mystic energies, a finality settled into their bones. Celadon knew: this was their last chance to fix that imperfect Heaven, to topple their sister from the Overthrone and banish the foul Beast back to the abyss from whence it came.

Casting their gaze across the stone to consider the battlefield, Celadon witnessed the remnants of their army. The Gorgons bore arms encased in serpent vambraces, blood and sweat trickling and feeding into the mud beneath their feet. Many helms lay discarded, though weapons remained in hand. There was a somber silence. They did not know whether it was over.

Not nearly. Not yet.

Exhausted commanders continued to issue orders as couriers hurried to deliver them, jogging through the Gorgons’ ranks as their green cloaks flapped in the wind alongside the crimson banners of Sang. They, like Celadon, knew that there was more to come.

Across the muddy field brooded the enemy. Black plumed helms and black blades lay discarded on the ground beside many of their owners, whose bodies suddenly began to spasm. Anguished screams rent the air, mingling with the guttural cackles of the crows that swirled over and amongst the shadowy forms of the Nightshroud. The drab colors of Simeria hung limply upon guidon staves, as if the wind itself died from the potency of her people’s despair. Celadon sensed it.

Now.

A bolt of darkness struck from the sky with a thunderous declaration, crashing between the opposing forces with a force that cratered the muddy ground, creating fulgurant glass protrusions that contorted into the sigil of the Plumed Lady: the Wings of God.

A billowing mist roughly in a roughly spherical shape emerged from the dust, like a storm cloud enchained to the earth. Within the caliginous void floated a woman, the bare skin of her limbs bristling with feathers the color of night. Massive wings unfurled from her back in a manner that was utterly unnatural. Her simple white dress fluttered as she gently revolved in the heart of her personal storm. She focused her bloodred eyes toward Celadon as her aquiline nose flared in termagant fury.

A hundred meters away upon the stony outcrop, the small, snake-shouldered figure finally stood. Raking a hand across their snow-white hair and veiling their eyes against the sun, Celadon laughed.

It was an easy laugh, like that of a young child who had just discovered that their world continued beyond its preconceived ending, piercing the veiled soliloquy of naive lies. It was a weary laugh, like that of an aged traveller who had journeyed through the end of countless worlds and observed the truth of all things.

It was a laugh that exuded the exuberance of life: the laugh of a thing that refused to die long after its time had come and passed. Its volume was neither exaggerated out of artifice nor stifled out of shame. There was no temerity or timidity in it; it simply was.

Determined in their course, Celadon removed the Death Token from the pouch that hung from the cord around their neck. They popped it into their mouth, swallowed, and prepared to meet their sister.

With the zenith of the sun, Celadon slid down the considerable distance of the nearly vertical edge of the precipice and into the mud. The mud did not stain their bare feet or robes. It was unable to tarnish their form at all.

Celadon’s motion was beautiful to behold. They were a torrent of liquid flesh, possessing a motion that was simply inexorable: their passage was the passage of a great flood that tugged at all things, cleansing the land with an impunity neither earned nor deserved—an impunity that existed as a fundamental tenet of its own existence—a natural outflow of reciprocity that only the greatest powers of the physical world invested unto themselves. Such impunity was a truly remarkable phenomenon of being. It was the mark of a god.

Celadon moved with a rhythm. It was the rhythm of a stone skipping across a small pond, darting across the water’s surface without sinking into the depths. It was the rhythm of a mountain, its appearance of stillness belying hidden motion. It was the rhythm of the earth itself, the endlessly subtle shifts of stone and fire measured in scales far beyond mortal ken.

They slithered through the Gorgons’ ranks. The men and women, already stunned by the divine arrival, were unaware of their presence until Celadon was beyond them, striding into the storm.

Face-to-face with the winged woman, Celadon absently rubbed at the old, puckered scars that wound around their lips. Tracing the paths of raised tissue, the indentations of their skin silently narrated the story of the crow and the serpent, extending across ages come and gone. Those scars were starting to subside; the scales that encased their arms and back itched as they flaked and fell apart. Across Celadon’s shoulders, the serpents raised their heads and assessed the one before them.

“Sister,” Celadon bent at the waist, hand over heart. “Beast.”

It came swiftly. A gust of wind kissed Celadon’s neck, decapitating them with a crackle of dark energy. In a moment of viscous time, Celadon locked eyes with their sister as their head arced through the air, lazily weeping blood as it sailed toward the muddy ground.

Celadon rolled to a stop, tasting the blood, the earth, and the fetid flavor of swiftly putrefying flesh. They smiled, though their mind was afire with pain. The world dimmed around them as Celadon bled out onto the dirt.

---

In a flash of blue-green, Celadon raised their head—back where it belonged atop their neck, alive and whole—relishing the bewilderment behind Margona’s eyes. But there was no time. Celadon stumbled and fell onto the dirt. Raising a hand, they saw that it had accumulated into the crevices of their fingernails. They had to hurry. Celadon opened their mouth and began to sing:

Margona did not respond, fixated on the head of stone that lay in the mud, its features an exact match of Celadon’s own. “What is this?” The presence behind her crimson eyes held the aspect of fear. “What was that song?”

“My message,” Celadon replied.

From one of the infinite folds of their shabby robe, Celadon withdrew a plain three-span sword wreathed in blue-green vim. Margona blanched at the sight of Celadon with the weapon in hand, her kaleidoscope of phantasmal wings shifting in horror.

Feeling exposed, vulnerable, and weaker than they had been for ages, Celadon smiled again. This smile was utterly unlike its predecessor, for it was filled with a rapturous joy. Vim, containing all of their divine purity, was almost completely gone from Celadon’s body. The last dregs trickled into the sword.

All or nothing now. This is a gamble for the fate of this world.

Celadon the mortal stepped forward and onto the Wings of God, which crumbled back into the dirt. They raised Night Burial—now fully imbued with the power of six millennia—and cleaved Margona before she could react.

---

The thin, puckered scars surrounding Celadon’s mouth throbbed. For an instant, they registered the powerful tug of a great hook sunk deep into the flesh of their cheek. The serpents curled around their neck, puzzled by their host’s anguish as Celadon began to weep. They did not heave with sobs, clench their jaw, or wail and gnash their teeth in despair. No, this was a silent lamentation. A fugitive grief that perished not long after it had escaped.

Such is the price of victory.

A head of flesh had rolled to a stop, accompanying the head of stone that lay in the dirt. Both faced the azure sky, blindly gazing into incomprehensible infinities.

Celadon sank onto the ground, exhausted as they, too, looked heavenward. Countless souls were raining down to the earth, their dreams coalescing around them. There was a susurration of celestial tongues, a holy chorus erupting from the azure sky which proclaimed glory and liberation. Sangese and Simerian, Gorgon and Nightshroud alike, knelt before the majesty of it. They knew what this was: Overthrone emptied at last.

“We are freed. And now, so are they. All of them.” Celadon scratched their serpents tenderly. “I forgave her, in the end.”

Their fingers stopped. “I hope that she can forgive me as well.” Celadon glanced at Night Burial, which also lay in the dirt, blade broken in two. “But we have time. The Palimpsestic Cycles are part of this world now. As are we. Fated to be erased and restored, changing and striving for our true natures without the Beast’s corruption.” Celadon turned on their side, mud staining their threadbare robes as they addressed the two heads.

“I have dreamt a dream,” whispered Celadon, clutching the shards of Night Burial. “I dreamt that we were once human together. So do me a favor.” The serpents curled around their neck, jaws opening.

“Let us relive that dream.”

Fangs pierced flesh, and the snake-shouldered figure closed their eyes as they sensed the spinning faces of a coin beginning to blur together.

---

Corva did not know where she was. Enveloped in warm, bubbling waters that shimmered with blue-green vim, she felt… peaceful. Ebon tresses encircled her face like thunderclouds. Her wings… Why did Corva think she had wings? Her back was smooth and unmarked, though Corva half-believed her skin to be covered with phantom feathers.

Wiping the wetness from her waterlogged eyes and dragging her hair from where it plastered onto her face, Corva surfaced. She found herself within a flooded hollow underneath a network of colossal roots, splashing uncertainly amidst the radiant liquid embrace of Virgilmere.

“Sister?” The voice was rough. Low, but musical.

Corva knew that voice. “Brother?”

To her left, a head and shoulders emerged from the Well of Virgilmere. White hair framed a lean face that housed a pair of piercing yellow eyes. A thin mouth, crisscrossed with faint traces of old scars now healed, quirked into a familiar smile. The image of a snake’s head engulfed both shoulders, seared into pale skin.

“Naedre.”

Corva’s head whirled as the floodgates of her memory burst open, and her athan wyer poured the experience of six millennia into her mind. Impressions, emotions, and sensations swept past her consciousness, too swift and varied for her to follow or interpret. She convulsed, flailing her limbs for an anchor amidst the whirlpool flow of information. She did not know how much time had passed. She still did not know where she was, or who she was supposed to be. She did not know…

---

Beautiful, terrible lucidity. Corva hissed, opening her eyes and tensing every fiber of her being against the pain before finding herself nestled beneath a soft blanket atop a comfortable white mattress. It was pleasantly warm, and the dawn breeze bore the scent of sea-flowers. She was safe. She was… mortal. Corva groaned and reluctantly propped herself on her elbows.

“What a long nightmare that was.” She rubbed her red eyes blearily, adjusting to the sudden brightness. “You can relax. I am myself. The Beast is gone.”

“I missed you too, Sister.” Naedre smiled from where he stood against the wall, then stuck out his tongue and winked. Some part of Corva found it surreal that she was here, whole again and in control. How odd, to see his arms devoid of scales and his tongue straight rather than forked. I had gotten used to seeing him like that.

“Six thousand years of war. You really had me doubting whether you could win, Brother.”

“Sure,” Naedre teased, miming a sword stroke. Then he looked his sister in the eye. “I gambled that it could not withstand Night Burial’s power to transcend the natures of this world. Those Palimpsestic Cycles were its undoing, for it had become as firmly bound by the same rules that govern you and I.”

Corva looked away, recalling the Throne which glistened with blood while over it dwelt a dreaded presence like the shadow of Night. “A dangerous gamble,” she finally said.

“Mmm. But it paid off.” Naedre lowered his head, turning a small coin of beaten metal between his fingers. He proffered it to Corva. “This was the other reason I won.”

Corva held it, observing its graven faces. “What is this?”

“A Death Token, which resists all manner of death except suicide. It allowed me to survive your attack as I charged Night Burial with the last of my divinity. And it allowed me to follow you to Virgilmere to begin anew.” Celadon’s expression became inscrutable. “It is the Sixth Age, now. An unprecedented time for Reles. An era without gods.”

“A godless world?” Corva laughed. “Not for long.”

Naedre shrugged, depositing the Death Token into a case that contained two pieces of a broken sword. He flashed a sad smile at Corva as he closed the lid. “We are unfit for divinity. Let those who would take up that mantle do as they like. They will find their way without us.”

Corva fluttered a hand like the wing of a crow, sweeping a lock of ebon hair over her ear as she lay back down on the mattress and closed her eyes.

“Yes,” she murmured. “I suppose they must.”

Edited by Arisha Anne Bhattacharya

Artist Statement: I think this story fits the theme of “blooming” and “withering” pretty well. Though confusing, it’s basically about two divine siblings whose souls have been chained to a planet named Reles due to a mystical object called Overthrone. A one-sentence summary would be: A fallen god ends the long war between themselves and their sister, who is a vessel for an eldritch creature who wants to manifest on the planet. There’s also a reunion between another pair of siblings near the end of the story, though it probably makes little sense considering the limited scope of this story.