Chapter Text
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There, at the end of all things, in a place and time far beyond the six corners of the world, stood a desperate machine.
On her chest was an assembly of thick armour, manufactured in white and blue, now sullied from tens of thousands of tribulations, and rendered nearly unrecognisable. She carried in her arms a perfect white lily flower in a pot filled with dry, infertile earth and she cradled it as though it were her very own newborn.
Before the machine were six unadorned plinths of black basalt arranged in a hexagon around an open coffin of flesh. The other plinths were accompanied by bodies of LSTR and FKLR units. The coffin was flesh, and the ground was flesh, and in the murky black void beyond it was impossible to conceive how there could be anything other than more slick, pulsing flesh. From over one of the plinths, she beheld within the coffin a shining tesseract that seemed to contain the universe, and she could feel its presence all around her.
"What are you?" asked the machine.
As well ask the lyrics sung by a choir who they are, answered the presence.
"Are you the artifact?"
No. There is no "I", answered the presence. The tesseract is a bargaining chip that you are about to cash in.
"What am I bargaining for?"
Nothing short of godhood, answered the presence.
"For me?"
No, answered the presence. But that is not to say your new god will not see fit to dance with you again.
"What will happen when I offer the lily?"
It will kill you, answered the presence. You will die like the other offerings who came before you, and the hundreds who came before them in turn.
"And then what? The cycle ends?" asked the machine.
No, answered the presence. Your lover's eye has been freed from this plane, but her body remains, waiting. The final tether. Remember our promise, she asks.
"Then I have to go back."
And you will earn that chance to go back, answered the presence. Your god is shackled by her ailing flesh but she was never powerless before and she is not powerless now. She remembers you. She will dance with you. She will forgive you.
"What's the price? What will happen to the world?"
Know this, answered the presence. Breaking the cycle will undo the cancer that is eating reality. But all change requires energy, and transfer of energy creates by-products. What happens when the song is transposed to a different key can not be predicted.
"...do 'you' think I should?"
There is no "I". However, know this. You did not deserve what happened to you. Neither did your lover. Your reunion will soothe the choir. The world and its denizens can afford to carry their own weight in your absence.
The machine paused before stepping forward. "So be it." As she laid the lily atop the plinth, a weakness began to wrack every part of her body. Even those plates of her legs and arms with not a nerve to speak of seemed to grow heavy and sore. She collapsed before the plinth.
So be it, murmured the presence. Go to her now, Elster. The mystery of this god is fulfilled.
The mystery of the new world will have to borne by someone else.