User:Yuanchosaan/DCI NT

Story
I woke alone.

The morning light filtered through the curtains of our room, dancing across the pristine crystal surfaces. There are no living things to dirty our quarters, nor any gods either. We've made sure of that.

It is impossible to tell how long I have slept. I feel that I had just fallen asleep with you the night before, and yet, there is a stiffness to my limbs that is wholly unfamiliar to me, as if I have been in deep hibernation. What is more: you are not beside me, smiling to my awakening. Nor are there any clues to suggest that you have left me a surprise.

You are a tricky one. I leave our room, already half-certain that this is one of your games, ready to laugh in delight or exasperation.

But you are not in any of the corridors or rooms of our palace, nor our grounds, not in all the frozen scenes we created. You are not in the graveyard you so loved, nor the place where we watch the sun fall into the ocean (and how I adored mocking your jealousy over that!). I roam, lost in all the vastness of the world that is ours. Nothing in this world exists except by our pleasure - and yet, in it, I see not a single recent mark of your hand. You must be long gone, but to where? There is no way that you would leave our home.

I do not know how long I have wandered Sundry, looking for you. The sun is at my beck and call, and the stillness is so great that even my sense of time is muddled. Perhaps, I think, you would like this. This tranquility is rather like the enforced stasis of the grave.

My darling, do you remember the orchards of our palace in bloom? I am walking through them now, and have commanded the sun to set, just as I recalled it. You made the blossoms fall for us (there is so much beauty in death, which only you realised. Until you taught me), so we walking through a storm of them, petals kissing our faces, us kissing each other. The flowers are falling for me now, and for one moment, I thought I saw you from behind, vanishing into the growing shade beneath the trees.

I miss you so much.

Helel, I think something is terribly wrong with me. I'm falling apart or the world is or both. Sundry is so beautiful, and yet, I can feel- what? An echo. Shadows nibbling at the edges of my consciousness. The faintest reverberations of memories that I am just short of grasping the significance of. It is like the suspicion of a malignancy within me. I remember-

How did I end up in the city? It's the city the humans left behind, one of the few that our family left standing. We preserved it, I remember: you, because you thought it was such a pristine, sterile reminder of death; I because I thought it was pretty. Maybe nostalgia. They used to worship me here, you know. They always liked worshipping me more than you, silly things. The sun gives life, and you took it away. But one day, I was going to take it all. That day, you will take me.

Don't look so sad. I see you staring at me with those darkling eyes of yours, soft with sorrow. A god should not let sadness dim their pride; that is what mortals do. My love, you are the god of death, and I will be glad when you are here to take me and all the rest of this sorry world when it is time. All of it belongs to you. As I belong to you, and you to me.

So why are you sitting so far up there, in that skyscraper? Leaning from the window, as if ready to fall down to me, and set you stay still. Do you want me to go up to you? What kind of game is this? I look, but there is no entrance - only the seamless perfection of black glass. I stretch out my hand to you, but you are gone.

When I turn around, I am by the lake. The lake is not by the city. I remember when I dried it to salt, and you reaped such a fell harvest, in those days when we decided it was time to teach the mortals true terror. The lake is not by the city, I remind myself again, jerking me back to the reality of things. This keeps happening to me. I turn, and suddenly I am in another place, far away. It's not a stretch that I might have travelled there, but when I reach back into my memory, there is nothing - not even a blankness to suggest amnesia.

The emptiness terrifies me. Yes, I admit it, Helel. I'm terrified. Which is broken: me, or Sundry? Why are you standing across the shore of the lake? Why aren't you here next to me?

By the time I run across its surface, you are gone.

Helel, I need you. Let's not get into a stupid argument right now. It's not the time for power-plays or strife (didn't you promise me you would never do that? Didn't you promise me we were different?). Why won't you slow down? I see you everywhere I go, but you always walk away without a single word. Helel, please, I'm frightened. I know I would feel better with you by my side. Why don't you stop?

Just stop. I'm tired (and since when do I get tired?). I don't want to chase you. I want to sleep again. I want to see your face. I want to slap you senseless for doing this to me. It's not funny, Helel. I feel so cold. Why would a sun god feel cold? Absurd. I dreamt that I looked down and my hands were broken bones. They're fine now. I want them around you. I want them around your neck.

What the fuck do you want? Do you want me to kill? Would that please you, my beloved, my darling one - will you be summoned by a surfeit of death? The shadows in my mind tell me of conflict, of so much blood lost in my name and yours, of battles so numerous that they drown out each other, bleed through memory, and even death will not staunch them. If you want the horizons darkened by war, I will make it so. Here, see them fight. Look at all that frenzy over nothing. Watch them crush and be crushed. Yes, I remember battle. So many battles...

Through the mists of blood, I see you, garnet silhouette against scarlet. Slowly, you nod to me, and turn away.

Helel, my love.

Please wait for me.

Please.

Setting
DCI NT is set in the dying dream of Amaterasu. The sun goddess, vanquished at the end of Dissidia Calamitas Infinita, now lies broken and battered within the fragments of the Embodiment. A god does not die easily, however, not even after so long in hibernation. Amaterasu dreams of better times, and her dreams are still powerful enough to warp the world.