The world was on the cusp of annihilation; it just didn't know it yet.

Thalgrim observed her creation from within the infinite confines of a conceptual bubble. The dimension was devoid of such things as space or time, rendering everything within the bubble both near and far. To her divine gaze, the construct was a beautiful tangle of intertwined, glowing, multi-faceted threads, coiled so tightly that it pulsated with her power. What had once been a glacially slow beat was now the panicked drum of a rabbit's heart.

The Goddess of Fate, and minor deity of Magic, carefully followed each individual string of aether simultaneously, unbothered by the nature of the bubble where a mortal might have been driven insane. With a careful pluck of the right strands, a little imbuing of power, and a few knots at the right places, the pulse quickened to a stroboscopic flicker.

Just a bit more, and the creation would begin its work.

Tucked away in one of the countless underlying layers of reality, the aether construct that had consumed the better part of Thalgrim's existence remained poised to destroy everything. She became still as she looked at it, feeling like an alchemist intentionally moving their torch ever closer to a cauldron of dragon-grease. All it would take was a twitch, a tiny little spark, and the world and the gods would simply be... gone.

Her thoughts turned to the past, to the actions that had led her to this moment.

Perhaps she'd begun this as some test of her skills, or as an experiment, or maybe as a way to prove something to herself. Whatever the original purpose had been, it no longer mattered. As the years in this dangerous "hobby" of hers turned to centuries, Thalgrim had grown increasingly disillusioned with the pantheon. Brothers and sisters, squabbling and playing petty games, sacrificed mortal lives in campaigns that spanned tens of thousands of years—all for the sake of more power.

She could see it clearly, the logical conclusion none spoke aloud: only one divinity would remain, crushing and consuming all others. A divinity that would rule eternally, a pantheon of one, too powerful to ever be challenged or dethroned by nascent gods.

The games had twisted them over the countless centuries, transforming what had once been close friends into bitter rivals.

Boredom and curiosity might have driven Thalgrim to begin this mad creation, but anger had given her the resolve to bring it to completion.

A part of her had hoped there was something left of the friends of old, a part she'd lost long ago. There was certainty now, of inflexible behaviors hammered and polished over countless decisions and battles; the other divinities had unwittingly transformed themselves, now little more than puppets to the ever-present need for more. After all, if they didn't make the most optimal decisions to guarantee growth, they might as well be committing suicide at the hands of others who did.

That had been a potential path for her as well, one for which she would have been perfectly suited. Would the Goddess of Fate not possess the best knowledge of things to come? Would it not be better for her to wield the power to cement the future of all things? To kill uncertainty lest it slow her rise in power, or worse, risk toppling her?

Slaying that monster had been the second hardest choice Thalgrim had ever made. Now, she looked at her creation as it hungrily awaited completion, and she tried to convince herself that this was the easiest decision ever.

Yet she couldn't help but feel a flicker of trepidation. She carefully looked over her work once more, even though she knew everything was perfect. The construct was a weave of destiny, not the trivial pattern she'd laid down for mortals, but a tapestry entwined with every facet of the world as well as the divinities within it. It was artificial, contradictions upon contradictions keeping the threads taut.

In a way, it was an expression of the most basic forms of magic—to pull at bits of reality against one another so that, upon release, explosive results would take place. Just at a scale and complexity no mortal mage could ever hope to comprehend, let alone imitate.

Just a tiny push, and there would be no coming back.

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"Am I waiting for something to happen?" she spoke to herself. "For someone to stop me?"

Hesitantly, she spread her awareness outward, beyond the confines of the underpinning layers of reality. Risking detection, she extended her senses in every direction, onto the unassuming street, to the unknowing mortals, and then further into the realms of divinity where her brethren ignorantly schemed against one another.

No one would come; nothing would stop her.

Some part of her wished they might. Thalgrim remembered when things mattered, when she had fought the older pantheon to save the lives of countless mortals.

Yet now she stood amid destruction, not wrought by fire but by stagnation.

Perhaps she hoped someone would stop her, offering irrefutable proof that she was wrong, that her plan was flawed, that her vision was imperfect.

She waited and waited.

"This is futile... No change will come if I do not act." Thalgrim's somber mumble echoed only briefly before it was overshadowed by the arcs of divine power leaping to her fingers. "This stagnant stage is meaningless to all. If we are destined to rot, then let this mercy end it all!"

Drawing on her divine power, she seized control over the knotted weave. With a mere thought, she pulled, channeling more power into it than it possibly needed, tightening it to the brink of collapse. And so, the world's doom was-

There was a snap. "Eh?" Thalgrim blinked, watching the world-ending weave unravel beyond her control. In a timeless instant, the Goddess' brooding countenance and severe frown morphed into doe-eyed, stupefied shock. "Ehhh!?"

Startled, she hastily reached out, tendrils of power seeking to mend the frayed threads. She berated herself and her sentimentality, grasping the coils and tugging the aether back into place. The knots remained, only loosened; her error was not irredeemable. All she needed to do was carefully tighten and trim the strands of fate. But—

The construct lurched, disgorging years' worth of destiny where there should have been room for only days. The strands of fate began to elongate at an alarming rate; Thalgrim pulled harder, and they stretched into decades, then centuries. Power erupted from the spell, swirling and accelerating. New tangles formed as she struggled to keep the strings taut; eons spilled out like a waterfall's relentless cascade.

Thalgrim could neither comprehend nor halt what was transpiring. Creating time from nothing should have been impossible, not like this.

Sensing a shift in the magic, she realized with dawning horror that the threads were not merely unspooling; they were pulling at something, their own mass and energy serving as fuel, accelerating as they accumulated.

Until the pocket dimension trembled, shuddered, and verged on collapse. Fears flashing through her mind, Thalgrim unleashed even more power to stabilize the dimension. If it vanished with her in it, then she would die, but the spell could potentially survive and manifest elsewhere.

Yet she had to abort the spell. If she'd unwittingly paved the way for an unknown entity, the consequences could be even more calamitous than simple annihilation.

Summoning her scythe—a weapon she had sworn off since it last tasted divine blood—Thalgrim cleaved through the jumbled mass of threads. The magic stuttered, its tangle spilling out erratically, as though in a scream. But it did not cease.

She swung again, careful not to threaten the subspace's very existence. Her own weakening became evident as the dimension showed cracks.

Its conceptual nature wobbled; space expanded, putting what was once within reach now frustratingly distant. Thalgrim pressed on, watching the unraveling tangle of fates open like a gate, revealing something fast approaching—

A creature tied to the origin of all things.

With a final desperate swing, she tore into her own divinity, channeling it all into her scythe in an attempt to sever the portal.

It was too much.

The pocket dimension crumbled faster than she could mend it; she could either flee or try to annihilate the spell, not both. Thalgrim's only option was to throw her scythe at the widening portal, expending what was left of her remaining energy to exit the subspace, feeling herself frayed and nearly undone. Weakened, she ascended to higher planes of reality, keeping herself undetectable while frantically searching for any signs that calamity had ensued.

In the middle of an otherwise unremarkable street, the entity materialized.

To the Goddess' eyes, it was an ever-changing, tangled mass of destinies in the shape of a person, yet entirely unfathomable and inextricable.

To the unaware mortals walking the streets of Al-Zahra, the creature looked like a pale frail human, with bags under his weary green eyes, and black messy hair. More notably, he wore a light blue bathrobe, pink bunny slippers, and was holding a mug of a hot beverage that carried with it the promise of artificial relief.

The human stumbled into the crowd, caught his footing and straightened out, smoothing his bathrobe with his free hand until it stopped at a pocket that had not been empty previous to the near-fall experience. At this realization, he spoke words in a language not even Thalgrim could understand.

Slowly looking around, his face split into a grin, letting out a cackle that became a full-bodied laugh.