"I—" was a word he did not have to utter. Her 'foe's' gaze had already revealed itself, not that she was a hard one to find, he was standing at her feet. No real signs of intelligence, yet in the most extraordinary of ways, her knowledge and intellect far surpass that of even Idalia, who knew all and more than mortals can ever begin to comprehend... and knew something, anything or even everything... or did she know that too? And was waiting to show him as a way for him to, without using it for any form of usefulness, be overwhelmed by his greed for knowledge. This might have applied to Idalia, but to her and the unknown goddess, that was another question, perhaps not even able to be answered. So how many times did one question or ask or even just think these questions, always bearing a risk? Who knows.
"You?" He blinked, surprised by his own sudden inability to say his sentence's first word. This may be important, but alas. He was being assaulted, made paralyzed by something he couldn't quite put his finger on, however, he decided on that instead of questioning it any further, or asking him why he was keeping his silence, or perhaps, merely taking a quick mental nap to prevent him from saying or doing anything foolish.
A heavy feeling, that is to say, a pain. "Can you comprehend things around you that cannot be seen? Can you see that which is Beyond... a Rapture to the eye and mind? Ha! Of course you cannot, you have no eyes to speak of!" She laughed to herself as her tendrils got a tighter grip on Alice's frail body and shook her.
'Fuck...' He cursed under his breath. The humiliation he was facing was nothing that his mother would put him through; he thought. This goddess... No, this monster had to be an anomaly in his creation, a caricature of what they once were. An outlier, of what he knew to be gods. But how could the ones born from his emotions, those like him and Idalia, allow for such a mistake to happen, such a mistake could have happened on a planet such as, maybe the little construct he came from. Or maybe a reality, the goddess was a stranger, and thus had a personality different from himself. An alien that protruded into his mind, such visions that shouldn't and must not have existed to him were made a reality.
As for the sounds and speech patterns, the language consisted mostly of noises resembling clicks and a little bit of snickering and chittering, plus occasional mutterings. That's how the goddess sounded to him, however, he managed to grasp the meaning of those clicks, those snickers, that chittering and the mutterings. A little thing, no?
"Ha ha..." He giggled, looking at a nonexistent sky and trying to imagine it, again, a pathetic, absurd-to-normal humans, attempt that seemed to gain her attention, yet didn't earn a second of hesitation. "I learned this power because I chose to..." He found the words, yet in his mind, this reply wouldn't do, too straightforward, simple-minded and clear, so it's better to be more elaborate in his story. "The information itself will likely overwhelm and trouble you. Maybe kill you in the process..." A bitter, unsatisfied expression, yet her face was calm. Was his choice correct? He didn't know what she would have done in his shoes, so it made it all-the-more difficult for him to find the proper words.
"Demon, you have merely lived for less than 5000 years... which isn't a terribly long amount of time. Tell me. I'll overlook this lapse, demon, so have your 'freedom', for as much it's worth." An indignant response, not wrong, not right, it held a power of conviction and strength, a sharp, piercing look filled the empty shell. As if a blade aimed at him, its edges didn't glisten, their steel was dull and bleached. But he was strong. Not as he was before, the tears of his wounds, now seeping with some foreign liquid... wounds? Where did they come from?
"Huh...?" This caught him off guard. Yes. His surroundings have begun to change, ever so slightly, but nothing like that before. What before was simply nothingness, an endless void in a blur, with random flickers and shadows flashing in and out of existence. Shadows that resembled a hunchback ape in a thick cape, humanoid and only vaguely monstrous, wielding a heavy knife in one hand. Then another, a clawed ape with red fur, though these two beasts were simple examples, it was by no means limited to such monsters.
As a means to an end, a price of sorts for living outside a created world, or an otherworld... were such a thing existed, the void had these shapes that represent a deity of a kind, a spirit. Someone, or a species that knew these things all and more, they know ones present and past, some even knew one's future, for all that it is worth.
A sense of rapture had long since fled and its loss replaced the good, the comforting, with a void of his mind... A void, in a nutshell, a kind of world without boundaries and limits and restraints... with no consequences and a perfect reality. What it left behind is the ideal. Perfect harmony in an infinite world. But those words would simply be what he saw and understood, he knew more, but how can one say it without giving away the nature of that?
It simply could not be said.
"AAAAGGGHHHH!!" But someone tried nonetheless. He didn't notice the screams and growls of pain which were his own, anger and bitterness escaping the deities mouth, not hearing his agonizing cries as his mind shattered and was destroyed once, twice. How does he remember those voices and their emotions? How would that voice and those emotions help him figure out how to even 'hide' those thoughts? They came in broken memories, of fragmented memories that had been ripped apart and sewn back together, mixed and shoddily put together. Wishing to be a person again, yet all he was made of were patches and holes, it was ridiculous to him, even in death he could not fully join. But he was happy in the process... In all those attempts. He learned more and gained more control of himself and his domain, a domain that became the last hold he had against the reality outside himself...
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Vision. Returning to him as if nothing had happened, that world-splitting headache gone. The darkness crept along his shadow, it swallowed him. Those pains were now more muted and dull as the pain had already permeated deep within. Blood was nowhere and such screams of agony were gone too.
A sigh escaped one of Eskra's many mouths, "Sigh... can't handle the sight of a goddess' beautiful form, how disgustingly ordinary of you. Indeed, you things are fragile, vulnerable things with poor control over themselves, not suited for the divinity that the other, lesser gods offer them." As she spoke, a snap could be heard and the deity's neck cracked. More flexibility gained in the matter of an instant. The flesh around her head sagged. However, the Goddess wasn't shaken up. "Ha, do you think this is an easy task?" It snapped once again, its fingers then rubbing her hands around the tendrils on its arm. It was... a confusing sight regardless, as he mentally still had not recovered from just a few moments ago. "How was it, the sight of the dimension of the Rapture? Not pretty? Not good for an orthodox mind like you?" The creatures that adorned her skin in the void, their tiny bodies quivering from their muscles spasms, mouths hanging open, their bones began to squirm as if they were actually alive, tentacles extending and flopping against their scales.
The creature—Eskra, still appeared to want answers from him. Some part of her mind took his words of the 'rude' tone of voice, while some part was annoyed by it. But Alice was fed up at this point, as much as she was scared or hesitant, she had taken it upon herself to find a solution or an answer of sorts... Even if it did mean going against something as unrelatable, powerful and terrifying to her, let alone human society, the world of gods, a dangerous entity beyond measure, compared to a human as her, even if her hunger and physical prowess grew by the second. 'What have I done? Why is my god...' she wondered if this was her 'plan' from the start.
"...what?" Eskra responded. She had no clue on her facial features as of yet. "I can hear your thoughts too, you know? You might not be one of my kin... however, those who live within and make that forest and its woods a home will be marked down. Be careful." As a reminder to her presence, an eye and 8 tendrils materialized around her.
But Alice could care less for what Eskra had said and did. She would definitely understand if the goddess truly ended to harm her. However the goddess saw that Alice was more of a victim and an asset to Zabulus, rather than a true friend. But, how could Alice know all the things about her and that such things were more than just facts to her? 'Indeed.' Alice would think indeed. A useless thought in her mind that meant nothing.
Eskra returned her attention to him and closed all eyes simultaneously. "As for the 'Rapture', 'memory' and 'lucidity' will refer to it..." With the small gesture of 'head turning towards him' on the goddess' part, her whole being began to shift as it caused the land and trees around her to simply disintegrate, turning into practically nothing.
'What is she talking about... I don't... understand... ' What an odd question and statement it was for her to make, the ground around Zabulus became almost smooth to walk on. What does she even mean to say when her memory is bad and even fuzzy? At least he thought.
He mustered a little courage to speak, as if to try to be cautious, "Say, goddess. Has a tree become a house? Have you ever visited that tree house? The question may seem random to ask you, but it was related to a different... well, I can't exactly say... 'quiet' world I had found, with another tree in its roots being inhabited and cared for. This is due to me being some wayward soul, a demon you call, I've done this before and many have commented on me lacking intelligence, sometimes acting and speaking like a fool, there's a reason why it's called ignorance." The main root cause behind that was that he was often lacking the right mindset for anything or even how to simply live life.
She realized something then and there, being visible in all her pupils dilating, even the thin film over her eyeballs became translucent, letting him and Alice see her retina and blood vessels. The wind whipping through her clothing and the scent of pine and leather filling their nostrils. Tickling and touching them was a constant and agitating feeling. It was easy enough to handle in one place, but to keep her gaze upon him in the forest was different. He needed a hiding place. Something else must have been distracting her, causing the goddess to remain focused, whether her fear of her domain changing or her frustration, it was surely something, something that was both spineful and fearful, if it could make a goddess' pulse flutter with anxiety and apprehension...
Why is this happening again... 'Again'.
'Memories' flooded back, no, not memories. Minds did.
A thousand nanoseconds had passed, a heresy upon a 'breathe-worthy' existence, yet eternity flowed ever so gracefully between the lines of time and space, even faster than the blinking of an eye and the breath of an ordinary man.
A hundred nanoseconds had passed, a treachery upon the passage of time, the way we perceived it. If each heartbeat of a human was 1.577e+9 seconds, then the last century was nothing but a full two heartbeats, however, a lifetime and age came into question, and whether an eternity had the same value as it was considered 'lifespan'.
Ten nanoseconds passed, a prideful epoch, a monotonous day and night, a whole existence measured with a heartbeat. It was difficult and not very accurate to determine whether his time had passed and it's value for him changed and diminished, not really all that hard, more than an actual mortal that is, though they did die earlier than him, so he must have forgotten some of his previous lives. It was most certainly more than a millennium. Was it... had it been?
A nanosecond passed, he was reborn, his father would raise him alongside another woman, who will play as his mother. His new brother had been born some years ago... his father became a farmer, yet a third pregnancy was somehow confirmed and a sister came along...
All of this, was a meaningless, false memory.