For a moment, nothing but the weight settled upon her scalp, and then the universe was hers, and with it came the pain.
Nothing existed but her screams. The spikes clawed into her skin, her skull, her brain and she shrieked until she tasted blood. Her meat cooked and the smell filled her nostrils with the urge to vomit.
And then the scalding heat passed as she brushed away that time, swept aside that moment, and though she was standing she stood up again, taller, the beach falling away and Rue with it, her head passed through clouds and plane and sky until she gazed upon the stars like the leaves of a tree. Her legs straddled planets, galaxies, and time fell away, little moments drifting and settling about her like the grains of sand upon a beach.
She glanced about and saw everything, was everything, and her ears pricked as the whispers came. Not from the crown, for those metal spikes were inert now they fused to her flesh. She turned, though there was nowhere to turn, and the whispers persisted from behind. They slipped toward her. She flung them away, but they returned, faster, as though spending her power only fed them.
[The ruler of the land must know the land]
It was not Skein, but something familiar inside her, a raging flame that twisted in braids, and she drew upon this divine engine and banished the whispers.
All for naught.
[A ruler of people must know the people]
The first of the whispers touched upon her. A gossamer strand settled upon her arm. She pulled at it, but it remained fused to her. Digging into her. Borrowing into her skin like a thirsty vein.
[A ruler of power must know the power]
More threads lashed upon her dug inside her, and she screamed. The molten heat of the crown was nothing compared to this pain, and she lost herself, mind blank, white, red, black as she cowered in the vast cosmos with nowhere to hide.
And as the pain filled her, her power grew, the veins feeding her as they fed in turn, a cycle fueling her, generating heat and light and matter, her mind bled into the thoughts of a thousand worlds, and her heart pounded across the hidden rules of systems as they calmed, accepting her mind as the anchor to their vast needs for stability, and her body — ghost that it was — settled into a throne of woven midnight webs.
Zoe sat, the pain fading, and looked around. Endless threads bound her to the twisting throne and its spires and led off to the lives of her subjects. She could follow each one with a thought and see the dreams and hopes and fears.
The universe belonged to her, and she belonged to the universe. All the power she ever wanted, beyond any debts, beyond friendships, beyond survival. The awe was already fading, her mind moving at such speeds that possibility and planning collapsed into each other. The tactile experience vanished.
She glanced down at the Earth and followed a string until she found Bella, sitting in her seat on the plane, wondering what happened to the strange passenger beside her. Another string and Anton wondered when Zoe would come out of the toilet and how he would get away with killing her in another country. She found Skidmark, puking in an alley behind a club in Glasgow. Ben sat on Bondi Beach with a grin.
Rue sat on another beach with a bottle of beer and a hound beside him.
She could give them all what they wanted. She could give them all what she wanted. She reached up to tug on the strings and stopped.
No, she wouldn’t be like Fate. She wouldn’t play with the lives of mortals just because she could.
But…
With a gesture, she sent the Crimson Armada away from Earth. Her world could exist in peace. With another gesture, she tugged Rue’s power from his flesh. He didn’t fight her, and his beer bottle fell and spilled as his body crumbled into rust.
She almost killed Ben, almost introduced Bella and Anton, almost told the Rue of the past that his empty heart could be filled by the companion at his side…
But they were but a few of the countless twinkling souls that tugged at her, and so she withdrew, settled on her throne, and watched. She had done enough, already the ripples of her actions spread, and there would be consequences, but she would simply watch.
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The power was hers now, and she would guard it, and she would see that it was not abused. She watched, and the universe continued.
Her friends lived out their lives. Sadness, hardship, joy. Mortal lives like butterflies in season and the color faded as Zoe compared them to the endless worlds under her systems. Power flowed into her as the systems expanded, and power flowed out of her into the threads, into the souls under her control. She expected to find another like her, but she truly sat at the top.
Loneliness ate at her, and so she tried once more to recreate the feat that summoned Rue. The Epiphany of the Tongue remained a small and unique power. Something she fought for, but that didn’t expand with the taking of the crown. She took her time, whatever that meant, and reached out into a future that never was, a future long past, and spoke to the drifting ash forever away.
[Come to me]
And they did.
Bella, Anton, and Skidmark arrived in subtle bursts of light. Zoe stepped down from her throne, the veins pulling at her, and embraced them. Tears were shed, and they spoke, of what happened and what she became and the future before them.
Anything was possible, but Zoe couldn’t pull herself down from her heights. Bella spoke, and her lips moved, and her face contorted, and she wept, but Zoe felt the words slip around her. The threads pulled her in countless directions, and her friends were only one.
Anton remained beside her, and she saw the floating thoughts behind his cold facade, he worshipped her, and they found fewer and fewer reasons to speak. Skidmark reveled in the gifts of a god, partying, and visiting worlds, but slowly, she returned less and less, until one day she stayed away. Bella joined Skidmark, before striking off on her own.
It was just Zoe and Anton, watching the universe, bantering occasionally, until years, decades, a meaningless amount of time later, Zoe turned to speak with him and found nobody there.
With a frown, Zoe pulled them back to her side. They were her friends. They belonged with her. Though now the tension seething within their minds -- the doubt they thought hidden -- burst to the surface. Bella accused Zoe of things that didn’t matter, Anton silently judged Zoe’s inaction, and Skidmark complained of boredom in this chamber at the heart of the universe.
Brighter places existed, luring her friends like butterflies to flowers, but Zoe refused to let them go.
They would have snuck away, but Zoe caught the desire before it became action. Her friends could not be reasoned with, no matter how many years she tried, and so she wiped them away. It was easier than she expected. A lightness of action, but she felt bad, so she hastily pulled them back from the ashen universe.
This time she forced them to understand. Omnipotence was a gulf, but she forced the chasm closed by brushing her fingers over their eyelids. If only they saw as she did then perhaps they would understand.
One by one their heads exploded in static and gore.
She fell to her knees and the universe wept.
In time, Zoe tried again. She pulled them back from the ash and this time she cut her own mind so that she could stand at their level.
Their bodies were so real now. She could touch them, feel their heat, smell their sweat, but the sense of their thoughts and dreams escaped her. Her heart thumped harder as she tried to see through them. To know them. To --
“Are you alright, Zoe?” Bella asked. “The last thing I remember is falling and then --”
Zoe screamed.
“It’s not enough! I need it!”
Anton grabbed her.
“Boss, what’s the matter?”
She clawed at his arms. Bella and Skidmark tried to comfort her.
“No! Get away!”
They let her go and she crawled back to the throne. The veins reeled her in and her mind expanded with grotesque shudders that rippled her flesh. She would never do that again. The loss was too much. Her friends would simply have to learn to live with her.
And it began again, and ended much the same way as it had before, so she tried once more, and again, and again, and…
No matter how high she sat upon the worlds, she couldn’t seem to make her friends stay, and so she climbed higher into the throne and wound herself up into the threads so tight they cut away all circulation of thought and feeling. Power sealed her away until time could heal the hurt.
She didn’t count the years after her friends vanished. She watched the universe as power flowed into her and flowed out. Centuries passed, perhaps millennia, and her numbness faded. She grew restless.
Bored.
Time ached in her mind, inaction crusted her like barnacles, and she glanced down at her withered, atrophied body — was she nothing more than a pump for power? A stabilizer for systems that merely whispered her name? A frown grew on her head and threads itched at her, veins wriggling, burning like hot wires. The slip of time choked and stuttered and she gazed at it all with a deep dissatisfaction.
Not much longer after this moment — no time at all — exhausted by the ravenous throne and the burdensome crown, Zoe caved.
She reached out and plucked at a thread, and sent a young man on a world with two suns down an alley where no thugs waited, so he might gain a day or two and save his family from the poverty they struggled under. It was only a little tweak, but his soul now resonated, a chosen one, and he moved forward with the beginnings of a destiny. Her lips creaked and dust fell as she smiled. It felt good, and so she reached out to the other strings, to the countless threads, and her fingertips plucked, and the throne sang.
Just so that nobody could accuse her of being unfair, not that anybody would, she left an opening in the threads, a gap in the pattern, a subtle call to the subjects of the systems, and to the chosen ones in particular. She wasn’t abusing her power. She was doing the right thing, balancing injustices, persuading events to become interesting, and if she was wrong... someone could come and stop her.
She laughed at the thought of a challenger approaching — nostalgia, and understanding sent tears down her cheeks as she roared with laughter until her sides ached and she almost fell from her throne. At last, she sat back to play, and watch, and wait for her death with a smile on her face and peace in her heart.
The End