Caethya let out a small yelp as Aperio took her hand and began to simply walk through the System's runes that surrounded them. Before they drew near enough to make contact with any of the floating glyphs, however, they vanished from whatever space they had been in and reappeared in yet another abyss of colour that was also filled with countless runes she did not know.
"Where even is all of this?" she asked, turning her head every which way to find the slightest of hints. "Are we walking through your mind? Metaphorically speaking, of course."
"Not any more than you usually would," Aperio replied. Her love squinted at something only visible to her before she shook her head. "You can think of it like my Void. A place outside of the normal flow of time and space. Nowhere and everywhere at once. The centre of creation and its very edge."
"Ah, yes, contradiction space." Caethya snorted. "You love those, don't you?"
"I do," Aperio said as she turned and offered a smile. "You could say that it is my nature."
The Demigoddess gave a small laugh at the words and shook her head. "Got me there. You are paradoxical by nature." At least her feelings for me are not two opposites…
Aperio still had a long way to go on that front, in Caethya's view, but her love was trying, and wasn't hiding herself as much as she used to even just a few months prior. All in all, it was good progress as far as she was concerned.
"And so are the things I make, apparently." Aperio turned back to the new piece of the System they had come to visit. "Why would I need a second — and somehow also infinite — place to store mana?"
"Is that what this is?" Caethya asked, stepping up next to her love and looking at the shimmering runes that hung in the nothing before them. "Certainly feels like it has enough mana to be incredibly dangerous."
The All-Mother waved her concerns off. "I say infinite, but it is nothing compared what I usually use. A smaller infinity, if you will."
Caethya let out a sigh and shook her head before she looked at her love. "Is it yours?" she asked. "Your actual reserve, and not just the technicality of all mana being yours to begin with?"
"Yes, very much so."
She stepped around the small collection of runes, her wings twitching slightly in what Caethya figured was an expression of deep thought.
"The most apt comparison I can come up with is that this should be used to start a new iteration of creation," Aperio eventually said, brushing her hand over the armlet that adorned her right bicep. "It is sectioned away from everything else in the System, except some very fundamental parts that govern the very basic laws that every world needs to respect."
A thought wormed its way into Caethya's mind. One she did not like one bit, but did go a long way towards explaining why her love's past self might have made a place like this.
The All-Mother's stay as a mortal had to have been self inflicted. Nobody else was powerful enough to force Aperio to do anything she herself did not want to do. A mere thought from her love was enough to quite literally end all of existence, after all.
That did not mean, however, that the old Aperio had wished for things to be that way. Perhaps she had truly intended to kill herself, and the thing they were looking at now had been meant as a way to ensure that her creation would live on when she was gone.
"Maybe this was meant to replace you as the source of mana when you were… gone?" Caethya asked, her voice a lot quieter than she had intended.
Aperio turned to look at her with unblinking eyes, contemplating the idea. "Perhaps," she finally said, her gaze flicking back to the runes. "But I doubt I was that naive. If I were to die, so would all of creation. There is no life without my presence, whether I like it or not.
"In the end," Aperio continued, her wings moving forward slightly to wrap around herself, "I am the very nothing that existed before creation itself. Everything that is can only exist because I do. Like the way a painting can only be made if you have a canvas to paint it on."
Caethya did her best to not call her love a pretty canvas, the remark not quite fitting for the mood that had befallen Aperio. Instead, she stepped around the runes that were apparently intended to at least make a new version of Reality and wrapped the All-Mother in as tight a hug as she could manage.
In times like this, she always felt there should be something more she could do, but nothing ever came to mind. All she could think of in these moments was to comfort Aperio, and a hug, or even just a reassuring hand on her back, always seemed to help. Whatever her love's nature actually was, she was still a person. For better or for worse.
Caethya rested her head against Aperio's chest as her love wrapped her all-too-soft wings around her and mumbled a few words that she did not quite catch. She did not need to hear, however, as the feelings of uncertainty and relief brushed past the edges of her mind.
"Can you think of anything else this might have been for?" the Demigoddess asked, pulling back slightly to be able to look at Aperio.
Her love offered a small shrug. "Nothing that would make more sense. If I wish to make something, I technically do not need anything as a base, so I am not sure why I would stash away mana. Perhaps it was supposed to serve as the base for a new kind of System that I did not end up making."
The Demigoddess rested her head against the All-Mother's chest, and the two of them remained quiet for a moment as they simply held one another. Caethya did feel her love shift every now and then, usually corresponding with a surge of mana flowing to her body that undoubtedly altered it even further past the concept of reasonableness. If it makes her feel good, I do not care.
"Do you want it?" Aperio eventually asked. "I have no real use for it and you could use it to further your knowledge of the System. Or just take the mana for yourself, if you want to."
"Didn't you say that this has technically infinite mana?"
"Yes?" The All-Mother tilted her head slightly, her hair shimmering in shades of blue Caethya had not seen before as it flowed over her ears. "Is that an issue?"
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"Seems a little… much, don't you think?" Caethya asked as she drew back slightly. "I most certainly am not able to command an infinite amount of mana. I can't even really comprehend what that means."
"It just means that it will not run out," her love replied. "The amount it can hold, and currently does hold, is also effectively infinite. But only for a mortal. You are not a mortal." She cocked her head to the other side. "Besides, using this to learn more about the System would be better anyway. You seemed to want to learn about it and tinkering with it will teach you more than my attempts to explain concepts that I have not even invented words for yet." Aperio hesitated for a moment, lowering her head slightly before she continued. "Unless I interpreted your interest wrongly?"
"You didn't," Caethya said. "But that doesn't change the fact that all of this is still a bit… much. If you were to give it to me, what would that entail?"
"Binding it to you so you can access it without my help," Aperio replied immediately, as if she had anticipated the question. "Access to more of the System is still restricted, so you do not have to worry about breaking anything."
"I'm more worried about injuring you, or myself, somehow," Caethya mumbled, mostly to herself.
She would be lying if she said she was not enticed by the idea, but it did seem a little… wild. Also a tad impulsive for Aperio. Especially when they did not even know what exactly this part of the System was for. Well, I don't know…
"Have you figured out what this is for by now?" she asked, finally letting go of her love to look at the floating mass of runes. "I know maybe five of the runes in there." Caethya leaned forward slightly. "Okay, six."
She knew Aperio was smiling at her back, the minute shift in the mana that surrounded them enough for Caethya to be sure of that.
"So you did!" the Demigoddess exclaimed as she spun around. "What does it do? Is it actually something that's supposed to make a new iteration of your creation?"
"Perhaps," Aperio said as she stepped closer. Her love gently lifted her head with a finger and lowered herself enough to place a kiss on her lips. "You will have to seize it to find out."
Caethya squinted at her love. Aperio crossed her arms in front of her chest and smiled in response. She spread her wings a moment later, the rustling of the feathers somehow echoing through the empty room.
After holding her gaze a little longer, Caethya looked back at the cluster of runes, her eyes tracking the individual pieces as they lazily drifted around one another.
She could easily make out the creation, mana, and structure runes. The other three she thought she knew were along the lines of 'if this happens, do that' and 'find something and put it here'. Instructional runes, if you will.
The rest was a mystery to her. Many of the runes didn't even seem to be constrained to one solid shape like the ones she actually knew, shifting between forms that at times even escaped the bounds of physical reality and were only perceptible through her aura.
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Aperio shifted her weight from one leg to the other as she observed her love inspecting the small piece of her System. Caethya had been quite correct that she had figured out what this was for, but she also would not tell her. Not because it was dangerous, but because the Demigoddess would consider it too much help. Probably.
It wasn't quite something to create an entirely new reality, but it could create a new universe that her love could do with as she pleased. She would have to get there herself, though. Aperio freely admitted to herself that she played favourites, but it was still best that her love made the final steps on her own.
The actual purpose, as far as Aperio could tell at least, was a bit more mundane and one she wasn't quite sure was even needed. This part of the System simply stored some extra mana so it could even out some deficits in her creation that might pop up from time to time. She usually fixed those herself before she had even consciously noticed, so Aperio was a bit perplexed as to why her old self had codified it like this.
The obvious answer was that she had done it in preparation for her stay as a mortal, but foresight had — ironically enough — not been one of her strengths. It still wasn't, but this time she actually had a reason. Her old self had no reservations about knowing everything and acting on that knowledge; she did.
She absentmindedly touched the armlet on her right arm as she watched her love step around the collection of runes. A small flex of her mental muscles caused the System to shift, slowing just a little. Caethya had yet to fully understand the proper perception of reality, so a bit of help was needed.
"And how do I take control of it?" the Demigoddess asked, looking away from the runes and at the All-Mother. "Most of this still makes little sense to me."
"Push a bit of your mana into it," Aperio began as she drew a decent chunk of it from her well and weaved it into the runes that would otherwise take in mana from the System. "Like that."
Caethya raised a brow at the demonstration. "Can I do it with less? I'm not quite comfortable commanding that much at once."
"Less is fine, but you would not endanger yourself or me if you use more," Aperio replied, a step bringing her next to her love. "You can also wait, if you wish. The System will not go anywhere."
"Sure, I could, but you piqued my interest. Besides, it's not every day you want to gift me something."
"Should I find more things to gift you?" Aperio asked, tilting her head slightly. "I do have a few ideas."
"Yes please," her love replied before she turned her attention back to the runes. "That would be greatly appreciated."
Caethya let a bit of her mana flow into the construct, exactly like she had done, furrowing her brows as Aperio let it fall into her control piece by piece. The truth of the matter was that no part of the System could be wrested from her control if she did not allow it, no matter how much mana one used. It was — and would always be — a part of her. But if she got her wish, Caethya would also always be hers. Just have to work for it.
"This feels… weird," her love said as the last piece of the System fell under her control. "Why can I see the runes properly now?"
"Because this part of the System is now under your control. Like a Skill of sorts."
"It's almost how you see the world," Caethya said, tearing her eyes away from the runes to look at the All-Mother. Her eyes flicked from Aperio's own to her arms and chest before wandering down.
The All-Mother raised a brow as Caethya's gaze returned to her own, not sure what the Demigoddess was expecting to find. "Is it? I do not know what you see, so I cannot say."
A moment later, the world as perceived by her love appeared in her mind. The lack of detail and clarity gave Aperio pause for a moment, but she shook it off. Caethya was already strong, but she still had a long journey ahead of her.
"It is certainly in the same vein, but not even close."
Caethya shrugged. "This is how it looks to me whenever you let me see the world through your eyes."
"I adjust what I show you," Aperio replied, her voice a little quieter than before. "I fear that showing you how I see the world most often would harm you."
"Most often?"
"I can see all. That is not hyperbole." I thought she understood what I am?
"I know that, but do you not see all there is around you right now?"
"I see much, but there is no need to view every building block of reality at all times, now is there?" Aperio asked.
"Probably not," Caethya said as her gaze settled on Aperio's stomach, causing the All-Mother to look down at herself.
"Are you seeing something that I am not?"
"I see you," her love replied with a smile, her eyes meeting the All-Mother's once again as she stepped right in front of her. "Just in a way I have never done before."