Lyridia, Goddess of Stories, sat cloaked in the shadowy corner of a modest tavern somewhere in Nymoria, her delicate fingers wrapped around a chipped mug of ale. Her piercing, otherworldly gaze was fixed on the bard at the centre of the room. The performer spun a tale of epic heroes and dastardly villains, their voice rich and dramatic, though the narrative itself was a patchwork of clichés and clumsy twists.

As the goddess of stories, Lyridia should have been appalled by the plot’s mediocrity. But that wasn’t the point. Stories weren’t just words; they were connections. They were shaped by how they were told, the passion behind them, and the shared experience of the listeners. The bard’s delivery—their wide gestures, the emotive cadence, and the glint of enthusiasm in their eyes—made even the lacklustre tale glow with a life all its own. And that, Lyridia thought, was the magic worth savouring.

Her lips curved into a faint smile as the crowd cheered the bard’s dramatic finale. She raised her mug in silent applause, but her mind was already wandering. Somewhere beyond this quaint tavern, a different story was unfolding—a tale that held her attention like no other.

She reached into the folds of her robe and pulled forth a shimmering thread of aether, its surface alive with shifting images—faces, places, conflicts—woven into an unfolding story. It was no ordinary thread. What had begun as a faint glimmer in the grand tapestry of the world had thickened and pulsed with a peculiar vibrancy.

Lyridia tilted her head, her silver hair catching the dim light, as her fingers traced the thread’s texture. It had been faint before, subtle enough to slip past even her watchful gaze. Yet now, it thrummed with an almost magnetic pull, demanding her attention. She’d noticed it only weeks ago, its presence startling in its sudden clarity.

And yet, it had been there for far longer. Eight years, by her estimation. For eight years, this story had quietly unfurled, hidden amidst the vast sprawl of narratives she tended. How peculiar, she mused, that something of this magnitude had escaped her notice until now.

Her eyes narrowed, her smile fading into something sharper. “You’ve been hiding, haven’t you?” she murmured to the thread. “Or perhaps someone hid you.”

She leaned back, letting the thread wind itself around her fingers. A tale this bold rarely emerged without ripples. It whispered of something deeply entwined with the world’s foundations, something that could reshape destinies and challenge gods.

Her attention drifted back to the thread’s imagery. A flash of scales and claws. A shadowy figure devouring aether. The Lekine warrior standing at her side. And something else—something darker, lurking at the edges, its form unclear but its intent unmistakable.

“Vivienne and Rava,” Lyridia mused aloud, her voice a melody of fascination. “You’re crafting quite the tale. Let’s see how far you’ll take it.”

She flicked her wrist, and the thread unraveled into the air, forming a miniature tableau. The two figures moved with eerie precision, their actions ghostly echoes of the present. A faint glow surrounded them as if they were protagonists stepping into the spotlight.

But what troubled Lyridia wasn’t the pair themselves. It was the force circling them, intangible yet undeniable, shaping their steps and binding their fates in ways even she struggled to decipher.

"Who’s pulling your strings?" she whispered.

She tugged gently on the thread, letting it unravel in her divine mind. With each pull, she followed it deeper, spiraling through the weave of time and space until she found it—the point where all things began to blur and tremble in the very fabric of existence.

There, in the yawning chasm of the Abyss, she saw it. The thing that stares back when you dare peer too long into the unknown. The true creator. The monster of monsters. The ancient one whose presence twisted the very laws of nature, whose motivations defied the understanding of even the gods. She knew its name but did not speak it. It was not a name for mortal tongues.

Lyridia’s breath hitched as she studied it. The entity in the Abyss had rarely, if ever, interfered with the lives of mortals. It watched, yes, but it had stayed silent, content in its omniscient presence, letting the lesser gods, like herself, play their roles. But something had changed. She could feel it now. There was a tremor in the threads, a ripple that had begun to affect even the most tightly woven lives on Nymoria.

She could hardly begin to fathom the thoughts of such a being. Compared to the origin of all, even Lyridia—one of the most powerful among the gods—was no more significant than the smallest insect crawling across a forgotten stone. It was a humbling thought, but it did not terrify her. If anything, it inspired awe.

But then, there was Akhenna.

Lyridia’s mind wandered to her old rival, the Great Architect pretending to be just another god. Akhenna had never truly belonged in the system of gods and their domains. And yet, her presence had been woven in seamlessly, a god of chaos and creation, existing between the lines of everything, and yet—there was something wrong. Something missing.

The other gods—like Praxus, like Heraline—thought Nymoria was all there was. All there ever would be. They thought the aether, the stories, the magic, the people—all of it, was the beginning and the end. Lyridia had thought the same once, until she read the threads that Akhenna had drawn.

Where there should have been a divine being, a god forged from the tides of aether or the apotheosis of mortal greatness, Lyridia had found something else entirely.

A hole.

Not a void, not emptiness, but something beyond that. A "nothing" that wasn’t nothing at all. Something deeper than mere absence. This wasn’t a gap in knowledge, nor an unexplored space. It was a complete and utter lack of meaning—a fundamental break in the fabric of creation. A nothing that could never be filled, could never be explained.

Lyridia shivered. Even she, the goddess of stories, who wove countless lives and events into being, could not tell what such a nothing could signify. But one thing was certain: this thing, this nothing, was not something that would stay hidden for long. Its presence was beginning to manifest, spreading its influence across the worlds.

And it was starting with Vivienne.

Her eyes narrowed as the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together. Vivienne wasn’t just a mere mortal, nor was she just the creation of some other god’s whim. She was a conduit. A key. Something—or someone—intended to bring that nothing into the world. Perhaps the question wasn’t why Vivienne, but how?

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"What role do you play in this, little one?" Lyridia muttered to herself, her gaze darkening as the thread before her twisted again, showing a flicker of Vivienne’s chaotic journey, entwined with aether and shadows.

The world was changing, and whether she liked it or not, Lyridia was going to have to decide how much of that change she could control—and how much she was simply another character in the unfolding story.

And then, without warning, she felt it. That total absence. The very air seemed to grow still, as if even time itself had paused. If she were still mortal, she would feel sweat running down the back of her neck, but instead, her divine essence shuddered. Her senses, usually sharp and unwavering, struggled to grasp at the sensation. It was a vacuum. A hole in the universe where all things ceased to be. It was a presence she knew well, though she would never speak its name aloud.

She didn’t need to turn to know who it was. The absence was unmistakable. It was Akhenna.

Lyridia remained still, her fingers tightening around the mug of ale that had gone lukewarm in her hand. She did not turn to face the darkness, nor did she give any outward sign of recognition. It would have been pointless. She knew Akhenna’s games all too well.

"Hello, Lyridia," came the voice—soft, familiar, yet grating, like nails on glass. It was the voice of Akhenna, though spoken through the character she had fashioned for herself in this world. A mortal guise she had chosen to weave, one that allowed her to move unnoticed, unseen by the other gods.

“You’ve learned something you shouldn’t have, haven’t you?” Akhenna continued, her voice dripping with mock curiosity. “You’ve pulled a thread you were never meant to follow. That... is dangerous.”

Lyridia’s lips quirked into a thin smile, but her heart was heavy with the truth she had come to understand. She set the mug down slowly, the sound of it meeting the wood betraying the calm she otherwise projected. "If anyone knows about pulling threads, Akhenna, it would be you."

Akhenna’s laughter filled the air, not loud, but vast—like the hum of an ocean as it churned beneath the surface. "Ah, yes, you understand. You think you’re pulling on some thread that will lead you to the truth, but the more you tug, the more you realise how much you don’t know."

Lyridia stood up slowly, her movements deliberate. There was no point in running from Akhenna now. It had all led to this moment, the moment where everything she had built and known would be questioned. She had spent centuries shaping stories, weaving the very fabric of existence through narrative. But what had it all amounted to?

"What I don’t know?" Lyridia repeated, her voice quieter now, the edge of her defiance dulling as the reality of the situation began to sink in. "I thought... I thought I could shape something. I thought I could fight against what you were doing. But it’s... bigger than me, isn’t it?"

Akhenna’s presence shifted in the air, as though the very darkness surrounding them breathed with satisfaction. "Oh, darling, it’s always been bigger than you. Bigger than all of them." Akhenna’s voice softened, almost tender, as if speaking to a child struggling to grasp a difficult truth. "What you call ‘struggle’ is simply an illusion. You can only swim with them or be swallowed."

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Lyridia paused, her mind quieting as she allowed the weight of Akhenna’s words to sink in. She had spent her existence trying to influence stories, trying to assert some control over the narratives of mortals, the gods, and the very world itself. But now, standing before the true architect of everything, Lyridia saw the futility of her efforts.

"How do you do it?" she asked softly, not with anger, but with a strange, aching curiosity. "How do you… let it all unfold without struggling? Without trying to control it?"

Akhenna’s laughter, gentle but filled with an unsettling finality, rang through the room. "Control? I don’t need to control it, Lyridia. I am it. You, and all your little gods, are merely characters in a play. You try to give meaning to your actions, to your struggles, but in the end, it’s all just part of the greater story. My story. And you’re all just playing your parts."

Lyridia’s gaze drifted downward, her mind shifting as she thought of everything she had tried to protect, everything she had worked for. The gods. The mortals. The world itself. Was it all meaningless? Were they all just figments in Akhenna’s grand design?

She felt something stir inside her. A shift. A resignation.

"Then why fight it?" Lyridia said, her voice barely above a whisper, the last vestige of defiance fading. "Why pretend that I can shape the world when I can’t even understand it? Why not accept it?"

Akhenna’s presence seemed to fill the room entirely now, pressing in on every side. "Oh, Lyridia," she said, her voice soft, almost pitying, "You’re not so different from me after all. You’ve always known the truth. You’ve always known that control is an illusion. But what if you stopped fighting it? What if you embraced it instead?"

Lyridia took a deep breath, feeling the weight of centuries of stubborn resistance and pride slip away. She looked up, her eyes meeting the absence that surrounded her, and for the first time, she saw it clearly. Akhenna’s world was not one of chaos, not one of destruction. It was a world of acceptance, of understanding, of inevitability. The threads were already woven, and there was no point in pretending she could unravel them.

"Tell me," Lyridia said, her voice calm, yet laced with a quiet resignation. "What do you want from me?"

Akhenna’s response was slow, a smile curling into her voice, as if savoring a hidden pleasure. "What I’ve always wanted, Lyridia. Nothing, really. Perhaps just a few more pieces to place on the board. Something... entertaining."

And in that moment, it clicked. The struggle was over. It had always been over. The fight, the resistance, it was all for naught. Centuries of trying to tell a story from all the chaos that life brought. What remained was the only truth left for her to accept—her part in the grand, unwritten tale Akhenna was weaving. But there was still one question, a burning curiosity that clung to the back of her mind.

Lyridia swallowed hard, her voice steady, though tinged with defiance. “Then why tell me all this? Why offer it to me at all?” The question hung in the air, fragile but sharp.

She still didn’t look at Akhenna, despite knowing the goddess was mere inches away, but she could feel her presence—a palpable weight, a smile too close to her skin. It maddened her.

Akhenna’s voice was a whisper now, curling into her ear like smoke, intoxicating and dangerous. “Do you truly want to know, Lyridia? Do you want a glimpse into the vastness of my machinations?” The heat of Akhenna’s breath grazed her ear, a touch that made her spine shiver.

Lyridia nodded sharply, unwilling to back away from the question now, no matter how unnerving it was.

“Because you’re only the thirty-four thousand, eight hundred, and ninety-second entity to figure out who I am without any clues," Akhenna purred, her voice rich with satisfaction. "And do you know what, Lyridia?”

Lyridia shook her head, her breath catching in her throat, though she already suspected the answer.

“That makes you interesting."

The words hung in the air, electric and suffocating. The pressure in the room thickened to the point where Lyridia could no longer draw in a full breath. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed onto the ground, gasping, her chest heaving as if the very atmosphere was too heavy for her divine form to withstand.

“And I love interesting,” Akhenna's voice trailed off, a contented, almost fond note in her tone, as if she were basking in the delight of some private joke.

Lyridia, struggling for air, felt the weight of it all settle on her—her surrender, her role, her acceptance. She looked up at the thing pretending to be a goddess, her expression softening, a small but resolute smile curling at the edges of her lips.