“… the Primordial of the Void, Keeper of Chaos.”

Azrael heard the Trickster finish his sentence, but didn’t quite understand what he was saying.

“The Primord…”

He suddenly found himself stopped midsentence. He couldn’t continue. The pressure around him suddenly increased beyond mortal limits, as a presence made itself known. Azrael found himself flattened to the ground, forced down onto his knees. The pressure was too powerful to resist.

Those greater powers the Trickster had spoken about, one of them was here.

Around Azrael all the stars seemed to shift, while the laws of reality broke down. Meteors passed through each other, and colliding worlds began to reverse course, putting themselves back together as the reality around them fractured.

The entire cosmos moved to accommodate the Primordial.

Time and space warped, colliding, losing meaning, unravelling. Futures, pasts and presents all happened at the same time.

He saw it all and recognised the place for what it was. Not space, not chaos, but possibilities, potentials: all of it, all at once. Everything that was, is and could have been all converged at this single point.

It was only when he felt the gaze on him, forcing him down further that he realised the truth. The cosmos wasn’t moving for the Primordial. The cosmos was the Primordial.

The last thing he saw, before his head was forced down, was two eyes torn into reality itself, both brighter than the brightest supernova and at the same time darker than the darkest corner of deep space. The Void addressed him.

“Child… of man”

It was a voice that was not meant for mortal ears and Azrael could feel it driving through him, tearing at his very existence. It was both the deep thrum of the empty void and the discordant twinkling of a million stars. It spoke not with words, but with pure intent. Intent of a primordial, which was focused solely on him.

Azrael would have screamed if his lungs hadn’t been crushed under the pressure of the gaze. In those three words, a thousand worlds were torn apart and a million stars vanished in a breath. Hell froze and heaven burned. Azrael suffered with them.

“I wish… I wish…”

The primordial struggled to express its intent in mortal words, but Azrael barely noticed. He felt his body getting torn to a million pieces, as the space around him warped and shredded his very existence.

He could feel the entirety of everything bearing down on him, crushing him, but at the same time he was weightless, floating in countless pieces. Mana, time, space, they all flowed through him, threatening to unravel what remained of him. His mind started to fracture from the strain.

“I wish to choose you.”

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In a single moment a thousand new galaxies were born and billions of stars burst into existence. Azrael snapped back into his body and his mind shattered, like a mirror.

He felt the pain of his body and the pressure on his back. It was as if nothing had changed, as if, for the most fleeting of moments he had not ceased to exist.

Azrael gritted his teeth and leveraged his own meagre aura to briefly resist the extreme pressure he found himself under. He forced himself to speak, fighting forces beyond his ken or comprehension.

“To choose me?” he asked. If his body hadn’t forgotten how to function he would have been in tears, screaming.

He still didn’t dare to look up, but he felt the Void look at him, once again breaking him into a million pieces that were scattered to the edges of existence. The Void simply watched on, before speaking one last word.

“Choose.”

Azrael felt threads of fate and mana converge, endless possibilities, threatening to constrict him. It turned its gaze elsewhere, finding something, and Azrael found he could breath again.

A hand gripped his shoulder, helping him up. It was the Trickster. After the sheer weight of countless worlds and endless timelines, the gods’ power was barely a tingle in comparison.

“Choose? Choose what?” Azrael gasped questioningly.

The god too seemed to have suffered, his clothing in disarray and his chair and table forcefully dispelled by the Void.

The Trickster began to speak, carefully tasting each word, as if fearing punishment. He seemed to choose the simplest explanation.

“We… gods… and primordials have been tasked with a higher duty, but we cannot always be there, in your mortal realm.” He paused, choosing his words carefully, before continuing. “Each higher being may choose advocates,… champions, to herald and champion their cause. The stronger the higher being, the fewer champions they may elect. Even now, we are… bending the rules. You’ll need to find the…”

He choked off, seemingly having overstepped some unknown bounds.

“You’ll know when the time comes” he finished, gasping.

“But only if I choose, right?” Azrael asked.

The Trickster nodded. Then, seemingly against his better judgement spoke out.

“You don’t have to choose to agree. You can always decline. If you do and you find the…” he paused, looking for a way to circumvent the restriction. “…the place, I’ll accept you as one of mine, if you wish. You would do well.”

Seeing Azrael unconvinced he tried another way to try and convince him.

“Power comes at a price.”

“It always does. I’ll pay it if I have to.”

The god looked at the swirling galaxies of the void sadly.

“Sometimes, it’s not a price that you can pay.”

But Azrael didn’t seem to hear him. He’d already turned to face the starry expanses. He didn’t know what this ‘place’ was, or what the price he might have to pay might be. He knew one thing though.

“I shall meet you there” he said.

He could have whispered it into the endless expanse of space and he was sure that the Void would have still heard it.

A rumble of agreement echoed through reality, striking him in the gut. It wasn’t as bad as being under its direct attention, but he still fell to the ground, doubled over.

The Trickster helped pick him up again.

“There’s still time to change your mind” he said.

“We’ll get there” replied Azrael. “when we get there”

“You’re just lucky he only sent a fragment of himself to visit you.”

Azrael turned to him aghast. “That was only a fragment!”

The Trickster nodded. “There was…” He suddenly stopped midsentence.

“Restrictions” he groaned.

Azrael waved a hand in understanding.

“It’s ok.” He said “but what now? Do I get to go home?”

The Trickster rubbed his throat.

“Yes. I’ll send you back now. The energy lent to me is starting to run out, as is the mana in your dome. We probably won’t see each other for a while. At least until I’m strong enough to borrow a...” He cut out again, with a pained look on his face. “I’ll send you back now.”

The Trickster waved a hand across Azrael and Azrael began to fade from this plane of existence.

“How did you bring me here anyways?” Azrael asked as a final question.

“Dreams. The barriers between planes of existence get a little thinner then.”

The god touched his shoulder one last time.

“May your paths be blessed” he said.

Azrael just smiled back and watched the swirling galaxies fade like a dream.

The last thing he heard before he woke was a muttered “Ah, that’s not good.”