Kallos stood talking to another copy of Enoch. The chains of her wings had all wrapped around her like a cloak. The moment she saw Telos enter the room she tried to put on a strong front, but it was obvious she was glad to be reunited. The second version of Enoch stepped into the first, and they reassimilated into one person.

“Looks like we made it,” Kallos laughed nervously.

“Want to check out our new home?” Telos asked with a grin.

“You aren’t going to interrogate me like Enoch was?” Kallos asked with a frown. “How do I know if I can trust myself, given what we now know?”

“What do we know? That is tricky. It hasn’t all come back to me yet, but I do know I didn’t put all of myself into the caretakers. I sent a lot of myself into the Omniverse. Every timeline had one, if not multiple, versions of me. The Judge must have spent eons hunting down all the tiniest of fragments of me, gathering them, and then nurturing this-me. Why not take a page from my book and create a sliver of herself who got to experience the universes they watched over? Did she plan for us to fall in love, or was that a happy coincidence?”

Telos shrugged; Kallos looked at the floor guiltily.

“We already knew our timelines had been altered repeatedly by powerful entities. It wasn’t you, so why would you feel the need to take on the blame for the actions of an entity you were, at the best, a sliver of? Or did the Judge transfer herself to you at the last minute?” Telos went on the offensive to ensure that Kallos understood she bore no responsibility for the actions of the Judge.

“For being the omnipotent being at the heart of creation, you’re strangely okay with others manipulating your existence, darling.” Kallos struggled to hide her bewilderment over how easily Telos dealt with it, while Kallos herself grappled with the concept.

“And no, there was no transfer when we entered here, unless that was the hand we saw?” Kallos turned her attention inward to search for tampering or things out of place in her mind and soul.

“That hand would have been me. You both needed to be fully awakened and empowered to enter, and so I helped you.” Enoch coughed politely before he interjected into their conversation.

“Good job, Enoch. I could change it if you want. I personally do not see the need to alter the past though, I’m fairly happy with how things have turned out.” Telos shrugged, and looked around the white room. It felt slightly claustrophobic, despite being a large room. Everything used to look like this. Talk about awful.

“Change what?” Kallos frowned.

“Any of it,” Telos answered honestly. “Omnipotent being, remember? Autopotence is only a small part of being all powerful.”

“Would you change any of it?” Enoch asked curiously.

“Not a second of it. Actually, no you know what, there’s always things I could change, but even unpleasant experiences helped shape me. Maybe if it had been slower, or the challenges were more (or actually) challenging, but it was an experience without my hand on the scale. It gave me friends, family, you, and a new perspective. I’m glad that the me that I am is the one the Judge chose to imbue the others into. She followed her imperative to the letter.”

““Which were?”” Kallos and Enoch asked at the same time.

“That I wanted to find love, raise a family, and save a few lives along the way. Don’t look so surprised. There were other conditions, obviously. I needed to find out if I was a wrathful person or a merciful person, benevolent or tyrannical, an introvert or an extrovert.” Telos laughed at the slightly ridiculous words she said. “And those are things you find out by experiencing life, not by watching it.”

“And what did you find?” Enoch asked curiously.

“Being people was an interesting experience. My human journey was fascinating, but the moment my powers awoke that journey ended. I am unbounded by the experience of one lifetime, or the countless lives the Judge recombined into the life of Aesca Lampi. Only one thing throughout this all has bound me in any fashion.”

Telos eyed Kallos and walked over to kiss her gently on the lips.

“The chains of love are neither heavy nor burdensome; they are as light as air, elevating, invigorating, and have a power derived of harmony which I thoroughly enjoyed learning with you.” Telos didn’t even show the smallest brush of red on her cheeks, despite the horribly corny words she spoke. She hoped the genuine emotion filled her words for both Enoch and Kallos to understand. Neither one rolled their eyes or snorted at her, so clearly, she hadn’t failed in her delivery.

“I love you too, darling.” Kallos answered simply.

“Interesting,” Enoch murmured, then froze like a deer caught in headlights when both women turned to look at him.

“What’s so interesting?” Telos demanded.

“Your wrathful nature has become loving?” Enoch’s answer came out more like a question.

“I’ve got plenty of wrath left in me. I’m multi-faceted.” Telos couldn’t resist rolling her eyes at Enoch. Every sapient creature she recalled meeting had been complicated. Reduction of them to only a single dominant trait always lead to surprises when alternate facets showed themselves. Why would she, an entity from a Higher Domain, be any less complicated?

“So… what now?” Kallos asked, looking around the white room. It didn’t make the Canaan seem a very impressive place.

“Let’s take a tour. I haven’t been home in ages. Then we’ll peak in on the kids and old friends, and after that…” Telos trailed off, and looked to Enoch.

“You said you would know the answer to that after your journey, my lady,” Enoch said with a grimace. He seemed fully aware that the answer he gave would be a disappointment to his master.

“Past me was a lazy bitch,” Telos growled in displeasure.

“We could make something?” Kallos suggested.

“You could smite something?” Enoch offered.

“Is that how we’re going to spend eternity?” Kallos asked softly. Her tone betrayed the uncertainty on that being the best use of their time. Telos could feel the other undercurrents beneath the surface of the emotional hurricane building within Kallos, a storm that matched the one within Telos herself. So many questions lay unasked due to the newness of their situation, but who Telos and Kallos were had not changed. Had it?

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Of course it had. Telos had gone from a ‘human’ to the omnipotent being who sat atop the Omniverse. Kallos had gone from the daughter of Belial trying to save Zenithar, to a Sovereign, to the consort and part of the apex existence. They had changed tremendously, and now they had to find out what they even were.

“It’s a start, isn’t it?” Telos grinned. “Actually, do you know what? Why don’t you take a quick dip through the Great Cycle, Enoch. A hundred years or so ought to be enough time for us to be alone together.”

“Alone together?” Kallos reddened, just a touch.

“We never had a proper honeymoon. Where better than the Canaan?” When Telos said that she realized where better could be the next game they played.

“It has been ages since I could leave the Canaan without worrying about the Destroyer and the Creator being left unsupervised,” Enoch laughed in delight that only someone with long-term carer fatigue could understand.

“Have fun!” Telos chimed after Enoch, while Kallos opted to wave at the departing man. Metatron seemed to grasp the real order of ‘leave us alone for a while’ without it being spelled out for him. Although, the speed with which he went to carry it out spoke volumes to the strain the four stand-ins had placed upon her envoy.

“So, a romantic holiday, just the two of us, without anyone else? I’ve wanted that for a long time now, my love.” Kallos let her golden eyes meet Telos’ aqua and red eyes.

“Me too,” Telos replied as she led Kallos down corridors of metal, alloy, and gorgeous art. Kallos paused at one of the paintings, which looked like a black hole.

“I just had the greatest idea,” Kallos said.

Telos, seeing the painting, sensing the thoughts in her loves mind, laughed out loud.

“That is a great idea. Let’s make that a reality, and then we’ll start our honeymoon,” Telos said, inspiration driving her eagerness.

“How do we fit a multiverse in a blackhole?” Kallos asked.

“We just do it, we make things, and then reality sorts itself out. Maybe there’s some lose ends to fix, but that’s why there’s different realities anyway. Rules differences. Now, if we stick everything in a black hole, we’ll need to sort out the over-lapping dimensions. The Astral, the Fey, the Dark, so forth and so on.” Telos threw her hands in the air at that last.

“Can’t we just slap it all together and give it a convoluted name like the Gossamyr?”

“Creating with a partner is so much more fun than playing solo,” Telos smiled at Kallos. “Let’s get to work.”

“Sure, but..” Kallos struggled visibly with shaping her words. “Shouldn’t we figure out who the Preserver, Creator, Destroyer, and Judge were, what their responsibilities were, and make sure everything is done? Aren’t we responsible, now?”

“We will. The Great Cycle will turn on its own without our intervention. Unless there’s immediate redesigns you want to put into place? Maybe Belial is done with that Gnosis report. I should really check on the kids, and Vilja, and…” Telos heaved a sigh. “I see why I abdicated all of this, last time.”

“It’s a lot,” Kallos said with a nod of agreement.

“No one is here to yell at us if we decided to jump back into the cycle.” Telos said quietly.

“I’m here, and I’m not ready to be someone else yet,” Kallos said decisively, cutting off Telos’ avoidant decision making.

“Okay. So, we find out who and what we are, then we find out the meaning to…” Telos threw her hands up in the air, gesturing at everything around them.

“Quite so,” Kallos laughed softly. The warmth in her laughter thawed the ice that had grown inside of her when she suggested they just start over again. Every instinct within Telos said to run off into the myriad existences, rather than to address the truth of her own existence.

“And you’ll stay with me through it all?”

“I promise,” Kallos vowed.

“Well, then. Let’s make your blackhole amalgamation world and see what questions and answers we find out from there.” Telos said, while altering their course through the Canaan.

“Where are we going now?”

“To the Throne. It is time to make a new Canvas.” Telos answered with a smile. “Maybe we’ll redecorate the Canaan too. I don’t know how I feel about the Sci-Fi vibe we’ve got going on here, and if I’m going to stick around, I want it to be homey.”

Kallos held in her laugh, as the extent of how conflict avoidant this omnipotent goddess she walked with was, and how big of an ordeal it would be to keep her on point.

“I heard that,” Telos murmured about Kallos’ thoughts. “It’s not my fault I’m the sort of person who has to start a game over fifty times before I get through act 1.”

“Maybe not, but there’s no restarting this time,” Kallos attempted to reinforce that even if it were a choice, it wasn’t on the table.

“No, yeah, sure. We’ll see it through to the end, definitely. What about our honeymoon?” Telos asked with large, pleading eyes.

“After we make our blackhole world,” Kallos reaffirmed.

“We have to figure out some way to determine if we exist because of the Lower Realms, or if the Lower Realms exist because of my Upper Realm,” Telos added to the to-do list.

“Why does that matter?” Kallos asked, genuinely curious.

“I… well. You don’t want to know if I created everything, or everything created me?” Telos tilted her head, intrigued at the thought process of Kallos.

“No. I was created by the Judge, you were created, or re-created by the Judge. Is there any indication in all of the Canaan that there is any other force or presence besides ours? No? What about higher realms than ours? Also, no? Did the Omniverse grew strong enough to bear your gaze by your participation in them?” Kallos asked what she thought would be a slam dunk question, only to frown herself at the face Telos made, full of uncertainty and doubt.

“I think it was more like I was impatient and wanted to play in reality now, rather than me being the one to strengthen things. Past-me ditched the hard work on portions of me and took a long vacation across time and space.” Telos quietly thanked Enoch for not being present to confirm her outlook on the situation. Certainty filled her, but it would’ve felt more damning if someone else nodded their head and agreed, or worse, complained about being made to do her extra work for ages.

Oh man, did Enoch and the others even get paid? I’m the worst.

Kallos choked and laughed. Clearly, Kallos had heard the self-deprecating thoughts.

“So, our to do-list post honeymoon is create a blackhole existence, investigate who the Judge, Creator, Destroyer, and Preserver were and what they accomplished, answer the question to the true meaning of existence, and then for a finale: make gnosis a bit more equitable across the Omniverse.” Kallos rattled off the list as if it were very easy, and not at all a potentially very labor-intensive undertaking.

“I already miss Bobbi’s cooking,” Telos lamented.

“Me too, dear, me too,” Kallos agreed. “That’s why I created a Summon Food by Bobbi spell.”

“I knew there was a reason I married you!” Telos praised Kallos, even as the other shook her head.

“Did you forget your omnipotent?”

“Nope. Even if you’re omnipotent, food tastes better when someone else cooks it.” Telos said full of confidence but wilted at the disbelieving stare of Kallos.

“It is true! We’ll both create a Bobbi dish, and I bet yours will taste better to me than mine will to me, and vice versa.”

“Fine, darling. Let us have a Slay-off. If your ridiculous idea holds true we’ll summon each other food in the future, and if I am right and they taste the same, then you will be the supreme food summoner.” Kallos regarded Telos with a serious expression, waiting for agreement.

Cripes. I’m betting an eternity of being the ultimate culinary conjuror.

“Yeah, you betcha. Let’s have a walleye off.” Telos shifted into a chef outfit as they changed destinations from the Throne of Canaan to the kitchens of Canaan.

----------------------------------------

Eventually they made a new Canvas, and it made the Mosaic even more of a grand piece of incomprehensible beauty, where the stories of a powerful fey and a human played out. Telos enjoyed the will-they won’t-they, and the pathos of an ancient Sect bleeding into the future proved far more entertaining than the painful tales of Vilja and Aada, which were too tragic for her taste. Happy stories, Telos decided, were much more her jam, such as with Alexander and Lilith and their inevitable triumph over Argarg the Barbarian, and the grand start to an age of epic heroes in the lands of Mythara. Siegfried did make battling gods look dramatic, without Telos, Kallos, or the StarMane’s to steal his glory.

It would be a lie to say Telos didn’t derive joy from watching Bob’s fall and replacement. Deicide made for great entertainment, until Telos realized she was a deicide candidate herself. What’s a little hypocrisy to an Omniversal Overlord? After all, she’d already lost the cook-off and Telos had to summon every meal on the Canaan for the rest of eternity. Any would-be assassins would have to surpass the trial of Ultra Divine, SSS+ Rank Tater Tot Hot-dish to even attempt to perform deicide on her.