Wisps of plasma drifted off the last of them, a burning orb surrounded by drifting echoes of derelict, wrecks of times long past. Shattered remnants of soul flickered in the boid around them as they stood, watching iridescence so faint wafting away from the dying star- an exhalation of ends, of light, of time.
The two of them watched with solemnity- the end of the universe. They could feel it, something coming, something long past- a weight on the fabric beneath the fabric of space-time, concepts swirling in tune with the dying stellar body before them.
A faint smile drifted across Kiyo’s face, so at odds to the grimace plastered over Kitsune’s. “You can’t stay here forever… sometimes, we let go, and live on.”
“I don’t want to.” She could feel the twisting of fire, conceptual annihilation, as it shifted under the collapse of the carefully woven patterns along with the rest of existence. Something was going to give, soon. “I wanted to be with you forever… mom.”
Kiyo’s grin was blinding now. “I love you too… but you’re different from me. You’re fire, conceptual, eternal, primordial… you’ll live beyond any incarnation of me, and continue to live before I ever existed.” She swept the fox up into a hug as the buffeting solar winds washed around them, glittering waves of color, starfire washed across a firmament dark and dead. “Take, to reality and unreality, my love. Carry with you always my memories, and remember me…”
“I promise.”
“Maybe don’t mess up everyone else’s timeline, too. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t like that.” She laughed, Kitsune squirmed in embarrassment, and together they watched- together, they embraced the end of a timeline, of a universe… “be someone to make me proud, Kitsune. I believe in your ability to make a difference. Remember humility-”
“Like I could forget all the embarrassing things you had me do- and the stories!” She was smiling, but it was a pained smile, half grieving already. “The amount of times we accidentally caused wars just because people thought our insane ramblings were prophetic visions…” the silence between them was amicable even as-
Ten seconds, as the last nebular exhalations of the last star drifted past-
Five seconds, as five seconds remained. Pressure crushed, pulling inwards- they both felt it, failure of fusion and the unrest of conceptual underpinnings.
Two seconds, two people. Kiyo looked Kitsune, teary eyes meeting teary eyes, breath hitching- “Goodbye-”
One second, fire igniting- burning, sadness, anger, denial, for they had lived so long together that a parting felt almost like an impossible nightmare- voice choked, word ripped from unbelieving, hoping, accepting- “goodbye, Kiyo. If I ever find the others, they’ll remember your name.”
Nothing left.
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The core of the star collapsed in a moment of incomprehensible energy, supernova brightness blasting over them and erasing- and in the very center of that impossible energy, space slipped past time, things fell apart. The fabric frayed, the vacuum decayed-
Reality ate itself in an instant, the souls of everything that had ever lived wiped clean concepts mixed in chaotic mass as the branch looped back itself to the norming of the world. For a moment, past was future, present was past, and the future ended…
For a moment, it felt white- a glimpse into that terrifying, anger that induced icy fear down Kitsune’s being before from the beginning and end of all things-
The universe was reborn anew.
………
Don’t stay out late, and definitely don’t leave the wagons. Serves them right- they’d not know stealth if it hit them in the face. For the sake of the skies, she’d walked right past the sentries! She’d waved at them, and they’d snored away as she snuck away to attempt her ascension.
It would define her future. She could be more than she’d been before- warrior instead of housewife, hunter instead of maiden… as she slipped through the long grasses in the silver-dyed night, she imagined the power she’d have. It would be perfect! Fireballs! Explosions!
A few hours passed beneath the starry night as she made her way to the locus of energy she’d felt prick the edge of her senses, a sight to take her breath away- as if the hills came together in a maelstrom of grass and rolling waves, cresting around six black pillars as tall as mountains. As the moon set their shadows grew long, bars of blackness etched in sharp relief across the plains.
She settled in the center, feeling the weight of those six monoliths weighing on her, lifting her as she sat in a meditative pose. Her parents would be tracking her now, so if she meant to do this it would be her only chance.
A breath, pulling the crisp cool of night and pooling it in the depths of her lungs. She breathed out, and as she did, pulled on the natural energy of the soul, just as her grandfather had told her so long ago-
In the distance, the sun rose, orange light of dawn splashing against the six black pillars.
Her soul was yanked from her body, torn from her flesh and cast straight up faster than she could feel, accelerating through a tunnel bounded by six black pillars so infinitely taller than they’d been before. They stretched to the sky and beyond, through an intense weight that pushed against her- yet still she stretched. As the daylight touched the plains so infinitely far below, she reached out to the barrier above and slowly, so slowly inched past it. Pain wracked her being- until something grabbed her, pulling her out of reality in a breath.
She shook herself from the sudden sensation where there had been none, and looked down on the web of pathways beneath her and above her, the faint sensations of… something- and she was back in her body.
Groaning, she pushed herself from the dew-wet ground, somehow knowing the wind was going to be picking up soon, just as she knew that in thirty two minutes her father was going to arrive with the rest of the warband-
Something shifted around her, a flicker like possibility, and the future shifted in impossible variations, all centered around a single point.
She looked down, and the eyes of a fox looked up with grief and exultation both. “Hey! It’s been a long time, Kiyo.”