POV: Keilan

I stared silently at my own reflection, wondering if I looked presentable enough for the wedding. I hadn't had to truly dress up for anything in my entire life, and after watching the mortals and their penchant for dressing "nicely" for a while I attempted to come up with my own "style." The robes I had envisioned didn't fit me at all, so with a wave of my hand they reverted back to my simple, comfortable black and silver robes. 

"Stupid." I muttered to myself, patting down my robes and looking out of my palace towards the Valley and River that flowed through it. Weddings between mortals were short, insignificant affairs that generally lasted one lifetime. For deities, it's a much, much longer commitment. If I'm honest, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that Elvira actually agreed to Gilles marrying her...those two are basically opposites. Gilles is all about shadows and secrets, which isn't as devious as it sounds, whereas Elvira is about as open as the skies themselves and literally represents everything 'white' and 'bright.' With another sigh I looked towards the Mortal Realm, where Reika was rushing about with a few last-minute preparations. 

"Stupid." I repeated to myself, this time talking about everything rather than what I had attempted to do with my "style." Still, Gilles' announcement and proposal came as a surprise to literally no one in the Four Realms. Everyone knew that their...relationship had drastically changed after Gilles' apparent death and subsequent revival. With another sigh I rubbed my forehead, putting aside my obligations to the Karmic Realm for the moment. Sometimes it seems as if I have the harder of the two jobs...Elvira manages deities, and I manage reincarnation. Mortal souls seem much more difficult to handle, and at times like these I envy Elvira's seemingly lackadaisical lifestyle. 

But I know as well as she does that her job is no easier than mine. Ensuring deities don't muck things up is hard work, I'm sure. (After all, one deity making a massive mistake is infinitely worse than a single mortal, which is why many mortals wish to stay where they are on the cosmic scale, rather than move up.) Especially when she herself has to rely on Mother to help keep them in line from time to time...

"I suppose I should go then." I muttered to myself, walking onto the veranda and into the sky, looking down on the Karmic Kings that continued to judge. For a moment I had half a mind to take a few of the more powerful Kings with me to the wedding, simply because it would be polite for them to show up, but then dismissed the notion. The Karmic Realm still had to keep running, regardless of what was happening. With one more step I vanished from the Karmic Realm entirely, appearing above the Life-Giving Tree and looking down at the preparations. Reika seemed to be having a blast putting it all together at least. 

Normally, at least for the mortals, planning and putting together a wedding is nothing short of a nightmare. I'm not certain how much different this one will be, but I at least assumed it would not be much fun to put it together. 

"Keilan, you're early." Reika called up to me, a field of flowers sprouting around her into various designs. "Elvira's still in her palace if you want to go see her. Some of the other deities have been having an absolute blast dressing her up. They've been designing the dress for the past century, and had thousands of ideas, given what material they were working with." Reika said with a giggle, a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes. 

"I'm sure she's loving that." I drawled, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "Where's Gilles?" 

"He's around. Been milling about for a while, looking sort of lost. I don't think he expected things to escalate the way they did -all deities flipped out when they heard the news. This is an event to end an age, after all! They've all been in a tizzy, preparing this for the past millennia. Gilles and Elvira both had to put a damper on their plans to turn the Realm Sun into a giant sculpture. One even suggested to turn the Moon into a fireworks display." Reika laughed. I raised my eyebrows, having specifically hidden away from deific gossip so I didn't have to deal with that kind of nonsense. 

"Really? We just got done with preventing something like that." I complained. Reika nodded and giggled again. 

"Yes, well, it was an idea that lasted all of half a second." She conceded. I let out a small breath and shook my head, floating down from the sky to land in front of Reika. "I'm guessing you want to know the schedule? It's pretty simple actually. We'll have the ceremony, and then there'll be a little party afterwards where the deities bestow gifts upon the two. Gilles and Elvira actually wanted to reject the gift-giving part, but it's going to happen anyways. Mother decided it so, because She's going to give them something." 

"Really? Mother will?" I asked. Reika nodded and leaned a little closer to me, as if that would stop anyone who wanted to listen in on the conversation. 

"Yes, but it's only going to be a blessing." She whispered. "I asked Her, and that's what She told me. The other deities caught wind of it, but they don't know what She's giving, so they all ran about frantically trying to find suitable gifts." I nodded. So that's why there were instructions to bring a wedding gift...despite Elvira's penchant for ostentatious decor, she holds no value over material possessions (which, in my opinion, is slightly paradoxical.) Only Mother enjoys keepsakes...though I will admit that I have a few paintings of myself and a few other deities, created by the Karae, hanging in my office. 

"Hm. Well, I didn't get them much." I said coolly. "Just enough to piss Elvira off." Reika laughed and shook her head at me, waving one hand in a shooing motion. 

"You're terrible. Now shoo! You can go sit down over there and wait for things to start, or help finish the last-minute preparations." Reika offered. I opted to sit out, so I moved towards where the 'back' of the ceremonial area was, where I could overlook the entire area. Truthfully it wasn't very large, only about ten miles in diameter, and situated on the very highest point of the Life-Giving Tree - the one world-sized leaf that stuck straight up in the air rather than flattening out like the rest. I'm pretty sure Reika intentionally grew it that way. 

A few deities and spirits were already milling about in the area, some sitting in the rows of seats facing the altar where the ceremony would actually be held, others standing in the newly created forests and waterfalls and...there was an entire world sitting here, in a ten mile circle. Deserts, mountains...all miniaturized and absolutely gorgeous. Reika really went all out preparing this, didn't she? Though it probably took less effort than it looks like, it's still impressive. There were even miniaturized animals running about, and I watched as a flock of tiny, tiny birds settled on one of the chairs. Then, I turned my attention to the altar.

The altar itself was made of pure white stone, with shadowy runes carved along the base. Otherwise, it was very simplistic. There wasn't even an aura of power radiating from it, something I was coming to respect. Not everything had to be gaudy and awe-inspiring. As time passed more and more beings started to filter in, and at one point music started to drift through the area. It was a sweet sound, soft and lilting yet hard and rigorous where is should be firm, and for a moment I wished there was a deity of music - because music certainly deserves its own deity. 

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"You're finding this as strange as I am?" Alexander asked, appearing beside me in his Draconian form. I nodded. 

"Perhaps." I said, neither confirming nor denying his statement. 

"Don't say 'perhaps,' Keilan. You don't come across as anything but an ass. Do you or do you not find this strange?" Alexander asked. 

"Depends on what you're finding strange." I replied with a sigh. "That our sister is getting married, or that the idea of marriage is getting introduced into the deities? Because both are pretty strange concepts to me. I never even considered marriage as a possibility for deities before. I'm still not certain how it will work." 

"It won't be nearly as restrictive as the mortals' versions," Alexander supplied. "At the end of the day, so long as they still love each other and stick together, always claiming the other as husband or wife, then I believe it's all good. It's a good thing we don't have to worry about many of the problems mortals do." I nodded in agreement. Cheating? What good is cheating when the pleasures of the flesh don't interest deities? Violence? Hardly a problem for deities. Even in that war against Morgan, we actively avoided the very harsh and despicable methods, choosing to suppress and seal rather than maim and kill. Deities were meant to be role models, after all, within the minds of mortals and in their own domains. We must act the part.

"Very true, but I feel it will bring about its own problems," I said. "Such as children. Mother created us, created all souls, but how will it work between deities? Will they come together to create a new soul, one that holds pieces of the parents', or will the child be a soul already within the Four Realms, ready to become a deity? Can deities even have children?" I mused, scratching the back of my neck. 

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say Gilles only wanted to marry Elvira as an experiment - to find out if any of that is true or not." Alexander said gruffly. I laughed and shook my head. 

"Gilles loves his experiments, but he wouldn't do that." I said with a smile. "Besides, there's no need to marry to test such a thing."

"I know. It was a joke." 

"I know it was. I'm just saying."

Alexander and I fell silent after that, content to merely watch as the ceremony began. Elvira and Gilles walked up to the altar together, Gilles dressed in a suit made of a pure white material, while Elvira was dressed in a kimono-like dress-robe weaved from shadows themselves. Both Alexander and I let out appreciative noises, recognizing the symbolism in wearing clothes made of the other's "domain." This was a sharing of duties, of sorts. Merging two domains into one, so to speak. They now upheld each other, not each upholding their own. 

The ceremony itself didn't last long, something both Elvira and Gilles wished for, with Kei appearing from seemingly nowhere and officiating the ceremony herself. It was surprising that she showed up, actually, seeing as how I hadn't seen her for the past nine hundred years. She had been off doing her own thing. With a flick of Kei's nine tails, the skies flashed in a thousand different colors, a paltry display when compared to Elvira and Gilles sealing their bond. The invisible, formless power that rippled from them the moment their lips touched was enough to move even I, and I suspected Mother had a hand in it. And then I truly felt it. 

It was as if a bubble of power enveloped the duo, a wave of raw emotion flowed over the land and caused it to shiver. A golden shockwave spread out, scintillating light radiating outwards and touching all beings present. 

"So Elvira and Gilles are bonded, in the eyes of the Four Realms and my own." Mother's voice echoed out, Elvira's face filled with shocked, as well as Gilles'. Mother truly had 'blessed' them and their marriage. I didn't know what the entire gift entailed, but surely it was more than a simple blessing. It, to me, appeared so profound that I couldn't clearly see it. Elvira had a large, beaming smile on her face however, so I could do nothing but feel happy for her. I smiled, and took a step back, simply admiring the scenery and soaking it all in. This was the event to end an age - Reika was right. 

POV CHANGE: Statera Luotian

I hummed and watched the proceedings from on high, having already come and said my congratulations to the duo before they returned to the palace and continued with the gift-givings, something I shamelessly propagated. I mean, I wasn't not going to bless the two in the middle of their ceremony, and the other deities just took that as gift-giving or something. They'd feel bad if I gave something but no one else did.

"They make a beautiful couple." I said, nodding to myself. "They truly do." Yet all too soon it was over, Elvira and Gilles having received any number of priceless treasures and wondrous objects - all things personally crafted by said deities. Keilan gave them a sculpture of pure karma, Alexander presented a simple congratulations, as he himself keeps no personal items, and Reika gave them a tree of Shadow and Light, grown from the two. Yet amidst all these gifts and well-wishes, I like to think that their favorite was a simple painting presented to them by the timid Inesa, a painting of the two of them kissing on their altar, no power behind it, no special effects. Just them, and the surroundings fading in the background. 

Inesa was, among deities, by far the most thoughtful on an individual scale. 

And so the years continued to pass. Tian slowly grew and grew, eventually reaching the stage of Immortal (after another two thousand years) and regaining his memories, and his previous cultivation base. Of course he cursed me for a little while, acting like a child throwing a tantrum (to me, he was exactly that), but then we had a good laugh over it eventually and he ended up thanking me. It was a fundamental change in his character that he thanked me for - yes, he was still angry, and had a tendency to explode every once in a while, but now the violence in him was gone. He no longer felt a need to kill at all, felt it beneath him, even if he did believe that cracking a few skulls would help every once in a while. (Though it sounds different, he was still no longer Dei. He was still Tian, that was his base personality, only Dei's memories and the memories of his other two lives returned to him.)

The current Celestial Empress was there for his Immortal Tribulation, and was thoroughly shocked with Tian revealed himself as the reincarnation of Dei, saying that this was his test, to return to the realm of Immortals with nothing but his soul and heart to guide him. Then he left the Empress to her own devices, not desiring to return to the throne in Manu Ti, and instead focused still inward, because he knew he was not ready. 

Ready for what, he didn't know. I did, of course, I'd been saying it all along. Tian was destined to become a deity, or something similar, the first mortal in the Four Realms to do so. It wasn't fate. Fate was more...set out for someone. Destiny was a "fate" one decided for oneself - a revelation I had come across not too long before Tian's ascension to Immortality. Tian wished for strength, so he would become a deity. It was his destiny to, and as he stuck to his destiny, he therefore created his own fate as to how he would become a deity. 

But none of that happened. In one hundred thousand years after Elvira's wedding, the only thing that did happen was Tian mastering his own Dao, his own Path, and in turn creating the Heavenly Daos. His path was the Martial Way, particularly using martial arts and fighting in general as a way to purify one's self, to slowly work that hate-filled violence out of him so that he may find peace. It was a fine dao, one that the Four Realms saw fit to carve into the black canvas of the skies in the form of stars. Five stars, lined together, in the form of a spear...and creating a guide for all to follow in the path of the Martial Way. 

The stars would be the guides - and I was happy. For too long the skies had been without a moon and stars, those crazy dots of light that sparked fantasies and served as guides. Now, as more people mastered Daos both big and small, their own and not, the dark canvas of the skies of the entire Four Realms would be filled with more and more stars. And, as things started to calm and chaos started to settle into a more...balanced state, not too calm but not too chaotic, I finally started to feel a bit more satisfied. 

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One and a half million years later - on the day the Four Realms turned two million years old, I received a notification. Interesting times were returning to my Realms, I could feel it, but it was all trumped by this one little notification that appeared before me, courtesy of Mr. Blue Boxes. 

Urgent Notice!

In approximately ten thousand years, the first meeting between origin deities will commence, arriving eighteen million years early! All origin deities are permitted to bring one companion from their respective universes. Rankings will be provided. Prepare accordingly.

Time left until meeting: 9,987 Years

I smiled. It came early, which was...strange, but still. This would be fun. I could use a few new ideas.