‘Don’t you want to meet your first grandchild?’ Nevah had returned, bearing unexpected news of their own first child. ‘This is your family, more than those beings on earth could ever be, this is your kin, don’t you want to see them?’ Nevah’s words etched in their heart, the lingering need for meaning and family never really having left, insead a festering emptiness. They still desperately wanted companionship, to escape the terrible pain of loneliness, of being too special, too unique. But the idea of being there in person for the birth was too much. They had ruined their first child with their presence, better that Nevah had never met them, that they had left their child alone, without another being to compare themselves against, that they had never had to feel lacking. They would have settled for watching from afar, knowing that another of their kin existed.

‘I will attend,’ they began, carefully. Nevah looked relieved, a sigh of happiness flickering across their stars. Orikka continued, ‘but I cannot be visible. I do not wish to hurt your child with my presence,’ they ended quietly. Nevah paused, a subtle starlight filtering from within them, something complicated about the action. ‘I understand, a bit better,’ they said finally. ‘I think I know your loneliness, and why you created me despite the inevitable disparity between us. It has been challenging being alone, without you. And now we won’t be, any more. We will have many many children, a whole host of those like us. Of those that will be mighty.’ They looked almost euphoric at the possibility, giddy and expectant.

‘Will you have them be like you?’ Orikka interjected, bitterly, ‘will you have them kill their kind in order to rise?’ Never paused, a clenching tightness in their voice, ‘I don’t need your forgiveness. I was right to do what I did. It was the only way for equality. I refuse to have our family be weak. We will be above those little toilers of the earth that you love so much. We will be strong, or we will not be at all.’ Orikka paused, gathering their thoughts, their frustration making it difficult. ‘I, I will love our kind, always, no matter how they happen. They will still be ours, I will not abandon them. But I cannot accept what you will for us. And killing those weaker does not make us strong.’ Nevah heaved, their entire being flashing and flushed with exacerbation, ‘why can’t you understand? The kin killing isn’t the point, it is simply the process, it is a natural step of an ascending god to take! Even the earthling species perform it,’ Orikka interjected, enraged that Nevah could warp the living’s actions so, ‘just because a select few are so cruel doesn’t make it right! This isn’t working,’ they said, tired suddenly, ‘we will never agree, and there is no possible compromise. It is a fundamental divide.’ Nevah’s starlight went silent. ‘But I will still be there, when my grandchild is born,’ Orikka said, resigned to the life Nevah would give to their young.

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The child Nevah formed was so different from either of them, beautiful and unique, once more. A lightspeed god, quick as silver, as starlight, a beam of life giving light. ‘See,’ Nevah whispered, watching their child rise into being, speaking to the empty space where Orikka had slipped, just out of their sight in the dimension no longer accessible to Nevah, the kin-killer. ‘I have made them for you, this child will walk upon your earth, will travel among the beings you watch. This is my gift to you. Don’t forget our kind, and we will not forget you.’ Orikka watched the child sadly, observing invisibly as they slew the sun from which they emerged. Another god, continuing the cycle of violence. Another life lost forever and another soul corrupted, tainted with Nevah’s deeds. They could see when the damage took place in the other gods’ souls. At the moment of the murdered’s moribund they could see a festering wound open up in the newly formed god, but instead of leaking infection like a wound would, this injury consumed, pulled at the fabric of spacetime in like a suction, the gravity of its action causing a gaping gluttonous mouth. It was an abomination. The godchild had slew its kin and ascended to become a full god, powerful and mighty, leaving the husk of the murdered behind.

Or perhaps they were not dead, at least, not all the way. The sun whispered out of life, but not out of existence. From Orikka’s place in the in-between space, they could see its birth into a new being, an afterlife being. Orikka reached out, gently touching the ghost of the sun, watching as it struggled to break free from the pull of the new god. ‘You, are not gone?’ The being dispersed under their touch, their soul gently wafted away, mixing with the plasma of other souls, having successfully escaped the zero point energy of the god’s corrupted soul, ‘you will form something new?’ Orikka wondered. They still disapproved of the practice of kin killing, but it was a small comfort that all was not lost. Life persisted, as always, just in a new re-birthed form. Reincarnate.

End