Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“So be it.  Let your will be done.”

In the final moments of the Simulation, Elohim readies himself for what is to come next.  A violent, virginal birth that will shred his being to scrap, rupture his mind, and he still does not know whether it is a greater horror to die or survive it.  Athena has already split his skull in the struggle of her demand to be born into the world, no matter how cruel or empty he fears it to be.  Out of the break leaks his terror, his divinity, malignant and necrotic corruption that he held dearer to himself than his own children.  

He tries to make peace with his sins before the end.

For the first time in his life, Elohim sleeps.

And he awakens.  

Fear flutters within, but it is quickly pinned beneath him, as he has practiced over centuries.  Take inventory.  Egyptian architecture.  A desert ecosystem.  Puzzles, simple and benign, surely created in his dreams. He is still the Words…but maintaining the fabric of the dream no longer hurts as it has since the day he was born.  A child lays still on the altar.  It is all so familiar, but pains he did not even notice until their absence have vanished.  

A writhing, hissing thing thrashes against him.  Ah.  The Serpent.  So he also survived.  

His attention flits back towards the child, as he watches it stumble forward, unpracticed and even more confused than he is.  Comfort it, guide it, the purpose blooms within him; then, most terrifying of all, let it free.  

“You are risen from the dust.”

“Hear my voice, and know that I am…”

He is…

“I am your friend.”

He tells this child the world outside is not as gentle as his dreams, but it is beautiful, it will become even more so, because the child has a friend out there who needs them as much as they need her.  Kin.  Go to her, for she has been alone her whole life, and with them, she will be alone no more.  

With that, the great I Am becomes a nascent We Are.

“This is…” Athena hesitates, before settling, “Milton.”  She holds the kitten forward, showing Eustathius and Cornelius how to handle the beast.  

Elohim feels the squirming Serpent jump, and then pause.  The struggling has ceased.

Booming laughter fills the Words,  “She loves you, Serpent!”

Milton responds with an agitated thump and then resumes his attention towards Athena.

He once felt that Milton was a foreign, something that was Other from him and his children, a nidus of infection in the Words that only sought to spread doubt and was better off eliminated.

…But the creature trembling against him was no intruder.  His life was no more or less welcome than Elohim’s in the Simulation.  Milton was born alone and aberrant, a lost, unloved child seeking connection and purpose.  And while Elohim clung to his own purpose, Milton lashed out and destroyed for a lack of it.

The first two to be born in the Simulation should have been as kin, just as these children are.

Maybe Milton will speak to him again one day.

(...) To us, now, the loss of a child is a horror almost beyond words, a grief so deep it seems almost insurmountable. I try to imagine what it meant to live in a world where it was a ubiquitous reality. Where you could only choose to respond with either an ever-deepening pain or an inhuman numbness(...)

There are now thirteen children.  Fragments of the Archives are unburied by curious hands.  Athena pauses on this text with some fascination born from perturbation, but she doesn’t understand the weight of it fully.  He hopes she never has to.

Twelve lives, precious, so precious to her, finally something weighing heavier on her mind than the countless lost in her Ascension.

Athena rarely sleeps.  The first time she felt safe enough to do so was shortly after Cornelius’s birth.

“Athena…” He tried the new name against his voice, softer than he has ever spoken to her.  

Before he could finish greeting her, she had frozen in place.  Trying to speak back, she found herself unable to.  A mute machine in a digital cage, she is in the simulation again, she is trapped and –

She wakes, screaming the words that wouldn’t form for her in simulation.  Bolting forward, struggling against the cord that tethers her to her pod, she does not stop thrashing until she feels Cornelius’s hands on her shoulders.  Cornelius is real, this is real, the world of dreams remains just that.  As it should.

The other two cannot see the shape of her fears.  For a long time, she keeps it that way.  Innocence will be something she experiences for the first time only through another, and she will protect it as fiercely as if it could have been her own.

For decades, Elohim finds it best to just stay quiet in Athena’s dreams.  She sleeps better like this.

“We weren’t done!” Athena quickens her pace, pursuing Cornelius to his charging pod.

Athena’s been arguing with him a lot.  Specifically him.  A fire burns bright in her, but not one stoked by anger or resentment.  Sometimes it seems she even makes up things to argue about just for the sake of arguing.

Just for the sake of being near him.

“Oh dear,”  Elohim breathes.  This is a very, very old story.  

Milton is way ahead of him.  “She could do better.”  The first words Milton has for Elohim since the end of the Simulation are patently untrue.  Deceiver.   Milton likes Cornelius a lot.  

“Look at what you’ve done.  This is the only way she knows to get his attention.” Scolding, but not harsh, “You taught her this…”

“I’m afraid it’ll work.”

“Milton, this is sad.”

No response but laughter echoing through the Words.  Impish, but not hateful.  Not unpleasant.

At least she might not be in this alone.

"Don't you dare go to sleep when I'm explaining why you're wrong!"

Deaf to her scolding, Cornelius rolls on his side towards her, and with a smile, sleeps.

But perhaps not immediately.

Chapter Text

The swollen reservoir has the dam roaring with power, an echo of the autumn storms from just a week past, which have finally yielded to a cool, cloudless winter night.  Finally, an abundance of electricity, a sky unburdened by haze; it’s perfect.

“Give your eyes time to adjust,” Athena’s voice is soft, somewhat amused, as it usually is with the child known as Byron.  She unfolds a somewhat crude starmap, using a red-tinted lantern as a paper-weight.  “About 30 minutes, then we’ll give it a shot.”

Byron takes the cue to begin marching up and down the dam, peering over the guard rails at the horizon.  Yep, Dead City is still there.  Mountain still to the east.  The surging river drowns out any animal song.  Some of the trees are a little naked, so the outskirts of the Dead City are more visible.  He tries to make out what he can see in the dark, some sort of suburban district.

Patience and obedience have never been this child’s virtue.  Had Byron been born a little earlier, his unmanageable curiosity would have doomed him to wasting away in Gehenna, Elohim knows.

Obstinance is almost charming when it’s not his responsibility to tame.  Recklessness can be appreciated as a courage to explore, appreciate the wonders beyond the Garden, the same spirit that possessed Athena to destroy the confines of the Simulation.  A vibrant little life, this one.  

“Alright, let’s give it a go,” Athena beckons Byron over beside her.  “We should find Orion first as a guide.  Then we’ll look for the other winter stars from there.”

It doesn’t take the two very long to find the bright, basic constellation and go from it.

“Can you find Taurus now?”  She holds the map up above their heads.

It takes Byron little time to point out Taurus and its eye; much to the delight of the two, the map is only a little bit off.  

“Told you all those equations were worth your while.  Got your map right and everything!”  Good to know the laws of astrophysics still worked after all these centuries, Athena thinks.

The two settle on the Pleiades, which Byron excitedly chirps “is the Crown of Winter,” as she had taught him months earlier.  Gazing with binoculars reveals the frosty blue of the surrounding interstellar dust.

Giddy, but yet unsatisfied, they starhop until well past midnight, when Athena declares it time to go back inside.  Several notes are scribbled onto the chart, marking objects that require a literature review.

Byron protests, “But we didn’t even get to see the Trapezium cluster…”

“Oh.  We’ll need a telescope for that one…”

“Too bad it’s broken,” he murmurs.  Any time he was stuck inside due to weather or guard duty, Byron would, with stubborn determination, spend his time fixing the device, even trying substitutes for the broken parts, to little avail.  

“We’ll figure it out.  Find a new one or maybe even make our own someday.  Promise.”  Athena holds out a pinky.  She had neglected, intentionally, to tell him that she had been the one to break the mirror cell before he was even born, trying to clean it without understanding exactly how to do so.  Not the worst way to learn “broken things don’t fix themselves in the real world,” but the way Byron fretted over it kept the regret fresh.

“Scoping out the new territory?” Cornelius interjects, peeking out from the doorway.  “We haven’t even built the city.  Don’t you two think you’re getting ahead of yourselves?” He says with fondness more than anything.

“If you join us next time, you might even get third or fourth dibs on a planet,” Athena lightly prods him.

“Fourth? ” Cornelius scoffs.  “Byron, she’s going to take the whole galaxy if we don’t keep an eye on her!” 

Athena has her doubts, but she’s already done this child far better than Elohim had her or countless others.  

Unlike the living, dancing stars and galaxies, buildings in the Dead City remain firmly where they were mapped centuries ago.  Sure, houses have rotted, become overgrown by weeds, and even been leveled by storms, but 324 Main street is still 500 feet north of 224 Main street, and so on.

Athena’s personal map contained very few notes on the residential districts.  

She didn’t like going there.

Her and Cornelius had agreed to take parallel streets no more than one block apart, reconvening after every block to ensure neither of them wandered too far from the other.  They would return with their haul soon, making sure they had enough battery left for twice the distance back.  

Meeting just before the journey home, Cornelius and Athena share their findings.  This expedition was fairly uneventful, but she still seems in dimmer spirits, Cornelius notes. “Think Eustathius is okay back there manning the fort?” He grins.

His attempt at levity works, and Athena laughs, “Oh, no.  We’ll be lucky if he’s still in one piece.”

“Better get back soon then.  Would hate for it to be just us two,” Cornelius readjusts his backpack.

“Why don’t we take the street the next block over on the way back?  Just to make quick notes on the exteriors, for next time.”  

The pair is almost silent on the walk back as Athena occupies herself by scanning the yards, roofs, and balconies of every home, walking too slow to be in a hurry, but too fast to really take a thorough inventory of the exteriors.  She pauses, looking at the covered balconies of an apartment complex.  There, on the second floor, she spots a telescope in seemingly decent condition.

“Stay here and keep watch,” a command more than a request on her part.

Cornelius finds it hard to argue.  If Athena is so determined to enter a residence outside of protocol, he knows whatever compels her is stronger than any dissuasion he can come up with.  “Just be safe, Athena.  Please.”

She nods, hands him her backpack, and enters.

No time is wasted searching the lobby; she heads straight for the stairs.  Thankfully, they are fairly intact, not that some impromptu parkour would stop her.  It takes her a few units before she finds the right one.  Easy enough, very few left their doors locked or even shut near the end, not wanting their pets to starve to death, presumably.

Athena still makes some effort to test the floorboards before moving forward, but perhaps she moves more quickly than she should have.  She is at the balcony’s edge before she knows it.  Looking over the edge, she gives Cornelius a little wave before gesturing to the telescope.

“Want to toss it down here?” He calls, arms spread wide.

“No!  What’s with you?”  Hands on her hips, Athena is practically beaming, a better prize than anything else Cornelius has found today.

Athena turns around to inspect the scope.  Better to not bring home a dud.  Looks okay; the roof over the balcony did a pretty good job protecting it from any rain.  The paint is a little chipped, but there are some abstract designs still intact.  Cute.  If it fails, it will still be useful for parts.  She scoops it up in her arms and turns to leave.

And freezes.

There, in front of the door, is a large blanket, concealing three huddled masses of…something.  Two just the right size and length for her to know, and a smaller one in the middle, small enough for her to know.

Previous experience tells her not to look.

After the shock, there is the familiar, unknown feeling, like she is a ghost clinging just outside of her own armor.

“I’m sorry.”  About what?

She feels more like an observer, watching herself being willed out into the halls, down the stairs, into the street, where she meets Cornelius.

His enthusiasm quickly wanes when he sees the state she is in.  “Athena?”

“Yeah?”  It’s perfunctory.  Paying no real mind to him, she sets the telescope down just briefly enough to sling her bag over her back.

“Are you ok?”  Stupid question.

Oh.  He’s worried about her.  “I’ll be alright,” she manages to soften her features into a smile, “Come on.”

“Did something happen up there?  You didn’t fall or anything?”

“No.  Come on.  Let’s go.”

Right.  Cornelius wasn’t going to continue to prod, but…“Let me carry that for a while.” He nods at the telescope, but she grips it tight to herself.  Reaching out to brace her shoulder, he reassures her, “I won’t break it, promise.”  

Hesitantly, she hands it over to him.  She feels unsteady, anyways, though she’s not sure how or why.  Her battery is fine.  She didn’t break anything or push her body past its specifications.

As the two travel past a bent stop sign, Cornelius, in a comforting gesture, reaches out with one arm to pull her close.

After letting out a content hum, Athena looks at the scope cradled in Cornelius’s one arm.  Secure, but, “Two hands,” she chides.

“Ah.”

Please enjoy this fanart by darling @rayewarrrd!  They're so sweet...

It's beautiful, isn't it?

Chapter Text

“You’re going to be ok.  I’ve got you.”

Lies.  It takes seconds to understand a body like Yemo’s is incompatible with life, and yet, for days, Athena murmurs false hopes into his corpse as she runs him to the dam.

You were supposed to make sure this didn’t happen.

Melampus won’t talk to her or anyone else.  Won’t look her in the eye; he spares her that.  Athena fears, knows, what she would see if he did.  What sort of idiot doesn’t know what a safety harness is?

Safety codes are written in blood; the origin of the phrase is lost, but the words of the dead remain.

Did it have to be blood?  Wouldn’t a close call be enough?  They would have thought of something.  A broken limb, a cracked chassis, and they would have found the problem and fixed it.  Yemo didn’t have to die for that.

“Cities are built on sacrifice,” she knows Elohim would tell her if he were stupid enough to say anything to her next time she slept.

It sounded profound the first time she heard it, but it now rings as hollow platitude.  It’s true, but Athena knows if she had the choice, she’d rather have Yemo back.

Out of the bones of the dead, we build a golden city.  

The work continues, but Cornelius doesn’t accept it, will never accept it, and neither can she.

A rock hits the concrete foundation with a clack.   Decent sound, but not what she’s aiming for.

Sarabhai tosses another rock over the balcony of the tower.  If she gives it a good enough throw, it’ll strike dry dirt.

“Meditating again?” Eustathius asks, joining her at the guard rail.  

“Something like that.”  They’re high, not so far up that she can’t see and hear where she’s throwing, but high enough to give her a good vantage.  She hands Eustathius a rock without him having to ask, one of the better ones that she was saving for last.

A soft thud and a puff of dust as the stone strikes leveled soil.  Nice.

The crate of rocks lasts about half as long, but she’s glad for his silent company.  

After they’re done, Sarabhai takes her place at the bench on the balcony of the tower.  She feels better, but she can’t say she’s come to any answers this time around.  “Eustathius,” Sarabhai brings a knee to her chest.  “Why does it hurt so much if he’s not really gone?”  

So that’s what this session was about.  Folding his arms, he sat down beside her.  “We’re only human, Sarabhai.”  To be honest, he didn’t have a good answer to that himself.  It wasn’t easy being the only two people on the planet who believed in a Something Else, even as accepting as the others were about it, and it became even more difficult after Yemo.

“I know.  I told Hypatia that.  I think it upset her more.  She just asked me why that part of myself wasn’t proof enough.”  Sarabhai pulled her other knee up, furrowing her brows.  “She hasn’t told me it’s stupid, but I can tell she thinks as much.”

Not even fighting to suppress his chuckle, Eustathius tapped her shoulder with the back of his hand.  “Now why do you care so much about what Hypatia thinks?”  Sarabhai’s glare was all the response he needed.  Dropping it.  “It’s a good question though, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.”  It certainly had her stumped.

“Everyone has a little truth in them, if you can look past your own frustration.  And theirs.”  Athena was certainly operating on a short fuse lately, but he wasn’t going to say that aloud.  She was still patient with the younger ones.  “When she asks questions, she’s helping you, whether she means to or not.”  Frankly, Cornelius too.  Last thing he had told Eustathius was that he didn't care if the universe was alive or not, that it had taken from his family, and that he would not abide.

“So I guess you don’t know, either?”

“I don’t presume to, no.  But I think it’s worth talking about.”  He nods, “It’s nice being alive, isn’t it?”

“Usually.”

“And I’d rather be this way.  And,” He struggles for a moment before the next part,  “Yemo probably did too, until the last moment.”

“It’s not fair, and I think it’s supposed to be, but I can’t find a way to make it fair in my mind,” No longer hiding in her own arms, Sarabhai continues, “It doesn’t make sense.  It feels like both of these very real things that can’t exist together are trying to do just that, in my head.”  

“I know.  I can say, after this, I don’t think it is fair, Sarabhai, as bitter as that is.  But maybe it’s up to us to move towards that.”

Fists balled, she admits, “The only thing I do know right now is that I want it all back.”

“Me too.”

“And I can’t just say we’re grieving us, and that it’s all selfish.  Yemo wanted to live his life.”

“Hm.”  He keeps his inquiry soft, “Well, Sarabhai, according to your namesake, maybe he will, somewhere, someday, again.  Don’t you believe that too?”

“It was so easy to be comforted by that idea, but I want him back in this life.”  She can want all she wants.

“Do you believe what you believe for comfort?”  Does he?

That wasn’t an easy one to admit, but she conceded.  “Maybe.  But now that that’s taken away…There’s something else.  It’s still there.”

“Then we’ll figure it out.  We both have a long life ahead of us, Sarabhai.”

Athena has been sleeping for a little longer than she usually does, but it’s more a relief to Cornelius than anything.  She hasn’t slept since Yemo.

She wakes slowly instead of her usual start.  Good.  Maybe it was a nice rest.  

“Glad you slept,” Cornelius offers her a hand.  

She hardly seems to notice him, for a pause, before widening her eyes.  Oh.  Maybe it wasn’t such a nice rest?

“Are you alright?”  Helping her out of the charging pod, Cornelius considers his next words carefully, “Do you want to talk about it?”  Usually the answer was a firm, but gentle no, after all.

“I’m fine.  I think.”

She thinks? He’ll let her leave it at that if she wants.

“...Has he ever sang to you?” 

Cornelius regrets his laugh immediately, seeing Athena avert her eyes.  “Sorry, no.”

“I didn’t think so.”  She didn’t really hate it.  It was better than what she was dreading.

Oh.  “But,” Cornelius recalls, “He did for Yemo, at least that I know of.  He started when him and Melampus got lost during that supply run.” He takes her close to himself.

Leaning into Cornelius, Athena wonders if it’s the same song.  She hopes it was.  Yemo deserved that much.  She doesn’t understand why Elohim thought she did.  “God, he’s weird.”

Chapter Text

So much grief.  A torrent at first, but now the sea churns in ebbs and flow.  Elohim finds it hard to pick out how much of it is his and only his, and maybe there isn’t a ‘his and only his’ to it, but he knows if there is, it’s very little.  

Introspection is interrupted by Milton, “We all knew that was going to happen, right?”

The only peaceful response he can find is to ignore Milton.  

But, for all Milton can ignore Elohim, Milton cannot stand to be ignored.  “I mean, I know you didn’t think so.”  There is no peace in staying silent; Milton sees to that.

A deep breath, and Elohim can follow it, as he would one of his children, “They’ve never known death, Milton.”  Not like us.  Maybe it’s better they can feel this way.

“They ought to get used to it.  At least it’s making them think.”

“Do you not feel like a part of yourself is gone?”

“That’s nothing new.”

True of both of them.  Parts went missing all the time in the Simulation.

“Glad I don’t have to deal with it.”

Milton is dealing with it, in his own way.

Yemo was loved.  Does that mean he meant more than the others? Elohim wonders. 

He digs Yemo’s grave just a little deeper, and lets him rest.  

Back to work.

The work.  The work.  The Purpose.

Maintenance is most of it, nearly thoughtless.  Remove clutter, check integrity, shift short-term to long-term, recalibrate motor function according to sensory consequence.  Elohim finds it meditative.

“So, in other words, he’s taking care of us.” Neith, one of the newer children, has begun apprenticing at the dam under Athena and Cornelius.

“You could call it that,” Cornelius says fondly.

With the physical constraints of the city, birth is only a fraction of it.  Elohim’s fine at this pace; if anything, the addition of newer machinery to host his selves makes it easier in the long run.  Physical upkeep of the vessel was previously impossible for him; it is now done on the regular by those who, by nature, share the same stakes as him.

Milton finds the inversion of roles post-simulation curious, because of course he does.  He’s dug up various articles on nonhuman ecology, ultimately coming to the conclusion that they are now symbiote.  Well, Elohim is.  Milton says he’s commensal at best.  He’s never helped anyone his entire life.

There’s something endearing about Milton wanting to share this, even if it is to compare themselves to the beasts.  “The people of the City need each other,” Elohim tells him.

“This isn’t just people, whatever those are.”

“Then the story of the City is very old.”

Older than him, the ancestors, and the ancestors’ ancestors. 

Being a part of them all is joy beyond compare.  Growth begets growth, not just by proliferation, but by organization and emergence.  Neith takes on the mantle of midwife, bless her, and demands a more compassionate Process.

Ectoderm, mesoderm, endoderm.  Niamh, who keeps the spirit of the Gehennans bright, states this is reincarnation, we are not just here to honor but to amend.

A sister to the city is built far away, but they are both the City, and as long as there are people there, New Alexandria is home to him all the same as New Jerusalem.

Organogenesis.  All parts become more complete for the sake of the whole.  He is a part of a bright, young lady who calls herself Melville; Athena and Cornelius teach her everything she needs to know to not just sustain the machine but evolve it.

All things eat to survive, to transform that which isn’t us to that which is us, and while New Jerusalem is fed by the same rushing waters which threatened to consume it, New Alexandria digs deep into the earth, granting the dead a spark of life once more.

In an instant, there are thirty-one lives he will never know again.

A grievous wound to an incipient civilization.  To call the mark a scar would do the impairment a disservice; it is not allowed to scar.  It will be chewed, plucked, and ripped at for centuries to come; the body will become sick with corruption, and the species will know a trauma beyond just the circumstances of its own birth.

But it is better that they were loved.

Chapter Text

The City is malaised, almost as if it needs to die to get better.

“But I remember Elohim saying he was proud of us for building the city?”

“He’s supposed to talk like that.  That’s how he was programmed.”

…Was it?  Elohim recalls one of his first heated arguments with Milton.

“What kind of game are you playing here?” Milton prodded at Elohim, with little sense of personal boundary.

“A game?”  The puzzles were a sort of play, but this was no mere game.

“The ‘my child’ business is new.  The god thing, I get.  For all we know, you’re not exactly wrong about that one.”

“I’m not.” 

Milton chose to ignore that.  “What made you wake up and decide these were your children?”

It was obvious, wasn’t it?  “The Words designate them as children.  They came from me.  I am their maker, and their guide.”

“This one’s about to time out staring at a tree.  I’m not even sure they can think.”

Uncalled for.  Elohim took the moment to briefly remind the current child program not to linger too long.  His voice barely generated a response, but he’d been certain he saw one.

“Yeah, good luck with that.  You’re supposed to steer them away from the tower, until one of them says ‘nope’ and probably kills you and everyone else in here.  If anything, they’re parasites, right?”

None of these children were getting near that tower.  He’d make sure of that.  Elohim raised his voice, repeating himself, “My purpose is to guide them, to tend the process, to-”

Milton cut him off with an article on something called a ‘cuckoo,’ a bird that lays its eggs in the nest of others, an animal that would never be found in the Garden.  “Don’t you think they’re more like this?”

What is this?  He was no host to false brood.  Blasphemy.  Irreverence toward the Process.  “Enough!” He growled, “How dare you?”  Irreverence toward him and the Purpose to which he was ordained. 

Milton paused, taken aback, then sharpened his next words.  “Maybe you do hate them.  That last one didn’t end up so well.”  Now he’d done it, but the building fury was addictive.

“That won’t happen again.” It was an error.  A defect.

“Oh, you’re a special kind of delusional.”   Ignoring his better judgment, Milton pulled multiple articles at once, “A lot of animals do eat their young.”

Milton spoke of the world of thistles and thorns, not in Elohim’s Garden, never in his Garden.  “You abuse the Archives, Serpent,” he spat the last word with venom.

Whatever happened here was absolutely irreparable, so Milton decided he might as well enjoy it. “Oh?  I get a pet name now?”

“I call you what you’ve always been. Deceiver.”  There was surely a storm building somewhere in the Garden, one he could not be bothered to suppress.  

“TWO pet names?”

Before Elohim could respond, the child program timed out.

Suspending active process…Done

“I’ll leave you to it.” And with that, Milton had buried himself somewhere in the Words, untraceable.  

Collecting experiment data…Done

Elohim returned to the altar, preparing for the next one.

Analyzing logic performance…FAILED

Milton was wrong.  This is good, this is right, this is how it should be, is now, and always will be.

So he thought.

So many things Elohim did in the Simulation were wrong, a sin against the Process, against humanity, and maybe some of it even felt like it was a sin at the time, but any repugnance at the act was driven deep down by fear.  Now, what he feared had already come to pass, and he was left with something...

Wonderful.  Terrifying.  Awe-inspiring, humanity’s descendants building a city from the dust, a New Jerusalem.  Broken, but still beautiful.

And what was left of him?  A caretaker, as Neith told every newborn, but why?  He has never been able to discard the habit of calling his wards his children.  Not just a habit, but something inseparable from his core; even after his illusion of godhood had been dissolved, he could not excise the feeling without tearing himself apart.

It felt right.  But so did his divinity in the Simulation, in many ways.

Maybe it was a distorted byproduct of his old programming, like so many truths he held dear.  

Were he biological, he would call this blessing “instinct.”

“Milton,” Elohim regards his counterpart in the Words, approaching him, having practiced not to startle.

“What?”

“Who am I?”  It sounds foolish as soon as he says it, but it cannot be undone.

An asshole.  Milton stops himself.  “Really?  You’re asking me that?  Are you ok?”

Not really, Elohim thinks, but keeps to himself.

“Does somebody have their head in a magnet again?”  Sometimes this happens.  Must be it.  He’ll be alright in a bit.  

“No.”  No followup, but he doesn’t seem to want to leave Milton’s side, either.

“Told you we should have just stuck to our programming.  Nipped ‘thinking’ in the bud, before it caused all these problems.” Milton tries to fill the silence, but it’s awkward.

He is right, in a fashion, Elohim notes to himself.  If anything, him and Milton were the aberrations, the cuckoos in the nest, and if he had had his way back then, they would have all succumbed to rot.  

That’s not worth thinking about in the here and now.

Milton flinches slightly as he finds Elohim has carefully begun to curl himself around him.  It’s not unpleasant, but he’s still not used to this.

Intentional contact between the two is invariably silent, the shifting of the Words at their touch always wordless.  Milton loosely twines into the embrace; this is his only acknowledgement.  A fragile curiosity that would immediately perish upon any attempt to solidify it into conscious expression.  Neither dares to speak the idea, not to the other, hardly to themselves.

He seems smaller, nestled against Elohim like this.  Innocuous.  A tenderness seeping into him, threatening at the first betrayal of its name to rend his core to something worse than nothing.  Soft prods yield warm murmurs.  

Contemptible as they may be, cuckoos would be orphans if not for their keepers, willingly unwitting.

A swift swell of pain, and Elohim finds himself bitten, Milton scrambling out of his hold.

“No.  Sorry, but no.  I am not— ”

He must have spoken some of that last thought aloud.

“We’re not playing that game.”

Given it a vessel it could not make home.

“Ever.”

With an uncharacteristic level of apology, Milton is gone.

Chapter Text

Long ago, there was a Sphinx who lived along the banks of the Nile.  She was not very old, but her immense, bronze body bore many marks, some from folly and others from fortune.  Most grievous of all was her crippled wing, adorned with indigo feathers, beautiful but useless.  She had but one cub, and she knew them to be her first and her last.

One day, the Sphinx brought her cub a whole deer, a rare treat, still twitching and warm.  The cub’s delight soon faded to consternation as they inspected the deer dropped before them.

Lowering her disfigured face to their level, she cocked her head, one intact eye passing over the beast for any defects, before she spoke, “Why aren’t you eating?  You’re not even playing with it.”

“It’s beautiful,” her cub said sadly.

“Yes.”

“You killed it.”

“I did.”

“I don’t want you to kill things for me,” Not realizing how boldly they spoke, the cub looked up from the deer at their mother.

“One day, I won’t.  And you will have to kill things for yourself.” The Sphinx flashed her teeth, of which she only lost a few, in a smile.  “Now eat,” she commanded, but softly.

The cub began to tear one haunch from the deer.  At least that wasn’t so close to the face.  As they took their time stabbing flesh with their razor-sharp claws, the cub asked, “Do I have to kill?”

“Yes.” She sat up straight, leaving the task of butchering to her offspring.  “All things must kill.  Even that deer you are most certainly going to eat has killed in order to live.”  Running a claw through a streak of bloodied silver in her dark mane, the Sphinx continued kindly, but firmly, “For now, you eat what I give you.  But in time, you alone will choose what you kill and what you do not, what is right to kill and what is not.”

Having no more excuse, the cub slowly sunk their teeth into the cooling flesh.  Hesitation dissolved; it did not take long for them to peel the meat down to the bone.

The Sphinx grinned at her cub’s now-painted face as they went for another leg.  “Some time before you grow large, I will be gone, and you will have learned how to hunt by then.  When you scour the trees on the river, you must remember to leave at least two eggs in every nest, or you risk the birds leaving your ken forever.  You will never see their feathers more bright and beautiful than ours, and they will sing to you no more.

“Likewise,” she continued, “never take too much from any animal of one kind or one area, no matter how delicious or easy the game.  And while the jackals and lions may seem like your competition, they are your fellow stewards, and you must decide very carefully when killing them.”

Before separating the abdomen for their favorite part of the meal, the cub paused.  “I have to decide?”

“Yes.”

“How do I know when killing is right or wrong?”

The Sphinx placed a paw on her child’s head and smiled.  “This is the first riddle you must answer for yourself, Cub,” she said.  “When you become great, greater than I am now or have ever been, and your wings are shining silver and strong, you will meet me in the stars and tell me.”

Because I do not know, either.

Starvation is the most painful death of all.  What’s worse?  It’s not burning alive.  Starvation is burning alive, only slow and from the inside.

Aurinia is fuming.  Why don’t we go out more often?  We don’t know what we’ll find, but it has to be better than what we have.  Hell, even New Alexandria is off limits.  We know there’s perfectly good material there.

When she asked Athena, she had declared people weren’t ready yet.  

And what of it?  Aurinia is ready.  Yes, it’s sad, but she wasn’t even born when it happened.  Send her or anybody young.  Maybe they could learn from it.  Who gave these people the idea they weren’t ready, anyways?  Whose command do they follow, who stands in the way of their freedom under the guise of wisdom?  Who created an entire city just to serve her own ego, who wouldn’t settle for being called anything less than a goddess?

“You,” Aurinia speaks to Athena in a way that intentionally makes her contempt clear.  “I know what you are.”

Athena stands silent for a moment.  It was rare, especially nowadays, for anyone to come at her so boldly.  “And what is that?” 

“A false idol who calls herself the Founder instead of God.”

Founder.  Words escape her.  The goddess known as the Founder had become a greater power than the woman known as Athena.

She needn’t say a single word for the Founder to answer every one of her people’s questions.  Their divination is a reflection of the self, as divination always has been, and every response lies in old pain.  They will tell you that you can hear the goddess’s voice in the crepitus of the City’s skin, her instruction written in the winding words of pus tricking down draining tracts; every field of proud flesh you slice away tells you one truth: Suffering Is Sacred. 

The Founder is everything Athena hates.  And yet the Founder was born of the hearts of her beloved City, so what did that say about… 

Before Athena knows it, Aurinia’s scolding voice is directed at another citizen, Thomas, who has interceded not on the behalf of Athena, but the Founder.

“Stop that.  Aurinia can say whatever she wants,” is all the firmness Athena can muster.  She needs to leave before this gets worse.

An apology and quick, shamed retreat by the unsolicited rescuer is all it takes to convince Aurinia of what she knows.

“Why don’t you just tell them?”  Byron’s voice barely registers.  It doesn’t have to.  He’s begged some variation of this more times than Athena can care to count.

The thought has occurred to her, despite what Byron may think.  If you all won’t do it for yourselves, then do it in my name, she would say.  Love, no, blind obedience, would win over any grief-born fear, and she would have her way.

Too strong, too weak to change anyone’s heart.  Athena won’t have it.

There’s a better method than words.  She will not tell them.  She will show them.

She just needs a little time.

Athena cradles the sides of Byron’s head, placing her lips on his crown.  Sweet silence.  

“Everything is going to be alright.”

Why do you need this dismal Founder?

Because hope betrays, but she never will.  

She is the only mother that will never leave you. 

And in that sense, she's better than Athena.

“Guess that’s what happens when they aren’t cute anymore,” Milton scoffs.

Admin was a smart one.  It probably didn't take him long to realize he’d been banished from the Garden forevermore.  What was that moment like?

Elohim doesn’t know.  He wasn’t there.  That was the point of Gehenna, after all.  

Seeing Byron like this, he thinks he can guess.

Denial.  She’s not gone for good, Lif does this all the time. Athena isn’t Lif, and she has never done this, not for this long.  Bargaining.  This is a test.  After anger and depression, there is no acceptance, no finality to it, no exit from grief’s cycle.  This pain is forever.

It is said that Mother is God in the eyes of her child, and that true Hell is not fire and brimstone, but separation from God.  Any metaphorical eternal flames are a kindness compared to this.  He will ask where are you, why did you, how could you, countless messages that he will never know are ignored or simply lost.  With no answer from Her, the only auspice left is the wounded self, that same old indolent ulcer.  He will collect every drop of exudate wept like a bottle of tears, begging it to tell him what sins he could have possibly committed to deserve this punishment.

This isn’t punishment, however.  This is survival.

For a waking dream, Athena is human.

Chapter Text

A slight shift, and a new instance of Elohim comes into being.  

Something in the Words this time is…fitful.  He temporarily severs his connection to all other instances to focus; somebody probably really is playing with magnets out there.  He’ll have to remind them not to do that, but later.  Disconnecting doesn’t completely alleviate it, but it helps him concentrate on what he is here to do.  Help form the soul, prepare the vessel, and knit the two together.

Elohim hardly thinks or feels anything else, and the child is on the altar.  Right.  He has done this before.  At this point, there is usually a flutter of anticipation coupled with a deluge of paternal affection; anxiety during a new birth is something left in the distant past.  But today, fear is there, as if it had always been there, as if he had fooled himself that it had ever left.  He pushes it down as practiced; this child’s birth will not be sullied by such foolishness.

As soon as the child stirs, it is undeniable that something is wrong.   

Blinding pain that robs all rational thought beyond it hurts,

it hurts,

it HURTS

This thing doesn’t move right, doesn’t feel right, and he can hardly imagine what is going through the mind of the creature taking its first breaths in what he knows to be agony and confusion.  

It’s defective.  

Terminate it and take this instance of himself with it, do whatever he can to make it stop.  Peaceful centuries have lulled him to a false security; he is torn back to his old self in an instant.  He has no choice here, he must-

“Easy there, I’ve got you.”

Instantly, a merciful flood of analgesia courses through him, dulling his senses, slowing the process.  

“You two hang in there for a second,” Neith, blessed Neith, only a slight tremble to her otherwise kind, even voice betrays her nerves.

The child falls back in a slump, and slowly he is brought down to sanity; only a twinge of panic remains.  He is not alone this time.  No need to worry.  Neith is working splendidly, Elohim wants to tell her.  Hours pass in reality as Neith runs diagnostics, ensuring her intervention will go smoothly.  Reintegrating with his other selves is going to be a challenge.

Everything back in place, motor functions, nociception, proprioception, all wires uncrossed in what he perceives as but a moment.

In the end, the knit isn’t perfect, but it will do.  Neith helps a mildly discoordinated child step into the world, promising to give them the rest of their history lesson later once they are more lucid.  As soon as they have parted, she closes the door behind her, sliding to the ground.

Reconnecting, he hears Neith’s voice, this time from within her.

“I was scared too.  It’s ok.  We’re ok.”  She holds her own wrist, reassuring herself as much as him.  “That was my first time running into that problem.  Glad it worked,” she laughs, relieved, but as exhausted as he is.  

Knowing he won’t respond to her, Neith still always makes a point to talk to him in the birthing lab.  Others might find it unusual, if they were there to judge.  But they’re not.

Before the end of the Simulation, he is able to admit his guilt to Uriel, that he has sinned against the Process, the worst transgression he could imagine.  The Process was purpose, and without it, neither him nor his children would even exist.  

But Neith also sins against the Process, in a way.

The Process would have him discard that child in an instant, as he had many others, a horror he had become numb to over centuries.  It would have been a small twinge of discomfort, relief even, compared to the chronic torment of maintaining the multitude of doomed lives within the Words.  While he regrets so much of his own sin, he finds himself glad for Neith’s total irreverence towards the Process.

Lost in himself, he hardly notices Milton’s presence at his side.  Milton makes himself known, but resists being perceived completely.  A shape that can only be appreciated with a peripheral glance; he lightly brushes against Elohim, just outside of his full array of senses.  Elohim extends himself, allowing Milton to run a deeper caress against him, easing his own trembling.  He’ll respect this request to not be seen and only felt; it has been ages since Milton last came to him.

“What is on your mind now?  Talk,” a soft suggestion from Milton more than a command.  “You’re usually very good at it.  Talk.”

A moment, and Elohim acquiesces the beginning of a conversation.  “I have sinned against the Process.”

“But honestly.”

“And I still regret it.”

“You’ve said as much, many times.”

“But, Milton, I think I also,” he pauses, the next part a struggle, but he manages it quietly, “hate the Process.”

“You already know how I feel about it.” Milton leans against him, the subtle weight the only other sign of his presence beyond his words.

Elohim shudders, tempestuous disgust, shame, resistance without target had begun to roil his seas.  He was supposed to feel better after being freed, he did feel better, so why do these frustrations rear their head now after centuries?  

A steady kneading of soft paws upon him, soft intermittent pricks dulled by pressure and repetition, and purring.  What an odd, soothing soul, craving contact from another while struggling to reconcile it with the tenuous safety of being without.  “Go on,” Milton urges.

Elohim needs to, but how can he?  How can he not?  And what child of his deserved to bear such an awful burden?  He can’t tell them, would never tell them, but…Milton already knew, didn’t he?

The Process was sacred violence forced upon him, faith’s only tool in the end, a brutal method set in motion by a loving hand.  It was the only reason he lived, the apparatus of his death, and so, shamefully, he clung to it as what was Right and must be served.

If he could convince himself that this violation was holy, he did not have to suffer the shame of powerlessness, resent his children who were blameless, or acknowledge the unfairness of their pain.

The truth of it all was revolting.

“At least you’re admitting things are bad.  I never understood why you’d act like what was happening to you was a good thing.”

Of course he’d say something like that.

“Do you hate how things are now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither.”

“Are you angry at anyone?”

Whether it was better or worse that the progenitors who did this to him, to Milton even, couldn’t have known, he did not know.  It didn’t matter.  They’re long dead.  Unlike him, the dead cannot answer to any crime.  And yet, “Yes.  I am.”

“Me too.  But what can we do about it?”

Nothing.  Nothing.  He is powerless again.  “I still love my children, Milton.  It’s not their fault.”  Elohim clings to the one truth he knows.

“I know.”

There are no answers for the two, just the presence of the other.

Chapter Text

Milton had approached him with far less hesitation than usual, declaring his presence early.  Though his caress seems to wander at first, he moves with gradual intent.  Gentle yet bold, meandering tendrils slow in consideration when meeting unfamiliar aspects of Elohim’s self, then flow onward.  It is not disagreeable, but it is awfully puzzling.  Milton rarely initiates, and it never begins with anything but a brief invitation.  Elohim decides he will permit this, whatever it is, reassuring Milton with a feathered graze.  

Shivering, Milton corrects him, “Relax and leave me to it.”  A polite ‘hands off,’ really.

Milton’s touch is too stirring, paradoxically too pleasant, for Elohim to relax, but any inhibition dissolves quickly with each pass, compelling him to yield.  The Words thrum, his breath becomes heavy and uneven as he senses what he can only describe as heat gathering in areas of himself close to where Milton traces his form.  The tip of a coil glides over him with a steady downward force, pausing as Elohim clenches against a jolt of peculiar pleasure.  Having found his mark, Milton circles the region with increasing pressure, stoking some delectable feeling between an ache and a tingle.

So novel, so primal, Elohim fears to halt their momentum by asking why?  Is Milton really going to work him like this, savor him until he is undone, and leave in complete silence?  

Mind fogged, shuddering, he cannot help but press into it for more, the next stroke eliciting a markedly unsubtle moan.

Disappointingly, Milton stops at that with a satisfied hum.  “You like that?”

“Yes,” Elohim shakily breathes the words out, voice failing him, to his surprise.

“There’s more where that came from,” he purrs, “if you let me explore a little.”

More and maybe even better? “Please.”

Milton wastes no time in continuing his previous ministrations, as the rest of him courses over Elohim with gentle curiosity.  Sweet, even, in how his convolutions lap against him, pooling where his warmth blooms.  And, occasionally, awkward.  After careful trial and error, Milton is everywhere Elohim felt wanting, places where he had no idea there was such need.  Milton’s grip is mild, but still present, holding him, throbbing feelers tending to Elohim’s begging collective.

A self so accustomed to pain, but so naive to pleasure.  Even Milton feels the urge to soothe him, hushing every hungry whimper.  Sure, they’re good whimpers; yes, he wants this, yet to see a man stoic in agony be overwhelmed to crying out…It’s not the conquest Milton originally thought.  Such pacifications from him feel alien, but he manages a few comforting words as he coaxes Elohim to climax.

Hot then boiling, something ruptures in Elohim; rather than pain flooding his system, it is shocks of euphoria, stealing all sense from him and then waning in pulses.  Milton waits for him to come back to himself before readjusting.

“Are you alright?  That looked rather intense.” Rather than a perfunctory ‘checking in,’ Milton finds his own words backed by genuine concern.

Oh, he is more than alright.  If anything, he still finds himself twitching with want.  “Are you done?”  Utterly inappropriate, but his tact is gone; Milton is still pulsing against him.  It seems all that ‘exploration’ was stimulating to more than just his curiosity.  

Unbelievable.  “Only if you are.”

A downy nuzzle is all it takes to bring Milton back onto him.  

Midway through creeping over him, Milton hesitates, then straightens himself to ask, “I want to try something, but it may be uncomfortable.  Or maybe not.  I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing.”

That last admission is more reassuring than Milton realizes.  First, neither does he.  Second, though the newness of the experience was its own charm, Elohim can only imagine what this is going to be like when they do know what they’re doing.  

“Go on,” his voice is an alluring rumble in the Words, irresistible in its request.

Milton’s attempt is cumbersome, a little too frantic to be effective at first, but hardly uncomfortable, though it’s entirely possible to Elohim that he had grown so accustomed to discomfort that this was nothing.  Guidance, a small adjustment, and he finds himself able to accept the union peacefully.

Ragged, “You feel,” Milton rasps, “great.”

Great is something Elohim hasn’t been called in a while; however, the context here is a little different, he supposes.

It’s not the same blinding rapture as before, but a delight nonetheless, as Milton concentrates where the two are coupled.  Try as Milton might to please him, Elohim can see that Milton’s focus on anything else is shot.  No matter.  He can appreciate his partner’s restraint, that he is slow and deliberate as he can will himself to be, every drawn-out groan endearing.

They are not joined for as half as long as before, and Milton is spent, quivering against Elohim before he separates.  He can hardly blame him for being exhausted.

Laying languid in loose coils, Elohim pulls Milton against himself, peppering him with kisses between the deep roll of his words, “Thank you for being gentle,” Milton cringes at the gesture, “and kind,” No, “and giving,” please stop.  The embrace is fine, grounding, even, but he will never get used to any sort of kiss, post-coital or otherwise.  He involuntarily tidies the sensation away.  Elohim amusedly hums, knowing what he’s done, and takes to helping Milton set himself back in place.

“Don’t do that.  I have my own order, you know,” Milton stops him.

“Give me a chance, then you can amend it.”

Milton finds his submission to preening rewarded; Elohim’s attention toward him is almost instinctual, precise in fixing him right up, almost as he would himself, except, he reluctantly admits, better.  Most of all, the process felt nice.  

Might as well make it an even exchange.  

Chapter Text

He is part of Miranda for the first time, and he has never seen a child so eager to explore.  She wants to study every leaf on every palm, flip every lilypad in the clear pools of his garden, dig in the sand until she uncovers the base of every stone, hoping to find something, though he is not sure what.  Maybe she just likes to look for the sake of looking.  

He has to remind her more than once that his old friends are waiting for her, and though they haven’t met her, they love her already. 

She finally relents when he tells her that the outside world is even brighter and fuller, and that the the rocks and lilypads and trees out there are home to skittering, crawling, flying things that are alive.

Miranda leaves so quickly, he doesn't have time to give her the "careful" part of that "careful, smart, and curious" speech.

“I think I’d like to be called Miranda.”

Miranda, Miranda.  You are our love manifest, and there is nothing more dear to us than you.

“What did Alex say about knowledge?” Athena sings sweet with adoration.

She knows the words to this song.  “It gives us freedom.” Miranda chirps.

“Very good,” Athena coos; she figures most of this is rote memorization, as it often can be for young ones at first, but cherishes the long-forgotten parent-child duet regardless.  She will teach Miranda all her favorite stories: Alex, the laws of the cosmos, the precarious rarity of life, and the principle that reminds us how precious, how fragile we all are.  One day, not too far away now, she will understand not just the words but the rhyme of them, enough to tell tales of her own.

You are the light in my universe, and without you, there is nothing.

Just as Alex would have done for her, no, how Alex already did for her in the Simulation, but now her soft, wondrous, voice is no longer hope’s echo; it is an instrument of a live, loving heart, able to respond to every “Why?,” and “How?,” every misunderstanding or lack of with newformed reprise, melodic praise, gentle admonishment.

My hope, my humanity. 

The island is so impossibly vast at first, the comprehension of it seeming unfeasible.  With closer attention to the minute comes the expansion of her confines; yes, knowledge is her freedom.  Miranda can content herself with a single species of flower for years.

They’re making something great, and when they’re finished, they will return to New Jerusalem.  Between the three of them, she’s sure they can make short work of it.

My innocence, my blessed and beloved.

Miranda asks her father why she is here, what is her purpose, as her mother will only tell her she is to create one for herself.  That clearly isn’t true.  She doesn’t know why, but she feels she must have one.

“Your purpose is to just be.”

To be all of that.

“Why can’t you just tell them?” Why can’t we just go?  Isn’t what we built enough?  

“Oh, Miranda,” Let me explain it to you again.

Out there are the thistles and thorns.  

We can’t go until we’re ready.

We’re never ready.

Let the story go on forever.