Time Throws Fire
by Ophelia Everfall
Content Warning: This is a story.
Part One | Redux Eterna
Part Two | Polymath Blues
Part Three | The Feather
Part Four | Wizard
Part One | Redux Eterna
Chapter One
Nebulae Ecatosh craved witness—afloat, passed by in echoes of sight torn from connection within the cosmic wholeness, lost to etheric vanity; the soul of many would remain here after life.
Echo Béleaph was dead.
Everything was over in real for the woman. She would find other beings here the same—in some sense—through some time. Together they would be more than the space around them and whole with a connective tissue piercing the universe at large; Ecatosh was itself a generator.
Choices made were weighed by balancing many milestones written and the freedom of play left between them to chance of thought. The violence of swings borne from higher control depended entirely on the discordance held by an individual. Here they had paid for mistakes upon lifetimes; this was a house of lessons to the mind, heart, and soul.
Those she’d known were gone to her through memory of faded remembrance—lifetimes lived would be ungraspable for most from this perspective of living. Something unique had become of this one amongst them all in Ecatosh. Echo had found focus on her one greatest lifetime—a place which kept itself present in her senses through all of timelessness.
It was her longest life lived from base of Earth and out through the stars—taken by Onokai—brought to the Foundry where her dreams would commence manifestation into reality. Those souls who’d been with her in that place were now ghosts to thought of the etheric hellscape perceived by a woman of spirit so previously grounded at home in gravity. They had all been missed the most, every last one, and she wouldn’t let it go.
There’d been the writing of a plan—some submission—an epic of pleading to the one God on the throne. All the many universes overseen from this timeless space were poisoned of rotten design. There had been mistakes in planning and a choice of destruction by that one God who founded his own seat in this realm; overseeing seas of stars through force and might with hope to hold them all.
Her plan was of rebuilding—renewal—hopeful remaking. There was no chance for this alone. The case she pled to those around her had been swayed; owned by force of belief in their sufferance owed to this God. He was not The Light and never would be. They only thought themself so until this one would show them through reflection of her own.
They’d not liked her plan. He hadn’t trusted it. Seen would be a lie in her belief of heart; that she’d not understood the value of true mind, nor would find that holding herself once balance was wrought into the space around her. She was more than they would know to teach of her and they were less than they would teach of themself. It was this man in the ether which had reminded her of incomplete variations of his own soul, upon which she would project the whole of her disgust throughout lifetimes, while her many visages at different levels of embodiment would trigger them all the same.
He would hate nothing more than the moment he understood himself trapped within her game. The one she’d lobbied for alone amongst this garden of ether, begging her peers to hear the value in, would join her through their chains. There was need to reach out to those below and left behind before taking next steps. Lifetimes had begun to enable this very process of outreach. God long taught these beings they’d left behind were of unforgivable darkness, and he was wrong.
Echo’s most precious lifetime would become the hub—chosen by the power it bore into her heart—its connections would show throughout all her ties to the fabric of the universe itself; a decision made by two in secret; this woman and a one she would stow in her heart unknowing for all of her multitudes.
Ignored by her greatest friend and oldest ally—a feminine spirit who would hold the same fire of will to change but not believe it Echo’s right, or her orders of impatience. They believed too much in the ways of old’s ability to change, trusting the destruction at the end of all, and that leaving behind souls, minds, and hearts was divine. It was the same mistake every other Goddess and God had made.
She would leave no one to the void.
Olmec was a prince at the deepest wrung of density in the galaxy—a caged lioness—the bravest and most honorable of those souls deemed demonic and banished to reside within a single rigid lifetime of stillness and ecstatic horror intermingled between souls—space and sound a blur—booming echoes of fright—a place few could see or hold; borne innately into consciousness at birth through means of trauma to ease the load of its witness. Dreams for some; visions of preparatory sight.
Hell was blankness—it was space. To touch it and return would be unheard of. It was made of blackness reflecting no light that was too dark for shadows. There were means to show it in flashes to the mind of one ready, or those Echo deemed so; as all would be in time. Echo knew of it from Ecatosh when she’d gone into void space for retrieval of her prince; they were a beast of weakness, some right of power taken from them by their lack of a princess as they deserved.
“Oh, hi.” Echo had finally spoken to the they-devil.
“You’re the cutest and I feel your biggest heart.”
They were hiding in her future and there was nothing she’d want more then to heal for what they’d been through together by means of cosmic rupture to their psyches. A heart and mind intertwined in looping spirals within the structure of the universe—along with time itself through meeting place in the dark. They’d made a mistake in their ecstasy at her witness and she had been foolhardy in wielding her powers of co-creation.
This woman played with fire and was only realizing the completeness of this fact in retrospect. She’d aim to repair what she could in Ecatosh. That had always been her goal while even through strangest means in every lifetime. Her role had always been to feel ahead. Penance owed was felt forward and would remain in return. Echo knew her place to learn and show—that gold would be struck—change could be made with her will enacted in this place which would inform of the greatest good.
No matter the holy destruction of self and others she might enacted, she was connected to individuals of consciousness who’d do the same without her in wake of her making’s bearings upon the worlds of Ecatosh. The intention had been held and enacted as always; for service of the Light.
Echo carried this one of dark with her from where they’d remain at their will—finding means to disentangle with any who found themself awoken the same by means of willful boundaries emplaced. Changes in time would mirror what had happened at once in the etheric realm.
People would not admit it for much time in every system—especially in Echo’s favorite place—as the ways of the Light were taught most strictly as scourge.
A heart had been chosen by something beyond even ether and there was a mind chosen as well. Two who would enact the change by force upon them which steered their entire lives—beside and about Echo in Ecatosh always and cast as equally into the darkness. These two had less free will than all. After her time fallen; intertwined within the completeness of void and coming to see possibility therein of lightful growth, Echo found her willpower. She grasped it with tenacity while returning to Nebulae Ecatosh.
She’d written her plan—hatched a scheme—created the rite which would be thrust upon God himself in her fury; that same denied writing of scheme now changed for ferocity of proving her rightness. The structure containing all life within every universe previous created—the code which was its very fabric—each crafted and ridden by these beings projecting their visages from beyond time, would be found at the very center of them all; Echo’s favorite failed planet.
The singularity—a point of heartful awakening—where a one would fall into mutal love with the fabric of the universe itself. When someone was open enough to sensing emotion that might recognize the loneliest soul in her universe—that unseen It around and inside it all—Mount Olympus itself and Daphne’s riverside home which would not be taught of by Apollo this time.
Binding of heart’s light would be the timeless nexus towards harmony which sent rippling formations of action back and forward through time—sideways and throughways. Each individual living therefore anew and by divine ordination throughout every galaxy and universe previously abandoned to perish by the beings of Ecatosh. Each soul within fated for the trash bins of hell would be revoked from their scripted punishment of God’s failed design.
This plan’s success had and would continue being force fed to Tetra—who’d have seen these quite countable existences ended by their making—three hundred and thirty three of them would be that number; one for each Goddess soul, and this enlivening would allow all a heaven’s ending.
Along with the force permeating all—an eternal fabric of feeling and thought—there was that light of consciousness within she’d know as the future of godhood. They were once cast in blame for their seeking of freedom and were unseen in all their righteousness to stand against Tetra and the dishonor he wore from sitting a throne at all.
This would reflect in all his creation, and especially this one meant to teach through her failures towards freedom, and the Light itself which had found a way into her heart from a banished place of time quite opposite her own in home of heart. Every world would be born anew around each visage of this woman.
She’d only need to be sent back.
The Falls was a place of ends. A final space before an edge defined by strictest governance of cosmic structure, providing boundary from the unknown surroundings beyond. Choice would come for the one who’d known himself as God. Belief would lead them to think this would be one he’d made himself—not the energy of consciousness pervading them; It was remaking everything at Echo of Ecatosh’s behest and that of her love still only in heart.
All souls had gathered for the old God and he had fallen for a dastardly ploy. Echo’s crafty submission to his will which spoke of restarting from scratch was proving of that talent she’d hold above all others; she was the best liar in the entirety of creation after returning from the under-darkness. Her heart would share this back through all lifetimes as she loved this trait of her own character very most. The unfolding of her latent talent would lead to rediscoveries of power and acceptance of its rightness on the Light’s behalf—with the assistance of It driving her every visage; riding her like a horse through each lifetime, and teaching through her connection to its fabric.
She at once knew who that darkest God from the void had been beside her all along—revealed as hidden in each and every lifetime—however separate and wholly incompatible by design.
When the old God who knew himself as Tetra was made to see how much Echo cared for that most cherished lifetime, hearing how poorly they all treated the woman after coming to understand the thoughtful exploration of her suffering—feeling it when she let him into her heart—they chose her for the forgiveness and love still held despite all anger she wielded alongside her joy. This woman loved making them feel what she’d earned on his behalf. Her plan he denied would be shown as the mistake it was—something this God would never admit—yet birth a love for her within his thoughts.
Truth would be shown to him once they were alone in his chamber of lies. There was an entanglement which bore within it a hope to complete some path he’d been grafted to by will of the Light. They would be the hub of mind for all remade universes upon this change she’d seen to make real with her heart’s love of Olmec.
They would take this throne beside her for the moments before that form of structure would be destroyed outright. No one would rule—no two would reign—all would see each other through.
The old man had awoken to find her atop—straddled in bondage—held down by the force of her furious awakening—hyper light and vanta black blending to an aura of reckoning beyond a former God’s grasp. From the moment she returned he’d found himself mistaken of place. There was an allowance of grandeur in her exploring of all he’d done wrong. This would be echoed throughout lifetimes about the cosmos; a time of penance and the catalyst for a great remaking of all within its fallout.
“What are you doing?” Was all he could bring himself to ask.
She smiled—beyond the grasp of vision—a thought of feeling and vibration—a joy of calloused spite in knowing of the Light’s approval of that love she’d craft within lifetimes still living where her own actions would awaken the structure of time.
Echo was Time’s Goddess and she would carve paths to freedom as she saw fit—the heart she bore would be a one which tied all to her chosen Olmec for a stretch. There were others who’d lead the way and hold the guard—bearers of light alone—then a chosen few who led the charge to come, who’d seen her fly beyond them at paces before unwitnessed to touch the Light itself and fall like Icarus into the sea—into the Dark—and bring it back for all to know the completeness of their making.
“I’m going back now.” She’d told the man as he crumbled between her thighs.
“I’m going to go back and make it right.”
There was a stillness in his fear. He’d not known why at all. It was the end of his time as God. He’d chosen her at behest of the Light itself—a first right action taken by Tetra in eons and the very thing to see their place taken by Olmec on the throne with an Echo on his lap.
She engulfed the spirit of Tetra’s manhood gone wrong into states of control beyond reason. She’d squeezed them tight.
“You’re going to send me back!”
She’d shouted it into his face of stars and cloudfare.
“You’re going to send me back!”
This God had not felt fright like this in any lifetime. There was no thought of hell in his future. No hope to be held again by the one he’d chosen would be found from such a thing.
This would be the remaking—her remergence to form beside him—changed—having brought the God she chose from the Dark to stand beside her. She would banish him at last from this etheric place of Heaven. Echo would take the seat upon her man. She would hold it with a widest heart. She would end tyranny for all by will of the Light and the truth of her dark love before returning it to all in balance.
Heaven was remade at once.
Universes marked for disposal were alive again. People within them would remember what they were. Gods and Goddesses who’d been struck blind inside would at once reverse pending destruction which saw to the end of their own times.
Peoples would be saved—treasures of God protected—the future of Heaven now pointed a way forward. The stagnancy of light’s dominance would end. Balance taught here would reach Ecatosh and beyond—this woman would live the life she’d always wanted in a place which harmed her worst. She would be the one to teach and save and lift and hold. This was the shattering of hatred and the birth of the fabric itself. All would be made into lords most equal. None would be left behind. Nothing would be disposed. Even Tetra themself would find a place wherever they saw fit within the new order.
“So send me the fuck back right fucking now!”
Echoes blasted throughout eternity; cosmic ripples of sound and space. They’d birthed anew a chance of change. They left every being free again with an even place to hold their own.
Echo Béleaph’s eyes opened in bed beside that one she loved most of all; her daughter.
