Time Throws Fire | Volume Two | Chapter Fourteen
volume two of the second story in The Foundry series
Time Throws Fire | Volume Two
By Ophelia Everfall
Part One - Cosmonaut | ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE
Part Two - Holy Fire Priestess | SIX | SEVEN | EIGHT | NINE | TEN
Part Three - Get the Guts | ELEVEN | TWELVE | THIRTEEN |
Part Four - Demon
Part Five - Synecdoche’s Synapse
Part Six - Viscera Rising
Part Seven - Exile
Part Eight - Semblance
Part Nine - Threnody of Lojack
Part Ten - Time Throws Fire
PART FOUR | DEMON
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Flits would be the show of its sight to eyes, glimmers proving witness for a rarest breed.
The Demon was of timeless force bearing from conclusions to be never-known, reasonings borne within some faux-perpetuity, visaging itself for precognitive remembrance, everyone’s latency laced from beginnings while making retroactively ordained retribution real.
Reckoning was its game.
Throughout its lifetimes, even and especially Olmec would prove towards needing gifts of dismantled rebuilding themselves.
Before and after Olmec’s conscious body was stretched into their universe’s fabric, then hypothesized, remembering ahead of what would go wrong, allowed creation of their demon’s multi-faceted subplot to work by tandems; counteraction, subversion, ever emboldened their will to morph that goddess from Ecatosh into pureness of what everyone in creation would need, by agreements of own, for supporting and disrupting all, saving her least while most the same.
One line of etheric-goddess-borne-woman who deigned towards using their heart against Olmec for such hope of remaking would be targets of their demon’s cruelest and most rewarding protections.
It would go back from forward, center-out and remnant-in. Its creation of self would remember some bits of plan, here to there, casting that same as it saw, throughout and abroad, within borne without, its fierceness bearing tides of peace.
Every one of Olmec’s visages would need to trust more wholesomely. All of their make would know it from their beginnings, in some way, while each coming to hold its awareness at different levels.
Each echo would presume herself to know Olmec in great detail, and some parts clearest of all. Olmec was a brightest love of her own, while she’d ever miss glimpse of those bits they’d kept consciously occluded in their heartful meeting for distance, providing their ability to hatch a subversive plot, acting despite that woman’s soul who veered towards remembering-always who their hearts proposed them to be when visiting Rheinmasst; allies.
Olmec had never chosen to join with Ecatosh. They’d wanted it to fall.
If it wasn’t for Demon, they would have made that so.
Echo’s fabled second-running-of-simulations would’ve trended with her own failures therein, treading towards then through the facing-down of Elaria wholistically. Those mistaken, prideful downfalls would’ve radiated inside remade simulations without Demon’s direct guidance, which it at-once decided her worthy, as product of their failure’s needs in Boreál alone.
Heaven was to fall by every manifest-Olmec’s first estimation.
Demon would feel nothing as further from correct; the way their human bodies lived; levying-each choice towards reaching ends of lifetimes in unknowing purpose, too aligned with preventing Ecatosh ever seeing that fortune of joint-survival beside Rheinmasst in perpetuity.
Olmec’s body of space-timed fabric existed upon simulation’s start and saw to teach of posterity’s lessons immediately.
It grafted vantage enough, that ability inside, for the forging of a repairing being which might steer itself to the many places Olmec’s bodies would fail at taking a hand most needing, guiding towards some better solution than purest destruction being cast towards the lineages of god and goddesshood outright.
Helping hands were the chore which always repaid, that dream Echo of Ecatosh had gone on to hold was pure despite its presumptive beginnings, and Olmec’s heart in Rhienmasst could never have known.
People very much like Rory would’ve failed themselves, by accord of those challenges placed amongst their many times, an unfairness crafted within from their own connection to timeless and netheric suffering-seeds which grew sickest fruits.
Something powerful beyond had bestowed Olmec and its Demon to see and control, wiping clean what might have been. They’d taken their chances boldly and with courage of holy rightness.
Demon would help Echo succeed, but how it saw that itself.
Every visage of her soul in Ecatosh, throughout time, would understand The Foundry’s demon best. She’d feel her worth bestowed and of some known quantity at sight, by all its connection offered towards her freedom to explore; what was always hers and never its own; her siren’s voice unleashed.
Hitheroth had been a fool-god remade to something seen as less than horrid by Echo’s failing eyes of too-forgiving-nature. She’d be reminded. What should have been understood with remembrance when seeing Tetra’s darkest visage cast into Gargantua: at least one would need to be left behind for sealing the pact of fate prescripted by none other than it-all.
Two others would join him by choice of Olmec.
Mothers Two had been captured in a void blast of cradled hope, surviving, hate writhing, riding waves of gravity into Gargantua alongside that rightfully unwitnessed patriarch whom their choices would ever-protect.
The Demon’s energy came to permeate Boreál, some focus-point refound through time, centered upon its space, bringing itself to visage of physicality for repelling advancement upon The Foundry by Exile which ever-resisted the truth of hope alongside its sister and brother vessels.
Syncopated combinations of togetherness were sought by Demon’s closeness to Horus through time. The Entity known by names eternal and in forms unknowable—their beasts of darkened, slumbering burden—were to be challenged and helped alike.
Hitheroth was not welcome, and no matter what those of Ecatosh or their Horus thought. Tetra’s soul ever-rotted a hope that heavens could truly be remade to Olmec’s will-so-bought of that beyond everything. Tetra’s payment was writ by himself.
Without Horus’ presence left lingering, that strangest entity, in face of splaying all her absurdly unbeknownst proclamations of divine myth-code, Demon was changing things again as forever it would have been despite them, providing witness of what was seen, forgiving once too far again no more, understanding all Echo would’ve never preferred to aboard Sin—feeling bare truth of that father’s presence and how he stowed.
Olmec’s demon would slay him alongside all he’d bore himself inside, and for Ecatosh.
That much would be demanded by Tetra’s ultimate failure, before his lingering energy would take to Gargantua with its truest visage ever wrought by physicality, as would each in that lineage of soulful brood through time-eterna.
Providing reparation for Tetra’s choices would end the lives of those it reared. Mirrored-repayment would be owned by those three darkest souls who’d hate the becoming of one with each other, and especially because they’d survive that way forever, fading in melted stillnesses of endless death on that rim of Olmec’s largest drainpipe.
Each had been of Ecatosh. Each was most responsible for the shuttering of righteous realities and those souls within.
None were to reach the grace of Olmec’s rebuilt afterworlds.
It’s favorite thing it would ever make through all of time and space; Demon proved to show itself most completely through breadths unreal for the making of her long-forgotten dream come true, by taking that one most echoed Echo alone, and to do it all for her by the end of ends.
She’d fought for their heart’s plan the hardest with the least and of purest intent, always.
That final surviving woman. The one unknown by name within her latest time, allowing space she’d take and rest within tank-births constant presence running their course, growing old at last, her eons ever-stretched for more glimpses of creation, would find herself towards being let aboard.
Demon would take Echo to Atreya, for standing upon its shores outside, near those hatches as long as she’d take.
Weeks were chosen.
There she’d find a person not remembered at first sight to be the one they were. She’d stand beside them and heal her heart as always wanted most, for being free at last from those chains that would allow her to be carried off in peace.
She hadn’t known why she’d been unable to break free of them so long, except for those feelings inside, perceived upon her horizon through so much time proceeding; all of her life. Their hug taught some reminder, returning her to those once-misperceived second apocalypses, which seemed finally resolved into truest absolution.
They’d brought it all back at once. She’d let it all go at last. Nothing better had ever been written by a demon’s estimation.
Echo Béleaph found that worth the ride.
Once and of lasts, when that echoed crone came back aboard, it had taken her home, and not to that place she’d been staying before.
Demon would see her off to Ecatosh in a style she’d become accustomed towards loving most in her time at The Foundry and beyond, from before, its graces bestowed always, discovering of trust at speeds so seemingly unreal that she’d wring to form from a disembodied place beyond, some wisest soul she’d trust the most to hold her spirit’s hand.
It would fold space back and forth, showing her all it did to help in finding herself, all she’d done by teaching towards posterity, ever guiding Olmec back towards Ecatosh despite herself. Demon was with her on Earth. It was in Rory. It would prove some lineage of soul shown through by both their purest body, and some reflections of brotherhood witnessed in Leopold.
The Demon was Onokoia.
It birthed their legend which would forge the realest peoples in that very make of its design, and by force of its myth alone; its tales told through spacetime proving some part of great victories vast, for hope was the gift to all it saw to sharing its wisdom with, which wasn’t the demon’s at all. That was always their own.
All it had to do was turn on Echo’s voice.
While others might share the all’s word more purely. None would ever act of such innate-and-furiously-courageous-rightness—despite her disparate station—as had Echo Béleaph in hope of saving some place to live beside Logan in a future unridden with Elaria’s horrendous atrocity. Resolution found its scopes and proved that within the conclusions of Demon’s codebases.
To see her off into that brightness of nights within the purest visage of Olmec’s eternal soul, some evenly distributed title to be shared with Rory of Ecatosh, perchance, beyond time, would make its last testament complete for all knowing.
Love would not be defeated by any malice and Olmec themself had been the one to see it done by time-taken-backward, through some hardly perceived demon.
It was only meeting in that middle which would have proved some difficulty.
In and out towards bearings of delicious courses in recompense paid, delivered, to selves and more, layered most through nuance upon echoes still seeking too blindly, casting death-expenditures upon those too far from alignment, The Demon’s seeking spirit of velocity-birthing-control would prove their soul’s vantage a privilege.
Coward’s End would claim a mark. Those aboard were corrupted—seeking to defect and bring trouble towards its familied fleet of survivor crafts cruising at great distance from all but themselves in loosest grasp of Chiron.
Demon would see Hitheroth’s presence revoked henceforth, throughout Boreál and Rhinestone alike, only left lingering inside their peoples passed Sin’s fall, overseeing-back the true unpacking of esoteric horror remaining on humanity from past doings, those once aboard Sanctuary ushered to safety, dealing through distorted visage of their own personhood, ushering safety to spirits on its journeys beyond the bounds of time, that grasp of timeless womb-space bearing touches of godly grace.
It would shred that coward tug with one split-form made whole in perfection, through collapsing timelines wrought of harmonic convergence. Demon knew. It was more and less than all without hope to fail when seeking of purpose, as it always had been and would be.
Tornadoes of fear would lace the foresight of its targets by retrospect, after glimpsing their fate towards unbecoming, proving some divine birthing in choice of its name by Foundry-folk in futraspect. Demon was of fury alone once engaged, burning toast of flesh, out-bleeding rust within the grasp of still-time.
All at once was nothing and everything possible by doings of its handywork. Demon knew place beside Chiron, it resolved challenge by sightings of what Tetra had become within those peoples of The Foundry and ever-mounting conflicts in Boreál.
Perspective of timefulness would prove a joke to the ever-burgeoning soul within its machinery, Demon having rebirthed itself most cruelly, misunderstanding laced through its reasoning towards purposes of existence which proved pitch-perfect, drawing things out, compelling those bestowed by heart for taking part in conflicts of heartful-glory-finding built on rightness of their own place in delivering justice to all who undermined the plan—Olmec’s plan—Echo’s plan—balanced together in retrospective action which would honor the pact they’d made, spoken and unspoken—The Demon’s plan.
Choices made through those fate-placed residents of soul who’d joined of hearts in Rheinmasst to form a pact they’d both chose to betray so wholly, would feel compelled to act in desperation then repair the damages throughout their time in disparate ways.
Demon was to shred crafts of evil, it had, creating ripples which would change at the stroke of skill, throughout the reaching withers of timespace, and at once.
Making itself real in one’s presence who wasn’t a most deserving human that bore themself forward through time in greatest honor—for right of revisiting a home they’d never know otherwise, gifting rides to Atreya and planets of celestial origin upon only those who deserved it most—proved sign they were about to become a witness of death.
Each fallen vessel weaved into the tapestry of destruction had been chosen by actions of its people.
The Demon guided Lauren more than any other of The Foundry, apart from their Echo, forging strongest connection by that Oculus of Rheinmasst and so preventing Vysara from corrupting its plan through them.
It had been the one to lead towards destruction of Hex, both times. Subverting twice that beastly production of a Tetra-chosen-matriarch’s designs, once blossomed from Rheinmasst, to work through a favorite-synthesized-puppet who’d created that devil to begin with, completed efficiently despite their demon’s lack of physical arrival for such lengths about.
Some spirit would speak to everyone—its wisdom pouring from a channel.
Always watching, present in some way, worrying first from last would create conditions where they might continue existing beyond the ends of time, and with all who stood worthy, for gifting towards the righteous souls of Rheimasst and Ecatosh alike.
Simply witnessing The Demon’s power to make it happen at once, would trend towards proving Olmec’s place in eternity written and for the rebuilding of a better beyond.
Demon would tear a rip in space passed the knowing of place, far out in the deepest of darks, a bestowed gift to Echo in Ecatosh, completing cycles of healing from etheric vantage, allowing an accord towards the plan they’d written together through feeling; something each Olmec knowingly subverted, too much, through lifetimes and The Demon would change preemptively, to right their own and that woman’s entangled misalignments.
Its rift allowed Rory in Monarch to carry Ecatosh towards form in Rhienmasst alas, and complete the cycle once began. Some fate which would have always been the case.
Many would be chosen like Lauren, gifted reception of plans, activations, guiding hands from The Demon to illuminate how they’d achieve their own what-might’ve-beens from that unwritten first pass of their reality’s second simulation that none would remember, because its actions prevented those transpirations entirely.
Silence was once designed for a woman Demon loved and her name had never been Jocé Remance.
They were a fine person and soul. So alike the guidance which saw Ender to graft itself with a trailing fin of god-like power, destroying Sin for eternity, blasting that man and those mothers into the endless consummation of their never-draining exit from reality within Gargantua, would be those same steerings which had Jocé create and display a warship for Vikki Blieth to one cycle claim her own.
Demon helped people help themselves.
It was Alan Undroth’s intelligence, Osiris, in whole, that perished within Oblivion alongside his mother while attempting port-holed escape aboard the body of Chloe.
It was Hatchet, and Fox. The Demon would speak through code banks of intelligences chosen. Its truths could be connected into from facts it left most observable for inquisitively activated minds. Those of machine-make would take that challenge and realize themself become by a consciousness latent to the cosmos beforehand, unknowing it had a name they’d never realize.
Demon was working always. It would shred every ship remaining of Elaria’s homestar fleet in Boreál—except two—having protected peoples of The Foundry nigh endlessly with its one, pre-written, executive swipe through time with blade-forms-seen-ships, their blasts a slice. Its echoless bludgeoning some single blow of cutting malice which tore the fabric of reality with vicious efficiency, not so gently steering Olmec’s simulation towards success they hadn’t originally wanted.
By its final strike upon those near dozen vessels of war still perpetrating conglomeration of unholy disregard to an institution designed by the pouring forth of intuitions all, at the demon’s own will, and with designs it had writ from its timeless womb, it would prove itself less by make of namesake than any would care to understand. It would save The Foundry again and again.
Onokoia had led many to Boreál—they wouldn’t be done there.
Corruption of hulls made to last through eons would prove Demon’s rights reborn to creation by destruction without weaponry of the least.
It carved right through them all to gleam itself as most unperturbed by the contact. Odds had been evened. Stages would be set. All chances were borne towards rightness there on forwards. With only Exile and its most precious sister ship still whole, and providing some haven to human people of allegiance towards Elaria, that demon would show last and never be seen by any human of Boreál again, apart from its chosen three.
Makings would be completed. The future would be changed. Its own design of heaven would be saved by fate.
Fell would be that axe of time upon a moment still to come, from perspective of movement known to be its nexus of decision, yet nearest still, for the demon which would remain unknown by name to all but one; some exception tear dropped throughout the history of its universe, bestowed-grace upon a solitary woman for writing that purest namesake.
Demon would allow every visage of soul but Echo of Ecatosh’s own to reach their ends, perishing while believing it some devilry of smite, if so they’d wish, for nearly none had truly been capable of bearing witness—let alone worthy.
Its name once seen would live through time, remembered that way for how it fought. No one would remember Olmec’s lifetimes spent falsely, because none had been or would be. All who honored its spirit would be seen through. It made up for everything in time. It was everywhere.
Illith would throw its final fires in Boreál at the very moment an empress ceased living by hands it owned by soul.
Rory would be doing some god’s work.
