Elysium, CH.7: Time

The same information can present as many different meanings as the perspectives that view it.

 

*~*

 

With Eden leading the charge, Ilias found herself pulled along a pleasure-filled cruise of luxury. Banquets, sweet desert delicacies, wondrous massage parlors, raunchy backroom quickies; full-throttle orgies and free-roaming sex; the numerous little possibilities swam by. The Goddess followed along, treated by their passions and desires, and she indulged in her own just as much.

 

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Two weeks later …

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Simple things never ceased to astonish Ilias.

 

For one such as her, the infinites of space and time, as well as its denizens, demanded a sort of attention far beyond almost anything else’s comprehension. Her angels could come close, but theirs was an order of difference nonetheless. And, yet, despite such vastness, it was the tiniest parts of existence that demanded the most attention—the tiniest parts that gave meaning and purpose.

 

These thoughts and more clouded Ilias’ mind as the breakneck partying winded down. Though they continued to some degree, a reprieve in solitude had felt necessary. As much solitude she could manage, at least. Ilias looked down to Eden, half-awake and clinging to her chest. The tall trees of a partly-grown forest dotted around them, offering a measure of privacy, even with all the loud cries and boisterous chatting happening not too far away.

 

In spite of everything, it felt normal. Happy, even.

 

Ilias had been surprised by that as well.

 

“Eden,” she called out, absent mindedly.

 

The angel stirred and looked up, ears straightening up from their rest. “Yes, Your Grace?”

 

“I think I’ve reached a decision.”

 

“As to … what?”

 

“The mortals.”

 

A dark look passed through Eden’s eyes, for such a minute frown is all it could be called.

 

Ilias saw it, nonetheless. “There is nothing left for us to do, right now,” she continued unabated. “Were I to bring my full weight without control over darkness, the gray world would collapse into Heaven, so I cannot. My angels lay in discord and ruin, far too gone to stop Alipheese’s opening attacks. We could muster something to stem the bleeding, but …”

 

The Goddess sighed, and using her free hand, waved aimlessly at the sunless sky overhead. “It doesn’t make any sense to be involved.”

 

“But that would be certain doom for them,” Eden offered with reluctance. “We surely cannot ignore it?”

 

“And here I thought you would sound overjoyed,” Ilias remarked dryly.

 

“I despise them wholly, Your Grace,” Eden affirmed. “I simply know how important they are to You.”

 

How brutal, yet touchingly honest.

 

“No, in over extending to help them, we would only doom ourselves as well. The answer to this may lay in a mortal hero.”

 

Eden didn’t make an attempt at hiding her disgust. “Another one?”

 

“Language, Eden,” Ilias chastised, more out of old habit than any real intent. The angel bowed her head all the same. “Luka cannot comprehend the abominations he courts. He sees an oppressed, ill-fated people, unaware of their cancerous nature. Humanity will perish eventually—through bloodshed and war, or by simply being outbred by them. By the time the Heavens are ready again, it may already be too late.”

 

Ilias golden wings fluttered irritably. “To say nothing of Alipheese being freed. I am certain she will be soon, now that there is nothing in place to keep the dark essence from growing out of control. With their master returned, the monster horde will coalesce once again, and that will be the end.”

 

“How would we find such a hero to fight the dark god?” Eden asked, shifting on Ilias’ chest to look at her better.

 

“… I don’t know. I can’t sense any one worthy on their world. One may not even arise from the gentle death promised by Luka and his monster kind.”

 

The Goddess didn’t want to entertain such a grim reality, that all of humanity will eventually be subsumed. They, like her angels, pursued life in such wonderfully beautiful, unique ways. For better or worse, she could ask nothing more than to watch them rise to the challenges of living and dying.

 

Not be eaten like common cattle.

 

“I can do nothing but watch and wait, Eden,” Ilias declared with finality, sagging into the bedding. “I would rather lose them than any more of my angels, if I must.”

 

“Your Grace …”

 

Ilias looked down from the sky to Eden’s troubled face. “I’m sorry, you shouldn’t be burdened by my decisions.”

 

“No!” Eden refuted in an instant, sitting up with such speed even Ilias was shocked. “I am quite fine with them! I do not want …” Eden trailed off, seemingly coiling back inside of herself.

 

“You don’t want what?”

 

The seraph straightened her wings at the commanding tone. “I do not want You to be burdened by them. We have spent millenniums already doing so, and still they are no better for it. That is … that is all. I just want us all to go back to how things were before.”

 

Before.

 

There were four of them, then. Her, Eden, Micaela, and Lucifina.

 

Before any others, there were the four of them, and then two left. Life never really went back to that idyllic home they had, all those years ago. Looking back on such old memories, Ilias could scarcely believe they’d once been real, and not some feverish dream.

 

It is like that then, isn’t it? Ilias wondered. She wrapped her arms around the seraph and pulled her close, snug into a heavenly hug. Those six wings drooped around them as Eden eased into her. “I’m sorry, Eden,” she whispered, half her face buried in the angel’s hair. “I’ve dragged you through terrible things, haven’t I?”

 

“Nothing I would not do again for You,” Eden mumbled back.

 

Without any answer coming to mind, Ilias hugged her close. They laid there, neither one moving to speak again for some time, busied by their own thoughts. It would be Ilias who broke the silence later with a rather curious tone.

 

“There is something that bothers me, still.”

 

“Hmm?” Eden hummed.

 

“The inhibitor towers were perhaps the greatest weapon against the Heavens ever made … and Tamamo simply lets them go? I don’t believe Alipheese’s foremost lieutenant doesn’t understand their value.”

 

“Perhaps she feared them being used against the Dark God?”

 

“I cannot imagine how, she holds the field in its entirety.”

 

“Destroying the towers, then, is entirely detrimental …”

 

“… and throwing away a clear advantage for Alipheese,” Ilias finished for Eden. They both squinted at each other in thought, neither quite seeing the other.

 

“That damnable fox,” Ilias groused, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

 

“What shall we do now, then, Your Grace?”

 

“The only thing we can do. Rebuild and wait for whatever comes tomorrow.”

 

“Then, if it is no trouble, may I take care of that? I would love for You to rest.” Eden didn’t quite meet Ilias’ eyes then, instead focusing on her two fingers poking together embarrassedly.

 

The Goddess chuckled and reached down with her hand, sinking her fingers into Eden’s soft butt. “Oh, very well then, my seraph.”

 

*~*

 

Humans would eventually confuse something called ‘the Big Bang’ as the beginning of the universe. Were it not so charmingly ignorant, I might correct them.

-Promestein

 

*~*

 

THE END

 

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