//------------------------------// // Intermission: Kefka's Domain // Story: Alpha and Omega // by Revel Montaro //------------------------------// Chaz took a moment to look at his fine fur covered hand before running it through his shoulder length white mane. He never needed to worry about his appearance. Why would he? The only other creature in this sacred place was his sister and she was blind. Sometimes he would manifest a cloak or a cape or skirt... was it a kilt when it was for males? Did it really matter? Chaz shrugged and shook his head. Still, some of the behaviors and antics of the mortals translated through to his work on the tapestry and he could not help but wonder what a beautiful mare or handsome stallion would think of him. Did he have a preference? Perhaps something exotic and non-equine? Female dragons were powerful and their physical strength was often matched by their fiery personalities. Or perhaps a griffon? Were their feathers and cat hair as soft and silky as he had skimmed others speak of? They both had claws that were similar to his hands. Perhaps he would just make himself look like an ordinary earth pony just to see what it was like. Though that would make it harder to work. “You’re getting distracted again, silly.” Chaz smirked and chuckled a bit. His sister was right of course. Not that he needed to say that. “I find myself often pondering the world on the other side after having to sew in so many fates so quickly. You know how it is.” Belldandy nodded, causing her long black mane to swish about a bit. She understood completely. Though she never slept, never ate, never needed to sit down as their pocket realm provided everything they needed, she too sometimes felt a compulsion to mimic the habits and gestures of the mortals. A side effect of having a finger in all of their lives from the very beginning even if they did not know it. “Agreed. Major events effecting so many lives at once. So many different strings to pull all at once. I would fear of making a mistake if not for the fact that I know you have my back and the loom will feed it all correctly.” “Does it ever make you sad? The work that we do, I mean.” Belldandy tapped her chin in mock contemplation. “Hmmmm. No. Not that I have ever felt, anyway. There are too many of them to individually worry about and they are gone so quickly afterwards. Most of them at least. Seriously though, that old question again? Talk to me, brother. What is going on with you?” “Sometimes the old questions need to be asked again. For instance, how do you never get your mane tangled in the threads?” “Magic. Duh. Stop dodging me.” “I just… I am again curious what it’s like. What the world is really like, what meeting them would be like instead of just sewing their stories. What does their world smell like? What does a hay burger taste like? What is it like to fall in love or touch another intimately? As you said, just old questions. I know you have thought about it too.” “Of course I have and we HAVE talked about this.” Belldandy felt a break and allowed herself a moment to turn to where she knew her brother was standing. Where he was always standing. “Remember, what was it? Just after the Hearth's Warming when Celestia and Luna took the thrones and the world as we knew it was changing? We thought about leaving the tapestry for a moment and going and seeing… well, you seeing, and describing it to me, what Equuis was like. Then, we stepped to the edge of the temple and looked down and we could FEEL the pull of the machine. It was so strong I thought my heart was going to explode in my chest or the universe was going to implode.” “Yes, the one time we dared to step away. The calling was too strong.” Chaz barked a hollow laugh. “Two true alicorns, immortal and with enough power to smite almost any mortal foe with the snap of our fingers and we are too weak to step away from a loom and thread spools out of fear of what might happen if we did other than in lulls like now.” “THAT is OUR fate at work you could say.” Chaz smiled genuinely at the play on words. “Not that there would be any pony around to sew our story.” Belldandy simple smiled, but to Chaz it was more than that. How it made him feel. It reminded him of how many described a beautiful sunrise. A natural wonder of magic and nature. Destiny turned back around and began pulling threads again and Fate felt them feed through the loom, gently guiding them and how their stories played out. Though Chaz could not see it, because her back was once again turned to him, Belldandy grimaced harshly and scowled at things only she could see. The threads were coming faster once again and she pulled with machine-like speed that made her arms almost seem like a blur. Sweat, real honest to goodness sweat began to form upon her brow, which should not happen and to her recollection had only occurred when… “We are not alone.” Chaz unfurled his wings and scanned the colonnade and the starfield beyond. He did not see an intruder, but that meant nothing. Instead, he lit his horn and reached out with his senses all while his fingers never ceased working. There was… a presence… just beyond the rim of their temple. It noticed when Chaz’s scan passed over it. However, it did not panic and it did not flee. Instead, it made its presence known. Both anthro alicorns twitched their ears when the sound of another’s hooves came to step upon their green marble floor. Or was it a hoof and a claw? The vibrations passed through the small space but neither Fate nor Destiny stopped their work. Then, the smell hit their noses and both wrinkled their muzzles. It was a hundred smells at once. Sweet, sour, rotting, floral, sex, bile, meat, fruit. They all mixed and it ruined all of them. Chaz returned his wings to resting position and the golden glow left them and his horn. He knew this intruder well and all the strange sensations and sensory overload he brought with him. “Brother,” Chaz finally said without any love or appreciation in the greeting. Likewise, the visitor did not extend any sort of courtesy. When he spared a second to turn his head, he found a patchwork creature that had the head of a unicorn, the right arm of a dragon, the left arm of a bear, the body of a minotaur, the legs of a large cat that each ended in one hoof and one clawed talon with one feathered wing upon his back and one leathery. Two red eyes scanned the scene before him. It was as it always was. “You do not belong here, Void,” said Belldandy venomously. “Aine has warned you and Samael both tha-” “SAMAEL IS DEAD!” The statement echoed and thundered in the small space more than what should have been physically possible but Void’s presence, his very nature bent realty from time to time. “Our brother was slain! Did you not see it in your own two hands?!” Chaz scowled. “I saw no such cataclysmic event. The death of a god would be hard to miss.” “Then you are as much a fool and useless as I always expected of you.” Void circled behind Chaz and reached for the finished tapestry that was placed in the eternity box not far from his hooves. The wooden box that was as wide as the loom never grew in size no matter how much of the magical tapestry was fed into it. It contained then entire history of the living world from the beginning in a box the size of a clothes hamper. Void snarled and pulled a length of tapestry out and examined it. Naturally it was all written in the short hand code that Chaz used to record everything, but Void knew how to read most of it. Chaos was his specialty and the code was quite chaotic to an unknowing onlooker. “That is not for you to touch!” Void skimmed the fabric and found what he was looking for. Luna’s moon with a flaming sword through it placed upon a black circle. Next to that, the moon appeared again, but was now half red and half blue. Void spared a glance at the bloody clover now chained and dangling over a pit of horrors. His tool no longer mattered. “How did you not see this!? HOW DID YOU NOT SENSE THE DOMINATION OF DEATH BY LUNA MOON!? Did you not care that the Lord of Death was killed and his power stolen and shackled by Aine’s demi-mortal?” Chaz took a few second to examine the section that Void was presenting for him. The dark gray alicorn glanced up to meet his brother’s glowing red eyes with his own blue/green heterochromia gaze. He then shrugged and continued his work. “He’s not dead, just now bonded with Luna. I’m sure if you talked to her it would be lik-” Chaz did not have a chance to finish his sentence as he was knocked off his hooves by a powerful backhanded slap across the face. Belldandy screamed her brother’s name as he tumbled and slid across the marble, coming to a rest not far from one of the outer colonnades. Chaz blinked his eyes and rubbed his face. It stung and there was a metal taste in his mouth. A moment later, red liquid dripped from his lips. He knew the substance well, having written about it often, but to see it, the feel it, to smell it. Blood. Alicorn blood. “You… you hit me. Why would you hit me?” The massive dragon claw wrapped around Chaz’s neck and pulled him back to the loom before shoving him into the machine. His neck hurt where the claws had bit into his fine fur and skin. It was possible they would bruise along with his hip. The dark gray alicorn was feeling a mix of emotions he did not know he was capable of feeling. Anger being primary of them all. “You dare strike one of us! The inner orbit! We pull the threads of Destiny and Fate!” shouted Belldandy, her light gray wings at full extension, the feathers began to shine with golden light and her long mane billowing like angry black fire. “You have no power over us here, chaos! I will personally see to it that Aine takes reparations upon you for this insult and violation to the game.” Void narrowed his eyes at his sister. While she could not “see” him, she knew exactly where he was. Power began to gather in her horn. Void, turned away from his siblings and out into the cosmos. He stared for a long, silent minute before turning back to the angry, lithe mare. “The ‘game’ is over.” Belldandy was about to inquire more when she felt the pull of the threads like she had never felt before. She folder her wings and spun back around. Worry and emotions she could not quite name ripped through her sending a chill all the way to the tips of her hooves. Chaz had felt the strange sensation as well. He squashed his bubbling anger and began to feed and weave the threads. It was a large symbol. Then, after a few seconds he started to recognize it as a cutie mark. One he knew well for he had seen it a number of times and each time he had thought its meaning to be a finality it would disappear only to reappear later. But never had he seen it so large and across the entire width of the tapestry itself. Finally, after the red and gold sun mark had completely been recreated in all its glory did the unthinkable happen. The threads stopped feeding and the loom stopped churning the tapestry. Both Belldandy and Chaz turned to the eternal machine in shock and bewilderment. Not in all their memory had that ever happened. Belldandy turned back to her threads and tried to pull some, but they would not budge. Chaz, pondering what to do, smacked the device a few times, having seen mortal do it to their machines with mixed results. Nothing happened. Chaz examined the mark again. There was no obvious code to it, no changes to the design. Just Sunset Shimmer’s cutie mark… across the entire Tapestry of Fate… and it was the last thing that was ever sewn. The implications were… profound. The dark gray alicorn glanced up at his mixed species brother, both eyes wide and clearly filled with uncertainty. “Void,” he said breathlessly, “What have you done?” “That which cannot be undone.” The Alicorn of Chaos sneered and then vanished. Belldandy came to stand next to her brother, reaching out until he finally took her hand that was fishing about. “What does it mean? What do we do?” Chaz rolled his jaw about, still tasting a bit of blood on his tongue. “I do not know.”