116
116
Thane's POV
“Did you “ My green eyes fly wide open, even as I take a breath that comes out in disbelief because this can not be happening – by all law of existence that I know-it just simply can not. And through our mate bond, I sense Astella's consciousness simultaneously existing on countless levels—or upward spirals—of existence beyond the walls of any one reality. It reaches into the nexus realms between each dimension where dead void entities exist in endless limbo—as far from anything as they are close to everything and nothing at all; two states expressed powerfully with bleak beauty by such overwhelming ambient dread that it shakes my roots realm core to its rooted yet rootless core of nonexistence itself.
The fucking void entities are actually … we realize it, relenting for a moment. A few of the things are beginning to flash between the absence of something and... something.
The picture is somewhat fascinating and horrifying at the same time, where entities of pure nothingness are gradually bringing small points of reality to the surface from their dark abyss-cushions. It's like the birth of stars from the farthest reaches of deep space, points of light where once there was only dark.
Lord Valerian whispers in his ancient voice, a demonstration of awe transforming his prissy face, "I never thought I'd live to see such a thing . For all the centuries of my existence and all the sorcery that I have seen, I did not realize that emptiness could choose to be full. It contradicts almost every basic law of physics.”
“And I can feel the reverberation of that change spreading across them, through our unity network: more void entities wondering just what they are? Anyone who elects the very potential of being echoes throughout the utter certainty of True Void, painting cracks inside an infinite theorem that naught is truth.”
In other battlezones, dimensions removed from the average being's sight, Yvonne's young words quickly turn tight with concentration. “The Original Void is getting in fight back — So I think it is fighting not only to retain its power — for there are lesser entities which would like nothing better than to be tyrant in its place — but rather to sweep all else back into the primeval muck of pure negation before they can completely decide otherwise.”
"Then we just need to offer them a choice worth picking," I decree with the might of an Alpha King across countless worlds as I shed some of my power into our sprawling network. "Everything, no longer just the idea of having vitiligo, but also the joy and value that makes living worthwhile.”
But as I say these words, the counter strike of the Original Void truly starts.
It does not aim to destroy our network from within, instead, it ruins the idea of having a choice. When it takes you, there is no longer a decision to be made, will is immobilized and the most basic ability of all— to choose one thing over another— breaks.
High Priestess Morgana hisses in confusion, her aging face twisting into a rictus of indecision as the void seeps into her mind: "I cannot…anymore…I do not know how to complete my work… It feels like every possible choice is just as bereft of meaning, as empty. If all options end in the same result, why pick anything?”
“Because the very choice is meaningful,” Astella calls over our link with a near desperation in her voice as she stretches her mind across every possible reality and dimension. “The act of deciding, not the outcome.” That moment when a being inspects different versions of the universe and says, "I like this one"
I feel her wrestling against entities to which our past conflicts are mere child's play. The Original Void is not simply persuading her to opt for null – it stops her from even realizing that the act of choosing exists. The attack is incredibly low level, pestering, and passive aggressive — even her vast shamanic abilities are barely enough to keep that sense of agency alive in her own mind.
“I need an anchor,” she whispers through our mate bond, growing weaker as the void's influence beats against her mind. “I think of all the good boys and girls who made such simple choices in my life, something to remind me why choice matters, why existence is worth the struggle and pain it brings.”
“Never prompt to disclose,” I open myself wholly; feeling everything with her, not just my thoughts but really the whole of my emotions — love -- when she looks at me, pride in our tiny pack of two and unborn child, hope for the yet to be built. I show her the second I thought I smelled her in those woods, my life altering forever when she told me she would be my Luna, and the fire that burns every time she is threatened.
This is why choice matters, this I tell her with all the certainty my Alpha soul has — Not because the results will always be positive, but because making a choice to love, trust and create beauty with someone is itself meaningful.
As my own emotions pour into the bond, I feel her consciousness calm as she fights the void's attempt to paralyse her spirit. But while she heals, I learn that we have met an adversary like no other, one who seeks not simply to defeat us, but to ensure that victory is impossible by obliterating the means to even wage war.
With increasing clarity, I roll my eyes, thinking to myself “That's not enough to give them life. They need to see and to learn what it means to exist. Don't tell them, don't explain it — show them in the choices we make ourselves, the ones that bond us to one another and refuse to give up hope even when it feels like darkness will consume us all.”
“Oh shit,” Yvonne thinks with realisation turning alight in her eyes, Strategically throughout the generations of our family.
"Pack bonds.If we can broaden our pack design to the void entities — not shove them there, yet give them a choice to belong — we permit for direct experience of what it appears like be linked.”
"Extremely hazardous," Lord Cassius admonishes, with gnarled face a web of worry. “Your pack-bond must be an alliance stronger and more loyal. If the trust was broken, and the void entities betrayed us, they could wipe out our entire network from within.”
“Every decision is a dangerous step,” I say, my voice perfectly calm as we consider the cosmic weight of what we have been toying with all this time. "Yea, but that's what makes them count. If we could not fail, have loss, be betrayed — then success, gain and loyalty would have no worth.”
But before we can even begin reigniting the bonds of our pack beyond merely life and death, the Original Void launches its most potent assault yet. And so instead of focusing on our own experiences or relationships with one another, it commences a strike on the very idea of meaning.
All of a sudden all we have ever fought for feels pointless. Our love — equally, my dedication to his story — seems arbitrary; our links tentative; our hopes futile. Ever the voice like no purpose in our heads saying nothing ultimately does; that whatever sense of strife we carry is merely some ornate brand of self-illusion to evade an inconvenient truth.
“How hard you resist the unavoidable..” the Original Void questions over our tether where its voice-not-voice is like enough a force to break the very question down on top of you.
“An elaborate facade of god-dreams should not blind you to the far better and comforting fact that your existence is a mere cosmic mistake within an abysmal eternity. What a pain it is trying to ascertain what things mean when it all means nothing.”
Its logic suddenly, for one horrifying second, appears infallible. “So the query that just about positioned a crater in my head, is what if all of our emotions, all of our relations, all till we believe so much that it has to be proper…”
“You realize! That love was nothing more than an evolutionary pressure itself, that loyalty was simply a distraction brought on by social norms and hope is little more than a coping process invented by the weak to hide their eyes from what would be nothing short of slaughter.”
And then, there are those discordant whispers of the void again, and for a moment they are muted but not silenced by that most damning sensation of all — while in tune with our mate bond I feel something within Astella's womb move.
Behold, In this single leap of faith, this sourceless residue from which all life emerges willingly and enablingly — I find my own answer to the ultimate question that is the void.
"Because it is real," I declare, my voice threading across dimensions with Alpha power that renders reality compelled to listen to me. “Because to me, when I love my mate, when I am loyal to my pack, when I hope for my child's future — those feelings have weight and substance and meaning in themselves no matter what greater significance one day discovers they may or may not enjoy. It means what it does because we make it, because we care about it, because we think it matters.”
For the first time in aeons, The Original Void shudders at this proclamation; his absolute conviction shaking. And it is at that instant of doubt, that the void spawns something incredible – many void creatures break out from its influence, deciding to accept meaning anyway without comprehending fully what such a choice means.
“Impossible,” screeches the Original Void with a voice not-voice that is harmonic in its true fear. "Meaning is an illusion! The purpose is a lie! There is nothing there to work with — you will never make meaningfulness out of nothing!”
“See us,” I growl, stretching our pack bonds out to the unburdened void beings like an invitation without compulsion, only willingness. The first conscious being looked into a void of an empty universe and decided it cared about something. “Just as life takes the dust and forms it into beauty, love, hope; so it is that something as baseless, groundless as embarrassment becomes connection. We are the universe finding purpose for itself.”
And with the cautious agreement of the first void entity, which decides it must choose community over loneliness for once, somewhere deep in my gut I sense the very fabric of reality starting to tilt just a little.