The Forge was alive.
A thousand rivers of molten starlight wove through floating islands of crystallized time, their currents pulsing to a rhythm older than stars. Fragments of broken realities drifted alongside seeds of worlds yet unborn. Above, constellations shifted slowly like the turning gears of a cosmic mechanism, releasing showers of sparks—each one a tiny ember of possibility.
Matter stood at the heart of it all, her hands submerged in a pool of molten silver. With practiced, gentle movements, she coaxed meaning from chaos—shaping hydrogen into delicate lattices, whispering warmth into iron, breathing patterns into clouds of cosmic dust.
She worked in silence.
Here, in her sanctuary, reality obeyed her every gesture. Here, she could hear herself think.
So when the air suddenly shuddered, she noticed instantly.
The Forge's endless symphony faltered. Colors began to bleed, melting into hues without names. A warm wind swept through the chamber, carrying the scent of unfamiliar blossoms and the faint laughter of children speaking in tongues yet unborn.
Matter froze.
"Little sister," came a silken voice—melodic and laced with quiet danger. "You've been so very busy lately."
It wasn't a question.
Matter straightened slowly, her freckled hands glowing faintly from the raw energy she'd been shaping. "Elder Sister Chaos."
The name resonated like the tolling of a great bell, and the Forge quivered in response.
From the shimmering air, a figure condensed—not merely stepping into existence, but compelling existence itself to acknowledge her. Chaos appeared as a woman draped in a gown of shifting nebulae, her eyes twin whirlpools pulling at both light and sanity, her presence thrumming with the tension of a bowstring drawn too tightly.
Matter clenched her fists, instinctively wary. "You startled me."
"I do that sometimes," Chaos replied lightly, amusement dancing beneath her words, threaded with the faint rumble of a gathering storm.
"You've never come here before," Matter observed cautiously.
"I never needed to," Chaos said, drifting forward, her bare feet leaving trails of newborn stars in their wake. "Your little workshop is so neat. So… careful. It makes me itch."
"Don't touch anything," Matter warned sharply.
Chaos's smile widened mischievously. "Oh, relax—I don't want to touch anything." She leaned forward slightly, her form briefly dissolving into galaxies and swirling constellations before reforming. "I want to create something."
Matter's brow furrowed. "…Create what?"
"A new sibling."
Matter stared at her, mouth falling open in disbelief.
"That's not possible," she finally said. "We don't create siblings. We came into existence as fundamental constants—as inevitable truths. That's how it's always been."
Chaos's smile deepened, becoming sharper. "Is it?"
"You're suggesting we—what, sculpt a Primordial, as if molding clay?"
Chaos spun lazily, her form dissolving into a cloud of butterflies that scattered briefly before reforming into her humanoid shape.
"Order didn't just happen," she said softly, almost casually.
Matter went utterly still. "…What?"
"I made him." Chaos spoke lightly, but her eyes gleamed with intensity. "I shaped him from the storm of my birth unconsciously to balance myself. The rest of you emerged later, born naturally from your own defining principles. So we can be both born and made."
"You're lying. Order never spoke of this," Matter whispered, though doubt undercut her words.
"Am I?" Chaos sang, her smile radiant as a supernova. "Haven't you ever wondered why Order, who openly despises my chaos, still regards me with reverence? It's because I made him—he sees me as more of a mother figure than a sibling. And now…"
Her form flared, starlight erupting in dazzling waves. "I want to create again. Well, want isn't exactly the right word. Maybe… need… yes, need. I need to create again."
Matter stepped back instinctively. The Forge groaned around them, the fabric of reality strained by their clashing energies.
"You're insane," Matter breathed.
Chaos laughed—high, wild, beautiful. "Void tells me the same thing. Well, Void doesn't say it exactly, but I sense it clearly enough among their many hurtful thoughts."
"What… would this sibling even be?"
Chaos drifted closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"She will be pure, unbound impulse—the will to act, to choose, to become. Something even I can neither predict nor control."
Matter's mouth went dry. "You're talking about a force beyond your own influence, Elder Sister. Is that even possible?"
Chaos's grin sharpened further. "Wouldn't that be delightfully amusing? I like not knowing everything. Don't you?"
The Forge shuddered again, shifting around them.
It had always been a place of structure—Matter's sanctuary, where molten rivers flowed along carefully ordained paths, each glowing anvil resonating with ancient rhythms. But now, with Chaos's presence, the Forge's very heartbeat fell out of sync.
Colors warped into impossible hues, twisting beyond their natural spectrums. Notes of music echoed in Matter's ears, despite there being no instruments—merely the resonance of limitless potential vibrating through her bones.
"I can feel it," Chaos murmured, her form flickering rapidly—from a golden-haired goddess adorned in galaxies to a murmuration of crows, then reshaping into a laughing child. "Your Forge is restless. It longs to create this new being."
"Don't put words in my realm's mouth," Matter snapped, her voice shaking slightly.
Chaos twirled through the air, shedding trails of stardust with each graceful movement. "Oh, but it does. Creation desires company—as do you."
Matter stiffened. "I don't—"
"Yes, you do," Chaos interrupted gently, eyes blazing playfully as she drifted closer, ruffling Matter's hair affectionately. "You've spent eons shaping worlds, birthing stars, holding existence itself in your hands… yet you're profoundly more alone than any of our other siblings."
"I'm not alone," Matter said defensively. "I have all of you."
Chaos's expression softened, becoming disarmingly maternal. "Yet none of us ever stay. We cannot, bound as we are by our own natures and duties. Order lectures you on what you can and cannot do. Fate plots endlessly, always looking ahead, never around. Nether broods, missing the only sibling he's close to. Even I drift, my essence preventing me from staying long with my dear little sister. I wish I could, but you see that my mere presence affects your Realm to this degree."
Matter looked away, her throat tightening.
"Let's create someone who can stay," Chaos whispered. "A sibling who moves simply because she chooses to. Not compelled by duty, nature, or destiny—but driven solely by her own desire."
The Forge reacted before Matter spoke. Its flames dimmed briefly, then flared dramatically, enveloping the chamber in a blaze of molten light. Rivers of silver hardened into glass, shattering into floating shards. Above, constellations unraveled, reweaving into a spiraling mandala of starlight.
Matter's heart pounded. Her fingers itched to mold, to shape—to create something genuinely new.
"Fine," she finally said, breathless. "But this isn't crafting a star or a vessel for souls. Creating a sibling requires… something else entirely. Something I don't fully understand."
"That's alright—I do." Chaos's voice was tender, eyes full of excitement as she smiled at her younger sister. "For now, just do what you do naturally. I'll handle the rest."
Matter raised her arms, calling forth threads of molten possibility from the Forge's core. The threads wriggled eagerly, impossibly hot—yet she was Matter, and this was her element.
Chaos moved opposite her, dissolving into a cyclone of swirling colors and voices. "I'll give her a spark of my essence. The impulse to shift and change—the heartbeat that defies all limits."
Matter wove carefully, guiding the threads into an intricate lattice. Yet the structure resisted fiercely, shuddering violently under the weight of Chaos's essence.
Beyond the Forge, stars flickered uncertainly. Entire galaxies blinked in and out of existence, candles wavering in a cosmic storm.
High above, within the Eterna Nexus, Fate froze in dread.
Threads of causality shivered violently in his grasp, taut like strained harpstrings. He peered urgently into the tapestry—and found nothing but a blank spot, an anomaly.
"An anomaly," he whispered urgently. "Another unpredictable force… No."
Frantically, he wove threads into bindings to choke the disturbance at its source. But the anomaly laughed—a sweet, joyous laughter that unraveled the threads effortlessly.
Fate recoiled, cold fear gripping his chest.
"Something new is awakening," he breathed. "It has not even fully formed… yet it already shatters my chains."
The Nexus shrieked in alarm as Fate vanished in emerald fire, desperate to intervene.
In the Forge, Matter and Chaos stood together at the heart of the embryonic storm, watching the lattice writhe uncontrollably.
"She's rejecting every shape," Matter gasped.
"Of course she is," Chaos replied, voice radiant with delight. "Our new sibling is Will. You can't chain a concept such as her to a single form."
"I need a vessel!"
"Then stop thinking in terms of a vessel," Chaos urged gently. "Let her guide you. She will know better than you or I what form will best suit her."
The lattice pulsed once, twice, three times—and a voice whispered through the cosmos:
"I… am…?"
Matter's eyes widened in awe. "She's awakening. We did it."