Asha was still asleep—barely.
One leg kicked out of the covers, hair a nest of chaos, lips parted in the softest exhale. Malvor hovered.
Not like a creep—okay, yes, like a creep—but a very romantic one.
He didn't wake her with words. Just a kiss. Pressed gently to her forehead. Then her temple. Then her lips.
Soft. Slow. Like he was memorizing the taste of peace.
"I'll be back before you miss me," he whispered.
Liar. She would miss him in five minutes. He'd miss her in two.
He set her mocha on the nightstand—perfectly made, still warm. The mug read: "Gods, I Need Coffee." He left a note beside it. Four words: My Forever, always yours.
It was the fifth of the month. Calavera's day.
So he let her rest. And went to go unravel a god.
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･✧･ﾟ: *･ﾟ
Navir's realm smelled like ink, ozone, and consequences.
The office was exactly as Malvor remembered it—quietly pulsing with too much intelligence and not enough warmth. Glass-paneled walls stretched into eternity, every surface humming with invisible logic.
Navir stood at the center, surrounded by screens—not made of metal, but of light. Soft, flickering layers of code and probability filled the air like pages ripped from a cosmic ledger. He moved through them like a conductor, fingers twitching, muttering numbers into the silence.
"...recursion strain at 1.6… variable Asha non-compliant… pattern collapse vector rerouting…"
Another screen flickered into being, filled with symbols Malvor recognized but didn't understand—rune logic, time fold equations, divine architecture mapped on a 12-axis scale.
Navir didn't look up. Didn't blink. Didn't seem to know he wasn't alone.
Malvor stood still, arms crossed, chaos coiled at his fingertips—not to attack, but because he wasn't sure if he was staring at a prophet…
Or a mind on the brink of collapse.
Finally, Malvor cleared his throat. Loud enough to be heard. Soft enough to be smug.
"Mmm… Navir," he drawled, stepping forward. "Talk nerdy to me."
The air shivered with displaced code. Navir froze.
Not like someone startled—like someone rebooting.
His fingers paused mid-equation. The glowing screens stuttered, blinked, then resumed their infinite loop behind him.
He turned—slowly.
Eyes bloodshot. Face pale. One side of his coat burned, the other stained with ink. His expression hovered somewhere between genius and ghost.
"Malvor," he said, voice thin.
"You're not… You weren't supposed to be here yet."
"Time is a suggestion, darling," Malvor replied. "You should know that better than anyone."
He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"Especially since you've been scribbling chaos into the walls like a first-year prophet on glitter meth."
Navir blinked once.
"Did she hear it?"
"What? Your sexy math poetry? No. Asha missed it. She was a little busy surviving divine judgment and rewriting reality."
The tension snapped like a wire.
Malvor stepped closer, gaze sharp now. Less teasing. More threat disguised as charm.
"You said a word, Navir. Just one."
He tilted his head, smile widening.
"Axiom."
"You don't know what it means," Navir said—no arrogance, just fact."Not yet."
"No," Malvor replied,"but you do. And I've decided I'm in the mood for definitions."
Navir blinked, then turned slightly—back to his equations.
"An axiom," he said flatly, "is a foundational truth. A starting point that requires no proof. It exists, therefore the system functions. It is not questioned. It is not tested. It simply is."
Malvor raised an eyebrow.
"Sexy."
"You asked."
"I did. Continue, professor."
Navir's fingers resumed their twitch-dance across the code. Another screen bloomed. This one different—pulsing with concentric rings, orbiting around a single point.
"Systems—mathematical, magical, divine—all rely on constants. Things that do not change. Axioms define the boundaries of what can change."
His voice dropped a note. Low. Heavy.
"When Aerion's realm collapsed, when Orion died, when the balance tipped—There should've been nothing. The pattern should've shattered."
Malvor stilled.
"But it didn't."
"No," Navir said. "Because she didn't."
He turned toward Malvor now—really turned. And there was something new in his eyes.
Not madness. Not brilliance.
Reverence.
"Asha is the fixed point. The constant that held when every other variable failed."
"She's not chaos," Navir said. "She's not an anomaly."
A pause.
"She is the system's new foundation. A truth that requires no permission. Not carved. Not claimed. Chosen—by consequence."
Malvor stared at him. Silent.
Navir let the words settle. Let the math hum behind them.
"You wanted the definition? Asha is the axis. She bends the infinite."
Malvor didn't speak.
Not right away.
He was good with chaos. With mess. With emotion.
But this?
This was structure.
And Navir was unraveling it with the kind of reverence usually reserved for cathedrals.
Navir stepped to another projection. This one layered like an onion of light. Each ring nested within the next.
"You don't understand what The Axiom did," he said quietly. "Because we believed the divine sat at the summit. But we were just one layer in a stack of infinities."
He tapped the innermost ring.
"But this?" he said."This is the Human Realm. Simple. Physical. Temporal."
He tapped the next—larger, brighter, more fluid.
"This is us. The Divine Realm. Gods. Myths. Theologies layered in belief."
Then another—darker, heavier.
"The realm of the Pillars, full of beings misnamed as Titans in early texts. They weren't universe-makers. Just world-shapers. Vast, ancient entities of raw authority."
"Forces that laid the groundwork for divine order. They didn't rule. They existed. And when they moved, entire worlds cracked beneath their weight."
Another. This one pulsed with raw, seething energy.
"The Primordials," Navir said. "The Wellspring. Chaos before gods. Creation and collapse without mercy. You know them, Malvor. Or at least... you remember their names."
And then—
A pause.
He tapped the faintest ring outside them all. Not glowing. Not humming. Just… pulsing. Like a heartbeat in the void.
"That?" Navir's voice dropped. "That isn't a realm. It's a memory older than matter. Where thought fractures and time forgets. The place we're not meant to see. And she sent us there."
Malvor stepped closer, eyes narrowing.
"Where does she fit?"
"The Axiom bent it," Navir said. "That night—when she locked us in. We thought she made a cage. Aerion thought it was punishment."
He shook his head slowly.
"It wasn't a prison. It was a fold."
"A fold?" Malvor echoed.
"It wasn't a prison. It was a fold—sixth-dimensional. A sub-realm nested inside a sub-realm, curved through gravity wells even the Primordials forgot existed. She bent space into itself and tucked us between layers of reality."
Malvor exhaled, slow and shaky.Like his heart was trying to catch up to something his mind couldn't hold.
Asha. His Asha.Not an accident. Not a survivor.A constant. A cornerstone.
Something even the stars hadn't been able to break.
"So you're saying she folded your whole self-righteous ass outside of time and space like a magical lunch sack."
Navir didn't smile. He just whispered:
"She shouldn't have been able to."
"But she did."