The voice was silent for a long moment, perhaps contemplating the weight of her words. It was a bold and audacious offer, one laden with both promise and risk. One could almost hear the gears of its divine mind whirring, evaluating the proposal.
Then, finally—a sigh. Not of surrender, but of acceptance. The voice responded, the edge of sarcasm tempered by an undercurrent of determination.
"Very well, my friend. I accept your challenge. But know that I will not make this easy. If love is to be my teacher, then I shall play the part wholeheartedly."
She tilted her head, amusement twinkling in her abyssal gaze."Do you think you'll recognize me when you weep in your cradle? Will your heart ache at the sound of a lullaby, knowing not why?"
She stepped back toward her throne, its arms stretching open like a lover's embrace—or a prison's welcome. She sat, the throne pulsing as though pleased. The constellations on its surface shifted once more… and a new one began to take form.
"I'll write you into a life riddled with imperfection. Flawed, fragile, finite. No divine pen. No omniscient hand."
A pause, then a slow grin.
"But I will be watching. Oh yes, always. From every red sky at dusk to the silence between heartbeats."
A single crimson tear—not sorrow, but raw energy—rolled down her cheek and vanished into the cosmos. The price of divine meddling in mortal games.
"So go, then. Love. Break. Be broken. Bleed meaning into this existence you've only ever authored from afar."
She leaned back, fingers steepled, eyes half-lidded like a queen awaiting the next move in a game only she remembered the rules to.
"When you awaken, you'll know nothing of this moment. But your soul will remember."
The chamber faded to silence once more. The cosmos leaned forward.
"Make it worth my interest, Muse. I've waited long enough for a tale that can shake even me."
The voice's response was tinged with a mix of anticipation and trepidation, a rare display of emotion from this ancient figure.
"You have my word. I shall embrace my new role with all the fervor and curiosity I can muster, and when the time comes, I will remember this moment, even if my mortal form does not. I will not shy away from the pains or pleasures that await me in the realm of mortals. And when the time comes, I will not fail to deliver a narrative that can thrill even the most jaded of audiences."
She exhaled slowly, and with that breath, choice itself was born. The galaxies paused in reverence—not to power, but to something rarer: permission. Around her throne, the constellations halted their endless shifting, freezing as if to listen to a decree not etched in law, but in trust.
"Ah… but let me make one thing very clear."
Her voice lowered, no longer booming with divine authority, but carrying the weight of pure intention—a gravity more binding than chains of time.
"I will not script your fate, Muse."
She raised a single finger, and the spiral of energy vanished—unwritten, unshaped, unchained.
"No threads of destiny. No guiding hand. No whisper in the wind to push you toward epiphany."
The shadows around her stilled, hushed like an audience at the moment before a performance began.
"For you to truly learn… to truly feel… you must fall, utterly, completely, without divine bias or narrative armor. The game, if you wish to call it such, is yours to command—or be consumed by."
She leaned back into the throne, one leg crossed over the other, a glint of cruel mischief in her eyes.
"Seven lives. Seven cycles. No more. That is the limit of your stage."
The voice's reply was a subtle nod, barely perceivable, but it carried a weight that suggested the enormity of what was about to unfold. It was a pact sealed in the silence of the cosmos, bound by the very threads of existence. Her fingers traced an invisible symbol in the air—a spiral that closed after seven turns, forming a sealed sigil. It glowed, then formed a constellation.
The chamber shivered, the rules set. Immutable. Final.
"At the end of the seventh… whether you have loved, or lost, or become lost in love… you will return here."
A beat.
"And then, dear Muse, I shall listen. Not as Sovereign, not as Ruler… but as the sole audience your soul must impress. Let the first life begin."
She raised a chalice of crimson starlight, toasting alone in this eternal theatre.
"So go. Fall beautifully. Break brilliantly. Suffer exquisitely. And live—live as only one who was once divine, and now fully human, possibly can."
With a soft snap of her fingers, the vast chamber faded. The stars swirled, the galaxies turned away.
The Eternal Ruler's fingers snapped—
—and the universe screamed.
Not in sound, but in substance.
The throne room's infinite dark ripped like velvet under a blade. Galaxies bled light as they spun backward. Nebulae frayed into ghostly threads. Time itself convulsed, chains of eons shattering as the Muse's divinity was torn from its core—
—and hurled downward.
Down.
Through layers of dying reality.
Through the wails of abandoned constellations.
Through the silent vacuum where even gods fear to linger.
The Muse did not fall. She was unmade.
Her essence—a tapestry of celestial narratives—unraveled. Wisdom became fog. Power dissolved into stardust. The weight of eternity shed like dead skin, leaving only a naked, shuddering spark—
—a soul stripped bare.
Then—
Impact.
Heat.
A crushing, wet warmth swallowed her.
Sound.
A roar—thundering, close, alive—resolved into a heartbeat.
Pressure.
Walls of flesh contracted, pushing her into—
Light.
Blinding. White. Painful.
Cold air slapped her skin. She gasped—a raw, ragged sound—and lungs burned as they filled for the first time. She tried to scream, but only a thin, animal wail escaped.
Where was the silence?
Where was the void?
Where—
Hands. Real hands. Catching her. Lifting her. Calloused thumbs wiping viscous fluid from her eyes.
"Shhh…"
A voice—warm, trembling, human—cut through the panic.
"I've got you, little one. I've got you."
The newborn blinked, vision swimming. Blurs resolved into colors: faded blue linen, golden afternoon light, a face—sweaty, tear-streaked, radiant—smiling down at her.
This was not the throne room.
This was… small. Frightening. Overwhelming.
This was alive.
The woman—mother—cradled her close, skin-to-skin. A shuddering breath. Then, whispered like a sacred vow into the quiet:
"Möbius."
The name rippled.
In the mortal room: a father's choked sob, a brother's awed whisper.
In the cosmic void: The Eternal Ruler's throne flared crimson, constellations shivering into new alignments.
Far above, upon her seat of dying stars, the Sovereign watched.
A single tear of liquid starlight traced her cheek—not sorrow, but the shock of witnessing creation.
"How… small you are now," she murmured, the void swallowing her words. "How fragile."
Below, Möbius's tiny fingers curled—not around the threads of fate, but around her brother's offered thumb. His voice, young and fiercely tender, promised:
"I'll keep you safe. Always."
The Eternal Ruler closed her eyes.
The echo of that mortal vow hung in the dark—
—a sound infinitely louder than the death of stars.
TO BE CONTINUED