Primordia
From her flesh and blood she forged life.
In the beginning, She created the Worlds and the Beyond.
But the Worlds were without form and void; darkness was upon the face of the deep. So She said - Let there be light.
The Darkness disagreed.
From the moment of Creation - there was Nothing. She sprang from that Nothing and proclaimed herself Queen of Everything - for there were none who could contest her. On her formless skull, she donned a tumultuous crown of constant-yet-evershifting Iron. The Queen was perfection imperfect, terrible beauty and a thousand other hideous, oxymoronic contradictions - for such was her nature as Divinity.
With her power - the Queen of Everything spoke, and from her lips sprung life. With her sentence, she defined Creation - as the Worlds, and the Beyond. She forged worlds of heat and fire that fought back the biting Nothingness of the Worlds.
And with her vanity - the Queen made her first of many mistakes. She was alone in this ever-shifting universe, and there were none to bear witness to her beauty or grace. While the Queen could bring fire and heat from the void of nothing, it was not within her abilities to create life from nothing.
With a shard of her crown, she formed the First Blade - and cut herself to pieces.
First, she cut away her flesh. Her flesh formed the Worlds - they formed a cornucopia of life. Bipedal, quadrupedal, centipedal - everything beyond and between. The constant and defined - the shifting and abstract. She created them - and they worshipped her. But they grew strong, too strong - and so they challenged her.
Next, she cut away her sin. Her vanity, wrath, rage - and from it came to the eldest daughter - the Slate-Cleaner. She had no name, for she was beyond such things: she was beyond all things. She knew her purpose - just as it was the purpose of the Queen to be Divine, such was the purpose of the Slate-Cleaner to destroy for the sake of creation.
You will be cruel, and they will hate you, the Queen spoke. The Slate-Cleaner agreed: for how could she not? And hate her, they would. Despite their efforts - despite thousands of sealings, bindings, battles and ploys... The Slate Cleaner was oh-so-effective in her work. Too effective, in hindsight.
Next, sprung her Archons. The Cleaning of the Slate would not go unheralded - their arrival would announce it.
Void was the oldest, for he was the first - just as much a child as he was a brother of the Queen. To herald his arrival, he would take from the Worlds before it was destroyed - as a tribute to their Queen.
Next came Death. As the Slate-Cleaner destroyed, the Void took. The Queen spoke out against this and formed Death. Death took their flesh from each mortal that passed to the void - only to shape and mould it into something new. She created the Flesh-Engines: amalgamates of metal, bone and magic that reforged the universe.
Third and fourth came Conquest and War. They were to punish the mortals - who had grown greedy in their desire to rule the universe, a sickly mirror of their worst traits was personified. It would be their purpose to sow destruction and unrest to herald the Slate-Cleaner.
An æternity passed, and the Queen saw that the folly of those that walked the Worlds repeated itself, regardless. It was as such that She declared to Death that Her flesh would only be reused once she had gathered up every scrap of it - and that until then, their souls would be Judged.
To oversee the Judgement, from a fraction of her formless glory - She formed Soleil, the Lady of the Heavens. Those deemed worthy would join the Heavenly Lady in her realm for a mortal year - while those deemed unfit were sentenced to a year of torture until Death's flesh engines would consume them.
An æternity passed, and the mortals accepted their place. They became Good, and Just - and the Queen was sated.
Until one day - the Queen was approached by a mortal. She had ventured long and far to reach the Queen in her Crucible, and so the Queen judged her worthy of an audience.
The mortal girl only had a single word to ask.
"Why?"
And so, the Queen thought - before she ordered that Death strike her down on the spot. Instead of taking her Flesh and feeding it to the Flesh-Engines, the Queen took this flesh - and with a scrap of herself, she forged something new.
Her name was Faulyn, and she was Fate. She was the only one who rivalled the Queen's knowledge - on her loom of thread and blood, she wove the fate of every mortal and immortal who wandered the Worlds and the Beyond - until it came time for Death to cut the thread.
An æternity passed, and the mortals were happy. Their life was hard, but worship of the Queen was rewarding.
An æternity passed, and the Queen decided to grace her children with her presence.
She began with her oldest daughter. She spoke to the Slate-Cleaner: who lay dormant within the cages of metal and stone that her children had formed for her. The Slate-Cleaner had adopted her role well: and had served her skillfully, and she was proud.
She continued with her sons, the Heralds of the Slate-Cleaner. She spoke with them - and found that they were loyal, and so she was pleased.
Next, she spoke with the middle child. The Lady of the Heavens was every bit kind, and just as she was harsh and cruel to the deserving. Her judgement was honest, so the Queen was gratified.
Last, she spoke with the youngest daughter. Upon Faulyn's loom, a generous fate was woven for each and every mortal and immortal - and so, for a moment, the Queen was pleased.
Until that, her thread, for even the Queen was beholden to Fate - had been cut short. Enraged, she demanded to Fate an explanation.
It was there that Fate showed her the reaches of the Beyond. While the Queen had grown arrogant and lazy as she basked in her vanity - the fledgling deity was still observant and perceptive. From the furthest reaches of the universe, They came. Unimpressive, individually: but amassed together, they could rival the Queen.
"The light you forged woke them - and so, they will destroy it - and you." Fate spoke.
The Queen thought for a moment. It was there - that she tore her heart out.
With her dying breath, she forged something new to fight Them. Mismatched and chimaerical, disorderly and chaotic - a form, a name, a persona as mercurial as her ever-shifting magic. From her flesh, she had woven the universe - and with her dying breath, she couldn't help - but laugh.
Much followed, in the wake of the Queen. There was good, there was bad - there was dissent, there was order. There were a thousand things she could have never foreseen.
Her children still wander the universe. The eldest Slate-Cleaner, sealed in her hundredth thousandth tomb. The Archons - lost and wandering. Soleil, overlooking the universe with her Judgement - Faulyn, weaving upon her loom endlessly.
And Discord - who continued with him the Queen's dying laugh.
