Fortuna Verto

42-Without Meaning

Both girls blinked into awareness as they took in their surroundings. Everything vaguely appeared to be the pale temporal plane, but somehow it wasn't.

Both girls searched around, not even gaining that general feeling of passage the temporal plane typically offered. There wasn't even that overbearing feeling of chaos, just a lot of nothingness. Feeling bewildered, one of them fell backwards, the entire process conjuring a formless seat beneath them. The other then copied the same motions, taking their own seat. The first reached a hand into the air, pulling a blank sheet from nothing, looking at it perplexed. She knew.. this was.. a map? She traced a line around the right side of the page, a formless wall erupting out of nowhere to her own right. The second proceeded to look around, touching the sudden wall, which popped into her hands like it was invisible cotton candy. She returned the piece to the wall, watching it reform as if nothing had happened. The most confusing part was how she could see it, but it had no shape, no color, no form. Thinking about it, it was as if everything was just a pale white, but quite honestly nothing actually was. She placed both of her palms upon the wall, one handprint generating in white, the other in black. She traced her hand along the textureless wall, the lines of color extending along it where she made contact. She then touched a bar of white, which collapsed to the ground in a splash of orange. The second then picked up a shapeless piece of orange and brought it to the first, who took the colorless cube offered to her and added it to the page. An empty room formed around the two of them, without distinct things like color, shapes.. even size.

There was no chance this was the temporal plane, it was far too chaotic.

"I'm terribly sorry about the lack of accommodations, I'm really not used to this sort of thing.. to be honest. I actually have no idea how anything works, either." "Ah! Who's there?" "Yeah, like that. How exactly does a presence work again?" "Okay, then maybe let's just start with some clarity. Where are we, what is going on, and why are we here?" "This would be a.. dream, I think that's what you call it. We're all pooled together in your thoughts while you both sleep, so this will all fade away when either of you wake up." "This is a dream then? Wait, but then.. who are you?" "I'm you.. kinda, I guess. I guess I wasn't always you. Before we were all brought together, I was just another wisp of chaos like any other. But then randomly there was a breach in the temporal plane, a path between, and I just happened to have been.. curious. I knew what it meant too, a bond forged with principles, an offer. I guess at first I had thought that such an offering was to have principles forged to the will of chaos, that I was being offered a feast." The missing presence spoke wordlessly to the two girls, the understanding forged without plausible reason. So this wisp was the chaos that they had both been bound to from the first day, still with them this long later.

"I mean, I had tried to accept the offering.. but everything became a bit too.. complicated. You were bound to me, but somehow.. I was also bound to you. Trying to consume only weakened me, like I was actually only eating myself. From there, I was kinda stuck, unable to do anything. I kept constantly trying to reach back for the chaos, to forge an escape, but nothing worked. Meanwhile.. you both kept forging against your own circumstances, in defiance of the very principles of your own creation. From there, I began to hesitate in my wish to return, witnessing things no chaos would have ever had the chance to experience. And through everything, I got to witness a chaos I've never known before. It had quickly left me torn, your first visit to the temporal plane having me hesitate instead of acting, as I was instead more curious at how you two held up compared to the chaos I've always known. Without answers, still confused, I was there when you left too. Then you both faced off against chaos, and fought back with principled chaos. From that it only made me hungrier, that maybe devouring such principles could forge an even greater chaos. But then.. I got to witness your resistance and restraint, the reflection of power and reversion of control. You defied all pretense of chaos, and it only made you stronger, it only made you more unpredictable. It was then that I understood, this power I saw wasn't something to watch flicker away, it was something to take example from and forge an even greater chaos." The wisp even seemed awed by this insight, a touch of reverence and respect faintly hinted in the tone.