Dark Crow Rising

"Hurry up, you lot or we won't have time for being tucked in." I half-heartedly warn my children as I lean on the wall on the other side of the main bathroom. With my ears currently open mostly in the event an argument might erupt on my ship. I will have no foul tempers keeping my little ones awake, not when there's enough to already stir them all night. My plant-bodied son hoots quietly as his little monkey mouth chews on the special mint leaves he uses in place of toothpaste.

Summoning a small watering can, I bemuse my son so he can wash out the lingering, wet flakes of leaf from his ceaseless molars. Two of my little girls walk out of the bathroom at the same time, chatting away tiredly as they do so. Aahtha, who is still in a form dictated by the desires of that stowaway mortal. And, Motrtha, so rarely seen as anything but a mature woman with the almost stereotypical likeness of a mother.

I smile as my two little girls look adorable in their little nightdresses. Aahtha makes me glad as she is not letting her choice of pyjamas be dictated by the mortal. Motrtha, though, she amuses me as hers looks more like an old shirt of mine. Admittedly, it has been quite some time since I last wore anything not in homage to my old kingdom.

That inheritance I never expected at all, being what came before it all. My head shakes purely within its own confines and my focus is on Clohniq's additions to Motrtha's nightwear. A small group of cartoonishly cute, sweetie-coloured kittens playing with yarn. Moving about the fabric with all the life one might expect of an actual playful kitten.

"You two ready to go?" I ask and slow nods are my answer as they both rub their eyes. In synch, they also raise their arms up and I acknowledge their tired demands for pickie-uppies. Lowering down and bringing them into the curve of my arms, we rise back up without the usual cheering their morning selves might have. A version of me walks away from the bathroom and I listen out for which daughter is the tiredest.

If only for my amusement later.

My daughter of pleasure and pleasantries snores quietly as they tuck themselves in partially with the arms of my robes. Motrtha, however, is trying her hardest to keep those little eyes of hers open. She wants to be under her quilts before closing them, with me at the end of her bed or at the side of it. I won't tell anyone, but, she's my favourite because of it, she wants daddy to be there when she sleeps.

She loves to see things through when loved ones are involved.

"Well, this works for me." I mutter with a soft smile as Aahtha's room comes into view. Using my powers to open her door, my smile grows as I see how it contrasts her as a conceptual being. She may be the Goddess of Pleasure with an identity dictated by the mortal her focus is on, but her tastes here are always for me. Not some slut-den so she can teach every mortal abound how to be polite and how to have the most exciting moments in bed.

Her bedroom is a finely kept, noble place. Every bit as Victorian as it is Georgian, all done to remind me of where I came from. A rich girl's bedroom from the eighteen-hundreds, a style from a home long gone. Aahtha is always a strange one as to how she came about, she is Pleasure, but, that does not just mean carnal desire.

Softly spoken voices, well-made food and lively dancing, all of it contributes to her existence. She also gets extra points from me for being there to support me in pointing out the failings in the others. Losing them when she shows her unyielding endorsement of refined speech against me. Regardless, however, I put a small kiss on her sleeping head.

Divine powers tuck her in and I turn to leave, stopping at the door first, "Nighty night, Aahtha, Daddy loves you."

Using my free hand to close the door behind me, my other arm adjusts Motrtha, disturbing her.

"H-Huh...?" she goes as her bashfulness lights her up. I glance first over at the other copies of me as they handle my many other children. Some of them, however, make me smirk as they need to play pack mule to the mass of equipment that god or goddess carries about.

"You're still up?" I ask my first daughter as I play with her arms.

"Mmmmmmm..." is all I get from her as she slowly looks up at me. Blowing down at her, some hair goes up in strands, ruining its former, simple brushing. A sluggish blow to my chest does nothing and I smile again. Grabbing onto the door handle, I push down and we slip on inside with the darkness vanishing per my will.

Glancing around at my eldest daughter's room, I look down at her once I am done doing so. The first deity I ever knowingly made, despite being the Goddess of Mothers, despite needing to always be the mature one... Her bedroom is girly, pink and sparkles and fluffy toys holding onto love hearts. But it's not for her, despite this being her bedroom.

We pass by an empty cot with no baby doll in it, there has never been one there... She wants it for her own child. She keeps telling me about this desire, she cries over this contradiction in her existence. But, how she will go about getting what she wants, I do not know. Only her family exist on this ship and that is all it ever will be, a ship for our family.

There will be no God of Fathers as I already sort of fit that role. But, making a creation purely so it can involve itself with another feels strange. Apahthein has come to mind regarding this topic, but even then, I will know. It's just easier to tell my first girl that it is not possible.

Clearing my mind, I pull the quilt away and put my daughter down on the bed. A smile stays on my face throughout the process and she starts to crawl with one last burst of energy. Hugging up to her husbando pillow, I frown slightly. She never wanted a sacred toy, she wanted a dream made physical...

For a moment she cannot perceive, my eyes narrow at the depiction on the pillow.

"You all set and ready, Motrtha?" I ask her as she moves her head onto my open palm, that pillow of hers in a tight grip. Through a mixture of nuzzling and nodding, I get my response. A story transfers from my hand and into her head with the power that does so taking on a colourful aspect. The catch being she needs to keep her eyes closed if she wants the whole story and the precious dreams that follow.

Remaining still until I am confident that she has fallen asleep, I then slowly move away. With the lights dimming as I get closer and closer to the door. I linger and frown as I watch her tightly hug that pillow with murmurs escaping her. This is going to boil over for the pair of us, but one of many things, really...

'Dad, why do you refuse to solve every problem here and now? With your -infinite- power.'

I groan as the haunting words ruin my mood for the immediate night. The phrase is never the same across my children but it is always the same in meaning. If I love them all so much, why do I not solve everything? If I love -Her- so much, why do I keep letting this happen...

Free Iderim-Ovi from his prison and make Her the way I want, the way she used to be before...

"Goodnight, Motrtha... You know the rest." I say, hoping a little joking might sort my mood out but it doesn't. Everything comes back together and I rejoin back into one being by the bathroom door. All these independent memories flash in my head and I smile at them. My children going to bed and how I went about it, it's all there.

Waionr goes into his little tent under the vast night sky with a horizon of funerary fireships. Thurnmourer's inability to keep still and my efforts to insulate him from the power of non-dream creation. All these little differences that make them all as they are, something I will not have any other way. I slip my hands into the pockets of my kingly robes and I feel out the combined plant wealth of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Reappearing in the kitchen, I start to indulge in one of my most recent... Hobbies. Drinking myself to sleep with an ever-refilling glass of rum, which, despite this amazing power, I still hate spilling it. I have an unending stream of bronze, caramel-tinted booze, fizzing cola and a squeeze of scurvy-begone and I hate spilling it. I huff in bemusement as the bowl of lemons Pluuit set aside for me enters my grip.

"By the gods is this taking a while, no wonder she was so tired back then." the mortal complains as the familiar cling of a washed pot hits the draining board.

"You are still going at it, Mortal?" I ask him as I turn slightly, unsure if I should take a sip from my drink. Eyes look over the cluttered sides and piles of thoroughly soaked drying cloths. A ghost of a smile comes to my face as he flicks his thoroughly 'aged' hands-free of as much water as he can.

"Yeah... Still going at it, luckily, no more is coming..." he starts to say as he watches me open up my ornate glass cabinet, "Right?"

I shake my head before doing his extensive set of chores with but a wave of my hand. I gesture for him to come over and I decide on indulging myself while this peculiar passenger is present. I used to be like him, doomed to die and vanish from history. But, by my name that was some time ago, so very long, long ago.

Maybe I have forgotten what it is like to think like a mere man, not even as a king, just a man.

"Do you have any preference?" I ask nonchalantly as I decide to pick out my special rum glass for the occasion. A massive, carved gemstone as wide as my hand and deep enough to hold maybe a litre of the good stuff. I glance closer at it, eh, seven-fifty milis at worst.

"Uh... I don't drink alcohol." he answers as he waves his nose in response to the strong odour of divine ethanol.

"I used to be like that, then a doctor came up to me and said I had emotional depression." I half-joke before throwing a random, suddenly appearing can at his face. He panics and flinches only for it to bounce off of him like a blob of jelly. I laugh quietly as he picks up the distinctly solid feeling of thin aluminium. Dressed in chilly condensation.

"What's this?"

"Some cocktail, I don't know." I shrug as I walk to the bottom of the stairs.

Reaching them, I turn his way.

"Come on then!" I snap modestly as his apprehension keeps him still. He learns to oblige me quickly and we head on up to the outside, right up where we initially met. No sound leaves my lips until I reach the side of the aftcastle and I sigh once I do. He didn't follow me because I asked, but because I am a god, capital 'G' kind.

I levitate some water out of the cosmically-rich stream and ice cubes form as my fingers dance. Dropping them into my glass, they start to crack as if they had hit the pavement instead. The glass spins and the contents swirl under the observation of my tired eyes. I could make it so they weren't but, what good is that nowadays?

"So... Is there anything you wanted me for?" he asks nervously as the can jostles about in his clutching hands. I flick my finger and open the can, spooking him slightly with the popping fizz.

"To talk, mostly. Satiate my curiosity and then you can go to bed or whatever it is you feel like doing. So long as you stay off the deck my kids are sleeping on. I know Undwote showed you what deck that is." I tell him and he nods in understanding.

"Anything in mind you want to talk about?"

"Yeah... There is one thing... If... If you made a big mistake in order to help another and due to some convoluted reasons. Due to some reasons, you ended up in a position where you can erase those mistakes. As if nothing ever happened at all, it would only exist in here, your head. Would you erase those mistakes?"

His eyes widen and a healthy fear takes root as what is obvious to me halts him. A loaded question from -the- god? It's no wonder he can't get anything out, not even a thought. But, I do think for him instead, if I am so omnipotent, omniscient...

Why am I asking him this?

"I don't know..." he answers unhelpfully, yet, I roar with laughter anyway.

Yes!

He doesn't know what to do, or how he would go about it! It's such a simple answer and it's nearly driven me to divine tears. No right or wrong answer, no divine wisdom. Only the uncertainty of a mortal.

"Pardon that outburst..." I tell him with a long sigh that I silence with a lengthy chug of rum. A burp ends my thoughts for the moment and I pat my chest as another plea for pardon follows.

"It's fine, Kyarverin... Equilibrium..." he answers uncertainly, his mind bouncing between all the things he knows I go by. I hide my gaze as I ponder that mutation of my old name, Kyarverin, which was never my name. My old mortal name, the one my mother gave me, the one I clung onto even as I was crowned in Neo-Babylonia under a new one.

I gave up that name the day I destroyed everything my beloved held dear, all for vengeance for a country I never grew up in. My precious darling blossomed into the very essence of destruction because my efforts broke her. At the weak point of all reality, with all the great powers gathered for one final ritual of fundamental warping and tampering.

When I first became the Equilibrium, the binding of Chaos and Order, two things meant to be separate.

"I am so very sorry, Dear... So very, very sorry. I hope you can find it in you to maybe forgive me this time. I keep trying, I keep giving you time to calm down but you never do. Each time I go to make amends it always..." I mutter in a tone inperceptible to the mortal's ears.

"Can I ask you some questions? I am dead after all so I might as well play fast and loose with it." the mortal asks with a small smile as I catch a glimpse of booze on his breath. A hand rubs his jarhead haircut and I turn around slightly.

"Shoot. Shoot through the cherry-red until the barrel melts away." I say, deciding to reference a gun even though I am looking at an actual barrel. Who knows, maybe I will learn an interesting thing or two about the remains of the universe my children made. Something I hate gazing upon as so much of what I once was has slipped in, the inspiration they were not even aware of.

"Nice! Alright... Uh... What to ask..." the mortal ponders openly and I smile, hoping to enjoy the unusual moment in his extended life.