She stood in the shadow of the Lightspire as she had for time out of mind, staring up at it while surreptitiously surveying the dusky horizon with dwindling expectancy. And as she had for time out of mind, she saw no one approach. There was little else in the way of scenery, unless one counted the glistening cysts covering every surface and the occasional roving monstrosity that crept along the hills, snuffling for intruders. Behind her she felt the corrosive weight of her persecutor’s looming presence, perpetually shadowing her every move, anticipating her every thought. When it came to chipping away, his energies seemed boundless.

His mocking words scraped across her mind like an expanding fan of twisting barbs: A curious vocation, looking so ardently forward to your own annihilation.

Her features remained composed, betraying not a flicker of interest.

At what point will you admit the inevitable?

Absently she cracked a spur of rock from the nearest summit and dropped it on the distant Strain thing’s head with a crunch. Its limbs flopped briefly.

Every moment that we dawdle in this pointless belligerence is yet another wasted. Together we can accomplish so much. There is no virtue in stubbornness.

As she watched, the creature’s carcass steamed and bubbled to mud before crystallizing and shattering into a thousand hideous shards identical to their progenitor that scattered across the landscape, hooting and gibbering.

If you’re so certain none will come to my aid, what need have you for armies?

The act of creation pleases Us. For its own sake.

Perverting the act pleases you.

Us.

There is no us.

There is only Us.

He had scooped the creatures back together, mashed them into a wad of squealing pulp, and spun the stuff like taffy into a revolving sculpture of their likenesses sinuously intertwined. She rolled her eyes, obliterating it and idly launching a thousand exanite spears at his grinning face. Gently he collected them from the air like stems and smeared the tips in a parody of blossoms, extending her the result like some obscene bouquet. But, she observed, he meticulously avoided touching it.

Like all your works, your notion of persuasiveness has failed to evolve.

There, there. He prodded her walls with his long sharp nail, searching as always for chinks in millennia-old mortar. What of you then? You do nothing to oppose me. Because you cannot.

Timing is not inaction.

Although, she reflected, after long enough it didn’t feel so far removed.

Source: World Story