It is often required to uncover history one piece at a time. And some of it is so far gone that it might never be found. Except by the most diligent. And then, what is the point? For who would believe them?

A wise saying

Waters clouded by rippling images played out before the Keeper of Neutrality. The scenes, seemingly haphazard at times, alternated between the ongoing lives led by the twin daughters of Aurthur and Eliza Stormband. But the story being told was clear, and in a perfectly coordinated dance. It was one of two journeys along separate paths, but paths on course for a collision and would shake and form the future of Geiha.

The goddess puzzled over these visions presented to her within the pool. Charged with keeping balance, Sashna sensed the push and pull of cosmic forces preparing for that day of judgement. But she could do nothing. For Sashna, the situation was as clear as it was irritating. It would have been like a mortal having a splinter jammed beneath their fingernail, one digging in to the tender skin to be found there and yet so deep that there was no way to reach it. Ever present. And utterly annoying until the day it would finally be removed.

Because, as much as the goddess hated to admit it, all the actions of her sisters to this point had brought harmony between both light and dark, law and chaos. Thus, her hands were tied. Reduced to the status of a helpless spectator, she was forced to endure the same waiting game as the mortals of the world under their charge. Only, unlike those mortals, she was well aware of what was soon to happen.

The entirety of what she experienced through all she saw, all that was laid out before her, caused her immortal heart to ache. Some might have thought gods were immune to passions such as the ones stirring within her. But based upon the all too real emotions culminating inside her, they would be wrong. The wake left behind from the events of the past resonated throughout her being.

For a long time, Sashna had sought her sisters to come to her. Since that day, when she split the unwilling soul in two, only Octeava had. Even so, those visits had been sporadic and were never of the casual nature Sashna longed for. During those periods of her sister's presence here, Octeava was always holed up among those accursed and droning volumes of history in the library.

It was annoying when all Sashna desired deeply and desperately was her sister's companionship.

Even her father, the Great Dragon, was no longer around. In the bowels of her tower, the enormous slab upon which the father to them all often rested during his own visits was empty. Some time ago he had returned to his own, higher plane of existence. Thus, leaving Sashna to tend to affairs here and among the beings of Geiha as best she could.

The Keeper of Neutrality was truly alone to the point of isolation.

She'd come to know well how her father must have felt. Why he had sought for so long to create life, only to fail time and again. Why he had made the ultimate sacrifice and taken parts of himself to produce others like him. Solitude was terrible. She had only endured such for part of a mortal lifetime. But their father had suffered from the condition for eternities.

With his breath, he'd made her to help stabilize the universe. Like his mirror image. Constant and always even. A fulcrum upon which the scales of law and chaos would stabilize.

His pride, and its volatility, had gone to fashion Octeava, so she might spawn chaos and darkness within the universe.

Their father's reason made Sarina so she may see to keep the law and order their darker sister could not.

After that, The Great Dragon relinquished his heart, taken to fashion Earoni, someone that he could love.

And the result of that love? It created a son.

To that son, their father offered the most precious part of him left. He offered his joy so his son would experience only the most pure and exciting things the universe had to offer.

But Descist would not accept that gift. He looked upon their father and saw how he had given so much of himself already. Knowing that if the Great Dragon gave up his joy, what was left, the powerful and volatile emotions of anger, fear, sadness, and disgust would rip the Great Dragon apart.

So instead, while their father slept, Descist took from him these things. Not out of maliciousness. But out of love. So that his father would not have to live without knowing joy. And of course, thinking he could control them.

But his actions proved even gods acted foolishly at times. Descist was wrong, even as he was right. For without joy, those emotions he stole corrupted him into the very being he feared their father would become.

And since that day, not even the joy still present within the Great Dragon could make him happy. For no parent could ever find delight while their child suffered.

"Sister?"

The voice, laced with midnight tones, startled the Keeper of Neutrality. She turned about from the pool, eyes coming to rest upon the woman in robes equally dark to her words.

"Octeava?" There was little time for Sashna to compose herself, but she found the will and the way. "What brings you here? Do you seek more books? Father is not—"

The Keeper of Chaos frowned, her head drooping and then shaking. "I came to see you."

"A... a pleasant surprise, for sure." The quaver in Sashna's voice emphasized her words.

"Oh, come on, sister. Why do you say such?"

To that statement, the Keeper of Neutrality replied with the obvious. "Because you have not arrived here on a casual visit in so long."

"But I have come. And more recently than our other dear sister has. Have I not?" In her black robes, like shadows trailing her, Octeava approached the pool. She peered in, drinking in the fluttering image of the child of Stormband whose fate had been entrusted to her.

Pacing back and forth across a tent, the young woman in her armor remained unsettled and unable to sleep. Even in the dead of nighttime in the mortal world.

"I do not like what you and Sarina have done to this child." Sashna took the opportunity to express her feelings on where the actions of the past now led.

"Children." Octeava continued to stare, even as the accusation sunk its fangs into her divine flesh.

"One soul, in two bodies. But still a single child. Neither complete without the other."

Octeava sighed. "I have not come here to argue with you, sister. But that was your decision."

Her back straightening with bold resolution, Sashna said, "A choice I was required to make because of my sisters and their bickering. Not one I desired to make."

"We all have choices to make." The Keeper of Chaos's fingers skimmed the top of the water. The surface rippled, and the image shuddered under her touch. "And we must live with them. I find myself perfectly content with mine."

"You don't feel the struggle this one goes through?"

"I do."

"And it does not bother you?"

"I am the Keeper of Chaos, and chaos is what I have brought."

Sashna took a great deal of displeasure at the coldness of her sister's response. "Have you no compassion? No heart?"

Octeava pulled her gaze up from the pool. "Bothered or not bothered, does it matter?" A smile creased the dark fate's face. "Father created me for a purpose. I am fulfilling that purpose."

"By destroying lives."

"We've all destroyed lives. In one way or another. Me. You. Our sister. That's why we're called the Fates."

The continuing casualness of her sister's responses forced Sashna to become more bold with her own words. "Once you spoke of mortals having free will. Yet have you allowed this child to experience such freedom?"

The mention of the claim caused Octeava to consider her sister. "Are you finally conceding that my words are true?"

"You put the wickedness into the heart of this one."

The accusation forced Octeava to rebuke her sister's notion. "I did no such thing."

"It was your plan from the beginning. You said so yourself."

The shake of Octeava's head was an answer in and of itself. But she added words to give it voice, nonetheless. "All that exists within this child? Is the pain from the sundering of the soul. I have done nothing to it."

"But you said—"

"What I said was unimportant." Octeava waved a dismissive hand. "What I did? I simply allowed this soul to live. Without my interference beyond not allowing you to erase its hurt before coming into the world. Since that day, she has been without my guidance. Doing as she pleases. She has chosen her own path since the start. A perfect experiment to prove my theories. Even without my hand, there will be those who will choose to do wicked things when their pain is great enough. Her sister, despite Sarina's constantly meddling with her, has done many terrible things. She turned into a thief and even a murderer. All despite our sister's plans else wise."

"But she has changed."

"Has she? Perhaps. But that change has filled her heart with a desire for revenge. To the point where it has snuffed out love. That is not noble, good, or right. And I should know a thing or two about such."

A sigh from Sashna conceded the point. "It seems that no matter what, mortals must suffer."

"What good is existing without pain? For mortals or gods."

There was a certain way in which her darker sister's words settled once spoken. The statement begged a question from Sashna. "And what pain exists within you?"

That astute observation caused Octeava's fragile smile to droop into a frown. Reaching into the pocket of her robe, she withdrew something that would not be revealed until she unfurled her fingers from around it. Within her possession was the macabre skeletal remains of half a bird; a few remnants of feathers still understandable as such. The one her father had once given her to cement her knowledge of her role in the cosmos.

"You ask." Octeava held it up. "This is my reply. That I am death. That all things must turn to dust under the forces I am tasked with controlling. This is a pain that no woman, even a goddess, should ever know. That life, the creation of it, is beyond their reach. That all I can do is sew the seeds of destruction and disorder if I so choose to do anything." Her words rang with only a calm resignment as she returned the remains to where she had kept them, and would keep them again. "And the knowledge that I am not needed? Knowing mortals will always be tempted to do wicked things? That only compounds my pain. These two children prove that. But, I also have pain for you, my sister."

"For me?" Sashna took a startled step back upon hearing that proclamation. Especially considering how emotionless her sister's words seemed. "Why for me?"

Octeava returned her gaze into the pool. "You haven't figured it out yet? After all this time?"

"Figured what out?"

"Father," Octeava said, "is dying."

"No. I—"

"How could you not have known?"

"I—" Sashna worked to relate the words and their meaning together into a coherent thought her mind could process. Even though the statement seemed simple enough, even logical, the Keeper of Neutrality required a moment to fully understand them.

Octeava would not wait. "He created you to replace him when the time comes."

"But that doesn't make any sense. I only maintain the balance between you and Sarina. I don't control the fibers of the cosmos."

"But you will. I found transcriptions of his plans in some of the oldest texts within your library during my previous visit and after years of searching. The Lilwandi watch all. Even the gods. Father is dying. And when he is gone, you will ascend to his place. A place of loneliness and isolation that I do not wish upon you, for I have experienced far less of it myself, and am filled with sorrow because of that."

"Gods do not die. Descist was imprisoned because—"

"Because Earoni and our father could not bring themselves to do what was necessary. Before us? There were other gods. The deepest texts I have uncovered speak of them by name. Volumes so far down in your vaults that they were lost to the ages we divine beings have lived through. And with many more still left untouched before them, I do not know what I would uncover if I continued looking. Perhaps generations after generations of gods?"

There was a pause in the conversation while Sashna took in the entirety of it. She believed all her sister was saying, having no reason to doubt her sister. Octeava might have been dark, but she was always honest. "What happened to them? The last gods before us?"

Octeava shrugged and slumped, her answer not wanting to come forth. "Father killed them."

A gasp tried to escape from Sashna, but was held in only by the inability of her lungs to exhale. "Father? Why? He is not of that temperament. He is even and steady, like a rock of the world."

"Not always. He was not always as we now know him." Octeava snapped her fingers and out of the void formed one of the books from Sashna's library. Now in her hands, she presented it to her sister. "Before us, he was cruel and without mercy. A god of all emotions, but ruled by anger. The other gods turned on him when he cast the world before us into flames over fear that the others were becoming more worshiped than he was. He decimated all life upon the world, and the other gods sought to dethrone him from his seat of power in these heavens because of it. Even his wife, who loved him deeply, turned on him out of a desire to see his tyrannical rule end. And he destroyed them all. Without hesitation."

The neutral fate accepted the volume and began thumbing through it. Here and there, she saw passages that supported everything her sister was describing. "But why? Why destroy just to create again?"

"Even gods can regret their mistakes, I suppose. What I do know is that Sarina and I are redundancies. Unnecessary. Created only, it seems, to only provide you with some semblance of, what would best be considered, family." Head bowed, Octeava voiced a thought she had contemplated many times. "Perhaps if I were not here, there would not be so much misery within the mortal world."

"Sister, do not—"

"You cannot deny that possibility." The dark fate would not let her sister's thought complete. "If I were to have never been created or now ceased to exist? The scales of balance would tip the other way and sway towards more goodness. I don't believe even you could pull it back into perfect harmony. Not without two forces for darkness to counterbalance two for the light."

"What are you considering, sister?"

"Nothing." Octeava turned away to prevent the Keeper of Neutrality from looking into her eyes. "Just rambling."

"I don't—"

"I think the real question is, what are you going to do now that you know the truth about Father?"