Across Eternities

The world between them hummed with the energy of unspoken truths. Etria and Aluren stood shoulder to shoulder, the forest around them as still as a quiet moment in time. There were no words—nothing needed to be said between them right now. Their hands were still linked, but it wasn't desperation that held them together. No, it was a strength, shared equally, that pulsed like the rhythm of stars.

Their bond wasn't just emotional; it was cosmic. It cut through their beings like light through the darkest corners of the universe. And they both knew it wasn't just love—they weren't two helpless lovers waiting for destiny to play out their drama. They were forces in their own right.

Aluren broke the silence, though the words felt more like an affirmation than a question. "This doesn't stop, Etria. Not unless we choose otherwise."

Etria tilted her head, considering him. "Do you think we'll have a choice?"

The wind stirred restlessly, a soft pressure tugging at her, almost as though it were awaiting the shift in her answer. Neither of them spoke for a moment, instead allowing the air to pulse around them as if everything, the entire cosmos itself, waited for them to make a decision—one that would determine not only their fates, but that of every soul across the heavens and earth.

Aluren looked at her with steady intensity, his grip on her hand tightening slightly—not with desperation, but with resolve. "I don't know, but I know we'll face it together." He inhaled deeply, the energy between them flickering, his eyes narrowed slightly as if searching for something he could not fully grasp.

"I don't know, either." Etria's lips quirked into the smallest of smiles, but there was a bitterness there, too, and a sharpness. "But it's not the 'we'll face it together' that concerns me anymore."

Aluren's brows furrowed, confused. "What do you mean?"

Her eyes flickered briefly toward the distant sky, where the first ribbons of celestial light bent unnaturally across the heavens. "You might be strong enough to face their punishment... but are we ready for the Cosmos to do whatever it takes to break us?"

For a moment, Aluren felt something dark stir deep inside. They knew who the Cosmos was. No, they knew what the Cosmos was—a force that cared not for love, for beauty, or for creation. The Cosmos twisted and shaped worlds not out of kindness, but for control. And in the grand scheme of existence, their personal lives—the love between them, their realms, their futures—meant nothing to that ancient power. In the end, they were only players in a game larger than themselves.

Etria lifted her chin slightly, eyes flashing under the burden of a thought unspoken. "It's not enough that we face this together, Aluren. This... love won't shield us. The damage already done is already too great."

The stars seemed to ripple at her words. A shimmer in the air caught both of their senses, shifting almost uncomfortably with each word she spoke. It felt too raw, too personal—like the stars themselves had once again leaned too close, their burning glow dipping down to the mortal world. Yet as harsh as her words were, there was no malice in her tone, only the resigned truth of it all.

"We have no other choice," Aluren said, meeting her gaze fully now. "This is who we are. We are this. And nothing will take that from us."

Etria's lips parted, but the quiet shift in the air was enough. Something in her stilled; that quiet yearning—the one that had kept her heart frozen for so long, even from Aluren—flickered with a brief light, only to return to shadow in her gaze. A part of her knew he was right, that they stood at the brink of something that would either tear them apart or shape them into the force they needed to be.

"We'll need to burn brighter," she said finally, something tender in her voice now as she looked toward him.

"For each other," he echoed back, taking a single step forward so the ground beneath them seemed to thrum with a newfound intensity.

They were so close now. Their bond was stronger than just their shared godhood—it was a connection so deep that no words could adequately hold the weight of it. Nothing had ever been like this.

But the burning light of the stars shifted once more above their heads, faint tremors of cosmic tremors warning them of what was to come. Etria blinked, and in that moment, she saw it—the twisted shapes flickering within the skies, something above that wasn't supposed to exist. The terror of knowing it was beyond their control sat heavy like an avalanche bearing down on them both.

Aluren's chest tightened. He had felt it too—the council. It wasn't a matter of when they would be torn apart—it was how. He let out a long breath, expelling what little calm he had left into the coming storm.

But as always, it was too late.

The universe, like the heavens above them, was already crashing down in waves. A light, radiant and powerful, split the heavens from one point in the sky. Aluren instinctively lifted his hands as if his body had always known how to wield power against forces too immense to name. His energy flared briefly into existence, surrounding him and Etria both. A barrier—a shield they shared—tried to keep the growing tension at bay.

But something shattered.

A low sound filled their ears as it came crashing like a tidal wave over the forest. The forest itself rumbled, shuddering violently. The winds whipped harder as the forces of the council—a violent, dark power unchained—began to bleed into their world. In the far distance, Etria heard a cry, the ground splitting beneath the weight of forces far too great for their current strength. The reality was breaking, fracturing like glass, and it was clear what the aftermath would bring.

"I'm not going to watch this tear us apart," Aluren swore, his energy expanding further to shield her, but Etria's resolve was solid. She pressed into his side, matching his intent.

"It won't be their destruction that breaks us," she whispered, more fiercely now than she had ever been before. "But our choices. Remember that."

Aluren looked down at her, his resolve and his fears catching in the same breath as he stared at the moment in time between them. Both of them had faced enough cosmic challenges, enough violence against their realms, that they knew this moment might be the true test.

The winds continued to batter them, and their connection to the realms—every burning memory, every scattered piece of light—throbbed wildly in them both. Something shifted in that space, as their cosmic battle raged not in open conflict but in this subtle, pulsing war between stars and planets, between love and fate itself.

"I choose us," he said, squeezing her hand.

"No one will take what is ours," Etria said, voice fierce as she, too, drew power from the earth beneath them, from the infinite ties she shared with the realms themselves. "Not today. Not ever."

Together, they stood against the storm, but Etria couldn't ignore the creeping sense of something deeper—that this was the beginning of far more than they could ever have predicted.

Above them, the very fabric of the Cosmos began to unravel.