Vivieared up at the person who spoke. She would look human if not for the eyes that riddled her whole body. It would be horrifying if not for the fact that somehow she was divinely beautiful, in a terrifying way, of course. Her skin shimmered with an otherworldly iridesce, as though the universe itself had dripped stardust upon her form. She opened her mouth to gape, but she found she could not do so, nor could she breathe. A primal panic gripped her as she clutched at her throat, only to find that her fingers slipped through it like a ghost.

  “In that form, you do not o breathe. Just imagine what you want to say, and you will find the words e naturally,” the terrifying, mind-breaking goddess said with an amused smile, her voice ced with ic amusement.

  Vivienne’s heart raced. She opened her mouth again, only for nothing to escape. Her breath, or the ck thereof, was a strange sensation—unnatural, like her body had fotten its purpose.

  "I... Where am I? Is this the afterlife?" she asked in a panic, her thoughts a swirling mess.

  The goddess, unfazed, rubbed at her thoughtfully, her gaze flig upwards as if p the very nature of existence. She regarded Vivienne for a long moment before returning her focus, her eyes glinting with infinite depth.

  “Sort of. Not quite how you’re thinking, but close enough," she replied with a sly, cryptic smile.

  “W-what are you going to do with me?” Vivieammered, voice tremblie the unfamiliar ess of her state.

  The goddess tilted her head slightly, her otherworldly gaze studying Vivienne, as if evaluating a piece of artwork. "Well, first I am going to ask you to take a seat, unless you prefer being on all fours in front of a woman?" she said with a devilish grin, her voice both anding and mog.

  Vivienne’s invisible throat stricted with disfort, and she cmbered ungracefully into the sinfully soft chair that materialized beh her. Her mind raced, trying to tto something familiar, something to grouhe st thing she could remember was a simple family outing—her children hiding behind her, her husband standing protectively before them. But why? What had he been proteg them from?

  ", I am going to make an offer,” the goddess tinued, her voice dropping to a tone of unassaible fidence. “I am currently having a little spat with a fellow greater deity by the name of Praxus, the God of Order. Unfortunately, due to the final accord, her he nor myself may act directly against one another, but he is very close to toeing the line of what is acceptable," her gaze intensified, and Vivien herself shrink uhe weight of it, “and what is not.”

  Vivienne swallowed, her heart pounding, the weight of the goddess’s words pressing down on her like a force of nature.

  "What I do about it?" she asked meekly, unsure of what she was even agreeing to.

  “Excellent attitude! Gold star for you!” The goddess suddenly cpped her hands in delight. A cheap golden sticker appeared on Vivienne’s breast, and Vivienne blinked in fusion, unsure whether to be insulted or bemused.

  “The gods of Nymonia have, let’s say, representatives that influehe world. Praxus has his Nexus Arbiters, who enforce w and order iies they operate in. They have no will and simply follow his orders to the letter, with little regard to the sequences,” she began, her voice taking on a more serious tone. “I have my Eclipse Wraiths. The issue is more on my end than his, unfortunately. While his Arbiters spread the influence of Praxus and the religion following him, my hands are… well, I am a Goddess of Chaos, they doly like listening to a themselves.”

  Vivienne made the motion to swallow nervously, but there was nothing to swallow, just a tight, unfortable feeling ihroat.

  “Ah, I see where yoing with this,” the goddess said, her gaze softening with uanding. “Good. I need someone who start from the bottom and work their , someoh an uanding of how things operate in the mortal world. Otherwise, Praxus will get all uppity. Real stick up his ass.”

  Vivienne nodded weakly, her mind rag to uand the implications of what she had just heard. She was being asked to bee something... a tool, a, but could she trust this entity? Could she trust her, this goddess of chaos?

  “Are you an evil god? Isn’t ood thing?” Vivienne asked, her voice trembling slightly as she voiced the question that had been gnawing at her.

  The goddess let out a soft, haunting ugh—something both beautiful and terrifying at oo some, perhaps. To the followers of Praxus, absolutely. I would say I am her good nor bad, but I am necessary. Praxus obviously detests me, so he makes certain that his followers follow suit." She chuckled, taking a sip from a mug that seemed to materialize in her hand, the liquid inside swirling with an iridest glow.

  Vivieched, transfixed. "Ah, would you like something to drink?" the goddess offered suddenly, her smile widening.

  “I don’t have a mouth, or a face,” Vivienne respohe absurdity of the situation finally settling in.

  “I suppose I should fix that,” Akhenna mused, snapping her fingers once agaiy seemed to bend to her will, reshaping itself at her whim. Vivienne’s body was suddenly hers to and—her form remade, her features soft and smooth, her proportioly as she desired. She couldn’t help but ge inwardly. It was a body she had always longed for but never quite achieved. Still, her mind was too preoccupied with the surreal events unfolding before her to focus on that for long.

  “What do you fancy?” Akhenna asked, her eyes glinting with amusement. “I jure literally anything you wish.”

  Vivienated. “A hot chocote with marshmallows, please.”

  A table appeared beside her, den with a steaming mug of the promised drink, a saucer beh it dotted with fluffy marshmallows. Hesitantly, she reached for the cup, bringing it to her lips. The moment it touched her tongue, she let out an involuntary moan, her eyes fluttering closed as the warmth and sweetness enveloped her senses. It was the best thing she had ever tasted, surpassing anything even her husband—the professional chef—had ever made.

  “I’m gd you like it,” Akhenna said with a knowing smile, as though she’d been watg Vivienne’s every rea. "Now, where were we?"

  Vivienne swirled the hot chocote gently in her mug, her thoughts rag. "Good and evil?" she asked, unsure how to phrase her question.

  “Yes!" Akhenna answered with suddehusiasm, her gaze brightening. "I am her good nor evil. Some may disagree, but I think gods should be above the morality of those in their charge. They should be impartial, itted to their own essehose who stray too far..." Akhenna paused, her eyes narrowing, "...well, we are gods, but there is a famous saying from your homeworld I appreciate greatly: There is always a bigger fish."

  Vivienne nodded slowly, uanding the weight of Akhenna’s words, even if she didn’t fully grasp their implications. “Without order, there would be no structure to the world,” Akhenna tinued. "It would be formless, forever shifting. Chaos ’t thrive without something to shape it. But too much order, and nothing ges. Like clockwork, always turning, always tig, without evolution. Both are necessary."

  Vivieook another sip of her drink, her thoughts still whirling, trying to catch up. “I suppose not,” she murmured softly, her gaze drifting downward, unsure of what she had truly agreed to.

  Akhenna gave a wicked grin, her lips curling unnaturally wide. "Precisely. That’s what I’m trying to teach them. Both chaos and order are necessary fression. Too much of one, and you stagnate. I am happy to create strife and chaos, to push progress forward, while Praxus keeps things locked in pce."

  "Of course," Vivienne murmured, her mind still grappling with the implications.

  "You see, Vivienne, I am a force for ge. For the better or for the worse, it doesn’t matter. ge is life. It is the only thing that is stant," Akhenna tinued, her voice softening, yet still carrying the weight of a thousand universes. “Do you think your civilization would have advanced if it had stayed stu the Bronze Age? If nothing ever ged?”

  Viviehought for a long moment. Her life, her transition—it had all been possible because of ge, because ress. It would never have happened had things stayed static.

  "I suppose not," she admitted.

  A dark smile crossed Akhenna’s face, one full of terrifying wisdom. “Exactly. You see? ge must always occur. Stagnation is death.”

  Vivienne swallowed again, though it wasn’t out of thirst. It was out of something deeper—fear, anticipation,

  Vivienne pondered for a moment. She khe answer, of course. She wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with her transition had the teology never been avaible. But that was just one aspect of a much rger picture. Sure, her will had carried her through it, but teology had beealyst, she couldn’t erase the importance of that.

  “I suppose not.”

  She flinched when the radiant enigma of unmaking grinned, her smile widening far too much, her teeth sharp and glinting with the infinite knowledge of the os.

  Vivienne nodded mutely, her fingers gripping her mug so tightly that her knuckles began to turn white. She could almost feel the uling pull of Akhenna's gaze, as though the goddess was somehow reag into the deepest ers of her mind. It was hard to focus on the words whehing about this situation was so unnatural, so far beyond anything she had ever known.

  “Without order,” Akhenna tihe words flowing smoothly from her lips, “there would be no structure to the world. It would be a shifting, chaotic mess, stantly morphing into new forms with nothing to anchor it. A formlesshat breeds its own kind of stagnation. ge with no perma’s the illusion ress but never any real growth. And too much order...” She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming, “Too much order, and nothing would ge. Like clockwork, endlessly turning in its gears, never deviating, never growing, just existing. A stagnaernity in whiothing ever evolves. So both are necessary. Unlike Praxus, I see the importance of both chaos and order. Too much of ohing, and the bance is lost.”

  Vivienne’s mind was still spinning, her thoughts tangled in the web of her words, but there was something oddly pelling in Akhenna's voice, something undeniable in the goddess's logic. The need for both chaos and order made sense on a level she couldn't quite expin.

  Akhenna pced her mug down beside her, her movements graceful yet eerie, as though she were uhered from time itself. She crossed one leg over the other, her form radiating an uliy that made Vivienne’s skin prickle with both awe and dread. The trast between Akhenna’s outward elegand the chaos that seemed to swirl within her was disorienting.

  Vivienne opened her mouth to speak, but before she could form the words, Akhenna silenced her with a sharp gnce.

  “It is no trick,” Akhenna said, her smile curling with a dark amusement. “I simply want you to go down to Nymonia and stir things up. Throw a wren that sti-the-mud’s pns. Iurn, you get a sed ce—a sed life, with all your memories intact.”

  Vivienne’s heart skipped a beat. The thought of a sed life, of being able to keep everything she had worked for, every part of her past that mattered—it was tempting, impossible to ignore. But the fear lingered, a cold knot i of her stomach.

  “And if I refuse?” she asked, her voice falterie the bravado she tried to muster. She knew full well that Akhenna could see into her very soul, that her thoughts were as transparent as gss.

  Akhenna’s smile flickered, just for a moment, before her face returo its unnervingly perfect calm. “I repaired the damage to your soul,” she said, her voice soft but final. “Should you refuse, I will simply return you to the river of souls. Your soul will be sed, and you will move on to a new life, somewhere else, with no memory of this enter, nor any memory of who you once were.”

  Vivienne’s breath caught ihroat. The thought of losing everything—the people she loved, the life she had built, the memories she cherished—was unbearable. Ahe temptation to start ao escape the painful weight of this decision, g her.

  She thought of her children. Her biological child, the one she had brought into the world with love, even though the retionship had fractured when she came out. She thought of her stepchild, the boy she had e to love as her owe the strained dynamics that sometimes tested their retionship. And her husband.

  She thought of him—the man who had loved her unditionally. A man who had stood by her when the world turs back, who had seehrough the darkest moments of her life. A man who made her feel whole when she couldn’t even reize herself.

  Vivieared down int, now half-empty, the warmth of the liquid a distant fort. She would never see him again, would she? Never hear his ugh, the sound of him teasing her over the terrible jokes she told. Would never hear his voi the quiet moments, whispering into her ear how much he loved her, how much he cared. The loss of him was a weight too heavy to bear.

  Tears welled up in her eyes. She would never see her children grow, never be there to help them navigate the mistakes, the triumphs, the painful lessons of life. Never see them struggle, then flourish, into the adults they could be. The thought of never being there for them again crushed her.

  A, even as her grief rose, her mind made a choice. She wouldn’t fet them. She couldn’t. Not if she had anything to say about it.

  Silent sobs wracked her body, the tears falling freely now, though she tried to suppress the sound, lest it betray the extent of her sorrow. Her gaze flicked up to Akhenna, and for the first time sihis enter began, she saw something different in the goddess’s faething soft, almost… sympathetic. The terrifying mask that had never wavered before was gone, repced by something a little more human.

  The goddess leaned forward, her eyes filled with a sadhat was impossible to recile with her otherworldly form. “I know,” Akhenna said softly, as if reading Viviehoughts. “I know what it feels like to lose everything, to be forced to move on. But sometimes, Vivienne, you ’t have everything. You ’t protect it all. You ’t stay frozen in time.”

  Vivieook a shuddering breath, her heart heavy with the weight of her choices. She wiped her tears away, her eyes hardening. The decision, though agonising, was clear. She could choose to move forward, to keep fighting for ge, fress, or she could lose everything.

  There was no middle ground.

  With steel in her gaze, Vivienne looked up at the goddess, the weight of her decision hanging in the air like an unspoken promise.

  “I accept,” she said, her voice steady, though her heart ached with the knowledge of what it meant.

  Akhenna’s smile returned, wide and knowing, and this time, there was no mockery in it—just an eerie, bittersweet satisfa.

  “Good,” the goddess whispered, her voice soft but anding. “You’ll do well, Vivienne. I have no doubt.”