AEther was born of the conflicts between the creators of every parallel of existence; the ever present Time and ubiquitous Space. In the dark parallel, AEther created sentience because it was lonely and lacked companionship. It was not aware of its parents, it only knew that it was born of a wound in space. There were many of these wounds in Space and as AEther explored them in hopes of finding something like itself, it realized that these wounds contained magic.
AEther brought sentience into existence at one wound in space and saw that it was miniscule from its perspective. So it moved to a different wound to try again, and this yielded similar results. Over and over AEther tried to duplicate the magic of its creation to no avail.
But AEther was never truly alone, it was never an only child. In fact, it had three half-siblings; Past, Present, and Future, the children of Time who were born at the moment of AEther’s creation. Future was the most docile of these children and shunned company to occupy a perch far away from everything where it resisted influence. Present never fully detached from its parent and now spans the breadth of the universe as it was stretched to each corner of Space where Time had left it’s mark. Past is vicious and is a sworn enemy of AEther who creates the sentience that slows Time with its awareness. A slowdown in Time, means that Past is inhibited in its growth and it pales in comparison to its siblings that seem to be expanding exponentially.
So Past devised a plan to put a stop to AEther’s experiments with sentience.
Imagine these entities as the haze in the sky that is well beyond the clouds of our atmosphere and our solar system, but that make the cosmos look like a glowing dream of mists and smokes wrapping the lights of various physical processes to produce stars and streaks of light. They are disembodied, but capable of corralling everything nearby into their sentience. So Past inhabited an entire chain of asteroids to make a head, a body with limbs, that it piloted in search of the energies that contain AEther.
AEther was like a billowing cloud of cosmic dust and smoke as Past approached and barrelled headfirst into it. AEther was not hurt, but was perplexed and it gathered together more materials to mimic the body that was now in its presence.
AEther smiled at the collection of asteroids that regrouped as it did and when the two were formed, they looked at one another from a distance.
“Who are you?” AEther asked enthusiastically, happy for a companion.
“You are killing me,” Past said angrily and the asteroids of its body stirred and rumbled as they slid along one another.
AEther was grief stricken. “I don’t know you.”
“You do now, but not for long.” Past attacked again and it was a chaos of rocks and dust.
Amidst the chaos, Past and AEther met in their true forms. AEther cried out in agony as Past continued its assault.
“You have to leave,” Past said.
“But I was made here.” AEther pleaded.
Past was undeterred and its true form wrapped AEther inside of itself, ignoring the screams of agony.
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