Chapter 1 - She wears an iron vest:

Deborah bat Aphar's bedchamber, the Fortress of Eternity: 

To the Endless, who were more truthfully concepts than people, their clothes were as much a part of them as what appeared to be flesh. It was armor and it was elements of who they were as beings, aspects that in their own right were worth in the eyes of mortals equivalents of what in blood magic terms could be gained by offering an entire world as a burnt offering, or in terms of rituals by appealing to the Ones Beyond who could grant astronomical power, if not without repercussions. When he had led his function Destruction had taken this concept most literally of them all (and it was his great failing, that, to take literally what was more truthfully meant to be metaphorical). He had worn great suits of silver armor ornately marked with glyphs of occult symbolism with his massive Claymore at his side. A weapon impractical and unwieldy for a true human yet in his hands a force unrivaled, the thing that made stars enter her sphere.

She had always regretted that she was so close to Dream when Destruction's sphere marched much closer to her own and what had sustained it.

Thoughts that flitted through her head as her shoes, artfully kicked aside, were followed by her unclasping her belt, and putting a seductive look into her eyes.

She had never done anything quite like this, yielding to the concept of what was in mortal terms, the control of her mind. She had thirsted after novelty and made quite a mess in the process in one concept of seeking it. Here, it would be simpler to actually try, she reflected, as she slipped the belt out and slipped it with a flick of her wrists, gyrating her hips as the silver-haired golem looked at her with a strange, rapt desire in her face. She almost expected to see her golden-eyed sibling with the two shadows there but Desire was, curiously enough, absent. To be fair this was a tantric rite at the one hand but at another remove clinical, so she wasn't sure which of her siblings' spheres it fit into if any.

She placed her hands behind her head, black lips parting with her teeth shining a bit in a friendly smile as she moved her hips gracefully, her hands moving and whirling as she did, moving as a blur. Her hands moved to the clasp of her jeans and she unzipped them next, lacy lingerie visible. It was tempting to pause here, for for all her actions in other spheres and in other parts of a being who transcended any one multiverse, it had a certain strangeness to it to yield control even temporarily. To willfully take herself out of what was as much armor and part of her very being as anything else, to be truly bare and to do so on behalf of a rite like this, for this specific purpose.

The hesitation was for only a few seconds and it had her suspended on the toes of one foot akin to a mortal ballerina, and then her hands moved and she found herself flipping herself over in the air gracefully, her wings taking that moment to materialize again, her jeans slipping off of her and then flipped aside with a kick, as she landed with a semi-bow, her posture showcasing cleavage and getting a graceful moment of applause from the golem with her gleaming eyes and silver-white hair. She flushed, a small tinge of soft pink entering her cheeks, giving her a surprisingly mortal aspect, but then resumed her spins and her gyrations, the golem's eyes traversing her.

She had only been in the Fortress twice in between the long sequences of universes, for it was a relatively new thing. Unlike that other realm she had entered unwisely and escaped by the skin of her teeth. It was unlike other headier dimensions, but it was not unlike them at other levels, the metallic element of the floor feeling surprisingly warm and welcoming and not the cold iron aspect she would have expected. It felt good against bare feet and though she did not truthfully have a body at one level, she felt a bracing coolness of the air against her skin and shivered deightfully as she went back to teasing with her top, raising it to showcase her belly and a small portion of the strapless bra she had on beneath it, savoring how the golem's body seemed to tense.

She didn't deny it, she had made herself undeniably beautiful even at the dawn where she was icy and stiff and cut off from mortals. She had been lonely, then, haunted by the weight of her function. And it did bear down on her heavily, for even an immortal, perhaps especially an immortal, who was tasked to be the friend to all who needed her and the one who would outlive all else could not endure countless universes' worth of the collective scorn and fear of mortals without it biting into her. She had made herself beautiful because often it was the only beauty to be found with who she was and what she was. Her siblings were so distant to her, bar Dream and Destruction. Her parents still more than her brothers, sisters, and sibling.

If not even her family found anything in her worth loving then she could only find it in herself, and so she had become an archetype of beauty beyond Desire, Diana of Themyscira, or other entities who could rival that. Love Goddesses appealed more strictly to the animal parts of mortals, so did those they blessed. The rawness of Life, as her function, writ into a work of art. She was beyond that and she was a part of it, but it was seldom that anyone, even her other lovers of the past looked at her with this kind of rapt, truly personal awe. It was always 'Death', never the idea of her as a person.

She flushed again, dropping her top and then unclasping her bracelet, looking at it and seeing the sorcerous energies that shone, the obsidian hue drinking in power around it. In the Fortress it was oversaturated, her eyes having a problem focusing on it and she recognized her clothes reflected this too. Then again it did make sense, those who were choosers of the dead did reinforce each other's natures if it got to a point.

She flicked the bracelet aside, too, and then teased the golem with more movements of her top before removing it and gracefully spinning to place it neatly on her jeans, leaving herself clad in her lacy sheer lingerie, meant to be revealing and to incite the lusts and desires of the visions of mortals, if any had ever opted to try. None had. If they saw her it was in the course of her duties and she seemed to be a creation of her dear brother's, or it was in the course of her duties and her beauty drew them to her and to the journey to the immense infinities of the Sunless Lands and what occurred in the gloom that was imperceptible to all eyes  save hers.

Her smile intensified further as she reached up to unclasp her bra first, making a point to lean forward slightly in a seductive sense, the flowing darkness of her eyes and hair drawing the golem's gaze and then the motions of her hands, swift and strong, likewise. Swift motions and then she was clad only in her panties, things that in their darkness drew a contrast against skin of bone hue, calling attention to her dips and curves. She was slender, nowhere near so buxom as Desire in xir feminine moods nor even as Despair, and in truth as  Del aged up to her next phase, she was becoming less so even than her youngest sister, no longer a child and poised to reach true maturity as the youngest of their brood.

Others might have felt a further slight against things there but Death did not, her hands at her side with her palms up, smiling broadly. Her body was hers, as her siblings' were theirs. Each fitting in its own ways to the tasks for which it was assigned. She was Life as she was Death, by the breath of her mouth that which was inanimate knew what it was to be, and to Exist. Bare feet rested against metal that was soothing and welcoming, full of life. Not golden emptiness and gilded tortures that made the hellscapes of Uxas's twisted nightmare seem welcoming by comparison.

She slipped off her panties last, bending over and letting the golem's eyes be drawn. For a moment she hesitated again, biting her lip. The old inadequacies that had surged in flashes of half-formed thoughts and emotions and visions of memories appeared again and then she heard the golem making a sound akin to a breath. She did not truly need to breathe any more than Death herself did, so the recognition of appreciation made Death flush again and grin with a silly smile on her face, before sliding off the panties and then holding herself for a moment, quietly.

She heard the golem moving, and knew that she was unclad much more swiftly with a simple magick of the kind that the sort of entities that made this place used for convenience.

A chin brushed against her shoulder, soft and yet unyielding iron, and arms slipped around her that were only a shade darker than her own but to mortal eyes each almost identical in paleness if little else. She shivered at the embrace, at how welcome it felt, at how much the secret parts of her that none of her siblings saw craved more of this, and why it was such a heady thing to lay with those who wanted her, and who welcomed her as the being she appeared to be and not the one she was. With something like this that was more....she did not let herself use the phrases 'prostitution' or 'sex work' even if it were so, because the intimacy here, however ultimately hollow it was seemed cheapened by that.

Part of her vowed after this that she would spend time not on her job but simply seeing things in her various days and in elements of her knowledge. To think this way of people was unbecoming of her and part of the many ways the long complex of deeply internalized self-loathing at living too long had done such terrible damage, and she was working on changing. Part of her hated that even with the mind control she could not resist her jaw wibbling slightly and some tears flowing at simply being held by another who wanted her, but when the other woman simply dried her eyes and said nothing, holding her and letting her assert control of herself, she felt more relieved.

The nature of the pact meant that the ritual was formed from the unions of the flesh,  but it was not  a magick that would rely on choice one way or the other. It would be wiser for all of existence were it so on the part of the sorcerer or sorceress who worked the magick, but with those who sought to summon spirits for such purposes, within the bodies of mortals or in those spheres that permitted it, empirically visible and touchable, such was not always the mindset of those who gained such power to wield it with wisdom  for the possession of power was mistaken as more than it was.

The silence, the embrace, the delicate kiss on her shoulder all signified an understanding that surprised her.

So did the quiet mental empathic questions as the hand around her waist slipped lower, asking for permission and letting Death dictate the pace. This too had not quite been so, and it was something that made the biting anxiety within her ease, and she slowly relaxed at the graceful loops of Bat Aphar's hands as they dipped down, along her striations, and then one of them cupped her between her legs, starting to rub and caress along her lips, as she heard that breathing again.

Beautiful even here, the golem's voice echoed in a silky fashion. It was lower, now, and breathier, giving her warmth at recognizing that the desire was real.

Such beauty from one most fitted to have it. She who is Life in all its hedonistic and bloody aspects of becoming itself should be lovely, and she who is Death should be achingly beautiful such that the soul knows peace.

The hand moved away from her and Death let herself breathe at the same level as she saw the glistening juices on the entity's finger, and then the golem took it in her mouth, the slurping surprisingly noisy (and she wondered what the saliva of a being made of magick would be like, would it be like mortal saliva? Like the substances produced in certain kinds of dimensions where sensual energy had its potency and its metaphysical warp and weft to a point that even moreso than otherwise the carnal things were first and foremost? Like candy?). The golem hummed in pleasure.

And then with a casual demonstration of her mystical skill she levitated Death in the air and bound her with magick of her own, wire snaking out and around her wrists, and along her arms and extending over her head in an ornate set of trefoil knots and what was and wasn't akin to barbed wire and rope formed around her. It formed around her legs too, clenching them and spreading them, sustaining itself in mid-air in yet another display of skill. The golem stood back, looking at her work of art and then leaned in to give Death a deep kiss, and Death found out just what her saliva was like after all.

It was addictive, with a honeyed element with a small element of cinnamon to it, something she greedily took and welcomed with the golem's tongue overwhelming hers, the sound of their kisses audible, as the being's hands slid down to squeeze her ass and squeeze it tightly before slipping away, and then grinning as she lowered herself between Death's legs.

You are my guest and my aid, so it is only fair that I give this to you first, she said, as her voice thrummed against Death's pussy, and then with a wide grin on her face she leaned inward and her lips parted and her tongue slid out and Death's eyes went very wide at the sensations filling her. The knots around her wrists, along her forearms, and her clenched legs, her knees and her thighs and parts of her calves and shins began to gleam and she realized just what magick filled them and felt excitement and trepidation.

The slight pink flush deepened and became a much deeper red one, the red standing out against the bone-skin and the hair of stygian hue that nothing of science could match, and she let herself moan freely, enjoying herself as her eyes slipped to half closed and she sank in, letting herself be free.
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Destruction of the Endless snorted good-naturedly at the process of the archaeological dig. Ever since he'd taken in his younger sister, and worked to clean up one of his messes....and retaken his position in not one but two separate smaller portions of his being when his sister's troubles had nearly sundered his family irreparably, the rest of him had made a decision. If he was not to actively wield his function at a cosmic scale he would at a smaller one, for as the other Endless were duality, he was Creation as he was Destruction. And what better thing to start this than archaeology, than scarring the ground to uncover the hidden bones of history?

Here, as an extra element and one that gave him the slight acidic edge of just knowing who would be popping up soon and when, this was a dig that risked disturbing something best left alone. Exham Priory had been destroyed in the 1930s, following the revelation of horrific cannibalistic acts and the still more deeply hidden rift that connected it to that primordial place that he had glimpsed only distantly and which had drawn him here. In truth he was not certain what, if anything, he could do if they did uncover more beyond the deformed skeletons and the products of the terrifying magick that relied on the insane ravings of a terrible shard of the Ten Thousand Face King-Queen at the center of nuclear space, or if they found the rift.

But it would be a damned sight better to do so with Destruction itself at their side than to gamble on it without it. The only superheroes that could have been trusted with this were involved in deeper affairs, in a renewed mess of Oa and the latest stirrings of Uxas and Izaya in their renewed eternal war.

He had expected to see his brother when he felt that pulse of familial energy and gritted his teeth, preparing to explain to Dream why he wasn't interested in yet another appeal to what had been so just because his counterparts in minor enclaves of a vast sphere had done things. When he saw the being who was his physical mirror in all save having a massive red beard that went halfway to his stomach and seemed too oversized to be real, clad in clothes of finest green with elaborate symbols that were never consistent, and knew that the being's sphere stood still and would remain so until events had passed, he stared in stupefied shock.

Dad?
Time smiled at his son.

Destruction, my favorite son.

Why are you here?

There is to be a conclave of the family, all save the Exile.

He gritted his teeth slightly. He was the one who'd left but his father only referred to their sister by that name, even to her face. He had not called her daughter since a parting much more bitter than his from his siblings.

Destiny usually calls such things. He calls them and I don't care. I do not count myself among them unless necessity requires me to do so. Family, yes. Function, no.

Destiny did not call this one.

Time's smile was now that of a withered greybeard with a hunchback and clad in a robe of infinite darkness, a great scythe in his hand. With eyes that glowed like stars and the aura of age and of decay about him he seemed much more the mortal vision of death than his elder sister could ever do even in the few cases of her terrifying anger, even in the small portion of reality where she had chosen anger and wrath rather than hedonism as her reaction to her own changes.

I did. And as your father, you do not get to disobey my summons. You, all of you, save the Exile are truthfully equal in one way or another to each other. Not to me.

Destruction bit his lip again.

Very well, father. I'll come with you.

Time smiled coldly and then looked at the priory, now a youth and a seeming child but with eyes far too ancient to make it convincing and a deep basso man's voice that no child could have truthfully claimed.

Your little dig here will remain paused in time until you return. And worry not, son. Even if my eldest has too much a stick up his arse to tell you, what lies beneath there is not beyond you. It is a little thing, and were Nyarlathotep the Crawling Chaos to seek to gather Forsaken Souls by some silly tantric rite or renewing drawing the damned here to the cannibalism beyond the tantric rituals it would fail.

Time snorted.

If nothing else your brother's stories would make it so.
 
He growled.


As is, I think he'd probably amuse himself in a world like this by dressing up as a Batman Who Laughs or a Plot Contrivance on the Morrison Scale with some convoluted nonsense about how even we are products of stories as if the wise have not known this all along.

And with that Time was again the grey-bearded liver-spotted cadaver with flesh and an over-wide grin and then the haft of his scythe collided into the ground and in a sudden flash of lightless energy Time and his son were drawn to the meeting hall of the Endless.

