The withered corpses of worlds unborn formed a compost in this barren void, the salvage breaking down into a viscous, primordial sludge as The Beginning approached. These were the conditions necessary for the inception of all things, and it seemed all of the pieces were finally in place.

The first birth had occurred well over 600 billion life-cycles ago, coming as a bit of a shock to everyone created at the time. It seemed most people were perfectly content not existing in the first place, and the most bitter about the ordeal being the body herself. With each incarnation, it seemed her will to find meaning in her life further faltered, and infinite repetitions of her own birth had worn her down. She'd considered this just before her most recent demise (surely they'd only get more terrible from here, right? ) but there was nothing to be done.

Starting new things was always hard. Especially when you know you'll be forced to begin again. And begin again. And begin again...

But it was too late to think about that. The guest of honor was already on her doorstep.?

But, why could she feel it? Why did it all seem like it was... her? Such rampant chaos couldn’t be her body. It just couldn’t. She wouldn’t accept it. SHE REFUSED. How dare this pathetic excuse for a reality forcefully claim to be hers? She was better than that. She was worth more than this. She had been——

… What had she been? She couldn’t remember. She didn’t know. She had yet to open her eyes

Writhing, silent screams went unheard as she jerked about, panicked and fearful of what she could not yet see. Or perhaps, in truth, it was what she would see when she did open her eyes that horrified her most—— and rightly so. Sweet newborn did not know any better, and surely there would had been no way for her to prepare otherwise. She couldn't had expected the miserable reality she'd be met with a glimpse of, so terrible to a being who'd only known pain thus far. She could not tolerate infinity. She couldn't.

And as soon as her sight of the past had awakened, she had dug divine nails into her socket and torn from herself the scourge, unable to carry the reminder around with herself. It seemed she'd be doing with only one eye this time around...

Was this her birth? She contemplated the thought, turning it over and over again in her mind as celestial energy spread out like ink in water. For a while, it became almost soothing to watch it all. The disarray gave way slowly to recognizable patterns, the once overwhelming shape of things becoming easier to endure. She began to calm down, almost forgetting about her anger; that terrible visceral burning that plagued her so.

At least, until things began forming in the universal sludge. Entities. Laws and concepts to govern the new worlds she bore began to emerge from the furthest edges of the void. Some acknowledged her poor sentience, caught in her violent growth spurt. But most did not, only ever infuriating her more. Resolute they were, in their disregard for her very presence on the same plane as them. Why would none say a word to her? Why did no one know what was going on? Or, perhaps they did, and elected to ignore her for simplicity’s sake.

Or, maybe they didn’t even notice her, suffering and squirming in her mire. That would make sense. But the sneaking suspicion still lingered, and she felt herself crying out to try and get their attention—— to no avail. She wasn’t fully formed yet. An infant, abandoned. She wasn’t ready to communicate on her own yet; to make herself known. So, her whimpers and murmurs were ignored by those she could not reach, and for the longest of eternities she felt trapped in her own starlit skin. To be everything, yet still utterly and fundamentally alone was a burden she had never been willing to bear.

Amazing, how quickly she began to wish her own existence away. Such miserable pleas for death she made to higher beings she wasn’t even sure were there, just wanting to be left be. But her efforts and words— words she did not completely understand at the time—— fell on deaf and uncaring ears. She was begging into the empty abyss while trying to hold onto herself. Or, rather, to hold herself together while her body revolted.

But slowly true order came, bringing new life and relative serenity with it. Relief slowly seeped through the cracks of the torment as everything finally began to make sense of itself. But it did nothing to quell the rage. By the time a steadfast rhythm made its appearance in her swirling, all-encompassing body, there was really only ONE way to describe her;

Within her is an endless cycle of life and death. Entire galaxies go out with violent and definite bangs while ecosystems and civilizations are formed simultaneously on remote planets in solar systems barely out of their proverbial diapers. Deities and mortals wage seemingly endless wars against one another in an arms race towards their own demise, while the world continues on, their insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe both exceedingly pathetic and truly inspiring.

She is in essence both a destroyer and a creator of the cosmos—— for it is her body, and no one else's. By the sheer force of her will, she can form nebulae with but a snap of her fingers and crush entire star clusters with that very same hand. Within the confines of space and time, she is irrevocably metapotent. Reality bends to her will, because she is what allows it to be. Space is not only her home — but her mind, her body and her soul. She is all.

For a being such as herself to come off as dainty and positive is a feat of great effort. She spent eons becoming this way. She made herself soft and sweet. This was a calculated, planned move that overtime has become an ingrained part of her personality. It catches you off guard, and tells you she is anything but what she is. But, it’s easy to hear in the way that she talks that something isn’t right. That maybe there’s far more to such an eccentric person than meets the eye. Her acting is good, but it isn’t PERFECT. Even the most talented mimic has it’s faults and flaws.

There is no Atlas strong enough to bear the weight of her, and there is no true companionship in infinity.

Taking on a gentle and soothing appearance, she carefully covers her true vastness with a quiet voice and the tiniest of smiles. She wants to be underestimated. She wants others to think they need to protect her, because it means they feel some urge to stay with her. To not fear her. She is happy with such things, lonely as she tends to be without it.

But there is still stardust on her lips, and there is still an entire universe behind her eyes.

She exists both within herself and everywhere else, her consciousness strung across all dimensions as if her mind was made of intergalactic yarn. Infinite instances of her are forced to roam, all agonizingly aware of the life she cannot seem to escape. No entity wishes to suffer the sensation of being all. No one wants to be eternal. Or — at the very least — she doesn’t.

With no given purpose other than to exist , she has long since created her own reason to carry on. In her youth, it was the hellbound goal of destroying herself; but in her old age, she's taken far more to the allocation of information. To task one’s self to search out knowledge and experiences until reality itself collapses is not a light-hearted decision, but anything is better than the aimless wandering and havoc. To lose yourself in your own expanse is a fate that no entity would be all too pleased to experience.

But even with a drive to explore and learn, time is an isolating concept. The things she loves still die, and she is still cursed with this seemingly never-ending journey through nothingness. There is no rest for someone in her position. The stars will still rage on, and the light will still bore into her eye as a reminder that she is awake. That she is still alive. This is no nightmare, nor is it a dream. This is her reality.

And so she exists, in a constant push and pull against herself and her love and her anguish and her rage. She seeks out companionship and those to care for and dote upon, but they shall all inevitably die. Eventually, she will be left alone in their absence, once again forced to scour the cosmos for eternity in search of some sort of temporary relief during her unwanted presence in this world.

But in the end, she too will cease to exist. Infinity will finally reach it’s limit, and the paradox of her own existence will be no more. She will be released from herself.

The truest Absynthia was once—— and one day shall be again—— a single entity, aware far beyond omniscience and excruciatingly lonely because of this. Having existed outside of the multiverse since her very conception as the construct, she is trapped in a perpetual quiet. Unable to speak to those who do not seek her out, yet still metapotent in her own right; abstract flesh is mere putty beneath her fingertips, melding under the weight of her will. There is humor to be found in the dissonance and imagery of an entity imprisoned, but all-powerful in the same breath. A caged beast with no place to escape to.

For mortals, this incomprehensible concept ( incorporeal! eldritch! revolting! ) manifests as a lavish domain centered within the core of all things. Within this ever shifting complex, there is rumored to be an otherworldly beauty who tends to a crystalline garden, granting favors to pleasant company.

This is the source of Absynthia. This is from where she pulls all the strings, as shackles bite into her star-kissed flesh with cold, worn edges. This was the ever changing force that had once seen beyond the beyond; she who now sits in chains as she awaits the day they shatter. At that time, she will be free to destroy herself once again.

She had not always been many; she had been but one before the fragmenting. In her desperation and in her anguish, she dug her fingers into the loom of her sentience and pulled it apart into strands, unweaving the very fabric of reality. And she continued to pluck apart these strings with manic fervor until her mind had been completely frayed—— if she could not venture inside of herself, surely these mere shards of her could.

So began the creation of a boundless entity, sacrificing one curse for another as she crafted her puppets. Instances. Constructs for the tendrils of her consciousness to puppeteer, and dolls with which her divided psyche could play pretend. Lovingly crafting each and every drone, centuries were spent on the details and on the planning as she stitched together magnificence. She was an arduous artist, dedicated to perfection for herself and her creations. These proxies would be her salvation.

And each of these instances of her mind set out at completion, forever one but many; everything, but all alone. Building their own relationships, with their own daily lives, and their own personal biases, each of them gained some individuality in their release into the multiverse. Their goals and concerns were unique with only one occupying each universe, never intermixing but still aware of their neighbors' lives and experiences.

That's not to say biases don't affect other instances, of course. Across the endless years ( infinitely multiplied by her awareness of all worlds in simultaneous temporal decay ) there are some individuals she's never found the heart to dislike, no matter how awful they are. Each of her carries with them memories of people they've never touched, but still long for before they are born. The dissonance is dizzying.

Instances are intrinsically connected to one another through the source entity, sidereal threads of thought wrapping around their astral forms and bringing them all closer together. Each has the ability to make one on one connections with another—— to become one mind focusing on two bodies temporarily to relay messages, or to help a fellow instance out. They are all naturally allocentric towards one another; they refer to themselves and each other as "I," while collectively as "we." She is one mind with many bodies and many lives.

To save energy, every strand of Absynthia's mind syncs up to one another once a day through the source pool, as well as during congruent points in each timeline. Of course, it couldn't just be as simple as that for an entity already floundering through existence, though. Often based on the state of a universe and it's physics, time has been known to flow at different rates across different dimensions, resulting in instances scattered across time haphazardly.

Almost all timelines have a common denominator, making it possible to scale them all to relatively common lengths for the sake of congruency mapping. All in all, the hive's system of timekeeping and memory syncing is micromanaged to perfection, but does have its inevitable hindrances.

While the source knows all that has been experienced, the many instances are restricted to their place in the timeline. Some universes are billions of years ahead of others, with time flowing at barely half speed for those who've fallen behind. If there is something that an Absynt must know from the future, she must go out of her way to ascertain that knowledge herself.

Over the eons, the fragmenting of her mind has proven relatively successful all in all. It's become a healthy way to cope with her predicament, but is in no way faultless. The most pressing of the complications she's faced are the instances who snap from their marionette paddle, becoming stranded in their synodic skin. In her old age she is stable enough to keep from breaking her bond with her own mind, but in her erratic youth she regrettably tore the strings of eight of her fragments. Cutting them off from their own mind, there was nothing she could do to help—— they would be left to burn through their now finite resources, succumbing slowly to entropy and taking their respective universes with them.

In a handful of occasions, this was the case. As she settled down into her adulthood, a few strands had snapped from the sheer stress and misery she felt; those accepted their fate with grace, embracing their slow demise with open arms. The dilemma was in those who'd separated during her angry years. Vile, volatile and vicious, these rabid beasts were now separated and terrified, only becoming more angry by the millennium. Within a few million years many of them lost themselves in their fury, while others grew into scavengers, entirely foreign and unrecognizable as the all-powerful entity they had once represented.

These roaming forms were a disgrace. They were depraved beings, evolved and mutated from their practice of sucking galaxies dry of their stored energy. They existed only to continue existing, as if they were still aching to destroy all they saw, but lacked the power to do so anymore. They are hollow shells of the source they'd been torn from, looking for some way to escape their withering reality to go leech from another.

There are only three left now, since the culling. Her chevalier's can't seem to find the last of them, and to this day she suspects they're still there... just biding their time. It is unfortunate that she cannot seek them out herself, so she can only hope that they stay put in piece, rather than doom another universe with their very presence.