Most… things originate from nothing more that an idea. Usually a stupid idea, or at least one that isn't given clear thought. That idea is given form by way of messy biology or mechanical contrivance. It gets assembled from small bits of mass, layering more and more atop itself. It aims for a pre-determined mould, and when it reaches minimum viability, its released out, shrieking and screaming and helpless. If it has luck on its side, it falls into the trappings of some sentimental societial constructs that are ready to help cultivate it.
Not so with my Genovefa. My Genovefa… from here, I can reach Back and gently caress her cheek, helping settle her in her orbital cradle. She was already billions of years old before her 'birth'. The magnificent child of a strong star system, tucked safely under the nucleur center of a spiral galaxy. She was a terrestial world, you know, just big enough not to be called a mesoplanet. And she had a hidden density under her mantle, enough to be the envy of any of her larger titanic siblings. It made her gravity crushing. Cruel. Demanding of respect.
Oh, she had life on her, sure. She was practically crawling with the stuff. Compact oceans full of flat crawling desperation. Vast green expanses of stubborn mosses. Countless types microbial slimes pooling in yonic crevaces. But she herself, no, she wasn't alive. Not until the Monster Bees came.
They're an ancient… hmm… well, let's be generous and call them a 'species'. They go from world to world to world, race to race to race, turning whole populations into more of themselves. With just a sting, they introduce an aggressive toxin that reorganizes matter - any sort of matter - that transforms their victims into more Monster Bees. Individually, they live energetic, condensed little lives. As a whole, they're a pervasive breed. They spread fast, they fracture often, they move like plague clouds amoungst superclusters.
When they gather into colonies, they instinctively seek out two things: a queen and a hive. More than an just an authority figure, the queen becomes the prefontal cortex of their entire neural network; she literally gives them will and want, understanding and direction and desire. A hive, on the other hand, is their place of safety. Its usually a secure world where the colony can grow and evolve in stolid complexity. In Genovefa, they had found both.
But, see, a single object the size of an entire planet…? Too massive for their toxin to transform. Even with the lot of them, all stinging the surface, all at the same time, all of them giving up their lives in the act. It wasn't possible. Not until they acquired the Grand Feather, one of the Cosmic Crowns. One of my vestigial twins. Of seven total. With just one of these incredible artifacts, it was possible. With the Grand Feather jabbed into a basalt field, with its histories and its stories called to bear, with its raw cosmic power to keep the transformation stable…
Oh, if you could have seen it. It was miraculous. Watching her tectonic plates settling into dermal shells. Feeling her silicate mantle flex into geological muscle. Hearing her iron core beat with seismic thunder. She didn't shriek. She didn't scream. Not like so many small, miserable things thrust into cold empty existance. She was born with purpose and nobility.
I hope… I hope she didn't think poorly of me. If she thought of me at all, that is. When she realized how unique she was, how lonely that promised to be, I wish I was able to comfort her, to whisper lullabies, to let her know someone loved her. Even now, I want little more than to just push the Present aside, to hold her, to tell her that it's going to be okay.
But I don't. I stay in the Now. It wouldn't make a difference, anyway. Her story's… it's too big to ever have had a happy ending.
She had her own children, after a fashion. The Monster Bees, they swarmed to her, finding shelter and submission under her wing. Billions and billions and billions of them. On her surface they constructed sprawling metropolises of wax and silver, geometric arrays in senary spirals, fractal networks of crystalline arches stretching from one pole to the other. They adorned her with beauty and function, and in return, she bequeathed them a stern maternal tolerance. They were more than subjects. They were her volition. Her dominance.
It shouldn't surprise you that everyone was deathly afraid of her. Everyone, every miserable living creature, everywhere, Then and Now and what little feverish, burning Future I leave them with. And yes, they were right to be afraid of her. Even the other great super-races, even with their super-champions bearing the other Cosmic Crowns, they were terrified of her. Even amoungst their numbers and all their incredible power, she was without peer!
She was the one that defeated the Gravity Wraiths, crushing them under her own magnitude. { Cosmic Tales Of The Incredible #4 }
She was the one that finally caged the Secret Living Language after it consumed its own galaxy, drowning that tiny idea in the ocean of her thoughts. { Space Terrors #12 }
And it was she who halted the Super Warlock tide at the end, unaffected by their space-greed diesease because she wanted for nothing. { Crisis Of The Super Warlocks #1-6 }
Massive in scale. In size. In power. In authority. In every measurement. In every definition. The other super-races, her so-call 'peers', they couldn't understand her. They could barely comprehend her. They couldn't even talk to her unless she lowered herself to their level - a humanoid facsimile to ease their expectations - and even then, even through hologram technology and across astronomical distance, she still overwhelmed them. Like god speaking to mice through string.
So try to imagine what she thought, what she felt, when one of those mice, those insects, those tiny crawling creeping parasites, when one of them broke a planet in half. To have your sense of self shattered. To be immortal one moment, and the next, not. To learn you, you, could die.
Did she feel helpless, do you think? Had she ever felt helpless before then? Had circumstances ever been so far out of her influence? Had she ever felt so temporary? Could you blame her for being scared?
Well, I could. Of course I could. Oh, don't look at me that way. A parent can't always turn a blind eye to the poor behaviour of a child. And, I'm sorry to admit, she was the epitome of a spoiled child. For all the regality she draped herself in, her actions throughout the Cosmic Tournament was deplorable.
And her own children could sense it, too. She couldn't hide the ugliness from them, even if she could manage to hide it from herself. Their perfect queen had a flaw. Their hive, their home, it wasn't the safe haven it was supposed to be. So the Monster Bees did what their instincts demanded of them: they went looking for replacements. They abandoned her.
In desperation, she turned to others. The final deal she made was with the Super Wizard governing parliament. They were facing their own end, after a fashion, and they were just as desperate. But even then, in her last hour of need, even when she was all but begging for help, she still treated her allies as inferiors. I mean, yes, okay, technically they were lesser beings compared to her, but, come on, that's no way to ask anyone to save your life. If you treat the people you count on like dirt, don't be surprised when they throw it back in your face.
At least she went down swinging. Isn't that what ultimately drives all that squirming and breeding and eating and pissing and everything that life is? That instinctual refusal to lie down and give up. To scrap and claw and fight for each extra moment of existence. To spit in the eye of your own death, to go for the jugular when he's blinded.
I've watched that last fight play out countless times. Between individuals. Between tribal groups. Between entire civilizations. From the darwinistic struggles of microbes to the star-spanning wars of ageless species. From the very start of Then, to every far-flung moment of Now, to my final, fiery End.
But… even no one's ever seen anything like this.
