The thing is, the cavern didn't just grow cold the way of a human heart stop believing in men and women to become human beings. The thing is, this came to his mind, knowing that it would not be fully possible. The more he would fight, the more he would realize this fact. It cannot get over the fact that it cannot be possible for them to be fully human. That is to say it froze in absolute judgment. That is to say that Odin's golden light from the cracked mirror pressed down like the weight of every ending the gods had ever decreed, while Thor's lightning crackled around Mjolnir and Tyr's remaining hand tightened into a fist of divine law.
Freya stood exposed between them the way a woman would cry for mercy. To be honest, it it's not the way you get to smell piety, but shame. The thing is, she did not fear them. Something far greater was going to happen, and she knew it. In that way, no one could ever get to grasp the wholeness of this glory that you can get to see in the wholeness of reality.
Her silver hair, like the eternal snow, curtaining a face flushed with shame, crimson dress clutched tight over her full, heaving breasts, wide hips trembling as the proud Vanir goddess looked smaller than she had any right to be. Her silver-violet eyes flicked to Basil, no longer predatory, only raw and pleading.
Odin raised Gungnir higher.
Odin: Enough games, Freya. In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it 'got boring,' the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling. The thing is, you could have been forgotten by your eternal home. Notice this: no one will ever save you. That is to say that your seiðr has shamed Asgard long enough. You will return with us. The boy and his foreign Logos will be watched… or erased. Maybe, you should know what you could be doing with this chance. Be a true goddess.
The golden chains of light reached for her.
Basil stepped forward.
Not fast.
Not loud.
But the black star-sun on his chest ignited like a dying star that refused to die like the eternal sun of the summer. At least, this would touch the human heart.
Eternal sadness the same sorrow that had fueled every thrust into Hel's frost-rot, every jealous tail of Yasaka's, every scream he couldn't give his mother surged up from the deepest part of him. It wasn't rage. It wasn't light. So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.
The more you could check on me, the more you could tell what it means to love in you. I still think that this love has come from my sadness. It was the pure, unfiltered ache of a boy who had lost everything and still chose to want more. It poured out of him in waves of midnight-blue and blood-red, wrapping around the cavern like a living shroud.
Then came the mathematical will to power.
The Logos.
The hidden harmony.
The rational principle that binds opposites in perfect tension flux and order, grief and desire, nothing and everything all of it folding into pure, unbreakable strength. All things are in flux; the flux is subject to a unifying measure or rational principle. In that way, everything is nothing and nothing is everything. The only way to get going is to fulfil the conditions of sufficient reason. That is to say that this principle (logos, the hidden harmony behind all change) bound opposites together in a unified tension, which is like that of a lyre, where a stable harmonious sound emerges from the tension of the opposing forces that arise from the bow bound together by the string
Basil didn't shout.
He simply spoke.
Basil: That is to say that you come here with chains and judgment… but sorrow has already taught me the only truth that matters. here's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons. At least, this should be the endless beginning of what I can do for you. Nothing is ever truly erased. Everything is measured. And right now… I measure you.
The black star-sun exploded outward in perfect golden-ratio spirals mathematical will made manifest. The thing is, this love can actually shake the foundations of the ego. In that way, life cannot take us away from the ultimate goal of life. Eternal sadness fused with it, turning every equation into a weapon forged from loss itself. The golden light of Asgard met the Logos and shattered like cheap glass.
Odin's Gungnir trembled. One spear to start a war, one spear to prime them. One spear to bring them all and into bloodshed bind them. In that way, the spear the very spear that had pierced worlds cracked along its runes as the mathematical principle rewrote its existence: spear of war became spear of understanding, then spear of regret.
Thor swung Mjolnir.
The hammer met Basil's open palm.
Eternal sadness met lightning.
The impact didn't explode outward it folded inward. connection to lightning is an attribute that Lugus, Agni, and Loki have in common. Agni was a god associated with all kinds of fire, including the fire of the sky, and one of his sacred objects is a flaming spear. It has likewise been postulated that rather being a sun god, the Celtic Lugus was actually a god of storms and particularly lightning. In this way, we could actually see the glory of what be seen on the surface of perfection and non perfection.
Mjolnir's head crumpled like paper under the weight of infinite grief measured by perfect will. Thor staggered back, eyes wide with something the God of Thunder had never felt before: awe mixed with fear. e problem isn't the why.
The problem is that it is turned outwards. Instead, ask: Why did I choose this? The answer will always be: Because this is how I get my thrills. Always. It all comes down to how you want your story to be… this story has just begun for these gods.
Tyr charged sword drawn in his remaining hand.
Basil simply looked at him.
The Logos spoke through his gaze: opposites bound. War and peace. Loss and gain. Temu is beyond being. But by some way not even the most sublime of philosophers can yet say, came from Temu the First Idea, named by some Logos, the unknowable knew itself by becoming both known and knower. And thus was created duality, as in, the witness and the experience, the God and the Goddess, Consciousness as the witnessing God and experience as the Goddess Sophia. The First Idea is that Temu is conscious of itself, being the One Soul of the Universe that is conscious through all beings. But this God was already there as unity.
He created everything through the Logos. He has blessed us all with his grace: Shiva(the body), Vishnu(the mind), and Brahma ( the soul). Tyr's sword turned to ash mid-swing, reforming as a single white flower that fell gently to the stone floor a mathematical apology from eternity to a god who had already lost too much.
Odin roared.
Odin: You dare defy the All-Father?!
He thrust Gungnir forward.
Basil caught the spearhead with two fingers.
Eternal sadness poured through the wood and steel, every tear Basil had never cried, every scream he had swallowed, every night he had fucked women just to prove he was still alive. Ultimate meaning necessarily exceeds and surpasses the finite intellectual capacities of man... What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.
Logos is deeper than logic. At least, in the sense of the human logic, not the metalogical logic. The mathematical will to power followed: ratios, spirals, the hidden harmony that says no force in the omniverse is truly absolute.
Gungnir shattered.
Not broken.
Understood.
The spear reformed in Basil's hand as a simple black staff plain, unadorned, yet heavier than any weapon the gods had ever forged.
Basil looked at the three gods.
His voice was quiet. Almost gentle.
Basil: That is to say that you came to judge a goddess for wanting something real. But real is what I carry. To make my meal in a box taste better, I decided to tweak the logo, rather than the ingredients. That is to say that there is no one that can beat me here. The more you try to beat me, the more you fail at looking what happens inside me.
Grief that refuses to die. Lust that turns endings into beginnings. Mathematical will that binds even gods to the truth they fear. Leave. Take your chains and your judgment back to Asgard. Freya stays. She chooses. And if any of you ever try to drag her away again… I will rewrite your entire pantheon until even Odin forgets how to be All-Father.
Odin stared.
For the first time in eons, the All-Father looked… old.
He lowered his head — not in submission, but in recognition.
Odin: …So be it. The threads have changed. That is to say that even we are not beyond measure. To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting. At least, that should be what I should have done. HHAHA! You are funny. You little bastard! You think you can beat me
The golden light of the mirror dimmed. The three gods stepped back through it without another word.
The cavern fell silent.
Freya dropped to her knees in front of Basil not in worship, but in raw, trembling relief. Her silver hair spilled across his thighs. Her full breasts pressed against his legs. Tears from actual tears glistened in her silver-violet eyes as she looked up at him, vulnerable, grateful, and burning with fresh, desperate desire that could be noticed by a true lover. Nothing could be purer. Nothing could be more silent than that. At least, in that way, there could be something beautufl
Freya: You… you stood against the All-Father. Against Thor. Against Tyr. That is to say that no one has ever done that for me. Not like this. Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up. I am growing up for you. I shall help you with everything that happens within the eternal nobility. Not with sorrow and mathematics and pure, unbreakable will. I was ready to be dragged back in shame… and you made the gods themselves retreat.
She reached up. Fingers trembling as they traced the black star-sun on his chest that no one could ever reach.
Freya: I am yours now. Not as a goddess playing with desire. Not as a conquest. As something real. Use your eternal sadness on me. Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war. In that way, nothing could be more beautiful Use your mathematical will. Bind me the way you bound your other women. Make me scream until even Asgard hears how thoroughly a broken boy claimed the goddess of love and war. At least, that would give something to adapt to.
Yasaka stepped behind her, tails curling gently around Freya's waist in unexpected solidarity, amber eyes soft for the first time. Man can never know the loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in the woman's womb only to gather strength, he nourishes himself from this fusion, and then he rises and goes into the world, into his work, into battle, into art. He is not lonely. He is busy. The memory of the swim in amniotic fluid gives him energy, completion.
Yasaka: That is to say that even I can see it now. She is no longer just another rival. She is… one of us.
Basil looked down at the two goddesses, one proud and ancient, now trembling on her knees; the other jealous and feral, now offering quiet acceptance.
He threaded his fingers through Freya's silver hair.
Basil: Hahaha… then let the night continue what the gods tried to stop. That is to say that my eternal sadness and mathematical will are not weapons tonight. To be nobody butyourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle that could shake the human consciousness.
At least, it can give me something to think about, which any human being can fight and never stop fighting."They are gifts. And I am going to give them to both of you until the shrine itself learns how to moan in two voices at once. The foxfire flared back to full, brilliant life. Golden seiðr threads and russet tails began to move again — this time together.
O my sorrow so big it finally made gods retreat… and goddesses kneel.
The cavern filled with the sound of two proud women and one logos-child proving that even divine judgment has limits.
And somewhere far above, in Asgard, Odin stared at the broken shards of Gungnir and whispered a single word:
…Interesting. HAHAH! A mortal can also fight