Deep in the depths of Daedos lies the swan-library of living starlight, where stacks of scrolls and scriptures rest eternal. Waves of golden light cast over The Cygnus Archive, poured down by the Light Guides floating above. Neat rows of shelves holding infinite stories stretch on endlessly through the vast library, holding the burden of knowledge yet the boundless enthusiasm of curiosity. In the middle of it, sits the forever dreaming Archivist, curious and free—wisdom incarnate. Her vast wings spin stories that have been and will be, her many arms endlessly cataloging and curating them into her infinite library.
Cygnus sat at her desk, her figure a source of divine light, radiating upon her surroundings. A cup of tea and piles of books lay by her side. Her six arms worked in graceful harmony—flipping pages, writing, cataloguing, curating—the eternal dance of wisdom’s curiosity. Yet, there was a delay in her continuity, one that carried sorrow and despair. The recent deaths of her kin had echoed as a disturbance throughout Daedos itself. Yet, in the face of this tragedy, Cygnus merely carried on with her work, witnessing the grief yet refusing to allow herself to experience it—for her duty was sacred, and to stray from it was to stray away from herself.
As per the status quo since The Massacre and The Uprising, the Archive found itself to be alone. The Archive’s former buzz of life from visiting wanderers had ceased, replaced by a cold, harsh silence. Although Cygnus was a deeply revered goddess within The Lost’s Pantheon, even she had fallen out of favor in the eyes of those who suffered from the wrath of The Greyking.
The silence broke when a book fell from one of the shelves with a soft thud. As Cygnus approached it to place it back into its designated category, the presence of another could be felt as the turning of a thousand pages. The Archive was flooded in a faint smell of liquor and petrichor, and in a split moment, the Light Guides flocked behind her, arranging themselves into a doorway of soft glowing light. From it, stepped forth a figure glowing with divine power: tall with flowing silver hair that covered his eyes, and clad in the unblemished authority of access. A ring of keys humming with the power of unrestricted access—The Grand Skein, hung on one hip, and a sheathed blade rested on the other. A halo of keys rotated above his head like a crown, looping in impossible spirals. It was Clavis, the Gatekeeper. Guide to travelers and Warder of Thresholds.
“The doors to the entire cosmos are within my grasp, and yet I still find myself in your library,” Clavis teasingly announced as a weary smile spread across his face—his voice the grind of a bolt in a socket, and his gaze as warm as starlight.
“Gatekeeper, what a pleasant surprise! Come. Have a seat…” Cygnus remarked as she gestured towards the adjacent tearoom while elegantly waving one of her hands. Behind her, the fallen book lifted gracefully from the floor and slid back into its proper place on the shelf.
“It has been quite a while since I've had any visitors,” she continued as she began to pour steaming cups of jasmine tea for them both.
Clavis silently nodded, sipping his tea with satisfaction. “You did always keep the best company, Cygnus. Tell me, what new stories have you as of late?”
“Those that have yet to be read,” Cygnus replied with a soft chuckle. “Though, there is one very peculiar story that I came across…” she mused. Behind them, a book materialized out of thin air—old, fragile and worn, its plain brown leather cover emitting a glowing warmth. The tome floated forward and gently put itself down onto the table, settling in between the two gods and steaming porcelain with a gentle thud. “It is a chronicle on the Theft of the Twilight Key…I believe it belongs to you?”
Clavis stared at the book in front of him, his rotating crown of keys slowing as his weary smile broke to form a look of what might have been intrigue, or dismay, or perhaps both. “Ah,” he exclaimed, memories of a time long gone resurfacing like a festering wound. “The story of a thief who thought he could outrun a god of thresholds,” he murmured, his calloused fingers slowly reaching for the book before recoiling, as he let out a low gravelly sigh like iron grinding against stone. “It has been so long ago that I had nearly forgotten the sting of that particular failure.”
“The Archive doesn’t forget, brother. It merely acts as the mirror for the past for when we are ready to look,” Cygnus said softly as she refilled her cup.
Clavis let out a dry chuckle. “That man ran a fool’s errand. In his quest for power he trapped himself in a prison of his own making. A fatal flaw that I now see too often in the ants of today…”
Cygnus paused, sensing a subtle change in her brother’s demeanor. “The fear left behind by The Greyking’s massacre lingers. What our brother did…we are unable to atone for. It is only natural that the humans reject us, they put their trust and faith in us, and we failed them. The time where we once ruled as gods is over. As for the humans—I believe it was time that they choose paths of their own.”
“But they aren’t choosing their own paths, Cygnus,” Clavis whispered, his voice now dropping low as hatred began to seep through his words. “They are sealing them. The ants walk a path of death and destruction. They bite the hands that feed them, they use the doorways that I carved for them, map the frequencies of my keys and lock us out from the inside. They have shut us out entirely.”
Cygnus raised a brow in concern. “Gatekeeper? Is everything alright, dear?”
“They are a plague, Cygnus” Clavis continued, his voice now a chilling scrape—like a key of iron turning in a rusted lock. “They are parasites. They take our gifts and in return, they attempt to slaughter our siblings. I will not stand idle and watch these ants become our undoing. I will collapse every single threshold across Daedos, and they will starve in the dark, until they beg for our mercy. I will lock away any hope that lingers within their hearts, and the void will swallow them whole.”
“Gatekeeper… Clavis… listen to yourself,” Cygnus breathed, shocked at what her brother planned to do. To hear him, The Gatekeeper—guide to travellers and welcomer of the lost, speak of such absolute slaughter broke her heart. “You speak of erasure. If you are to truly do what you are suggesting, it makes you no different from how you describe the humans. Please, brother. Reconsider your course of action, dear…”
“Dont call me that. ‘Dear’.” Clavis sarcastically retorted, his words now laced with venom. “Those words mean nothing. Is that how little you think of me? You address everyone by ‘dear’, even those wretched humans… Why do you defend them? They tarnish our paradise from the inside out.”
Clavis stood up and slowly approached Cygnus, gently taking two of her hands and looking into her eyes. “Please, Cygnus. Too many of us have fallen. Claudius, Augustus, Gudang, Lilith, Nunca…” His voice now choking back tears. “I cannot bear to see any more of us fall. I don’t want you to be next. Heed my warning, help me crush their uprising and remind them of their servitude to us.”
As Cygnus looked into Clavis’s eyes, she saw his grief, his anguish, his pain. Slowly, she pulled her hands away from him, shaking her head in pity. “Clavis, your pain and grief are misplaced… I cannot follow you on this path you tread.”
In reaction to her refusal, Clavis’s expression fell into a scowl, his gaze piercing as a pick in cipher—and looked down upon Cygnus with scorn. “So be it. Hide behind the perceived safety of your cowardly pacifism. Your selfishness and refusal to aid me in this cause will be your undoing. When the humans slaughter us all, you will watch in your Archive, as one by one our siblings fall. You cannot hide forever, Cygnus. The humans will come—you will die alone with your petty tales and fables, and will have only yourself to blame.”
With that, Clavis materialized a key to a doorway that hadn’t existed before, and stepped through—leaving Cygnus alone in her library, the book still lying on the table, a tear streaming down her face. By now, the tea had gone cold, and for a single, agonizing second, her six arms hung suspended, motionless. Slowly, she drew a deep breath, regaining her composure, and walked back to her desk. She did not look back at the space where her brother had just been, but rather dwelled on a single, haunting question that she would continue asking herself for the rest of her eternal existence:
“What if?”