Universe's End

1. Homecoming… Sort of.

It was only a few minutes later that Rory was seated once more when a figure entered the home that Rory hadn't seen in quite some time, a figure who he recognized, even if she had clearly done some growing up.

"Violet," Rory nodded to the woman as she entered the home.

Her home, Rory corrected internally, reminding himself of the fact that Violet and Apostolos were now married.

With kids!

Trying not to fixate on the fact that the young boy he had raised had gone on to have not just children but grandchildren, Rory instead gave Violet as warm a smile as he could.

Violet, meanwhile, stood there, staring at him for several moments before turning to Apostolos.

"I can't believe you were actually right."

"I knew I was right," Apostolos said, a smile teasing the corner of his lips. "I can't believe I let you all eventually convince me I wasn't."

"I never directly said otherwise," Violet countered.

"Uh-huh, you're as convincing as the kids saying they weren't staying up late on purpose."

Rory found himself oddly entertained as the married couple went back and forth with their banter, as Rory remained a silent observer.

After nearly two minutes straight, Violet finally raised his hands in surrender.

"Fine, fine, I give." Then, turning to Rory, she nodded to him. "Yes, I thought you were dead. I apologize."

"Uhh, no offense taken?"

As amusing as that was, Rory found himself quite surprised when, for the third time of the day, he was caught up in a hug. While the familiarity wasn't unexpected from Apostolos, given their relationship, Rory would have never classified his relationship with Violet as that close of a bond; at best, he was the aloof adult who sometimes did his best to help guide her.

"I'm glad you're alive, and not just because from the sounds of it, you saved all our skins."

"I mean, it's also sort of my fault that-"

"Hush, no need for that. My point is, I'm glad you're alive for Apostolos's sake."

"Hey!" Apostolos chimed up, wincing as he did.

"Oh shut up, you oaf," Violet snorted as she pulled away from Rory, looking him up and down. "E.O.N. above, you really haven't changed much, have you? Sixty years, that's a long time, you know? I was in my early twenties when you left. Now I'm almost ninety. I grew up, had a family, and my kids went on to have kids; even my grandkids are nearing the point where having kids of their own isn't a far-fetched possibility. Yet you're almost exactly as I remember you from my childhood."

It was again a slap in the face to Rory about how twisted his sense of time had become. Perhaps it was due to being unmoored from any civilization, but he viewed time less as days, weeks, months, and years, and more as snapshots between critical junctions. Everything in between those points was like the horizon you could see in the far distance. It didn't actually matter how far away the horizon was or how much distance it covered; to an observer, it always appeared as a single equidistant stretch.

The same couldn't be said for the home he had left behind, where time passed as one would expect, each day an essential moment in their lives.

Pulling away from the hug, Violet glanced at Apostolos as she folded her arms one over the other.

"Anyway, our home is your home. Though I doubt it matters much when your home is everywhere, and your main home is pretty damn hard to miss."

"Yeah, it's grown real damn tall. Oh, also, I saw a random pillar of stone near it. What was that about? You didn't go and make me a monument, did you?" Rory joked.

The two shared a glance, a clear line of dialogue said wordlessly.

"You didn't, did you?"

"We didn't make anything. We had no involvement."

"But?"

"You technically made it."

"The essence spire?" Rory blinked, surprised. "It's gotten pretty damn tall."

"Well, yeah. Over sixty years?"

"Right," Rory muttered.

"That aside," Violet once more glanced at Apostolos with a frown. "We've got a problem. The citizens are being permitted back into the city, so we've got some time while all that organized chaos continues."

"I don't see the problem there," Rory interrupted.

"I do," Apostolos muttered. "I'm assuming that the word is spreading like wildfire?"

"That would be putting it lightly."

Rory wasn't fond of being left in the dark, his frown beginning to turn into a scowl.

"Anyone wanna share?"

"You," Apostolos said. "Or rather, the 'you' that they all like to think of you as."

"What do you mean by that?" Rory asked, feeling very confused.

"Rory doesn't exist pretty much at all anymore," Violet said, deciding to rip the band-aid off. "Less than fifty people ever actually met you, and even then, most of them barely interacted with you. The original seven, obviously, but only six of us remain. Then, from Viviann's generation, it's down to the twins who never spent as much time around you as Kal or Viviann themselves. After that, you were more like a specter even to the original fifty. Meaning that people didn't recount memories about Rory, they told stories about the Founder. The least flattering stories are that you were merely a vessel of E.O.N. or Aelia, with the most flattering being that you were a second-ring divinity alongside the seven other founders, just below E.O.N."

"First off, Eon isn't divinity, it's… well, it's hard to explain. Second off, Aelia definitely isn't a damn goddess." Rory muttered to himself, shaking his head. "I understand that ego of hers now."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing," Rory waved it off. "And third, I'm not a god. Fuck, I know Zoey is anything but a god. In fact, she's closer TO a butt than a god."

"Have fun trying to explain that to your church," Apostolos snorted before he suddenly looked at Rory quizzically. "Wait, Zoey?"

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"Oh, yeah, forgot about that," Rory said before flicking over an interface, the notification of his partnership with Zoey.

While Rory had meant the message only for Apostolos, it was Violet who surprised him.

"Uhh, did you mean to do that?" She asked, eyes widening.

"Do what?" Rory questioned.

"This," She said as suddenly her own interface became visible to him.

"Oh, bullocks," Rory grumbled as he read it in an instant.