She took another drag from her pipe. "This is the true curse of godhood, sisters: not responsibility, but the endless, grinding ennui."
"This is not ennui!" Thalyssra snapped, her celestial composure cracking.
She sat upright, her form seeming to draw in the light of the room.
"I am the harmony of the cosmos, Kailthrys. I know a sour note when I hear one. This is not in the score. It is an intrusion."
"An intrusion we cannot identify," she said. "Something from outside?"
The words hung in the air, heavy and unspoken.
Outside.
The one concept that held any mystery, any fear, for beings who were themselves the definition of reality.
Kailthrys laughed, a rich, booming sound that made the star-core dais vibrate.
"Outside? There is no 'outside.' There is only the realm of Pantheia and the countless realms we have spun from its essence. You speak like frightened mortals, jumping at shadows. There are no shadows here that we did not cast ourselves."
