So, hi—Before you read, I just want to say one thing.

I wrote this beginning when I was twelve, and back then I thought I was good, but I sucked. It's probably still the same case now, but whatever, at least I'm better. Anyway, the chapters I haven't edited well or at all tend to be really bad. After chapter three and till fifteen or so, you're going to run into lack of description and sentences so bad you'll laugh out loud.

I'm really sorry, new readers. Just be glad you weren't here two years ago when the whole story was like that.

And never mind, I'm going to say two things. This is really long right now, but please don't let that be a turn off. And just because these chapters are old, don't let that stop you from reviewing if you want to; I'll still see them.

Chapter 1 - Prologue

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A small shape—a silhouette darker-than-dark—crouched in the leaves.

The birch was protecting her, holding her high off the ground that grew shaded and menacing after sun-fall.

The creeper that knew her, somehow, stood slumped on his hooves at the tree's pale and silver-glowing trunk. No skeletons would shoot her, no spiders would dare climb it—not when he was there. Her friend that could never truly be her friend. Not this way, not in this world.

There were stars. Tiny ones. So frustratingly misleading, because you never knew how big they were. Or what they were. Maybe other suns? Other worlds? Hard to tell. Always hard to tell.

The space between the pricks of light was wider in one place, at the zenith of the sky. New moon. It hid its silver face from the world, leaving the blackness of the Void to take its unrighteous place there.

There was a legend—an old one, probably fiction—that the moon was bigger once. Twice as large as the sun, its icy surface daring to draw too close to the ball of fire as they spun around each other at the beginning of creation.

The heat melted it to what it was now—small. Quiet, up there, in the sky. Hardly ever seen by the people too scared to face the creatures of the night.

But the moon has its peace, she thought, leaning backwards in the bristly leaves. The melted ice made up the oceans and lakes and rivers. The moon is everywhere...if the story's true.

Still. She liked to believe she understood it better than anyone else, except for the skeletons and zombies and maybe Endermen that lived beneath its sometimes-there watery gleam.

Night was okay, for her. The creeper was her guardian till day broke, and then she was his.

She grinned to herself, thinking of the name she gave him all those years ago when she found his egg. Much too extravagant and flashy for a name, the only reason for it being that it was fun to say. Crysallxius. You're the only creeper with a name and it's Crysallxius.

As a ten-year-old, now, she was much more mature. Maybe now his name would've been different, something more subtle and slightly dangerous, like he was. Ah, too late, she thought, stopping herself before she could get attached to calling him something else.

He's Crysallxius and he always will be.

There was a cold prick of something like sadness in her heart, making her wince.

As a ten-year-old, now, she'd be starting school in the morning. In the village, close enough to her birch that she could see its pseudo-star lights.

She wouldn't come back here, to this tree, with him. Not for a while.

As she aged, she'd always be leaving a lot behind. For—what, really? She didn't know for what. Because as she aged, she'd have things like responsibilities and the like, drawing her away from this other half of time and space; the night.

There'd be school and mining underground with her mother and eventually choosing one day whether or not she'd be leaving this place. The village.

But you're not going anywhere, she thought, rolling onto her side to look down at the creeper's shape below her. Right?

He couldn't answer, but she liked to pretend she could hear him anyway.

Right.

-{0}-

There was something about this one. Notch knew it, if no one else did. She wasn't…normal, not if you saw how she changed the moment she left the company of other people.

Notch hardly needed eyes; he could see anywhere, anytime. The role of a god had its perks. The bright glare of the sun when he came out of his seeing-trance would've hurt if he were mortal, after staring at unfamiliar blackness.

He didn't really enjoy spying on the world's creatures and places—but it always meant something bad if he was drawn to one of them like this. As if the part of the universe he couldn't control knew something he didn't and was crying out to him, warning him.

He'd keep tabs on this one. This one, and the others that lived up north.

They meant something.

Ha—he was a god and he didn't know what the something was. No one realized, but he was as weak as he was powerful.

"What are you doing here?"

Voice. Unfamiliar—no. He knew it. Dread was already coursing through nonexistent veins within his immortal form.

"Daughter," he said grudgingly, wearily. "I'm…busy."

He didn't want to turn around. But—no, he didn't have to, she strode around in front of him and planted herself there, in the windblown grass.

A silver-winged humanoid, dressed in armor with a never-used lance hanging at her side. Beneath her curly golden hair was a pale and coldly beautiful face, symmetrical features scrunched up with annoyance.

"I was watching," she claimed, crossing bare arms and tilting her head. Eyes sharp with skepticism. "I stood up there, on that hill, watching. You haven't moved for ages. What were you doing?"

Notch wanted to glare. As usual, he couldn't bring himself to do it. "Just keeping tabs down below," he muttered vaguely, willing her to leave. She didn't.

"Are you worried?" she suddenly asked, the creases in her face disappearing. She suddenly looked more ethereal, angelic—like the Valkyrie queen should. Almost sympathetic, almost. "About—you know."

The Aether air was always cold, but it was suddenly frigid, working its way between the folds of Notch's robes and chilling him to bones he didn't have.

Introverted as she was, she could read him well. "The third prophecy," he said quietly, knowing there was no point waving off the subject he'd avoided for decades, maybe centuries. "I…no. I'm not worried."

Gods can lie. Gods can do anything.

…Another lie.

"I don't see why you would be." She looked at him with a perplexed gaze, still managing to keep the usual contempt out of her voice. "You forget you are a god. The king of the world. You are the most powerful being in the Void, besides her. What have you to fear? The prophecies are yours to control."

Which her? Notch was tempted to challenge his daughter, but he swallowed the words. Now wasn't the time. "You're wrong, as usual," he growled, knowing his anger at her ignorance was slightly un-called for. She just—she didn't understand! She'd never realize the true horrors of the Void, of the world she thought he controlled. She'd never know the reality of its chaos. "I'm far from the most powerful. There are other things…other things, not always beings, with more influence over this world than I. Fate, chance; maybe. And the Void's prophecies aren't controlled by any of these."

She blanched—can bloodless beings blanch?—crystalline colored eyes widening as if they were hearing his words, drawing them in, not her ears. "Wh-what are you saying? How—"

"Leave off it, Vivian," he huffed, turning around in such a way that his aercloud robes billowed around him, caught by the constant gales of the Aether. He hardly paid any attention, as he usually didn't, to the place's terrain as he stormed up the gradual slope of a hill, away from her. It was just cold grass and sky, far from the hostile paradise's civilization. Maybe a few trees here and there. Mortals found the place beautiful, but he'd lived there for thousands of years. Or…however long it'd been since he made it. Gods can forget. And gods can get bored. That's not a lie.

"S-so you are worried," Vivian yelled to his back—and maybe there was fear this time, in her words. "You have no idea what it'll bring this time! Do you?"

Notch ignored her. He had to.

But in his mind he didn't.

No, Vivian. I'm sorry. I never have.

-{0}-

This'll be one hell of a convoluted story. Read on if you're okay with that. :D

-Angel