Chapter Text
It was dark. So, so dark. Nothing could be seen except for the occasional rock in The Abyss.
It was a void, consuming all light and emotions, leaving those beings within empty.
As the abyssal creation awoke for the first time, it gazed upon the empty void with newfound curiosity. This was the first thing it had seen, and as a result, the creation was enraptured.
Rather than view The Abyss as a form a torture, a place in which those unlucky one who fall in never leave with their mind untwisted, the abyssal creature viewed it as a home.
It raced around, form ever changing as it's personality began to take shape.
Eventually it calmed down. There really wasn't much within the abyss, so it looked through everything in the abyss very quickly.
The creature wanted something new. It was young, and wanted a new experience. It wished for a different shape of rock, or a hole in a rock to sleep within.
It wished and wished for something new, and eventually, it happened. A new rock had been created behind the abyssal creation.
It squealed in pure joy and raced around the rock.
As it was enamoured with the rock, the creature's form began to take shape. It turned into a tall woman, with long black hair and a nice dress. She quite liked this new look, and liked knowing what she was like.
Using this, she wished for a glove like the ones she had on. Above her hands, one took shape and fluttered into her palms.
She had realized that she could manipulate the abyss. She could twist the shape of the matter within it to create whatever she pleased. Granted, she was limited by what she knew existed, but it was still very exciting for her.
She spent a long time creating various things. More rocks, clothes like the ones she had, little metal shaped like the ones on her outfit.
A lot of time passed with this small thing. It was a repetitive task, but it was really all she could do within the endless void.
One day, she saw something new.
There was a rift in the sky of the abyss. Hidden behind the sky of the abyss was the mortal realm. The creature stared in awe as she gazed upon scenery, creatures and structures she had never seen before.
Within an instant, she found herself trying to recreate what laid behind the rift.
All of a sudden, the abyss had a tall building with grass and bushes around it. She giddily ran inside, eager to know what was within.
She found a new material. A thin thing, rolled into cylinders with black marks upon it.
She curiously studied the marks, trying to understand them.
Before she engrossed herself within the scrolls, she left and created more from the outside realm. She learned that she couldn't not create the creatures she saw roaming around, but she could create basically anything else with the fibers of The Abyss.
Years passed, and she kept creating. She dedicated herself to the craft.
Now there were structures and plants littering the corner of the abyss in which she found herself.
Some structures had soft things that she found were amazing to sleep on, and others had scrolls stacked within them.
She compared scrolls and found the ones with pictures quite helpful at deciphering the meaning of the marks.
She learned letters and basic names for things. She was elated when she learned the names of the rocks and the structures she had made.
As time passes, she got better and better at understanding them. She absorbed the information quickly and kept searching for more. Whenever she felt the familiar tug she had learned to be the sign of a new rift forming, she ran until she found it and immediately started recreating what she found.
Eventually, she had learned just about every word that she could. It was called a language, and she had learned it.
She also realized that the “humans” on “Earth” had names. They were words assigned to them, a thing distinctly theirs. She longed for one of her own.
She went through many different names, but she never felt like they fit.
In the meantime, she created names for other things. She named the rocks in the abyss, as they couldn't be found in the mortal realm. She named the buildings she had created by combining various parts of other buildings. Those were always her favorite.
One day, she sat down on her “bed”, as she found out it was named, and tried to speak. She had heard snippets of speech from outside the rifts, but she didn't know what it was for the longest time.
There were even pronunciation guides in things called “dictionaries”.
Using what little bits she had heard and what she had in her dictionaries, she tried to make a sound. Her “voice box” should make sound, and she had made sounds before, but she needed to learn how to shape those into words.
“...Ah”
“Cah-t”
“Ly-br-aer-ee”
At the last one, she lit up in a smile. A library! She had said the name of a library! She sat there for a long time, just reciting sounds that she had heard and using them to create new ones.
Eventually, she found herself practicing the words for things as she created them.
“Grass,” she said hesitantly as she made a patch of grass.
“House,” she said, with an edge of confidence as she created a house.
“Library” she said with full confidence as she erected yet another structure. The more she did it, the more comfortable she became using them.
Now, as rifts opened, she also payed attention to the sounds people made. She started to understand them, to know what they were conveying to each other.
One day, whilst using the mortal realm as reference for their new structures, something peculiar happened.
The creature jumped back as she saw that she was no longer alone.
From the rift had fallen a human child. She was small and frail, and had her face twisted into something the abyssal creation had begun to understand was fear.
She froze as she studied the child, unsure of what to do. She had never interacted with anything before, much less a person.
Quickly, she rummaged through her memories and tried to reference books and scrolls to know what to say.
“...Hello there little one, are you okay?” The words were a bit choppy, but hopefully, the child understood the meaning.
They looked up through their matted hair with a hint of recognition in them, hopefully meaning that the words weren't incomprehensible.
There was a pause before the girl asked, “Who are you?”
Quickly, the creature rummaged her brain for a name that could be used. She wanted to seem approachable, so maybe name herself after someone trustworthy? Eventually, she settled on a name to use for the time being. “My name is Hestia.”
The young girl looked up with wonder, before flinging herself at the woman she now viewed as safe.
Hestia froze when the girl's arms were wrapped around her legs, but she quickly knelt down and patted her head, even if stiffly. The girl didn't seem to notice as she started to cry.
“I- I want to go home! I'm so scared, Ms. Hestia please, I want to go home! I want to see my parents! I don't know where I am, I want out!”
The words were spoken so fast that it took Hestia a second to piece them together in her mind. “I know little one, I know. I'll do everything I can to get you home, I promise.”
The girl looked up hesitantly before putting up her hand with her pinkie standing up and asking, “Pinkie promise?”
Hestia had never heard of this term, and tilted her head quizzically. “What does that mean?”
The girl looked taken aback that Hestia had not heard of a pinkie promise, but quickly explained. “A pinkie promise is stronger than a regular promise, you can never ever break a pinkie promise. You make one by grabbing each others pinkies like this!” She said as she rubbed away tears and showed Hestia the guesture with her two hands.
Hestia thought for a moment, and then placed one out.
The girl interlocked her pinkie with Hestia's and said, “Alright, now you say ‘I pinkie promise that I will help you get home', alright?”
“I pinkie promise that I will help you get home.”
Both of them started to smile, and the girl laughed and cried a bit as she threw herself into Hestia once again. This time, Hestia knew what to do, and she wrapped her own arms around the child's.
It was a new experience, but it was certainly welcome.