How often do you look at the grass you tread upon? Footsteps on sand, tiny pieces of ground and pebbles dislodged from their place…
He didn't notice.
Do you ever notice how you grow taller as a child? When you remember being tiny yet suddenly you tower over your parents…
It was slow.
He didn't even notice.
Not at first.
There was just so much happening, so much… Humans, non-humans all over the Earth, out on other planets, so many lives – billions of them – each full of meaning… And scattered between them like tiny glimmers of stardust, those fragile, powerful threads of precious memories never forgotten, weaving through time and space, so many names through hundreds of lifetimes of love and loss and hope…
Was it any wonder that he didn't notice?
He was walking on ice, so thin and fragile and cracking with each footstep. He was trying to hold a butterfly by the wing heedless of its struggles to break free. He was tearing through a spiderweb with clumsy fingers, desperately trying and failing to repair the strands intricately woven together.
How do you keep the world from shattering under the weight of your existence?
He didn't even notice the first cracks, the tiny scrapes he left on the skin of the universe, but now he couldn't even keep his wings from rending the fabric of reality apart with each movement. What could he do to stop the avalanche of power he never asked for? What started as a tiny spark was now a raging fire threatening to destroy the whole of creation.
And there was nothing, nothing in the whole universe that could stop it.
It wasn't a voice or a thought or a touch. Not a word or an emotion, but a meaning. A presence of existence so vast, it encompassed a whole universe.
Not his universe, not even the one close by, but it was there and he couldn't help but wonder how could this entity exist without tearing its home apart?
It sounded warm and electric and tasted quiet and brittle. It was sharp and soaked with nostalgia and half-forgotten memories. It was an ever-changing shape of chaotic existence rooted deeply within the foundation of the universe, an entity so far removed from everything he knew and no human could ever hope to understand.
And yet…
And yet its not-words reverberated within his existence, a soft song of reassurance and a weaving embrace of chaotic presence, "Don't be afraid, little one, don't be afraid to shatter the world. Let it break. Let the shards sink under your skin and feed on your blood. Let them bloom into new existence."
"…Is that what you did, ancient one?"
"Tread lightly, little star," the shadows crooned through the ether. "Tread lightly but don't be afraid. There is nothing to fear."
The world cracked again yet the undercurrent of existence stitched the wounds together. Every step he took left a charred footprint yet the soothing touch of a glimmering song healed the scars until they faded into nonexistence.
"Look, little one, there is nothing to fear. All you break can be repaired. Every mistake can be corrected. Don't be afraid."
One day he would see the world destroyed.
One day he would pour his own existence onto the ashes of creation until life began anew.
One day he would become one with the universe, forever intertwined with everyone and everything, never alone, holding his loved ones in eternal embrace.
One day…
For now though?
Reality cracked under his feet, the wounds mending under his power. For now he had eons of time to look forward to and a family to visit.
A/N: I know, demons don't help each other, but I don' think that a god would mind showing the ropes to a newbie. Anyway, I'm pretty sure this isn't canon (for a given definition of canon we have within this AU)