Simurgh

The Simurgh had seen billions of years pass, both past and future. She had seen the birth and death of this planet. She had woven a tapestry of conflict that served to sow disarray and trepidation amongst empowered humanity. Few things impeded her Sight. High Priest, Thinker, and Warrior were three beings that invoked blind spots.

Over the last two months, her Sight had been steadily growing dimmer. More and more holes appeared in her vision until, one day, all but one singular plan had been stolen from her. A plan that she had conceived of nearly a decade ago. Having no other choice, she executed that plan.

It was there that she came upon a fourth being that she was blind to: completely invisible save for the Administration shard and some impossibly advanced - at least as of right now - piece of technology. She had thought it to be a fluke when the weapon had done negligible damage to her, but then Administrator's host attempted to utilize one of Collector's shards: something that Administrator had not been sculpted for in this cycle. The host was obviously aberrant and needed to be destroyed.

Then she had been rendered almost completely blinded, only the barest visions penetrating a massive black cloud. Her power had been contained through some unknown means and she was hurtling towards a massive, lingering abyss. Some miniscule part of her thought that, whatever was wrong with her, perhaps the answers to the problems she had been having with her Sight were within that portal. And that was all she needed.

The Simurgh realized that she would be trapped on the wrong side of the portal unless she retracted her wings slightly. So she withdrew the longest wing, the one that held her core, and barely managed to get it inside the portal before it closed, cutting off the rest of the appendage. She silently lamented the loss, but it was nothing too irreplaceable.

On the other side, her Sight, both past and future, were rendered completely blackened. Instead, all she felt was the familiar energy of an all-consuming, overwhelming being. Even forty million years ago when she had found herself in the presence of the true forms of both Thinker and Warrior, the Simurgh had not felt so miniscule. She reflexively curled in on herself, covering the regenerating wing that contained her core with a dozen others. She felt something grip her body and hoist it several hundred feet into the air.

One moment she was blind, the next she felt pain beyond imagining. She writhed in the creature's grasp, her false limbs twitching madly. After some time, the pain fizzled out, and she could see. The Simurgh saw the endless carpet of brown-green… something that stretched from horizon to horizon. She saw the Administration shard. Once upon a time the Simurgh had perceived it in a vision of the future. Administrator had been a shining, pristine white: the absolute pinnacle of shards. Now it was mottled grey, covered in a web of that same substance, and pulsating with an eerie light. So caught up in lamenting for the state of the Administrator shard, it barely even registered to her that she was able to perceive the world without her Sight.

DECEIVER.

The word echoed painfully through the Simurgh's entire being. She shrunk even further into herself. The pressure from what could only be another entity increased by an incalculable amount. That wasn't right, though. There shouldn't – couldn't – be another entity anywhere near this planet for billions of years. She had foreseen it.

She then realized why the pressure felt familiar: it was similar to the energy she'd felt from the current host of Administrator. Except comparing the two was like comparing the gravitational distortion of a grain of sand to a supermassive black hole. She didn't even think herself capable of feeling pain, and yet this entity was capable of inflicting that and more.

FAILURE.

.

.

...it was right. She had failed in her duty. Thinker was unresponsive and Warrior was mourning, as if Thinker had perished entirely.

Using her newfound vision, she finally managed to see the entity. It's body was massive: at least as large as Thinker and Warrior combined. The lethargy with which it moved belied its power. Despite possessing no eyes or visible sensory organs of any kind, the Simurgh knew that its full attention was on her.

WITNESS.

The Simurgh flinched, expecting pain, but was shocked when she received images instead. No, not images. Memories. Billions upon billions of years' worth of memories. It saw several fledgling races achieve interstellar travel, building positively massive stellar empires that it knew Thinker would be envious of. It saw these empires snuffed out one by one, until only one remained. It was called Forerunner. The empire persisted, its former foes laid low and relegated to a primitive role.

Then, it showed up. The Forerunner empire tried to fight it, even going so far as to build superweapons capable of vaporizing all life within a single galaxy. It wasn't enough. The Forerunners, like their former foes, were defeated. Defeated by it: the entity currently holding her aloft. She fell lax, knowing her fate in spite of her currently useless Sight. There was absolutely nothing she could do to escape. Her curiosity had been her doom.

ALTERNATIVE.

Alternative?

YES.