Victory tasted undeniably sweet. Oren's eyes track Tyranos' head as it rolls across the floor and his ears hear the sound of the Ancient God's corpse slumping to the ground. There's always the thought that it might be a trick or a trap of some sort, but the more time passes from the moment of Tyranos' death, the more certain Oren becomes that it's well and truly over.

They'd done it. They'd won. They'd taken their revenge and best of all, neither of them had to die for it. All those philosophers back on Earth who had all that shit to say about how revenge is bad and forgiveness is morally superior could suck it. Revenge had never felt better.

Of course, once he's certain Tyranos is well and truly dead and not coming back, Oren turns his attention to Sophia. She looks amazing in that moment, sat resplendent on her father's throne… now her throne. Her eyes glow with golden light and her body teems with energy. This is Sophia at the peak of her power.

However, he also detects something else in her gaze. She seems… uncertain about something. She's not nearly as happy about all of this as he is. Not as happy as she SHOULD be. Why? What weighs heavily on her mind?

Taking a step forward and removing his helmet, Oren kicks Tyranos' headless corpse out of the way and drops to a knee in front of his goddess, setting his sword off to the side. Looking up at her, he smiles without reservation, making sure that she can see how devoted he is to her, even now.

"What next, goddess?"

Sophia hesitates, staring at him in silence for several long moments while Oren waits patiently for her to respond.

"… You're not worried, Oren? You're not afraid of me? Of what I might become with this much power?"

In stark contrast to her resplendent radiance and literal golden glow, Sophia's voice sounds small and uncertain, revealing the lack of surety in herself in this moment. Frowning, Oren doesn't hesitate… he reaches forward and takes one of Sophia's hands in his, giving it a comforting squeeze.

"Of course not. Why would I be?"

Sophia bites her lower lip, looking past him to Tyranos' body for a heartbeat.

"I'm not… I'm nobody special. A goddess of just a few hundred years of age. And now I'm all that's left. I don't consider myself particularly wiser or smarter than those who came before me, yet the likes of Law and Tyranos ultimately wound up corrupted by their power. They made mistakes, they caused so much death, destruction, and ruin. How can I possibly do any better than they did?"

Oren smiles and squeezes her hand again.

"There's a saying back on my world. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. You can look back at all of their mistakes and you'll already be better off than them because you know not what to do. You have a clean slate as well. Regardless of how we got here, you can do whatever you want without the baggage of your predecessors."

Sophia falls into a contemplative silence for a while after that. Oren stays where he is, holding her hand. More than anything, he wants to make it clear he's not going anywhere. He's with Sophia until the end, no matter what.

Finally, she breaks her silence again.

"What if… what if I don't want it? What if I don't want anything to do with any of this?"

Oren's eyes widen a little bit as he finally understands where Sophia's true concerns come from. In a very real way, the throne she sits upon is more than just a source of power and their method of victory over Tyranos. It also represents shackles and chains that he can see already winding their way through Sophia's psyche.

She's the last deity in all of Creation. This universe had countless gods and goddesses before Tyranos made his play. Before Oren slaughtered the Heavens, before the God Hunters started culling the Mortal Planes, before Tyranos and the Void Gods hunted down the last holdouts. There were hundreds if not thousands of divinities spread across the cosmos.

No more. They were all gone now… except for Sophia. She was the only one left. Meanwhile, the Heavens were empty and the Mortal Planes was in shambles. Humans likely still lived down there, but only in pockets like the like of Skycastle. They would eventually recover, but it would take generations to get back to where they'd been before.

This universe had undergone a cleansing of sort. An age of chaos where it didn't matter who you were, nobody was safe and everyone was in danger. That was over now, but what would come after it? The only way to be certain that what followed was 'good'… would be to take matters into their own hands.

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Except Sophia clearly doesn't want that. She feels trapped by the weight of responsibility. She feels like she has duty to Creation itself. And she expects Oren to agree with that.

Even as these metaphorical chains of obligation try to wrap around Sophia, Oren reaches out… and contemptuously rips them to shreds.

"Then don't."

His simple response sends a jolt through the seated goddess, her golden eyes widening as she stares at him in shock. But Oren just shrugs.

"If you don't want to have anything to do with this, then don't. Let it go. The power… and the mantle of responsibility that comes with it."

"But… but I'm Law's daughter. I…"

Oren shakes his head.

"You're your own person before anything else. Before you're Law's daughter, before you're a goddess, before you're even my lover… you're you. Sophia. The one you owe the most to, first and foremost, is yourself."

Oren gestures to the side vaguely as he scoffs.

"You don't owe them anything. Neither of us do. Creation will continue to exist with or without us. With or without gods and goddesses. This universe… will continue to turn one way or another whatever decision you make. So if you want to give it all up, if you want to leave it all behind… then you should. You don't have to be Queen of the Gods just because you feel an obligation."

Taking a deep breath, Oren throws a contemptuous glance at Tyranos' body.

"He couldn't fathom the thought that we might just walk away from this all. He couldn't comprehend the idea of us… choosing not to take control. Because for him, that was all that mattered. For him, there was nothing but conquest. We're more than that though. You're more than that, Sophia."

Sophia hesitates and it's hard because… in this moment she's so powerful, so beautiful, so strong. She can literally do anything from that chair she's sitting in. However, Oren is slowly beginning to realize… she's not his Sophia. The throne is giving her all the power she could ever want, but it's also taking something from her at the same time.

Rising from his kneeling position, Oren stands up and offers Sophia his other his other hand. He smiles down at her.

"Take my hands, goddess."

Sophia looks up at him, eyes still glowing gold… and carefully fits her other hand in his. Now holding back of her hands, Oren gently but firmly pulls her up off of the throne and onto her feet. The goddess doesn't resist, even as the light of power fades from her eyes and she loses her connection to her father's throne.

With a shuddering gasp, Sophia throws her arms around him, hugging him tightly despite the armor he's wearing somewhat getting in the way. She clings to him and Oren carefully wraps his arms around her in turn, holding her close as he buries his face in her hair and breathes deeply for a second.

When they finally pull apart, Sophia looks up at him and raises a hand to caress his cheek.

"Thank you, Oren. For everything. I'm not sure what I would have done without you here to talk sense to me."

Oren snorts derisively.

"You would have made the right call eventually, goddess. I just helped you get there a little faster."

Sophia bites her lower lip as she glances down at Tyranos' body and then back at the empty throne. And it will stay empty too, because she turns away from it without another look back, returning her gaze to him.

"Where will we go now? What will we do?"

Oren hums.

"Well, we have all of Creation, I suppose… and beyond."

When Sophia furrows her brow at that last part, Oren grins sheepishly.

"While we were working together, Ferro showed me the devices he used to exit this universe and drill into the Void from the outside to escape Law's detection. He went into great detail about how they worked too. I was annoyed at the time because I didn't really understand why he was bothering... but now I think he wanted us to use them, if we wanted to. To leave all this behind."

He can tell the idea resonates with Sophia far more than ruling ever did. She looks uncertain still, but it's the uncertainty of someone who isn't sure if they can allow themselves to want something, rather than the uncertainty of that thing.

"I… could we really just do that? Up and leave? Where would we go?"

Oren shrugs his shoulders.

"Ferro said it was highly unlikely that I would be able to use the driller to get back to my own world. The Otherworlder Summoning Ritual had a much further range, apparently. But we could still go somewhere new. Somewhere else."

Here, he hesitates.

"I won't lie; it might be dangerous goddess. It might even be worse than what we have here. We could stay in this universe and just… find a little corner of it to make our own away from everyone else."

Sophia grins a little at that, running a hand along his chest.

"Like back in the beginning, when you were going to make yourself a log cabin and live out the rest of your days in the forest."

Grinning right back, Oren ducks his head.

"Heh, yeah. Something like that. It's up to you though. Whatever we do next… you decide."

Pouting, Sophia frowns.

"Why me? Isn't this something we should decide together?"

Oren just shrugs again at that.

"I don't really care what we do next… so long as I get to do it with you."

Blushing profusely, Sophia smacks his chest at the admittedly cheesy remark, even puffing her cheeks out in faux indignation.

"You… you can't just make me make all the decisions because you're too lazy! What happened to "you don't have to do anything you don't want to" huh? Well what if I don't want to make every choice for both of us?"

Laughing, Oren shakes his head.

"If that is my goddess' wish… then her wish is my command."

Sophia huffs but ultimately smiles and rests her head back on his chestplate again.

"So… what do you want to do then?"

Oren hums and while he considers tossing out a flippant 'I want to be with you' in response, he doesn't. Instead, he gives the question all of the thought it deserves. And once he's done doing so, he tells Sophia his answer and watches as she smiles up at him.

"Then that's what we'll do. Together."

Her hand finds his and Oren smiles right back as their fingers intertwine with one another.

"Together."

Because in the end, when all is said and done… that's all that matters.

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