Azurade

"Iterations, iterations. The whole of existence in the bosom of my transient form. O, Cosmoria, my grand adventure, why must you fade from view? Why must you dim and ebb with aeons passing? Is eternity not your wish, my road? Why must you end? I wish not to end..."

Template:!!Character Azurade is the name that the Monad's final iteration chose for itself. Its final traversal through Cosmoria's concept of time, moving forward for one last attempt to break through the End and find eternity. She rebels against her own travels, attempting to twist the path she took countless times back and forth. Like an adult suddenly realizing all of their childhood mistakes, she is overcome with grief at the decay and cessation of her universe. Though she did not realize it until the final beginning, Azurade's dream is to experience the ever-elusive concept of forever.

Azurade's meddlings in Cosmoria have been many, all to keep entropy at bay and to preserve the state of the universe. Certain uniquely odd beings or objects within Cosmoria proper have been attributed to her creation as an answer for their otherwise unclear origins. Most of the phenomena Azurade creates, however, are confined within her grandiose realm Azurullya. It's sometimes said that Azurullya's host of Aberrations are all experiments by the Azure Queen to create some concept that can reach her dream.

Appearance

Azurade rarely shows her face in Cosmoria proper, preferring to subtly influence things from an almost imperceptible point. She may create distortions in the stars similarly to Mars with her presence. When she does manifest in a physical, or at least visible, form, she takes on the form of a humanoid woman. Her royal azure body seems to contain the cosmos within it, and wisps of nebulae form a sort of silky cosmic linen around her torso. With only vibrant blue eyes on her manifested head, not much expression can be seen. Though perhaps attributing mortal sensibilities of expression onto Azurade is unfair to such a being.

Azurade's affections for the inhabitants of Cosmoria appear in her form as well. On multiple occasions, her gaze has been directed at populated worlds, followed by her appearance shifting slightly to match some fashion of that world. Most often, she appears with braided hair bound by a ring of energy and a robe reminiscent of Azurulleyan fashion with her nebula clouds.

The wings protruding from Azurade's head appear to serve no function beyond her own whims. Some witnesses claim that they serve as outlets for her emotional expression, while others argue that they are for hearing things beyond normal sound. Whatever the case may be, they have created an iconic depiction of Azurullya's creator that is recognized even in some remote parts of Aylathiya.

Personality

Azurade’s personality is a rather minor factor in terms of interactions with others. She only speaks directly to the Cerulean Kings outside of a few rare occasions, instead preferring to keep her focus on her own works. This said, Azurade’s standalone personality is obvious from her actions in Cosmoria.

Azurade’s driving motivation is her double-edged sword of a motivation. One blade of it is her dream to create eternity. She wants more than anything to see the concept of forever come to fruition, to just exist for an infinite time. However, the blade the cuts her hand is fear. A primal fear of death that goes beyond what most mortals could even imagine. Until the universe’s decay began to rear its skeletal head, Azurade had never conceived that things might end. That she might one day cease to exist. The fear that realization struck in her is a burning, driving core to her actions.

Azurade’s creations may seem random, but they have a great deal of thought behind them. Each Azurulleyan Aberration, every Cerulean King, and even the wandering phenomena in greater Cosmoria were all the result of the Azure Queen putting concepts together like engineers fitting metal pieces into a device. However, it would appear that like many engineers, she considers most of her creations failures or junk, despite their mind-boggling properties.

History

Azurade’s history began long before Cosmoria’s did, or perhaps after it. Considering the non-linear temporal path of the Monad, it’s difficult to give an exact timeline. Azurade as a conscious being appeared at the start of Cosmoria’s existence, but the developing complexity of the Monad’s travelling is what created her mind. Regardless of the semantics of time, Azurade became aware during the unparalleled inferno of Cosmoria’s beginning: The Cosmic Primordia.

As Cosmoria cooled and coalesced into fields of stars, Azurade fell in love with the young universe. Perhaps it was something instinctual, a form of self-love and appreciation. The first form of the grand galaxy bloomed with many colors of light, and life sprouted across much of it. As it grew, Azurade started to mimic the strange automata. It was a game of sorts to her.

But then the first star died. The worlds around it burned and the ecosystems it held in orbit vanished in the blink of an eye. In what would become Zalanthium, Azurade wept at the sight of the blackened starcore and shattered worlds. Her tears, which were something she did not know she could produce, became the ocean world Lapisgrief, filled from its core to its navy surface with all manner of strange exotic marine life. She placed the young ocean around the graven star, now named Obsidian. A shimmering sphere of light was given to Lapisgrief as an orbiting moon and artificial sun, named Eulogy by Azurade.

Azurade’s pain at the loss of Obsidian’s former system grew into her abhorrence for the temporary. She loathed the slow destruction of everything, and recalled fragments of the countless “ends” she had witnessed in her past as the simplistic Monad. Cosmoria would not last for eternity. Azurade needed eternity.

The chaos that each experiment with her power caused only ran holes in Cosmoria’s spirals. Azurade grew ever more pained at the state of things. Watching empires grow from nothing was only a brief respite from the festering madness. The Azure Queen needed a place to create eternity safely. Somewhere to sit above Cosmoria and search for a way to save the universe.

The rings of cerulean light formed from cosmic ash, the Monad’s previous paths being tugged to form a new structure. Something around 50 stars to play with, held in place by a titanic dark sphere. A nod to Obsidian, the king of order and destruction. Aurumios. Beside it, she placed a structure that would aid her channeling of will in altering the nearby space. A sanctuary of creation and disruptions: the Womb of Chaos. This sky-blue realm that loomed over Aylathiya came to be known by many as Azurullya.

While Azurullya was corrupted and twisted by Azurade’s neverending phenomena, the rest of the universe fell out of her gaze. The true nature of her toils were uncovered slowly as the Theocracy of Silverstar explored the mostly-unconquered realm.

Azurade’s sapient children, the Cerulean Kings, were made as a set of experiments during her absence from the rest of Cosmoria. Silverstar, the youngest of the seven, served as a reminder of her legacy and will before disappearing. With the re-emergence of the Cerulean Kings in the late 90,000s CE, Azurade’s existence has been much more knowable and present.

During the Penultimate End, an event that could be either interpreted as the death or evolution of Azurade was witnessed. While a resurgence of Amaranth energies threatened to tear Cosmoria apart, she merged with the very concept and forced it to cease expanding outwards. Though nearly half of Cosmoria was subsumed by the monolithic sphere of Amaranth, she managed to temporarily save some of the universe. At this point, she was no longer the Azure Queen. She had become a new being, Amaranth-Azurade.