For the past 200 or so years, people flocked to see the edge of the world. The cascade du bout-du-monde, as it was locally known, sat in the way of the Rhine as it snaked its way up the eastern border between France and the desolate wasteland that was once the west of Germany, razed to nothingness by powers unfathomable in the final days of the Great War. The main attraction was of course, the pit. A sheer drop where the land itself had given up entirely and sunken into the bowels of the Earth where the Rhine poured in like a great accursed waterfall, only to anomalously rise up several thousands kilometres to the northeast and continue on its way as if nothing at all had happened. The early expeditions by the intrepid explorers of the day, with their hot air balloons and propeller planes, returned nothing. There were masses of the former continent floating down in the pit, bastardising all known laws of nature, but it was overall lifeless, and those who slipped beyond the grace of sunlight were never seen again. In the decades that followed, when all the attempts at any scientific understanding of the pit hit a brick wall, many other connotations rose in their place. The Nachtwald, the Wound of the Earth, the Black Maw, the Well of the Danu, and most commonly, something or other to do with the devil…

All of those were incorrect, of course. Human society moved on, and even though the pit remained an immutable fact of the world, it simply didn't do anything; by definition it was an absence of a thing more than a thing unto itself. In time its mystical allure faded, and it was just another fact of existence, causing no harm except to those stupid or careless enough around the perimeter. It was only natural then that humans did exactly what they did with everything mildly interesting: they made it a tourist attraction.

It was then in a cafe, built into the terrace of a lodge that ever so slightly hung over the precipice, that Emil sat, absently stirring a cup of black coffee and looking out over the vast emptiness. It had been a long while since he had visited, and the world was on the brink of destruction at the time. Such sights were scarce, and combined with how busy he was these days, it was a welcome change of pace.

A waiter strode up to his table, placing down a complimentary glass mug of tap water, as requested. “Anything else I can get you?”

“I’m actually waiting for someone. Though I could use a food menu.”

The waiter left a booklet on his table and took his leave.

Emil flipped it open, and a disappointed groan escaped his lips. He’d almost forgotten how plain the food menus on this side of the world were, limited to simple pretentious cursive writing and sparse descriptors that assumed some prior knowledge of the local cuisine. Curious though, it seemed not much had changed - there were certainly a few names he didn't recognised, but most of what was on offer either had a name he remembered or could be deduced as a form of something he was all too familiar with.

Emil was about to call the waiter back over when the soft sound of people talking suddenly stopped. He didn’t realise it at first, given the sound of the falls below them, but it wasn’t just noise. The people had stopped moving, completely frozen in time, many of them mid-action. And then the drums began, and Emil knew exactly what was about to happen.

With a disembodied saxophone sting, a young man in a swallow-tailed coat slid in through the front of the restaurant, gesturing grandly. On his command, the closest staff members and guests put down what it was they were doing, and formed around him. He grabbed the waitress closest to him, and as the violins kicked in, began to waltz.

Emil sighed and took a sip of his coffee. He glanced at his watch again, and then back at the other man, who was pulling off some admittedly impressive choreography transitioning between the waltz and the ensemble dance. It certainly wasn’t an easy feat, given Emil could see that he was manually puppetting all of the dancers. He just didn’t see the point.

The song merged into an upbeat electro swing hook and the whole dance troupe marched towards Emil in the open area. For a moment, as they twirled around each other, he saw the man’s face flash into something with sharp teeth, yellow eyes and curved, branching antler-horns, before he was normal again. The song drew to a close, ending with each backup dancer spinning away from a line in turn, and posing broadly as the man slid on his knees towards their table.

Emil absently sipped his coffee as the man hopped up to his feet. “Are you done?”

“C’mon, don’t act like you didn’t like that.”

A smile crept onto Emil’s lips. “I think I would have liked it more if I knew the song.”

“You’re telling me you don’t listen to French electro swing? Who the fuck even are you?”

“You mind putting them back in place? This is kind of messed up.”

“Messed up? What, you have standards now?”

“Adrian.”

With a sigh, Adrian moved his hands over his head where the horns ought to be, and the backup dancers marched back to where they had been before, picking up their things. He sat down opposite Emil and snapped his fingers, unfreezing everyone.

The sound of plates smashing and cutlery falling followed as several people were temporarily dazed by what was from their perspective, a slight time jump.

Emil raised an eyebrow.

Adrian smiled meekly. “Whoops.”

“I was this close to complimenting how good your control has gotten.”

“I mean, them not adjusting to the freeze isn’t technically part of the control…”

“It’s good to see you again.”

Adrian finally looked directly at him. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t know this world was still around.”

“I’ve always been nostalgic. Plus, who can forget our handiwork?” he glanced over the balcony beside them, down into the gaping put beyond the edge of the world.

“Thought it’d be right up with those pesky Imperials by now. I assume you and faeries have it under lock. Doesn't feel like I’d need one of your paths to get here otherwise.”

“It is protected, in a sense.” He waved one hand, and a gold patterning briefly flashed across the sky, visible only to the two of them. “But the longer we both stay here, the more chances someone’s going to find it.”

“How long do we have?”

“A little under two hours. I planned for three, but you were late. And insisted on the musical number.”

“My schedule isn't really all determined by me.”

“As usual, then.”

“How’s Elise?”

Emil sat up in his chair. “She’s doing quite well for herself, actually. Big scorpion tail and everything. Furthest a human-born’s ever gotten in the Sun Court, or so I’m told. Not sure if I trust my brother’s assertion. Twenty-seven kids so far.”

“Oh, so I’m not the shit brother who gets in your way.” Adrian grinned.

“For once, yes. Though we could talk about what you’ve been doing. Riling up the dead.”

“I’m a chthonic revolutionary, thank you very much. Just restoring the old ways of doing things to those realms, really shoving the eternal punishment back in them.”

“Even if there’s a good reason they've transitioned away from that.”

“It’s not like I stop them from trying again. They just don’t try hard enough.”

“So it’s a cycle.”

“Not a perfect one. Sometimes changes cause gradual drift over time. Each round loses its centre bit by bit, until eventually there’s real change. It’s just people tend to forget and fall short on controlling that drift, so most times you go right back to where they started in a couple of generations. In hell, people at least persist long enough to remember the suffering.”

Emil finished his coffee, and poured both of them a glass of the tap water. “Okay. Then you know why you’re here.”

Adrian’s hand idly tapped on the table. “You have a project.”

“Look at how far this world's come.”

“They built a whole resort on the site of a tragedy. Amazing.”

“Oh?”

“They didn’t understand what we did. So they made their own meanings. If we did it again-” He gulped uncomfortable, and down the whole glass of water like a dehydrated lizard. “They didn't learn anything from that. They just blamed every yokai in the world and went right back to war after we left.”

“That’s not how I see it.”

“Pray tell.”

“We want the same thing, Adrian. But your methodology accepts large scale upheaval to be the only solution to mobilise change over short timescales. You induce revolutions with the full understanding that there’ll be a counter-motion that isn't a hundred percent congruent to the initial cause, and on and on and on. I prefer subterfuge.”

“What, you’re the deep state or something?”

“Kind of. It’s easier with agents contracted on your behalf under threat of metaphysical backlash for violating faery deals. Slow going, but definite going.”

“And you don’t age,” Adrian said. “That helps if you’re going to be on this forever. Are you?”

“Of course not. But I’m not disagreeing with you here. Do you know why there’s so many names for this big hole in the Earth?”

“Because they can’t agree on what actually sounds cool?”

“You jest, but that’s kind of it. People did know about us when we blew the entire German Army to hell, or with what happened in Vladivostok. They went to war over it. But that stuff was always way worse for the little guy than anything we could have ever done. We were a couple of notable incidents. Those following wars defined some people’s lives. So they forget, because they had worse things to worry about. Two hundred years for them, more fir us…the hole, in time, became just another hole.”

Adrian licked his lips. “Are you actually asserting…that we work better together?”

“You left to test your theory. How did that work out?”

“Working just fine. You left to find another way.”

“This is it. But what I have isn’t enough. Not on any reasonable timescale.”

Adrian crossed his arms. “What’s your endgame?”

“I’ve been in the Sun Court long enough, I think. Every Fae is out for themselves. It’s a constant fight for your life even with family.” Emil sighed. “But I’m different. You too. Because we had a human experience. Love and loss and guilt and shame - I want to give that to my people. To my children.”

“Combining human and Fae isn’t possible. Those higher laws don’t play nice. Like, at all.”

Emil nodded. “That part you leave up to me. I’ve got something in the works. What I want for now is coexistence. Just that. Trial runs, isolated universes and planets. I’ve got the means, I need you to design the suffering that will bind them.”

“...and leave them susceptible to your machinations. Normalise your people, force a conceptual confrontation.” Adrian clicked his tongue. “Damn, it is good to see you again.”

“Have a little faith in humanity.”

“Who says I don’t?”

Touché.

The waiter returned with two plates, each loaded with a smoked sausage and two cured meats, juniper sauerkraut and potatoes with a huge dollop of mustard.

Adrian waited for him to leave, and then grinned. “They’ve still got Berner Platte? When did you even…?”

“I might have pushed a false memory while you were flopping about. Some things are worth keeping the same, aren’t they?”

At a loss for words, with no possible refutation, Adrian decided to just pick up his cutlery.

On that fateful day, for the first time in a long time, the demon Apophis and the Endless One, once brothers and changelings by sheer coincidence, simply decided to have brunch. The worlds would never be the same again.