In the beginning, because there had to be a beginning. It can’t have been this way forever. It may have been. It is simple to imagine a thing that never ends, to imagine something that never began is another challenge entirely. Following the timeline backwards should reach a point when there was nothing, and then there was one thing; this is not the case.
There never was just a single thing in the Infinite Ocean. No real point of origin. Nonetheless, its beginning is called One. Naturally, it could not stay One and quickly split apart. The first two forms, at least for the purposes of this very narrow scope, were Wax and Wane. They were the push and pull of the tides.
Long after the beginning
Wax and Wane both leave the most recent of their rippling impressions in the ocean’s waves. These ripples intermingled. Pull and push became stillness and change, protection and plague, Iel and Ios. This incarnation marks the start of the modern era.
1918
November 2nd
Malcolm Almagro, 14, sees an apparition of Ios as the Spanish Flu in a fevered stupor. The two make a deal, Malcolm is granted impressive power and freedom from disease. In exchange he allows half of Ios into his body and swears to sire only male heirs to the Plague King’s power. He continues his life emboldened by Ios’s Ambition.
1927
March 6th
Malcolm flees from Spain following a guilty verdict. Formally, he is accused of murder and witchcraft. The embarrassed judges neglect to mention his habit of sleeping with the wives of men in positions of power. He escapes to the Americas.
August 3rd
Iel grants her Preservation and Purity to two newborn twins, Claire and Caius Estrada.
December 8th
Malcolm, having discovered the existence of the blessed twins through means of ritual, tracks the two down and steals them away from their family. Being unable to harm the two due to their inhabitation by his god’s counterpart, he brings them both to a small island in the Pacific to be raised by an associate of his. The boy is groomed and trained to become a servant of Iel, and the girl is locked away in a tower.
1940
June 23rd
Claire manifests her aspect of Iel as a purifying rage. He destroys the tower and kills the man training Caius. He escapes and spends the next century of his extended lifespan tracking Malcolm and covertly killing any heirs he leaves behind. Caius establishes Quiet Farms in the wreckage.
1965
April 7th
Caius and his wife, Miranda, have a child they name Oren. Caius’s claim to Iel’s Purity is passed down to Oren. She flees home at an early age, tormented by nightmares about a close friend who had disappeared mysteriously.
1978
July 4th
A man named Harrison Vaughan is caught performing a ritual to bind the remaining half of Ios to his wife Laurian by Malcolm. He kills Harrison and breaks the binding. He is forced to leave before he can take Ios’s Deception for himself when the police arrive. Malcolm is badly injured by police while fleeing the scene and spends several months hiding out in the woods nearby.
December 23rd
Sacha Vash and Arthur Vaughan are born to Laurian Vaughan.
December 31st
Malcolm kidnaps Arthur and uses the infant as a sacrificial anchor to bind the other half of Ios, his Deception, into himself. Having fully incorporated the Plague King into his body, Malcolm undoes the effects of his advanced age and adopts the identity of Arthur Vaughan both nominally and appearancewise.
1981
March 10th
Lucinda Wiessman, 16, meets Arthur in the midst of an overdose. Arthur saves her life and grants her vampiric abilities in exchange for her servitude. She would become a pawn in his quest to yet again have an aspect of Iel under his control.
1984
March 12th
Diane Joy Weissman is born to Charlie Weissman and Oren Estrada, both 19. This would mark the climax of Lucinda’s manipulation of her brother, who would take his life shortly after. Oren readily takes up Lucinda’s offer to raise the child in her stead. Oren passes down Iel’s Purity to Diane.
1993
October 31st
Arthur returns to the home of Laurian Vaughan and Sacha Vash, claiming to be Vash’s long lost brother as a ruse to ensure Vash has no residual power from the short time they were connected to Ios.
November 3rd
Vash reinvents themselves and runs away from home, disturbed by the impostor claiming to be their brother. Soon after, Arthur kills Laurian and returns to surveilling Oren.
1996
May 1st
Vash kills the eye that watches over their dreams and is finally freed from the circumstances of their birth.
1997
June 5th
Arthur properly meets Oren for the first time. The two get along very well, to Arthur’s dismay. They begin to date, and are eventually married and move to a small town in Ohio.
2001
April 7th
Josephine Vaughan is born to Oren and Arthur Vaughan. Oren dies of sepsis shortly thereafter due to the terms of the original agreement Arthur made with Ios. Arthur gives up on his quest to control Iel as well.
2002
January 1st
Arthur founds The Grey Institute with the goal of one day bringing Oren back to life. Many of these tests involve experimentation on Josephine.
August 16th
Diane is finally consumed by her isolation and is pulled into a realm of void. Within this realm she would slowly be merged into by other Dianes from other clouds.
2005
June 5th
Arthur attempts to recreate Oren by creating a clone of Josephine and subtracting all of the elements of his own being from her. This fails and creates a version of Josephine with a great nothing within her, a half-person. Arthur places the half-person in Lucinda’s care, who names her Cecelia.
2016
November 14th
Diane’s singularity is complete enough that she is able to adopt the title of One and escape her void. She is tasked by this title to maintain the Prefectorium, a symbolic temple of unification for the Centurions as one Limit.
The first of the Centurions is killed by Louis Écrivaine using a Quantemagnifica. Discovery of this event drives Cecelia to find Diane.
2021
August 28th
Claire in her advanced age forcibly rounds up many people who Arthur’s power has touched (Including Josie, Cecelia, and Vash) in an attempt to draw him out. Arthur does arrive and Claire quickly kills Josie, finalizing a ritual Arthur had attempted and dragging all of the group into a black hole. The group is trapped in the Underworld for 80 days.
September 8th
In the absence of any notable powers, Lucinda takes over the abandoned Grey Institute to use new incoming residents and employees as livestock for sating her vampirism.
November 16th
Diane leverages her dominion over singularity to free the group from the black hole Underworld. In the time elapsed all connection to both Iel and Ios is stripped from those that had it. Sacha Vash is compressed and transformed instead because of their lack of connection, becoming the Quantemagnifica. Diane accepts Iel’s Preservation and all of Ios to unify them into One within her. Claire takes over care of Cecelia in Lucinda’s absence.
December 10th
Josephine changes their name to Jo Xavier. Around this same time, their former band SCRUBS disbands for good.
2022
January 10th
Claire sends the young Cecelia to live in the Grey Institute in order to strip Lucinda of her power and tie up the last loose end Ios left. After several months, she succeeds.
April 15th
Louis kills the Auxiliary Centurion, causing the infinite ocean to collapse. The Quantemagnifica sinks into the mercury pool and ceases to be Vash. Many survive in the remaining dregs of clouds. The mercury pool being exposed enables Cecelia to reach the Prefectorium and wait to confront Diane.