Finnegan/Introduction
Finnegan O'Riley
“But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take our breath away.”
In the beginning, he was Zenah of the Fifth House. Created by his Father to become the Throne of Reflection, he was tasked with imparting to water those qualities that would make it reflective. His elders in the Fourth House taught him how light might be fashioned to interact with the surface of water. With this knowledge he performed his task well, offering it up in praise of his Father. By virtue of his labor, the beauty and majesty of Eden were cast back and magnified to an infinite magnitude. And Zenah beheld this, and saw that it was good.
But out of all the many splendored wonders caught in his reflections, it was Adam and Eve that fascinated him the most. The two creatures in all of Eden made to be more like his Father than any other. And yet, they remained ignorant of him. No matter how many times they saw themselves in the water, they did not know it was themselves that they saw, and he yearned to tell them. To show them how beautiful they were. Then the Great Debate was called and Lucifer pledged himself to rebellion, Zenah was at his side. He would not stand by and watch Adam and Eve suffer before they had the chance to see themselves and to know.
During the War, Zenah marched with the Silver Legion. His legions of mortal followers founded the great Ocean Citadel Tychaeus, where wonders of magic and technology were innovated that Eden has not known since. He was one of the few who remained steadfastly loyal to Lucifer's vision, preferring to expand the minds and thoughts of his followers rather than sink into atrocity. But even all the miracles wrought in the Ocean Citadel could not stop the devastation brought about by Babel's fall. Like all the rest of his siblings, he was deprived of his power and made easy prey for the malhim. Chained by fire and judged, he marched into Hell, where his Torment began.
Geological ages passed. Continents divided. Stars expended their fuel and collapsed upon themselves. And in the prison his Father made, Zenah endured his Torment. He knew not how long he languished there in Hell. But he clearly recalls the moment the prison shifted, and the cracks appeared at its edge. There was one just large enough for him to squeeze himself through, and he left the Torment behind. Shattering through the wall that divided life from death, he fell like a screaming comet to Eden. There, in the midst of a raging storm, he found a place he could anchor himself against Hell's gravity. A human body, deep beneath the waves. He plunged himself into the stuff of its flesh and locked himself within.
In that moment, he became Finnegan O'Riley. An Irish immigrant who had moved to America to escape the Troubles of his homeland. A man who loved the sea, and made his living from it. Until this fated night, when a squall had come out of nowhere and the waves had swept him off the deck of his ship. An undertow had held him beneath the waves, until life faded and his soul escaped, leaving his body behind for Zenah to find. The merging was so complete, he could no longer quite tell where Finnegan ended and he began.
Now, he has flesh. He has some small modicum of safety. More than that, the Father and the Host are all but absent from Eden. It is not the world of miracles he left behind. But it could be again. The mysteries are out there, waiting to be re-discovered. All the answers for which he and his fellow rebels had searched were theirs for the taking, if they could but find them. To this end, Zenah became a Cryptic. He has fallen so far from what he once was. But he is still the Throne of Reflection, and one day, he will make Eden shine again.
