Before any cat crossed between worlds, before storms carved symbols into the sky or echoes shaped doorways of sound, there was only the Nexus.
The Nexus was not a place of power, but of balance — a quiet intersection held together by the will of a goddess who watched without ruling.
In those early cycles, the boundaries between worlds were thin and forgiving. Cats moved instinctively, unaware they were ever crossing anything at all.
THE FIRST FRACTURES
As the human world grew louder, the balance began to strain. What had once been a gentle weave of reality pulled against itself.
The Nexus did not break all at once. It cracked quietly.
Dreams lingered too long. Storms gathered without rain. Echoes returned altered.
THE NEED FOR THE GATES
Bastet understood that the Nexus could no longer remain unanchored. Balance needed structure.
From this realization, the first Gates were shaped — not as doors, but as responsibilities awaiting those who could bear them.
Five forces stabilized the weave, each bound to a different expression of what it meant to endure.
And somewhere in the waking world, five lives moved unknowingly toward the moment the Nexus would call them by name.