Life. Death. Everything exists in a current cycle, changing back and forth. New creatures are born, exist in the best lives they can live, and then fall back into nothing. Some hunt viciously, others live to help others. But the one thing that can be guaranteed is the end, and then to begin again elsewhere.
There are tales of a being that personified the concept of this. A serpent of immense size, constantly swallowing it’s own tail. Ouroboros. Constantly looping over itself, a symbol of infinity that coils and curls around. It is the symbol of infinity personified, given life itself. And in turn, it shows us the truth.
Everything is just one big cycle, built upon smaller ones.
Since Red Snow and the reveal from Kleen, the reality my brothers and I shared was shown not to be the first. We were merely the most recent holders of the mantle of our masks. Others had come before, and fell away in the cycles of life. We were just the surface of the coils, and like the others we began to fall. Even as Panther hunts us, I’m left to wonder if this will truly be the end or just the beginning of the next cycle.
Loop upon loop, deep beyond meaning and yet so simple of a cycle.
To look further abroad shows the cycles upon cycles. Lambs to the Slaughter itself is merely a cyclical event, coming again and again. It’s contestants roll out in waves, only to find themselves flow out from the ring itself. Even at the end, with one standing tall above the rest, they begin the cycle of challenging the top. No matter the outcome it causes more to cycle, more to change and yet ultimately stay exactly the same.
Like Ouroborus, everything is merely cycles played upon each other.
If one wishes to come out on top, they must see the loop for what it is. Embrace the change of the cycle, let things flow and change while directing it in their favor. To shift the coils of the world around them and make it their own is the key to succeeding.
I look at the loops in front of me, and I begin to move them. I know where the Red Falcon is this time, I know where the Panther lurks. I have made the plans to deal with them, shifting things into our favor to rescue our brother from the clutches of a beast that only desires our downfall.
And like the serpent that continues ad infinitum, I see the cycles that come from the slaughter. It takes not just strength to take the top, but the knowledge to shift what comes. Adjust the coils into your favor, taking others out with the coils that shift and change around us all. Bend, flow, and adjust to the changes rather than try to remain rigid and fall.
For who better to move the cycles of the ring than the Yellow Serpent?