I'm not sure if these will show up in the actual text of the story or simply be background information for me. Either way, hopefully they're kinda interesting.
The Story of
Humanity
All things are as humanity, and
humanity as all things; for when the world began, it was but the world: the
Mothers Erta and Asarta, and their Son, born without father. Erta was stoic and
firm, and remained forever whole and in one place, but Asarta glowed with a
passion for discovery, and wandered the emptiness which was called Death,
leaving pieces of herself behind whenever she stopped to rest. And the Son was
like both, whole but impassioned; but Erta kept him near, fearing for his
safety and jealous of the attention he gave to Asarta.
So Asarta said: “May we bring forth
new children so that your jealousy will not rob me of our Son.” And Erta
agreed.
The Mothers toiled over their new
children. And the Son suggested they should number three, as three is the
number that was; and the Mothers agreed.
The Son said too that two of the
children should be as the Mothers, wise and kind, so that they might care for
the third. And the Mothers agreed, aloud; but each secretly longed for her own
Son, and so instead made two who were like the Son and only one who was like
the Mothers. To hide their deceit, they made all three children much the same,
and hid all difference amidst many limbs and growths. So were given arms, legs
and other features to the children; and so they were Men and Woman.
Men and Woman shared the emptiness
with their Mothers and brother. And after a time Men, seeking new pleasures,
came to learn desire; and both set their gaze upon Woman. And Woman being one
could not control Men who were two; and soon they became unruly and covetous. Woman spoke to warn the
Mothers of Men’s selfish desire, but the Mothers, deafened by their love for
Men, did not hear.
Though both Men did desire Woman,
she had eyes only for the Son, who though naïve in all things was ever
watchful, keeping Woman safe as the Mothers had him. And so did Men capture the
Son and turn him to fire, so that Woman could not look upon him with unshielded
eyes; and forced to flee from the Son, she was left vulnerable. Men took her
for themselves and gave her seed, and she wept.
The Mothers were outraged at the
Son’s transformation and the violation of Woman, but still did not raise arms
against Men, for each of Men blamed the other for their crimes. And Woman’s womb
grew.
Over days did Men grow jealous of
each other over the love of the Mothers and Woman. So on the day called Tragedy
did one of Men pin down Woman against Erta’s back and slay her, fearing the
other might have this love for himself. For this sin is He called Pollux, He
who ended the pulse of Woman. And the other of Men in fury grabbed the Son in
his hand and crushed his soul in a fist, throwing the fiery corpse with all his
might, so that it sailed for minutes numbering seven hundred twenty. For this
sin is He called Castor, He who cast the Son across the sky.
When the Son’s body was about to
strike Pollux, he removed the fire from the Son and sent his body flameless but
still glowing from heat back to Castor, and this too took seven hundred twenty
minutes. And so Castor set the body aflame again, and threw it back, and Pollux
doused and returned it; and so the First War continues even to this day,
centered over the great city of Progress in Aarana.
But even as she was slain, so did
Woman’s womb open, and out came children more numerous than had ever been
fathomed, emerging without pause for four and twenty hours. Horrified and
knowing these children would share the evilness of Men even as they carried the
goodness of Woman, Asarta did greatly reduce the children in size and power,
and Erta bound them to her back on which they were born.
The Mothers felt overwhelming
sadness at the new state that Men had wrought for Woman, and for the Sun, which
they named Death in tribute to the emptiness that now pervaded their hearts.
They saw the path their Son now took, and saw the shape which Woman in death
formed with her limbs, through which her children climbed. And they saw that
both were like an arch, and so decreed the arch a symbol of the journey between
life and this new state, Death. And they gave Woman’s children and their slain
Son new names to display this arch; and they were called Humanity, and the Sun.
And so in the course of one full day
did the first of Humanity enter into life.
- - -
The Story of
the Empyri
The first of Humanity to emerge from
Woman's womb was called Aaran, and his first sight was the Sun; his first
sensation was heat; and his first love was the light. When night first came and
Aaran saw darkness he was frightened and filled with sorrow, and huddled close
with his siblings. As nights returned, Humanity built structures to hide
themselves from the fear of night, and closed their eyes to forget its passing.
And they felt warmth for one another; and soon children joined them, the
granddaughters and grandsons of Woman. These then were the cities.
But Aaran still felt the Sun's
absence whenever Pollux would stifle its fire; for the Sun in its glory was
unlike the things it illuminated. Erta beneath his feet pulsed with life, as
did the fragments of Asarta who lit the distant sky; and the beasts of the
Mothers and his own siblings and children breathed the air. He felt even the
blackness of Death tremble with a dark consciousness. But the Sun was truly
lifeless, like the shell of Woman.
Yet as Woman in her dying gave life
to Aaran, so the Sun though dead gave life to all things. Aaran alone thought
in this way; so when for the first time a child was born dead, all humanity
wept, but Aaran said not to grieve, for the greatest life came from the dead.
And the child was Una, the twenty-first.
The people of the first city took
great comfort in Aaran's words, and made him their leader, for he saw things
that they did not. For Una and for the Sun, Aaran built a great arch like the
Sun's path and named it Temple, for it marked what was beyond sight, behind the
eyes of the living, and he buried Una at its feet.
Now Aaran saw that there were other
cities who still feared their dying, and felt pity for them; so he told his
people, “We must teach them what we know.” But the other cities defied Aaran,
for they lived in their own way.
Yet Aaran's convictions gave his
people strength greater than that of other cities, and he said: “The Sun is a
weapon for War between Men, even as it gives light”; so they built weapons to
convince the other cities of Aaran's wisdom. Soon the other cities followed
Aaran; and when he and his people returned to the Temple, they had many bodies
to bury at its feet. And Aaran's words proved true: for where the bodies dead
lay buried, a great garden grew, with blooms the color of the Sun, and his
sister Eder who was the fifth child of Woman tended it.
The garden gave Aaran great joy; and
Eder told him of her observations, that the flowers blooming over the dead
turned to watch the Sun, and drew life from it. Aaran who saw many things said,
“Humanity too must learn to take life from the Sun, and give light back with
our dead.” So a great pyre was built so that some dead might be burned, to give
back the Sun's light.
In his old age Aaran grew sick of
mind; but still he was wise of heart. In fits he chased the Sun across the sky,
screaming for its secrets, and was called mad; but he was sometimes answered;
and Barab the second, his first sister, wrote the words he spoke. And he said:
“My people will learn to bring
brightness to the night, and move boulders with the Sun, though its touch be
soft as the breeze.”
But before Aaran fell, Barab was
buried under the Temple; and Iori, the ninth, took up her pen for Aaran's last
words. And in Aaron's last days he was taken by a great sickness of the body, and
felt sure that his heart would freeze solid. So Aaran who saw many things took
a knife to his chest, and carved his heart from between his ribs, offering it
to the Sun. He expected warmth and a familiar voice; but instead his head rang
with the voice of the void of night, Death itself. So Iori wrote thusly, as
Aaran spoke:
“The War will End by End of Night:
the Bringer's gift, the
gift of Light.
named thrice, then twice, and once
again;
is robbed by ice but first by fire;
will ride the sky in
Mothers' den;
pull down the Sun from
Woman's pyre;
and know the
true desire of Men;
and know the
truth of Men's desire.
—said Death, the empty sky.”
And Aaran was wrested from the tight
grip of madness, and he rested in the soft arms of Death. And his people called
themselves Empyri, for they lived united around the pyre. So was born the first
people of Humanity.
- - -
The Story of
the Starlings
Long after Aaran built his Sun
Temple but before Erta freed the last of humanity to keep them close, Asarta,
weary of her travels through infinity called Death, returned to her sister's
side. Many years had passed since the birth of Humanity, and so she asked Erta,
“How fare the children of Woman?” But Erta was silent, lest her voice wake
humankind, who slept, for it was night.
So Asarta asked Men, who still
fought, the Sun’s body their weapon, “How fare the children of Woman?” But Men
were silent, for in their warring they had yet to notice their children who
walked Erta’s back.
So Asarta turned to Humanity itself,
but found them sleeping; and all her channels barred, she began to weep with
frustration. She could not visit during what Humanity called day; for her eyes
had grown fragile in the darkness of Death, and the Sun lit by Castor's fire
blinded her. And her tears filled the valleys of Erta’s back.
When day come, Asarta fled, and
Humanity woke, finding huge waters where once was dust; but the water was
tainted with salt, undrinkable, and so humanity stayed far from its shores. Yet
there was one girl-child, whose life was sadness, who tasted the water and
recognized it for tears; and though she searched the sky for signs of who had
cried so endlessly, she could see nothing but the Sun’s light. So she brought
with her two friends, both boys, to wait for night.
In darkness Asarta returned,
thinking to do violence on the Mother Erta for keeping their descendants bound,
until she saw the awakened children beside her reflection in the water. She
rejoiced, and said to them: “My children! Why sit you there, awake?”
The girl spoke with reverence,
saying, “Mother, I know this water for what it is; and I wish to comfort the
one who wept these tears.” And Asarta smiled, and said, “I cry no more, child.”
The girl was amazed, and asked, “But
Mother, why did you let fall these tears?” And Asarta smiled, and said, “For
humanity favored Erta above me, sleeping when I visited at night.”
Asarta saw that there was a great
forest at the edge of the basin that was full of her tears, and said to the
children, “If you wish to bring me comfort, build yourself each a boat, so that
you might live on the water and sleep in day; so that my image may be always above
and below.” And the children agreed; but the girl, who was wise, asked, “How
shall we see in the night?”
Asarta looked at her reflection and
answered, “I shall give you, and all who follow you, a piece of me left behind
in my travels. My presence shall light your way.”
And the children agreed. And they
called the great water in which they could forever see Asarta’s reflection the
See, and themselves the Starlings, for the birds who sparkled like Asarta in
the night sky. So was born the second people of Humanity.
- - -
The Story of
the Bounders
For a time there were the two
peoples: the Empyri who drank from the Sun and the Starlings who were one with
Asarta. And Erta mourned; for humanity who once dwelled in her bosom now walked
her back, and gave worship only to the sky. And because the followers of Aaran
numbered more than the Starlings, and because they were not guarded by the See,
she called half their number to the cavern of Woman.
Erta asked, “Why have you forsaken
me, Humanity?” And Humanity said that they had not; for did she not still hold
them to her?
Erta asked, “Why have you given your
hearts to the Sun?” And Humanity said that they had not; for did their hearts
not pulse to the rhythm of her own?
Erta asked, “Why do you not show me
the same love as you do the Sun?” And Humanity said that they did; could she
not read their faces, which spoke their thoughts silently, and gave their love
to the soil?
But still Erta was unsatisfied. So
she turned to the philosophers of Humanity and asked how she could hold her
children closer.
They said, “To keep love close it
must be free to leave.”
She turned to the healers of
Humanity and asked how she could win the hearts of her children.
They said, “A heart can be none but
its own while still beating.”
And she turned to the mothers of
Humanity and asked how she could learn the hidden thoughts of her children.
They said, “In the eyes are written
the truth of the mind.”
And Erta listened to all.
When the people she had gathered
awoke in the morning, they found their bodies adrift, for Erta no longer held
them tightly; and fearing the void of Death above, they made homes in the
cavern of Woman, and in Erta’s bosom, so that a shield was above them at all
times.
They found their hearts could be
made still and silent; and feeling how it was to be lifeless like the dirt,
they felt one with the soil; and feeling how it was to be heartless, their
hearts grew.
And they found
their eyes colored with the truth of their feelings; and seeing their love,
Erta smiled. And they called themselves the Unbound, for they were no longer
fettered to the Mother they loved. So was born the third people of Humanity.
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