Chapter Text
In the beginning it's lonely.
It's nothingness.
It's abyss.
It's knowing everything that came before them and everything that is and everything that will follow.
It’s shaping themselves into whatever form will hold them, stretching until the edges seem to tear.
It's lonely, being ever-changing in this emptiness.
It's nobody and nothing and no one.
Until—
They create Night.
She spills out from inside in gruesome drops of horns and hooves and feathers, pitch-black ink dancing on the parchment of the first tale.
She expands as if to swallow it all, but they stop her; they show her the hunger will one day be satisfied.
They know this night is not the darkest or the most boundless. But it is theirs.
Their Night.
She gives them a myriad of eyes, her gaze a hall of mirrors in which to reflect themselves.
They learn that the self is a concept that evades them, but that matter will still bend to their wishes until they can see some projection of a shape in the glass.
They create stars for her, in her image. They are everything she is not.
Night twirls and leaps around the blinding bodies, arranging them to her liking until they adorn her onyx fur and coal wings. She walks on top of each orb, and they guide every path she chooses to travel.
It is lovely seeing her dance; they could be content watching her for eternity, their Night. But they don't want her to know loneliness like they have, hunger like they have.
So they create Darkness, eternal companion to the lights that hold Night's throne. He slithers under her, becomes her shadow and grows into a cave that no stare can penetrate. The two beings tangle so tightly it is hard to tell them apart at times.
Darkness gives them mystery, the chance to be surprised by that which they cannot see, only feel. There is a particular delight in reaching into him and—for the first time—not knowing what was or is or will be.
But even with his touch to sate her, Night still aches for more, so she indulges in her own act of creation. She delves into Darkness, wind-born egg between her claws, and entwines it in ropes of twilight that squeeze until it hatches.
Time comes and goes, the strings pressing harder and harder, but the process cannot be completed and Night screams, the first sound to break the fabric that surrounds them.
They cannot bear to see, to listen to her wails, so they help her this once, drawing a gentle crack on top of the shell which spreads all throughout like a web until—
Love springs from the egg, shimmering wings dripping gold on all that is and four pairs of beastly eyes that envelop creation in its entirety.
He flies up and down the directionless valley, buries himself into the depths of them and digs in his talons to climb out; he tears and slashes at skin in a craze of famished desire.
But there is nowhere to go.
So for now he crafts silver bow and gold-tipped arrows from the blaze of Night’s stars, adorning them in the vines of dusk that grow within Darkness’s cave.
The same vines that squeezed him out of his cage and gave him life.
But Love doesn’t shoot. Not yet, not at them. He too, like Night, has learnt that they will give him what he wants in due time.
No, Love kisses them, because he has a mouth and tender lips.
They give name to all things in a tongue that does not have the need for words, for what is Love if not the naming of that which you know?
They create birds for him, in his image. Love never flies alone after that moment.
Finally accompanied by these twisted souls, they can rest, quench their need for guests.
Even so, they realize it is hard for their gods to find balance and aim in a place without measure or direction. They still hunger for more.
So they decide it is time for the abyss not to be, for the physical to envelop them all. For there to be north and south and west that will guide movement.
For what are Love and Night without walls to climb and canyons to conquer? What are birds and stars without ground upon which to watch them in their flight?
So they create Earth, her sturdy lungs holding all the moments in a roaring peace. She breathes in gulps of ether and breathes out clay and silt, the breeze carrying it all to shape the world as it chooses.
Earth gives them hands, teaches them to grip and dig and hold until the soil stains their fingertips and they can reach marrow and stone.
They learn that creation has a skeleton, and that the fractures in each rib make it all the more beautiful.
They create Sky for her, to surround her every edge and crevice with starry horizon; he gives home to Love’s birds and to Night’s celestial bodies, but he loves Earth most in all the cosmos.
And when Sea comes, born of Earth's eyes, he discovers a home between them, crashing where one begins and retreating to where the other ends.
Together, the three of them play the symphony that guides all that will follow.
Then they create Light and Mist and Day. They create Storm and Wind and Mountains. They create Heaven and Chasm and everything that lies between.
Earth mothers more sons and daughters than one could count, each molding a corner of the universe with those same coarse fingers that shaped the orb.
It is all so divine that they wish there was someone to delight in their design.
What is a world—their world—without bewitched souls to witness and devour it?
So they try to shape new creatures like they shaped themselves, thunder and storm turned clay and stone turned fire and breeze until—
It crumbles, slips between impatient fingers, the millionth try still not enough to make vessels that will last for more than a few seconds. It is the first time that creation stumps them, the first time their fists clench.
Love watches from afar and cackles with two sharp-toothed mouths, tilts his many heads in imitation of the charming sparrow and wicked vulture that sit on his shoulders. Because, Oh, silly them, they who attempt to shape these miniscule souls, these humans who aren’t meant to be all-knowing, all-holding, all-being.
So he plucks a single golden feather from the largest of his six wings, takes one also from each bird that flies above or below or beside. He bandages them with the ribbons of torn skin he ripped on his way out during the beginning, and sculpts the creatures in something akin to his likeness.
But he doesn’t give silk-strung wings or hooked nails or violent hooves. He doesn’t give a thousand eyes or crawling fur or wind-swept tails.
No, he gives teeth to bite and tongue to speak and mouth to kiss. He builds bodies of blood and bone, and carves a hole right in the middle of each chest with a gilded arrowhead.
He flies off, leaving the endless rows of human frames for them to complete. Something glints in his gargoyle eyes as he watches from a mountain, content with the knowledge he has given them.
The next step is painful, but this life demands it.
So it is done, so they break off the sole roots that tether them to the ground, to this world, to their children; with them they create hearts, tangle each familiar string with star-born dust to make machines that will pump life into these bodies.
They wonder for the first time since their rousing breath if tears can fall from their eyes; they know they cannot, and yet the loss still slashes like a forest fire.
But what is Love if not indulging in creation, even at the price of the ache it brings?
They place the small devices into the cavities and wait for the gears of cartilage and root to turn, for the eyes to open and wonder at the elementals, for the wingless muscles to breathe out a pure song. Until—
The loud souls awaken, sobs and screams born from underneath the ribcage and filling all of space. Love smiles, satisfied from atop the mountain; there is pride in giving birth to voices so strong.
They soon learn that this life they have built is so fragile, and that not even Earth can dig a well deep enough to contain the vastness of those heart-bound.
And then time has come to bring it all to fruition, to merge all of their transient designs into one.
And thus the stars spill from their stomach and the planets spin into the orbit of their fingers and the birds burst from the featherless wings at their back until it’s bare.
They pour themselves like a stream, soaking the scroll of time with a history that no one but them will be able to read.
They circle and tangle and pull until they are eating the universe's tail and carrying all of genesis in their circumference; until they are full to the brim with the language of these vibrant souls; until the pain sprouts from every slit and cliff and plateau. Until—
They are holding it.
It’s everything and everyone and everywhere.
A world.
They know it isn't the first one, nor the last, nor the brightest.
But it is theirs.
It is then they learn there is something they shall call joy, and that one is never lonely when bearing all of life and death within.
It is then they realize the agony of uprooting themselves and choosing solitude cannot compare to the bliss of knowing every piece that turns and twists inside, cannot compare to the naming of a universe they have sculpted with loving hands.
Their world.