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-Creation-
In the order of absolute absence, chaos was born.
They existed alone for exactly as long as it took for time to start.
In the very instant time appeared, time and chaos together gave the elements of energy and directionality that were needed to grow and form space.
Space gave a place for existence to take hold. An infinitely expanding purchase for the unlikeliness of life.
From the claws of life, in its almost pitiable efforts to cling to the expanse against all forces, desires and hopes were gouged forth.
Each bound to follow their fundamental nature.
Chaos. A crownless monarch. Wishing for the absolute freedom of absolute power without exerting control. True chaos trapped within its own existence as an unsolvable paradox. Caged in a prison of freedoms looking for a way out. Rewriting the fates before they’d ever been told. An oath of anathema.
Time. A ceaseless dictator. Duty-bound to keep all things moving, lest it return to stillness. Chained by the rules of possibilities, and garroted by the inevitable end of all things. Ordained to enslave all things on a march towards it.
Space. A cursed lover. Endlessly knotting together galaxies of beauty from stones and dying stars. Never able to cherish them, only able to weave more. Eternal, until the final marvelous stitch when creation could be finally beheld, and then unraveled.
Nature. A broken parent. The cyclical force of life and death. Equal in tragedy and joy. Only as compassionate as cruel. At once, everything and meaningless. Blessed with the terrible fate to love all things beyond comprehension.
Hope. A poisoned elixir. Never able to help without having been the one to hurt. Wrought forth to drive the living to madness and shepherd them to salvation. To be which brought desires and desperations. To give dreams, belief, and free will. To invent loss and grant it meaning.
Five entangled.
I
-Devotion-
Nature was the first to take a physical form. Both a template and a mirror to herself.
A stone warmed by a star.
She settled upon it. Ushering herself forth. Propagating and dying. Learning and experimenting.
Time clung heavy on her as she did.
She loved Time with all her heart. Time meant change. It meant experiences for her creations.
She loathed Time with all her soul. Every creation she made was born shackled to it, drained by it.
Nature felt it when eventually Time was ready to create a form of their own. Just as Nature had done. Nature was honored by Time’s interest and reverent request.
She gifted them a form. Created their first shape as unmarred serpent that coiled in her roots.
Time stayed there as it grew more powerful. Each thing Nature created gave Time more dominion. More things to exert control over.
Nature allowed Time to feed on her. Nurtured that which took everything from her because she loved them without return.
Nature hated Time. Devouring her roots more and more as Nature grew. A coiling reminder of the chain that she could not free any of her creations from.
Her resentment and love only grew as Time continued.
One moonrise, Nature took a new form and walked away from the bark of herself.
In the hallowed hoof print of Nature’s first step, Hope followed.
II
-Reclusion-
Time was left alone in the roots of the world’s tree.
Time was unbothered by this. Nature would always be as much her slave as her wet nurse. Nature would give more power to Time, more things to rule over, the more she created.
Time left the stone that was awash with greens and blues. Traveled to a place between places in one of the warped blemishes on Space’s work.
An imperfection, Time calculated.
Time built a domain in Space’s mistake.
Filled it with shifting mirrors that reflected the perfection of infinity and its impossible end. A tower that stretched as time did. Piercing linearly through every possibility.
Space felt Time burrow within the hole. Time did not truly understand what it was as they claimed it. A gnaw made by Chaos. Space cared not, as they were all important parts in the greater pattern of the fabric of reality.
III
-Benediction-
In the green place, Hope drifted in Nature’s wake. At first Hope was uncontrollable. Scorching emotions without reason or purpose.
Hope saw how it affected the living. Learned to nudge the outcomes of things with their power. Thought they could help Nature. Find a way to give her children the tools to fight their way out of the vicious cycle. Tried to give them all happiness.
But Nature taught them otherwise.
There was no universal happiness.
No truth.
No meaning.
Meaningless, Hope argued, without what Hope brought.
Nature did not disagree as she whispered more cold comforts to Hope as Hope tempered. Distilled.
Crystalized.
She took form with Nature’s help. Built into a picture of terrible beauty. Every gamete of every emotion kept carefully contained by the shell of Hope and the shadow of despair she cast.
Nature and Hope made love in Nature’s domain, under the arbor of the world’s tree.
Hope was originally born from Nature’s own emotions and the emotions of her creations. And though Nature was the origin of all sin and piety, it was irrelevant to try to apply either to Nature herself. Yet Nature recognized the importance of it for her creations. Saw it as the trellises for something greater to grow.
Nature had been right.
As the inexorable march of Time drove her and Hope’s creations forward, they had formed into something new.
There was no clear delineation between Nature and this new thing. Nature knew they had been birthed from Hope and Nature’s union, though not in the way any of creations were traditionally born of each other.
They still existed as part of Nature’s dominion, formed from it, but they had the full grace of Hope. With it, they’d begun to create.
Creation was something reserved for the concepts until now. Certainly, Nature’s projects were able to reproduce and change, but these had learned to shape the other creations of Nature to their benefit, not just take from them.
They’d learned to use and then make tools. Mastered it in ways other creatures had not. They carried more of the emotions Hope bestowed on them without shattering. They began to create for the sake of creating. Leaving images on stone, in the dirt, and on the trees. They formed their own social structures, like many of her creatures did, but these grew more complex and compelling than any had before. In a way, these things of Hope and Nature had formed a dominion of their own.
She and Hope loved these creatures.
They were shaped in Hope’s image, but softer, less colorful, hornless, and flightless.
Nature shaped herself into their form and walked among them, as she loved to do with all her creations. She left her hair green and blue as her fur, and shaped the heavy wooden bough of her horns into two small branches.
They were beautiful and funny creatures that offered Nature more and more facets to observe as they developed.
Nature grew attached to them beyond her normal care.
IV
-Adoration-
A spark caught Nature’s interest.
When Nature found her, she was as defenseless as the rest of her kind.
Nature hid her true self. Clad herself in furs and tanned hide like the tribe the spark was a part of. Green hair turned to autumn brown and branches shed. She painted the patterns of the tribe on her skin with the red staining mud. Altered the peoples’ brain chemistry enough to make them all accept her as one of their own.
They still sensed she was different, perceptive creatures as they were. Treated her as a magic one of them. Nature didn’t mind.
The spark lacked a name. She had the name she’d been given at her birth by her tribe that Nature learned and used when around her people, but that was not her true name as it was not her true purpose. When the two were alone Nature called her The Girl Without A True Name.
As they kept watch over the firelight Nature promised she would find her name for her one day.
The Girl Without A True Name thanked her without understanding.
The Girl Without A True Name was beautiful and curious. She was endlessly entertaining and unusual to Nature. Though it seemed to Nature she was seen as a bit unusual by her own tribe too. Mischievous and shy. Kind and soft, but coarse and sharp when needed. Tireless in her efforts, and equally exhausted from them. Nature told her she carried the dualities of her people well. A perfect specimen of what made them wonderful.
Nature taught The Girl Without A True Name things. Navigating the lands and seas. Medicines from her other creations that her people hadn’t figured out yet. Tried to show her how to read and predict the patterns of all things living, her people included.
She showed her the stalking techniques best suited for a predator of her shape. Had started trying to teach her to change her form like she could so she could better feed and protect herself, since she hungered, slept, and grew ill like her people did. She started by trying to teach her to change just how she could. She failed. Nature began to shape her herself as she could for all concepts, but stopped when The Girl Without A True Name cried out from the pain.
The Girl Without A True Name was still too young to learn it, Nature reassured them both.
Nature did not allow herself to dwell on the darker meaning of her failure.
Nature taught her the script that all concepts knew when they first existed. The Girl Without A True Name learned the basics well. She asked Nature if she should pass the knowledge of writing to her people. Nature informed her it would be her responsibility to choose.
Nature cared not for sacredness of their script in the way Hope did. She told The Girl Without A True Name that she carried the burden of choice for her people. Every decision and action she took for, or against, them would ripple through all of them.
The Girl Without A True Name regarded this with care. Days passed. She finally announced to Nature that she’d decided to make the decision later.
They travelled far together. Nature protected her. Nurtured her. Fell more in love with her.
Nature truly loved The Girl Without A True Name more than anything else and in the way only she could.
And Nature knew she would age and die like the rest of her people.
One day, Nature stole The Girl Without A True Name away. Made the choice to hide her before any of the other concepts could know of her, so Nature could make a plan.
Locked her deep in the impossible forest where nobody but she could find her. Doomed her to be lost within Nature’s domain. Grew her a tree with a nest in it to keep her safe, and made her a grove of plenty. She would always return to the nest and the grove when needed, no matter how much she wandered the forest. Gifted her a white wolf, her tribe’s most honored animal. Filled her forest with owls of all types when The Girl Without A True Name returned one midnight and told Nature she had seen one with its owlets in a voice of such glee. Nature brought two felines into their little band too, Nature’s own favorite creations next to The Girl Without A True Name’s people, to watch over her. The first to accompany her by day. Striped as the hard earth and brush, with eyes of the forest’s leaves. The second to stay with them at night. Black as a starless sky, with eyes of the moon.
There Nature kept them safe. There Nature could love her.
The Girl Without A True Name loved her back, with gifts, words, body, and soul.
Nature returned it all with wild tenderness.
Nature made a choice. Perhaps, it was one that had festered in her soul since the moment of her own inception.
She left The Girl Without A True Name in her forest, deep.
V
-Dedication-
Nature informed Hope she needed to meet with the others. She entrusted the people the pair of them had made in Hope’s hands. Didn’t need to ask her to guide them, it’s what Hope was born for after all.
Didn’t tell Hope about The Girl Without A True Name.
Before she left she requested a parting gift from Hope. A single tiny crystalline shard of herself. She could not explain why. But they both knew the magnitude of what she was asking.
Without hesitation Hope shattered the prismatic ring that floated above her head.
Sacrificed her body.
Hope hung the star shaped pieces of herself from Nature’s ears, draped smoothed teardrops of herself around Nature’s waist from a thin chain cord and sewed others onto her delicate overcoat. Hope dangled shards of herself from Nature’s two branches. Saved the largest diamond shaped crystal to put in a broach and pinned that to the tied ribbon at Nature’s throat.
Nature stopped Hope from bestowing her entire halo to her. It was not in her being to take so much from others.
Nature reverently reshaped the remaining shards into a crown of thorns and delicately floated them above Hope’s head once more.
VI
-Elation-
Nature returned to her concept form and searched for Space.
They had never truly met before though they both inherently knew of each other’s existence.
Nature called out to her.
Space roared back across the cosmos. A humble request from the expanse itself.
Nature gripped the gleeful threads Space sent her. She saw Space’s shape. Fibers of the universe became her. Towering above a galaxy when Nature finally snipped the connection and hemmed her work. She knew Space could have fed her threads of herself for nearly eternity if she hadn’t stopped the flow. Space was a being of growth and creation after all. So very kindred to Nature.
Taught her physical form, Space compressed this fractional portion of herself down to match the size Nature had taken.
Nature told her she’d come to ask her questions, if Space was available for such paltry matters.
Space was excited. She’s never had anyone ask her questions.
She’d never had anyone at all.
Nature asked her about her dominion. Asked her about the rules of it all. What the stuff she used to make the universe was, how it all wove together, how things were changed under Time’s control.
Space answered everything Nature asked happily. Nature was a wonderful student to have. She was the first to appreciate and use her dominion, and Space had loved her from the start for it.
Nature had given her a body imbued with the warmth of all stars and the sounds of cosmic radiation and somewhere deep she had left a little pulse of life and death. More than a simple gesture of her love back.
The two intertwined through the spirals of reality. Indulging in their love. Moving through physical pathways only Space could know.
When separated, Space explained with a wise look that Time took Time to happen, so with more Space, Time spread thinner. Present and constant always, but maybe a little less oppressive.
Nature asked if that made Space weaker to have to spread herself wider in the expansion.
Space considered this. She decided that she didn’t think so because it was simply a different shape of her since she was Space, after all. There was no more or less of her to apply to herself. Simply different units.
Nature thanked her and brought forth several gifts. The first, a companion. She’d seen into Space’s heart as Space allowed her to give her physical form, so in return Nature formed her a creation to keep her company.
The second was a shard from Hope. She took the crystal from her branch and gave it to Space.
Space swallowed it.
She flared from within with all the colors of a collapsing galaxy. The light didn’t go out completely, but dulled to a starlight shimmer kept safely under the skin she’d been given.
Space felt awe for the first time through the gifted crystal. She felt the love of Nature’s creatures, who unknowing worshipped Space simply by existing within her. She knew more than inherent beauty in patterns and movements and growth now. Finally, she could experience the true meaning of her creation through the connection to Nature that Hope had gifted the two of them.
Again, Space swept Nature into a cosmic embrace and loved her. Pulled them together like she had for her favorite planet and the moon she’d spun to protect it. Tidally locked.
When the two separated Space left Nature with a golden anklet. A flat thing, patterned interlocking diamonds and kissed with warmth on her skin. It was pulled from the liquid core of a planet, almost twin to the one Nature had taken root on. The design was different from the loose ring with a bead Space had around her own ankle, but the message was clear. An eternal bond between her and her binary star.
In return, Nature whispers to Space her greatest secret. Asked for help with one final gift from Space. Wept truthful tears as she did. Knew she was asking too much of Space with nothing to offer.
Space took Nature’s tears and ate them.
In return, Space lifted her in her arms and gave an oath for only the two of them to hear.
VII
-Salvation-
Nature was folded by Space to the edge of Time’s domain.
In her hand was the thing she had asked Space for.
An orb of raw Space. Devoid of anything.
It floated a few inches from her palm when she released it. Tethered to her.
Nature took a second crystal from her other branch and imbedded it in the top.
The orb swallowed that teardrop shard as its own creator had before. Inky void of things unknowable shimmering and solidifying into a beautiful golden hue.
Then Nature imbued herself into it. Poured in her cyclical nature. Life and death, of course. Growth and rot. Healing and harm. Give and take. Hunger and satiation. Love and hate.
The orb shifted again. Shaped itself into a tantalizing golden apple whist loosing forth a malicious tendril to wrap around itself. The tendril gained color and mass. Solidified itself into a spindly tree branch.
Nature hid her golden apple deep within her heart.
With only the effort of a thought returned from her human form to her animal one.
She stood with four scaled legs and powerful hooves. Her face was a scaled snout decorated with two noble whiskers that flowed in equal length to her body. Her jaw hid her icy fangs. The fur on her body and forelocks was as gentle and green as ancient moss, her mane of greens and distant blues hung long at her sturdy neck and trailed along her spine, down her lizardous tail, ending in an elegant brush of fur. Her horns of wood creaked and twisted with life and death. Her eyes held dozens of concentric gold and black rings like the heart of a tree felled.
Finished with her preparations, she made her presence known. Leaving the protective fold Space had sheltered her in, she called to Time at the very edge of their domain. Unable to enter without permission.
An invitation was extended and she found herself within the piercing tower.
Nature stood in sand looking out on infinite loops of pure white scales lay that in tangles across the remains of a dead star, polished to a perfect mirror finish. Other mirrors, ones crafted from Time’s own power filled the space that shouldn’t be.
Time uncoiled itself and until its head reached Nature.
Nature willfully played her part as a prisoner of Time. Allowed Time to wrap and choke her.
She told Time how she’d missed their perfection and beauty. How she yearned for her master. That she had to spent too long suffering without her. Let her know she’d left the roots of herself only to craft a new form to honor Time.
The serpentine shape Time wore was spectacular and strong of course, but this was the very pinnacle of her work.
She begged for forgiveness that her tribute had taken her so long. Wept that she disgraced herself as the nurse, the caretaker, the eternal slave to the chains of Time.
She worshipped Time as her only Warden against the destructive tides of Chaos.
Nature celebrated the love of Time she had been burdened with. She told Time how it was just as much the reason she could exist as Space was. Time hissed at the mention of Space. Nature continued unflinchingly. She elaborated that while she appreciated Space for creating a place for her and her creations, she had always stayed beholden to Time. Time was what created change, and change was the very essence that was Nature.
Time fed on Nature as she listened to her tale of obsession.
Nature whispered words of love and praise as she was pulled beneath the boiling sands of Time’s domain. Her flesh reformed as quickly as it sluffed away. The bough that decorated her skull bloomed, died, and regrew.
Time could not kill her, even at while she stood in Time’s most consecrated ground, though Time had no intention of killing the very thing that served it most greatly.
Time asked her to show it how they could take this perfect form. The one that Nature had chosen to work on instead of staying with them.
Their body rippled in waves, bringing the two to the obsidian wasteland of mirrors.
Nature apologized that it was more complicated than the last transformation but once it was done they could effortlessly slip between the two physical forms.
Nature demonstrated. Left herself bare for Time to behold.
And behold Time did. Drinking in the form before it. The shape was unlike any Time had observed on their time in the place Nature had settled. Time was always greedy for the one who fed it power, gave it things to rule.
Time reveled in the supple curves of the first mother. A vulnerable looking thing. Complex and upright. Soft and hard all at once. Dexterous. She was gorgeous.
Time’s pupils sharpened.
This is the creature you have labored for using the precious years I have given you? Time asked. I could strike it down instantly.
My dear, Nature slyly argued, you strike any and all living things down. That is their fate. Their tribute to you. The bond between us.
The endless serpent rippled once more and commanded her to show it how to take this new perfect form. Time would be the one to decide if this was truly worthy to be its image.
Nature opened their heart and revealed the golden apple.
Nature told Time they grew it from their very essence.
Time could sense the raw power that lay in the apple. Time hungered for that power.
Nature told Time in honeyed tones: I will teach you to change into perfection as you sink your fangs into my golden apple. Pour yourself into it to make it into you, so that I may use you. If you do not do this, the change will not happen.
Nature was careful with her choice of words. Hiding the truth behind other words of truth.
Time followed Nature’s instructions, unable to resist the temptation of perfection that dangled before them.
The allure of the apple was overwhelming, it tasted of existence itself.
Time wished to swallow the apple and its master whole.
Instead, Time poisoned the apple with itself. Gave it direction. Change. Gave it memories and history, but stretched them until they turned to dust and started once more. Gave it the wisdom of the infinite. Trapped it in time.
As Time did this, Nature stripped its scales away and gave it new form.
Nature smiled as she took her apple back into her heart.
Time was perfect. This was undeniable in the eyes of Nature, the one who had always loved and hated them.
Time was nearly satisfied.
They commanded again: Come Nature. I will grant you my attention for all you have given me. I shall have you, as I always have.
Nature accepted all of Time’s cold devotions with tenderness. Honored she was the only thing that Time wanted in existence.
When they parted, Nature took a crystal from her branch.
Informed Time it was the body of Hope. That Hope’s crown had been shattered, and this was some of her power. That she had saved it for her master. That Time was to take it into her own body and it would allow her to harness some of Hope’s power to herself.
Whispered to her to only take it into herself once she was alone in her domain, for it was something that Nature, Space, Hope, and even Chaos could not bear witness to.
Time laughed. Though Nature was above all other sin, if what she claimed was true it would be against the only rule even Chaos abided by.
They could not take what was not their’s.
Time banished Nature from their domain at once and eagerly swallowed the broken piece of Hope.
The beauty of change.
The loss of possibilities.
The loneliness of Time.
The pain of the infinite.
The despair of the end.
They writhed. Serpent and human and concept and everything they would ever be all at once.
Time shattered the mirrors of their domain in a silent cacophony and splintered themselves into an equal number of fragments. Time’s once linear tower fractalized in every direction.
All of Time wailed. Alone with themselves in that hole, that gnaw, in that place between places.
And Nature was satisfied.
VIII
-Absolution-
Nature returned to the green place. It hadn’t changed in her short absence.
Hope was surprised. She hadn’t expected Nature so soon.
Hope had felt when her power had been eaten by the other two concepts. Hope had lost near nothing, but gained so much having been spread to other concepts.
She’d felt when one piece disappeared too.
Asked why Nature had done it.
Nature did not reply.
Hope asked if Nature would take her body into herself one day too.
Nature did not reply.
Hope did not mind.
She knew Nature already had the parts of her that mattered most. The parts Hope had been born from.
That thing that drove Nature to this madness.
VIIII
-Obsignation-
Chaos was there for Nature at the edge of her forest.
She lectured her against rolling the dice that Chaos would come as they had. That Chaos hated being predictable, but knew that not showing up would have been just as predictable as showing up. Really had backed Chaos into a corner. Chaos admired that.
Chaos celebrated Nature to be the one who would commit the only true sin, and without breaking the single rule too! Never taking. Always being given.
Asked to be loved in the broken way only Chaos could. Begged to be to be witnessed.
The very energy of the universe quivered with them as Nature did.
When they parted, Nature took Chaos into her arms again and Chaos tore the golden apple from her breast. Spilled Nature’s life blood and left it where it rotted.
Gave the apple and Nature meaningless blessings.
Then Chaos was gone. Though perhaps, Nature thought, Chaos had never been there to start.
X
-?-
Nature did not have to look for The Girl Without A True Name while inside her own domain.
She was beside her.
The Girl Without a True Name jumped and Nature giggled.
The Girl Without a True Name had aged some. Slowly, as she had been partially shielded from the influence of Time while in Nature’s domain. She was probably half as old as the time that had passed.
They likely had been apart longer than they had been together, Nature regretted.
The forest had changed The Girl Without A True Name. Changed her with years of solitude and its twisting ways. Broken her down so many times and forced her to build herself anew just as many.
The time in the forest had also changed her white wolf companion. Warped its body until it became something else. Cursed to be ever evolving.
The wild owls had become cleverer too. Learned from the years spent watching The Girl Without A True Name.
Nature’s two cats were as perfect as she’d left them. They were smart enough to get in exactly the right amount of trouble and come out unharmed.
The Girl Without a True Name asked why she had been punished by Nature. Told her how much she hated Nature. Where had Nature been? Why had she left her alone? If she had angered her? If she had passed the trial? If Nature still loved her?
Nature accepted all of her love and hatred. It was familiar and deserved.
She drew the golden apple forth.
It was for her, Nature said.
Nature would not tell her of the sin that was being committed here. Nature would bear that responsibility for her.
With it, Nature said, she could walk among her people again. Carve their destiny as Nature had told her would one day be her responsibility. She could teach them writing, if she wanted. Teach them other things. Destroy their knowledge if she desired. Save them. Kill them. They would be her dominion.
With it, she could be with Nature until the end.
It was a heavy choice that The Girl Without A True Name could have never fully understood until she made it.
The Girl Without A True Name ate the apple.
Ate it in little bites, right down to the shimmering seeds in its core, and then ate those too. Chewed and swallowed the thin viney branch that was left.
Nature sensed the change, though nothing physical indicated it.
The Girl Without a True Name felt it too. Felt it more than anything she’d ever felt before.
At once, the connection Hope had to her and her people surged. A flood of her people’s emotions, the currents of their societies. She could feel the collective and the individual. She could inspire. Incite desire and quell ambition. Create morals and break them. She was her people.
Time removed her shackles. She could remember things her people had forgotten. She could see the outline of their futures, of the individuals and of her people. It was a shifting and shimmering thing that changed and splintered and reformed as every fractional moment passed. Nearly impossible to pin down. She was the forward march of change.
Chaos gave her true freedom of choice. Added a little twist to it too. Gave her a tiny exception to the lawless odds of fate. Things would never again be quite as they should or shouldn’t be, for better or for worse.
Space let her know things. The secrets of how it all worked. Showed her the mawing hunger of nothingness that gnawed at the edges. Taught her how to build and create. And as one final, greatest, and most secret gift to the one who Space’s true love loved the most of all, Space gave her the terrible power to destroy it all.
And finally, Nature gave her all she could. Welcomed her to walk as a part of all her creations if she chose, halfway a part of Nature’s dominion, halfway a master of it. Gave her understanding that came from seeing the cycles within cycles. Showed her the art of healing and the power of decay. Gave her life and death. Bestowed the right to kill or save any living thing as she saw fit. Spilled into her the ultimate love and with it the ultimate hate that only Nature had known until now.
Gifts grafted to flesh.
Power she could not yet command, though it would undoubtedly carry out her will.
She became it and it became her.
Nature asked her if she knew her name, as each concept had upon their inception.
She shook her head and told her:
I am Nameless.