New Testingstan

How the world was made.

Long ago, at the beginning of things, there was Overall Darkness and Eternal Light and Great Mother, and that was all. Great Mother knew the secret of the Words of Making, and so she made a place in the emptiness, and this was the world. She carved out the contours of the land and made the rivers and the seas and all that lay within the deep of the world. But nothing living existed yet. Great Mother looked on this, and spent uncounted time marveling at it all.

Then, one day, though days did not exist yet, and the sky was dark where Overall Darkness was and bright where Eternal Light was, Great Mother decided that all this would be better if it were shared with somebody. But Overall Darkness and Eternal Light she knew of old, and knew of them that they were cretins, and in any case she doubted that they could even focus enough to see the world.

So she tried to make something to share it with. She began simply, making dirt into an image of herself and sharing her breath with it. But the image lay still. She took sand, and clay, and stones of all kinds, and eventually metals and gems. None would move except when she made them move, and none would breathe on their own. She even tried to whisper Words of Making into them, but still they lay still. She sat and thought and pondered what to do next, and her mind wandered, and she saw that there, where her breath had fallen, were little things that moved on their own. None breathed like she did, and grains of sand were like mountains to them, but she thought it was a start.

She took handfuls of this little-life, and worked it like clay, and breathed into it further, and finally made things that breathed, but none could move on their own. She worked and worked and made mushrooms and seaweed and flowers and bushes and trees and vines and grasses, and when at last she took a break, she saw them all and how beautiful they could be, and she saw that the little-life spread on its own, for a little bit of the Words had slipped into them, and she laughed. So she took all these things and gave the same little bits of the Words of Making to them, and she called them all plants, for they planted themselves in the ground and breathed, and she let them spread across the world. But as she looked upon the first forests and steppes and swamps, her desire to share these things grew further.

Great Mother decided that although Darkness and Light were indeed fools, they nevertheless might know secrets that would give her companions to share with, and she set out. Overall Darkness knew no secrets of value, but they agreed to give Great Mother a piece of themselves for some of the little-life. Eternal Light did know half the secret of boundaries (and Overall Darkness knew the other half, but had forgotten it, though that is a story for another time), and so Great Mother took that and a piece of light for some of the little-life and some of the plants.

Great Mother knew all sorts of secrets, and once she had some light and some darkness they would last her as long as she needed. She played with them and wove them and spliced them and mixed them a little, but nothing she made could hold her breath, and so she set them aside and picked up some little-life and a flower. She looked carefully at the little-life which could move, and the flower which could breathe, and then she saw it. Each was so strictly bound that it could only do one thing or the other.

So she took her part of the secret of boundaries, and carefully weakened the boundaries, and made a new kind of life, which she called “animal”, for it could both breathe and move as she could. But though she made all kinds of wonderful creatures, none of them could see and understand the beautiful world. So she took the light and darkness again, and this time she wove furiously, and made things that could hold her breath, and she made bodies for them.

The creatures of light and darkness loved bodies, but they couldn’t hold them together, for their natures were not in the material. So Great Mother turned them loose, and they indeed became quite a nuisance for all people, wanting bodies but not being able to have them.

Great Mother decided she would let her mind clear a bit, and she took leftover light and darkness and played with them aimlessly, and thought deeply on why things were going wrong. Nobody can know how long she took, and some say that it was solved in but a flash, and others say that she made all the shapes that could exist before finding her answer, but at last she had it.

In order to make things which would think and see and feel as she did, she would have to use more of herself than her breath. So she sliced open her arm, and took the blood that came forth, and mixed it with her breath and her creations and made all the creatures that can feel, and she took some of them and made them in her image, and she took some of those and spat in their mouths so that they could speak.

From these did human and shimut and shalki and others descend. These all the speaking peoples, and from the moment that they were made did they speak. Then Great Mother urged them to spread out and see all that they could see, and so they did. And many found places that they loved and settled there, and Great Mother walked among them, and some continued to walk with her. And so it went on.