The Creation
In the beginning were the stories.
In the beginning the stories were.
And it was neither good nor bad, but simply was. There was no time, no life, no death, no good, no evil.
There were simply the stories.
But stories are not truly stories unless there is someone to tell them.
And the stories were aware of this.
And so, from the nothingness, the void, and from themselves, the stories created their Storyteller.
And the Storyteller told the stories.
It became apparent, as the Storyteller told the stories and learned the stories, that she could weave new ones. And so new stories were born.
The old stories were pleased, but there was something missing. For though they had a Storyteller, stories are not truly stories unless there is someone to whom the stories can be told.
But though the stories realized this, they knew also that they could not create listeners as they had created their Storyteller. They did not know what they needed in their listeners. So the stories asked the Storyteller. For though it is the stories that choose their Storyteller, it is the Storyteller who chooses the listeners.
And the Storyteller smiled, for she had already known what was needed. And so she began to weave a new story.
She took cords of nothingness and twisted them and made light and darkness. And she wove and told into being earth, water, fire, and air. From these she wove still further a pattern, a telling that grew ever more complex and strange.
Soon she had woven a world into being-a world that was perfect in every way but one: it was completely devoid of all life.
And the Storyteller paused and considered the stories, for they told of life, even if they had never experienced it.
When the Storyteller began again, she told and wove a story of life. To begin, she took a single strand of light and built from it breath and hope. She took a strand of darkness and wove fear and aggression.
And she kept weaving. She wove and wove and told and told a story of need, sympathy, happiness, sadness, joy, anger, love, hate, despair, survival. She wove and wove as she told and told a story of plants and trees and fish and birds and animals and as she neared the end, she wove humans.
Intelligence and idiocy, greed and grace, malice and mercy, good and evil-she wove and wove and told and told until she had told a story so complex that it was impossible to pick out a single strand.
And finally, when the Storyteller reached the end, she knew it was really only the beginning again. She took a strand of light and a strand of darkness and twisted them together to create death. And with it, she wove the end to the beginning so that she had a great circle, a tale that had no beginning and no end.
This she wove into the almost perfect earth she had created until it was no longer perfect, but instead very, very beautiful.
The Storyteller sat back and smiled at her creation, but she knew that it needed Keepers-ones who would observe the world and both guide the story and be a part of it.
And so from the life she wove the Keeper of life-bright and shining, wise and good, and she named him the Jade Emperor.
From death she wove the Keeper of death-standing in darkness, yet comforting and strange, she named him the Baron Samedi.
From the earth she wove the Keeper of earth-the great mother, kind and gentle but powerful and strong, she named her Akka.
From the air she wove the Keeper of air-dancing and loving, flighty but great, she named her Xochiquetzal.
From the water she wove the Keeper of water-draconic and chaotic, unpredictable and yet often peaceful, she named her Tiamat.
From the fire she wove the Keeper of fire-shape shifting and warlike, quick to anger and slow to forgive, she named her Morrigan.
From wisdom and knowledge, she wove a patron of the ingenuity of life, and named him Thoth.
Lastly, she took a little of everything and wove together a creature who was neither here nor there, a trickster, and impossible to predict, and she named him Coyote.
When she was finished weaving the Keepers, she placed the Jade Emperor as their king, with the Baron Samedi at his right hand, so that life and death, light and dark, would rule together as equals.
And finally, the Storyteller wove time, and set it in place over all, keeping a record of life’s circle, and tapping out the rhythm of the world.
When she was at last finished, the Storyteller stepped back and showed the stories her creation. The stories were greatly pleased, and began to explore life on this new earth with curiosity and joy.
So pleased were they that the stories wove themselves into the life, so that the life were the stories and the stories were the life.
When the Keepers saw this, they knew that it should not be. For it was not long before chaos began to break out on the earth. The large stories had woven themselves into entire countries, in many cases so that two stories that were entirely different in every way were in close contact. Some stories were so large that a country was not enough for them, and they began to reach out and take other stories into themselves.
The Keepers were alarmed. So soon after the creation of the world it was already on a path toward its own destruction.
But in truth, not all of the Keepers were dismayed at the chaos. Tiamat Keeper of water, Morrigan Keeper of fire, and Coyote, beings of chaos themselves, were pleased with the destruction and sought to manipulate it as they wished.
In desperation, the five remaining Keepers looked to the Storyteller for help, but she was nowhere to be found.
And so the five Keepers thought of a solution. To stem the chaos, they combined their might and put in place barriers around the stories so that it would be impossible for the stories to interact or spread. The barriers were strong, and when the stories found they could not cross them, no matter how hard they tried, they calmed and instead turned inward, concentrating on their own story and how it was playing out.
The three Keepers of chaos were not pleased. When they found the barriers, they began to seek to destroy them so that destruction could reign once more. But the combined might of the five was no match for the three, and they were soon defeated.
Tiamat and Morrigan were each bound to their elements, in the hopes that they would never escape to cause such damage again.
Coyote, however, was not bound, for he begged forgiveness from the Emperor and the Baron. Forgiveness was granted, and Coyote was allowed to roam once more, albeit watched by the Emperor and the Baron out of the corners of their eyes so that he would do no great wrong.
Thousands and thousands of years passed. The stories progressed, ended, repeated, evolved, changed, and grew, but remained bound inside the barriers. The Keepers began to forget their responsibilities-some grew distant and aloof, looking away from the earth they had been charged to protect. Others grew bored and began to meddle here and there, slightly, without great consequence, roaming the earth like Coyote and observing the stories as they progressed.
Because the Keepers are ignoring their tasks, they do not notice how the barriers begin to crumble.
They do not notice how the binds on Tiamat and Morrigan are waning.
They do not notice Coyote putting his nose where it, perhaps, should not be.
But the story moves on, and it continues to be told.