Fantasy Of Blood and Gods (CLOSED)

[Bag o Fruit]

When CREATOR awoke, it was in perfect blackness. Silence, darkness, cold and CREATOR: this was the totality of the real. For many millennia, CREATOR looked about. Then, in the instant of a thought, Gus children Swoob before CREATOR, each alike in newness and wonderment. They were formless, nameless and voiceless, so CREATOR granted them words, so to speak their minds, and to define themselves.

 

[Gus]

"Ahem!"

A tremor of fear ran through a portion of space.

"Blarglegaerp! Does my voice really sound like that?! I think I just invented embarassement! I better check if anyone heard me..."

Silence falls for a moment.

"Wait. How do I tell what is around me? My words are the only sound... but what if the others remain silent? I need better ways to check...."

Silence falls again. Then there is a scratch and a hiss and a tiny flickering... something... flares into being. The darkness of reality is not so much dispelled, as defined by it. Shadows spring into being dancing crazily. Among the shadows the feeble flicker reveals hints of what might be apart from voice and noise... then the flicker gutters down until it touches outstretched fingers...

"Ouch!!"

Darkness, and silence return.

 

[Gus]

After a long moment of consideration, the voice returned.

"Well. The flickery thing seems useful enough to give a name to... I name it fire. And I decree it will never hurt me again. And the fiddly little bitty things that stream out of it... they seem harmless enough, except they reveal so much more than listening can do... I name the fiddly bits light. And I decree they will never reveal me in my despite, for they are mine and I lay claim to them. And what of you, my brethren? The fire-light confirms you are here with me. Wherefore do you not speak with me? Is my voice so strange? Or do you fear your voices might also be strange? Fear not! Even before fire and light, I invented first what I will now call 'bashfulness' and I am filled with it. I feel my every utterance is passing strange and inadequate to your good graces. But I claim all this feeling unto myself and decree that it cannot touch you, my brethren. You need never be bashful, for I have already proved myself the least worthy of us a thousand times over. Pray you, come forth and reveal yourselves!"

And there was a bright flaring burst of fire which sprang up in a ring and the fire's light pushed the darkness back. In the center of it was a large round orb, nearly featureless, but for a ring of color with a dark center, which turned this way and that, eagerly sampling the light. At either side of the orb were tiny little cups of flesh, straining for any hint of sound, and nearly hidden at the base of the orb, underneath the colored ring was a tiny opening from which the voice from the darkness issued for a sixth time as the whole of the orb faded in and out of view.

"My brethren, I can just make out your presences, but your forms are obscure to me. Speak, and take form! Join me in the light!"

 

[Swoob]

Out of nothingness came it. A blinding thing, brightness pervading and overtaking the universe. Everything was covered and eaten away by the Light.

The child's existence shuddered and cracked in the Light, for its raw power strained and blazed its being. As the Light continued to barrage it, a feeling grasped its mind, the pinnacle of displeasure, and it began to only think of avoiding the feeling.

"Pain."

The fire was too strong, and so the child created a substance with which they could nullify light. A flame of darkness, cold and black, burst into existence and ran forward against the light-fire, culminating in a supercharged boundary of light and darkness. The two fires pushed against each other for a long time until breaking the yolk of their stagnancy, spilling out into the other and calming both. Now, the light was of a warm, pleasant strength, and the darkness was not so threatening.

The child spoke. "Finally, equilibrium! I must ask you, child of bashfulness: are you mad? We have existed for mere moments, but have you yet drank too much from your power and lost your mind to it? Resultantly, I feel an unpleasant, off-kilter feeling! I will name it... anger. Now then, calm yourself, bashful child. Calm yourself, for we have much work to do! And I must calm myself as well."

Facing the orb-child arose a similar being, a rather bumpy, black sphere that morphed in its uncertainty of form. It featured two white circular things, similar to the child of bash's appearance, and displayed the same cups of flesh and slit under its white seeing-circles.

"Now, our final companion, speak, and make yourself known! Join Bash and me and we shall begin our work!"

 

[Bag o Fruit]

CREATOR spoke then, as the Kin had shown the way. CREATOR spoke thus:

Then gone was CREATOR from the inky black world, though not for all time. The Kin were left alone, within an infinite canvas that waited to play host to their creations.

 

[Gus]

Bash
​

“OOOOOOH! Ang! Did you see? I caught a glimpse I think! Do you know who that was?! Oh my kin, oh my kin!”

Suffused with too much excitement to express with mere dilations, speech and ear swiveling, Bash sprouted appendages from its nether regions and a veil of flesh with which to cover itself. Blinking back tears of joy and terror, it flailed about clumsily on its long legs in the worlds first dance, forever setting the standard for awkward gyrations. As Bash danced and capered about, its feet pounding on the ground, wheresoever it touched, the impacts pushed great dents into the ground and threw up hills and mountains to the horizon. The suppressed fire-light did not carry far enough to see the horizon, but the bulk of them could be felt palpably, their majesty could be tasted.

Bash let out a whoop of surpassing power, and, its paroxysm still not spent, it created a small scrap of decorative fabric atop its round bulk and with a final flexing leap, tossed the thing in an arc through the air and caught it again. As if in sympathy with its creator, the ring of suppressed fire flared again and flew high into the emptiness above the ground where Bash stood with his brethren Ang and Sil. From such a great height, its heat could no longer be felt, but it spread its light across the lumpy brown surface on which they stood. Bash's flesh veil was shut tightly, its small speech aperture panting with the effort of its dance. At last, its veil peeled back, and it looked about at the strange terrain in amazement. It turned to its brethren, wide in amazement...

“Did I do that?” Suddenly concerned, it added “I can fix the lumps I bet, if I carefully smooth them down with my feet. Please Ang: Tell me if I have displeased you? Sil, if you are not mad, say nothing?”

For a moment, Bash paused, waiting anxiously and working the small speech-making hole in consternation. Letting out a husky wheeze, it added “My dancing has raised dust, and my sound shaping organ is crusted with it.”

 

[Swoob]

"Ang, of all most terrible things! Bah! I do not wish to be denominated by my most grisly, unpleasant emotion, but—oh, it'll have to do for now. I will allow it, but prithee, do not attach it to me as you do those curious appendages!" With its new wiggling-things, Bash began to flail and twirl about in a cathartic display of bursting emotions, throwing them outward and into the ground. It shuddered and arched upward, forming a beautifully rolling landscape. Ang—as it shall so be called for the time being—caught a small, drifting something of the expelled joy, and curled its mouth upward in response, as it had no legs to dance with, and certainly was not swayed strongly enough by the stream to sprout them—not yet. The action felt good; I shall do this more often.

"Please, Ang, tell me if I have displeased you?" asked Bash.

"Certainly not, my kin, but rather, I appear to have unintentionally soaked up the residue of your happiness. But I must say, how admirous you are of our almighty Creator! how doting! And how silly you are; once again, you have acted further than you can think. Absolutely, I shall give you some means to aid your resultant suffering." Politely calling upon every resident of its imagination, Ang created a transparent, flowy substance; it was clear, but it was felt; it took shape, if shyly and noncommittally. With such parameters, it would have the power of having grasp in the physical plane, capable of moving the crusted dust in question, but not so sternly as to choke Bash or cause additional pain. Its finer details, such as its clearness and taste, were not choices made consciously by Ang, but rather thought subconsciously: This is how it must be.

"Here, I have created water for thee. I know not fully why I have created this name, but it sounds soft and flows as does the substance. Drink, friend, I am confident in this one."

 

[Gus]

Bash
​

“Garabalargalagle... Thpuh! Thank you my kin, I am much refreshed. I see that your substance is good! It is separate from the dust of the ground, and yet it mingles with it also! And see! It flows down into the low places and fills them perfectly, as if the one were made for the other! See how it sparkles in the light of my ring of fire! Do you see it Sil? I want to know if this reservoir of 'water' feels as good without me as it did within me. Don't look my kin, I am getting undressed!”

Bash faded from view until nothing remained but its hat, which subsequently dropped to the ground as Bash's footprints hurried off toward the water at the bottom of the valley. The sound of its footfalls faded rapidly as it covered the space between with long loping strides. There was a splash, and a hollow place appeared in the water where Bash had leapt in. The hollow place dove deep, kicking its appendages, pushing the massive eye downward in furious thrashing strokes that strove with the water. After a moment, it popped back to the surface with a gasp.

“MY KIN!” it cried, “This is lovely! 'Water' is my favorite new thing! Ang, you have outdone yourself! It is a lovely gift.”

The hollow place came splashing out of the lake and Bash returned to its kin on squelching footsteps. After two or three hops, the hat rose back to the height of the young god, and he reappeared, soaked eyelashes to toes with the water. The aperture of its speech organ stuttered with involuntary spasm.

“A-a-a-ang? D-d-d-do you th-th-think you c-c-could move your ring of d-d-dark fire a b-b-bit further off? It is t-t-turning y-y-your w-w-water to wh-wh-whiteness on my sk-skin!”

 

[Swoob]

Ang blinked twice. "What an interesting effect! It appears to grow sluggish until solid under the coolness of this dark fire—and you under it; can you not even move it yourself? Very well, I shall move it at your demand; you certainly look—and sound!—in no position I should hope to be in." With power inexplicable, incapable of being captured by description, thought, or any other essence of mortal toil, Ang moved the ring of dark fire far away, to the other half of the land. As such, the light and warmth poured in, washing away the white, tired water and reinvigorating the land, which almost seemed to rise back up and sigh in relief. Warmth feels good after the dark, but it is only the balance between the two that allows this emotion to flow into us with the coming of dawn. Without equilibrium, there is chaos. Without balance, there is nothing.

For the first time, Ang looked upon the bursting landscape it created with its kin. The mountains rolled gracefully, sweeping and skipping across space to the rhythm of Bash's dance. The light from the fire-ring kissed the tops of them and the water, which brimmed with majesty. On the other half, the dark fire turned the world cold, and the water turned into white as it did before. Everything was silent, still, and tranquil. A majesty in its own right. Between these two halves, the dark and the light rushed at each other and embraced, connecting in tendrils, morphing so beautifully, water pooled at the bottom of Ang's eyelids. Warmth with cold. Energy with peace. It held all of life in its embrace. In that moment, gazing upon the would-be world, Ang realized what a wonderful thing it was to exist.

It looked at its kin. "Bash, I must confess I quite like what we've created so far. Know that while I may be short and am much too quick to spit venom into the wounds of your shortcomings, you are and shall always remain my kin, my first kin and my first friend. Such is a bond I should assuredly believe no other, in this future we set forth, will rival. Forgive me, our third kin and our Creator, but I believe this to be true. Bash, what do you believe? Of me, and of this world?"

 

[Gus]

Bash
​

“Oh my kin, that feels so much better!”

The white crystals now returned to their original liquid state, Bash gave a full body tremor, flicking droplets of Ang's creation hither and thither and very nearly knocking his own hat from atop his massive eye. At the last moment, he scrambled to stay underneath it, managing, for the moment, to remain clothed.

Now that he was dry and warm again, Bash took time to ponder Ang's words, and Sil's quietude. His great eye squinched closed in thought. The thought might have lasted through many an age, or may have been a mere dribble and drip. What is certain is that at some point further on, the eye opened once more.

“My kin, I think.... Well first among all my thoughts is this: I think I forgive you both your shortcomings, as I must, for you in turn forgive mine which are even more numerous and vexatious. Our bond is strong, as you say, and will never be equaled. I think such a bond needs naming, for names have power, both to define and conjure forth. I name our bond: love. Is it a goodly name? Time, perhaps, will tell. Oh which reminds me! Time! That is what I call the thing which orders other things, so that the first thing come not before the the last. Or rather the reverse. Which might confuse one. Such as I have confused myself. Perhaps I should have begun with time. I suspect the one who called us forth did so, but I can't be sure. But there is definitely change and some things are different now than when we began. Time, I think, has been with us the whole... um... time. I say this to clarify, however clumsily, that I did not create the thing, but only, in the time I spent thinking, did I think that such a thing needed naming. And now I must apologize again, for I feel keenly the span of time I spent in thought while you both awaited my answer. And I know not what span yet remains, so we must, I think, not waste it.”

Here he paused, discombobulated by the effort of articulation. The pause was brief. Compared to the thinking time, barely noticeable, and yet Bash winced for fear of wasting more.

“Where was I... Oh yes! I love my kin, and I love this world we have formed, and I think it is time for a small change. See there where my ring of fire has remained this span of time over the mountains? They begin to scorch and brown, and yet here where your ring lingers, the white crystals that were once water grow so thick and hard form bitter points. And yet the joining space, the interval between, which I name twilight? There I see a moderation and a joining. I propose that we each move our rings onward, in there own tracks about the world so that each mountain and wide water will have it's own season of cold and heat and in between as well. How would that be my kin?”

 

[Swoob]

"Twilight... I very much enjoy it. A name as beautiful as its bearer. Perfect, then; let us send our fire-rings on their merry way about the world to bless each mountain and valley with cold, hot, and 'twilight.'" Ang began to send the ring of cold to the far stretches of the horizon, then paused. "But wait! If the land continues like this, on and on through space, when will our rings ever return to the same mountains that once were touched by its effects? Our time continues ever onward, but our land must not, or else we will merely send our things off into nothingness, unable to rejoin us. Let us make the world so, that rather than having or not having an end or beginning, the ends are the beginnings, and every supposed end join its beginning so that no matter where something goes, it can always return to where it once was. A cycle... a circle! I call it a circle. We shall make our world full of circles, a circle in every direction, so that we may connect everything and never be lost or alone. We would call it a sphere, or a globe."