The Twisted Skein

The Dawn of Man

A summer of love / Of Godly plans and mortals / This is my new song.

The Gods of HQ / Looked over their green domain / And found it empty.
No minds were found there / Save their own mighty, divine / Thoughts of greater things.
Luxury, the God / Of love and lust and mating / Planned to make it whole.
At night the Gods slept / But Lux walked their wide-beamed halls / To find those she sought.
She cast her silken / Veil across the eyes of two / Dafydd and Constance.
She walked away, her / Duty done, her plan begun / A smile upon her face.

Dafydd woke; he looked / Upon his sister Constance / With new sight he saw.
Her skin, it seemed, was / Smooth as silk, white as snow, and / Soft as feather down.
Her hair fell gently / Black over her shoulders and / Spread across the floor.
Then Constance opened / Her wide eyes and met his gaze / Returning it full.
His eyes, she saw, shone / Grey and deep in his perfect / Face, sculpted by fate.
His limbs were fair: she / Thought him beautiful, and he / Saw the same in her.

Never before had / These two known their fated role / Planned before their birth.
The Overpower / Had set their lives in motion / Brought them to this place.
With Luxury's aid / These Gods knew their destined love / They touched in the night.
The darkest hour of / The night passed over them, soft / As a wool blanket.
Constance and Dafydd / Embraced in the hall of Gods / Found each other there.
The morning found them / Sleeping once again apart / Concealing their love.

The Gods awoke to / A new, unknown sound: a cry / High and pure and free.
Upon the mats where / They had slept lay an infant / The first human child.
The SO spoke: "Who / Has brought or made this being / To our hallowed halls?"
The Sub Rosa stooped / And lifted the young child, held / Him out before them.
"Will none take him?" she / Asked with solemn words. "He must / Be claimed or cast out."
None replied. Dafydd / And Constance stood apart, not / Daring speak a word.

Finally Kit spoke: / "This child will take our substance / And leave us wanting."
Bast closed her eyes: "Call / Me not cruel, but I concur. / It cannot remain."
"It was not made," said / Makes-Things. "My art was not used. / I wonder: a beast?"
"Not so," Jay declared. / "I hunt all things, and this child / Is not of HQ."
Acacia agreed: / "It may be a thing of our / Mysterious foe."
Fitzgerald sighed: "I / Would not condemn, but I see / Death's mark on his head."

"Then let him go!" the / Hyacinth called. "Like stagnant / Water flow away!"
"It must be so!" cried / The Sunflower. "Cast this child / Into the wild lands!"
The Sub Rosa left / Carrying the child beyond / The Gods' halls of stone.
In wisdom she chose / To place it in the forest / Where Rhodes slept in peace.
Then she returned to / The hall. The day passed. Night came. / The Gods slept again.

That night, and four more / Nights that after came, Lux swept / Veil o'er Godly eyes.
Dafydd awoke, / And with Constance joined in love / To bring forth a child.
Each morn the Gods found / An infant which, unclaimed, they / Gave to Sub Rosa.
Each day she carried / Away a child, travelled far, / Gave it to the woods.
When the sixth child had / Joined her brothers and sisters / The Rose broke silence.
"Dafydd and Constance, / I have watched you these five days / And five nights also.
"Six children you have: / Let that be all. No more, lest / I tell the Gods all."
The pair bowed before / Their mother's will. That night, sleep / Reigned in the Gods' hall.

That seventh morning / No cry of infant came, but / Shouts of war and death.
The Mysterious / Somebody, the Gods' old foe, / Had come to HQ.
The Mini-Balrogs / Strove with his Sues, but this time / They fought not alone.
The Foe, intending / To assail HQ, had watched / Events unfolding.
He had seen the Rose / Carry forth each child, had looked / As she cast them out.
In his heart he schemed / And desired to destroy them / Those innocent babes.

They were his target / When the attack began. He / Sent his servants foul.
The Bracket Fungus / Lord of Death Unmastered, came / Stood beneath the trees.
His vapours snaked out, / Seeking the children who slept / In that fair forest.
He struck: they aged fast / Hastening on towards death / Years passed in seconds.
Then might they have died, / But Cam arrived! The Fungus / Turned to face her wrath.

He should not have turned! / He left his task unfinished: / The children still lived.
Not dead but full grown / Behind him the six arose / Strong of hand and heart.
Naked and unarmed / They struck the Fungus down, brought / Fear to rotten heart.
He fled; before Cam / The children stood alone, but / Were not yet afraid.
Cam smiled, beckoned forth / Bade the children join the host / That fought evil foes.
Three male, three female, / Each noble and valiant / Mighty warriors.
They fought for the Gods / Until the Gods came to fight / Angry and well-armed.
Jay and Acacia / Made war alongside the host / And claimed victory.
The Sues were slain, the / Foe and Fungus fled HQ: / The world was secured.

Now the humans came / Summoned to the Gods' great hall / To learn of their fate.
The Sunflower stood. / "You were cast out," he said, "but / You returned to us.
"By your aid the Foe / Was defeated, and thus we / Give to you this world.
"You will abide here / Until the end of days, but / We require your aid.
"The Sues of our Foe / Hold the universe in thrall: / You must hold them back."

Jay arose. "This gift / Of swords I give you. Fight well! / Stab at your foes' hearts."
"And I," Acacia / Said, "Give you these bows. Aim true! / These arrows fly far."
"I will teach you craft," / Makes-Things declared. "Shape more arms, / And all things you need."
Fitzgerald proclaimed, / "You will die. But I give you / Healing and new strength."
"Drink of my waters," / The Hyacinth said, "and eat / The bounty of Rhodes."
"Have plenty!" cried Bast. / "Feast at your victories, let / Joy mark all your days!"
Kit smiled. "But at times / Shall hardship strike. Use the pain. / Grow stronger through it."
"Have knowledge," said she / Who knows all things: the Rose. "Know / The evil of Sues."
"Have light," the SO / Offered. "Let it guide you through / The worlds you will serve."
"Have love," said Lux. "Look / Upon your siblings and see / The beauty each has."
"And through that love," said / Dafydd and Constance as one, / "Bear children in joy."
"Thus shall it be," said / The Gods in chorus divine. / And thus it is now.

Worship the Gods, ye / Men and Women, Agents all! / Praise their holy names!
Accept their gifts! Take / Up the sword and bow! Wage war / Across the heavens!
The Sues must die! Let / All their flesh be dust! Be strong, / Ye Agents, be strong!

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