A Story of Forever

Foreword

Yes, yes this is largely influenced by Norse Mythology. No, no this is not Norse Mythology. It really is not. It’s only based on Norse Mythology. It’s only based on Norse Mythology in the same way The Bifrost Incident or Marvel is based on Norse Mythology. In other words, it’s a complete bastardization. 

It’s kind of just a religion I created myself. Kind of. I had some help. This is based just as much on fanfictions of Norse Mythology as it is on Norse Mythology. Some things I straight up pulled out of my heart.

This is not an accurate representation at all of Heathen religions and should not be taken as such. This is not meant to be a depiction of Heathen and Norse-Pagan based religions any more than Supernatural is meant to be a depiction of Christianity. 

Norse Paganism and Heathenry are good and valid belief systems and you should do actual research (not this fictionalized story) before judging them. No disrespect to Heathens and Norse Pagans, they’re often great people and their religion is beautiful. If you want to learn about their religions, or about Norse Mythology itself, please do real actual research. This story does not even come close to counting as real actual research.

I have numerous fanfiction authors to thank for many of the stories in this book. I can’t keep track of all the fanfic authors I have to thank for providing me stories but thank you to them all nonetheless.  

 

Story

There was a void in the space of the existence. And on one side of the void, there was a great, bright heat. Like the summer sun. On the other side of the void was a great, cold darkness. Like a winter night. The bright heat and the cold darkness reached out. And in the middle, they crashed against each other. They swirled and mingled. 

But it wasn’t truly bright heat. And it wasn’t truly dark darkness. They did not truly have light or darkness or heat or cold in the way that we experience those forces. These two opposite forces in actuality were both love. They were love in its different facets and aspects. 

And there in the middle of the void, where they met, they formed a being full of life and love and perfection. This being was Puri, the Great God, the greatest god that there was. Puri had all the genders that exist, all together at once. Puri was also love. Love given a mind and a heart. And with Their mind and heart They loved all Their children. For Puri was the Parent of all Their children. 

Nature was part of Puri. The mountains and valleys. The rivers and streams. The oceans and deserts. The forests and fields. The plains and hills. The tropics and tundras. The caves and cliff-sides. It was all part of Puri. It was all alive with the spark of life. It was all alive with the spark of love. And it was all Puri.

From the waters that came forth from Puri there came the first people. These were the Yemars. The Yemars were a wild people. They were closely connected to the rivers and the rain and the clouds and the sky. They were closely connected to the earth and the rocks and the woods and the grasses and the leaves. They were closely connected to the ice and the snow and the heat and the fire. They were one with nature. And they lived amongst nature. Free. Wild.

Each Yemar had a different aspect of nature that they came to embody, that came to define them. Some Yemars were one with different animals. Some were one with different elements. Some were one with different geographic features. Some were one with different seasons. Some were one with different plants. And so on. There was also a specific subset of Yemars called the Tzimars. They were divided into two groups. The Tzimars of light and the Tzimars of darkness, both being equal and balancing the Yemarian society. 

The world was run by love. There was no greed. No lust for power. No apathy. No exploitation. No hurt. And nobody took anything more than they absolutely needed. Everyone shared everything. Everyone respected their Parent, Puri. Everyone was different, and everyone was the same, and everyone was one. 

Everyone was a part of nature, a part of love, and a part of Puri. 

But such peace was not meant to last. 

Through the fields and forests of Puri roamed a great yak. A yak that held great meaning and great power within herself. A yak that would bring the terrible future of all beings. Her name meant fate. Her name meant world-destroyer. The Yak too was a child of Puri. And the yak was not a bad being herself. But she gave birth to all kinds of beings. Some of these beings were good beings that got adopted by the Yemars. But three of these beings would go on to change the world. Change it for the worse. 

Karkion was the first of a new type of being. This type of being was not one with nature. This type of being was called an Uzra. There were three Uzras at first. Karkion, and his two brothers Hali and Moni. 

They rose from their slumber and looked around at the world that Puri was. And they had deep hatred in their hearts for it. And they had deep greed in their hearts as well. They vowed to kill the Great God so that they could take over Their lands and Their children. 

And so Karkion forged for himself a great long sword made of seething hatred and unending, hardened greed. With this sword he plunged down into the very heart of Puri. And from Their heart came a great flow of blood. The blood bled out over all the lands and because Puri was bleeding all the Yemars died. 

But there were a tiny few Yemars that survived. They were able to hold onto branches and trees that were afloat in the bleeding. They were able to pull each other out of the tides and help each other hold on until the end of the flood. 

After the flood there were only a few Yemars left. And they were mourning. They were mourning their families and friends and community who had died. They were mourning the people they had lost. They were the only survivors left after a great and horrific absolute devastation. 

The Yemars vowed to rebuild. They vowed that their people would survive until the day that they could finally thrive. They vowed to be good ancestors to the many descendants who would come after them. 

And they were mourning Puri. 

Because Puri was now dead. Nature was now dead. But still, some parts of nature survived. Puri survived. Puri was dead but They also survived. They could still continue guiding the people. 

The three brothers took the dead body of Puri, who was also still alive, and they shaped the dead flesh into what they wanted it to be. They made the world what they wanted it to be. They made a dead world in which they could live and build their empires. 

They also conquered the remaining Yemars. They trod the Yemars down under their boots, and made them subjugated and servile to the Uzras. Because of them, the Yemars were fettered. They had to face great grief and much death. They had to serve the Uzras. 

The Uzras built for themselves Uzra men and Uzra women. This was to be the new race that would dominate. Karkion married a wise and strong Uzra lady named Geyna. And together they had many children. 

But Geyna was not the only woman Karkion bedded. He routinely went out to the Yemarian women and made them lay with him. And with these women he had many Uzra sons. One day he was with a Yemarian woman named Olaia. And with her he had a daughter.

But this is a story for another time. 

Karkion and his brothers built a large path that could take the Uzras wherever they needed to be. On this path they enchanted a great many magics that prevented Yemars from using it. They entrusted Ryan to guard this path and to look over all the world and see everything that was in it. So he did and he reported all the truths to the king of the Uzras. And he told them the truths they wanted to hear. He did not tell them the truths that they didn’t. 

What he didn’t know though was that the Yemars had a way of slipping under his omnipresent gaze. They could do things he could not see. 

One day a Yemarian woman named Gylla was brought in chains to the palace of the Uzras. She had been defiant against them and had resisted them. And therefore the Uzras were set to destroy her. 

They pinned her down to a post in the centre of the palace. And they set her rough worn dress on fire. Her dress burned and her hair burned and her flesh burned. But her body was not consumed. She burned and she burned but she just stood there. Tall. Unwavering. Alive. Smiling through immense pain. Laughing through her screams. 

Eventually this fire died out and her clothes were burned to ashes around her feet. But there she stood with rage and defiance and strength in her eyes. And love. Love for her people. Dark skin almost glowing and entirely unscathed. 

The Uzras were enraged. They pierced her through with many many spears. And she screamed. But she took each of the spears in both her hands. And she pulled them out. And there she stood, unpierced and unbowed and whole. 

The Uzras then put her in a mound of dead branches. They tied her down and lit the dead branches. And they burned and they burned and they burned away. And from within them she screamed. But when the fire died, there she stood, cool and calm and collected. 

One last time they tried burning her. With straw tied all around her body. The straw burned but she did not. 

She told the Uzras that they could never kill her. And they backed away from her, scared. Gylla walked away from the hall of the Uzras in strong, sure strides. But before leaving out the door, she turned her head back and told them that there would be a war one day. And they would lose. 

And so the Uzras were terrified. But Geyna went out among them and assured them that there could be no war that the Uzras would lose. The Uzras were the strongest and most powerful of them all. And they could even kill the Great God Puri. And if they could kill Them, then surely their power was uncontestable. 

They did not know that Puri still lived, though They were dead. 

And so they continued to rule the world with their violence and their greed. And Yemars were killed and captured. But the Yemars told each other secrets and whispered each other truths. The Yemars were one and nothing could break them. 

There was born among the Yemars a beautiful baby named Filla. Filla grew up into a young girl who was kind and courageous and had a strength about her that inspired awe in all who saw her. Though she was but a small child. The Yemars loved her as they loved all their children. They held hope in her as they held hope in all their children. They were awed by her as they were awed by all their children. 

But the Uzras heard about Filla. And they thought that the Yemars were raising her to go to war against them. The Uzras could not have Filla become a great soldier in a war against them. And so they went out and gathered Filla and brought her away from her mothers to live with them. 

The Yemars tried on many occasions to get her back. But they could not. And so Filla grew into a young woman surrounded by the Uzras. And she smiled secretively. And though the Uzras thought her tamed, they felt a sense of great fear whenever she gave them one of her sharp-edged smiles. 

Meanwhile in the lands of the Yemars, there were two lovers. Firik was a lightning Yemar, at one with the lightning. And Fiall was a leaf Yemar, at one with the leaves. Firik supported and helped Fiall with whatever she wanted to do and she in turn inspired and amazed him. 

Lightning struck a dry and wilting, dying forest. It breathed new life into the dead wood and the forest of the area started growing anew. The couple had three children together. Pres, Nolvi, and Mamon. 

Pres was a boy, Nolvi was a girl, and Mamon was someone who changed genders all the time, sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, sometimes in-between, sometimes both, and sometimes neither.

All three children were deeply loved by their parents and by their community. The community did everything they could to give them a childhood, though they had to live with the harshness and the cruelty of life as a Yemar. And so they grew up with many friends. 

So now we will talk about that daughter Karkion had with the Yemarian woman. 

Let it be known that the Yemars and the Uzras had different ways of transmitting inheritance. For the Yemars, a daughter inherited from her mother and a son inherited from his father. I do not know what would happen if a child had no parent that was the same gender as them, but I suppose there is a system. The Uzras, on the other hand, only inherited from their fathers. This daughter then, would be a Yemar by Yemarian standards, since her mother was Yemarian. But she would be an Uzra by Uzra standards, since her father was Uzra. 

Now Karkion wanted to raise the daughter as Uzra. So he took her away from her mother and placed her in the halls of the Uzras. She was made to forget the Yemars and that entire side of her identity. But she always remembered her mother. And she refused to forget.

Because she refused to forget where she came from, the Uzras mistreated her and hurt her harshly and without remorse. 

It was at this time than a young Mamon was also brought from their own family to the holdings of the Uzras, to act as a servant there. So Mamon and Karkion's daughter were together struggling and suffering amongst the Uzras. They were missing their families dearly. And they became strongly devoted friends. The girl told them her true name, the name her mother had given her. The name the Urzas did not call her. 

She was named Naia 

One day Mamon decided to escape. And they asked Naia if she wanted to come with them. Naia said that she was too afraid of what the Uzras would do to her if they caught her escaping. She longed to escape. She longed to with all her heart. But she could not find the courage to. But she wanted Mamon to escape. She wanted them to at least be free.

So Mamon did escape. And they changed form to be a fish and swam through the rivers until they found a great forest with trees standing impenetrably strong. As if their trunks were made of iron. And there they saw that Puri was still alive in this wild enclave of the earth. And there they decided to make their home. 

Mamon hid inside the forest. And there they met another young runaway, who had found this piece of Puri and made a home within it. This girl was named Mira and she was one with the wood. Mamon was one with the fire. And Mamon thought it very ironic indeed that they should be friends. Mira was pregnant with three infant babies she had to give a better life to. Mamon helped her give birth on the forest floor. The two teenagers raised the babies as best as they could, and they both loved and took care of the children as their own. 

One child was named Wolver, and he was a wolf puppy who was sweet and playful. He had great might and strength, and his power grew each day. He was gullible and easily trusting. One child was named Harimon, and they were in between boy and girl, and they dwelled in the places in between borders. They dwelled in the cracks in the wall. They were a serpent who twisted and turned. One child was named Oella and she was a beautiful girl. Half of her was a beautiful girl and half of her was a skeleton. 

All three of the children were adorable and childish and filled with life. All three of the children were children. They were different, yes. They were what the Uzra would never expect, never accept, never accept. But they were young baby children and they were bundles of joy and love. 

Mira and Mamon were the best of friends and their children were free as they grew. Mamon knew that they would have to free more people. They did not know how. 

The Uzra were enraged that their servant had fled. But look as they might, they could not find them. And so they continued on with their plans to dominate the world. What was the loss of a couple of Yemars when the Uzra had all the rest?

Karkion wanted to know what the future was of the golden, gilded empire of the Uzra. An empire made of blood, though he didn’t think of it as that. So therefore Karkion used his magic to bring up a Yemar wise woman and seer from the dead. He demanded that she tell him the future of his kingdom. 

She did not want to tell him anything. But he bound her with his magic and therefore she was forced to tell him whatever he wanted to know. She was very enraged at him and his hall. He could bind her, but she would not be scared of him. Why should she be scared of him when she was already dead? He could not kill her again. 

So she was defiant to him and treated him rudely. She held her head high and looked him in the eyes, her own eyes blazing with anger. She mocked him and belittled him. And there was nothing Karkion could do about it because she was already dead, and therefore he could not punish her. 

He did however force her to tell him the future. And therefore, with much reluctance, she told him of the truth. She told him that there will be a Great War that no-one will be able to prevent. The final war between the Uzras and the Yemars. All the Uzras will die but their children will live. Generation upon generation will fight. 

Karkion heard this and he felt a great terror in his heart. He did not want to lose his kingdom and his immortality. But he was satisfied that his descendants would inherit the world and would come to rule it just as he did. 

What the wise woman didn’t tell him was that this new world would be changed. 

Karkion unbound her from his spells and sent her back to the world of the dead. And she sank down into the heather and melted into the ground. Back to Oellon. Back to her all-consuming sleep. 

The Uzras combed all the wild lands for any Yemars that had escaped. There they found Mamon and Mira, and the three children they were raising. They were each four years old in this time. Not four human years. Four cosmic years. 

The Yemars and the Uzras measured their time with cosmic time. And cosmic time was much different than human time. It stretched out much further and longer, like taffy being pulled. The Yemars and Uzras grew and aged in cosmic years, years that sometimes stilled infinitely. 

Karkion saw that the children of Mira and Mamon would grow up to yield huge amounts of power. And he feared that they would join the battle against the Uzras. He feared that the Uzras would not have any chance if these children joined the battle against them. 

And so the Uzras took the children away from their parents. The children were crying and screaming and reaching out for their parents. But the Uzras had no pity. The Uzras had no remorse. They ripped the children out of their parents’ arms and they took them away. 

Hari they threw down into the sea. The child kept falling and falling and sinking and sinking until they reached the bottom of the sea. But they did not drown. This was not a mercy. The pressure of the waves over their body and heart, the tonnes and tones of water, it weighed heavy on them and crushed them, holding them down. 

Little Oella, Karkion threw her into Oellon, the land of the dead. 

Oellon was not the land of all the dead. There were two lands of the dead. There was Forkava, where the Uzras and honourary Uzras go. For there were a select few Yemars who betrayed the other Yemars and got accepted as Uzras. There were very few. The Yemars who were not traitors went to Oellon. Forkava was a land of vast wealth and abundance and plenty. There were feasts there every day. But in Oellon there was only poison, and all the dead were in deep sleep. 

Wolver the Uzra took a liking to. In the way that someone likes their pet dog. Even though Wolver had understanding and thought and sentience. The Uzras took him to their palace, and raised him there, away from his parents. 

Before the Uzras left, they bound Mira in many chains. And they tied her to a wooden stake. They set her on fire, just as they did Gylla. But Mira burned and she burned. She burned until she died. 

Mamon was devastated. All their children were being tortured and their dear, good friend was dead. Lost in eternal sleep. They did not know what they would do. How they would go on. They were about to give up. 

But then they remembered a memory. When Hari was a year old, they were very small. They had to slither away fast to escape the predators in the forest. Not that there were many predators in the forest that bothered them though. But as Hari grew older, they grew and grew. Until they were big enough to take scare away the predators and they were the ones running instead. 

Mamon knew that Hari would continue to grow and grow. And one day they would be big enough to simply rise up out of the sea. Mamon drew strength from that. Drew courage. Drew the will you go on. 

And so they went, in chains, to the lands of the Uzras.

 

Mamon knew that they themselves had magic now. Magic beyond what they could dream. Mira had taken them deep into the woods and she had taught them all the magical arts she knew. And this, Mamon mixed with their own magical arts. And together the two built and crafted new magic the likes of which could weave and craft its way through anything. 

Wolver meanwhile missed and mourned his parents deeply. But still, he gullibly thought that the Uzras were on his side. For the Uzras treated him with the hierarchical benevolence with which a master treats his pet. Wolver did not understand quite how sad he was, and this made him even sadder.  

But Wolver continued growing and growing. And in two cosmic years, when he was six, the Uzras became worried that he was growing too fast. The Uzras went to their craftsmen and blacksmiths and asked for chains that could bind the wolf-boy forever. The Uzra blacksmiths and craftsmen said that they could craft a chain that could bind him forever. 

But this was not the truth. They could not. They did not know that they could not. 

They gathered the sound of an owl’s wings, the sight of the blind men, the trust of a traitor, the end of the sky, the weight of the air, and the softness of a stone. And with them they made impossible chains that could hold anything. And they presented these chains to Karkion. 

Now Karkion told Wolver’s best Uzra companion Rayr to deceive the young boy. And so he told the child that they would play a game. All the Uzras would gather round and bind young Wolver with chains. If Wolver could break through the chains he could have a treat. 

Wolver was a gullible and trusting child and he did not let himself be aware of the Uzras’ treachery. He agreed to the game. He thought that he was very strong and powerful, and could tear his way through any chains the Uzras put on him. He was still a child, and did not know to properly fear the Uzras the way that they should be feared. 

And so the Uzras put the first chains on Wolver. And he broke through them. Then the Uzras got out a set of chains that was stronger than the first. And again, Wolver tore his way out of them with ease. And the same was true with the next six chains the Uzras put over him. 

But the ninth chain, the Uzras brought out, seemed especially metallic-hard and potent. Wolver was suspicious of this. And so he made the Uzras promise they would not leave him trapped if he could not break these chains. The Uzras promised. Rayr even promised to put his hand in Wolver’s mouth, and if they broke their promise he could bite it. But their promise was false. 

As Wolver struggled to break free from his chains, the Uzras started laughing. It was at this moment that the boy-wolf-child realized that they would not free him. And he bit Rayr hand off. 

The Uzras jammed a sword in Wolver’s mouth and they left him there in the wind and the cold. Trapped and in pain. But the chain could not hold Wolver forever. The chain would not hold Wolver forever. Wolver would grow strong and powerful, as the days went by. 

Now we will tell you the story of Oella. 

Oella was a lost and scared four-year-old afraid and alone in a poison world. There was poison mist all throughout the air. The mist was so thick she could not see three feet in front of her. She could not see the sky. Around her feet there was stagnant, stale, liquid poison. Each step she took she sank into the poison covering the ground all around her. Each breath she breathed was poison. 

In the midst of all this poison there was no life. No grasses or herbs grew on the ground. No shrubs sat in the understory. No trees towered above the lands. There was no sunlight, only the strange, eerie light the poison clouds let through. 

And there were no people. 

For all the dead were in a deep and dreamless sleep. A sleep from which they did not stir or rouse. A sleep from which no amount of noise or shaking could wake them. Young Oella was all alone. She was a lost child, alive and trapped in the world of the dead. 

None who is alive belong in the world of the dead. For those who are alive, being in the world of the dead sends rivers of sorrow flowing over their hearts. 

But Oella walked on and walked on. She continued walking through the poison, the young child, softly singing to herself. She walked on and she walked on until she was sure she was dead herself. Until she was sure she was but a ghost, a shadow roaming the wastelands. 

She missed her family very deeply. She missed her mother and her parent and her brother and her sibling. She missed the wilderness of the forest that she lived in and the homeliness of the little cave. She was overwhelmed with sorrow. And she was sure she would rather be dead. She would rather be dead than deal with this grief. 

But she kept walking on, and she didn’t know why. 

There was a voice coming out from amidst the poison. The voice was high and haughty and sharp and twisted. It told her that she did not belong, she would never belong, she would always be a lost wanderer in the midst of her sorrow. It told her she would never have any power and all she would ever have was her aloneness. 

Oella was inclined to believe this voice. 

But she kept walking on. 

Her foot suddenly sank into something that was not poison. It sank into something that was cool, clear water. She gasped quietly. And she knelt down in the poison and reached out her hand to touch the water. It was clean. It was pure. It was flowing. It extended down deeper than she could reach with her arms. 

The voice amidst the desolation told her not to go down into the water. She knew that she must disobey it. She knew that she must find her rebellion and she must find whatever truths the water concealed. Even if the price was her own life, her life didn’t mean much anyways. 

So she dove down into that beautiful, cool, flowing embrace. She dove down and down and down, swimming further and further and further. She did not lose her breath for the water nourished her and filled her. She did not lose her energy for the water electrified her and soothed her. 

Eventually, she reached the bottom of the lake. And at the lake bottom there was clean, fresh, mineral-rich mud that her toes sank into. And she walked on the mud, almost as if she was walking on dry land. She walked and she walked and she walked until she found something.  

It was a pool of clear water that reflected the light. A pool of water within the water. A pool at the bottom of the lake. She did not know how it was possible, to have water within water. She did not know how it was possible, to have two different types of water both so good and both so clear. 

The pool was just the right size around for her to dive into. And dive into it she did. And she swam down and down and down. Down into the very core of this world. And there she learned many things. 

She learned her magic, and her element. She learned who she was and who her people were and what she was meant to do in this world. She learned how to rebel and how to care for life and death and how to transform everything until it was born anew. 

And there, after she was done, she swam up and up and up to the surface of the surface. Up into the poisonous world she had left behind. She looked around. And in all directions she saw only poison and death. 

But underneath that she felt all the dead. Sleeping as if the were seeds Sleeping as if they were promises. Sleeping as if they were awaiting to be awoken. And the little girl of only five years old, who mourned for her family and her home, she knew what she had to do. And so she set about to her work. 

She walked among the lands and she summoned clouds. Not clouds made of poison but rather clouds of fresh, dewy water that could cleanse and wash away any filth. She want throughout the lands summoning clouds, steps filled with purpose. 

And when the sky was filled with cool, clean water, she made it rain. It rained long and hard, the torrential downpour washing over all the lands and all the skies. It rained and it rained. It kept raining until the poison clouds were all washed away. It kept raining until the poison fog was washed away. It kept raining until all the poison that had seeped in and pooled over the ground was washed away. And then it rained some more. 

When the rain was finished, there was brilliant blue sky and a wet new land filled with rich, diverse earth. Ripe and ready for life. 

Oella used her magic again. And this time she summoned seeds. She scattered the seeds all throughout the land. And they sprang forth and grew and grew at a magical pace. Soon the lands were filled with forests and plains and grasslands and deserts and tundra of all types. 

Oella went to the souls of all the dead animals. And she roused them from their sleep with her magic. They awoke. And they saw the living, breathing land all around them. And they spread out to all corners of it. 

Finally it was time for Oella to awaken the sleeping Yemars. She roused them from their slumber and they looked around, with tired, confused eyes. 

They had been asleep for so very long that they had had a deep and aching sadness settle deep into their hearts. They had no hope left. All they had was a deep, aching sorrow. 

And Oella understood that sorrow. She understood it very well. But she also had hope. And the six-year-old child, who was lost and alone, who was missing her family unendurably, who was a living being trapped in the land of the dead, she knew she had to give them hope. 

So she talked to them. About all the things that her parents had taught her. About all the things that she had learned on her journey. About all the power she had found. About all the life she had brought about and all the life they could create together if they tried. Oella told them about her dreams for the future and about all the change they could create. She told them that she loved them, and that love was a power unlike any other. She told them that they should love each other. That they should help each other live a good life after death. 

And they listened. And they were awed. Such a young child who was so wise and so learned. The seeds of hope were planted in their hearts. And those seeds grew. And they grew and they grew and they grew. Until there was no more surrender left in their hearts, and they were ready to fight. 

A young Yemar woman named Molia was a servant all her life. She did not think that she could be free. She went up to Oella and pledged her service to the child. But Oella said that there were to be no servants here. All would be free and all would be equal. 

All the dead and Oella went to the edge of the land of the dead. There on the edge there was a river. And across the river there was a bridge that separated Oellon from the land of the living. There, they decided, they needed sentries. And Molia decided she wanted to take her turn guarding the gate. 

The dead all also decided to form a council. In that council would gather together all the dead. And they would all discuss matters regarding the land and regarding their plans. They would discuss everything and come to consensus together. 

Oella was the mediator of this council. She ensured that everyone worked together and listened to each other to come to agreements. She was seven years old at the time. 

They talked and talked. And one day they decided that they must go to war against the Uzra and regain freedom for their people. The realized that their numbers were not sufficient enough for such a war. Also they were not trained enough for such a war. And so therefore they needed to wait. They needed to wait and they needed to train each other to build up their army. 

They welcomed each new dead Yemar into their land, into their council, and into their army of the newly-dead so wished it. And wish it they did. Rage against the Uzra burned in the heart of every Yemar. 

Oella’s mother Mira was reunited with her. She took care of her daughter and taught her her magic and all that she knew. Mira had a great deal of practical knowledge she could pass on. But she could not stop her daughter from eternally missing the rest of her family. She could not stop her from feeling deep, aching sorrow. 

For Oella was a living being in the land of the dead. But she was one with the rain. She was one with new life. 

Mamon and Naia were together. And they gave each other strength. They gave all the Yemars around them strength. They helped them however they could. 

Naia was one with the healing herbs. They were her Yemarian element. And that meant that she was a great healer. She secretly, in the dark of the night, prepared healing potions for the Yemars who were sick. She used her words and her kindness to sooth their minds and hearts as much as they could be soothed. She picked up their broken pieces and she helped them hold themselves together. Everyone was much grateful for her. 

Mamon was one with fire. That meant they were one with the way a campfire or hearth brought everyone together to share stories. And they were one with the way fire hungered, always, never satisfied. They were one with the way fire destroyed the old in order to usher in new growth. 

All the Yemars together used their cunning and their cleverness and their trickery to fool the Uzras, to protect each other, and to win little tiny victories against the Uzras. The Yemars used their trickery to gain an upper hand against the Uzras, the only upper hand they had. And they used their lies to keep themselves and each other safe. They kept their hearts secret from the Uzras. And everything important they concealed. 

One day the Uzras were thinking of how to fortify their lands against any war the Yemars may start. And they got it in their heads to build a Great Wall between the lands where most of the Yemars lived and toiled and the lands where most of the Uzras lived and luxuriated. 

In order to build that wall, they needed to dam a great river. Mamon and Naia and two more Yemars named Caliom and Eren made their way in secret through the cover of the night to the river. There they saw how vast and powerful and beautiful the river was. And there they saw how it was a piece of Puri still alive. 

They mourned greatly for the river, for when it was dammed that piece of Puri the Great Parent would be dead. But they knew that Puri would still live on elsewhere. And they vowed to make a piece of the river live on as well. 

They gathered in a circle and conducted their magic. Using their magic they lifted a ball of good, clean water from the river. In the ball the water rushed and flowed as if it was in a river itself. And the four comrades secreted it away deep in the bedrock of the earth, where no-one would ever find it. Not until the day where the river could be free again and that piece of water could join the rest of its kindred in the river. 

The sun shone and surveyors from the Uzras came upon the forest brush where the four Yemars were standing. Karkion demanded to know what they were doing there, so far away from their work. Mamon answered that they were here to bid goodbye to the river before it was damned up forever. 

Karkion was enraged, and demanded that the four rebels be punished. 

And so they were. In the meantime Wolver grew stronger and more powerful. In the meantime Hari grew more and more, longer and longer. In the meantime Mamon grieved for their children. 

After the punishment, there was a great feast to prepare for. The Uzra man Spirug had captured for himself a concubine. She was a beautiful Yemarian girl named Arder. And she was to be initiated and that required great ceremony. 

Filla and Naia were the ones who were to prepare Arder for the initiation ceremony. The three young women were together in the preparation room. And they talked. 

Arder held great sadness in her heart for her homeland and her family and her community. She held a great longing within herself to go back home and be with her people again. She held a great hatred for Spirug. But this she could not tell to anyone. She only voiced it to Filla and Naia, in that private room, away from Ryan’s sight. 

Filla and Naia understood. They too missed their homelands and all the people who they left behind. They sympathized with beautiful Arder and gave her their strength. They listened to her tears and her ranting. They told her what tips and tricks they had learned for dealing with the Uzras. They let her know that she was still loved. 

Arder also said that Spirug was the one who had killed her brother, in years past. She stated that she much grieved for her brother and it filled her with disgust to think of sleeping with the one who had murdered him. Arder recounted him as a jovial, protective, caring man who was worn down by the injustices of the world. And she stated that she now wished to have died with him so she could be spared this humiliation. 

Filla and Naia listened. Filla said to Arder that surely her brother was in Oellon, and surely she would see him again one day. If not in this life then in the days after the final battle, when all beings of this world would be dead and a new world would emerge. Naia told Arder to hold on until this final war, and then she would have all her revenge and all her humiliation would be washed away in blood. 

Arder revealed that she did not like blood, even the blood of wicked men. But also that she would like very much to spill the blood of the men who caused herself and her people so much suffering. 

Naia and Filla helped Arder bathe and they anointed her skin with fine, expensive oils and they washed her hair in a broth of herbs that left it bright and shining. They powdered her face and painted her lips and put kohl around her eyes. They braided her hair into an intricate, woven pattern and laced up her new, white dress. They put jewels around her throat and her wrists. Jewels that felt to her like chains. 

And they gave her a secret gift. They had gathered a sack of herbs for her. Herbs that if she brewed into a tea and drank, she could be rid of any unwanted cells growing within her. They gave her these herbs surreptitiously and told her that she could always go to them for more. 

And so Arder was initiated into being a concubine. And Mamon served strong drinks at the ceremony. And she hid all her rage behind a docile smile. And Spirug never knew what was truly happening within her. He never knew how she was planning her revenge right there as she stood smiling at him and nodding at his words. She was planning his destruction. 

And soon it was time to get started on the wall. The Uzras hired an Uzra man named Derlion to be in charge of the builders of the wall. He was an expert architect who could design the most impenetrable of buildings. He had with him an army of Yemars who he was in charge of, who he forced to build the wall. 

He forced them to pull and carry stones, to cut and carry wood for the scaffolding, to build scaffolding and to pile rocks on top of rocks. He forced them to work faster and faster and faster, until they were overcome by their work and it was destroying them from the inside. He forced them to work perfectly, and would not allow them to make even the smallest mistake. 

Mamon saw this, and they saw how great and impenetrable the wall was becoming. They knew that the wall would not break and nothing would overcome it. Not if it was being built as it was. And they knew that the Yemars would not stand a chance in this final battle without intervention. 

So they vowed to intervene. They took the form of a young woman and went down to where the workers were sleeping. They started singing into the darkness. And in this darkness the workers rose. And they were entranced by the beautiful singing. And they followed the voice away into the wood where the chief builder would not find them. 

There Mamon explained to them that the Yemars would have no hope of winning the war if the wall was built according to the builder’s specifications. The workers were loathe to seal the fate of their people. So they made a plan, along with Mamon. 

They would hide out in the woods for one week. And when they came back they would be dazed and would act as if they had been enchanted away from their work. If they pretended to be enchanted, then the chief builder Derlion would not punish them, for it was not their fault. But the Uzra would look far and wide for this enchantress, and would never find her. 

And so Derlion would have to rush in order to complete the wall within the deadline that Karkion set out for him. And in this rush he would get careless and the wall would be built with faults and would slowly crack and crumble apart. 

They all agreed to the plan and they set out to hide themselves for one week. Mamon went to the Uzras by day to do all their duties for them. And by night they came to the workers hidden in the woods. In this time Mamon fell in love with and laid with one of the workers, Siddel, and they created a child together. The child was growing within Mamon when the week was up. 

The chief builder ranted and raved at his dazed, confused workers. But he could clearly see that they had been enchanted so he chose to not punish them. He set them back to work. But because of the rush, the work was sloppy and the wall had cracks within it. Cracks that the water could seep through as it froze and thawed. 

Derlion did not tell Karkion of the enchantment on his workers, for fear of invoking the king’s wrath. 

Mamon had their child, with Naia and Eren as the birth attendants. The child was a sweet little one. He was in the form of a horse. The child had eight legs, like the eight legs of the four men who carried a body to the funeral boat. And he was a sweet little horse. The older people named him Lewinn. And they took care of Lewinn as much as they could, keeping him hidden.

 

Meanwhile Karkion and Geyna were having children as well. Karkion and Geyna had a golden child named Thrash. And they doted on Trash much, just like they dotted on their other children. They wanted to raise Thrash to be the perfect Uzra.

But in Thrash’s young childhood, his parents gave him to Mamon to take care of. And take care of him they did. They taught him to be kind and soft and gentle and good. They taught him to not seek glory and power and wealth and fame. They taught him to not to see the Yemars as lesser beings and to treat everyone equally. 

Thrash learned these lessons. By and by he loved Mamon. But still, Mamon wished they could truly raise him the way they wanted to raise him, the way he deserved to be raised, rather than the way his parents told them to raise him. 

But as Trash grew older, he also learned lessons from his parents. Lessons on how to be violent and demanding and haughty and arrogant and sure. He was taught that the Uzras were better and the Yemars needed to be kept in line. And as he grew into a young man, he became the perfect Uzra just as his father and mother wanted him to be. 

He was violent and destructive. He was smug and egotistical. He regularly beat and threatened Mamon and the other Yemars. And Mamon was very sorrowful indeed to see their child grow up to be such a menace. 

But long before Thrash turned evil, there were other young sons of Karkion who turned good. 

Sheen was the oldest son of Karkion and Geyna. He was much loved and adored by the Uzras. They saw him as the shining heir to the throne. The manifestation of all that the Uzras represented. And they made sure to teach him their ways. 

But he did not want to learn their ways. Not him nor his younger brother Holder nor his girlfriend Monnia. They looked at the lands and the empires of the Uzra. And they couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong. Something was twisted. Something was evil. They looked at the Yemars, and they thought that they were people too. And the three youths didn’t understand what they themselves were thinking, what they were feeling. They didn’t understand what they had to do. But they knew that they had to get away from the Uzras. 

For if they stayed with the Uzras, the Uzras would teach them their lessons and would turn them into loyal followers of the Uzra party line. 

They went to the Yemars for help. They needed to get away from the Uzra and their corrupt teachings and their twisted, arrogant, hierarchical ways. 

The Yemars made a plan with them. But the plan would require the ultimate sacrifice. 

Earlier that year, Karkion had gotten wind of the fact that Oellon was bursting with life and the people there were free together. He felt a great rage and hatred in his heart. How dare the dead rise from their desolate slumber? 

So he went to Oellon and he crossed the bridge. Molia would not let him pass, though, and demanded that he leave this place. For this place was not his. Karkion was getting ready to fight her when the council came to see what was going on. 

Karkion saw the young girl who had done all this. And he thought that he could easily take her on in a fight. The girl was tiny, and young, a girl, and a Yemar besides. He thought he would easily counter her and he would show all the dead Yemars that he had slain their saviour. And that would crush their spirits and placate them forever. He challenged the young girl to a fight. 

He bound the terms of the fight with unbreakable binding spells, spells that no one, not even he himself, could break. And he laid out to her the terms. If she won the fight, Karkion and his followers, and all the generations of his followers after him would leave forever the lands of Oellon and would not move to affect the land at all. Only the dead who followed Oella would be allowed in. He would not even ask Ryan to look upon the lands. But if she lost he would invade and would subjugate the lands until they were back in the state he had left them as. 

Oella did not want to take the deal. But she knew it was the only way to protect her people. It was the only way to ensure they lived free from the fetter of Karkion. For Karkion was powerful and could invade at any time. And only the binding magic of Karkion’s oath could save Oellon from his wrath. 

And so she said yes. And she went to train for the battle. 

Oella had never had the chance to be a child. From the precious age of four she was forced to take on responsibility that was too large for her small shoulders to bear. The responsibility of walking the wastes of Oellon alone. The responsibility of putting hope into the hearts of the people she loved so much, who loved her in return. The responsibility of mediating the council meetings. The responsibility of fighting the most powerful Uzra. 

But she trained and she trained and her people helped her train. 

And the day of the fight arrived. She stood with her shoulders high, looking straight at Karkion as he stood on the other side of the bridge, glaring down at her. And she was afraid, deathly afraid. On her shoulders rested not only the fate of Oellon but the fate of the universe. And Karkion could see her shaking. At the sight he smirked. 

But Oella used all the magic she had to fight against his magic. She fought with every ounce of herself and with every ounce of her terror. And ultimately her magic overpowered his magic and she was left standing there, victor.

Karkion was enraged and humiliated. But there was nothing he could do. Oella had won, and now the binding magic locked his people out of Oellon forever. And that was how Oellon came to be the only safe place free of the wicked Uzras. 

But before leaving, Karkion chained a great dog named Fyrer to the only exit from Oellon, so that no souls could leave the place and they would be trapped there forever. 

Of course Oella and the dead Yemars quickly made friends with the dog and regularly brought him food and kept him company. They all longed to free the dog but they could not, as the chains binding him were too strong. But the dog let them pass whenever they needed to pass. Only, it wasn’t safe for the dead to enter the world of the living.

And that was why the three young Uzras, fresh with youth and wide-eyed and pensive, could go to Oellon and only Oellon to be safe. But the magic of the place would only allow the dead to enter there, and only the dead who were enemies of Karkion. To enter, the three youths would have to be dead. 

But the three Uzra youths agreed to this deal. They were willing to sacrifice anything, even death, if it meant escape from the destinies that the other Uzras set out for them. 

And so they made a plan.

There was nothing in the cosmos that could kill Sheen. Nothing except for one thing. 

Sheen’s mother Geyna had had foreboding dreams of Sheen dying. She had therefore gone out to all the things in the land and forced them to promise not to kill Sheen. Coerced by her, all things in existence promised. But not little mistletoe. 

For mistletoe was young, and weak, and fragile and dying on a rocky tree of an outcropping when Geyna went out to find it. She took one look at the weak plant and thought that there was no use getting its promise. It would die soon anyways. 

Mamon disguised themselves as an Uzra woman and asked Geyna why nothing could hurt Sheen. Geyna explained to them, who she thought was a her, that all things in the world had made a vow not to kill Sheen. Mamon asked how Geyna could be sure she hadn’t missed anything. Geyna responded that she had meticulously made sure to demand an oath from every single thing in existence, except mistletoe which was young and weak and dying. 

And so Mamon went out to the mistletoe plant. And they saw that it was growing with fresh, new life. They asked for one branch and explained why they needed it. The mistletoe gave them a branch and bade them good luck on their quest. 

Manon entered the great hall where the Uzra were partying. The Uzras were playing a game where they threw all sorts of weapons at Sheen and marvelled at how all the weapons bounced away. Mamon surreptitiously passed the mistletoe dart they had fashioned to Holder and Holder threw it at Sheen. 

Everyone gasped as Sheen bled out and died. They took one look at Holder and decided to kill him for his betrayal. And so Holder died. And during the funeral of Sheen and Holder, when they were burning the bodies on a funeral pyre, Monnia pretended to be so grief-stricken that she could not go on anymore. And she threw herself into the fire and burned and she too died. 

The party of three went over the bridge of the dead and were welcomed into Oellon. There they spent time with all the Yemars who had died after suffering in their lives. And the three young Uzras learned the lessons of the Yemars, they heard the stories of the Yemars. They learned about all the pain and the injustice and the struggle and the hardship. They learned about all the hope and joy and love. They learned why they must oppose the hierarchies of the Uzra. 

And they trained for the fight against the Uzras. They were going to play their part. They were going to do what they could. 

But after the three died, Karkion looked through Forkava and found them not there. He sent a messenger to Oellon to bargain for Sheen and Monnia to come back. The messenger got blocked on the bridge and was not welcome into the land of the dead. But Oella went out to meet him. And she told him that she would give the youths back to life only if all the world cried for them. 

This was a lie. She could not send the souls of the dead back into life. But she had to lie in order to keep too much animosity from building up amongst the Uzras. 

So the Uzras that were yet living went out to all the lands and coerced everyone into crying for Sheen and Monnia. And everyone was afraid of the Uzras so everyone did cry. Even though they knew that the two youths were exactly where they wanted to be. Still they cried, for they had to protect their loved ones from the wrath of the Uzras. 

One lady, however, did not cry. This Yemarian lady was at the end of her life. She was all alone. She had no-one around her who could be said to care for her. And she was about to die soon herself. So she had nothing to fear. There was nothing that the Uzras could threaten her with. 

She said that the Uzras had caused great pain and suffering to her people and to her personally. She said that she would not cry for the Uzras and she didn’t care what they did to her. And the Uzras didn’t know how to threaten her. They didn’t know what to do. 

And thus, the three Uzra youth stayed in Oellon, learning and growing and becoming. Becoming softer. Becoming kinder. Becoming liberators. They learned how to be one with nature and how to be one with the oppressed. They learned how to be one with the future. 

There was at around this time another Uzra who came to the forests and fields of Oellon. Timur was a young Uzra child, not from a renown family. She was a girl but the others all thought of her as a boy. 

One day the little girl got into a training accident and died. And her parents grieved her strongly. They burned what they thought was their son and her spirit went up to Forkava, since she had done nothing in her life which would indicate that she was opposed to the Uzras. And she wasn’t. Not at this point. She simply did what she was told to do. 

In Forkava she saw a great feast being prepared. The Uzras slayed a giant animal which looked like a pig. The pig screamed and cried as it died. The dead Uzras gave it to the Yemar cook to be prepared. She followed the body of the dead animal and she saw the Yemar cook work. He was very weary-looking and hollow-eyed. She felt sad for him. 

The next day the same pig was there, bound to a post. The girl knew it was the same pig because she looked in its eyes and saw the same shine. The pig was terrified. And the girl came to find out why. 

Again the pig was slain by piercing spears cutting through its body. And again it screamed its death-screams. Again the girl followed its body into the kitchen and saw the haunted-eyed cook. And again she felt the feeling that something was deeply wrong here. 

This same pattern went on for seven other nights. The girl thought that the pig must be very tortured to be killed every day. She knew it felt great pain. And she knew that the cook felt great pain too. She did not know how the Uzra dead could do this. She had naively thought them good and honourable. But she kept her mouth quiet.

On the ninth day the cook looked at her and asked her what she was doing there in the kitchen. With great trepidation, the girl told him the story of the pig that had to suffer a death every single day and the girl who watched, horrified. The cook told the girl that she was rare amongst the Uzras, that she had a heart. He asked what the girl’s name was. And she said it was Fykll. The cook shared his own name which was Modim. 

He told her of the other land of the dead, Oellon, where there were no great feasts that required the slaying of great beings. And they conspired together to sneak into Oellon. Before leaving, Modim told her of one more person they must take. 

Valdri was the servant of the hall. He did all the tasks such as fetching the dead Uzras their drinks, washing their feet, and keeping the fire going. He had to work long and hard, not being able to rest until he had finished all of his tasks. Thus he was always exhausted and he knew much strife. He was a friend of Modim and Modim could not leave without him, nor did he desire to leave the girl alone in such an oppressive place. 

Fykll told the other Uzras of Forkava that the cook and the servant were taking her on a tour of the place. The three of them then jumped off the very edge of Forkava and down into the land of Oellon. They landed on the bridge, for all must cross the bridge in order to get to Oellon. 

Molia asked them what their business was and they explained their story to her. She then welcomed them in and they went to the council. 

Fykll learned the truth of who the Uzras were and what they did. And she too vowed to fight against them. 

The Uzras looked for her long and hard but could not find her anywhere. 

Now it might be worthy to note that Karkion himself had a moment, just a small moment, where he was not the great king he displayed himself as. 

It was after the death of his sons and daughter-in-law. He was sitting outside near the edge of the forest, at the edge of the lands he had conquered for his own people. He was grieving. In the shallow, selfish way his conqueror’s heart knew how to grieve. But still, he was grieving. 

Mamon came to him and sat beside him. He did not tell them to go away. They both looked for a while at the moon, passing through the sky. And they sat in silence. 

Finally Mamon told him that they knew what it was like to grieve for children. They asked him if he would like a drink of the blood-red Tzai (yes, I stole this) that the Yemars used to represent kindred. They told him that if he accepted their Tzai they would be kindred. 

Surprising everyone, Karkion accepted the offer and drank the Tzai. 

Later, he was very disgusted at having accepted such an offer and having made such a bid. He blamed it on the moon, which was a part of Puri as of yet unfettered. He resolved to capture and direct the sun and the moon, the way that they arced and the paths that they went. 

And so he got his builders to build large iron fetters to the sun and the moon. These he chained to horses. But one problem remained. There were no drivers to drive the horses, and no Uzra who would consent to driving up in front of such burning hot bodies. 

There was a Yemar couple named Cadi and Morion who had two daughters. Their daughters were very beautiful and thus they were named after the sun and moon. Sunna and Moni were sweet little infants who grew up to be strong-spirited young girls. 

But Karkion saw them and he felt a desire to destroy them. Why should the sun and the moon remain out of his control? Why should Sunna and Moni be so beautiful? Why had their parents taunted him with naming their daughters after the celestial bodies? 

He took Sunna and Moni and he forced them to drive the horses of the sun and moon. He forced them to drive in the paths he had set out for them and he forced them to drive on continuously without stopping or rest. 

But before all this happened Mamon was walking. They were walking on the snow of winter. And it was still all around them. It was crisp and cold and silent. As still as death. 

Lying on the snow there was a thin fur jacket, of the style and cut that women usually wore. Mamon picked it up and saw that it was converted in blood, frozen stiff in the winter cold. 

They walked a few paces still, and saw a pile of ashes. These ashes, they knew, were the ashes of a woman burned. They held the jacket of the woman close to them and uttered a prayer. 

They then dug through the ashes, looking for any sign of life. They found within the ashes a heart, red and whole and cold to the touch. The heart of the woman who had died. They brought the heart to their lips and ate it, whispering a prayer in the depths of their own heart the whole time. 

And then, on the night of that day, when the moon was shining bright, Mamon found that they were pregnant. Many moon cycles later, they gave birth to the hundreds of Markavs, who were a new race of Yemars, all born from the heart of the burned woman. 

Mamon raised them in secret, benefitting from the help of Manon’s companions. 

Mamon learned a secret magic from the depths of their heart and the eyes of all the children. This was the ability to take their soul and travel it through the sky and down to anyone, anywhere. This was the ability to feel close to and be close to the spirits of the people, no matter how far they were from each other. 

They taught this skill to all the Yemars. And the Yemars treasured it greatly and taught each other. For the Uzras parted them from each other, but with this new magical ability their spirits could be close. 

But still, it wasn’t like properly being close to someone, in body as well as in soul. And so therefore the Yemars still bitterly missed the people they were forced to leave behind. They still bitterly grieved for them and hurt beyond imagination. But still, this helped. It helped a lot. 

Mamon also asked Filla if she could lend her magical feathered cloak to any who wished to make a journey out to distant lands under the noses of the Uzras. They would fly in the form of birds, and cut swiftly across the sky. Filla agreed, and lent her cloak to all Yemars who asked. 

In the meantime, the Uzras were fashioning for themselves a great web, a web that would bind the fates of all the people of the universe. With this web, they would spell out the direction of the universe and they would direct it to their liking. With this power, no-one could oppose them. 

The Yemars knew that this must not be allowed. For if it was to be, then the Yemars and all their allies would have no chance against the Uzras, the honourary Uzras, and all their allies. So together they made a plan to entangle this web so that the strings of destiny would not go to their proper locations. 

In the dead of night, when the Uzras were finished creating the web for the day, the shape shifting Yemars came to the web in the forms of spiders. There was Mamon, Naia, and many others, each equally important, all working together. They tangled the webs of destiny until it was not determinable which thread went where, and the Uzras could not determine or see destiny from the web. The Yemars went home for the night and changed their shape back to their regular forms. 

The next cosmic day the Uzras went to the web and saw it tangled beyond repair. They tried to repair it, yes they did, but the tangles were so thick and and the strings so fine, the tangles were so far-reaching, that nothing could repair them. So the Uzras sighed and went on with creating the next part of the web. 

This next night, the Uzras stationed many guards around the nets. They were sharp-eyed and fierce-armed. They could take on any warrior in battle. And each of these guards was placed in one of the nine hallways that led to the room of the web. The Uzras thought that the web was now well-guarded and nothing could get past the forces of the guards. And so they slept without worry, so sure they were of their power and their wisdom. 

But the Yemars had cunning beyond the wildest imagination of the Uzras. They transformed themselves into such little, tiny spiders that the Uzra guards did not notice them at all. They crawled along the roof, as spiders were wont to do, and they reached the great web and entangled it. They entangled it even more thoroughly than they did the last night. And when they were at last satisfied with their work, they crawled as spiders back past the unnoticing eyes of the Uzras and they returned to their sleeping-places, as ready as they could be to start work on another day. 

The Uzras came to the web and again saw it as tangled as the web they built two cosmic days ago. They tried to untangle the web, but they could not. And destiny was again out of their hands. And they decided that the guards this time needed more weapons to fortify themselves against any attackers. And they needed better armour with which they could protect themselves. So, equipping the guards with such, they set about creating another section of the web. This was a vaster section than any of the sections before it, and entangling it would be quite a task. 

But the Yemars gathered more of their numbers than ever before, and those endowed with the magical arts among them turned the Yemars into spiders, too tiny to make mention of. Theses spiders crawled in nine lines through the nine doorways leading to the great web of destiny. And they set about their work of entangling the web, all moving together and all doing what they could do to help each other. And before the morning rays had lightened the sky to a deep electric blue, they were finished. They filed out in nine lines and went back to their sleeping places, right under the noses of the Uzra guards.  

The Uzras saw that their guards had again been inadequate. And they flew into a rage, gathering Yemars from all corners of the world and beating them viciously. Once the Yemars had been beaten, they thought, they would be too afraid to continue destroying the web of their creating. 

And they were right, to an extent. After the beating, many of the Yemars were too afraid to tamper with the net. Many of them could not bring themselves to become entangled no matter how much their hearts wanted to. And their hearts did indeed want to. More than life their hearts wanted to. But the threat of the Uzras was too ever-present, it was too great. And they could not find the courage. 

But all the Yemars were not so afraid. Manon and Naia, as well as many of their friends, were brave enough to turn into spiders and continue their mission of entangling destiny so that it played out in a way the Uzras would never be able to predict. So that it played out in the way that the Yemars needed it to play out in. 

So the Yemars who were yet unafraid turned into spiders. And they scurried themselves to the location of the web. And they twisted and tangled all of the webs, so that the Uzras would be displeased. This they did once again under the nose of the Uzras. And they went back to their sleeping-places before the morning. 

The Uzras came back and saw that the last of their web had been destroyed. They were so enraged that they went out to beat the Yemars again. But upon seeing them coming down in their rage, Mamon stood on a post and declared that it was them themselves who had entangled the web. 

Karkion was about to kill them. But they commented that they had shared the sacred Tzai with Karkion in his hour of great sorrow. And thus that made them kin. Karkion owed them this one favour and had to let them keep their life. 

Karkion could do nothing about this statement, for their kinship was sealed in sacred ceremony. But he did give Mamon a great beating. 

Now Karkion was trying to have a new son who could fight for him in the war that was to come. In the final battle. He knew that he needed more strong heirs with whom to fill his armies. But Geyna did not want to bear him another son at the moment. 

So he went out across the lands and he came to find a beautiful Yemarian woman named Rindira. He asked her to sleep with him and bear him a son. She refused him, for she did not want to associate herself with the Uzras who kept her people down. And Karkion grew enraged at this answer. He did corrupted magics upon her which caused her to go mad and then he bound her and made her bear his son. 

This son grew up to be a fierce and bloody warrior, with rage and hatred flowing through his very soul. It was this warrior who would finally defeat Wolver in the battle to come. But this is a story for another day. In the meantime, the warrior grew from a child to a young man. He grew into a very broad young man. And he was much doted upon by all the Uzras who saw him as their avenger. 

Karkion was very pleased at his own knowledge and his own intelligence. But one of his followers told him one night, that there was one who called himself more knowledged than Karkion. Karkion was enraged, and he asked who it was. The Uzra replied that it was a Yemar named Vidarim. Karkion thought that it could not possibly be true that a Yemar held more knowledge than him, and he resolved to beat him in a game of knowing. 

He went to Vidarim and wagered his life that he knew more than the Yemar. Vidarim wagered the same, knowing that he would win. And so the two had a competition, in front of all of the inhabitants of the cosmos. 

Each man asked the other questions, many questions. They asked about the universe and its origins and its future. They asked about the events that occurred within the universe. And each man answered. They answered the correct answers each time. And no man could obtain an advantage over the other one. No man could trick the other one into making a mistake. And so the competition was tied for many a moons. Until finally Karkion asked about Sheen. 

Karkion asked which army Sheen would be fighting as a part of during the final battle. Vidarim replied that Sheen would be fighting on the side of the Yemars, for he knew Sheen’s heart and where it truly rested. Karkion replied that he was wrong and that Sheen would fight on the side of the Uzras, for he was confident that his beloved son would come around and start following him. 

Vidarim was right, but Karkion declared him wrong. He declared that now Vidarim must give up his life, as was the wager. And Vidarim went strongly and resolutely to death. For he saw that all the Yemars had seen the competition and had seen him winning against Karkion. 

He knew that the Yemars would draw courage and confidence from him, and inspiration to continue resisting the Uzras in their secret, cunning ways. 

In the mean time Wolver grew stronger and more powerful. And Harimon grew larger and more vast. For Wolver and Harimon were one with the predators. And so in their hearts was a nature that no man could conquer. In their hearts was a wildness that all men feared. The Uzras, with all their power and their violence, conquered nature. But they could not conquer the predators, the great wolves and the stinging snakes. These parts of nature still conquered them. These parts of nature they still feared. 

For the ways of the Uzras were violence, coercion, and force. Theirs was the way of threats and pride and brute force. But the ways of the Yemars was wild and untameable, something that could never lose its sharp edge. 

But as things went, there was still death and sorrow in the lands of the Yemars. 

Spirug was taking his turn as a guard in the lands where the Yemars did their work. He came upon a person named Varlig, who was not going to their job. Spirug asked them why they were not going to their work. And Varlig replied that they did not wish to give the Uzras more and more gold and riches, in return for simply being allowed to live. They would not go to their work and they feared neither death nor torture. 

Spirug told them that they would find death indeed, for Spirug would slay them right there where they stood. 

And so the two went into battle. And Varlig was very strong and they stood their ground. They flung Spirug’s sword from his hands and rendered Spirug weaponless. But Spirug fought on. He broke off an antler from a caribou. And the caribou bled and bled until it was dead. With this jagged-edged antler, Spirug thrust into Varlig’s stomach. And they died right there.

Varlig’s sisters and mothers and all their friends and neighbours did grieve them greatly. But they were also awe-inspired by their strength and by their boldness. They knew that Varlig would be a great warrior in the final battle to come, and that not even death would be able to hold them forever. So they smiled. Even amidst their grieving, they smiled. 

And Spirug bragged greatly of how he had defeated and slayed the Yemar with not even a sword. And all the Uzras upheld him as a shining example of the strength and the bravery of their kind. And they held a great feast to honour him by. 

His concubine Arder, however, knew the true story from the very depths of her heart and she told the true story to all the Yemars who were in the lands of the Uzras. And they together remembered the courage and the confidence of Varlig. 

One day Mamon was out in the secret places of the wild lands, taking care of all their children that they yet had. Naia was with them, for she too loved Mamon’s children as her own. They were teaching the children how to gather herbs for healing different afflictions, and were laughing and joking and playing with each other as they went. 

But Karkion had spied them with his spies that he set forth across the lands. And he saw the children, and hatred welled up in his heart. For he thought them monsters, and he detested their freedom. 

He gathered his armies and set forth across the wild lands, trampling on and breaking shrubs and herbs as they went. They slashed through the branches and vines of the forest and the grasses of the fields. And they cornered the children, Mamon, and Naia. 

The children were all screaming and crying. They were all clinging to each other and to their parents. And their parents were clinging to all of them back. They were holding them all like their lives depended on it. And in a sense they did. There was chaos all around as the Uzras drew their weapons and Mamon and Naia spun their magic in order to hold them back. 

But they couldn’t hold them back indefinitely. They were surrounded on all sides. One by one, the Uzra army took each of the young children away from their families, amidst tears and screams and pleas. One by one the Uzra army scattered each child to a different corner of the world, where they would have to grow up far away from the family which had raised them. 

Eventually only Lewinn remained. He was a terrified seven-year-old, traumatized at the kidnapping of all his siblings. But the Uzras pulled and they pulled and they dislodged him from Naia’s grip. 

Karkion looked at the child in the shape of a horse. And he thought that this child was a very fine horse indeed. Perhaps the best horse that there ever was. So Karkion thought to take the child for himself and to use him to ride into battle, and ride all along his empire. 

And so he locked the child in his stables where his family could not get to him and he used the child for his own purposes, fettering and breaking the young one so that he would go only where Karkion told him to go and so that he would carry whatever Karkion told him to carry. 

But remember that Lewinn had eight legs. Four men, each with two legs, carry the body to the funeral boat. Eight legs carry the body to the funeral boat. Lewinn with his eight legs was truly carrying the body of Karkion to its final destruction. A destruction that was eventually inevitable. 

Now there was a young stablehand who got to see Lewinn in the stables. And he was a kind young man. He helped ease Lewinn’s burden whenever he could. He helped soothe the child and he listened to the child’s miseries and wonderings, his thoughts and feelings. He even shared his own. 

He also taught the child everything that he knew, and the child learned eagerly, with eyes bright and neck craned in concentration. 

Now remember that the Yemars came from the waters which rose forth out of Puri. The Yemars were connected with water. Water was what gave life and healing. It flowed through all the land, nourishing and vitalizing it. It flowed through all bodies, nourishing and vitalizing them. Blood was the element of water that was within all bodies. It healed everyone from all sorts of afflictions just as water purified and washed the earth. 

Oella was one with the rain. Wherever she went, she could summon the rain to come. And she could make it rain anywhere. 

Oella snuck out to the lands of the living sometimes. There she met and planned with the living Yemars who were also planning for the final battle. She made sure that the two sides of the battling party could fight in tandem with each other, the living and the dead. She made sure that the living were making their side of the preparations for the final battle and the dead were making theirs. 

She made these visits seldom, and made them quick. For there was always the possibility of getting caught, the possibility of Karkion’s spies being able to see through her cloaking magic. She did not want to try her luck any more than she needed to. 

It was on one of these days when she was hurrying back from a meeting with the delegates of the living Yemars that she met Avulci. Now, Oella was in the form of a beautiful maiden, one of her three forms. Her other form was a skeleton and her third form was half-maiden, half skeleton. In her maiden form, she was ethereally beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful in all the lands. Avulci saw her and the Uzra wanted her. 

Now Avulci was a minor Uzra, holding no powerful position but holding the power that came with his race. His life was agreeable, and flavourful. He thought himself deserving of all favours. 

He looked at Oella, who was still yet a child-maiden at this time, and his heart wanted to possess her. And so he asked the child-maiden, if she would come with him to his hall. Oella replied tht she would not. He asked her again, and again she said no. He promised her gifts of fine gold if she were to follow him. But still she refused. Finally, he threatened her.

He said that she was a maiden out amidst the edges of the wild lands, where no maiden should go alone. If he were to tell Karkion of such reckless behaviour, he would surely have words with her. So thus it was better to come with him, and he could keep her safe and keep her honourable as all maidens should be. 

Oella grew terrified at this, but she was clever. She did not let it show on her face. She told him that her father knew that she was out here, and he did not object to her adventurous spirit. But she told him that if he could impress her she would give him a chance. 

The minor Uzra then recited for her a love ballad. And she pretended to be quite enthralled. So she went with him on the path leading to his abode. But when he had let his guard down, unwary and trustful, she made it rain from his heart. All the blood dripped out from his heart and left it empty. 

And thus he died. And Oella wept. She had never killed a person before and she thought that all people, even Uzra, deserved to be dealt with peacefully as much as possible. She knew she would not be seeing his soul in her domain. But before she left she took his body and set it in his bed, to be found by whoever cared about him. 

But this was not the last time a man accosted Oella on account of her beauty. Many a man from time to time pushed her to lay with him. But she always scared them off by draining the blood from some part of their body. She never again killed a man. But she warned them not to accost any girl ever again. 

After the latest of Mamon’s children had been taken away from them, Mamon sat in the forest and they wept. They wept like they had never wept before. Not only for the children who had been taken away now but for the children who had been taken away before, who had grown up without them being able to see, who had undergone such immense hardship without them being able to help. Mamon wept at the fates that had befallen all of their children. And it was like Puri weeping for Their children after They died. It was like the all-consuming grief that Puri felt. 

Naia came to Mamon in the forest. And she sat down and she cried. She cried as Puri cried for Their children. She cried as Mamon did for theirs. She cried as the earth cried for its life. She cried as a mother cried for her young. They both cried together. And they both held each other through the pain and the sorrow. 

Naia leaned in. And Mamon leaned in. And at the end of what seemed like an infinite moment, they kissed. 

And this was the start of a new chapter of their relationship. 

Now Mamon was friends with many Yemars, including a young girl named Kiyanon and her parents Liue and Karti. They loved the child as if she were their own, and they vowed to protect the child however they could. 

Tragedy fell, however, when it was planned that the girl would be separated from her family. Mamon knew they had to stop this, however they could. But they didn’t know how they were going to go about it. 

They realized then that the man who was coming to take Kiyanon away was not nearly as powerful as Karkion, who had taken Mamon’s own children away. If they could take him by surprise, maybe he would be defeated. But the plan would only work if there were no witnesses. 

First Mamon disguised Kiyanon as a grain of corn in a vast corn field. But the man came looking for Kiyanon. He came upon the corn field and he plucked each individual grain of corn within. So Mamon had to call the child back to them and the two had to hurry away before they were seen. 

Next Mamon disguised Kiyanon as a pebble in a field of rocks. But the man came looking for Kiyanon. He came upon the field and he turned over each and every rock. Before he could find the rock that was Kiyanon however, Mamon called her over to them and the two fled. 

And still the man was looking for Kiyanon, and still demanded that she be sent to him. 

Mamon knew that they would have to raise the stakes of this dangerous game. So they conspired with the child and her parents. And together they made a plan. This plan was a terrible plan. But it was a terrific plan all the same. And the four steeled themselves with the resolve they needed to carry it out. 

Late at night, they took the girl on a boat and took the boat out to the most stormy, distant waters within reach, where no-one would see them. Then, they turned the girl into a scale on one of the fish that was caught on the boat. Then, the two of them waited. 

The man came to Liue and Karti’s house, and demanded to know where their daughter was. The couple pretended to be terrified, and they pretended that it was with great reluctance that they told him where the girl was. 

The man went to the distant, stormy waters and saw Mamon in the boat with the fish. He thought that perhaps the girl was disguised as one of the scales on the fish. And so he took each fish and began to closely inspect them. 

But at this moment Mamon flew over to the shore, right in front of a rocky cliff side in the flow of nature. They called Kiyanon close to them, and Kiannon flew likewise to be with Mamon. Kiyanon took shelter behind Mamon. And the man who sought to steal her saw her there behind them. 

He began running towards the two Yemars, over the water and over the land. But right as he was about to reach Mamon and Kiyanon, Mamon took the girl and she sprung up high into the sky.

The man was going far too fast to stop himself. He lumbered off of the cliff and fell into the rocky plains below. No-one was there to see his death and no-one was there to see who was involved in his death. Mamon knew that they would think he had simply fallen off of a cliff. They knew that he would now leave Kiyanon alone. He would have to. 

But Mamon still knew that it was no light thing, taking a life. It was heavy and horrible and should always be grieved no matter what. Even though they were relieved that the man would be bothering the family no longer, they let their soul mourn for his life. They had to let their soul mourn for his life. Because otherwise would their soul be worthy? 

Kiyanon knew this too, and she knew the importance of mourning the dead. She knew the blood that was now on her hands. And she knew that she had to pay the man some respect, even though he had never respected her in his life. Her heart was as heavy as it was light and it was as weary as it was exhuberant. 

So Mamon and Kiyanon knelt by the cliff side. They said a prayer to Puri for the departed soul of the man. And they burnt some grass as an offering. And they let themselves feel grief. 

Afterwards, they stole back to the simple, humble lodgings of Kiyanon’s family. And Kiyanon hugged her parents and they hugged her back. Mamon joined the group hug. They all cried for a long time. Tears of relief. Tears of love. Tears of joy. Tears of grief. 

And so Kiyanon was safe for now. At least Mamon could save one child. 

There were stories of victory and joy, even amidst all the pain and suffering. The Yemars used their collective cleverness and cunning to win for themselves many small victories amidst the great defeats. There were even occasional stories of escape. 

Like the story of Eiley, the man who was imprisoned by an Uzra lord who ruled over a sizeable tract of land. 

The Uzra lord thought himself very important indeed, and he wanted to have fine things the likes of which no-one had before. His heart was very greedy and very prideful. And he wanted to own many fine objects made of silver and gold and platinum and bronze and jewels and pearls. 

So he went to Eiley, who was well-known amongst the lands for being exceptionally talented at blacksmithing. The lord captured him and brought him to a dungeon of his castle. And there he forced Eilay to forge and forge and to make more and more and more fine things for him. 

Eilay had to work by the hot, sweltering forge all day without any breaks to cool off. He had to work for hours and hours, late into the night. And he wasn’t given enough food or water to sustain him. He was very miserable indeed, working for the lord. And he longed for the days when he could go to freedom. 

The lord in the meanwhile grew richer and richer, and all of his domain and the domains around him were amazed at how many beautiful, fine objects he had. They all awed him and revered him. This reverence pleased the lord to no end, and he worked Eiley even harder to make him even more things which he could show off. 

Eventually, after years, the lord’s sons each came to Eiley one by one. Eiley’s heart was full of hatred, and he took the opportunity to trick each of the men into their deaths. He then fashioned fine objects out of their bones, and sent them to the lord and his wife. 

They were horrified at seeing their sons dead, and they decided that they would kill Eiley for having done this. They were full of rage and fury, as well as grief and mourning. They sent their guards to go to Eiley’s cell and put an end to his life forever. 

But when the guards got to his cell, they saw that he was not there. 

For he had borrowed Filla’s feathered cloak, and with it he had turned into a bird and flown away. 

When he reached the land where he could be free, he hid himself in the wild lands where Puri was still alive. And there he was never seen again until the day that he died. How he escaped being seen by Karkion’s spies I know not, but I know that he did avid them and I know that he was free in the wild lands. 

When he died, Molia looked at him with displeasement in her eyes. She told him that he had caused death unnecessarily, by killing the lord’s sons. And for that he must atone himself before his soul could be ready to fight in the final battle between the Uzras and the Yemars. The council took in Eiley and they taught him how to atone for his sins so that he did not end up like the brutal and bloodthirsty Uzras.  

But before his freedom, there came the story of another escapee, who died and was avenged rightly by the tricky Mamon. 

Many escapees became fish and swam through the rivers to escape. Many escapees drowned in the river to their final freedom in the greens and whites and golds of Oellon. Many escapees were able to emerge from the river and move through the wild lands to the next stage of their lives, helping others escape in turn. 

But Otis the Uzra guarded the riverways with his three brothers. He would dive down and catch any fish he found, and would kill them. Therefore, the rivers were dying. And therefore very very few people could escape. 

The Yemars knew that they must do something about this. They made many plans but all the plans failed. Until finally, one plan didn’t. 

Mamon changed form to take the form of Karkion’s brother Hali. They quickly came upon Otis when his back was turned and killed Otis right there. His brothers however, saw this and planned to get their revenge from Hali. 

They attacked Hali, the real Hali, when the man was at his great palace. And they tried to strike a killing blow to him. But Hali fought them off, and he told them to go to Karkion to settle whatever feud they had with him. 

And so the brothers went to Karkion, and told him of what Hali had done to Otis. But Hali swore up and down that no, he had not done this thing. Karkion, naturally, believed his brother over the minor Uzra who held less power than him. But he did not say this out loud. 

Rather, he told Hali to pay back the brothers in ample gold to make up for the loss. Hali was betrayed but he agreed. 

But Karkion took Hali down the hallways of his palace, and told him that he truly did not want him to pay such slander any prize. Instead, Karkion told Hali to bring the gold to him in secret before he gave it to the brothers, and he would curse the gold. 

And so Hali did and he gave the cursed gold to the brothers. And the gold caused them to go mad. And such was their madness that they could no longer guard the rivers and take the fish. 

And once again, people could escape. 

Now Funaraya was also an Uzra with much greed in her heart. She wanted a vast plot of land from which she could build her business and produce many goods, so that people would pay her much money and be dependant upon her. She also thought that she was very wise and could easily get the land she needed. 

Now it should be said that Funaraya had three sons, given to her by a Yemar man. Now according to the laws of the Uzras, these sons were not Uzra. And she never treated them like her sons either. She never acknowledged them unless she needed them to do something. And she only saw them as things to be used. 

One day Karkion was giving away new plots of land from the great rolling praries he had burned up. He declared that anyone who could go around the burned remains of the land in one day - from sunrise to sunset - could have the land for themselves. 

Now, many an Uzra tried to walk around the perimeter of the land. But none of them succeeded. For it was such a large piece of land that they walked all day and still they could not even reach one corner. Many other Uzras came with their great and swift horses, and they tried to ride around the land. But even they could not reach half the land’s perimeter. 

Now, Funaraya looked at this vast stretch of land and her heart overflowed with greed. She saw in it the capacity to fulfill all of her dreams. She saw in it the ability to become great. She knew she must have it for herself. And she knew exactly how she was going to do that. 

She went to her three sons, the three young Yemars who were and were not her sons. And she turned them into horses, powerful and swift. She told them that if they did not run fast, faster than the wind, then she would butcher them and turn them into glue. She then attached them onto a golden chariot, which she rode. 

Funaraya rode to Karkion and she announced that she would compete for the land. Karkion told her that it was a difficult task, that no-one had succeeded thus far. Funaraya assured him hat she was not just anyone, and she would be the one to win the stretching prize. 

And so she made her sons run. And they ran and they ran, until their muscles ached and their lungs were bleeding. And they ran even faster. For they were terrified of their mother and what she could do to them if they were found wanting. And there, tied to the chariot, they sped on. 

Funaraya had them tied and she knew that they would drag her to victory. And when they did, she viewed the victory as her victory, and her victory alone. Won by her own cleverness and ruthlessness. 

She looked at the land that she had won. And she smiled darkly, as her sons lay collapsed on their sides. 

Now, Funaraya was not the only one who traded their love for their children for love for status and power. Lord Valdion also treated his son as a commodity. The only difference was, his son was an Uzra. 

Now, Lord Valdion had a son named Farrook. From the moment he was born, Valdion loved and doted on this son very much, and always gave him the best of everything. The baby was a happy baby, who then grew up to be a very happy toddler. 

But Lord Valdion heard the stirrings of unrest in his lands. He heard, through his network of spies, that the Yemars of his lands were planning a rebellion. And they were going to strike soon. 

Now, Valdion knew that his forces could squash this rebellion very easily, it would only be a matter of days. But he also knew that Karkion, the All-King, would be very dissapointed in him for allowing the rebellion to come to such a point unchecked. He needed a way to avoid his ire. He needed to shield his land from Karkion’s spies and Ryan’s all-seeing eyes. 

He combed through all the books he could find, until he found a ritual that could shield his lands. But it was a terrible ritual. One that would require an unthinkable sacrifice. 

He had to sacrifice the one he loved most. 

He looked at his son, and he looked at his domain. And he chose. 

And so it was that a five-year-old Farrook was sacrificed in secret on an altar inside the depths of the castle he was raised in. And he did not know what was happening at first. He screamed and cried when the knife was brought down to his throat. And then, all was quiet. 

Farrook was welcomed by Oella’s embrace. 

In the meantime Hari grew longer and longer and longer yet, more and more scales added to the links of their form. 

In the meantime Lewinn continued carrying Karkion, on the way to what he didn’t know was his grave. 

Now Wolver’s bound form was found by a young Tzimar woman named Saviligg who lived nearby on the island where he was bound. She tried and she tried for many days and nights to free him. She tried pulling on the chains, tried cutting them, tried frosting them over and tried melting them. She tried singing unbinding spells. But nothing worked. Wolver was bound fast. 

But Saviligg did not give up. All the days of her life, she never gave up. 

In their long nights of trying to help each other, there underneath the moon and the stars and the darkest blue of the night, there they fell in love. 

Wolver communicated with Saviligg with his magic, and she facilitated their psychic link through her own magic. Surely and surely, their magic grew stronger, and their psychic link grew stronger. 

From their love were born four children, all in the shape of wolves. One was the morning, one was the night, one was the dusk and one was the day. 

Saviligg and Wolver raised their children together there, as well as they could. They gave their children all the love they could. But it was not only them who raised the children and gave them love. All the Yemars around them did so, and fostered the children with all the love that they had. 

And so the children grew sure and swift and strong.

Thrash now was a young teenager, and in his heart was only pride and wrath and desire for more and more power. He did not take after his older brothers at all. He did not question the way that things were at all. He relished in the power that he held over others. The little boy that was once there was gone. 

Thrash was travelling through his father’s kingdom with Mamon trailing behind him. The two came to the humble room of one Yemar couple, who had two young children named Aldo and Sakava. Thrash demanded that they host them, and that they prepare a great feast for them. 

And so the Yemar family did, taking from the ingredients that Thrash had provided for them. But Aldo made a mistake when preparing the food, as children are wont to do. He was a child, after all. 

But Thrash grew very enraged at this. And he threatened to kill the family. But he said that they could appease him by giving him their children. 

And so they did. And so they had to. 

Mamon took the two children close to them and whispered in their ears that Mamon would always protect them for as long as they could. Mamon knew the pain the children were feeling intimately. They themself had felt it. Their children had felt it. And now these children would as well. 

Mamon promised to teach them how to trick the Uzras, and what great power a trick was. 

Mamon, Thrash, Aldo and Sakava then came upon a cave. In there Thrash decided to make camp for the night. And so the three Yemars set up the tent and they went to sleep. 

But Sakava and Aldo could not get to sleep without their parents. They were very afraid. So Mamon held them close and decided to show them a trick.

They took their mind out of their body and fashioned it into another form, a Yemar that glowed just the slightest bit light blue. They then made that form sleep on the rocks and snore loudly. The snoring was so loud that it awoke Thrash. 

Thrash was so enraged that he struck the sleeping Yemar with his great sword. But the sword missed, and it hit a mountain instead. Thrash swung his sword again. And again it missed, and it hit a river. Thrash tried again a third and fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh time. But he kept missing. 

Mamon and the children hid their laughter, Mamon’s hand glowing blue behind their back, manipulating Thrash’s sword so that it always missed. 

After this encounter in the cave, Thrash and the Yemars set off again, Thrash in a bad mood. 

It was not until much later that they encountered a large castle. And Thrash knew not who owned the castle. But he knew it probably wasn’t one of the Uzras, or else he would have known about the construction of such a grand building. He took the trio of Yemars into the building. And there they saw once again the mysterious Yemar from the cave. 

She welcomed the four to her abode, acting as if she was a grand and powerful figure. This disquieted Thrash a lot, and he stated that he was the great and mighty Thrash, son of the All-King Karkion. 

The lady said that he might be powerful in his own domain, but this was her domain, and she would wager that he couldn’t hold his own against any of her people. She looked up at him with mischief in her dark eyes and she smiled smugly. 

Thrash felt a great anger in his heart, and knew he had to prove himself to this supercilious Yemar. And so he told her to bring him any challenge, and he would overcome them all. 

The lady agreed, and she brought out a large drinking horn. She explained that all her people were able to drink the wine in this horn in three sips. If Thrash could do the same, he was equal to them. Thrash of course took the horn and started to drink with all his strength. 

Now, Mamon explained to the children in secret that the drinking horn was connected to the sea, and that Thrash would only succeed at lowering the amount of water by a few centimetres at most. Mamon explained how they had been looking for a way for a long time of lowering the sea level so that Hari would have less pressure on them. And now a way to do so had just landed in their lap and Mamon would be dead before they let an opportunity like that go to waste. 

The children held back their laughter as they watched Thrash try and fail to lower the “wine” in his drinking horn. Thrash drank until his belly swellled and his face went red. But he could not, he could not move the water level. 

Finally, he conceded defeat, and the lady smiled knowingly. She acted as if she was gracious about his loss, but there was just something subtly gloating about her that Thrash did not fail to pick up on. It made him angry beyond measure. He had never before failed at doing anything he had set out to do. 

The children drew much mirth from the way Thrash fumed and glowered. 

The lady, who obviously was a projection of Mamon’s mind only disguised as a lady, brought out the second challenge. It was a massive cat that was fat and lazy and covered in furs. She declared that if Thrash could lift this cat, then he will have proven himself to be as strong as one of the young children of her domain. 

Thrash tried with all his strength to lift the cat, but he found that he could only lift a single paw. He kept at it for hours and hours, until he was all red and sweating and all of his veins were bulging out from his arms and his head. He had never before exerted himself so. 

Mamon whispered to the children that the cat was secretly their beloved child Harimon, and Thrash was truly lifting them up from the sea. Mamon had long sought a chance to bring Harimon up to the light of day. And now they had that chance. Thanks to the ingenuity of their mind. And the children, too, could win small victories if they used their ingenuity and their minds to trick the Uzras. 

When finally Thrash conceded defeat, the seeming-lady smiled cordially, her red lips blooming wide. Thrash saw this smile and he was so filled with humiliation that he struggled to keep his composure. The children saw him struggle and fight to keep himself dignified. And they struggled and fought to hold in their laughter. Though they did a much better job. They had to. 

The lady then brought out an old woman, wrinkled and shrivelled and stooping with time. The lady wagered to Thrash that he could not fight the old woman, the most weak of the lady’s people. And that she would understand it if he lost against her. He was weak by the standards of her domain. 

Thrash had never been so insulted in his life. He resolved to prove the Yemar lady wrong. 

Mamon explained to Aldo and Sakava that this old woman was time itself. And Thrash could not win against time for in the grain of time his people would lose and their people would win. There was nothing he could do to prevent his destiny. There was nothing he could do to prevent the flow of time as it went on and on. And there was nothing he could do to stop the aging and decay of his empire. One day he would die. One day everything he exalted would die. 

And Thrash couldn’t. He could not hold his own in the battle against Old Woman Time. She stood firmly against him and withstood all of his attacks and his pushes and his shoves and his grasps. She never swayed nor faltered. And eventually, over the course of the fight, she brought him to his knees. 

The children stared in awe. 

Thrash sulked in defeat and hid his head behind his hands. The lady told him it was okay. She didn’t expect him to put up much of a fight. This humiliated Thrash even more and he got out his sword. He charged at the lady and once again found that he missed. 

The lady simply stepped aside from the direction of his blows. She stated, in a calm voice, that there was something that the party could do in order to save face. If one of Thrash’s travelling companions beat one of her own people than she would consider him to be the superior one. 

Now Thash was very outraged at having to rely upon his Yemars to win for him. He thought himself able to outclass the Yemars in all aspects that mattered and he did not want to be beholden to them. But he saw this as his only way to walk away with some sort of dignity from this situation. And so he agreed. 

Mamon was the first up. They said that they would engage in a contest of eating. They said this so that they could eat a good meal, their hunger being hard to contain.

They were brought to a large table with a platter full of fine, choice meats. Their opponent was Mamin. Who was yet again another projection of their mind. Another double they created to puppet this illusion where everything could for a moment go their way. 

The two of them ate wildly, with Mamon secretly hiding most of their food in a hidden pocket to share with the children later. Mamon ate all of half the platter’s meat, but Mamin ate the meat, the bones, and the platter itself. For Mamin was the fire. The lady declared her as the winner. 

The next competition was between Aldo and a lad named Trinki. It was a running race. Aldo ran as hard as he could, and by the stars he was fast. But he did not win. Not by a long shot. 

He was awed at the speed of his opponent. But he was even more awed when Mamon explained to him and his sister that his opponent was truly thought itself, and nothing moved faster than the speed of thought. Nothing was more more powerful than thought. 

Thrash bellowed in defeat, and decided to leave this palace once and for all. He dragged the Yemars with him and stormed out the door. He was about to send a message to Karkion - who was busy surveying wild lands for himself to conquer - about the strange castle and the defiant, undefeatable Yemars within. 

But when he turned around, the castle was gone. Vanished into thin air as if it was never there at all. 

And this is when Thrash bellowed in rage, and the children looked at Mamon, smiling. 

Now Mamon did many things for these children who were now under their care. The children who mourned their parents each and every day. The children who Mamon had to give some sort of family to. Some sort of solace. 

One day Sakava was serving the Uzras their morning meal. And the Uzras were eating light, soft, sweet things made of honey and fruit. Sakava was looking at the food with her wide, dark eyes, not saying anything as if she was a hollowed-out ghost. 

Hali looked at Sakava looking at the food. He laughingly asked the girl if she wanted any of the sweet jam that she put on the table. Sakava didn’t reply, mouth watering without their knowledge. 

Hali chuckled, and exclaimed to her that the Yemars did not need sweet food. That sweet food would make them ill. Sakava nodded her head, and stepped away back into the kitchens. There inside their dark and suffocating yet somewhat private walls, she cried. 

Naia came to her, and asked her why she was crying. Sakava confided to her that she felt as if she was not a person. The Uzras ate sweet, good food. But all she ever had was her bland, tasteless food. And they had said to her that she could never eat anything that was sweet and flavourful. 

Naia held the child close to her and stroked her hair. She told her that the Uzras were lying. The Uzras always lied. She told her that she deserved to eat sweet, good things as much as they did and she could eat sweet good things as well. 

Naia talked with Mamon about how Sakava was hurting over not being able to eat good foods. And they conspired together to steal some sweet, good food for the children. They smiled at the thought of their plan, and conspired together late into the night. 

The next day Mamon went to a classroom filled with young Uzras ready to learn. They disguised themselves as a fairy, beautiful and glowing and with feathers in the place of hair. They entered during the lunch break, when all the teachers were away and the students were chatting merrily amongst each other. 

They all gasped to see Mamon’s beautiful form. Mamon declared that they were the spirit of the stream that ran by the school, and they would bestow a blessing upon anyone who gave them the best, sweetest food. 

Many of the children didn’t believe Mamon. But many of them did. And they got out the deserts from their lunches, and quickly handed them to Mamon, hoping to win and become blessed. Mamon accepted it all with graciousness, and disappeared into the mist. 

Them and Naia shared the sweet treats with the children in the secret of the night. And the children savoured the treats with much relish, enjoying every ounce and devouring every crumb. They thanked the adults for risking much to give them this good food. And they slept peacefully. 

The next day Filla had a moment alone with Rayr, who was gazing out the window to the open grass fields that lead to the sea. Filla watched Rayr gaze out into the sea. And she wondered what he was thinking. She wondered whether he could really see the sea for what it was. She doubted that he could.

She remembered her own mothers, who both loved the sea. She remembered walking beside them along the coastline, how the sea air would blow through their hair and the gulls would screech. She was homesick, beyond homesick, for her family. 

It was during that moment when she dared to ask Rayr about his family. She acknowledged to him that he was raised by Yemars, though he was born of Karkion’s blood. He was brought up by Yemars and so was Thrash. So why did they not consider the Yemars as more than just monsters to be tamed or put down? Why did they consider the Yemars as lesser? They were family, by way of nurturance and sometimes even by way of blood. 

Rayr simply glared at her, and told her that she wouldn’t understand. He said that it was true that the Yemars had fed him and bathed him and whatnot when he was just a babe. But Karkion had taught him everything important. Karkion had taught him how to fight and how to read and how to strategize. So everything he was came from Karkion, came from the Uzra. The Yemars were just, present. 

Filla told him that there were things much more important than knowing to read and strategize. Things like knowing to be kind, knowing to be considerate, knowing to be humble and to be confident. Having stories to pass on. 

Rayr denied all these things. Told her that they were trivial frivolities that the Yemars had too much faith in. He declared that all that was important about a person was the power that they could wrest from other people. And power was not won through kindness or humility. 

Filla looked at Rayr and saw that there was indeed no kindness to him. No consideration. Nothing that his Yemar caretakers would have tried to impress upon him. There was nothing in him that was reminiscent of them at all. 

It was true. He wasn’t their child. He was only a child of Karkion. 

Filla left the room. 

Now there was one other time when Harimon was pulled up to the surface by Thrash. Thrash was going on a fishing trip, using the head of an oxen as bait. With him was a Yemar named Haddalfi, who had given him his bait. 

Thrash was trying to catch the largest fish found. But instead he caught Harimon on his fishing line. Thrash pulled and pulled and pulled, with all his might, and the head of Harimon came up on his fishing line, breaking the surface. 

Thrash stared at Harimon with glowering eyes full of hatred. His heart was full of hatred. He knew that they were sworn enemies and he knew that there would be no mercy on the day of the final battle if he didn’t end them then and there. So he raised his sword to kill the serpent then and there. 

But Haddalfi knew that even though it was better for Hari to die rather than to continue being tortured, they needed to be around for the final battle so that they’ve could fight and bring about a better future. So, in a flash, before Thrash could plunge his sword into Hari, Haddalfi cut the line and sent the person plunging back down into the waves. 

Thrash did not rage at Haddalfi as he thought he would do. Instead, the Uzra youth let his anger seep into the air between himself and Haddalfi, like a poisonous, festering promise of terror. 

They caught many fish after this. 

Mamon on that day was sitting in the forest. They were crying. This was very rare, as they never cried. They only cried in the rare moments when there wasn’t anyone around to see them. But this time they could not control it, their tears fell freely. And their grief welled up inside them. They were beginning to lose hope. 

Naia sought them out, out in the forest. And Naia found them under the fir tree, tears streaming down their eyes. She asked them why they were crying. And they replied that they were simply doing what they had always wanted to do, they were simply shedding their grief. Naia asked them if there was anything about the day that was special, that had broken the carefully-built dam inside of them. 

Mamon replied that they were losing their hope. Hearing this, Naia was perturbed. On Mamon’s hope relied so many people and so many plans. She needed their hope. Aldo and Sakava needed it. People innumerable needed it. Just as they all needed the hope of any Yemar.

Naia asked them why they were losing their hope. And Mamon replied that it was just so hard to hold on to who they were. To hold on to who they all were. They felt so small and weak compared to the Uzras. They felt as if they were nothing. And Mamon could not lift their heart from the pit that it had sank into. 

Naia asked them why they were feeling this way. And Mamon replied that the power of the Yemars was nothing compared to the power of the Uzras. The Uzras were so much more powerful. And the Uzras always won. It felt like the Uzras would always win. No matter what the Yemars did they would always be under the heel of the Uzras. Because if the Yemars could truly win, wouldn’t they have done so already? At least, wouldn’t they be able to stop the Uzras from hurting them in so many, such unendurable ways? 

Naia replied that the Uzras might have more power now. But the power of the Uzras was not sustainable. It wouldn’t last. The power of the Uzras was the power of force and domination and hierarchy and coercion. This sort of power was strong at first. It was insurmountable at first. But like a dam across a river or a wall around a palace, it cracked. It cracked and fissured and one day, eventually, it would come crashing down. And then the Uzras would have no power. 

Naia explained to Mamon that the power of the Yemars was sustainable. It would last. And not only would it last, but it would grow stronger and stronger as time went by. As the generations went by. And as the Uzras’ power grew weaker. The power of the Yemars was built on connection and community and love and nature. It was built of things that would last. It was built of things that only grew stronger with time. And this power would be enough to destroy the Uzras’ power one day. 

The Yemars would win one day. Eventually. The Yemars and their Uzra allies. Even if it didn’t look that way now, the Yemars and their Uzra allies would overcome the Uzras and their Yemar allies. And there was nothing the Uzras could do to prevent that. The Uzras might be powerful but truly they were not powerful. It would be Mamon and Naia’s people who were destined to inherit the world, who would inherit the world no matter what. 

But for that, Naia told Mamon, they would all have have to fight. They would all have to fight, to hope, to try. And that required Mamon to have hope. And so were they ready? Would they keep going?

Mamon looked at her. And they held out their hand for her to take. She took it. And she asked them again. Mamon then declared that they would fight. They would hold onto hope. And one glorious day they would win. They would all win. 

Naia smiled. 

And they walked back to the stronghold of the Uzras. 

There they made love, and from that love came a baby, who the community named Navee. Navee was as loved by the community as he was hated by the Uzras. And Navee was born into very hard times. But he had all his people with him, and they vowed to give each other whatever they could.

Now Sakava was the personal servant of Thrash’s wife Tovera. And Tovera was very radiantly beautiful. This was because she never had to get herself dirty and sweaty with work. This was because she could afford the most intricately-prepared mix of herbs and plants and honeys to wash her face and her body snd her hair in. All prepared by Sakava of course. Tovera was beautiful because she had the time and the resources to take a hot bath every day. And she could sit around having her long hair be brushed out. And she could afford many many beautiful dresses. 

Sakava saw how beautiful her mistress was, and how plain she herself was in comparison to her. She felt a great sadness in her heart at this, for she felt like she was nothing in comparison to her mistress. 

Naia and Mamon saw this, and tried to explain to her that Tovara’s beauty was all on the outside. True beauty was what was on the inside. Tovara was pretty because of what she had, not because of who she was. If she were to lose what she had, she would no longer be pretty. Sakava on the other hand was beautiful because of who she was, and no-one could take that away from her. 

Sakava listened, but she still didn’t believe. There was still a great sadness in her heart. 

So Mamon set out to show how shallow and fallible the Uzras beauty truly was. They took a small knife that they made with their magic. And they hid it deep within their clothes. And they snuck into Tovera’s chambers through a tiny crack in the wall. And there, in the darkness of the night, they cut her long, beautiful, shining, golden hair. And they thought of Sakava, the sweet, sad-eyed girl. And they smiled. 

Tovara woke up and she was outraged. She was humiliated. She looked at herself in the mirror and she had a fit. She cried and screamed and threw things against the walls and tore at her clothes. And all the other Uzras saw this and they laughed. They saw her and they laughed. 

Naia took Sakava aside and explained to her that Tovara was still the same person she was before. But without her hair, something that is external, she had been reduced to an ugly creature. And so this was how Tovara’s beauty was. Shallow and external and fleeting. Meanwhile Sakava’s beauty was much deeper and much more enduring. 

Sakava understood this now, seeing Tovara’s beauty crumble before her eyes. And she smiled softly to Naia, and the two shared a small, secret hug before going back to their tasks for the day. 

But all was not good, however, as the Uzras figured out who was behind this little prank. They went up to Mamon and they beat them until they were full of bruises. For they often beat Mamon. This was the way that they always dealt with Mamon, by beating them. But they did not account for the fact that their hands and feet always struck Mamon’s body, never their spirit. 

Mamon admitted to the prank, for what other choice did they have? And the Uzras stated that today was the day. Today they would finally kill Mamon. But Mamon pleaded their case, saying that they would do anything if they were allowed to live. Mamon did not want to live for themselves of course, death would be a much better fate than the type of life they had to go through. But Mamon needed to live for the sake of all the children. 

The Uzras decided that they would let Mamon live, but only on one condition. Mamon had to get a potion for making hair grow. And they had to gain treasures for the Uzras in order to make up for all the destruction that they had caused. 

Mamon was used to bringing the Uzras wealth. It was what they had been doing for most of their life. But they got a foreboding feeling about the task they were sent to undertake. They knew that, for some reason or another, it would be much harder than the other tasks that the Uzras made them do. 

So Mamon went down to Arvenhom, which was where all the workshops were. There they asked the masters of the workshops to please craft for the key Uzras in high places a potion for the growth of hair and some other treasures. The masters of the workshops had many Yemars to aid them and could make very fine crafts using their Yemars. 

But they refused, saying that they would only make these treasures if they were given recompense. For they were a very greedy lot, and did not do anything for free. Not even for the highest of the Uzra, who ruled the Uzra lands. 

Mamon knew that they were in trouble, just as they knew that they would be. For, you see, the Trash and his people had not given Mamon any coin with which they could complete the task, and so therefore Mamon had nothing to give the masters of the workshops. 

They needed to think of a plan. 

From observing the Uzras there, Mamon saw that there were two groups of Uzras that were at odds with each other. One group was Garvali and his brothers, and the other group was Hatali and his own brothers. Mamon could tell that the two groups were in great competition to each other. And so Mamon got an idea. 

They went over to Garvali’s workshop, and looked over the work. There they declared that Garvalli’s work was so good that no other group of workshop masters could compare. There was surely no competition on who were the better craftspeople. This trio was the best. This Mamon spoke loudly, so that all could hear it.

This enraged Hatali’s trio very much. But still they did not do anything to stir the pot. Mamon knew that in order for their plan to work, they would have to stake higher bets. Mamon did not want to do this, but they were afraid of Thrash. 

So Mamon bet their own head that Garvalli’s trio could create better treasures than Hatali’s trio. 

In hearing this, Hatali’s trio grew very greedy. For they had a bloodlust and would love to take Mamon’s head. And they were sure that they could win any competition against Garvalli and his brothers. 

And so they declared a competition. Each would make a group of treasures for the rulers of the Uzra kingdom. And whichever group created better treasures, they would win and would receive the prize of Mamon’s head. 

Mamon was terrified, but they had faith in themselves that they could get out of this somehow. 

And so the masters set their workers to work. For ten days and ten nights they worked in the forges. And eventually, they all created treasures for the Uzra rulers to have. 

Hatali and his brothers won, and they demanded their payment as a result.

Now, Mamon had already thought up a plan to save themselves. They told the Uzras that they had promised to give them their head, but they had not promised to give them their neck. So according to the agreement, the brothers could not hurt their neck. 

Now, the Uzras were very enraged at this, but they could not do anything about it, for the agreement they made was magically binding. This did not mean, however, that the Uzras could not do anything horrible to hurt Mamon. 

So Hatali and his brothers declared that since Mamon’s head was theirs, they could do whatever they wanted with it. And what they wanted to do with it was to sew Mamon’s lips together. And the other Uzras agreed that yes, it was only fair for them to do as they wished for they had won the wager. 

Mamon was horrified, but Mamon was also brave. And they knew that they would have to face this terrible punishment. And they knew that somehow, somehow, they would get over to the other end of it. And they would heal. And so they let their body be puppetted into what the Uzras wanted it to do. 

Thrash held Mamon down with his hammer, a new treasure that he only had because of Mamon’s ingenuity. And from underneath that hammer Mamon could not move, no matter how much they tried. Though they didn’t try. They only held themselves stone-still, as Hatali came close to them with his awl. 

All they felt was pain, pain, bright horrible pain. It radiated all throughout their face, streaming out from their mouth. They did not know what was happening, only that it was too much, too much, and they couldn’t get away. And they couldn’t face it. But they had to face it, being held down there with the horrible ripping, tearing feeling in their lips and the burning feeling of leather being pulled through open wounds.

When it was finally done all the Uzras looked at them and laughed. Tovara remarked that Mamon was not so smart now, with all of their clever words being taken from them. Trash commented that Mamon could now no longer do the thing that they loved most, which was to talk. Mamon did not say anything, because they couldn’t. And because they didn’t want to dignify the Uzras with a response. 

Mamon went out to the sparsely wooded lands just outside of Karkion’s estate. There they sat down, with their lips bleeding and fever-hot. There they curled into themselves and cried silent tears that mingled into their bleeding blood. They pulled at the leather around and inside their lips with their magic, but they could not no matter how much they tried break the chord. They realized that there must be a really powerful enchantment on it, and that it was meant to hold. 

How were they going to tell their stories without their mouth?

Naia had seen the whole terrible spectacle of the binding of Mamon’s lips. And she had gone out looking for Mamon afterwards. She searched all the estates of the Uzras and all the lands surrounding them, worry sparking in her heart. 

Finally, she found Mamon, sitting by a tree stump, sobs wracking their body. She saw Mamon and she immediately knew that she had to help. And so she sat down beside them and asked them to keep still while she worked. 

First, she felt the binding magic keeping the leather in place. She reached her own magic towards the bonds around Mamon’s lips. She took time to go over it and understand it to great depths. The spell used was a very powerful one. But Naia’s strength was in unbinding. And there were very little binding spells that she could not undo. This was a fact that the Uzra did not know. 

Now, Wolver’s chains were far too strong for even Naia to unbind. Though she tried her best and tried for a long, long time and still did not give up. 

But these spells, these spells were not as difficult, though they were powerful in their own right. But Naia could break them. 

And so she sang her own spell. A spell made of rivers rushing, beating down rocks. A spell made of ice cracking, of water freezing in crevices and inching them apart. A song made of rain beating down mountains. A song made of lullabies sang to despondent children. 

Eventually, eventually, eventually, slowly and all at once, the leather snapped into a hundred different pieces. And carefully, carefully, carefully, Naia slowly picked the pieces out of Mamon’s lips. 

Mamon used their own magic to seal all the holes in their mouth back together. The flesh around all the little holes joined together until they no-longer hurt, until they no longer bled. Mamon was were scarred. And they would be scarred forever. But they were, thanks to Naia’s careful attention, whole.

Naia carefully cleaned the blood from around Mamon’s mouth. And then the two of them kissed. And it was sweet and it was sad and it was victorious and it was desperate. Aching tenderness amidst unspeakable violence. 

Mamon told Naia that the Uzra would be very surprised when they saw. When they saw Mamon’s lips unbound and whole. 

And so life continued. Karkion’s youngest child Amnee got raised by Mamon and Naia just as Thrash was. And this child was a sweet young thing, just as Thrash used to be. And she was even friends with Navee, who was about the same age as her. Naia and Mamon had great hopes for this child. Though they knew that they shouldn’t get their hopes up. They saw what had happened to Thrash. 

One day Mamon was running away from Thrash, who had gotten it in his mind to beat them. Mamon was running as fast as they could, as fast as the wind itself, away from Thrash’s chariot pulled by powerful horses. The chariot rattled and rumbled as the wheels lumbered over rocks. And it grew so loud that Thrash and his chariot turned into the thunder itself. And Mamon, with their bright, lithe speediness turned into the lightning. 

And as we all know, thunder is sound and lightning is fire. Thunder can never catch up to the lightning. It is always running after the lightning, running after the lightning, but it can never capture it. And so, Thrash could never capture Mamon, and they got away, and they were not beaten by Thrash after all. Not this time. 

But another time, they could not escape. 

Mamon, Naia, and Sakava and Aldo and Navee hatched an escape plan one day. They would seek the help of a free Yemar named Yarrothi to help them escape. Yarrothi told them that she had a way to stop the Uzras from finding them once they did escape. And, if they could hold on through their hunger, the Uzras would give up on finding them. 

So Mamon and Naia turned the three children into birds and the two adults themselves turned into birds and they flew away through the night, deftly and cunningly weaving their way through all the Uzra wards and spells, carefully avoiding the guards. 

They at last reached the mountains where Yarrothi swore to meet them. And Yarrothi produced a box for them to hide in. She said that if they hid in the box, the Uzras would not be able to find them no matter how much they looked. And once the Uzras were done looking for the family, once they had given up, then Yarrothi would open the box and the three could live their lives. 

Yarrothi warned them that there was not enough room in the box for much food. And she asked if they were truly ready to do this. And the children assured her that they were. And so the family, still in the form of birds, entered the box.

The food lasted them a few months. But then it ran out. The children grew hungry. And the parents tried, they tried to ignore their children’s hunger. For they knew that this was the only way that the children could become free. And the children had to become free.

But the children were hungry and the parents could not ignore it. They could not keep the children hungry. So they opened the box from within and took all the children out, sending them out into the world to gather food. 

Thrash and the other Uzras found them. And they captured them. They would have killed them all right there if Mamon had not offered a bargain. 

They said that they would help Thrash find and kill Yarrothi, the Yemar wo had helped them, so that she could not help any other Yemars escape ever again. Thrash looked at this bargain and thought that it would be overall beneficial for him, so he accepted. He did not want any more Yemars to slip away with the help of this Yarrothi. 

Mamon did not want to betray the woman who had helped them, and did not want to kill a good Yemar, so they secretly hid all of Thrash’s weapons before the two set out on their journey. Without his weapons, Thrash would not be able to kill Yarrothi. 

But Thrash went to the hut of another Yemar woman, before finding the one who had helped Mamon’s family escape. And he coerced this woman into creating for him new weapons that he could use.

And with these weapons he killed Yarrothi. Mamon felt very devastated and very guilty. They felt as if the blood was on their hands. But they knew that it was the only way to save their children. They knew that they did not have a choice.  

And so the days turned into years and Navee and Amnee got older. Mamon had to hold their tongue, hold their tongue, and hold their tongue in front of the Uzras. And Mamon had to go along with the Uzras and their plans and their demands and their cruelty. 

And Mamon couldn’t take it anymore. They had had enough. 

The Uzras were having a grand party at the mansion of Varli, a Yemar who had betrayed his side and was loyal to and privileged by the Uzras. There, they were drinking and feasting and giving out loud, raucous laughter. 

And so Mamon went to the party, uninvited. They had lost complete control of themselves. They didn’t know what they were doing or why they were doing it. All that they knew was that they were ready to explode. They had held the pressure inside of them and inside of them and inside of them for so long and now they just couldn’t, they just couldn’t hold it in anymore. 

There was a slave at the door greeting all the guests as they came in and taking their coats. The slave smiled and pretended to be jovial. But Mamon knew the reality of having to pretend in front of the masters too well. Mamon knew how to truly look. And Mamon looked into the eyes of the slave and knew that they were breaking apart inside, as all slaves were. 

Mamon knew though, that in this one situation, they could help. 

Mamon asked the name of the slave, and they replied that it was Sadali. Mamon asked the slave if they wanted to go to the lands of Oellon and join the army of Oellon’s forces, and train for the final battle. Mamon asked if Sadali wanted to remain here, as a slave, serving the Uzras and their allies for years longer before they went to Oellon anyways. 

Sadali replied that they wanted to go join Oellon’s forces now. But they were too much of a coward to. It was too hard to just do it themselves, and they would remain a slave for many years longer before going to their final freedom. 

Mamon asked Sadali if they had any other slaves around them who would miss them, and Sadali replied that they didn’t.

And so Mamon told Sadali that they would help them go to their final freedom much faster, that they could send them to Oellon immediately. And Sadali thanked them with tears in their eyes, keeping quiet so that none of the Uzras could hear them. 

And so Mamon took Sadali out to where all the Uzras were. And they sent Sadali to Oellon, to their final freedom, where no-one could lord over them and make them work for them. Where no-one could treat them as an inferior and deny them kindness and respect. Where they could train and plot to get revenge against anyone and everyone who had ever hurt them. 

The Uzras saw this and they were very enraged at Mamon for taking away their slave, and they drove Mamon out of the party. They were too busy partying though to follow them out and beat them, as they usually would. And so Mamon sat in Puri’s woods, ruminating. 

At the meeting between themselves and Sadali, they were even more disturbed. They hated having to send Sadali away from this world in order to set them free. But it was all that they could do. And it was not fair, not fair, it was not fair at all. Everything was too twisted and corrupted and evil. Everything was a horror. 

The rage grew and built inside of them until they were like a volcano about to erupt, all the inhibition snapping and falling away from them. 

They marched back to the party and demanded to be let in. The Uzras, of course, did not let them in. And so then Mamon reminded Karkion that they had shared a cup of sweet, spicy Tzai together and that meant that they were equals. They reminded him that Tzai was only shared between equals, and Karkion accepting it from Mamon meant that they were the same. Therefore Karkion had to let Mamon into the party. 

Karkion was appalled and indigent at Mamon’s boldness. But what Mamon had said was true. And therefore Karkion would have to let them in. He told the others that Mamon would not cause too much trouble. He resolved to have them punished later. And punished very harshly. 

Mamon came in and immediately began to insult all the Uzras. Because their head was not working at all in that time. They said that the Uzras were power-hungry, they were vain, they were greedy, they were thoughtless, they were ignorant, they were cowardly, they were cruel, they were unkind. All of these things were true. 

But the Uzras could not stand to be insulted, especially by a lowly and disloyal Yemar of a bad reputation. The Uzras wanted to think of themselves as the grandest, most respectable, most perfect, most great beings ever. They wanted to think of themselves as flawless. And they wanted to be praised by everyone. Not insulted. Never insulted. No matter how true the insults could be. 

And so the Uzras all came up to Mamon one by one. And they challenged Mamon. And they insulted Mamon back. And they insisted that themselves and their people were flawless and undeserving of insults. 

Mamon insulted them each one by one, their scathing, biting tongue speaking of each and every Uzra that challenged them. They laid bare all the horrible, sordid deeds that the Uzras had done and they made it clear to everyone that their veneer of respectability would not be able to hold up. 

The Uzra children at the party were hearing of all the horrible things that their parents had done, all the ways that their parents had been cruel. And they were hearing an account of the world seen through Yemarian eyes. They were hearing all the things that the Yemars wanted to say but for their safety could not. 

And the Uzras could not allow all that. They had to pull the social order back to what it was meant to be. They had to punish Mamon. 

Mamon, still not in control of themselves, declared that Sheen and Monnia and Holder would lay bare to all the children what the truth of the Uzras was. They confessed that the three were dead because of Mamon’s doing, and with their deaths all of the injustices of the Uzras would he avenged. 

Now the Uzras had finally had enough. They declared to Mamon that they would torture them for eternity. They would make them wish that they had died. And nothing would be of solace to them. Nothing would give them comfort from their never ending pain. 

Mamon finally felt fear in their heart, a heart which was until then overrun by anger. They ran from the mansion, with the Uzras hot in pursuit of them. They ran and they ran through the woods and the clearings. And they ran through the grasses in the meadows. And they ran past the refuges they had set up in the wilderness. 

When they had finally put a great deal of distance between themselves and the Uzras, they sat down in the wild lands, in Puri’s wild lands, beside a large, cool, flowing river. There they built a fire and they made a net. They made a net because they were afraid. They were afraid of going into the river. 

But they knew that sinking into the river was what they must do. So they used their fire to burn the net and they became a fish, a salmon to be precise, within the river. There they swam and they swam in the murky depths. 

The Uzras came upon the fire of Mamon, and the burnt remains of the net. One of the Uzras looked at the pattern of ashes left by the burnt net and from that determined that Mamon had become a fish in the river.

Karkion set his cormorants out and they dove down into the water and caught Mamon the salmon. Karkion forced Mamon to take a normal shape once again, and the Uzras took them into a cave. 

Naia was trailing behind the Uzras, silent, watching in horror as it all unfolded. 

Karkion got Navee, the young child of Mamon and Naia. And he got Amnee, the little girl that the two were raising, the little girl who was Karkion’s. He turned Amnee into a ferocious yet tamed wolf, and the wolf tore into and violently, painfully killed Navee, who screamed in fear and pain as he died. 

Naia watched all of this and screamed in anguish. But the Uzras did not hear her. Only Mamon did. 

The Uzras next bound Mamon to a large rock in the cave, using the intestines of the dead Navee, Mamon and Naia’s son. They put incredibly powerful and intense binding spells on the intestines, turning them to iron, making it so that Mamon could not move in them and could not break free of them. Making it so that even Naia could not break them. 

And over Mamon they hung a poisonous snake, who would drip venom into Mamon’s eyes, making them thrash and writhe so hard that the earth itself shook. 

The Uzras told Naia to come with them, that they would all go back to the lands of the Uzras together. And Naia did go with them, because she had to and because Aldo and Sakava were waiting back there. But Naia took a piece of herself and left it in the cave with Mamon. 

The part of Naia that was in the cave with Mamon held a bowl over their eyes so that the poison would not drip into them. But every once in a while, she had to go and empty the bowl. And in that time, Mamon would scream and thrash in agony. Their thrashing would be so powerful that it would cause earthquakes in the world. 

There, in the cave together, Mamon and Naia told each other stories. They told each other every story that they could remember. The truths and injustices and resistances small and large that the people witnessed and went through. The fantastical tales of hope and liberation that the Yemars passed around to each other to give each other strength. The humorous tales the young ones made. The melancholy tales that helped people express their sorrow. All the stories. All of them. 

And they hurt. And they waited. And they planned. 

Meanwhile Aldo and Sakava grieved the loss of another parent. They hurt even more than they were hurting before. And they grew into strong, broken, radiant, tortured, kind young adults. And they continued serving the Uzras, for that was what they had to do.

One day Aldo and Sakava were on a voyage with Thrash and his household. They were far out at sea, with land not being anywhere in sight. They were full of rage and pain, and felt as if they were a part of the sea itself, with all its unpredictability and its terrible awesomeness. 

Suddenly, Thrash’s ship was set upon by a band of pirates. The pirates were all Yemars, and the pirates were all women. The pirates were a group of runaway Yemars who had vowed to be a scourge upon the Uzras and set as many people free as they could. 

They fought so magnificently and so well, all moving together in perfect synch as a team, that Thrash and the other Uzras stood no chance against them. The pirates stole all the treasures from Thrash’s ship, and they took Aldo and Sakava upon their own ship. 

And so thus, Aldo and Sakava were set free. Where they went, the Uzras never found out. All the Uzras knew was that the two were not theirs anymore. 

Aldo and Sakava lived long, fulfilling lives. Aldo became a hero, setting many people free on his many journeys. And Sakava became a spy, secreting forbidden information to all the Yemars, in preparation for the final battle to come. They had rage and hatred in their hearts. And they also had love. The type of love that could liberate the whole world. 

Meanwhile, Wolver and Saviligg’s children grew into strong youths. They were determined to make the world a better place, a kinder place, a fairer place. And so they planned to escape their destinies one day. 

And by that point the resistance and its power had grown so strong that all four of them could escape the holds of the Uzras and do in their lives what they wished. 

They looked at the sun and the moon, and they saw that the celestial bodies were trapped and fettered, tied to chariots just as the charioteers were trapped themselves. They knew that the sun and the moon had to be free, deserved to be free, and Karkion’s fetters must be broken. 

So they chased the sun and the moon, meaning to wrest apart all the shackles and fetters confinining the two celestial bodies. The wolf-being of the morning chased the sun in the morning. The wolf-being of the day chased the sun in the day. The wolf-being of the evening chased the moon in the evening. And the wolf-being of the night chased the moon in the night. 

But as fast as they ran, they could not catch up to the chariots. They wondered if perhaps it was hopeless, if they could never free the sun and the moon. But they did not give up. They kept running, and running, and running through the celestial arcs in the sky. 

Meanwhile, Harimon grew larger and larger, and Wolver grew stronger and stronger. Meanwhile, the armies of Oellon trained and planned. 

Meanwhile Naia strengthened her in binding magic. She practiced and practiced, day and night, feeling all the bonds and shackles of the world and all the ties and magics that held them. She felt the very magic of binding itself. And she worked out how to counter it, in all the very many forms that it came in. 

Now, Thrash had begotten a daughter named Feyna, and Feyna had grown into a beautiful and shining teenager. She was the pride and joy of Thrash and Tovara, inheriting Thrash’s strength as well as Tovera’s beauty. 

But Feyna had fallen in love with a Yemar girl named Dramari. They kept their affair a secret from everyone, for they knew that what they were doing was very dangerous. But still, they taught each other how to love and how to give and how to be kind. 

Dramari got it into her head one day that if she could just explain herself to Feya’s father, if she could just explain her heart and her intentions and her love, then Thrash would understand. And Thrash would allow her to be with his daughter. 

So she went to Thrash. And she asked him if she could court his daughter. 

Thrash of course was very enraged and very put off by the boldness and the gall of this young Yemar. And he resolved to teach her her lesson once and for all. 

Thrash mixed a drink for the young Yemar and in it he secretly put a poison that only Yemars were susceptible to. He handed the drink to Damari who took it in an eager attempt to please her girlfriend’s father. 

The two of them drank and they talked. They talked of many things. Mostly, Thrash asked Damari about all she knew of the universe and its nature and its origins. Thrash was surprised at how much Damari knew, for he thought that the Yemars were all stupid. 

Thrash kept filling up Damari’s cup, until eventually, Damari died. In her final moments she realized how foolish he has been and how she should never have asked for the approval of such a powerful Uzra. She felt betrayed, and she felt as if she had let her true love down. 

When Feya heard the news of her death, she hid her tears. 

Damari went across the river to Oellon and trained for the final battle there. 

After years and years and years, finally the plans for the final battle had come to fruition. Finally, all the Yemars, living and dead, were ready for battle. They had their weapons forged in fire and they had their warriors forged in suffering and love and hope and hatred. They had their plans ready, their ranks were organized, were equal, and their hearts were courageous and resolved for the battle to come. But they couldn’t proceed without all of their warriors. 

Mamon was still trapped in a cave, still bound by the entrails of their son. Wolver was still chained, Fryer was still chained, Harimon was still in the sea. 

Now, Naia had spent innumerable years frozen in time and shifting in time in that womb underneath the earth. She had taken time to understand and feel all the bindings in the world, as intimately as she understood and felt the suffering of her own life. She had been working on a spell to unbind every chain. And finally, finally, it was ready. 

She sang her unbinding song standing over Mamon. A song with all the power and magnificence of pouring rain, of flowing rivers, of cracking ice, of blowing winds, of landslides and avalanches and wildfires and hurricanes. With all the force of earthquakes and tsunamis and every work of nature’s, of Puri’s undeniable power. 

Finally, finally, Mamon’s bindings cracked apart and fell at their feet. And Mamon rose, unfettered, untethered, burning with love and protection and courage and hatred and a need for revenge. Burning like no fire had ever burned before, and like all fires would forever burn after. Burning like a wild thing, untamed and untameable and oh so beautifully dangerous.

Mamon and Naia went immediately to Fryer the dog, at the entrance to Oellon. There, in the darkness, secretively, Naia sang the unbinding song. And it was just as glorious and magnificent and breathtaking as the first time she had sang it. It was just as beautiful and terrible and powerful, flowing with the patterns of nature and the hills and valleys and lakes and rivers of Puri Themselves. 

Fryer lept up out of his chains and went to go join the gathering army in Oellon. The people there were so delighted to see him, unchained and free at last, able to follow his heart into the throes of battle. Able to give up his life for the lives of the future generations and the future of the Earth itself. 

Naia and Mamon then went to Wolver, who was still in his chains, a sword plunged into his throat. Naia sang him her spell. She sang it calmly and clearly and confidently and secretively. And her melody flowed over his chains and into the bindings holding them together. Naia’s song seeped into them and loosened them. But since Wolver’s bindings were physical as well as spiritual, Wolver had to use his own strength to help break the bindings. 

And he had grown big enough and strong enough that he could. He could break the bindings. So he thrashed and kicked and writhed until all the chains were off of him. Naia took the sword out from his throat so that he could speak with his voice again. Savilig and all four of the children were overjoyed. They embraced each other, and they went off to join the war. 

Harimon had grown so large that they could easily just rise up out of the sea. And so that is what they did. And everyone was awestruck and stunned to see their vast, mighty, powerful form towering over the lands, harbringing death and destruction to any and all enemies, harbringing the end. Harimon breathed deeply of the air, and savoured in their life above the surface. They knew that it would be short, that the battle was coming soon and in the battle they would die. In the battle everyone would die. 

Mammon and Naia joined the ranks of the soldiers, dispersing all the knowledge they knew about the Uzras and what their weaknesses were and how it was possible to defeat them. The two rallied the troops and instilled courage into the hearts of everyone who they met. 

And all families were reunited, all communities were brought together, and the whole of all the Yemars and all their many allies embraced and rejoiced. The atmosphere in the air was one of excited, buzzing anticipation, as much as there was fear present in all the hearts of all the people. They were doing it. They were doing it. They were doing it at last and now, at this point, no-one could stop them. 

And so all the forces of the Yemars and their allies were ready. 

But the forces of the Uzras had been readying themselves for battle too. They had seen the signs and portents of the end times. They had seen the northern lights blazing, burning brighter than they ever had before, they had seen the rivers rushing faster than they normally did, they had seen the storms that battled and battered their settlements. And they knew that they had to prepare. For they would not give up their world and their domination without a fight. And they didn’t care who had to die in that fight, if everyone had to die in the fight. They would bring their own sort of revenge to the ones who were set out to oppose their rule. 

So all the living Uzras got prepared for the battle. Karkion prepared, and Thrash prepared, and Geyna prepared, and Spirug prepared. All the dead Uzras in the halls of Forkava prepared. All the people with power and influence and wealth and comfort organized themselves into their own army. And they made an army built on inequality, built on power and domination and subordination, because that was all they knew. And they took their many weapons and sharpened them. 

For three years before the beginning of the final battle, there was a never ending winter. There were storms and blizzards and harsh, vast, biting winds the likes of which the world had never seen before and the likes of which the world would never see after. This was nature preparing itself for the war. This was the life force of Puri making Their wrath known to the world. 

The wall that the Uzras had created for themselves had all but crumbled up until the point before the three-year winter, years upon years of winds and vines and water and ice and tree roots cracking it apart and crumbling it away. But the winds and the storms of this great winter tore down the last remaining stones of the wall once and for all. The wind and the storms and the snow and the winters reduced the final protection that the Uzras had against the attacking hordes into nothing but a pile of crumbled, scattered rock. 

The dead of Oellon needed a way to rise up from the depths of the lands and enter the land of the living. And they were willing to sacrifice anything in order to make that happen. And so they built a ship, a magical ship, entangled and woven with many enchantments, with the enchantments and magic of every single person of Oellon. And they built the physical body of the boat with what they had on hand, what they had that was important to them and their bodies. And so they built the boat with their fingernails. 

They rose out of the fog, and rose into the world of the living. The living Yemars welcomed them and cheered them on and they embraced the loved ones that had passed on to the other world. Descendants and ancestors came together. And all people, living or dead, came together. For all Yemars and Yemar-allied folk, living or dead, were one unending community, and they always had been, and they always would be. 

Finally, it was time for the battle. Ryan blew his horn, loud and echoing throughout all the lands everywhere, signalling that the battle had begun. And the two great armies faced each other. And they began their final showdown. They had courage in their hearts and determination in their souls. They had resolve in their spirits. And the Yemars had selflessness in their bodies and hope in their minds. 

On the side of the Uzras all the Uzras loyal to Karkion and their allies fought. There was Spirug, Derlion, Ryan, Hali, Moni, Geyna, Thrash, Rayr, Avulci, Otis, Funaraya, Valdion, Tovera, Garvali, Hatali, Amnee, Varli, and many many others whose names have not been named in this account of the events of the world. 

On the side of the Yemars, all the Yemars subjugated by the Uzras fought. There was Gylla, Filla, Arder, Naia, Mira, Mamon, Pres, Nolvi, Firik, Fiall, Wolver, Oella, Harimon, Molia, Caliom, Eren, Modim, Kaldi, Morion, Vidarim, Varlig, Lewinn, Kyanon, Lieu, Karti, Eiley, Saviligg, Aldo, Sakava, Haddalfi, Sadali, Dramari, Yarrothi, and many many others who have not been named in this account of the events of the world. 

On the side of the Yemars, the Uzras who were allies and loyal to the Yemars fought as well. Particularly those Uzras who had realized how terrible the system was when they were in or near their youth. There, fighting with the Yemars, there were the Uzras Sheen, Holder, Monnia, Fykll, Farrook, Feyna, as well as others, not numbering many but not numbering few either, who fought alongside the Yemars. 

There fighting with the Yemars were also the beings that were not Yemars or Uzras, but were nonetheless subjugated and oppressed by the Uzras. For example Fryer the dog was fighting on the side of the Yemars, and so were his comrade dogs from other places. The pig from Forkava was fighting as well. For every creature needs freedom and equality. And every creature deserves freedom and equality. 

On the side of the Yemars nature itself fought. The forests fought, the fields fought, the snowdrifts fought, the ice fought, the tundra fought, the blazing sands fought. The oceans fought, the lakes fought, the rivers fought, the ponds and streams and brooks fought. The herbs and trees and bushes and shrubs and vines and grasses fought. The winds and the storms and the rain and the lightning fought. The hail fought, the fire fought. It all aligned itself with the same purpose. The purpose to free the world of Karkion and his followers. 

Harimon fought Thrash. It was a great and bloody battle, and both sides were evenly matched. Both sides were equally willing to see the battle out to its bloody, bloody end. Thrash ran to Harimon and plunged his sword into them. But as he was doing so, Hari bit him with their venomous fangs. And Hari knew that the poison running through his blood would kill him. And so they died, bleeding out from the sword wound, satisfied that they had avenged their death. Thrash took nine steps forwards, and there he collapsed onto the ground, poisoned and dead and defeated at long last, their cruelty and violence forever gone from this world. 

Wolver fought against an Uzra named Santion, who was specifically birthed in order to fight and kill Wolver during the final battle. But Wolver was powerful and strong, fuelled by his rage and his need for vengeance, fuelled by his love and his need for change. And Santion could not defeat him easily. They fought for three days and three nights straight, and once they were nearly dead from the exhaustion, they both killed each other. 

Lewinn threw Karkion from his back and rushed and raged and snapped and bit at any Uzra soldiers who got close to him. He deftly dodged arrows and swords, and with his sharp teeth he killed many an Uzra warrior. The Uzras were not expecting at all for Karkion’s loyal horse to betray them. But, all things considered, that is exactly what they should have been expecting. 

Mira fought with her great spells, plowing down soldier after soldier after soldier. Her knowledge proved invaluable to the battle. And all who looked upon her saw the fire and the anger in her eyes, saw and confidence and the bravery with which she moved ever so fluidly through the battlefield. And all who saw her felt a great fear within their hearts, they knew that this was truly the reckoning, they knew that it was truly time for everything to change. 

Mamon fought Ryan. And their reason for doing this was not a very complicated one. For not only did Ryan spy for the Uzras, not only did he make it convenient and easy for the Uzras to travel across the whole world, bringing their violence and their subjugation, but he had also enchanted a magic law of the Uzras to make it more powerful. 

The law was that the Uzras would create three types of people: the rulers, who were Karkion and Geyna and their inner circle; the followers, who were all the Uzras and the few privileged Yemars who would be the people who owned the lands and built their wealth; and the ruled, the people who would be dominated by the Uzras. Now, Karkion himself had drafted this rule. But in order to make it magically binding, they needed three drops of blood, one for each group of people. Ryan had provided that blood, and Karkion’s reign had grown stronger. 

And so Mamon fought Ryan to get back at him for this unforgivable crime. And the two fought long and hard, using any and all the magics that they had to attack each other. They fought and they fought until each one grew increasingly injured, increasingly weary, increasingly closer to death. And then finally, Mamon pierced a magic dart right into Ryan’s chest, right between the two of his topmost ribs. And Ryan at that very moment plunged his sword into Mamon’s stomach. There they died together, wrapped in bloody battle. 

Now the one to kill Karkion was Naia. His disowned Yemar daughter who had chosen to suffer and hurt alongside her mother’s people instead of hurting and ruling alongside her father’s. The one who killed Karkion was Naia, the biological and adopted mother and caretaker of so many, Uzra and Yemar alike. The one who killed Karkion was the very person he had brought into the world by assaulting a Yemar woman. 

And so Naia strung her bow, in the midst of the battle raging all around her, amidst the chaos and the bloodshed and the horror and the hope. And she looked over to where Karkion was battling his foes. She aimed, and whispered a honing spell onto the arrow. And she let it fly. The arrow pierced the breast of Karkion before he even noticed it coming. She got him by surprise and so therefore she could kill him. 

The battle raged on, and Uzras and Yemars both alike were dying. 

Amidst the chaos, the children of Wolver finally caught up with the chariots of the sun and the moon. They swallowed the sun and the moon whole, and for a great, terrible moment the whole battlefield was encased in darkness. 

None of the people could see what was going on, but the fire Yemars created fires to light the way for the warriors. And the battle raged on, growing more desperate and more dangerous and more chaotic and more bloody by the second. The Yemars had the advantage of superior numbers, but the Uzras were still powerful, too powerful. 

The wolf-people cast out the sun and the moon from within their bodies, and the two heavenly bodies were now without fetters, without bindings or control. For all the metal had been eroded in the stomachs of the wolves. Now free, the sun and the moon fought on the side of the Yemars, and they had more power than ever before. 

Eventually the battle was over. Each and every single warrior who participated had died, except for a handful. There were a few Yemars who lived. There were a few Markavs who lived. There were a few Tzimars, both light and dark, who lived. There were a few Wolf-People who lived. And there were a few animals of each and every kind who lived. 

And all the children of all the races, who were not a part of the battle, they also lived, being hidden deep in the wood of trees by Puri’s forests themselves. 

The Uzras who lived were all on the Yemars’ side. Sheen and Monnia and Holder were alive. They were ready to build a new world that would be free of all the suffering and the subjugation of the previous world that had preceded it. And they knew what they needed to do in order to make that happen. 

The surviving adults said to the children that now it was time to hide deep underground. And the children emerged from the tree trunks that were protecting them and all gathered together. Children of all types, all standing on the same blood-soaked field. Markavs, Tzimars, Wolf-Children, Yemars, Uzras. The animals were all there too, standing with the people. 

Puri’s earth came up and swallowed them all, so that they were hidden in a pocket deep inside of Them, so that they were all safe from the final birthing pains of the new world, which was very nearly about to be born. 

And so from the side of the universe that was cold and the dark, darkness and chill came all upon the lands, freezing everything solid. And then, from the side of the universe with the heat and the light, a fire came, burning everything to ash. And finally, the world was free of everything the Uzras had built and created to subjugate it and its people. 

The survivors all emerged into this world of ash, and they looked around, stunned. 

Oella, now a spirit, came forth and brought the rains that she was so at one with. The sky, with its new sun and moon, clouded over in a vast, unending stretch of glowing grey clouds that blanketed the whole world. And then the rains came down, cool and filled with energy and life, torrential as they fell upon the earth, mingling with the ash and sending the ash down into into the ground. 

The ash all mingled with the soil, fertilizing it. And from that fertilized soil sprang all sorts of new life. There were fields and prairies and savannah and grassland. There were deserts and badlands. There were forests of all types, with all types of trees. There was frozen tundra. There were coral reefs and kelp forests. There were lakes and rivers and ponds and streams and brooks. There was everything that had once been part of Puri, so many years ago. 

Everything was wild and free, unfettered and indomitable and unharmed. Just as it was so very many years ago before Karkion had emerged into the world. And Puri was fully alive, fully in Their power, and stronger than ever. 

These new wild lands would protect everyone. One only had to go within them and they would find food that did not have to be farmed and cultivated, they would find food that would just be available to be picked and eaten. And they would find so much more, as well. 

They could all feel Puri, all feel the greatness of Puri, all around them.

All the Yemars and allied people went back to their people, their family, their friends, their communities. All the Yemars and allied people went back to their loved ones. All the Yemars and allied people went back to where they belonged. And they all belonged all together. And they all spent the rest of eternity all together. 
 
Holder and Sheen and Monnia took the Uzra children up upon a hill that overlooked the wild lands. And there they told them the truth. They told them the truth about who Karkion was and what he had done, about who his followers were and what they had done. They told them the truth about all the suffering and the grief and the injustices that the Uzras had caused and all the tribulations that the Yemars had to suffer through. They told them of all the things they themselves had learned in Oellon, and the children listened. 

Holder and Sheen and Monnia also told the children that they could embark on a new path, they could lead their people on a new path. They told the children that the Uzras were capable of kindness and softness and humility. They were capable of oneness with nature and Puri and all people. They just had to learn how to embody those qualities and share them with others. They just had to turn away from what their parents taught them and turn instead to what the people needed them to learn. And again, the children listened. 

And so the new world was wild and beautiful, and everyone embraced their differences and embraced their equality to work together and to make better lives for everyone. There were no hierarchies anymore. And community spread farther than anyone had previously thought it capable of spreading. 

Sheen and Monnia had a child and they named the child Reconciliation. Because in this harmonious, young world, that was what the Uzra children needed to be and that was what the Uzra children needed to bring. 

They raised all the Uzra children into kind teenagers and young adults. 

But there was still trouble around the corner. A sneaky Uzra, Hali, had managed to survive the birthing pains of the new era. And he was out to get revenge against the traitor Uzras and bring the Uzra children back into the side of evil. 

He challenged Sheen and Holder and Monnia to fight. And so they fought. In a world of peace, they fought. And they all died. This was the last battle that the world would ever see, and after this the youths from all backgrounds and heritages would come together to pave the new way forwards. A way of peace. 

A way of community, a way of equality, a way of harmony with the natural world and a way of solidarity between all the different types of people and animals. A way of peace that was stronger even than the peace that had preceded it. Way of peace that could never be broken, not by anyone or anything. 

Because now everyone knew the consequences of breaking the peace. Now everyone knew the consequences of breaking the solidarity. And now everyone knew what to do if anyone tried to subjugate them ever again. The sordid history of the world gave the world strength and protection, it gave the people strength and protection. 

And all the people gave strength and protection and life and love to all of each other. 

And all the martyrs looked out from Oellon and saw that they had succeeded, that their sacrifices were truly meaningful. 

And Puri was in the fullness of Their life, and the fullness of Their protection, and the fullness of Their power. And They would be forever. 

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If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is FSairuv@mas.to and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.