The world of Amzharr was created by the divine elementals, Nature and Time. To almost all the peoples of Amzharr they are known simply as The Creators. Nature delicately weaved the world together with thoughtful fingers, before calling the immortal peoples into existence so that they could explore her miracle and sing praises to her for the wondrousness of her creation.
Tears of joy cascaded from Nature’s many eyes, as she watched her perfect people explore her perfect world, bringing about the first rain. The sacred drops pooled in craggy cradles on mighty mountain peaks. They created crystal clear puddles that grew steadily until the water began to overrun, meet partners and give birth to infant rivers that playfully chased each other down the slopes, zigging and zagging with gurgling giggles, before joining with their playmates to cross planes, cut through forests, and eventually tumble with excited roars into the oceans.
The world turned and Nature smiled. Time stood beside her, as much intrigued by the creation as Nature was besotted with it. Together the Elementals would watch the plants grow, the creatures roam, and the immortals pass their days. Their gaze became the sun’s light. Warm smiles fuelled by the sweet smells of incense burnt, and wreaths of flowers offered, at great altars in Nature’s honour. However, over time exaltation withered to expectation. The immortals became inured to their world and began to look for new distractions. Nature began to feel ignored by the people she had given life to and withdrew from her observations. The sun faded in the sky as Time stood alone, continuing her vigil, uncertain what to make of the immortals’ abandonment of their matriarch.
As Time watched the immortals erratically explore the world. She could not help but wonder if there was something missing. Had Nature overlooked something in her pursuit of perfection? The world had been designed with the attention to detail that only a being with no beginning and no end could bring to bear. Each plant and each creature had a role and a reason for being. Sophisticated synergies, such as those between flowers and insects in our own world, bound species to species, even squirrels with the capacity for speech played an important role in maintaining the delicate balance that Nature had created in Amzharr, with the exception of one.
The only creatures that did not seem to exist in harmony with the world were the immortals. Whilst superior in so many ways to the other creatures their interactions with their habitat were awkward, so much so that both the immortals and their life choices were regularly a topic of intense debate and deeply furrowed brows for the talking squirrels who considered them to be irksome and irrational. It was almost as though the immortals served no purpose in the world other than to worship Nature.
Time reflected upon her hypothesis. She attempted to discuss it with Nature, but the deity felt so betrayed by the immortals that she shunned Amzharr. Nature would not be drawn into so much as the briefest exchange on the subject of either the world, or its people.
Disappointed by Nature’s deep disinterest, Time resolved to restore the connection that had been severed between the world and its mother. The issue, she decided, was not with Amzharr, but with the people who lived in it. They had become boorish and disrespectful of the planet. They spent their days hunting, eating, and sleeping with no thought for consequence or conservation. Time decided that the immortals needed a relationship with the planet that went beyond eating to fill empty stomachs and drinking to placate thirsty throats. So, she set about crafting her own gift for the world of Amzharr.
Nature sat in the cool shade of the Eternity tree. Its mighty branches bowed under the weight of its impossible fruit, each ripe and rotten at the same time. Time approached slowly, a bundle of soft white cloth in her arms. Nature looked up as she heard a discordant, gurgling cry from the bundle. Time rearranged the swaddling clothes to reveal a tiny baby. It was, in almost every way, like the ones the immortals gave birth to, but much smaller.
Nature recoiled from the child, no longer wanting to have anything to do with the immortals who had turned their backs on her. As Time brought the baby beneath the boughs of the tree Nature realised that the child was not an offspring of the immortals. It may have looked like one, but there was something about it that felt different. It seemed to possess the same limitless potential Nature had given the immortals to learn and grow, but it was all squeezed into a creature that was somehow restricted, and around its neck was a tiny silver locket.
“What is it?” Nature asked.
“It’s a he.” Time replied, holding the small boy to her chest to allow him to feed.
“He’s not an immortal.” Nature said.
“No, he’s something different, a child who will live a short life and then disappear from existence.” Time explained.
“What is there to be excited about in that?” Nature asked, feigning indifference as the child piqued her interest.
“In and of itself nothing,” Time replied adjusting the positioning of the baby so that Nature could see the locket that hung around his neck. “Remove it and look inside.”
Nature carefully removed the small silver necklace, doing her best to not interrupt the hungry little child’s meal. She opened the unremarkable sliver box attached to the equally understated silver chain. Inside cogs turned as tiny, misshaped creatures, roughly human in shape, worked away, she assumed, to keep the cogs running.
“What is this?” Nature asked turning the open locket around in her palm, finding it hard to focus on the tiny workers long enough to really see what they looked like. Although she had the distinct impression that this was for the best. From what she could make out they did not appear to be traditionally beautiful.
“It is the destiny of his race. It is their purpose, their reason for being, their future and their place in Amzharr, and it is my gift to you.” Time replied.
“And what is any of that to me?” Nature asked in a dry tone that tried desperately to disguise her rapidly growing excitement.
“It is my gift to you. Their purpose is for you to choose.” Time replied, knowing Nature well enough to know she would not be able to resist this offer. Time turned away from Nature and carried the baby towards the room where Amzharr spun silently.
Two days later the warmth of the sun once again fell on Amzharr, and in a forest an immortal ran towards the urgent cries of a hungry child.
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