Before the Earth came into being, there was a nothing that filled the existence of every living thing. It was defined as darkness, but that was only a relative term, since no one had seen darkness before. The only thing in this darkness was thirteen glowing stones in a circle, by thirteen sleeping figures.
The first of the thirteen woke up and took her glowing sphere out from under her head. Her stone was a garnet and shone with a proud red vibrancy. She looked at it quietly with a child-like curiosity and innocence before placing in down in the center of the circle. The garnet grew into a glowing sphere; slowly loosing it’s scarlet color as it grew in size and intensity. This she called “Sun” and named herself its keeper. One kept Sun’s rays controlled and modest, bright but not too hot, and set it spinning, more out of her playfulness than for an actual purpose. After a time, the second rose from the heat and shine of the One’s Sun. He smiled at her playful responsibility and curiosity as he picked up the stone at his feet. His stone was a deep amethyst and glowed on its own a dark purple, beside the backlit from the sun. Two smiled and threw the Amethyst into a path around Sun. It spun around and around, growing in size as it traveled. One smiled with joy at the stone circling her creation. In her distraction, Sun stopped spinning around itself; One didn’t notice and smiled at Two while watching the second creation go around the first. Soon the two got bored with it and woke up Three, who shook her head fondly at the toy they had made. She was caring and was willing to dismiss her stone to make them happy. Humoring One and Two, she picked up her aquamarine and spun it around the amethyst seven times until the blue- green stone covered it. Then she let the aquamarine calm into the stone, splashing around the surface of the amethyst. Three called this “Water” before going to sleep again, leaving One in Two’s care.
The fourth woke up and calmly watched One and Two before gently picking up the amethyst and aventurine creation. He took his stone, a diamond, and wrapped it around the stone. Because the size of the amethyst aventurine was so large, the diamond covered it thinly. A white layer covered the entire stone, lying above the water and amethyst to create a bubble. One laughed with childish glee as Four replaced the stone on it’s way around the sun. Four called the new stone “Earth,” and watched it quietly. Five woke up after sleeping restlessly and saw Earth and Sun. She smiled at One’s joy and, having no powers herself, gave One her emerald to do as she would. Five watched One cover the rest of Two’s stone with the green. She called the covering “Plants.” Several times more the Earth went around the sun, then Five decided that Earth would do better with more color and she woke up wise Six. Six was not pleased with being woken up, but when presented with Five’s problem, Six focused on it. He decided, however, that Five’s true concern lay with how barren Earth seemed, rather than the lack of colors; he thought it was quite colorful enough. He spent the remainder of his time carving his stone into several different creatures, some with gills and some with fins. He placed them all in Three’s creation. One was even more pleased with the new creations moving about in the water and eating the plants; she squealed her joy and woke up Seven. Seven went unnoticed and she sat quietly in the corner turning her stone over and over in her hands, admiring yet jealous of One’s Sun. Her stone, a ruby, started getting hotter and harder to handle, but Seven didn’t notice. No one realized she was there until Eight woke up and asked her what she was doing. Seven, surprised, dropped her stone and burned Eight’s foot, causing a sickly sweet smell to fill the air. She picked it up again, secretly amused, calling it “Fire” and saved it for herself. Seeing the pain that Fire caused Eight, One shrugged at them and turned to watch the Earth go around the Sun. Eight noticed One’s interest in the creatures on Earth and proceeded to carve large and small animals out of his stone peridot and gave them to One to set on the Earth. One eagerly took them and gave some to Two and Four to help place. Nine woke up as Eight continued to carve and One, Two, and Four were placing the animals around the Earth. Nine had an idea and carved from her sapphire stone winged animals with beaks. She tapped Four on the shoulder when she was done and handed him her creations, which she called “Birds.”
Five mused in the background, trying to figure out what she thought was wrong with Earth; She woke Ten and asked him. He crushed his stone and handed it to her telling her to scatter the pieces. She did so, and the pieces turned into colored plants, which she called “Flowers.” Eleven woke up as Ten went back to sleep, and created Tall plants from amber, which she called “Trees.” Twelve woke up and created “Moon,” from his moonstone, and sent it spinning around Earth.
At last, Thirteen woke up and saw the Earth and it’s creatures; She saw both day and night and the harmony in which the plants and animals lived. She decided to live on the Earth and rule it with her brothers and sisters. Deep in her heart she felt something was missing. She decided not to use her stone of Zircon, but instead took pieces of adamantine coal and clay to fashion what she called “Humans.”
“These,” she said, “will be the caretakers of the Earth and they will treat it as if they had created it.”
But the humans didn’t care for the animals and thought only of themselves; they discovered what the Earth had to offer and wanted it for their own. Thirteen tried to show the humans the good things about Earth and why it was better if everyone shared. This worked and soon they found all the beautiful things on Earth.
Seven was sitting playing with her creation; “Fire,” when she saw two humans sitting on a rock holding hands and watching the fish in the water. Seven snickered at them and decided to test these curious creatures. Not seeing Thirteen in sight, Seven threw a piece of her fire down on one of the humans. A sickly sweet smell, like the smell that came from Eight, rose into the air. Seven smiled and threw a little down for the other human.
The people near by saw the fire kill their friends, but they also wondered whether it would keep them warm at night as well and allow easier hunting. And so, they learned how to create fire and use it. Seven was angry that the humans had learned about her toy, and tried to stop her secret from getting out. She threw down the rest of her stone of fire and let the winds scatter it across the grass creating a sea of fire. Thirteen noticed the fire chasing her humans and took the humans in the palm of her hand to heaven, where they stayed until the fire had died down at the water. Furious at Seven, the remaining twelve cast her down into a tree deep within a forest in the middle of the world, made it invisible so that no human could discover where it was and free her. Five, Six, Eight, Ten, and Eleven set to work again trying to repair the things that were destroyed; but none of it was the same for they didn’t have any more of their stones left and had very little resources in which to create the plants and animals again. When everything was somewhat the way it was, humans were placed on the earth again. The Twelve lay down to sleep and let the humans rule the world the way they wished.
Filed under: Paradise Lost by Bri
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