At first, there was but shadow and mist.
There is no single point in time that the god could identify as a 'start'. No sudden awakening, or a sense of being. It was more as if he had become more acclimated to the world. As if consciousness were merely another phase in a cycle for which beginning and end had no meaning. But such things were not puzzling to the ancient god of forests. Existence was a fickle thing, to him, and he accepted all as it was and all as it could be. He moved silently across the floor of the forest as he drank in the sounds and sights. He observed the stars in the sky and the shifting of the earth and the growing light far in the distance. He could see it taking shape, the world, in his mind's eye. He could see it's shifting and myriad form. And he knew that he could change it. At a whim, light turned to dark. With another, fire froze to ice. With a touch a tree flowed like water, flowers blooming where it touched the ground. He worked wonders by piece, weaving light and song into the sky itself. It was a work of beauty, and these early times filled the god with a sense of profound joy. A content glow that to a mortal could be described only as love.
Of course, that was when he found Them. A single hairless ape wandered through the forest, cold and scared. It feared the changing mists, the shapes in the dark and the faces painted in relief upon the blackened bark of burned trees. The hairless ape, the god knew, was special. He knew that this strange, tiny creature, saw the same essence of the world the god did. A trait that he had not found in any of the baying wolves or whirling birds that populated these green lands. That small hairless ape might balk at the strangeness of it, but they could see it. They could feel it, and touch it. And as the God reached out to the small creature, the creature fled in fear. It ran across the twisting roots as grunts of fear and bewilderment echoed through empty nothing. The God flowed around and behind the creature, keeping pace as he laughed. He bent sound and light in those misty halls, and brought strange life to the faces in the dark. Perhaps, the god thought, it could show this fearful creature that there was nothing to fear. It could unleash the true beauty hidden within the depths of the world, the songs written in silence and the gentle dance of creeping vines.
Then with a roar and a scream and a series of snapping, crunching sounds, the small creature was eaten by a bear.
Hmm. It seemed, perhaps, there WAS something to fear for little creatures.
Nonetheless, the god had found more of the creatures. Huddled together in a cave clad in furs and leaves. Wielding in their hands the instruments of survival, carved from rock and wood. He watched them until the break of dawn and the falling of night, and he continued watching them as light danced through the sky. He wove for them webs of words and twiested lyrics. He fed them dreams of forgotten beasts and the birth of gods. He followed in their footsteps to collect that which they lost, to treasure forever. For the god was in love, mesmerised by these strange creatures, by the beauty they saw in the world. He knew they were not like him. And yet, they were far more likely him than anything else in this world. He gave them many gifts, weaving great works into the land around them. Plants that sang eerie songs in the winter night, stars that howled from the darkened sky, beasts that flowed across tree bark as readily as they flowed through the gentle rivers of this land. Perhaps they appreciated his gifts, perhaps they did not. It did not matter. In his love he would make them a thousand more, as he twisted the shadows of the world to his every whim.
One day, a small creature wandered far from where the others remained. A truly tiny example, it followed a trail of fallen dreams. Eagerly the god watched, revealing itself silently and piece by piece. So did the boy and the god first meet, under windswept willow trees by the side of a lake like a mirror.
So the boy fed the god his dreams and his lost things, and so the god did teach the boy how to speak to the world. How to listen the whispers of the elder trees, and to hold the moon in hand. The boy returned to his people, and whispered secrets into the world. The god bore witness as the boy wove a strange fire into the beast that had hunted his father. So did the boy see the names of the future in the position of the stars. And in his dreams the boy walked among those stars and asked them for guidance, that he might see the true way. He walked between the worlds of the living and the dead and he spoke to all things. For he knew that it was in darkness and mist that the world became fluid, and that it was in the unknown that one found the greatest power.
Yet, one day, the boy came to the god a man. A man who was clothed in power and admiration, blessed with many children and burdened by many responsibilities. The god came to greet the boy by the side of the lake, clothed in whispered promises and stone arrowheads. The god reached out and touched upon the lake, pulling colour from it's surface and weaving it's reflections into the sky.
"Water," said the man.
And at once, the god dropped the lake. For it was indeed a lake the god had been holding, and lakes had weight. The water cascades through the god's fingers, flowing back into it's place, the reflection of trees shimmering in the air.
"Light," said the man.
And the reflections melted away, returning to their proper positions. For a reflection is an artifact of light, and is cast only upon a mirroring surface.
It was now that the god knew confusion, and fear. For where there had been a hundred secrets and a hundred possibilities, now there were none. The twisting infinity of the world fell away before him, replaced by cold, stark reality. The god looked down at this world and knew at once the meaning of water, and the meaning of light. And it did not want to know. For in the knowing it had formed truth from the secrets, an immutable and untouchable truth.
Those who love may lash out at the object of their affection, and so did the god lash out at the man. He reached out and the darkened faces turned to hostile growls. The sky trembled and the trees croaked and hands grasped at the boy from within his own tattered clothing. And so did the man cry out the names of the sky and the names of the earth. And as he named each, they went silent. And so did he name the trees and their branches, and so did he name the beasts and their homes. And each fell silent. Confused and afraid the god lashed out once more, and this time he reached deep into the man's heart. He reached for the broken things and the forgotten things, the buried things and the burning things that all creatures bore within them. With the sound of a million shrieking winds did he tear at the man, and the man screamed without voice. Faced with the roiling ocean of darkness within him, insects poured like water from every orifice of the man's body. Clawed hands tore at his skin from within, pushing ever outwards as if every demon buried within sought to escape in this moment. For although the man had prepared many years for this confrontation he faced now the wrath of a god.
"Sommler," said the man.
And with that simple word, he had named that which had never sought to be named. So did Sommler, for now truly he was such, feel himself torn down from the skies and ripped from the earth. He was pulled from the eyes of newborn children and the soft, simmering dreams of the dying. Screaming with a throat of flesh and wood, howling with mouths of bark and stone, Sommler was born anew into the world. Branded, betrayed, broken. And so he fled, leaving behind the Man of Many Names, never to see him again. He fled into the woods, hiding in shadows and dusk from the burning clarity of light. From the water that fell from the sky and the light that scoured down from it.
So ended the days of darkness, and began the days of fire.
Sommler wandered the world anew, but pain and loss tempered the love that had once filled him. He watched as the grass, and the beetles and the very sun and moon were named. He saw as man invented fire, and used it to light the dark. To turn the mystery of shadows into the clarity of light. The beauty of their songs tempered by names and places, the beauty of their dreams tempered by understanding and innovation. So did Sommler watch the world he had been born into die, driven out of the homes of the humans. For now they too had names of their own. What had Sommler done to deserve such treatment? What had the creatures done to the world? And, when all things were named in truth and understood in full.... what place would there be for Sommler?
So did Sommler wander the wilds, alone and outcast, as man grew ever greater and more powerful. So too did he ponder in darkness, in the shadows cast by the brightest light of all.
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