“Twenty of us, and a decade later, a thousand more. We first twenty, we were given gifts our children were not. We were stronger, faster, those of us who wielded mana, we did so with great potency… Such as myself. Most importantly, perhaps, we did not age. Our gifts were many and valuable, though it took many years for us to truly appreciate the differences between ourselves and those we came to see as our children. Leadership fell, naturally, to us, we took on different roles. My husband, Dokata, Osa, and Pyranos, those three together took to Datuk’s great beasts, clearing a path for our kith to settle down… Where they passed, I followed, reforging the land to suit the needs of our people. Great winds and terrible storms I summoned, wearing away at mountains and cliffs, carving out rivers, laying seeds, levelling hills… I spent decades at such work, I could spend weeks, stood before a single hill, blasting it with wind and rain until there was no hill any more… And then I’d do it again the next hill over. For centuries, this was my life’s work.” She shrugged. “Looking back, it sounds boring, but… It was absorbing, meaningful, it was life at work… I don’t know if I could explain, in truth, but suffice it to say, the world as you see it… Most of it, is my design.”
She knelt, plucking a pink and white flower from the ground, spinning it slowly between index finger and thumb. “I didn’t create the flowers. I just planted them.” She looked up at Celuêl, once more. “Everything I placed, is Datuk’s creation. I simply… Rearranged it, I suppose. This… This is what I was, to my people, and to my world. That was a long time ago. Now, I am a guide, a shepard, to my children. They look to my wealth of experience, and assume I have the answers to whatsoever ails them. I do my best to provide what answers I can, but honestly, it is rare that such a thing comes easily.”
