𝕺𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖚𝖕𝖔𝖓 𝖆 𝖙𝖎𝖒𝖊 there was a verdant land of lush and loam, where beast and fey danced among the many thick tree trunks. The land had a name spoken and spelled only in the secret language of the green, gifted by the great wandering gods who floated surreptitiously along the milky whites of the night sky. Those who knew the name of the land spoke it in hushed tones, in reverence and respect of its importance. The name was not to leave the tongue so lightly, lest its curving syllables become too thick and sweet like honey.

The beasts of the land did not know the name, nor did they care to know. They were happy to hungrily feast upon the lush and rest upon the loam. They never took too much, for the land provided just enough. When the loam grew too soft under a beast’s feet and they succumbed their bodies to its comfort, they gave themselves back to the land to cycle the lush anew.

The fey had learned the name of the land long before the world had time and so they were sure to speak of it in secret. As the gods had passed their secrets to the fey, so they also passed their responsibilities. And so the fey became the shepherds of the beasts, tending to and protecting their flocks and the land alike. They rarely complained, as the land and sky awarded more than adequate compensation for the work needed.

Thus, every beast and bird, every sprout and sprig, every rock and babbling brook had a fey as its shepherd. The land was watched and tended. The hum of harmony vibrated in a repeating wave of calm and perfection.


Of course this is where we enter the race of man to fuck things up.


They emerged from the north, made curious by the beauty and the utility of the lush and loam. Their greedy eyes bulged at the size of the nourished beasts. They licked their lips with dreams of overfull bellies, of conquered summits, and of rapacious wants made manifest.

So they took, took with no regard for the agreements of the green, took in spite of the desperate pleas of the fey, took without the permission of the gods.

The gods did not like this.

They smelled the blood on the tongues and nails of men and they raged. For one thousand days, the sky rained fire on the land’s interlopers. It was a hot, white fire that spared the beasts and fey but scorched the skin of men as they fled. At night, the stars arranged into hateful symbols that burned into the eyes of the men who so foolishly looked. The rivers flooded the caves where the men tried to hide, the ground shook violently the trees where the men had climbed to escape.

But the men did not flee the land. Their tenacity emboldened them to the oppressive green gods. They built tools and shelters to fend off the elements, they adapted their wants to make them stronger to the gods’ adversity. Eventually, they began to take from the land again.

With ire and confusion, the gods granted men a place on the land. A begrudging truce was made, where man and beast and fey and god lived shakily in contract. The lush and loam belonged to all, and all were allowed to dance, if only to keep the hum of harmony vibrating at an even wavelength. The gods knew that, should the secrets be revealed and should the hum grow too loud or discordant, that it would be the end of all dance, of all lush and loam, and that the verdant green would become forever black.