Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.
Before Gaius Primus, there was nothing. Nothing that mattered. Not that the first peoples of their land didn't matter, but the land had no true awareness of them. Before Primus, Alera was nothing; she knew nothing. None of them knew anything.
The central stones rumbled to themselves. The western fires hissed weakly in response, penned off from the rest of the world by the ice of the earliest of eras. Lightning split the sky in the south, but nothing cared. Nothing took shelter. The nearest peoples sheltered far away in their eastern jungle, not even knowing of the storm. The east gloried in its waters, which gave life to its inhabitants, but, at that time, could claim no life of their own. What trees that grew up north, free of the poisonous influence of the jungle people, had no movement to give but what the wind itself afforded them. Metal lay dormant beneath the roots of the land itself.
Then, the Romans come to Carna, landing in Alera, though it was not called that at the time. They were numerous and fascinating, with their industrious devices and unprecedented tactics. Stranger still was their artistry, which would bring the land to life.
From the west, they brought igneous rock, tempered and born in the heart of the earth of itself, the hottest fire imaginable. From the north, they transported soil with the remains of long-dead trees, newly-thawed from permafrost. The southern sands they gathered when the wind was low and did not sweep it away. From the east, they brought river rocks; they dug up metal from underneath their capital. To their ruler, the greatest stone carvers and artisans brought a gift of epic proportions: a map, brought to life by their exquisite shaping, every part perfect in geography, every part formed of the right stone.
Fire in rock called to wind in sand; water and wood in soil whispered to the remains of river's glory; metal underlay and stabilized; earth was. And, suddenly, or slowly, depending on whose measure of time you believed, Alera came to life. Then, again suddenly or again slowly, she showed herself.
"Bother, I've gone mad."
Stories and history would never speak of beings like Alera or even Alera herself, but the people did. Their eventual exclamation of "Great Furies!" lent evidence to that. And, while it was true that Alera herself was the most humanlike, the most balanced, of those beings, formed from all elements as she was, there were more of them. Ancient beyond measure, knowledgable beyond belief, massive beyond comprehension, powerful beyond imagination or dream.
Every single one of them was intelligent; every single one of them sane. Even Thana and Garados, though Alera could be forgiven for being mistaken on that point. She had spent so much time among humans that she'd started to act like them, think like them, talk like them, see the world like them, judge others by their standards. She'd assimilated so much of human culture and comprehension that she'd lost some of her own.
The Canim were not insane; their culture and instincts and ingrained thought processes, even their capacity for "magic," were simply alien.
The Maret were not insane; their culture and chala and organization and language were simply incomprehensible.
The Great Furies were not insane; they simply were beyond the measure or comprehension of any who thought like mortal beings.