Raven levitated up off the floor and hovered slowly over to her bed, which she sat cross legged upon. She looked at the book with a look of cynical concentration.
"It all started, as these things so often do, with an enormously volcanic eruption of grossly copious amounts of violence, sound, and light. Or, if you'd rather, a big 'Ka-Boom'..."
Underneath the shadows of her hood Raven rose an annoyed brow, "Skip the dramatics… and the sarcasm."
"Of course, Raven. But truth be told, it did start that way. It being existence of course. And not too long after the birth of it was I myself born…"
"… You see everything primeval was shaped by some Ancient of Days, some Absolute Infinity, some Prime Mover that we've all come to call the Presence."
In a twisting nether, primordial bolts of energy flashed and a maelstrom of power bulged and writhed, seething with great weight and crashing back in on itself in implosive orgasm.
"You see, there is a source of energy where everything comes from, all matter, energy, time, space, magic, life… these all come from the Source. The Source's consciousness, the part that acts (albeit very rarely) in existence is called the Presence. More or less God, without all the religious dogma. Before making anything else the Presence made himself a little land to watch over existence from… a little place best called Paradise. Now no, it's not the Heaven that good souls go to after they die, the afterlife is completely different than most of your modern humans believe… in fact in some cases you ancestors where far closer to the truth, but besides all that. To serve him in this realm and act as his messengers he did indeed create the beings you call angels, though most are not the handsome winged humanoids or fat little cherubs the media professes them to be. After all of that nonesuch he turned his attention to the swirling mass of existence that the Source had defecated out. He set about shaping and forming it into a small, tranquil little land, and set about forming up the Twelve Originals, the first primordial beings."
A lush green island floated in the middle of a vast chasm of nothingness. Grass, trees, plains and rolling hills inhabited the isle and were lit up with the pale, silvery cast gently out by a heavenly orb. Centrally in the floating terra firma was a small town made entirely of white stone. In the center of the white town, twelve figures, glowing with the power of the universe, sat around an emerald fire, talking, conversing, counseling.
"You see, the Presence is usually a very hands off type of person. Most of his interaction with existence at large is almost always both vicarious and subtle. He created far more dimensions than the one the Twelve were given but like our own dimension the primordial beings in all others were given power over their abodes and sent out with the task of… doing whatever damn well pleased them. Perhaps fortunately, our Twelve thought that it would be best if they all sat down and decided what it was they wanted to do with the immense power they were to wield."
Twelve eldritch beings now stood atop a high, glittering mountain, seven fiery orbs lit up the heavens to their backs as they stood, power radiating, as all the elements were forged, every molecule made, life sewn, every hint of energy and magic. Every single thing in the universe was forged by their combined might.
"They laid the horizon. They put the heavens on a vault, and created the separating line betwixt corporeal and ethereal. The ground, the suns, the astral, all was made as they all together sought fit. You see, individually they were greatly powerful, but together the Originals were undeniable. But at first, it was just expanding their own little plot of land, a place we then called Mu. It occurred to them that they needed servants, and servants we made. But the Twleve could not afford to loose their servants or waste the servants efforts on entertainment, so they did something which was quite remarkable. They made another land underneath the Land of Mu. They named this long, flat and wild piece of land Ma. Far less tranquil, far less perfect, and inhabited by all manner of beast and brute. It was, like Mu, a platform and not circular like planets today, although unlike Mu it was extremely vast in its expanse. It was on the same night that this land of Ma was wrought that I was born. I was one of the first beings in the universe to actually be born thru intercourse, I might add. My parents were two of the Original Twelve. I was never explicitly told which were my parents, and like all of the second generation I was care for by all Twelve. But I have a strong feeling that the feminine grace, Nyx, was my mother. And I've also come to hazard the guess that the grim Erebus was my sire, though so content with his work was he that he hardly saw me any more than the other Twelve so he can hardly claim parentage of any sort. No, if any of the Twelve acted the part of father to me it was a being called Promeath."
A thin, almost skeletal humanoid walked with surprising grace, nigh-floating amongst the tangled and wooded forests of Ma. About his gray persona an eternal aura of semi-existing smoke swirled, twirled and tumbled about him with an odd joy. Despite his wraith like appearance, there was a kindness and charity in his skull-esque face, those deep black sockets somehow emanating a silent reassurance that everything would be fine.
"Though it would be hard to tell from his appearance, which many of your modern humans would best describe as… vaguely undead with a lemon squirt of lucifer, Promeath was the kindest and gentlest of all the Original Twelve. And although he did seek pleasure in the forever prostrated land of Ma, he did not seek it like his siblings ruling up in the land of Mu."
"Hear me out, Ea. We should be raising the races on Ma who show promise, not further insighting them to slaughter one another pointlessly!" came the raspy voice of Promeath as he stood in what was now the metropolis of the White City, his skull-face looking pleadingly at a radiant, Baldur-esque figure.
"Don't be foolish, Promeath. The beings on Ma are all bestial, its just they all have varying degrees of complex instincts that can easily be confused for intellect by the overly sympathetic mind, which you, gentle Promeath, do so appear to have." As he said this the shining Ea put a kind arm around his wraith-like brother and led him to a precipice that dropped straight down for a depth that would take and anvil nine days to fall. At the bottom of this drop was the land of Ma. Together the two primordial brothers peered over the edge of their world.
"See brother, we are the rulers of this dimension, you and I. We and the other Ten were placed here by the Presence with the power to do and undo. We have made order for the dimension, everything has it's place… and we made the world beneath us for entertainment, that is it's and it's ilk's place. It is the way the council has decided, so cast out your kind but misguided and indeed wasted sympathies. Trust me, dear Promeath, it is for the best, it is the way things are."
His fel face fell, crestfallen, and blinked it's empty black eyes, cringing with sorrow. A moment later Promeath looked up into the shining face of Ea and gave a tired and unhonest smile. "Yes… yes of course you're right, dear brother. Things are for the best."
Pausing for a moment to cast his divine eyes across his brother's face, Ea smiled satisfied and gave Promeath a hearty pat on the back before walking off. Promeath turned and gave a small wave thru the air; his thin, skeletal fingers leaving behind dancing black figments of half-existing smoke. With a turn of his head that left the behind the same trail as his fingers Promeath peered his black gaze back down at the land of Ma, a forlorn but firm look set into his haunting face. As if he were a man knowing what had to be done, yet wishing for all his worth that it didn't.
"The way things are... but the way things ought to be? …heh."
"And so things were for a time… until a dissention rose among the inhabitants of the land of Mu. A secession a long time in the making. You see, since their conception there had always been one of the Originals that was not like the rest. His soul was disturbingly greedy, his mind worked differently, and in this particular case, it was a dangerous difference. Back in those days we didn't have a word that identified with evil… but we did have one that was close, though it was highly more defined. Our word meant the crossing of boundaries. Indeed some boundaries do need to be crossed from time to time, but this one Primordial being was consumed with the act of crossing boundaries without thought to consequences, whether they be to himself or others. Sometimes breaking rules and crossing boundaries for the mere sake of it. He began to torture, he began to devour, he began to murder for the mere sake of it.
"This being was known as Kingu, and for ages the other Originals and the inhabitants of Mu, myself included, let him be. Foolish of us it was, we all said he would come around to our way in time, we all said it was just a passing fancy. Inside we knew it wasn't. We knew he needed to be stopped but we didn't stop him, we just stuck to our forcibly forged blissful ignorance and hoped down in our heart of hearts that the problem would just up and disappear, but needless to say it didn't.
"Finally Kingu stepped over the line… and killed one of the other Originals, Ea himself, in an arguement. In response the rest of the land of Mu assaulted him to avenge the fallen Ea. Kingu was the most powerful single entity on Mu, but none of the others on Mu would join his side no matter how much he insisted that Ea struck first, so he would surely be overcome by their combined vengeance. However, Kingu was not one to give into a fate so bleak, so he summoned up a race of beast from the land of Ma which he himself had specially cultivated, the Jotuns. They were a gigantic, therionious race, well endowed with magic. They fought ferociously against the gods of Mu and their servants, and Kingu set about weaving atrocities unspeakable. I myself longed to be down on the battlefield that shook Mu and Ma. However Promeath snatched me before the battle started and took me up atop the glittering Mount of the Seven Suns where the Original Twelve sat and oversaw the beginning of their creation. Before the fourth day dawned the battle was decided; the victor risen from the gore of battle. The inhabitants of Mu were victorious. Kingu was stripped of his body and his soul was trapped in a hellish cave, locked behind a door built by the remaining Ten Originals, to ensure that he would never again escape.
"The surviving Jotuns were cast into another world that was built underneath the land of Ma… it was called Muspell, a land of fire and brimstone. Here the Jotuns were trapped forever to deal with harsh conditions, high temperatures, and their own despicable selves. For a good long aeon everything was fine, and went back to normal, Mu and Ma rebuilding in tranquil peace and quietude.
"But the death of Ea and the rage of Kingu had left a scar deeper than anyone would have guessed. The ghosts of the past haunted a being whom was born only a few hours after myself, seeing the the first red dawn on Ma like I saw it's first moonlit night. A being named Marduk… son of Ea… heir to Kingu's rage. A being who lustfully fought in the battle of vengeance and, in it's wake, established the first ideals of justice. Ideals easily tainted, and corrupted. In his image would our primeval world crumble… and by my own hand would it be done."