REMINDER: Two part chapter here! Please make sure you check the one before it.
In the beginning there was naught but darkness. Eternal darkness, and eternal strife. Against it the Earth Mother despaired. Try as she might, her seas boiled away. Her land was hard and barren, for nothing could take root. Against it the Sky Father raged in vain. His gusts died on his wings and his flames in his throat, for his fury lacked true strength.
Finally, in that endless void, they found each other. They gazed upon their polar opposite, and knew completion. And so became one. She was his strength and his shield. He was her spark and her sword.
At last the Sky Father was victorious in his struggle. His fire burned back oblivion. Beneath his wings he now had something greater than himself to fight for.
Under the sun and skies of her consort the Earth Mother at last had the peace she needed. With her warmth life kindled in her womb. It blossomed across her lands and in her seas. She built herself up, with fathomless seas and endless earth around her fiery heart, so that chaos might never breach her creation from below.
When her world was seeded, the Mother shaped simple creatures, beasts for her lands and fish for her seas. The Father breathed life into those that pleased him. He denied all his spark. His flame was his greatest weapon against the dark, the source of his pride and power, and he guarded it most jealously.
The Mother was moved by the challenge and so created the birds and other beasts of the air. The Father deigned to let such little things fly beneath him, but never to reach the vault of his heavens. He denied them all his flame.
Incensed, the Mother pushed herself ever harder. She devised a being that lacked power in its physical form but granted it the means and the mind to comprehend their world and alter it like no more beast could. To improve her chances of pleasing her consort, the Mother altered that basic template and birthed four brother races from it; humans and elves, dwarves and Urgals.
The Father breathed life into them, as was his wont, but proclaimed such humble little things could never be worthy of his greatest gifts. Unlike her earlier creations, the brother races were sentient, and resented their sire for his lofty pride. They were cunning things and so stole the gift denied them. The Sky Father howled in rage at the loss of a few precious sparks, but the Earth Mother stood firm against him, for she was dearly proud of her humble little flame-thieves. The Father retaliated by forever denying them his sky. Always they would stare up the birds in envy of the realm not even their greatest mind could conquer.
Despite a soft spot for the little things that would quickly come to vex her for their endless insistence on meddling with her world, and later endless grief when they sundered her, the Mother was not yet done creating. She melded a sentient mind to the might of her waters and so birthed the sea serpents. They were cold and cruel things, utterly lacking in warmth. In disgust the Father denied them both his flame and his breath. Forever would the sea serpents dwell in the dark depths of the ocean, never able to draw breath outside it.
The Mother pushed herself further and so birthed the Fanghur. At last, the Father felt the tiniest bit moved. Yet, when he breathed life into them, so too did he first feel despair when he realized such deadly grace still fell short of him. The Fanghur became fliers unmatched in speed and grace, yet still denied their sire's spark.
Over the course of creation the Sky Father had already begun to tire of his endless battle against the void. Already chaos had shaped itself into mockeries of men and beasts, dark reflections to slip into the world and wreck havoc upon it. Such little threats were beneath the Father to sniff out. And, as his consort became increasingly absorbed in her children, so too did he feel a growing loneliness.
When the Mother began her final creation, the Sky Father reached down to guide her hand. The Fanghur had fallen just short of perfection. His chosen race needed power, strength and endurance to weather the endless struggle against destruction. They need not be dull, but shine as vivid and varied as his rainbows. So confident was the Sky Father with this creation that he himself shaped their heart of hearts, to contain his spark in a vessel of blood and bone, and at last breathed life into it.
And so hatched the first dragon. He grew in leaps and bounds, swift mastering the sky. When it outshone even the Fanghur, the Sky Father wept in joy, and bestowed upon the dragons his gift of flame.
Blessed with flame and sky, the first dragon was determined to prove his sire proud, and tried to be the first to rise to his lofty height. Yet at the fringe of the firmament the air grows so thin even a dragon's lungs will fail. The first dragon pushed himself beyond his breaking point and so fell dead upon his mother's earth.
The Sky Father, enraged at the loss of one he held so dear, refused the Earth Mother her due. Even the souls of Fanghur, no matter how high they soar in life, return to their Mother upon death. But the Father called his dragon, the first to fly and the first to die, to him. No longer tethered to flesh and bone, the dragon spirit left its mortal body behind to rot with its Mother. Invisible against their Father's radiance, the dragon souls rose to join him all the same, fighting by his side. Those they hunted tried taking the shapes of sea serpents, the only foe capable of besting an elder. Their forms, endless in shape and wrongness, are now simply called Serpents.
The Mother raged bitterly against the theft of her final children. Even birds and Fanghur returned to her after a lifetime in the clouds. Her consort ignored her fury. All others were hers. Leave him his favorites.
In the dawn of days the sun never set, for the battle against utter destruction, for a moment of distraction was all chaos needed to undo the struggle of creation. No matter how the souls beneath him grew in number, the Father refused to trust him with his burden. Already they were proving themselves capable of being snuffed out. And a part of those souls was mortal still and drawn to their Mother. At times they settled down at the edges of the world, where neither Mother nor Father truly held domain, and rose only after rest.
Then, in a time that knew only endless day, hatched a dragon black as night. Perhaps it was by accident or design the Sky Father granted him too large a spark, for his soul burned no like no other. Perhaps his own sheer will was what allowed that spark to burn so high.
Quickly the black dragon grew to surpass all others living, even the great elders and the mightiest serpents dwelling in the deepest depths. Not long after that he outgrew the confines of the world, and so fought to rise above them.
Where the first dragon and all others failed, the black dragon transcended, and so became the first and only to soar beside their sire on wings of flesh and bone. As a living dragon he did battle alongside the souls of the dead and roosted in the lands at the edge of the world.
With such a protector at his side, the Sky Father at last allowed himself a rest. For a first time, the sun descended from its zenith, and he slept in the arms of his consort at the edge of the world. So did all of creation gaze upon the first night and learn to fear its darkness. Yet, so too did they first behold the stars, the souls no longer invisible in the shadow of their sire. Brightest amongst them all shone the Lord Moon. Where the stars were dead and stagnant Triath Luan lived. In time he grew to surpass them all.
Though a pale shadow of the Sky Father the Moon did not yet wax and wane. What rest he needed Triath Luan gained during the day alongside the stars in the lands beyond the sunrise. For a time this was the way of the world.
As even the great gods grow lonely, so did the Lord Moon. He was flesh and bone, and the stars things of light and soulfire. He could not touch them properly, for to his hide they were as insubstantial and searing as lightning. They fawned upon him as a living god, second only to their sire, and he sickened of their fawning.
Triath Luan had once looked down on creation only to flush out any lurking Serpents. Now for the first time he truly beheld the world he had fought so hard to escape. He watched the dragon clans, little hatchlings that tripped over their own paws beneath the gazes of watchful parents and elders sought out by the younger, and yearned for such ties.
For a while pride held him back but even the Lord Moon's dignity wears itself thin. One sunrise he could no longer hold himself back. Instead of following the stars into the west, he flew to earth as the Sky Father rose.
Even in the sun's shadow Triath Luan burned bright. All other dragons immediately knew him as their Lord Moon. They shied away from his light or fell in prostration.
Triath Luan acted as dragons did in the dawn of days and did still, but none treated him as one of their own. None dared challenge him and scurried away like mice. She-dragons hid away at his mating calls. They all thought themselves lesser in comparison. Just as a great elder would refuse to lower themselves to a moonstruck yearling, so too did they refuse to let the Lord Moon sully himself by bonding to one so beneath him.
Triath Luan, spurned by his own kind, fell into despair. Yet even at his lowest his pride could not allow him to go before the Sky Father and reveal his weakness. Nor could he turn his claws himself, not even to rise as a star and finally find satisfaction among their number.
In desperation he turned to the one being greater than himself that was not the Sky Father. He returned to the Mother he had scorned since coming out of the egg and fell before her in supplication. He begged the Mother to rid him of his misery, so that he might finally find the company he so craved, be they flesh or spirit.
The Earth Mother was moved by his pleas, for even a prodigal son was her child all the same. And because Triath Luan was her child she had absolutely no intentions of killing him. Ridding him of his mortal ties would only allow his soul to leave her forever.
The Lord Moon was too powerful to tie down by force. And so the Earth Mother devised a plan where he would stay with her willingly.
The Mother offered him rebirth, a chance to don a new skin where none would know him and so start new. Foolishly Triath Luan agreed. He was too haughty to believe he could become anything less than a dragon, albeit a lesser one than the Lord Moon, or that the Earth Mother cared about far more than simple happiness.
Triath Luan fell into a sleep so deep it bordered on death. For the first time in his long and tumultuous life he knew peace.
He awoke a man; Uir Leanabh, the Earth Child. His hair was black of night, skin marred from a thousand battles, and clad in little more than mere rags. His left eye, the great and shining eye the Lord Moon uses to gaze upon the world, was tightly bound beneath cloth, for any who had ever gazed upon a night sky would look at it and know him.
Uir Leanabh bitterly cursed the Earth Mother for her trickery. He cursed himself for his foolishness. With a will such as his it would take not even a flex of his power to cast off this second skin. But Uir Leanabh was as proud a man as he was a dragon. The Earth Mother had simply offered him a chance to start anew. He would try his damnedest to find his companionship, even as a mere mortal man.
No babe is born knowing how to stand and speak, but Uir Leanabh was not born again a babe. The Earth Mother knew she could never suppress his memories for a mortal life and that he would rage all the harder against her hold. He he would rage against that skin to escape the indignities of infancy. Despite his newness, Uir Leanabh stood and took his first shaking steps with a dragon's defiance. So did he stumble his way into his life among men.
The Sea Folk, two hundred years settled on their Isles, looked distrustfully upon the stranger that had appeared in their midst. He was a wild man that carried himself like king and had no patience for the world around him. He refused to work for food and shelter, no matter how honest the labor or fair the trade. So too did he snap at charity and the kindness of strangers. Even more ominously, in all this time the sun never set, for the Sky Father refused to rest without his strongest son to take up his burden at night.
Even in this form Uir Leanabh radiated power and no man dared raise hand against him. Rather than confront him directly, the people instead pulled away and turned their backs, to leave time and neglect do what they dared not.
Sick and starving, Uir Leanabh still refused to admit retreat. He fell into fever, so delusional he knew not where he was or what he was. This was how Lorelei found him when out riding with her ladies, prone and unconscious along the side of the road.
Her ladies were terrified at the sight of this strange man, so fierce even in the depths of unconsciousness, and their guards moved to put the poor bastard out of his misery. Their princess stayed their hands. Beyond the man's scars and bound eye, she saw skin flush with fever, and proud features worn ragged by starvation. So did Lorelei order Uir Leanabh brought with her into the halls of her father so that the best healers in all the Isles could attend him.
In his delusion Uir Leanabh fought back against the strange hands that held him down and forced food and bitter herbs down his throat. He snapped at their fingers and gouged at their eyes with blunt human nails. When the feeble old healers gave up on such a difficult patient, their furious princess saw to the man herself. Gentle and firm, she swatted aside his feeble blows and waited for his struggles to wear him out before feeding him or wiping the sweat from his brow. So did Uir Leanabh grudgingly accept her as his healer, allowing no one else near.
When his fever broke and Uir Leanabh remembered himself, so did he first gaze upon the face of Lorelei with a clear mind, and burn with shame and stranger feelings at the thought of a mere mortal woman saving to his life.
Gazing into the one shining eye of her patient, Lorelei was simply relieved Uir Leanabh had returned to himself. She was a true princess, charitable and kind, and offered him food and shelter in her father's hall until he fully recovered his strength.
Uir Leanabh burned in humiliation. Honor demanded he repay his debt and so he did. King Thorben's lands were extensive and there was always need of more hands. Animals were terrified of him, but he bore bleating sheep on his back regardless as he led them to their paddocks at night. During the harvest out he went into the fields and orchards, hauling home more bushels than even the strongest ox could carry.
The Hjorr line had ruled the Isles for two hundred years, ever since King Alvadr led his people across the sea to escape the lands beyond the sunset, but uneasy did the crown rest upon King Thorben's head. His beloved wife had died but bearing him a single daughter, his dearest Lorelei, and he could not betray her memory by taking another and siring sons upon her. Their king a softhearted fool with but a single heiress, his most distant lords forsook him altogether, and looked no further than their own isolated islands. The greatest and most ambitious of his lords plagued his castle with their suits, all wishing to take Lorelei as their bride and so claim her kingdom from her.
No suitor, for all of their boasting and bravado, could brave Lorelei's champion. Their courage failed beneath Uir Leanabh's baleful right eye. So did even Lorelei's betrothed, her own cousin who believed the crown his god given right, flee for fear of ever beholding Uir Leanabh's left eye.
In time the stranger and the princess became as one. In the sacred grove of the Earth Mother did Lorelei take Uir Leanabh as her groom. Yet Uir Leanabh took Lorelei as his mate. Where a human marriage was rendered null upon the death of a spouse, so did the bonds of dragons endure into the stars.
And the Earth Mother smiled at her victory. Lorelei was her child alone, her soul the Earth's upon death. She knew in her deep, fiery heart that Uir Leanabh would follow her in time, forsaking the stars for a peaceful and eternal sleep in the arms of his beloved.
So did she smile upon their union and in time bless them with a child. The Sky Father, exhausted and furious, obliviously breathed life into the babe without recognizing his own errant son in his human flesh.
Uir Leanabh's skin was dark and olive, his hair black as night, and one visible eye almost too bright to gaze upon. Lorelei's hair was red-gold as the dawn and eyes the pale gray of a new morning. Their daughter was born fair as the vanished moon, with a thick head of hair as pale and lustrous, and eyes bright as her sire's. They named her Amalia, for the labors of her father that had inadvertently finally made him feel at home with Lorelei and her human subjects. The Sea Folk, who had prayed for a son with Uir Leanabh's power and Lorelei's humanity, were anxious at such an omen.
For ten full years the sun never set and the world once more knew the eternal light of the dawn of days. For ten full years, the Sky Father never faltered in his fight.
And on the very anniversary of the last sunrise, so did the Sky Father finally fail, and the sky grew black as the dark tried to swallow him and all the world whole.
Uir Leanabh roared his defiance. He cast aside his binding to reveal his left eye and himself as the Lord Moon, great and terrible. For the first time in ten years he took wing. With an earth-shaking bellow he rallied the stars to his side. Together they burned back the darkness and ended the first eclipse, prying their Sky Father from the night's gullet.
The Sea Folk fell upon their knees before Princess Lorelei, wife of Triath Luan, and pledged their eternal allegiance to King Thorben and his blessed line.
Lorelei tended her aging father and Amalia as best she could, but always her eye was turned skyward. Though she gazed upon her husband every night never once did he return to her side. Furious at his child's betrayal the Sky Father demanded the Lord Moon to rest beside the stars at the edge of the world every night, to never again touch the earth and know human want and mortal weakness.
For ten full years Triath Luan obeyed. Every night he watched his daughter grow up from afar and his wife wither in his absence. Every dawn he returned to roost among the stars in a place that brought him no rest.
Yet though he was back among the heavens a part of Triath Luan was human still. It craved solid earth beneath his feet and the rest of true sleep. Above all he yearned for the arms of his wife and to hold their daughter once more.
And so full ten long years the Triath Luan grew weary. Every night his eyes dipped the slightest bit further closed as the moon first waned.
On the very anniversary of his return, Triath Luan once more attempted to take wing for his usual course across the sky. Only this time his wings failed, and the moon did not rise, but fell to earth.
On human hands and knees Uir Leanabh crawled to the halls of his family. This time the Sea Folk knew him and hurried him to the castle of their queen.
Queen Lorelei looked upon her husband for the first time in ten years and gaped at him. Uir Leanabh stumbled into her arms and collapsed, utterly content and dead to the world. So did the night descend upon them all.
The world cried out in fear as the stars were snuffed out one by one, for both the moon and sun slept.
So did Amalia spread her wings for the first time, and proved herself the Lord Moon's child in truth. For the first Long Night, a night that seemed to last eternity to those down below, she rose to battle alongside her paternal ancestors.
Once more did the world know dawn, for the Sky Father awoke from his slumber to take wing.
Uir Leanabh also awoke, utterly at peace in the arms of his wife and mate. His serenity was short-lived, for the Sea Folk was quick to burst into their chambers, and fall upon their knees to fawn before him as the dragons once had when he first descended to earth.
Unable to bear their adoration, Triath Luan once more spread his wings to ascend once more to the lands beyond the sunset. But this time he could not bear to leave his beloved behind. Nor could Lorelei bear the thought of another parting. But first she bid her husband to wait for their daughter.
Amalia descended from her first fight utterly exhausted and collapsed into the arms of her parents as if she were a little girl once more. Both her parents refused to allow her sleep. The Lord Moon bid her to rise once more, to follow him and her mother to their rightful place among the stars in the halls of the Sky Father.
But Lorelei refused. With King Thorben's passing she was Queen of the Isles, and Amalia her only child. For them to both leave the Isles behind was to abandon their kingdom to the depredations of those ambitious and arrogant lords that only heeded her because she was wife of the Lord Moon. One of them would have to remain behind. Either Amalia could rise to join her father or else inherit her maternal birth right.
Her father's daughter to the core, Amalia immediately pressed to take up her mother's crown and inherit her full responsibilities. When the Lord Moon furiously beckoned for them both to join him, Amalia proved herself braver than her sire, and openly defied her father as he had never dared the Sky Father.
At last the Lord Moon bowed his head and yielded to the wishes of his family. When he rose with Lorelei alone in his arms, Amalia settled into the throne of the Hjorrs, and proved to the Sea Folk their royal line had not forsaken them.
So did Amalia Luan become queen. Born of man and dragon, she forged two disparate peoples of the Isles into one, the Sea Folk and the clanless dragons they lived alongside. And she became the first of the duine-arach and mother of our race.
For two weeks after Triath Luan's rising did the moon wax at night as he fully recovered his strength. Lorelei became keeper of their hall, setting the skies of dawn and dusk alight with the flames of their hearth as she welcomed the comings and goings of both her husband and the Sky Father.
When the Lord Moon waned once more, and quietly descended to earth to sleep once more as Uir Leanabh on some quiet and far flung isle, once more did Amalia rise to take his place. Thus become the burden of her line, to forever hold back the darkness every Long Night so that creation might see another dawn.
Eragon blinked, remembering himself at last as the last remnants of the vision fell away. Outside the sun was low in its course, bathing the room in the warm golden glow of late afternoon.
That was beautiful, Saphira murmured. Glaedr had recited to them the stories of dragons but Oisin had refined those raw emotions and feelings through the exact nature of the human word.
Eragon said nothing. No wonder the daonna-arach so reverently regarded their Righ. They believed he was no mere king, but capable of holding back the night where an army of stars could not, the blood of kings and gods.
"And outcasts and exiles," Oisin added ruefully, for too late did Eragon remember their minds were still connected. "But that is a tale for another time."
Eragon hastily severed the connection but the flush of shame did not rise to his cheeks. Their tutor had already gotten a personal look into Eragon's deep-running skepticism toward the supernatural, first instilled in him by Garrow and expounded upon by Oromis and Glaedr's brutal insistence there was no comprehensive existence after death.
He remembered the utter nothingness of a life snuffed out. So too did he now know Oisin's utter faith in the stars as the ancestors watching over the earth from above.
What did the wild dragons believe, Saphira? he asked her privately, for Glaedr had thoroughly instructed her in their ways even if bonded dragons practiced very little of them.
They did regard the stars as souls of their dead, lighting the way at night, Saphira confirmed. I don't know if the wild dragons regarded them as reverently as some humans and dwarves do their ancestors. Ancestral memory doesn't touch upon such deep and personal beliefs, more broad experience and instinct. The further back you go, the deeper it blurs together. The only reason we can recall parts of the Pact so vividly are because of how integral it became to our race. The times before the Du Fyn Skulblaka are unknown to me.
"Why did the Righ go down into the earth if he had to fight among the stars?"
Oisin tapped his temple. "The spirit goes. Only the Lord Moon has the strength in his body to rise so high and fight the Serpents and the myriad forms of chaos. When the spirit fights the body sleeps. To kill it is to kill the Righ. So down into the earth he goes, to be protected by the Mother while his spirit fights for the Father on high. And so he is joined by a hearth-keeper, as Lorelai once watched over Uir Leanabh, his last line of defense for his mortal body and his link back down to the living world."
Eragon secretly wondered if the seclusion was instead for deep prayer and a battle more spiritual than supernatural. Instead, he asked, "What happens to the daonna-arach after death? Your tale seems as if both the earth and the sky want them."
"We are born of both, and so we go to both. For ten years our interred in the womb of her Mother and know the long sleep, for ten are the years Uir Leanabh was allowed his rest. Then on the tenth anniversary of burial is the Rising. The dead are woken from their sleep and bones burned in salt and flame so that their souls might leave their ashes behind to finally take their place among the stars."
The dwarves interred their dead in caskets of stone in the hearts of their mountains. Most humans simply buried theirs, be they in humble graves or grand tombs. Riders and dragons alike had both burned their dead. Of course the daonna-arach had found a way to wed the two.
Then he realized his grandmother had been denied her Rising. Her human family had laid her to rest without ever knowing to one day wake her soul. Now there was no one left in Carvahall to tend to the graves of those left behind.
"What about Amalia?" he blurted out. Oisin arched a brow at him, and he hastened to elaborate. "She died eventually, didn't she? Why did her descendents take over her responsibility when she was already up among the stars to fight for them?"
Oisin rose to his feet, stern mask falling into place. "A tale for another time, my prince. We have survived another Long Night. Today is a day for rest and respite." He bowed curtly to them both. "I shall leave you to your rest. Our lessons will resume as normal tomorrow."
He took his leave. Eragon cursed their oath to the Righ, for once more they were bound to their room and could not chase the damned man down for answers. It was too convenient a coincidence that Erna brought up their supper mere minutes later.
Famished, he fell upon the food, so bursting with spice it near seared his tongue. Saphira, nose wrinkled, ate more delicately and picked around the worst of the spices. She grumbled how daonna-arach must have no sense of smell if they consumed such heavy spice on a daily basis.
He groaned in dismay when he realized Erna had brought up that damned goblet again, its steaming contents once more filled to the brim.
But he downed it all the same. After the searing heat of supper the warmth of the offering seemed almost mild in comparison.
Good god did that mythology take on a life of its own. I've had the broad strokes written down in my files for this story for years. But only by trying to write it down here did the vision fully take place.
I've laid out hints in this chapter about the actual state of the world and what first drove everyone across the sea to Alagaesia and its islands. And why, although Gaelic is my primary inspiration for the daonna-arach, why some odd smatterings of other names and languages show up. Here's a question for you: How desperate does a people have to be to abandon large parts of their faith and traditions to meld what is left to something else and hope at least a part of themselves survives in something new?