I - Creation.
Nocteus and his brothers, Manneh and Partheh, emerged from chaos and created the world. Out of this creation sprang He, the allmother, who was not born but also arrived, and her two brothers, Set the painter and Sef the musician. Nocteus then married He, and renamed himself Arda, the allfather.
II - Cycles of Birth.
Manneh and Partheh, protectors of thought and memory, leave the world to create their own. Thus Arda retired from the world, and out of the sea sprang Proteus, the artificer, to finish what Arda started.
At first Proteus created demons for assistants, six of whom were chief: Sarge, Mog, Tahge, Berhart, Dock, and Pons. Sarge and Mog set the rules of the world, with Sarge creating magic and Mog creating dreams. Tahge and Berhart set the ethereal components of life, with Tahge creating the spirit and Berhart creating the soul. Dock and Pons set the material components of life, with Dock creating beasts and Pons creating plants.
Then Proteus created four sons, to shape this primeval work: Mons, Mobius, Larissa, and Lemna. Mons, the eldest, worked on the realm closest to Proteus' heart, the sea. Mobius, the youngest, worked on the realm farthest from Proteus' heart, the underworld. Larissa, the eldest daughter, worked on the wilderness; Lemna, the youngest daughter, worked on the city.
Pons one day saw the two daughters, and attempted to seduce them. Only Larissa accepted his advances, and when the two were discovered by Proteus, he was forced to marry Larissa. Thus Pons became the consort of Larissa, and Larissa was the first of the children of Proteus to have a consort.
III - The Children of Arda.
Manneh and Partheh, before their exit, prophesied: the children of Arda shall be the destruction of his household. Thus Arda, in fear, swallowed his first two children, the twins Dana and Elisef, as He produced them from her womb. When she bore her third child, Crum, she devised a plan: in Crum's place she would produce a stone, while Proteus sported the babe to his household.
The plan worked. Yet Crum grew up in Proteus' house a strong and volatile child, preferring the company of the demons over the company of Proteus and his three children. This opened him up to the machinations of three of the chief demons, Mog, Tahge, and Berhart, who plotted not only against him, but also against Arda, Proteus, and the rest of creation.
One day, they revealed to the boy the full details of his heritage, as well as his immediate destiny.
With this knowledge Crum grew impatient, or perhaps proud: he demanded from the three the prophesied tol by which he should save his siblings.
The three demons would grant him his wish, they said, if Crum and his siblings, once freed, would allow them to touch their work with Proteus.
Crum accepted. Thus the three demons tricked Sarge, the eldest, sagest, and yet most distant of the demons, to produce the Thunderbolt, and when Crum received this weapon, he immediately flew to heaven and challenged Arda, with the resulting battle destroying all of heaven. Crum was triumphant; he freed his two siblings by tearing nigh in twain his father's body.
After the battle, Set and Sef were tasked with recreating heaven. Set, the painter, affixed upon its center a great, glowing orb, akin to the extinguished light of Arda: the sun.
But Sef, the musician, did not want heaven to remain static, as it had in the former rule: he set it to follow the cycles of his music, creating day and night.
Set responded by painting into existence another orb, this time merely reflective, so that the night would not be plunged into complete darkness: the moon.
At last, the two brothers, having finished their magnum opus, decided to retire, capping heaven with a like realm, upon which they set thousands of little lights: the stars.
Afterwards, Crum crowned himself prince of the heavens, Dana king of the sun, and Elisef queen of the moon. Out of gratefulness, he also rewarded Proteus with the hands in marriage of his two siblings; Mons accepted, while Lemna refused, declaring her desire to remain a virgin. Thus Mons became the consort of Elisef, as Lemna was recognized as a virgin goddess.
* * *
Proteus had long wished to create one last intelligent form of being, fundamentally tied to his creations, such that they should become actors upon the world, and the caretakers of his world. For this, he asked for aid from the children of Arda. Crum worked with the basest element, earth, to create the Dwarf; Elisef worked with earth's slimy cousin, water, to create the Ogre; Dana worked with the opposite of water, fire, to create the Gnome; and Proteus himself worked alone with the element that surrounds us all, air, to create the Elf.
The demons under Sarge, Mog, Tahge, and Berhart then possessed these newly created beings, with only Sarge having Proteus' permission; according to their vow with Crum, the demons under Mog entered the dwarfs, those under Tahge entered the ogres, those under berhart the gnomes, and Sarge the elfs.
Thus began the Golden Age, governed by the eldest of the children of Arda, Dana.
IV - The War of the Gods.
This Golden Age ended when Set and Sef retired to the realm of the stars, and prophesied to Crum the end of his reign and the end of the entire world. Crum, distressed, disappeared, which Mog, Tahge, and Berhart took as a sign.
* * *
Out of the corpse of Arda, which after his battle with Crum fell into the sea, arose a new goddess, Hela. And as Pons wooed Larissa, so too did Hela woo Mobius, and succeed.
Beneath his realm she, like Set and Sef, affixed another, which she named after herself. Seeking to populate her realm, she petitioned all throughout the world to help her in her purpose. Only Sarge accepted her offer, wishing to escape the bothersome appeals of his more devious brothers.
But Hela liked neither Sarge nor his experiments -- she allowed him to reside in her realm merely as part of her grander plan. She reached out again to Mog, Tahge, and Berhart, and struck a deal: she would channel all of Sarge's spent energies to them if they would make her realm their base of operations.
This deal allowed the three to gain enough power to war against the gods. Dreams became nightmares, or vacated the sleeper completely; the spirit was sickened with despair; and, over the soul, discord gathered like a storm. The various demihuman races followed suit, according to the domain of demon that possessed them. The dwarfs refused to take part, both on the side of the gods and on the side of the demons; the ogres sided with the enemy at once, hungry for death; and the gnomes were divided between the gods, the usurpers, and the fear or impudence of neutrality. Only the elfs, whose bodies were created by the most experienced creator, and whose souls and spirits were commanded by an utterly apathetic party, remained in worship of the gods.
Yet even the gods and demons were divided, though not, at least, to the point of joining their enemies. Dock remained neutral, seeing through his brothers' folly. So too Mobius and Pons, though more by the influence of their spouses, and not by any reasons of their own. And Dana relinquished his leadership to Elisef, for she was the general between the two of them.
Thus war was for ten years waged.
* * *
At the last year of the war, when things looked most desperate for the gods, He appeared before her daughter. She prophesied that the war could only be eneded with Crum's intervention, but that the only way to find Crum was to read the signs born upon her entrails.
At first, her children refused, but eventually she convinced them, and as Elisef held her down, Dana cut her open.
A funeral was held; afterwards, while Elisef led the gods in battle, Dana followed the signs to an island grown on the spot where Hela emerged. There, he found Crum, now much older, half-blind, and hanging upside down from a tree. Cutting him down, Dana learned why he had disappeared: to figure out how to stop the end of the world. He was just about to figure it out -- nevertheless, he thanked his brother for the warning, and sprang into action.
The enemy was swiftly defeated. To the treacherous demons, hell became a prison, each now receiving a punishment according to his evil. Pons also was punished, for in secret he supported his brothers: his form was made bestial, both to the delight and disgust of his wife Larissa. Finally, the dead dwarfs, gnomes, and ogres were also cast into hell, though not all receiving punishment, the judgment belonging to Hela. The dead elfs, meanwhwile, would be sent to the bosom of Proteus, for them an eternal paradise.
V - The Arrival of Mankind.
The ashes of He were also cast into the sea, and out of this marriage was born the goddess Winthra, as well as an island. Proteus retired to this island, tired of his creation after all the chaos of the last war; nevertheless, his aid in creating the very final race of humanity, Man, was deemed necessary by Crum, so that Proteus, helped by Winthra, returned to the world for the last time.
Here, Proteus would act only as guide. Dock was the first god to work: based on his experience working on beasts, he provided the framework out of earth, the stability of man. Elisef contributed water, the virility of man. Dana contributed fire, the intelligence of man. Crum contributed air, the life-giving spirit of man, as passed onto him by Proteus.
The other gods, too, offered their own contributions. Mons gave man a love of adventure; Mobius, a love of wealth; Larissa, a love of the wilderness; and Lemna, a love of order. Hela was not invited, but Dock snuck her in, knowing she was necessary to complete man: she granted man all their vices, all their imperfections. At this, Crum grew mad, and cast Dock out of the venture, then chained him to an island where he should be forever punished.
Proteus, however, remained calm, and asked his caretaker Winthra to provide the final contribution, one to counteract those of Hela. She provided man the greatest of his virtues, faith, hope, and love, thus completing the new race. Afterwards, Proteus returned to his retirement, but asked Winthra to stay with the gods, as he knew humanity would need far more care than him. In his position as artificer, he was replaced by Severina, the daughter of Mons and Elisef.
* * *
Man was released to the world by Crum. The first wave took to the earth, disappearing with the dwarfs into the depths. The second wave took to the water, breeding not only amongst themselves, but also with the elfs, the dwarfs, the gnomes, and even the ogres. This second wave angered Elisef, who took under her wing the third wave, training them to pass her judgment like an inferno. At this, Winthra intervened, sparing the household of Pyrius and Noelia, then sending the fourth and final wave to Dana, who would teach them the ways of air, of artful culture and peaceful civilization.
This peaceful civilization, however, also proved quite proud. As the first wave dug deeper and deeper into the earth, Hela intervened, getting them so lost that they returned to the surface, and to their fellow man they passed on the knowledge of the dwarfs. With this knowledge, mankind attempted to reach the heavens, building a great tower. Crum, seeing this hubris, called for Tovonin, the son of Hela and Mobius, and as his thunderbolt destroyed the tower in one magnificent stroke, Tovonin divided man by inventing all the world's languages, and confusing mankind's tongues.
Thus began the Bronze Age, when mankind ruled the earth, and Crum ruled mankind.
VI - Javeth, the Mortal God.
(Here my copy of the Cosmogony grows sparse -- I resort to summarizing summaries. Nevertheless I've heard that a complete copy has been recently discovered, if I remember right in the archives of some distant monastery...)
A chronicle of the house of Aran, detailing
1) the migration of Aran, and his covenant with Crum;
2) the tale of his two children, and the banishment of the elder for the younger;
3) the search of a wife for the younger child;
4) the two grandsons of Aran, and their conflict over inheritance;
5) the birth of Elisefa to one brother, the birth of Sinon to another, and the two falling in love, getting married, and reconciling the two houses;
6) the reconciliation leading to Hund, enemy of the elder brother, attempting to destroy both brothers, and in fact the entire household;
7) the birth of the twelve sons of Sinon, who attack with a vengeance;
8) the birth of Mara, their sole daughter, who is married to the last living son of Hund, Linus, in order to restore the peace.
Mara gave birth to Javeth, whom Linus believed was his son; in fact Javeth was the son of Crum, who one night visited Mara in the guise of Linus.
Linus taught the boy, but grew more and more resentful of him, as he began to realize that the boy truly wasn't his son; the boy's stepbrothers, meanwhile, abused him, resenting their newfound relation with their most hated enemies.
Eventually, Linus beat Javeth so hard that Javeth was forced to retaliate, tearing Linus into pieces. At this, Javeth's stepbrothers grew mad, and betrayed the house of Aran, murdering eleven of the twelve sons of Sinon, then doing unto Mara what Javeth did unto their father. Again, Javeth retaliated, but this time under a far greater frenzy: not only did he slay his stepbrothers, but also the remaining elders of the house of Hund, and any of their allies he encountered along the way.
Belona, the last and youngest of the sons of Sinon, managed to tame Javeth, and taught him the arts of ritual and poetry, in the hope that this should give the boy some measure of peace.
For this, Javeth was grateful, eventually establishing an entire kingdom for his uncle; in turn, Belona offered Javeth his daughter, whom Javeth married. Yet under another spell of madness, Javeth murdered his wife, and for this he was exiled from his uncle's realm, until he should perform penance, supervised perhaps by one of Belona's allies.
This Javeth did: the twelve labors of Javeth.
After these twelve labors, Belona forgave Javeth, and welcomed him back into the realm, though never again would uncle and nephew have so warm a relationship.
Within Belona's realm, Javeth found his dearest friend Agon mourning the death of his wife, Commelina, after she offered her life to Death in place of her husband. Javeth vowed to descend into the underworld and bring her back to life; not only did he fulfill this vow, but he also brought back to life his own former wife, Belona's daughter, whose death had dissolved their bonds of marriage, as well as discovered the fate of Mara, who had been blessed after death by Crum to herself become the divine caretaker of Proteus. Afterwards, he left not only Belona's realm, but also all of civilization, in order to fully reveal his divine nature.
On one of his adventures into the wilderness, he reached the island of Dock. There, Dock had discovered the complete solution for stopping the end of the world, and had decided to reconcile himself with Crum. Recognizing that Javeth, as the acknowledged son of Crum, had practically the same authority as his father, he petitioned Javeth to free him from his bondage. This Javeth did, and Dock returned to the heavens and whispered the solution into Crum's ear -- all according to Crum's plan.
* * *
Eventually Javeth returned to civilization, and as he passed through the various kingdoms of man, sign after sign revealed him to be the son of Crum. Nevertheless, one of these kings, none other than Penirus, the beloved son of Belona, denied his divinity, and even disrespected him as he made his visit; for this, Javeth made mad the mother, daughters, and female servants of Penirus, such that one night, they took him to the wilderness and tore him apart.
After this vengeance, Javeth claimed the kingdom of his uncle for his own, and married Regina, supposedly the daughter of an ally of his uncle's. Yet this ally, it turned out, was a former enemy, and had a longstanding grudge against the house of Aran, especially against Javeth himself, who had killed many of their sons on Javeth's decimation of the house of Hund. Thus, Regina proved to be his end: one night, she called for her remaining brothers, and did unto Javeth what he did unto Penirus, what he had done unto Linus. And, in fear that he should immediately return to life and wreak his vengeance upon them, she took the body parts and cast them into the fireplace, believing that ash would be far harder to reform than flesh and blood.
But her act was the final act Javeth needed to become a god, and by burning away his flesh, she also burned away his mortality: with the smoke of the fireplace rose the spirit and soul of Javeth, now become a god, who joined the rest of the pantheon of the gods as the god of heroes and poets. Here, he was married to his final wife, Thorn, the daughter of Larissa and Pons, and the goddess of agriculture and the seasons.
Thus began the Iron Age, when Javeth ruled jointly with his father, Crum, and when the last generation of gods were fully assembled.
(This is the age we live in, and the age prophesied to be the one that should last until the end of days: man is prophesied to take after Hund instead of Aran, growing worse and worse until even our newborns are grey-haired and wrinkled, and we have all forsaken not just the worship but also the justice of the gods. At this point, Manneh and Partheh shall return, heralding the end of days, while Crum shall enact his plan. Then, some say, the souls of those mortals who were pious and virtuous shall find a home among the stars, while a new world is created below them.)
Nocteus and his brothers, Manneh and Partheh, emerged from chaos and created the world. Out of this creation sprang He, the allmother, who was not born but also arrived, and her two brothers, Set the painter and Sef the musician. Nocteus then married He, and renamed himself Arda, the allfather.
II - Cycles of Birth.
Manneh and Partheh, protectors of thought and memory, leave the world to create their own. Thus Arda retired from the world, and out of the sea sprang Proteus, the artificer, to finish what Arda started.
At first Proteus created demons for assistants, six of whom were chief: Sarge, Mog, Tahge, Berhart, Dock, and Pons. Sarge and Mog set the rules of the world, with Sarge creating magic and Mog creating dreams. Tahge and Berhart set the ethereal components of life, with Tahge creating the spirit and Berhart creating the soul. Dock and Pons set the material components of life, with Dock creating beasts and Pons creating plants.
Then Proteus created four sons, to shape this primeval work: Mons, Mobius, Larissa, and Lemna. Mons, the eldest, worked on the realm closest to Proteus' heart, the sea. Mobius, the youngest, worked on the realm farthest from Proteus' heart, the underworld. Larissa, the eldest daughter, worked on the wilderness; Lemna, the youngest daughter, worked on the city.
Pons one day saw the two daughters, and attempted to seduce them. Only Larissa accepted his advances, and when the two were discovered by Proteus, he was forced to marry Larissa. Thus Pons became the consort of Larissa, and Larissa was the first of the children of Proteus to have a consort.
III - The Children of Arda.
Manneh and Partheh, before their exit, prophesied: the children of Arda shall be the destruction of his household. Thus Arda, in fear, swallowed his first two children, the twins Dana and Elisef, as He produced them from her womb. When she bore her third child, Crum, she devised a plan: in Crum's place she would produce a stone, while Proteus sported the babe to his household.
The plan worked. Yet Crum grew up in Proteus' house a strong and volatile child, preferring the company of the demons over the company of Proteus and his three children. This opened him up to the machinations of three of the chief demons, Mog, Tahge, and Berhart, who plotted not only against him, but also against Arda, Proteus, and the rest of creation.
One day, they revealed to the boy the full details of his heritage, as well as his immediate destiny.
With this knowledge Crum grew impatient, or perhaps proud: he demanded from the three the prophesied tol by which he should save his siblings.
The three demons would grant him his wish, they said, if Crum and his siblings, once freed, would allow them to touch their work with Proteus.
Crum accepted. Thus the three demons tricked Sarge, the eldest, sagest, and yet most distant of the demons, to produce the Thunderbolt, and when Crum received this weapon, he immediately flew to heaven and challenged Arda, with the resulting battle destroying all of heaven. Crum was triumphant; he freed his two siblings by tearing nigh in twain his father's body.
After the battle, Set and Sef were tasked with recreating heaven. Set, the painter, affixed upon its center a great, glowing orb, akin to the extinguished light of Arda: the sun.
But Sef, the musician, did not want heaven to remain static, as it had in the former rule: he set it to follow the cycles of his music, creating day and night.
Set responded by painting into existence another orb, this time merely reflective, so that the night would not be plunged into complete darkness: the moon.
At last, the two brothers, having finished their magnum opus, decided to retire, capping heaven with a like realm, upon which they set thousands of little lights: the stars.
Afterwards, Crum crowned himself prince of the heavens, Dana king of the sun, and Elisef queen of the moon. Out of gratefulness, he also rewarded Proteus with the hands in marriage of his two siblings; Mons accepted, while Lemna refused, declaring her desire to remain a virgin. Thus Mons became the consort of Elisef, as Lemna was recognized as a virgin goddess.
* * *
Proteus had long wished to create one last intelligent form of being, fundamentally tied to his creations, such that they should become actors upon the world, and the caretakers of his world. For this, he asked for aid from the children of Arda. Crum worked with the basest element, earth, to create the Dwarf; Elisef worked with earth's slimy cousin, water, to create the Ogre; Dana worked with the opposite of water, fire, to create the Gnome; and Proteus himself worked alone with the element that surrounds us all, air, to create the Elf.
The demons under Sarge, Mog, Tahge, and Berhart then possessed these newly created beings, with only Sarge having Proteus' permission; according to their vow with Crum, the demons under Mog entered the dwarfs, those under Tahge entered the ogres, those under berhart the gnomes, and Sarge the elfs.
Thus began the Golden Age, governed by the eldest of the children of Arda, Dana.
IV - The War of the Gods.
This Golden Age ended when Set and Sef retired to the realm of the stars, and prophesied to Crum the end of his reign and the end of the entire world. Crum, distressed, disappeared, which Mog, Tahge, and Berhart took as a sign.
* * *
Out of the corpse of Arda, which after his battle with Crum fell into the sea, arose a new goddess, Hela. And as Pons wooed Larissa, so too did Hela woo Mobius, and succeed.
Beneath his realm she, like Set and Sef, affixed another, which she named after herself. Seeking to populate her realm, she petitioned all throughout the world to help her in her purpose. Only Sarge accepted her offer, wishing to escape the bothersome appeals of his more devious brothers.
But Hela liked neither Sarge nor his experiments -- she allowed him to reside in her realm merely as part of her grander plan. She reached out again to Mog, Tahge, and Berhart, and struck a deal: she would channel all of Sarge's spent energies to them if they would make her realm their base of operations.
This deal allowed the three to gain enough power to war against the gods. Dreams became nightmares, or vacated the sleeper completely; the spirit was sickened with despair; and, over the soul, discord gathered like a storm. The various demihuman races followed suit, according to the domain of demon that possessed them. The dwarfs refused to take part, both on the side of the gods and on the side of the demons; the ogres sided with the enemy at once, hungry for death; and the gnomes were divided between the gods, the usurpers, and the fear or impudence of neutrality. Only the elfs, whose bodies were created by the most experienced creator, and whose souls and spirits were commanded by an utterly apathetic party, remained in worship of the gods.
Yet even the gods and demons were divided, though not, at least, to the point of joining their enemies. Dock remained neutral, seeing through his brothers' folly. So too Mobius and Pons, though more by the influence of their spouses, and not by any reasons of their own. And Dana relinquished his leadership to Elisef, for she was the general between the two of them.
Thus war was for ten years waged.
* * *
At the last year of the war, when things looked most desperate for the gods, He appeared before her daughter. She prophesied that the war could only be eneded with Crum's intervention, but that the only way to find Crum was to read the signs born upon her entrails.
At first, her children refused, but eventually she convinced them, and as Elisef held her down, Dana cut her open.
A funeral was held; afterwards, while Elisef led the gods in battle, Dana followed the signs to an island grown on the spot where Hela emerged. There, he found Crum, now much older, half-blind, and hanging upside down from a tree. Cutting him down, Dana learned why he had disappeared: to figure out how to stop the end of the world. He was just about to figure it out -- nevertheless, he thanked his brother for the warning, and sprang into action.
The enemy was swiftly defeated. To the treacherous demons, hell became a prison, each now receiving a punishment according to his evil. Pons also was punished, for in secret he supported his brothers: his form was made bestial, both to the delight and disgust of his wife Larissa. Finally, the dead dwarfs, gnomes, and ogres were also cast into hell, though not all receiving punishment, the judgment belonging to Hela. The dead elfs, meanwhwile, would be sent to the bosom of Proteus, for them an eternal paradise.
V - The Arrival of Mankind.
The ashes of He were also cast into the sea, and out of this marriage was born the goddess Winthra, as well as an island. Proteus retired to this island, tired of his creation after all the chaos of the last war; nevertheless, his aid in creating the very final race of humanity, Man, was deemed necessary by Crum, so that Proteus, helped by Winthra, returned to the world for the last time.
Here, Proteus would act only as guide. Dock was the first god to work: based on his experience working on beasts, he provided the framework out of earth, the stability of man. Elisef contributed water, the virility of man. Dana contributed fire, the intelligence of man. Crum contributed air, the life-giving spirit of man, as passed onto him by Proteus.
The other gods, too, offered their own contributions. Mons gave man a love of adventure; Mobius, a love of wealth; Larissa, a love of the wilderness; and Lemna, a love of order. Hela was not invited, but Dock snuck her in, knowing she was necessary to complete man: she granted man all their vices, all their imperfections. At this, Crum grew mad, and cast Dock out of the venture, then chained him to an island where he should be forever punished.
Proteus, however, remained calm, and asked his caretaker Winthra to provide the final contribution, one to counteract those of Hela. She provided man the greatest of his virtues, faith, hope, and love, thus completing the new race. Afterwards, Proteus returned to his retirement, but asked Winthra to stay with the gods, as he knew humanity would need far more care than him. In his position as artificer, he was replaced by Severina, the daughter of Mons and Elisef.
* * *
Man was released to the world by Crum. The first wave took to the earth, disappearing with the dwarfs into the depths. The second wave took to the water, breeding not only amongst themselves, but also with the elfs, the dwarfs, the gnomes, and even the ogres. This second wave angered Elisef, who took under her wing the third wave, training them to pass her judgment like an inferno. At this, Winthra intervened, sparing the household of Pyrius and Noelia, then sending the fourth and final wave to Dana, who would teach them the ways of air, of artful culture and peaceful civilization.
This peaceful civilization, however, also proved quite proud. As the first wave dug deeper and deeper into the earth, Hela intervened, getting them so lost that they returned to the surface, and to their fellow man they passed on the knowledge of the dwarfs. With this knowledge, mankind attempted to reach the heavens, building a great tower. Crum, seeing this hubris, called for Tovonin, the son of Hela and Mobius, and as his thunderbolt destroyed the tower in one magnificent stroke, Tovonin divided man by inventing all the world's languages, and confusing mankind's tongues.
Thus began the Bronze Age, when mankind ruled the earth, and Crum ruled mankind.
VI - Javeth, the Mortal God.
(Here my copy of the Cosmogony grows sparse -- I resort to summarizing summaries. Nevertheless I've heard that a complete copy has been recently discovered, if I remember right in the archives of some distant monastery...)
A chronicle of the house of Aran, detailing
1) the migration of Aran, and his covenant with Crum;
2) the tale of his two children, and the banishment of the elder for the younger;
3) the search of a wife for the younger child;
4) the two grandsons of Aran, and their conflict over inheritance;
5) the birth of Elisefa to one brother, the birth of Sinon to another, and the two falling in love, getting married, and reconciling the two houses;
6) the reconciliation leading to Hund, enemy of the elder brother, attempting to destroy both brothers, and in fact the entire household;
7) the birth of the twelve sons of Sinon, who attack with a vengeance;
8) the birth of Mara, their sole daughter, who is married to the last living son of Hund, Linus, in order to restore the peace.
Mara gave birth to Javeth, whom Linus believed was his son; in fact Javeth was the son of Crum, who one night visited Mara in the guise of Linus.
Linus taught the boy, but grew more and more resentful of him, as he began to realize that the boy truly wasn't his son; the boy's stepbrothers, meanwhile, abused him, resenting their newfound relation with their most hated enemies.
Eventually, Linus beat Javeth so hard that Javeth was forced to retaliate, tearing Linus into pieces. At this, Javeth's stepbrothers grew mad, and betrayed the house of Aran, murdering eleven of the twelve sons of Sinon, then doing unto Mara what Javeth did unto their father. Again, Javeth retaliated, but this time under a far greater frenzy: not only did he slay his stepbrothers, but also the remaining elders of the house of Hund, and any of their allies he encountered along the way.
Belona, the last and youngest of the sons of Sinon, managed to tame Javeth, and taught him the arts of ritual and poetry, in the hope that this should give the boy some measure of peace.
For this, Javeth was grateful, eventually establishing an entire kingdom for his uncle; in turn, Belona offered Javeth his daughter, whom Javeth married. Yet under another spell of madness, Javeth murdered his wife, and for this he was exiled from his uncle's realm, until he should perform penance, supervised perhaps by one of Belona's allies.
This Javeth did: the twelve labors of Javeth.
After these twelve labors, Belona forgave Javeth, and welcomed him back into the realm, though never again would uncle and nephew have so warm a relationship.
Within Belona's realm, Javeth found his dearest friend Agon mourning the death of his wife, Commelina, after she offered her life to Death in place of her husband. Javeth vowed to descend into the underworld and bring her back to life; not only did he fulfill this vow, but he also brought back to life his own former wife, Belona's daughter, whose death had dissolved their bonds of marriage, as well as discovered the fate of Mara, who had been blessed after death by Crum to herself become the divine caretaker of Proteus. Afterwards, he left not only Belona's realm, but also all of civilization, in order to fully reveal his divine nature.
On one of his adventures into the wilderness, he reached the island of Dock. There, Dock had discovered the complete solution for stopping the end of the world, and had decided to reconcile himself with Crum. Recognizing that Javeth, as the acknowledged son of Crum, had practically the same authority as his father, he petitioned Javeth to free him from his bondage. This Javeth did, and Dock returned to the heavens and whispered the solution into Crum's ear -- all according to Crum's plan.
* * *
Eventually Javeth returned to civilization, and as he passed through the various kingdoms of man, sign after sign revealed him to be the son of Crum. Nevertheless, one of these kings, none other than Penirus, the beloved son of Belona, denied his divinity, and even disrespected him as he made his visit; for this, Javeth made mad the mother, daughters, and female servants of Penirus, such that one night, they took him to the wilderness and tore him apart.
After this vengeance, Javeth claimed the kingdom of his uncle for his own, and married Regina, supposedly the daughter of an ally of his uncle's. Yet this ally, it turned out, was a former enemy, and had a longstanding grudge against the house of Aran, especially against Javeth himself, who had killed many of their sons on Javeth's decimation of the house of Hund. Thus, Regina proved to be his end: one night, she called for her remaining brothers, and did unto Javeth what he did unto Penirus, what he had done unto Linus. And, in fear that he should immediately return to life and wreak his vengeance upon them, she took the body parts and cast them into the fireplace, believing that ash would be far harder to reform than flesh and blood.
But her act was the final act Javeth needed to become a god, and by burning away his flesh, she also burned away his mortality: with the smoke of the fireplace rose the spirit and soul of Javeth, now become a god, who joined the rest of the pantheon of the gods as the god of heroes and poets. Here, he was married to his final wife, Thorn, the daughter of Larissa and Pons, and the goddess of agriculture and the seasons.
Thus began the Iron Age, when Javeth ruled jointly with his father, Crum, and when the last generation of gods were fully assembled.
(This is the age we live in, and the age prophesied to be the one that should last until the end of days: man is prophesied to take after Hund instead of Aran, growing worse and worse until even our newborns are grey-haired and wrinkled, and we have all forsaken not just the worship but also the justice of the gods. At this point, Manneh and Partheh shall return, heralding the end of days, while Crum shall enact his plan. Then, some say, the souls of those mortals who were pious and virtuous shall find a home among the stars, while a new world is created below them.)
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