On The Origin Of The Sun

[Scaramouche Fandango]

Simple Gifts, being an avid planter, collected stories about the sun. Most of them conflicted with each other, but that’s the nature of stories. Her personal favorite was the idea that the sun was a toy being thrown for an eaglehound. Every night, the celestial kin drops the sun in the ocean, and their night-colored eaglehound swims down to retrieve it. The hound brings it back at the dawn of each new day. But there were others that were just as good, and her other favorite- the one she was telling now, to entertain a small group of kin- she liked for different reasons. Sitting before her were an Acha, a Kiokote, a Zikwa, and a Totoma- and she herself was Kimeti. Five very different creatures, and yet in many ways the same.

“Have you ever been to the edge of the Swamp? Have you ever set foot beyond it after you came here, if you were not born here? You probably have not, for the Ache sets in when we try to leave. The Kimeti have known this the longest, but you will feel it too, if you try to leave the Swamp. But that wasn’t always the case. We are not the Motherfather’s first children. There were kin who came before, long, long before… and these kin were very different from us. They were not the children of any one place in particular; they could not be content in any one place. Instead of hearts, curiosity burned inside of their chests, and nothing could ever truly satisfy them. Unlike us, they only felt the Ache when they stopped moving, and when they had to stay settled in any one place, it broke their hearts. Though they loved the Motherfather, they could not find contentment here on this world.

At the same time, these kin were like all of us. They have the firefly eyes of the Kimeti, the armor of the Totoma. They have the Kiokote’s speed, the Acha’s grace… and the glowing hides of the Zikwa. These kin had no separations, and were only known as Kin- and Kin they were, for they were all one enormous family. They traveled freely, all moving as one. The herd traveled the Swamp, their trails eroding into rivers. They traveled to the Desert, where they pushed the dunes up as they made places to sleep. They traveled to the Mountains, their hooves chipping the great crags. They traveled to the Plains, where they ran circles around the great plateaus and filled their bellies with grass… and grasshoppers. They were not picky. Finally, they traveled beneath the world, to the Caves. In that deep inner darkness, amongst the dank stalactites and stalagmites, they saw bioluminescent treasures the world had never known.

But still, they were not satisfied. They wanted more. They had seen the whole world, except the ocean. So that was where they went next. They plunged into the ocean, one after the other. At this point, the ocean was still, but even to this day it ripples from the impact of all those Kin. And once they had seen the ocean, they all fell quiet.

“Where else is there to go?” said one.

“We have seen everything. We must choose a home,” said the other.

But no place was suitable. The Kin would not harbor talk of splitting up- the whole family must remain together.

Finally, they cried to the Motherfather. To stop moving was to die; to stagnate, to drown. It wasn’t fair, they said, that they were stuck here while the Motherfather had the whole sky.

“The sky!” they cried. “The sky has no limit. Take us to the sky and we will finally be satisfied!”

This worried the Motherfather, for they did not want to lose their children entirely, and the sky was a vast place. But every parent knows that their children must make their own choices, and in the end, the Motherfather would not interfere with this. So the Motherfather created a milky-white river that touched the sea, and the Kin swam up it and into the sky. The Motherfather pulled it up after them, and you can still see it on some nights.

The Kin were delighted at the size of the sky. Here at last was a place they could explore and never, ever have to leave. Its boundaries… were not, after all. But a new concern came upon them.

What if something happened and they were separated? They might never find each other again, and that would be worse than anything. What if they strayed from the bounds of the Motherfather? What if they disappeared into the darkness, never to be seen again? This was too horrible to think about, and so it was decided that a great bonfire would be built, a pyre that would never cease burning.

The Motherfather was pleased when the plan bore fruit. “We shall call it the Sun,” they said,” “And it will be a beacon to all of you. Set it in my eye,” they said. “So that I can always see you, and when I look on the world below, I can see what happens there as well. Half of the time I will look at what is below; the other half I will look at you. That way you will never be separated from each other, but you will also never be separated from me.”

All of the Kin contributed to the bonfire. Those who had died were burned upon it, so that it would carry their love into the ether for eternity. Kin shared things they had gathered. Glowing fungus from the caverns beneath the world, grasses and sweet-smelling desert scrub, driftwood and pine boughs– and fireflies, because fireflies belong in eyes. The Motherfather was greatly pleased, and so were the Kin, who were eager to have both freedom and attention in perfect balance.

In the end, it didn’t quite work out that way. The Motherfather didn’t want the world beneath to be lonely, so they set to creating again. Their second children were different from the first. We weren’t all the same, and we had a different understanding of boundaries and what they mean to us. Sometimes, the Motherfather’s eye is upon us for longer. We call this summer, and the heat of their gaze helps our food to grow. Sometimes, the Motherfather needs to pay attention to them more than us, because they’re in some sort of trouble up there, or perhaps just want attention. They are in some ways very much like us, after all.”