The Children of the Anuad: Et'Ada

They were not children in the sense that you or I were children; they were children in the sense that they had no concept of time, were of limited mindfulness of their actions, and oblivious to the idea of consequence. Similar to mortal children however, they and their actions were largely inconsequential.

Like children, they took very little heed to their environment. If one were to ask them what surrounded them, they would simply say “Nothing”. A deep forest of Nothing. These metaphysical children scampered through infinite amounts of this Nothing, scurrying under its roots, dodging the trunks and rustling through endless canopies of Nothing. One thing all these emergent thoughts all had in common is that they felt themselves distinct from that Nothing, in that although vastly diverse, they were indeed Something.

Nothing is just as complicated as Something, but like mortal children, these Somethings were simply incapable of understanding such matters. The Somethings, we shall call these fledgling powers, continued their endless games in the knotted shelter of Nothing. In the manner of little children, they slowly and painfully began to learn.

One young Something began to beat a rhythm against the Nothing, and this rhythm was heard by Everything. The Somethings learned to count the beats, and this helped them learn consequences. Consequences helped them beat back the Nothingness, creating more space for them.

One Something would shout tunnels into the Nothing; another sickened and withered it; another tore it apart; yet another ate away at it.

But individually their efforts would only yield tiny domains in the Nothing, and progress was limited by what seemed to be the Nothing pushing back. They never considered that perhaps if Nothing was pushing back, perhaps it was more of a Something, they simply thought it to be the nature of Nothingness to be stubborn. One particularly clever Something had become complex enough that it could experience dissatisfaction. It envied the Nothingness, its ubiquity, its ability to stymie the expansion of everyone’s play areas. But he also did not like how it did not seem to be or do anything at all. He tried to create his own Nothingness, a ballooning gap forcing the tangle of the original Nothing apart. His own version of Nothing, where you could be everywhere but still be Something.

A Something just as clever stopped by, ribbons of force pushing through the forest in a noisy tunnel. When the ribbons of sound struck the new Nothing, it grew bigger. This new consequence delighted both Somethings, and as the original Nothing continued to crush back inwards, and they continued to play together.

The first clever Something, who would eventually be known by many names, but let’s use Lorkhan, invited all the other spirits to experiment with the new play area he had created with his friend, who we would eventually be known by many names, but let’s use Kyne.

The invitation attracted the attention of other Somethings, and they all had different feelings about this new game being played. Some of the young Somethings were uninterested in sharing in the new rules, and played parallel to the emerging game. Sometimes when Somethings came together, it would grow the space more, but other times it would collapse back down. After literally countless attempts to build a place to play in the Nothing, one of the cleverest Somethings felt he had observed what the problem was: they were not enough rules, and they were weakening their creation with their haphazard way of doing things. Not only did this space need more rules to work, they needed those rules enforced, because some of the Somethings that were playing were very simple indeed and could not be trusted to remember or obey.

Everyone agreed to Magnus’ rules, and the strongest and cleverest spirits agreed to enforce the rules of their new space. To everyone’s delight, the rules worked and the Nothingness began to thin and recede, until the only indication of it being there was Aka’s continual drumming, heard even in the centre of the space, which they called the Arena.

The going was not all easy, however, most of the Somethings were completely intoxicated by their newfound freedom, and were constantly breaking the rules, and threatening all their progress. Those cleverest of Somethings were constantly having to remind and correct the lesser Somethings, and they never had any time to play in the new Arena. Some of these builders were immediately put off by the task and tried to leave, taking up their games in the thinned out borders of the original forest of Nothing. Magnus, of all, was their leader, and they became the Magna-Ge.

Those Somethings that had never chosen to help build found themselves able to carve out even larger spaces in the new creation, and were even sometimes able to influence the weaker spirits outside their domains, and would be known as Daedra. Among those who remained, they found that almost all their time was spent enforcing the rules of the Arena, and none was spent playing in it. Even when they taught stronger lesser spirits to do some of the work for them, they were no longer free to play in that heedless way of children. They would be known as Aedra, and the lesser Spirits that carried out their orders were called the Ehlnofey.

Desite their cleverness, some of the Aedra had not understood the consequences of joining Lorkhan’s project, and resented that so much of their time was spent keeping the rules so the world would not collapse and force them to start over again (although this did happen many times). They took their anger out on Lorkhan and expelled him from his own creation.

“You tricked us Lorkhan! We may be powerful here, but we cannot play!” exclaimed Aka and Trinimac, leaders of the dissatisfied Ehlnofey. “This is not nearly as much fun as promised!”

“Did not!” retorted indignant Lorkhan, “This is only for a short time! Once the Ehlnofey learn all the rules and can take care of themselves without collapsing the world, then we will be free to play again. That’s why they are building the Towers, to make it easier for everyone to remember why we are here! Just be patient.”

But in the manner of children, Aka and Trinimac and their factions did not truly understand patience. In their anger, they tried to expel Lorkhan as vengeance. As they tore him apart, he laughed at them.

“You can’t kick me out, dummies! That’s against the rules! Remember, after Magnus and them left, we made the rule that no one can leave anymore, it’s too dangerous!”

“We can’t kick you out, but we can shut you up!” And Aka took Lorkhan’s dissatisfied heart and cast it across the Arena, and Trinimac hurled what was left of him into Oblivion, where his remains formed the Moons.

Lorkhan’s first playmate, the patient and clever Kyne, wept over the injustice, and shouted Lorkhan’s promise deep into the hearts of mortals:

“It can always be better.”

And so dissatisfaction was born in the hearts of the all the Ehlnofey.