The Annotated Ballad

Early religious book providing a simplified version of The Ballad creation myth from the Preface Chapter

The first ones were refugees: Bal and Vehk. They came into the Above, and the Narrative began.

As Bal and Vehk recovered from the destruction, they became in love with each other, and from their love, Hope was brought upon the Above. Hope was destined to fuel Bal's heart, and Vehk knew it, but even being in love with Bal, part of her felt resentful of Bal's promise of greatness.

And so Vehk split into Vi and Hir. All the love Vehk felt for Bal formed Vi, and all the hatred Vehk felt for Bal became Hir, and what remained of Vehk was spilled upon the Void, and became the first seeds of contradiction. And Vi and Hir were as mirror-brothers to each other.

At first, Hir professed friendship towards Bal, and pretended to cherish upon his sister's love for him, but in secret Bal planned to destroy Bal and take Hope for himself.

When Vi bore Bal's child, Hir felt the child was to become even greater than the father, and so he retreated on the borders of Below, and there he built a golem out of his hate and resentfulness for Bal and his sister, and the golem was the pure opposite of Hope, and made to defeat Bal.

So when Bal was occupied making a cradle for his child on the Above, and Vi was teaching her lessons to their yet unnamed son, Hir captured his sister-image and his nephew, and took them both behind the golem's protection on the bowels of Under.

Noticing his supposed friend's betrayal, Bal left the unfinished cradle and went after his wife and child. But he was not angry at Hir, for he knew such treason would come, for he remembered what happened before, and that only made Hir even more furious. Bal found Hir cowering behind his golem, and was not shaken by fear as Hir expected, instead, knowing he couldn't defeat the golem with his hands, he cast them aside and defeated the golem with nothing but his words, and when the golem was undone, he spread his remains on the limits between Above and Under, to protect Up from any attack Hir could make from Below.

Hir's rage filled Under, and in his blind fury he went to strike down Vi and her child. Vi saw the attack coming, and thus named her child, so it would become an egg and be safe from Hir's rage. And Hir struck a blow at both of them, with all his might and hatred, but he and Vi were still one, and in his blindness he forgot that, and upon the strike, Vi and Hir merged together once more in a great explosion, shattering the egg-child in twelve smaller eggs, which were thrown towards the Outer Void, and becoming a great plane in the middle of Under, eternally shifting in its form, unsure if it’s Hir or Vi, who both died and thus cannot affirm their presence any more.

Bal saw that his beloved had died and that his child was to be lost in the Void, and he knew then that Hope had already moved to his Heart, and that his Heart was his child, for all he could feel in himself was pain. So he encompassed both Under and Above, and all the realms in the Middle, so his egg-child and its twelve parts would never be lost and be safe for as long as he holds all within him. But Hope had been split, and neither Below nor Above, nor the realms in the Middle, would ever find peace while it's not made whole. But neither Bal nor the remaining parts of Vehk can accomplish this task, for one cannot leave his station and the other cannot cross the border of Below.

But Nirn did not forgo her father, and thus brought the followers of her father to Under, and there they populated the Twelve Worlds circling the eternal shifting body of Vi and Hir, so that one day Nirn will be brought together once more, and all Memory shall be restored.

This is an idea I had been cooking up for a while, a creation myth on Jubal's Amaranth, I tried to trace parallels with Anu's supposed story before the achieving of the Amaranth (as described in the Anuad, from which you can clearly see I based myself) and the various creation myths for the Aurbis, so I tried to trace some themes of Jubal's story in C0DA, and tried to make of that a creation myth, I hope you all like it!