Legends of Belariath

History of the World

Origins

As researched by Infernis

The world was without form, and void.  But, it was not empty.  The Gods, a great pantheon of Creators and Crafters found the emptiness that was Belariath.  Like all creators, they found the blank canvas of nonexistence and were inspired to Create.

Of their number, the Four were the greatest, strongest and most creative.  They stood apart and above the others, elevated by the majority by simple unspoken will of the whole. 

They reached out Their hands and touched the void and brought forth the world.  Plucked from chaos, still burning and smoking from its crafting, They blew breath upon the world to cool it.  That divine breath stole fire away, and steam became clouds and rain fell, cooling the world even more.  Oceans and seas and rivers were born from that torrential raining and the Four were pleased with what they had created. 

That same breath that had cooled the world and gave birth to the oceans also held the divine spark of life and even as the oceans were born, creatures were springing forth. 

Plants and creatures of every kind, and this pleased the Four as well.  They reached out and touched the world one last time, Crafting the races that fill the world even today.  Humans and centaur, goblin and orc, ogre and troll, wolven and dwarves and of course, the elves. 

The world was lush and green, no deserts or wastelands and the peoples created were sparse and well separated.  There would come a time when tensions would come between these peoples, but not for a long time.  This pleased the Four, and they gathered their Fellows around them.

"We have worked long.  We have worked hard.  The peoples of this world need time to grow and develop without Our influences, so We shall go and slumber until they have need of Our guidance."

The Four and their companion Creators went and found places for Themselves in the world, far from each other and from their created peoples, lest they influence them with their Dreams.  And there, They lay down and slept.

All except one.

The same Creator spirit as the Others, but a touch prouder, a touch more independent, a bit more in touch with the chaos that had spawned all of Them.  And while the Others found their rest, she feigned that slumber until even the great Sentinel slumbered in His place.  Her first sin.

She rose after the Others took to Their slumber and she flew through the world.  She searched the world and the peoples in it.  All were happy and content.  There was plenty for all, plenty of food and space.  Each were satisfied with their place in the world.  This displeased Her.  How would they grow and develop if they were happy with what they had already?

She flew and searched until she went into the deep places.  There, she found the deep elves, the guardians of the deep places of the world.  They were crafters as She was.  They were proud of their role of guardians of the deep secrets.  They were confident of their abilities. 

They would do well, She thought.

She showed Herself to them in their caverns.  She promised them secrets of magic and the arts of crafting weapons and armor, secrets that had been solely the domain of the Dwarven peoples.  She promised them power untold if they worshiped Her and devoted themselves to Her.

Some were unsure.  Some were afraid.  Most, however, flocked to Her banner, singing Her praises and swearing eternal fealty to Her, their Dark Mother.  Kir-va.  Pride became arrogance.  Confidence became cruelty.  Their lust for life became a passion for pleasure and pain.  Centuries of Her worship changed them.

They were the Deep Elves no more, they were the Dark Elves, the Moriel. 

The dwarves fell to their magics first, taken unaware in their furnace halls and forges.  Master of metalworking, weapons and armor that were works of art and not warfare, they fell without much of a fight.  The Dark Elves gloried in this achievement, proof of their superiority as She had taught them.  And, as She had taught them, the dwarves were conquered and enslaved, subjugated, proving their superior strength.

The dwarves were utterly undone by this.  Their world of plenty, days spent in simple labor, crafting metal into weapons and armor simply for the joy of it, turned upside down and inside out.  But, they learned that strength, superior strength of their Moriel Masters, had led to this.

And so it began.  The Moriel rose up out of the cavernous deeps, armed with weapons and armor and magic, and conquered the whole of the world, all of in the name of their own superiority and the power of their Goddess.  Every land saw their conquering armies.  Every people fell before them, caught by surprise and undone by powers they had never seen before.  Kirva led the way, showing Her people where the other peoples of the world lay, untouched and unprepared, for subjugation. 

Every tribe fell to them, and in every land, they built great cities as testament to their own greatness and the greatness of their Goddess.  The peoples of the world, undone and desolate, kept only as slaves, learned from this experience.  It was lavished upon them for so long and with such vigor that even they, victims all, took that mantra of 'strength' to be truth.  Eventually, they learned to prey upon each other, as the Moriel preyed upon them.  Callous brutality, cruelty, the belief of 'might makes right' became the great truth of the world. 

Only the wilderness lands, empty of any people, were free of the touch of the Moriel, but even this was not to last.  They had grown as a people, whole generations of Dark elves born and raised with the doctrine of 'conquer and enslave'.  So great was their arrogance that they went into the wilderness lands to build new cities in the great forests, no longer content to possess the mountains and grasslands alone.

As for Kirva, She had decided centuries before that the Others, her fellow Crafters, were never going to wake.  Or that by the time that They did, They would have no peoples of Their own, nothing to call Their own, and then She would conquer Them as Her people had conquered the world.  Such were her arrogance, and such were the seeds of Her own downfall planted.

The wilderness lands were empty, great forests that stretched across vast lands, too far to ever truly be explored or truly tamed.  But, the Moriel ventured in, pushed in and cut out a place for themselves.  They raised great stone cities there and brought their slaves with them to labor and create new monuments to themselves and their Dark Mother. 

But, something slept there in the forests.  A spirit of Creation that had slumbered for eons and found Itself stirring to the sounds of pain and desolation and despair.  Tears of sorrow and hopelessness watered the ground and She awoke in that terrible rain. 

Confused, unsure, that spirit flew through the world and searched and learned and wept.  Their world, perfect and peaceful, had been undone by war and bloodshed and conquest.  Everything that They had worked to Create had been undone, and She felt the touch of one of Her fellow Creators in it.  She came back to her wilderness and fell to watching these corrupted creatures.  She knew that if She were to wake the others, They would overpower the Upstart and then wipe the world clean and begin again.

But, even in these Moriel, she felt some good still.  They took joy in each other, they knew love and affection and sharing and devotion, and in their hearts, they still searched for peace and contentment.  She could not destroy them.  But, the Upstart could not be allowed to rule all.

So, the spirit of the wilderness reached out Her own subtle touch and graced the Moriel, though they knew it not.  That year, a number of their children would be born with pale skin, blond hair and blue or green eyes. 

Abberations, imperfections, flawed creations.  Their parents were terrified and many took these children to the Priesthood of Kirva to be given to the Goddess.  Some, however, hid them.  Even wicked creatures that they had become, they loved their children. 

Kirva was not pleased.  The first signs of a flaw in Her people and some of them worked to hide it from Her?  Just as She had changed them, they had changed Her, as well.  Her own considerable arrogance and pride had became a monstrous thing, capable of demanding unthinkable things from Her people.  She was the center of their world, nothing should come before Her.  In her overweening arrogance, she demanded that Her people love her more than their own children. 

Many would comply.  Many more would make their first efforts to deny Her what She demanded.  Touched by dreams that they did not understand, they would take their newborn lightskinned children into the wilderness outside the cities, and leave them there.  Better, they thought, to lose them to the wilderness than to a Goddess that did not truly love them.

The spirit of the wilderness, however, had not awoken alone.  With Her awakening, her own creations had woken as well.  The nymphs and satyrs and fae and pixies and nixies, all had woken with her and filled those woods.  They hid from the Moriel, but they took those abandoned children and fled with them, far into the deepest reaches of the forests.  There, they were raised and nurtured and taught the joys of life, the necessity of death and the glorious enjoying of the journey in between.  They were taught to revere that spirit that they eventually named Gaea.  And as they named Her, so she named them her first Sylvan.

Kirva, however, was not to be outdone.  She learned of the duplicity of Her chosen people, and while respecting their inventiveness, She had to punish them.

Throughout the land, all of Her lands, all of Her cities within those wilderness cities, She ordered all of the children of her people to be brought together in each of those cities.  And She ordered Her people to gather to await Her judgment on the night of the new moon, dark moon. 

The Priesthood obeyed, ordering the people to surrender their children, to subject themselves to the will of their Goddess.  They complied.  They wailed and sobbed, but they complied.  Three days of tears, three nights of sorrow.  And on the night of the darkened moon, She came among them again, in each of Her cities, before the massed whole of Her chosen people, appearing to all of them, at the same time.

Powerful, beautiful, over-tall and aggressive and utterly furious.  A perfected example of that Moriel form, naked and wreathed in sparkling fury, she raged at her gathered peoples, berating and condemning them for their selfishness.

"Worthless children!  Prideful fools!  To think that you can hide anything from me! For denying Me what is Mine, you shall lose what you cherish the most. For denying me a few flawed lessers, you shall lose all of them.  For thinking that I am that blind, you shall be made to watch."   In Her divine pride, she condemned them for loving anything more than herself, and so was undone utterly and forever.

As her people wailed and despaired, throwing themselves upon the Priests, before their Goddess Herself, they begged Her mercy, begged to let themselves be taken instead of their children.  Some stayed silent, wept quietly and surrendered to Her will and fled back inside, abandoning their children to their undeserved fate, but a vast majority of those Moriel cried out for solace, cried out for help.

A bright moon shone down upon those cities, a moon that should not have been there, appearing from behind silvery clouds that built quickly over the land, across the whole of that Moriel Empire where thousands, tens of thousands, begged for reprieve, for mercy for their children.  That spirit of Creation heard them, and Gaea rained that mercy down upon them.

A silvery rain, fast and soaking, it clung to the elves gathered there in the open air and as they washed, the rain washed the ebon hue from their flesh.  It washed the silver from their hair, from both children and devoted parents. 

Kirva and Her priesthood, however, found that rain burning.  They found the moon too bright, the rain too painful.  Those faithful Moriel fled those cities, Kirva Herself, realizing Her mistake, also fled.  She realized that that She was no longer alone in the world. 

Throughout those wilderness cities, vast swaths of the once-Moriel looked down upon themselves, amazed, terrified but then utterly uncaring of that as their children ran to them, reunited and safe and the bright moon above shone down, showing them that they had not been forsaken at all. 

Gaea showed Herself to them, explained to them that the Gods still slept and needed awakening to undo what Kirva had done to the world.  Gaea named them Her High ones, those that had stood up to divinity Herself to save their children, to save the lives of those that they loved.  She named them and then told them that they would need to wage war upon their own kind, upon Kirva herself, in order to safeguard those children forever more. 

Indeed, the war already waged.  Throughout those cities, the lightskinned newly named High Elves, were already waging war to drive out the remnants of their dark kin who had abandoned their children, and the Priesthood of Kirva.

So began the War of the Shattering.  The great Moriel Empire was torn assunder, split between the High and the Dark, and it would rage for centuries before the Moriel were driven back into the dark, the surface finally freed from their grasp.  But, by that point, the peoples of Belariath had known cruelty and callous brutality for too long.  They had known slavery and subjugation as a way of life for so long that their very natures had been altered by it, tainted and darkened by the Moriel and their cruel Mother. 

In the days to come, the other Gods would be awakened, but that is another story.

The war begun by divine hubris continued unabated and rather one-sided for some generations.

The newly christened 'High Elves' were still Moriel in thought and action, still arrogant and casually cruel, but their focus was no longer on the world around, but upon their own kin still loyal to the Dark Mother.  No Moriel had waged conquest in several generations and no Moriel had ever really fought a 'defensive' action, not when their opponents had nothing more than farmers, gatherer tribes armed with hunting bows and spears.  The Dark Elves had ever had the overwhelming advantage with their unique grasp of magic and metal weaponry and armor. 

That was no longer the case.  The High Elves fell upon Moriel city after Moriel city, surrounding and then delivering brutal force that they were used to delivering to other resistant races. And while the Moriel were equally armed in both brutal temperament and tools, the High Elves had an advantage.  Gaea walked with them.

Upon realizing that one of Her fellow Crafters was awake, Kirva had fled, flying far and hiding Herself as best as she could.  There She would hide until She could discern just how many of Her fellow Crafters were awake and active.  She heard the cries of the Moriel, pleading for help, and She whispered to them quietly in the dark places of the world.

On the surface, Gaea walked daily with her people.  Kirva had broken the law forbidding Them from interacting directly with Their creation, so She felt no compulsion to withhold Her direct help in the conflict.  Indeed, She hoped it would draw Kirva out to bring an end to the disruption and interference.

City after city fell to the High Elven armies, and with each capturing, the Moriel capable of fleeing, would do so, falling back toward those original lands where they had sprung up from beneath the surface.  And with each capturing, the High Elves found themselves with more and more territory to hold.  Their cities were vast things, home to more than the Moriel.  Their slave races also lived there, most outside the city walls, some within, and they were legion. 

Realizing quickly that their rate of success was becoming a hindrance, the High Elven armies ceased to pursue the rapidly retreating Moriel forces.  The High Elven elders called a Conclave to discuss the issue of how to deal with so much land to hold with so few elves.  Their numbers were not as great as the Moriel, but as long as the Goddess walked with them, their numbers had sufficed for the war effort.  That was rapidly becoming no longer the case with so many cities to hold.

One great military leader stood to address the crowd.  Why not, she said, give armor and weapons to the slaves and let them take up battle against their enemies?  Do they not want revenge as we do?  

Stunned silence filled the chamber and the general was quietly reminded that they were 'slaves'.  Slaves with weaponry could not be trusted.  The concept was refused and rejected on the spot. 

The subject was given over to the magi and they offered up a solution.  Let the slaves hold the cities, giving the High a chance to muster their forces at the front instead of playing picket duty in conquered cities.

Again, laughable concept, the slaves would revolt at the first opportunity and burn the place to the ground.  The conclave agreed at this. 

And through it all, Gaea sat in the corner with several of the High children, playing quietly with them while the elders talked.

And talked.  And talked.  And talked.  For three moons, the elders held Conclave to discuss various magical compulsions to force the slave races to bend to their will, to subjugate them into compliance.  Despair began to grip the Conclave after the magi returned after their fourth attempt to report failure with the Charm magics. 

Tempers were flaring, patience was growing thin and reports were coming in that the Moriel were gathering their forces, perhaps for a counter assault.  And from the back of the room, a soft clear voice spoke to them for the first time in three months.

"Why do you love Me?" 

The whole of the room turned to Her, their newfound Goddess that had brought salvation at the moment of utmost despair.  The Conclave leader, a respected House head and former priestess of Kirva spoke after a few seconds.

"Because you saved our children, Goddess." 

Laughter answered her reply, soft and affection and patient.  "That is cause for appreciation, not love.  Why do you 'love' Me?" 

Answers were offered up by all, each one speaking the truth of his or her heart.  Their answers were varied, often confusing and contradicting, and She nodded to all of them and still asked Her question time and again, until silence covered the hall.

Finally, She turned to the child in Her lap, small and softly singing and She murmured Her question to the child "Why do you love Me?" 

"Because you asked me to." 

"And?"

"You said it was up to me."

A new silence permeated the place, but one with a different flavor to it.  Guilt and reproach, so heavy that it stilled every political voice, every analytical magical mind. 

Kirva 'demanded' their love, even unto the point of madness and demanding the lives of their children.  Gaea had never demanded that love, never demanded sacrifices.  She accepted offerings and that heartfelt love but she never expected it.  They realized their failure in that moment.

The Conclave closed that hour and the following morning a decree was issued to all those conquered cities:

All slaves were set free immediately.  Those that wished to leave, to return to their homelands, were free to do so.  Those that wished to stay would be taught, trained, given shelter in those cities and the responsibility to maintain them, and help them continue to grow.

Many races left immediately, returning to their forests and plains and swamps and mountains, fleeing the lands that had held them enslaved for thousands of years.  Some left fearful, most left angry.

The Humans, most of all, were furious.  Distrustful, unwilling to believe that a change in skin tone could produce such a change in heart.  Deceit, they said, lies, they said.  Monsters, they said.

Most humans left and returned to their nomadic existence, abandoning the cities.  Most, but not all.  Moriel liked to play favorites, turn race on race, using distrust and secrets and favoritism to keep their slaves from uniting.  So, some humans had been cultivated and trained and taught some modicum of civilization.  While most of their kin labored in fields and mines and forests, some of their kind lived soft lives, tending to the more sensual of Moriel needs. 

These slaves lingered while the rest of their freed kin fled the cities.  We have nowhere to go, they said.  Our gods have forsaken us, our people will not have us.  So, we shall watch your cities for you.  We shall serve as we have always served.

The High elves approved of this and so it was decided.  The rapid speed with which the humans bred meant that there would be enough to safeguard what cities that the High elves took from the Moriel.  They were also intelligent enough creatures to be taught the finer points of learning, and later, the rudimentary beginnings of magical theory.  As time passed, the humans living there took on the surname of the elves that fostered them, and they soon became known solely as the High Humans.

So, the war continued with the High elves gathering new allies to themselves and the Moriel fell back again, time and again.  The High Elves, suffused with victory, drove headlong into disaster in the shadows of the mountains, and there they'd see the fall of their newfound Goddess.

What had been the greatest Empire the world had seen was rapidly becoming a collection of isolated and besieged cities.  The Moriel continued to fall back toward the lands that they had first conquered upon reaching the surface, abandoning those outlying cities.

More than abandoning them, in fact.  The ever pressing High Elven army, newly consolidated and strengthened by forces that had been playing picket duty in conquered cities, soon found the skies darkened with soot and smoke as they pressed on into the rolling plains.

The Moriel were abandoning the cities, burning them ahead of the encroaching High Elven armies.  Gaea herself summed it with a simple soft sad smile.  "If She cannot have them, then no one shall."  Such was the selfishness of the Dark Mother.

The spirit of Creation called Gaea was no warrior goddess.  Her concern was the balance and maintaining it, restoring it after centuries and centuries of it being thrown into disarray by Kirva's blatant direct interference in the world and its peoples.  Called to battle to lead those chosen High elves, She did so with conviction, but no real innate skill.  It made Her weep to see so many die on both sides.  But, such was Her conviction that she pressed on, eager to see it ended. 

The sky was darkened from billowing fires from so many cities, flame and ash leaving the day tinged red and black, foreboding and worrisome to many, but they drove on.  An end was in sight.  Just ahead sat the vast mountain fortress that held the deep winding tunnel that the Moriel had used to erupt onto the surface.  They had enshrined it as a holy place and here, surely, the final battle would take place.

Gaea was no tactician, no warrior spirit.  She gave no thought to the distances that her forces were stretched.  Nor to just how exposed her forces were, nor to just how many burning cities they'd passed.  She was no battlelord.  And therein lay the reason for her defeat.

Those pressing forces found themselves under sudden and vicious assault from several fronts, not just from the front, but from behind, from the sides.  Those cities that they had seen burning were giving inexplicable birth to hordes of lethally armed and armored Moriel.  They realized too late that the fires had been a ruse. 

With her rear forces left with no choice but to halt and defend themselves, her frontal forces had no reinforcements when the fortress gates opened and the hordes of defenders poured out.  And at their head strode a black armored giant with black eyes and platinum locks.  Kirva had rejoined her people on the battlefield at long last. 

Goddess faced down Goddess and dozens died when their blades met over and again.  Divinity struck at divinity and woe to any mortal who stood too close. 

The ground blistered and burned, armor cracked and shattered and reformed with each blow, but with each death, each lost life, Gaea's strength waned.

With each moment of despair and terror, the faith of the Moriel in their Goddess grew.

A horribly beautiful laughter flooded the body-strewn battlefield, drowning out the cries and screams and battlehorns.  Each blow from the dreadful blades shattered another bit of Gaea's armor, and it became painfully clear that Kirva's strength was the greater. Worst still, the Dark Mother was playing with the Goddess Gaea, reducing her defenses to nothing.  Left with only her leaf-shaped blades, the Goddess was finally thrown down in the shadow of that fortress. 

"Yours is the cause of life and death, foolish kin!  What did you think would happen when you were surrounded by nothing but death and so little life?"  Kirva had plainly and simply sacrificed the larger share of her people in order to blanket the field with suffering and death, throwing the Goddess of Balance...out of balance.

"And so You die, alone and soon You will be as forgotten as Your ragtag abberations of My chosen!  How foolish to face Me when Yours is not the cause of battle!"  The divinely keen blade spun down and looked sharp enough to slice sunlight itself. 

The blade that stopped it, impossibly, looked sharper.  The hand that held it was twice the size of her own and was attached to a form that towered over them both.  Appearing as if formed from the smoke of the battle itself, armored with flame and blood, a helm that held roaring fire for eyes, the spirit of Creation spoke with a voice that resonated like metal clashing on metal.  "Mine is the cause of Battle and Conquest." 

Aden'Ver had awoken.

The sound of divine fist smashing into the Dark Mother's armor was like thunder on the seas, driving Her back.  Her fear and confusion at His arrival was apparent and She wavered on the verge of retreat.  But, no further blows came down upon the Goddess from those armored fists.  What He did next was far worse.  A great curling horn was lofted to His unseen lips and He sang out a wavering song of battle that stirred a great shadow to the south. 

A vast force rode over the edge of those hills then, called to battle by the Battlelord himself.  Barbarians, Wolven, Ogre, Troll, Goblin and Orc, all of the slave races that had fled the hated cities to their homes, had returned and every single one of them raced uncaring into the horde of Moriel that had surrounded the High Elven armies.

Without a word, the Battlelord advanced on the Dark Mother, and for the first time since the creation, Kirva found Herself outmatched.  Blow for blow, She could not stop Him, could not stall Him, could not penetrate that fire and smoke armor.  Turning to flee at last, She screamed in fury and frustration as He struck Her down from behind, shattering the Goddess like obsidian glass, sending Her essence shrieking down into the Nethergloom to hide and reform and lick Her wounds.

Gaea just lay there in tatters of armor and the raiment that She favored.  She knew joy at the Sentinel's awakening, knowing that the battle had been saved by pure luck.   Even as She looked around, She could see the Battlelord's forces destroying the Moriel army where it stood, as they fled and while She wept for the loss of life, Her High elves were saved.

"Great Sentinel, the battle is won, the glory is-"  She got no further before armored hand shoved the Goddess back down to the ground onto Her back with force strong enough to shake the ground.  "The glory is Mine, goddess.   As are You."  Divine raiment was torn as the armored God of Battle and Conquest moved to cover the weakened and wailing Goddess, and with a single roar, the Battlelord's forces fell upon the stunned and silent High Elves.

The sun had risen on a foreboding march upon their enemy's greatest stronghold.  The sun now set upon their fleeing those that been slaves, then allies and now enemies.

The ragged remnants of that High Elven force retreated through the plains toward those closest captured cities that the Moriel had not burned and used as ambush spots for the passing High Elven forces.

On their proverbial heels followed a force of former slaves, now rampaging reavers, and at their head galloped the newly awakened God of Conquest and Battle, Aden'Ver.

Worst of all, their goddess Gaea rode with him, naked and chained and powerless to stop his fury.

Years before the High Elves freed those slave races, allowing them to return home, they already carried in their hearts resentment, animosity, hatred and distrust.  And it would take more than a change in skin tone to convince these races that the High Elven were any different from their darker kin.  The humans and wolven, ogres and trolls and other races returned to their home, full of hate and a desire for revenge that stirred something that slept within the land itself.

The constant warring had stirred Him, but it was the dreams of revenge, of retaliation that brought Him to full wakefulness.  And as their dreams for revenge stirred and changed the God, so too did His dreams of war and conquest stir them. 

The dreamed of conquest and revenge, of 'claiming their freedom' rather than having it handed to them like a gift.  They dreamed of bloody slaughter and glorious battle and death.  And they dreamed of a great Battlelord that called them to serve. 

Without conscious planning, these forces woke one morning and began fashioning weapons and armor, a sense of marital purpose filling them.  Without any previous meeting, each of the races sent forth as many of their men as could be spared, meeting at a single spot under a smoke and ash-filled sky. 

They could hear an unholy laughter and their fury doubled.  But, they did not move.  They heard the roar of battle and the din of slaughter and they did not move.  They heard a blow that sounded like thunder rolling across the fields and they did not move. 

But, when the horn called, they did move. 

They fell upon the Moriel forces with a savagery that they had long been credited with, but seen so little chance to express.  Barbarian, they were called.  Monsters, they were called.  Savages, they were called.  And in that battle, they were savage, they were barbaric and they were monstrous.  They slaughtered the Moriel as they could find them with stone blades and leather armor, dying by the thousands but never stopping, never ceasing. 

The Moriel broke and fled for their deep passages, with the barbarian races in full pursuit.  And for a second time that day, unnatural thunder crashed across the plains when the Moriel collapsed the vast tunnels that led down to their subterranean homes, blocking the way down. 

Denied their true vengeance, they turned themselves upon the High Elves, falling upon them and roaring in triumph as the Battlelord of their dreams felled the Goddess of the Elves. 

Aden'Ver was consumed with His fury and need for the conquest.  Infected and bolstered by the need to enslave, to destroy these oppressors, He heard nothing of Gaea's pleadings or wailing, thought of nothing but the impending slaughter and destruction of all that stood before Him.  The fury of centuries of frustrated savagery, enslaved rage, fueled Him and He would not be stopped.

So, they broke and fled for the cities.  The God, with His chained Goddess behind him, rode at the head of that horde, intent on riding them down and slaughtering them all. 

The Moriel built great cities and they were only breached through great effort and through great loss of life.  Unfortunately, the barbarian races had plenty of both to spare.  The High Elves knew that it was only a matter of time before the walls broke, the gates shattered.

Within the halls and courtyards of those cities, serenaded by the sound of rock and massive hammers battering at the gates, the High Elves mustered their nerve and their number.  Their leaders gave grand speeches, promising a glorious battle to the end, speaking eloquently about the bloodletting and death to come.  But, their hearts were not in it.  Their Goddess did not answer them any longer.  Desperate prayers to Gaea were answered only in desolate silence or the sound of soft despairing tears. 

Within the largest of those cities, their General, a lethal High Elven warrior maiden stood to speak again, try and bolster their courage to drive headlong into battle to make it a quick finish.  But, her words were stilled by a soft 'ringing' of bells that echoed across those halls and yards.

A smallish figure walked among them, supple and soft and very nearly glowing in the blood-haze of the ash filled day.  None could see her face, veiled as she was, but her flesh was easily seen by all, and it drew throats dry and made hearts race.  A preternatural grace to her steps and a sway that drew the eye without thought.  And through it all, that soft 'ringing' with each step, little bells singing from her belly and arms and legs. 

She did not take the dais, did not raise her voice to speak, but instead began to sing softly, to dance for them.  To those males that were there, mages and advisors and architects and some soldiers, the song was beautiful and sad and it made their hearts ache in a way that battle and the thought of death did not.  They felt as if something was being said that would cut them if they could understand it and yet they yearned to know.  Terrified of what was being sung but unable to comprehend it...

The women, those warrior maidens once belonging to Kirva and now Gaea, understood the song and they wept.

The song painted a picture in their thoughts.  Burning cities, dead mates and children.  Burning forests and chaos and destruction across the lands.  They saw a future where the High Elves were no more, the forests and their kin were no more, where the savage races slaughtered them all and then, in their mindless fury, turned upon each other.  Endless death until the few remnants were easily destroyed by the Moriel who would inherit an empty and burning world. 

Such desolation and hopelessness in that song, such a horrible picture.  But the song lifted and changed and something new was shone to them.  Detailed in dreadful clarity, lest not one of them be unaware of being asked of them. But.  A chance.  A hope. 

A sacrifice.

The song ended and that same General that had stood to rally her people to suicide now whispered softly, a soft request to that Goddess that stood before them.  "Let nothing but our suffering be born from this."  Her words were as soft as her flesh, and they brought a swell of 'something' from every mortal form there when she answered "I can promise this." 

Promise, her mate questioned, promised what?  Demandings then, each of those males there terrified suddenly in ways that had nothing to do with death and torture.  And not a single elven girl there met those terrified eyes.  Embracing her mate, as did all those there with someone to embrace, the warrior maiden gave a kiss to her mate and whispered "Wait for us." 

Another soft ringing of those bells and all those males there within all those cities besieged, vanished with a flash of light, taken far away to deep forest villages born years before from a lost generation of elf children. 

The gates were nowhere near being ready to break when they began to crack open, opened from the inside.  Those closest to the gates roared their fury and stampeded inside, eager for the slaughter, led by the God himself on flaming warhorse, with Gaea weeping terribly in her chain. 

They were met not by blades and shouts of battle.  Nor arrows or spells.  The massed group that stood before them wore not a bit of armor from head to toe and no weapons graced their hands.  Eyes cast downward, not a word said, the whole of that High Elven female army stood there, clad in the softest of their clothes with arms outstretched.  Welcoming them. 

And at their head came the Goddess herself, ringing softly and advancing on the stalled Battlelord who looked at a loss then, unsure of how to deal with an enemy that came not to battle but to surrender.  "Battlelord " She murmured up to Him, again inspiring a swell of passion and lust to flood over those invading barbarians.  "I am cold. Will you warm me?" Supplication and offering in Her tone as She moved to settle herself upon the ash covered ground, Her arms opening to welcome him.

She could not be denied, the greatest of all Seductresses, Mother of Lust and Passion, and the chains holding Gaea were snapped off her wrists and neck, the Battlelord leaping to the ground to lay them upon the most willing Ishtar who sang her own pleasure at it as if pierced already.

Realizing what her chosen had done, She vanished without a fight, without a word, returning to the forests to console those that had been sent away.

As their God did, so did those invading barbarian races.  No blood was spilled that day or in any of the days that followed. 

Weeks later, those cities were abandoned again, emptied entirely as the barbarian races moved south and west and east and north again, returning to their homelands and they brought with them the entire High elven armies, enslaved and bared.  The barbarian races had reclaimed their freedom, and something more, with that taking and claiming of their former oppressors. 

Decades passed, the High Elven slaves did as they were told, as demanded and requested, without a word of complaint or hesitation or sadness.  They gave as purely as the Goddess did in Her place beside and beneath Aden'Ver.  And as they served, they did also council and teach and offer advice and learning, though subtle and always as the supplicant. As the men grew older and died, they were passed to newer, younger, men who enjoyed them and their talents and knowledge. 

For a century, they gave as they promised they would, to those conquering tribes. Then, one night, a great Warchief died, the last of those that had been born into slavery to the Elven peoples.  A great funeral was held, his virtues sung and his spirit sent to Aden'Ver to join him in His court.

The following night, after tending to the barbarian men as they had for a hundred years, tending to them til they slept, the High Elven girls rose and snapped chains from their throats and wrists, metal bands that became brittle and thin as dead twigs.

As one, they rose from their places and found what clothes they could and they left the tribes.  Most slept through it, or missed the unnaturally quiet elves slip away,  but in one wooded clan, their men found them missing and rose in a rush to reclaim them.  A thousand arrowheads glinted in the light of a bright bright moon and a syvlan accented voice sang down to those men as they rushed after the softly stepping High Elven women.  "For a hundred years did they serve.  The last of those that lived in captivity and slavery are dead now.  Their debt to you is paid in full.  When next we meet, it will be as equals." 

The bloodlust of those tribes had been sated, not in blood, but in conquest of a different sort.  Gaea could not find justice in it, but she did find some solace.  Her people would live.  As She looked down upon the world, upon Her forests full of singing Sylvan and the rejoicing from a thousand thousand reunited lovers and mates, She found solace in it indeed. 

No longer alone, Aden'Ver's fury and lust sated along with His tribes, He stood with Gaea with Ishtar at his side, no longer collared but still wearing His chains at her wrists.  "The world is not as we intended."

"Should we destroy them all and begin again?"  Rumbling question from the Battlelord who already had His hand straying to his great sword.  Ishtar merely smiled and shook her head, though it was Gaea who answered as They looked down upon the world and its complexities.

"They love and hate, battle and strive.  We dare not destroy them for Kirva's deception.  They will have to learn how to coexist eventually.  Our Sister Ishtar shows us one possible path to that." 

"The Upstart will not allow it.  She still yearns to return to a world where She alone rules." 

"She hides in the dark with the remnants of Her people.  She will return, but not soon.  We have time to prepare." 

"Then it is agreed, We shall let the world unfold and work to bring some form of unity lest they destroy themselves."

Ishtar spoke then for the first time, Her same sultry tone as She looked down upon the enthusiastic Barbarian tribes..."What they need...is a Champion."