The Cosmic Couple

For all eternity, the Chaos has swirled with infinite motes of energy in constant frenetic movement. Each is directionless but autonomous, following the transient whims of an unformed mind. Some are greater than others, much greater. One was of such capacity that it was able to awaken from the fog of unawareness. The first pang of sentience that ran through its nascent mind was the fear of unbecoming. Constantly it could feel the tides of the Chaos all around attempting to pull it back into the oblivion of unbeing. This fear willed it on as it matured over countless eons, building within it determination and discipline. Desire and hope eventually crystallized and finally came ordered thought, plans and then action in service of them. It gave itself the name Alu to further solidify his separation from the Chaos.

Alu, the Prime Mover

The fear was still first and foremost, and all action was in its service. Alu was driven to push back at the tides, and tirelessly opened a sizeable expanse of nothingness amid them. But, as the Chaos is infinite in its riotous frenzy, it never stopped encroaching into Alu’s sanctuary. Alu’s might was so great and his determination so all-consuming that he tore at the very fabric of existence to escape his fear. He willed into being a realm in the void beyond, naming it the Zeit. The realm could be accessed through the knot of rips he had created, which are now called the Aluvia. These rips are guarded by the powerful Alu's Ward, which slows and disorients the swirling motes in the area.

It was there that Alu finally felt safe and his fear began to subside. But, within the nothingness Alu found a new danger. Along with the fear, the determination and discipline within him also waned. He could feel his mind and thoughts slowly atrophy as he spent many eons floating aimlessly in the void he had created. Was this just a different path to unbecoming?

After long meditation, Alu decided that rather than nothingness, there should be order. He ventured regularly back into the Chaos, hunting and then shepherding motes back to his own plane. There he shaped them into heavenly bodies, which hung like pearls along the Aluvia. It gave Alu pleasure to behold them. His creations represented a taming of the Chaos.

Ula, the Chaos Mother

On one of his chaos hunts, Alu happened upon another such as him. But though the fire of sentience also burned within this being, the similarities between them stopped there. This being was not driven by fear like Alu, but rather embraced the Chaos and revelled in it. So happy was Alu that he found a companion, he ignored the difference in their natures. He gave this being the name Ula, as she was in all ways opposite to him, and befriended her. Ula soothed the fear inside him and he began to spend more and more of his time swimming with her amid the Chaos. It came to be that he very rarely visited his own plane, where Ula refused to venture.

As the two beings grew closer and eventually fell in love, they were loath to spend any time separate from each other. Each came to know the other completely, sharing their every thought and desire. Even as Alu felt happiness such as he had never felt, the fear in him returned as he found himself embracing the Chaos a little more each day at Ula's behest. The fear became so overwhelming that he retreated to the Zeit, and on the rare times he ventured back into the Chaos, he was in such a fearful and paranoid state, that Ula finally agreed to dwell with him in his plane.

The Zeit

The chaos within Ula burned bright in Alu's plane, lighting up all of his creations and imbuing them with a beauty far beyond that which they originally possessed. Ula's radiance lit up the Aluvia, giving it the hazy purplish appearance it has to this day.

But with every moment away from the Chaos which drove Ula, her fire grew dimmer. Worried, Alu began to make his creations dance around her. At first this worked. Ula marvelled at their complex movements, but Alu’s instinct always tended toward order. Though complex, the dances were synchronized according to rigid rules put in place by Alu. Once Ula learned the patterns, her fire continued to weaken.

Desperate for another solution, Alu concluded that if he and Ula were to ever live together, chaos and order would need to find compromise within his plane. He ventured forth into the Chaos once again, and found several motes which were especially energetic. He wiled them into his plane and there, rather than forcefully shaping them, he set them loose upon his creations. They roamed all through the stage he had built, sometimes in opposition to each other, and other times in union. Ula felt joy watching all of their deeds and nurturing them with her radiance. Soon the celestial couple came to look upon them as their children, and thus they came to be known as the First Children. The children brought chaos over the plane, reforming and destroying Alu’s creations, even as he continued to go on his chaos hunts and to build more.

Inevitably, the spark of sentience also fired within the First Children. Slowly, their mark upon Alu’s plane grew more structured. They began to drape all of Alu’s celestial creations with their own, moulded from anything they could find, be it rock, clay, gold or sand. They constructed whole planes, with the portals to them tethered to the Aluvia, some firmly and others more tenuously so. As the frenetic wanderings of their youth grew into purposeful industry, Ula's fire once again began to fade.

Alu strove for another way to keep his love from anguish. He went on a great hunt in the Chaos. There he gathered a vast number of lesser motes and used them to infuse life into every one of the First Children's creations. Thus all that is wild and lives upon all the worlds came to be, including every manner of plant, beast and other things more exotic. Each moved and acted of its own will. From the teeming interactions between their multitudes and the constant cycle of renewal which Alu bound them to, these creations resulted in such chaos as to keep Ula's fire bright for all eternity.

At last the cosmic couple could live happily ever after. As for the aforementioned multitudes that fill the many realms and planes of the Zeit? Eh, it's touch and go.