The First Light and the First Shadow

Before there was time, there was Silence.
Not the silence of absence, but the pregnant stillness of a thought yet unspoken — an infinite stillness that contained the possibility of everything that would ever be. From this silence stirred a single awareness, nameless and formless, whose first breath split the void between what is and what is not. That breath became Light, and its echo, cast upon the endless dark, became Shadow.

Thus began the First Motion, the heartbeat of creation. From that pulse came the Gyre — the great cosmic ring that spins still, weaving stars like sparks from a divine forge. Its whirling light tore holes in the nothingness, and through those wounds bled the first matter, coalescing into suns, worlds, and the luminous threads of fate that bind them.

Light alone could not create, for it burned too fiercely. Nor could Shadow sustain, for it consumed all it touched. In their struggle — neither victory nor defeat, only endless tension — the first harmony was born. From that harmony arose the Ten, the first Celestials, each embodying a fragment of the divine will that had awakened in the void.

These Celestials shaped the Gyre’s light into order, naming the laws of nature, time, and spirit. They built the Celestial Court, a place where Light and Shadow might coexist, its foundations resting upon the seam between creation and destruction. Here they wove the prison of the Primordials, for from the Gyre’s spinning chaos had emerged beings who sought only to unmake what was built — reflections of the Celestials’ own flaws, given shape and hunger.

Yet even as the Celestials labored, their perfection was marred by compassion. In the shaping of worlds they glimpsed the beauty of imperfection — of growth, struggle, and change — and from that revelation came the birth of mortality. Telloran was the first of these mortal worlds, formed where the Gyre’s light was most brilliant and its shadow deepest.

Zheodic, who would become the Grand Judge, set the pattern of destiny across its skies. Neirrd, his consort, breathed life into its soil. Ahrmitage kindled the light of understanding in its first dawn. And from the residual echoes of their act rose magic, the imperfect mirror of divine power — a gift that demands sacrifice, for all creation must pay its due to balance.

But when Zherdan was born — the Eleventh, unbidden child of Light and Dream — the symmetry of the cosmos faltered. The prison of the Primordials trembled; cracks spread across eternity’s seal. From that flaw spilled the first sorrows, and the certainty that even gods could err. Thus the First Age ended, and the long struggle between perfection and desire began.

Mortals still tell this tale beneath the three moons: that creation was not a gift freely given, but a bargain struck between Light and Shadow. To live, one must give. To create, one must destroy. And to love, one must always risk the end of all things.