Anu

When Anu opened his eyes, the world was different, and yet the changes did not come as a surprise. This... confused him. He should be surprised. This was not how the world was supposed to look.

...or was it?

He remembered... he remembered his creation.

He remembered the Lightweaver breathing light and life into him. He remembered protecting her as her Champion along with others of his kind, the Goddess carefully remolding him and seeing over his cracks when he broke, painstakingly making sure that all his Runes were intact.

And then...

Then they came. Like he and his in form, but not made of luminescent earth. They were of flesh and blood and breath and pulse, like the great Goddess Herself, able to heal and reproduce on their own, and the Goddess loved and favoured them above her children of sunbaked clay.

He and his kin were slowly forgotten and left to crumble and fade.

He did not mind, somehow. He realised that this had probably been their purpose all along: to pave the way for these true children of Hers, and keep them safe while they were growing.

Now that they were grown and complete and able to protect themselves, he and his kin had done their duty.

Anu remembered looking upon the land he and his had claimed for their Goddess and their living, breathing, growing successors and declared himself satisfied.

He remembered finding a place to sleep and crumble and return to the earth, so that the energies She had bestowed upon him could return to Her.

Then he remembered... dreaming.

That could not be right.

The dead do not dream. But then again, he was not dead. He had woken up, so he had to have been sleeping. Or dormant, somehow, because he does not remember ever having to sleep.

He does not remember ever dreaming, either. It was not a word he knew the existence or meaning of until their successors came. So it was certainly strange, that he remembered dreaming.

But he did. Long dreams or reaching towards the heavens, closer to the sun and to Her light. Of reaching down into the earth, deep, deep for nourishment. Of reaching into earth that was not earth, but light instead, a much stronger light than the one in the heavens. Of burrowing deeper, only to find that he had everything he needed and that he did not need to reach anymore. Of withdrawing, detaching, and wandering so that he could see what there was to the world other than water and earth and light and earth-that-was-not-earth. Of being surprised and curious of what he saw, and how the breathing-ones changed it and moved around it. Of running from a breathing-one wielding fire, back to the safe place and earth-that-was-not-earth, only to find the cave-that-is-not-a-cave broken and the earth-that-was-not-earth glowing, the light scaring away the breathing-one.

Then he remembered... looking upon himself?

But his eyes were not open, so how could he be looking upon anything, much less himself, and from that angle?

Anu opened his eyes, and found himself looking upon the reaching-one-that-did-not-need-to-reach-any-longer who was also Anu, somehow.

Well. That explained why the very different world looked familiar, at least. It seems that he had already been awake for a while, and had just thought that he was dreaming because his self-that-was-sun-trapped-in-earth had not been able to move, even if his self-that-reached-for-sun-and-earth could.

Looking upon his weak-crumbling-self with his reaching-moving-self, he realised that while he had somehow woken up fully, his crumbling-self was still in the danger of dying. And he knew that if his crumbling-self dies, then so would his reaching-self.

And Anu found that he did not want to die, after all. Because the Lightweaver had still not taken back Her gift to him, so there must still be something out there that he needed to do.

Making sure that his crumbling-self was not in any immediate danger, he walked away to find help with his reaching-self.

He was looking forward to seeing what this new world held in store for him.

• Anu's name means "ancestor".