In times long passed, two sailed on waves and winds of black and blue—the beauteous Maelis of Sea and the steadfast Elis of Sky. Together they shaped the depths and the heavens, and together they passed for ages in the great expanses of darkness. Wearisome they grew, alone to live in an empty world of sea and sky, until they found each other. A bolt of lightning and love was born, and from the love was born the Earth and Life and the radiant twin sisters to play there and grow in the light—Aurin of Moon and Laerin of Sun.
Upon the twins’ birth, Maelis and Elis forbade them from creating that which bore a soul, and so the two sisters raised a mountain and decorated it with forests and rivers along the shores of the sea, the water of which they made a vibrant azure and the sand a collage of sparkling gold and black. There the sisters built their sanctuary, and there, in turn, they forbade the creations of their parents from entering and tainting their lands. Elis and Maelis made a promise to leave these lands untouched by their hands of souled creation.
Thus, Elis created and filled the Earth with creatures of land and sky, and Maelis created and filled the Earth with creatures of river and sea. Together they created humankind, Man in the image of Elis and Woman in the image of Maelis. The domain of mortals stretched far and wide to all corners of the Earth, as they were the most cherished creations of Elis and Maelis, bearers of souls of incomprehensible complexity and dynamicity.
It was not long before the sisters ventured outside of their sanctuary, seeing the bountiful, souled creations of their parents—lakes sparkling with scaly fish, forests abounded in songs of birds, and villages alive with the laughter of men—and there they found a purpose. In view of such complex beauty, such change and stories, they grew contemptuous. They, too, wanted to create that which bore a soul, to give their land such stories and change, a mind and heart of its own. And, so, the sisters set to work in secrecy, infusing trees with souls and creating first the dryads, as these creatures could blend with the forests and be overlooked in ignorance. With each new creation, the sisters grew more audacious, until one day they dared to infuse the ageless and beloved oak tree with a cervine imitation, an improvement upon a soul stolen from the forests of Elis. Forth sprung the elk with its mossy antlers spiked and tendriled in all directions, sent to roam upon the Black Hill as first protector of the sisters’ sanctuary.
With time, Elis grew suspicious of the sisters’ silence and apparent isolation, and so he broke his promise. Disguised as a lost human hunter, he entered the forbidden sanctuary, and there he was confronted by the elk. The elk charged the apparent man with its antlers like tridents upon its head, and in that moment, Elis realized this one was not of his hand. He brought forth his bow and, in a fit of anger, released a flurry of arrows, piercing the elk’s heart and shattering its soul.
The elk screeched as its echo filled the forests and bounced off the mountain into the skies above. The sisters felt its pain, their first death and their first loss of a soul. They ran to the elk, which lay upon a mound of dead, scarlet leaves. As they wept together, hands clasped over the dead elk, dark clouds collected overhead. The wind grew cold and blew with an ominous hiss as the trees danced around them; their leaves turned red then yellow until fading to gray to paint the ground below. Elis sung from the heavens with a bellowing, tempestuous thunder:
Dear Aurin of the Moon and Laerin of the Sun,
One rule I gave to you, and ‘twas but only one,
And yet to disobey you boldly so did dare,
So cometh judgement, cometh endless, dark despair—
Away to prison, may you shed your bitter tears
Among the stars, a thousand thousand years!
The sisters looked above and radiated light, forcing its way through the thick cloud cover, and together they sung in defiance:
And why, dear father, are you in our land,
Have you, too, not failed our one demand?
You tell us, with souls we shall not play,
But, still, wherefore you cannot say—
So wherefore, father, should we listen
To you, whose truest words ne’er glisten?
And, so, did Elis lose his temper as his fists of lightning rained down upon the sisters to punish and imprison them among the heavens. But the sisters sang loud and clear a song imbued with their will and purpose, a melody of life. Souls sprung forth and filled the land with new creations, improvements and innovations—elks and dolphins and unicorns, too. And, thus, was born the land of Lisadia. The dryads who lived within the trees were endowed with autonomy and greater souls, perfected in the image of the sisters to become the poets and players of these blessed lands, androgynous beings of beauty—the Lisadians.
Soon appeared Maelis from the depths of the sea, and together she and Elis towered over Lisadia as she sung with waves and rain:
My dearest daughters, stunning stones of fire,
How dare you so provoke our ire—
We gave you life, we gave you land,
And in our faces kick you salt and sand?
Not only do you break your word,
How dare you forge a phoenix from our bird!
Storms raged as rains toppled mountains and winds stripped forests, and together the sisters fought for their creations and their freedom. Alas, their power was not enough for both to be won, so the sisters pleaded with Elis and Maelis to leave their creations untouched in exchange for their willing imprisonment. The two deities agreed to this, but the sisters did not trust them. And, so, they split their souls in half, gifting a piece of each to an animal. Aurin gave hers to Lun the Blue Wolf, who would sing her song and protect Lisadia in the name of the Moon in the cold of winters and nights. Laerin gave hers to Ziu the Gold Fox, who would sing her song and protect Lisadia in the name of the Sun in the warmth of summers and days. And, thus, our Goddesses were locked away among the heavens as the Moon and the Sun, bringing forth day and night, seasons and weather, in their eternal fight for freedom and the protection of Lisadia.