THE FEÌTS AND ONSÎN

Realizing that there were none to do deeds and chores for those above—

offering prayers to the mighty deathless ones, gathering food for them,

paying their mortgages and bills, checking on the status of tax returns,

cleaning out their used bathrooms—the Jólian gods decided amongst

themselves to create beings to do such labors.

The first species to walk on the surface of rotund Ürt were great lizards.

The descendants of flowing Uáter created birthed enormous serpents,

finned creatures of varying size who moved inside deep-swirling Òchen,

and moist beings whose bodies are protected to shells attached to them.

Èr's children populated all-encompassing Scaîfadér, son of Èr, with winged

beasts, all with differing wingspans that can soar through the sky.

Dark Ürt, the mighty all-mother, had, courtesy of her offspring, dirt-dwelling

creatures, who live in holes and caverns below the surface, and lizards that

walk on grand Ürt that eat the products of Ürt's luscious daughters,

the nymphs of vegetation and plants.

The progeny of blistery Faír produced the most powerful predators that

would cause vile twin sisters Fìr and Tred to strike fear into lesser creatures.

The predators would eat their fellow lizard beasts for nourishment with fierce

velocity, with utter brutality, and without mercy.

These were the first creatures on earth, the ones that the gods of Jóli

made to do their labor the deathless ones didn't wish to do.

Then, swiftly, as soon as life appeared on the massive surface of mother Ürt,

as if from some unknown machine, a trio of three beings suddenly appeared.

They all had the appearance of sullen maidens, yet were not human as they

didn't exist yet. However, they were not gods, as they weren't born any

of the times the other deathless beings were.

Men have collectively named these mysterious maidens the Feìts. The first

sister, the youngest, Ïestùr, was never without her pack of moistened clay,

which always stayed wet no matter what the weather. Upon one's birth,

Ïestùr would hand a pile of clay to her next oldest sister, Nao, writing one's

life onto the moist clay surface.

Interestingly enough, if you were to pronounce the middle Feìt's name

not using Spanish pronunciation but instead with the English tongue,

you would know how the people of South Jersey, and quite possibly

the whole Delaware Valley, enunciate the word “now.”

Lastly, there was the last Feìt sister: Cómin. With one touch of her hand,

she can turn specifically the clay tablet her sister was writing on into

solid rock, concluding one's life story.

Men would go on to fear the Feìts, and continue to do so today.

Even the deathless gods of Mount Jóli, who rule over all us weak

humans, their holy waste, the gods who reside in everything in

life itself, dread and fear the Feìts, dictators of fate to all.

A few years after the first lizards appeared on mighty Ürt's surface,

the fiery predators would consume the flesh and tissue of gentler

herbivores, pressing their sharp, sword-like teeth into the necks

of lesser beings, penetrating the scales, muscles, and bone.

Ruby ribbons sprayed from the prey's wound and into the predator's

mouth. The weaker creature would keep on getting dismembered,

intestines being disemboweled and stretching across the grand surface,

significant skeletal sections severed from one another, removed from

their proper positions on the pitiful prey.

This process happened for a great while. Each time, Dët, who was the

son of black Dãrc, who was the son of rotund Ürt, would remove

the cold, blue spirits from the mutilated corpses. Having nowhere to

place the ghosts of the dead lizards, Dët would merely let them haunt

all the living lizards on the surface of the earth.

The spirits of the deceased lizards were frosty, bleak, and miserable.

They did not belong in the world of the living. Their lizard friends

and loved ones found themselves too engulfed by the arms of Sát,

grim daughter of Uáter, knowing the dead ones they once knew in

living were very different now. Others thought the dead living amongst

the living was an unnatural, being terrified of the ghosts of the dead,

even though all that roamed the earth were giant lizards.

Dreaded Dët noticed this situation as well. He had many souls to remove

but no place for them. Dët, initially not knowing how to solve it, came up

with a solution. He tore off both his ring fingers, squeezing as much blood

as he could from the severed bottoms, and threw the severed digits with such

aggressive force towards the surface of the earth that the fingers barely made

any impact whatsoever.

The blood coagulated and solidified, growing to an unnaturally large size.

Like an egg, the large, solid blood burst open, creating the fully-formed

Onsîn, ruler of the dead. Terrible Dët, now with all of his fingers returned,

commanded his new son to take the ghosts away from the earth. He was to

take the dead spirits down below the surface, down into the unseen world.

Onsîn, having just been born a few moments ago, questioned his father how

he would get down to the unseen world. Dët then showed him the impact

where his severed fingers landed. The area suddenly formed into a doorway

that led below to the blistering underworld.

“You are to rule the dead in the unseen world, away from the living,”

Dët explained to his son Onsîn. “The dead are sad, cold, and scary up here

and do not belong up here. Way, way under the earth is a lengthy series

of massive layers of sulfurous heat, going all the way to the middle of

the earth, birthed during the Theorgy, when primordial, blazing Faír,

while making love to enormous Ürt, reached the climax and launched

his flaming fluids deep inside her.

Because it's so hot down there now, and since the dead can't die again

and we gods and goddesses are unable to experience death, under the

earth seems like an excellent place for the deceased to reside.”

“Okay,” replied the finger-born Onsîn after a brief moment of not

responding. So, he gathered all the spirits of the deceased and took them

down into the chasm into their new home, which Onsîn had christened

after his own name.