Aftermath

- Prologue -

Then, all existence consisted of absolutes: Light and Darkness, Order and Chaos, Life and Death, in only their embodiments, Jarra and Hinvoth, tirelessly working to create an ideal world which they could inhabit.

But they could not create the perfect world which they both could exist in, and tore what they had down, again, and again, and again, rebuilding the laws of physics, nature and magic completely every time they did.

Until, in a batch of thirteen worlds, there was one with perfect Equilibrium.

And they then saw a greater purpose in their existence: other beings to share the infinite space that was now available.

Naturally, they could not come to an agreement of how those should be created, and so they set to work, hoping they would later chance upon a perfect solution.

After countless attempts, species and mass extinctions, they created the first traces of the miniature life today's paleontologists are used to examining.

They created this life so it could survive, but not easily, to provide a balance between the two absolutes of life and death, between simple exchanges of matter inside miniature structures that would later be called nuclei happening and not happening.

And the life slowly spread across the Thirteen Universes, the multiple versions of existence, and, eventually, thrived.

It thrived not because it was created to be indestructible, but rather, it grew accustomed to the conditions that it was placed in, very, very slowly, but eventually, after many generations, each with minor differences from the last, so minor that it took thousands of millennia to notice any change at all, but large enough that it developed into adaptations that helped the beings survive.

This was much, much later discovered by an elf named Naneia Orizana, an explorer who noticed that animals developed a natural symbiosis with their home environment, no matter where they lived, and were perfectly suited for life in that one specific location, mere days before Charles Darwin, a human scientist, noticed the same among the animals of different islands in the oceans of his world.

Much later, a series of mass extinctions had wiped out most of the original life and the survivors were so diverse that few would have guessed that they may have had a common ancestor.

It was then that a few of the creatures were given intelligence and altered so they would form four main species, each controlling a different aspect of existence:

First came the Humans: bipedal creatures who moved much more slowly than the other wildlife, but were smarter and more versatile, using their front limbs to create tools to help them survive. They would go on to conquer the Sky and Sea of their world, although they could neither fly, nor could they swim across long stretches, they were gifted with a great Intelligence, and a complex Mind.

At roughly the same time came the Elves, beings similar to the Humans, but taller, stronger, and more graceful, with magic running through their veins. Their bones were hollow to better accommodate the flow of that magic, but more brittle as a result of that. They became exceptional artists and musicians, and travelled the worlds until they came back to their home, having changed their world multiple times with the Soul that their race possessed.

And the Dwarves, similar to the previous two, but shorter in stature, capable of surviving even the worst, harshest environments, as their internal structures were much sturdier than those of the other two races. They would go on to create masterpieces out of stone and metal, and make the mountains in the West their home, where no enemy could survive, using their gift of the Body to its fullest.

And, lastly, the Dragons, large, flying reptiles with batlike wings rising from their shoulders, with the gift of breathing flames and keen intelligence. Their scales were created to resemble gems, giving them a supernatural beauty and almost-impenetrable armour, and they could, to an extent, control magic. Each Dragon was gifted with a certain element which their magic revolved around and was strongest in, which they used to raise an island out of the sea and remove its anchor to the earth below, and build their home on top of it, making an impenetrable fortress anchored in the sky.

But the Creators still weren't quite satisfied. They had given the sentient races some of their power, but they still lacked something which would prevent the life they had so meticulously created from destroying itself.

And so they created the Guardians: extremely powerful beings made out of pure magic, and shape the worlds in the Creators' absence, for they knew that even their time of existence was limited, and took precautions for such a time, so their work would survive at least just a fraction longer.

And they gave still more of their power to the souls of these beings, so that they could be reborn every few hundred years.

So it came to be that the Guardians, while travelling through the worlds, came to be mistaken for divine beings and, subsequently, worshipped by many Humans, Elves and Dwarves.

It is not known how many Guardians came into being, since they could only be reborn every few centuries, sometimes drifting into millennia without their rebirth.

Alongside the Guardians worked seven Dragons who would all come into existence at roughly the same time. Two of them would bear the gift of Mind, two of Body, two of Soul, and one of Prophecy.

Unlike the Guardians, though, they would still possess the memories of their previous lives once they hatched, but said memories would only come gradually after three or four months of their lives had passed.

Later, three of the Guardians would rise above the others through absorbing a nexus of power, and become the Supreme Ones, with their combined power rivalling even Jarra and Hinvoth's.

The Supreme Ones would then create lesser beings to assist the Guardians in using the power given to them. They were known as Elementals, with the most elite and powerful ascending to the rank of Protector.

And Jarra and Hinvoth now saw that the perfect worlds had now been created, and realised that their purpose was now, after so many billions of years, complete.

And so they gave away the rest of their power to the sentient races, so they could as well wield magic and shape their lives with it, and descended to the world of Equilibrium as mortals, to live out the rest of their lives in peace, knowing that they had created the perfect world for life.

[A/N]
Thanks to the_rising_dragon and EowynFaramir for their constructive criticism, I owe you lol
I'm also stuck on the rewrite for a few months now, will hopefully get on with this soon