Hello to everyone that reads this. This is 
my first attempt at fan fiction and i'm pretty 
nervous about how people react to it so afew 
words before we begin: I know it's wordy and 
pretentious but I wanted to create a sense of 
wonder and mystery here. These stories are 
supposed to be mythical, as if told by a 
grandfather to his grandson. I'm not attempting 
to give explanations or fill in holes, I just 
want to write a story or five. Another thing - 
if anyone wants to write a 'Tale' go right ahead 
- it would be nice if a bunch of these things 
written by different people were floating 
around, right? Comments and criticisms much 
appreciated. Write to: Le6064@qmw.ac.uk.  

Usual disclaimers... and so we begin...

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TALES OF THE FIRST ONES: THE OCEAN OF LIFE
by Faraz Hasan

In the beginning there was nothing.
And then there was light.
And then there was fire.
And then there was darkness.
And then there was all three.
This is how the universe began. Born in 
light and fire, heir to darkness but belonging 
to neither, this is how the universe began. 
The universe was a thousand different 
colours, a million different shades of red and 
it was forever moving, a river, a sea, an ocean. 
Beauty that swirled and danced and flowed like 
weird quicksilver and was never seen by human 
eye, a tyger's fearful symmetry.
There was life then but not as we know it. 
It did not breath or walk or crawl or 
scuttle or slither or fly or even move in any 
way that we can understand.
It simply was.
Millennia passed and the life-*force* (it 
could not be described as anything else, it was 
neither flesh nor plant nor silicon nor energy 
nor any type of nascent metaphysical multi-plane 
enlightened intellect, it simply was) gained 
sentience. And having gained sentience it looked 
at its surroundings and began to *understand*. 
It no longer *simply* was.
More millennia passed. The laws of physics 
began to have a place in the searing red chaos 
that was the universe. The angry red was 
steadily replaced by the loneliness of night. 
Stars formed and gave the night company. 
Physical matter began to have a place in the 
infinite black of the cosmos. 
The life-force *became*. It coalesced into 
physical energy, no longer just a discarnate 
concept, it now had form but as yet no 
substance. The life-force began to think - in 
cold math, pristine and unknowable geometries 
played themselves out in it's meta-structure. A 
little God. It's thinkings were odd and 
beautiful and full of translucent languor. With 
thought came a simple understanding of it's 
environment and the life-force perceived that it 
was alone in a cold, dark place so different 
from the sanguine womb of it's birth. 
Thus the little God knew loneliness.
The little God began to take it's first 
tentative steps into the twilight firmament, the 
black that had usurped the red, and it travelled 
between the stars where it met more if it's 
kind. Little Gods together. Masters of the 
black. The same but not the same.
Thus the little Gods knew joy.
The little Gods played and danced and 
loved and sang songs of fire and shadow in that 
place that was no place and they were happy for 
a time. For a time. For a millennia. Then 
stagnation set in, for even Gods can become 
bored. And the mysteries of the ebon void 
beckoned. 
They moved among the stars and looked into 
their fiery carapaces. They explored their 
superheated plasma rivers, danced in their 
canyons of fire suckled on the fervid ambrosia 
of the heart of stars. 
Thus the little Gods knew wonder.
Some of the little Gods  even moved their 
minds into the giant red orbs and stayed there, 
content to explore the mysteries of flame until 
the end of eternity. Others were still... 
curious. 
And so they moved on.
They found floating fortresses of crystal 
in space, left over matter from the crimson 
ocean of life. The little Gods, already at one 
with the formulae of cosmic geometry and obtuse 
calculations, now found flawlessness that 
matched their own. 
Thus the little Gods knew pride.
The translucent purity of the crystals 
were a mirror to the little Gods own power and 
some stayed and built intricate cities of mind 
inside the cool mathematical perfection of the 
pellucid oddities. Others were still... curious.
And so they moved on.
They found places where space was nothing 
more than a veil covering over a realm of 
swirling red and black and colours that had no 
name and a depth of no end. An infinite expanse 
of carmine nothing, so like and yet unlike the 
appurtenant womb of their birth. 
Thus the little Gods knew longing.
Some experienced reverence that other 
races millennia hence would call religious awe 
and awe led them to move their minds into the 
red and explore its endless mysteries forever. 
Others were still... curious.
And so they moved on.
They ones that were left were few and 
their travels had taught them much. Some wished 
to stop and contemplate their educations. Others 
were still curious and travelled on, had a 
thousand glorious and terrible adventures and of 
their ultimate fate no-one would ever know 
during this golden era. Their endeavours and 
final resting places would be uncovered by 
creatures of a far distant epoch. 
The remaining little Gods having explored their galaxy, their exterior, began 
to turn their curiosity upon themselves and began to experiment with their 
forms and subtleties. They discovered other ways to manifest themselves and 
began to shift between their energy forms and a new physical form as the need 
or desire rose. 
They became aware of the concepts of the basic physics and chemistries of 
creation. Why stars formed, why novae churned, why nebulae churned and the 
hidden potential of those tiny specks of new-born spinning rocks that in turn 
had begun to spun around stars. All this they became aware of, little things, 
big things. All this they simply intuited. All except the concept of time. For 
what does an immortal care about the terminal tick and the tumescent tock of a 
universe that is unchanging? That one has already explored to distraction? 
However, millennia had passed since the little Gods had first set out amongst 
the stars. The universe was still expanding and they had only explored a 
handful of galaxies, a handful of places they called the songways. However, 
they knew of another realm beyond the songways. A place of mystery and 
adventure, beyond a place that billions of centuries from now would be called 
the Rim. The place that some of their number had departed to. They felt a need 
to go there now, a siren song of need... that was ignored.
The little Gods knew what was coming to the universe. In distant rocks the 
oceans of one kind or another were forming, pregnant with possibility and an 
implicit prophecy of change. 
Death was unknown to the little Gods but in the changes that were coming they 
would know death with an unwanted intimacy. They 
would learn to hate and detest change and long 
for the simpler times when there was no time. 
Change would become a festering wound in the 
little Gods' perfect universe and tear their 
peaceful existence asunder. Change would change 
the little Gods and they would *become* once 
more and in doing so would themselves shape the 
direction of the universe for thousands of years 
thereafter, until a new age began, a third 
age... the age of mankind.

More to come... Soon...