The Water What Became Man

In the beginning, there was naught but The River Without End and the barren strip of desert it encircled.

In time, the River grew lonely and sought for a companion. But the sands did not answer when the River called out to them, so the River swallowed a mouthful of sand into itself and filled the dead stuff with life.

And it was in this way that the first plants were made. And they grew and they grew, until there was no room in the River anymore and they pulled themselves with their vines onto land.

But still the River was lonely. So it tried again.

This time, it took into its mouth the whole of creation—everything that had been there from the beginning, and everything the River had made in the time since. But it was all too much, so the River coughed the land back out of itself almost immediately. And yet, even in the small time the River had held everything in its mouth, new things had been born. And so, the beasts and animals of the world were born.

But still: the River was lonely.

And so, this time the River tried something altogether different. Instead of taking the land into itself and trying to make something better from that lesser thing, the River gave a piece of itself over to the land instead. And thus, the children of the river—the kíndalla—were born.

And the River was not lonely anymore.

But its children were.

And so, the kíndalla took it upon themselves to create all of the other peoples of the universe, each people another attempt at doing what the River had done—creating a worthy companion with whom to travel a lonely universe.

And they are trying still.

The high concentration of The Waters of the River Without End inside kíndallan bodies suggests that the species is more closely tied to the River than any other, but there is no evidence beyond that.