A Myth; one of many that were told

(Some music to go with it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR-CeSjg2aY&NR=1 )

Sluggard, in his younger days, lived alone in the great cavern of the sky, above the limitless sea. But, finding no giant serpents like himself to talk to, he became lonely.

Now, all was dark except for the dimmest glow from the algae swarming down in the endless sea at the bottom of the cavern. He flew down into the sea, the dark waters cascading over his long body and swallowing him. He searched about, the lights around him swimming and swirling away as he moved. Some of the algae clung to his scales, making them green and verdant; but he found nobody. For a time he simply hovered through the glowing gloom... until he desired to come up for air.

He flew up out of the waters and, having searched the endless sea, he made his way to the very top of the cavern. The air became cool and thin and the skywalls were very dark, except for glints of silvermetal and gems, barely glinting in the blue-green light. Feeling his way higher, he scraped his back against the domed roof. Rocks crumbled onto his back and flecks of precious ore fell among them, such that his spine became hard and craggy. But in the high realms ether, there was nobody. So he flew down to the middle cavern where he had begun.

He spent long years in broody longing, searching along the pleasant winds of the central cavern. But its immense space and depth held no others... only himself. Finally, he could stand it no longer.

In a fit of rage and sorrow, he flew to the height of the skywalls and rolled about to face the opposite side. Summoning all his sped and power, Sluggard aimed his head at where the blue wall meets the brown, just above the sea. With a roar of longing that set the endless waters to shivering with fear, he uncoiled his body and flew with all his speed toward the wall.

It was long hours to build up speed... but Sluggard pushed himself faster and faster... seeing nothing ahead of him but dancing lights as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Finally, he felt the thunderous blow as he struck the wall.

And such was the force of the impact that he cracked in the very sky open, which poured out brilliant light into the cavern, causing all gems and metals to leap to life with brightness.

The light rebounded off the waves of the endless sea, which rolled with immense waves from Sluggard's exit. The patterns of the waves were written across the skywalls in fine yellowlight tracery.

Through the crack in the sky, Sluggard broke free and out into the celestial realm... where he found every kind of god and demiurge and djin. They all danced with wild colours and wilder shapes. The kaleidescope of movement was of incomprehensible beauty to the giant world serpentl and he unfurled his body into the deathless light.

Some say he went mad from it and fled back into the cavern to eat his own tale and kill himself.

Some say the sights were of such delight to him that he withdrew to bite his own tail to assure himself that he was not dreaming.

Some say that Sluggard, after a hearty triannum of dancing with all the gods, went back to the cavern to sleep... and bit his tale in a dream.

We only know that he came back to his home. And that now he sleeps... tail in his mouth. But the light of the celestial realm remained streaming through the crack in the sky, lighting the world as had never before been seen.  The dark sea became alive with colour, blazing gold and white along its massive crests, becoming a pool of liquid light.  The ribboning reflections rolled across the cavern roof, painting it with bright lines.  They caught gems and striations of metals and made them flash in the darkness.  The colours of the walls were brightly illuminated, blue to brown to pale grey.  The light itself changed too, as the gods danced their mysterious dances, casting different colours in different seasons.  


At times the celestrial creatures would pass between the lightsource and the crack in the wall, their giant shadows marching with gargantuan slowness across the walls.  Their shapes were hard to grasp... suggestions of wings, horns, or dancing limbs.  These shadows, too, had their due time and season, wafting through the etherial light that never ceases to shine.

It is said that light carries with it the magics of the outer world.

Some of the magics and lesser spirits of the celestial realm came into the cavern on Sluggard's back. There were fire gods who made the mountains burn. There were water gods and made seas and lakes, rivers and rains. There were city gods who made the first dwellings and artifices. But after these large coherent forms took shape on Sluggard's back, there was still much left over.

The rest was the rawest stuff of light and spirit, that roiled inside and outside of Sluggard, yearning to take shape.

As Sluggard dreamed, his dreams gave these energies forms and names. His mind gave them ideas and perceptions; they became creatures like himself, possessed of matter but toached by spirit.

And so the children of Sluggard were born all down his back. All peoples and races of all shapes and colours. Elves, dwarves, humans... nagas, centaurs, and nymphs, stickfellows and guptas and varieties of intelligence even stranger: thinking cities, sentient beehives, roaming boulders. All living things' destinies were forever to be interwoven with the light, still shining through the crack Sluggard had made, and the snake himself, still dreaming. They were given bodies from the glowing algae of the sea and the toughest rock of the roof. They sprung up from Sluggard's dream and walked the wide and varied landscapes.

Some say that the ones born nearest to Sluggard's head were born first. These were the most coherent of form, and retained the least residue of their light-stuff origins. Such children of the head were apt of hand and keen to build, inventing fantastic machines for themselves.

Those born nearest the tail were born last and were said to be the the wildest and most magical; still half-connected to the light around them and not fully crossed over from the dream world to the cavern. These see the light as alive and can tend it or shape it themselves through dreams and words.

Those born all along the middle mixed these traits: some loving magic, some loving craft, and many mixing the two. If a man were to start walking from a youth, he would die of old age before he saw even a quarter of the serpent's back: and he would have lead a life full of remarkable adventures with peoples and in places one could never find anywhere else along the way. Each land of the serpent is utterly unique.

So we can conclude that Sluggard has dreamed innumerable dream... and that he has not yet exhausted the visions he gained in the celestial realm. We can also safely assume that he has been dreaming a very long time.

–A creation myth of a lost human tribe, from the library of the Philosopher's City, as recorded by Maegil the Blue, Historian.