Millions of years earlier…

  It was early evening on a sandy beach and the last vestige of the sun was barely visible on the horizon, while the teeming stars of the sky started to show themselves. To one side, a river poured into the ocean, the divide between land littered with little, sandy islands. In the background, a grassy floodplain marked the transition between the sand and the forest the river flowed out of.

  One moment, there was no one present and in the next, a barefoot woman wrapped in a white robe stood on the beach. She was of average height, with fair skin, black hair and little about her appeared unusual, except her eyes.

  When looking into the eyes of another living creature, it isn’t unusual to see a spark of liveliness there, which an expert observer can learn much from. For example, one can look into the eyes of an animal and judge their intelligence. One could look into the eyes of a child and almost see the thoughts churning in the mind behind them. Look in the eyes of an adult and one might just see the intelligence that lies within…or not, depending on who one is observing.

  In the eyes of the woman on the beach, a terrible weight and burden were apparent, for her eyes were filled not just with intelligence, but a depth of intelligence that outshone the greatest of human minds and looking deeper, one could almost swear they could see the future…

  The Giver sighed in loneliness, for she was the only one of her kind in the entire galaxy.

  She’d walked the land of many worlds of the galaxy and each she walked had been gifted with life. Oh, scientists would later claim it came to be spontaneously and perhaps that was true. Not even the Giver knew if she gave life or if she merely witnessed it, her presence drawn to worlds where life was about to emerge. In truth, correlation never was causation.

  However, on the current occasion, she stood on a world she’d set foot on once before, which was unusual and an event to be marked, because it had never happened before. The air was rich with life energy and the whisper-like thoughts of every living thing. She could sense the thoughts of the trees on the edge of the forest, going back and forth, commenting on how unlike a tree she was. In fact, they were viciously gossiping about her, incorrectly believing she was unable to hear their conversation.

  Bothered by the back-biting words of the trees, her loneliness only increased and she desperately wanted companionship. She also knew, based on her foggy recollection of all possible futures, the time was right for her to choose a future by taking direct action, though she wasn’t quite sure what form that action was meant to be.

  She looked up at the stars, hoping to find companionship there, but realized as she listened to them singing their grand, cosmic opera, she couldn’t possibly interrupt the performance; they were far too busy and they’d only just begun, after all. It would be impolite to interrupt and their work was pleasant enough, after all.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Hearing the voice of the river, she turned and greeted it, but it only babbled back, incoherently. Though she could sense it teemed with life, its thoughts were slow and sluggish. No, it would not be able to make conversation with her.

  Turning to the vast ocean, she repeated her greeting, but it only waved back and what little sound it made was quieter than the river, causing her to conclude it was likewise mute and slow of thought, even though it carried more life than the river.

  Leaving the beach, she tried speaking with the grass, but it staunchly refused to speak with her. In the distance, the grass near the forest joined the trees, gossiping about her in a pointedly painful fashion. She begged and pleaded with the plants to speak with her, but the only response was an increase in the volume of their scornful, biting comments about how different she was. Seeing within them minds she could converse with, she begged until she was in tears, but the plants refused to directly respond to her, instead sharing jokes with each other, at her expense.

  In her grief, the Giver knelt low and bowed her head, allowing her tears to fall to the earth, where they mingled with a patch of dry clay. She was inconsolable for a time, but then, as she wiped away her tears, she saw two muddy spots, formed from her tears making the clay of the ground soft, along with a natural crack in the surface that looked almost like a little, smiling mouth.

  Seeing her desire mirrored in the unliving earth, she vowed within herself to give it the greatest of gifts: both life and intelligence. Weeping with profuse joy, she mixed her tears with the dry earth, carefully kneading the mixture until it had become a lump of soft clay, just a bit larger than her clenched fist. Using her fingers, she shaped the clay into a small, rough column, about six inches tall and equally wide. On one side, she shaped it into a face with kindly features, then allowed it to dry in the light of the rising sun.

  Looking past the trees, she peered at the smoking mountain beyond the forest. She ignored the mocking voices of the trees and headed through the woods. When she reached the smoking mountain, she searched for an area with just the right heat. Sweating from the proximity of the lava pouring down the mountain’s side, she left the small, clay column until it had baked into stone, then retrieved it.

  Thinking of the way she’d been spurned by the trees, she returned to the forest and pressed the lips of the stone to the bark of the first tree she found. Concentrating her mind on the task, she forcibly transferred life energy from the tree into the unliving stone, causing the plant to instantly crumble to black ashes! Examining the stone and listening to the subconscious thoughts within, she quickly determined it needed more.

  With their lives clearly on the line, the trees and grass finally spoke directly to her, screaming, begging and pleading for their lives, asking for mercy! The grass leaned as far away from her as possible and the trees quaked with fear, some of them dropping fruit as they tried and failed to escape, due to being rooted in place!

  She heeded them not and added the life of six more trees to the stone, as she’d done with the first. With the seventh feeding, the stone fully came to life and cried out like an infant in distress! Cradling the stone child in her arms like the precious gift it was, the Giver sang a comforting lullaby to it, until it was calm.

  With a child to care for, the Giver was no longer lonely. True, it would be some time before the child was mature enough to speak, but what’s a little time to an immortal? Companionship was worth cultivating.

  “Irkith.” She softly named the child, aloud.