"Nahtahdjaiz Awakens"
A Yahgahn Fable

(Click here for a list of all Yahgahn Deities and their powers.)

      In the beginning, Moiulainas Tébahliss - the Mother of All Creation - awoke to find Herself existing. She was all that existed in the universe at the time, for She was the Universe. For all of Her existence She had been the only one, but in Her awakening moment, She became lonely. Since the only thing in existence was Her own energy, and since "nothing" was just an abstract concept in Her mind, She could not make something outside of Herself. So She used the power of Her imagination to invent a world inside of Herself in which everything was relative. Thus She gave birth to Time, Nothing, Something, Life, and Death. All of the things that make life as it is for us are inside of Moiulainas Tébahliss, and with Her imagining of this world, it became real.
      Time was always an elusive creature, weaving itself deeply into the fabric of this new reality. It even coiled itself into the realm of the Absolute, which is the realm where death and nothingness are still merely abstract concepts with no reality. So Krainaik (Time) and Hrah'Bahn (Life) were the first two Deities born. At the time, they thought themselves to be the only ones, but Spwiióhk (Death, Entropy) had been born as well, along with many other important beings. Among these, unbeknownst to even Her, was a bodiless being that had been created by the mere use of Her imagination. It was a vague and barely conscious being, but that would change.
      Moiulainas Tébahliss was very pleased now that She had company inside of Her, and encouraged Her children to create. Since they were made of the same stuff as She was, they were glad to have this opportunity, for creating was in their nature. And so Hrah'Bahn helped bring life to all the other Deities. Thus arose Ahndahn (Goddess of Order), Thurr (Peace), Kusahnia (Matter and Rocks and soil), Yinianata and Morphwaan (conjoined twin Deities of Fire), Krii'oh (coldness and coolness), and many others. As this happened, the nameless, awakening force became a little more real and a little more aware, much like a baby chicken growing inside of an egg.
      All was not well in Creation, however. The Heart of the Chaos, which was the very soul of existence itself, grew wild and dangerous. Life was spirited and willful, which is normally a good thing, however, it was not tempered by patience, logic, or thought of others. It was pure egotism, untainted by compassion, for it knew only itself. The error lay, of course, in the fact that it was technically correct - all beings are part of a greater one, like cells in a person's body are individuals but work together to make a life form. However, it lay within the realm of the relative, and as such was required to think in relative terms... but it did not. So it would try to change the children of the Mother of All Creation, thinking it was merely changing itself. And the nameless entity grew more aware.
      Then Ahndahn, who knew not what She had been born to do - unlike the other Deities - took it upon Herself to try to tame the Heart of the Chaos, to calm the soul of existence. Bravely She stepped within it, risking Her life, and attempted to calm it down. For a very long time She remained, fighting to bring order to the chaos. She was doing so well that The Heart grew scared. In retaliation, The Heart birthed its own consciousness, borrowing some of Ahndahn's Order to create a being that would fight for it, and be its brain. Thus was born Shao'Kehn.
      Shao'Kehn faced down Ahndahn and defiantly challenged Ahndahn to a duel. She declared that if Ahndahn won, The Heart would bow down to Ahndahn, broken and defeated; but Shao'Kehn also vowed that if She won, Ahndahn would leave The Heart alone. Ahndahn agreed, and they began to fight.
      The nameless force had become conscious enough to watch their battle with interest, like a baby in the womb listening to what was going on in the outside world from its dark world. As the two Deities - one for Order and the other for Disorder - fought for a very, very long time, each of them got better and better at fighting. Eventually, the stalemate drew out so long that they continued to fight merely for the fun it brought, wondering what tactics the other would come up with next. Then, against all odds and everyone's expectations, Ahndahn and Shao'Kehn fell in love with each other. By this point, both had become an equal mix of both themselves and the other. Ahndahn, before always completely orderly, knew how to think creatively and spontaneously; Shao'Kehn, before always completely unpredictable and often making the same mistakes because of Her random ways, had learned how to learn from mistakes, avoid them, and think logically. Both of them had minds now that were a perfect harmony of order and disorder, stability and change.
      Putting down their weapons and embracing, the two Deities stepped out of The Heart, which immediately began to calm down to acceptable levels. Like a quieted child, it knew how to respect others now without sacrificing its individuality.
      Upon exiting The Heart, Shao'Kehn and Ahndahn wanted only to be together. Soon, however, a disturbing revelation was made; the universe was winding down, running out of energy. In all truth, the universe was dying. Shao'Kehn and Ahndahn set out together to find the cause.
      The cause was not so very hard to find. Together, they discovered Spwiióhk, the Daemon of Entropy and Death. However, it had no form, so how could they fight it? It was Shao'Kehn who figured out the answer - She'd had no form before Ahndahn, so why not try the same thing with Spwiióhk? Ahndahn agreed, and they worked together to force Spwiióhk into a form. They succeeded, yet what form It had depended on one's perspective. Sometimes it looked calming and peaceful, like an angel, but other times it looked fearsome and evil. Regardless, the two Deities fought it.
      It was soon discovered, however, that Spwiióhk was not like other enemies. Death is its nature, and so it was not like fighting Shao'Kehn, for life is in Shao-Kehn's nature. They fought with Spwiióhk for longer than they had fought each other, but made no progress. And Spwiióhk was making no progress either, even after creating other Daemons for his allies, partially because this was quickly countered by the creation of the six Sehn'doi'ahdj.
      Spwiióhk was not stupid, nor unreasonable, though. Being as weary of the fight as they were, he offered them a compromise. By this time, there were countless trillions of Deities in existence. His proposal was this: Allow these Deities a lifespan of, say, 200 billion years - letting Spwiióhk have them after that time - and he would stop killing the universe. This, of course, was unacceptable. So they haggled. Finally they all came to a compromise that all could be happy with... create a new form of life in the universe that would be made of animated matter and have a very short lifespan, in exchange for letting the universe live. Spwiióhk said he would have to see this new form of life first.
      So together the Deities made the universes as we now know them, with stars, planets, and life. All of these things have a limited life span, and Spwiióhk gets to devour their energy when they die. Seeing this, Spwiióhk was pleased, and accepted. He and his allies even signed a binding contract. Many of the countless Deities became souls and inhabited some of these life forms. (But all things have souls.)       But the Deities had tricked him. Yes, he got to feed off of the energy that animated these beings when they died, but their souls would live on and return to the realm of the Absolute, to reincarnate later. Initially, when Spwiióhk found this out, he was furious; eventually he learned to live with it. And so he began feasting on the death that came like crazy for him.
      After a while, though, it became obvious that something was wrong. Life was not reproducing, nor was it avoiding death. This made even Spwiióhk pause in concern. If there was no more life, he would get no more death energy. So Shao'Kehn converted Ïdz, the Daemon of Fear that was one of Spwiióhk's allies, to work for life. Being afraid of death, life now took measures to avoid it, as well as to reproduce. Of course, Ïdz being on Spwiióhk's side, he still has negative aspects.

      Watching all this, the nameless being awoke fully, for the creation of children - especially the children of sapient beings like humans - caused Her to be born. Bemused at Her new existence, She wandered about Creation. Being small and new to the world, many things frightened Her, but many things also gave Her great joy and She felt awe at it all.
      One day, Ïdz and Spwiióhk began chasing Her into many dark places in Creation just as their idea of fun. They could not have truly hurt Her, because of the binding contract they had all signed, but She was unaware of this, and they did scare her very much. Trying to find a safe place to hide, She wound up inside of Shao-Kehn's Onyx Castle, where Ïdz and Spwiióhk dared not go. Into this castle She ran, and slammed the door shut behind Her.
      The hallway She was in stretched for what seemed like miles, and had torches hung on the walls. The entire place was made of Creation Onyx, so it was rather dark, but the walls seemed to shine with a faint light even where the torch light did not reach. She did not know at the time that Creation Onyx creates light. All She knew was that it looked eerie.
      Finally, however, She wandered into a room that contained a fountain of pure liquid light. The light was a gold so bright that it was almost white, and the "water" was more like liquid flame. She touched it, and it burned Her finger, making Her cry.
      Then Shao'Kehn and Ahndahn entered the room, wondering what the noise was. Shao'Kehn was dressed in a gorgeous, sleeveless indigo gown, and Ahndahn had on a shoulderless white dress on. Both of them immediately recognized the nameless being as a child. A child Goddess, which was highly unusual - Deities were usually born fully grown.
      "Why hello there, little one, what's wrong?"
      "I hurt My fingers," She said through tears.
      Shao'Kehn glanced in concern at the fountain. "Oh, sorry about that. Here, let Me make it feel better."
      The nameless child was wary at first, but Shao'Kehn looked and sounded nice to Her, so She let Shao'Kehn take Her in Her arms and heal the burn with a kiss.
      "There we are, all better."
      "Thank you very much."
      Ahndahn came closer to look at the child. "What is your name, child?"
      "I... I don't have a name."
      "Didn't your parents give you a name?"
      "I have no parents. All I remember is waking up one day inside of a nebula by a star that was being born, wondering who I was or what I was doing there."
      "Could it be," asked Ahndahn, "that She arose spontaneously?"
      "I think it more likely that form was given to the formless. She has the feel of being as old as Creation, but Her form feels new to Me."
      "Well what should we do with Her? If She has no parents, who will look after Her?"
      Shao'Kehn looked into the child's eyes, which were looking fearful and sad, before saying, "We have no children of our own... perhaps we could take care of Her."
      Ahndahn looked thoughtful, but dubious. "But most Deities are born fully formed. Even if it is a form that arose from formlessness, it is Hers forever now. Spwiióhk and You both retained the forms You developed."
      "We are both able to change our shape, remember."
      "That may be true, but You have a permanent form that You return to after changing, do You not?"
      "Yes. But what does it matter? Even if She remains forever a child, we are never going to die, so I don't see any problem with raising Her."
      "I suppose You are correct. And She is very beautiful."
      The child looked tense and expectant. Finally, Ahndahn sighed.       "Of course, then. Shao'Kehn, My Love, if You want a child, then we shall adopt this one."
      "Yay!" the child yelled out in glee.
      "Now we have only to name Her," said Ahndahn.
      They did not immediately come to a name. To help them think of one, they researched the child's origins and powers. Eventually, they discovered that a small part of the child Goddess lay in all life forms, but these parts were larger in animals with children, even more so in beings like humans, but the parts were always larger in children than they were in adults. It seemed like all children - whether young or grown - were Avatars of this child Goddess.
      "A child Goddess of Children," Shao'Kehn mused. "Then let us name her Nahtahdjaiz, for it means 'youth and imagination'."
      And so it was that Nahtahdjaiz, Child Goddess of Children, was born, and came to live the rest of Her immortally young days with Shao'Kehn and Ahndahn. She was forever loved and adored.

THE END