There are various universes, dimensions, energies and realms filled with a plethora of species as varied as the atoms that create the cosmos. There are also alternative dimensions upon which exist beings, worlds and energies that are similar to a certain extent. For the purpose of this tale, let us take a look at one of these alternative dimensions.
Azura is a continent wrapped in a magical history that precedes modern records. Located in a dimension highly influenced by the supernatural and magic, the planet upon which Azura stood, along with 4 other continents, was very similar to Earth. The name of this planet was Treah.
Azura was once a land of the Gods. Filled with beings that had faith in the Ancestral Plains, the land where the spirits of the departed Azurai, and their gods, rested.
It was well known that it was only through the beliefs of the people, that the great deities who manipulated the forces of existence, came to be. Born from the minds of men, these gods were beings of immense divine power.
The people that existed there at that time, beautiful dark skinned beings, much like the African race of Earth, that were a part of nature in every sense of the phrase, believed and worshipped their deities reverently without fail.
These beings were loved by their deities. Many a time could one witness the vibrant spectre of divinity, descend to the humans, to bestow upon the people knowledge and untold blessings. Oshun made her home in the various lakes and rivers, Mhlaba tended to the land along with the people. Mkhathi kept his watch, shifting with the seasons.
As such, this land was full of shrines, temples and altars dedicated to all their multiple deities, for they believed in the existence of multiple gods that toiled in unison to keep the land sustained and the humans, safe. They made daily offerings as instructed by their deities. They prayed reverently. They practised that elusive oneness with the world around them. In return the gods gifted them a spark of their divinity and the people mastered and utilised it only in accordance with the laws of nature.
This gift was known as Spiritual Energy.
This substance, the breath of the gods as the Azurai people saw it, evolved the land and it's inhabitants. Utilising Spiritual Energy, the Azurai could influence supernatural phenomena to appear. Through their practise, they mastered abilities beyond imagination, manipulating elements and ethereal energies on a whim. As they were a peaceful and loving people, the land around them grew beautiful through their responsible use of their God given powers. Never did a land so rich in sound and scent, so vibrant in life and colour, exist before this.
Nature flourished and the plants provided both beauty and sustenance to the people. The beings communicated with the land and all it's denizens, becoming an ally. Mhlaba, the great eternal spirit of the land, was proud to call the people it's children and blessed them and their land. She was a powerful goddess and yet she spent most of her days within the human realm, tending to her children. She loved then dearly.
As fate would have it, colonisation made it's way to the god blessed shores of this beautiful land.
Since the people were peaceful and loving, they welcomed the travellers that appeared from beyond the seas on large man-made constructions that traversed the oceans. They were different. Their pale complexions and dazzling golden hair a stark contrast to the dark skin and thick, nappy black hair of the Azurai. Thus they termed them Snowchildren. They wore cloths with fascinating designs and carried weaponry that the Azurai had never seen before. Yet they were welcome, for the people had never had any reason to fear. They were the children of the gods after all. These new visitors were part of the world around them.
They made feasts in their honour, proudly displayed their heritage from the gods. They sacrificed their livestock without doubt to appease their gods and their visitors who looked so different to them. They were happy to meet other beings that travelled the land and inhabited it as it's children. As the Azurai were a people of peace, they never imposed themselves and their beliefs upon their visitors.
However, as history usually half reveals, the greed of these seafaring travellers is plentiful and vile.
The Snowchildren had arrived with their own gods and beliefs through their own experiences. They believed in the intelligence of man and attributed everything to science. So when they saw the supernatural essence of the Azurai, they were dumbfounded, awed and afraid. To think there were people who could bear power they could not understand, power to rule nature. They wanted this power for themselves.
It didn't take much to subdue a peaceful people. Their idols were branded as heresy, their practises deemed unnatural and evil as no man, according to the colonizers, should ever wield the power of gods through divine bidding. The knowledge they glimpsed from the Azurai was studied vigorously in secret to no avail. They could not understand the Azurai way of thinking and beliefs. Therefore since they could not master these abilities, they had to rob the Azurai of it. Until they could figure out how to do what they did.
Slowly, like the waning sun before the moon takes her place upon the dark sky, the pride and life of the Azurai people was stolen from them, through the use of man made instruments of war, cowardly in their nature.
Then their identities were erased.
The Snowchildren used their sea travelling constructs to take vast amounts of the Azurai population away to be used as slaves since their bodies were so well nourished and strong.
As time relentlessly marched forward, Mhlaba watched it's children fall victim to an unwarranted superiority complex. These beings from beyond the seas stole their possessions. They desecrated their shrines and temples while raping the mothers and daughters.
The men tried to fight back, however as a peaceful people, they could not actively use their abilities for war. As such, they were beaten into submission and they could do naught but watch their homes burn and pray that the gods would save them.
The gods never replied. For the rule that reigned in the great and opulent Ancestral Plains, is to never oppose the wheel of Fate for their own whims. They had bestowed enough gifts to their children to defend themselves, however, the children never learnt war. The gods knew of this terrible disease of the world outside the borders of their children's kingdom, however they did not warn them of the lurking danger. They only strengthened them and when Fate played her cruel hand, they sat back and did not interfere.
Each of them was as distraught as a mother losing the child she has birthed and held to her bosom.
They loved these children. They had bestowed a piece of their godliness to them in the hopes that they would ascend to their level. It was possible, but would evidently take time. Now their children were facing destruction and they could do naught about it.
Mhlaba grew saddened as the land changed. The Snowchildren created man-made technologies that would apparently push humanity forward to evolution. However, the people gradually lost themselves to it. As the old generations waned and new ones bloomed, the land slowly lost it's lustrous presence and power. The people forgot about their ties to nature and their gift from the deities. Their power faded and over time, Spirit Energy faded from the land. The Snowchildren could still not figure out how to use it.
As these changes continued, the land began to suffer. Wars became common. Strife was a natural look on the faces of the once happy and proud people. Survival was harder than it should be as the Snowchildren removed Azurai objects of reverence from the land and replaced them with man-made structures of metal and concrete.
Temples and shrines fell and became archeological exhibits. A new religion was forced to the people. The gods that had arrived from beyond the seas made their perch on this rich land and sucked it dry of its power. Fate was indeed a cruel mistress. A new way of life was given, as if by pure virtue, which only caused suffering.
Mhlaba watched through the centuries, painfully witnessing the demise of her once innocent and beautiful children. She knew she could not act against the wheel of Fate as the other gods had not intervened. However as time progresses and she watched the atrocities being committed, her resolve to act only strengthened. Thus, with no other choice, she finally decided to approach the other gods and make a direct appeal.
Upon the high seats of the ancestral plains, 5 great beings ruled supreme over all else. The gods that were called to meeting, appeared in all their splendour.
Mkhathi, the one who is the sky, a serene and joyful entity. Nkanyezi, who shepherds the stars and the moon, a divine beauty. Oshun, the mother of tides, a powerful presence. Silo, the eternal flame of life, stood proud. With Mhlaba, as the mother of creation, they were all present as she made her appeal.
She told her brothers and sisters of the strife that had befallen their children. The foreign gods were encroaching upon their divine land, performing acts of unspeakable terror to their people. This could not be allowed to pass. They had to act, to keep their children safe and to secure the future of this land and the world.
The problem, as Mhlaba explained, was the arrival of the foreign gods to this land of her ancestors. They were forcing a way of life that slowly ebbed the divine light from the eyes and hearts of their children. The worship given to these foreign entities was robbing the people of their gift, Spiritual Energy. Without it, the land would wither and die, along with the humans on it.
The other gods heard Mhlaba, however, they reminded her that even in their positions as deities, they could not go against the wheel of Fate. As it should be, they could not interfere with such events of this world, unless their own beings were at stake. Since they were already omniscient beings, their existence might be enhanced by the beliefs of the Azurai, but they would continue to exist even without their reverence.
"Yet my children cry and bleed. Their hoarse voices call for our intervention and they receive nothing but pitiful treatment. Is this why we developed this land? Why we let them flourish and taught them of a fraction of our divinity? If that is so, I shall renounce my godliness and endeavour to change fate by my own mortal hand." Mhlaba shouted in a fierce passion, her eyes heavy with unchecked emotion not becoming of a deity.
When a God chooses to renounce their divinity, it is an act through which they remain in the human realm, in a mortal body. While a certain amount of their abilities can be utilised, lacking the strength of divinity, it would appear as mere child's play to the power one wields as a God.
Therefore, for divine beings, it was heresy to renounce their divinity. That which made them gods was too important to them. More than a species that could be restarted at another time. It did not matter if that species was the sole reason for the existence of their divinity in the first place. This was the moment these divine beings knew true selfishness. One could even argue that their initial feelings towards the Azurai, their love for their children, had been superficial at best.
Her brothers and sisters were shocked at Mhlaba's resolution but still, made no move to provide her assistance or allow her to act as a God.
Therefore she cursed them with a mighty fury and renounced her godliness.
When she was cast from the ancestral plane, Mhlaba looked for a different land where she could give birth to a new people that would enable her to save her own realm. She could not act directly upon her own world and thus planned to act through different means. She traversed multiple dimensions and realms, endlessly searching through the years, until she found Earth. She felt the age of this planet, with a power similar to hers. There was traces of Spiritual Energy in this dimension, though faint and fleeting. Upon scouring the surface of the planet she noticed a land that was situated at its centre. A land shaped like a certain creature that was well known for it's tough hide in Azura. This land reminded her of home, of her children.
She chose that place on Earth. The continent of Africa, to inhabit. Falling like a burning meteor from the heavens, she landed on the lower South Coast, in the area that would later be known as KwaZulu-Natal. Weak from having her divinity stripped from her, and traversing the infinite cosmos and dimensions, she could do naught but attempt to recover her power before acting. She used her last spark of Spiritual Energy to create a shrine, within which she proceeded to sleep. Waiting. Amassing new energy and knowledge to realise her goal.
Her children would be saved. This land itself would do it, lorded by her, the mother of creation, cast from the divine plains of her ancestors. She would teach these people, who resembled her children so closely, the power of Spiritual Energy. The time will come when she will use this power to overthrow the Snowchildren in her own land. She slowly rebuilt herself as a new entity. A being of stormy skies and lightning. Her roar of anger was the eruption of a volcano. She harnessed new abilities to control her domain and continued her recuperative sleep.
Time continued it's ceaseless march forward.
On the 7th of July 2022, the shrine within which slept an ageless goddess turned mortal, cracked and a divine light spilt from within, bathing the vicinity in beautiful ethereal hues. The ground trembled once as if in shock.
A low moan could be heard emanating from within the mysterious shrine as the entity within finally awoke. Her heart full of vengeance, she commanded the land to change. To initiate the fight that she personally had to take for her children, she willed this planet to evolve through Spiritual Energy. She brought new mountains into existence. The ground shook and trembled at her power as she reintroduced Spiritual Energy, in all it's glory, into this world.
The time had come for her to make her stand. Both against the foreign gods and her own siblings. The Terra formation event had been initiated. Mhlaba would give her children the means to fight back against their oppression.
Against Fate herself.
The earth began trembling violently, as if shivering from the thoughts inhabiting her once divine mind. The land cracked as new mountains, bearing concentrated loads of Spiritual Energy, erupted, replacing massive acres of land. Nature seemed to take a large breath then.
Then the changes happened in earnest.
The soil boiled like a liquid as Spiritual Energy cursed beneath it, changing the land with it's magical touch. The trees heaved themselves up on their roots and grew to massive heights, lording over the land.
The flowers gained an ethereal glow as their bodies pulsed with the magic being supplied to the land. They shook their leaves and grew as well. Their petals became massive and otherworldly. The grass turned a pure lush green, vibrating with the energy cursing within every root.
The change had come. A world remade by a foreign goddess.