*tink tink, CLANG*
Hammer bounces on anvil, then slams against emptyness.
*tink tink, CLANG*
Violent strike compacts the void, absence colliding against nothingness.
*tink tink, CLANG*
Brother rotates the mass for brother to inspect as the two share a nod. Flakes of oblivion cascade from the anvil as brother moves the creation back to the dragon fire. The darkness glows as it is engulfed, and the brothers take pause, looking deep into the flames.
"This thing, brother, I think it may be something."
"It is progress, but a thing it is not yet."
"Surely more work must be done, but we should rest."
"Yes. I think a rest may serve us well for now."
And as the two brothers slept, existence sat quietly, wreathed in dragon's fire, waiting for its creators to shape it to their liking.
* * *
Time passed (how much is anyone's guess, for the span from one uncategorized event to another is never witnessed and therefore never measured, but one may assume it was somewhere in the neighborhood of an eternity). The brothers, satisfied with the thing they created together, placed it into being, and in doing so set history to begin.
The brothers looked at their newly extant thing and immediately understood the dilemma at hand, and by extension their next task: If history is to begin at the beginning of the thing, there must be some way to take note of the start. At this realization, the brothers knew they should first have created a something that could record history, but seeing as history had already begun and had no intention of stopping any time soon, the brothers hurried to rectify their mistake.
Each brother set to making their own thing to record history. There were many failed attempts between the two, but early on they decided that their failures should not be wasted, and so they threw them onto their new thing whose history barreled onward (this is why there are no records for the starts of mountains and grass and birds and trees and horses and fish and rivers and frogs and other things that always were). Every failure served as inspiration for the next, and even the brothers began plagiarizing each other as they recognized their gaining proximity to a history-tracking thing.
The first goblin was made and thrown onto the thing (at the time it was just a stinky little thing, but it became a goblin once it called itself such). The little creature saw a cave and scurried into it, naming the feature and claiming it as home. As it looked around and took stock of the place, the goblin saw itself in the cold pools within and named itself. This action was seen by its creator, and the brothers' creating stopped for a moment. The goblin was the first thing to have named itself, and the brothers thought that maybe it could also be the thing that tracked history. The brothers watched the goblin, eagerly awaiting the logging of history to begin.
* * *
Time passed (likely less time than before, but also likely a considerable amount of time, presumably roundabouts a lifetime or two, but your guess as to whose is as good as mine). The brother who made the goblin waited with bated breath for it to begin recording history, but the creature was not interested. The goblin didn't seem interested in the things happening before and after it, it only focused on what it should do in that in-between period of right now. For sure, the brother tried to motivate his goblin. He made eggs for it to eat (the goblin couldn't catch the birds since they fly, so the brother hid the eggs under the birds so the goblin didn't see him), he made worms for it to hunt (the goblin learned fish are hard to catch, so the brother hid the worms under the grass so the goblin didn't see him), but when he tried to make another goblin out of mountain and river bits, his goblin caught him and named him, and so he became Hakon, and for a time Hakon served his goblins more than they served him, making for them the things they asked him for, things like sheep and oxen and rocks from places other than the mountains.
As the brother watched Hakon and his goblins, he grew unsatisfied. Hakon's goblins were on their thing, sure, but they were not marking down history. The brother, upset at Hakon for forgetting their goal, set about making his own kind of goblins. The brother's goblins would also be in the mountains, so he put more hair on them to keep them warm so they wouldn't need sheep. Instead of living in caves, the brother's goblins would break the mountains and make their own homes, so he put more muscles on them to make them strong so they wouldn't need oxen. Most of all, the brother's goblins would know about the metals in the mountains, so he put in them a heart that loved the mountains and all they provided so they wouldn't need rocks from places other than the mountains.
The brother put his new goblins on the other side of the mountain from Hakon's goblins, and he pointed them to the entry to the mountains. The brother walked with his goblins into the mountains and explained to them why they loved the mountains and why they were strong and why they were hairy, telling them about how he made them for this place and how they were to write the histories of this place. As one of the brother's goblins caught sight of herself in a pool of stalactite drippings, she decided that they were not goblins and instead called themselves dwarves, and in the same moment called the brother Rostam. Rostam was happy with both these names, so he agreed with the little dwarf and left them to their devices inside the mountains.
* * *
Time passed (more time than before, but less time than the first time, so definitely somewhere in between a lifetime and an eternity, but time was fluid back then since it wasn't marked, so the specifics are hazy).
As the brothers reconvened after their times with their new peoples, they introduced themselves. Rostam was not a fan of Hakon's new name, and Hakon felt the same of Rostam's, but the two decided that their names were what they were and it was not up to them to change them, so the two brothers became Rostam and Hakon (or Hakon and Rostam, depending on where you grew up), and they waited for their peoples to start writing down history.
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