History, like all good things, took quite a while to get started, so long in fact that Rostam and Hakon (or Hakon and Rostam, depending on where you're from) began to grow concerned. Each was convinced that their creations, the dwarves and the goblins, respectively (or goblins and dwarves, depending on where you're from), would be the first to log history, but as their creatures grew needier and more demanding, asking for pets and foodstuffs and other odds and ends, and they found no writings nor markings to track the passage of time in any meaningful capacity, the brothers filled their time catering to the needs of their creations.
Rostam presumed that the dwarves would simply need a method of marking, so he decided to go through the painstaking process of transporting some of the Forge's dragon fire to his creation, comfortable in the belief that the ash from the fire would make for an ideal material to mark on stone, trees, leaves, really whatever the dwarves chose to write upon. However, to his dismay, Rostam found that, once removed from the mouth of the dragon, the flame disappeared. Twilight fell onto their creation below, and both Rostam and Hakon noted that their creations, from the birds to the oxen to the dwarves and the goblins, all seemed to lay down and die, dead as doornails, without even a whimper.
Unfortunately for Rostam, Hakon noticed this first (Rostam was preoccupied with pondering a method of transporting some of the dragon fire to his creation, you see). At the sight of all of his work's ruin, Hakon threw the first blow (while history was not yet tracked on the surface of their creation, there was another whose awareness seemed to begin around this time, hence our knowledge of this incident, but she'll be officially named about eight-hundred and thirty-two words from now). Rostam, shocked at his brother's actions, returned the blow, and the two scuffled in their high up place for a short while (or a long while? Again, the passage of time was a bit hazy back then).
Though both brothers fought with anger, neither bore true hatred to the other. Sure, Hakon was angry at the loss of his creation, and absolutely, Rostam was angry that Hakon hit him for seemingly no reason whatsoever, but the brothers quickly found that they were better suited for the slow, methodical work of creation as opposed to the tiring sport of violence (though, it seems worth mentioning that a spark had been lit, but I'm sure nothing will come of that), so both brothers, exhausted after a short- or long-while of combat, sulked to their respective sides of the anvil.
* * *
While he hated to admit it, Rostam knew his actions had led to the utter desolation of everything the two brothers had worked to create (he still didn't believe he deserved to be hit, but that's neither here nor there). After their short reprieve from battle, Rostam and Hakon reconvened in a more civil manner. They began their conversations by discussing the potential utility of a continued bout, but once each side voiced their displeasure at the idea of the strenuous task of beating each other to a pulp and explained their actions, those leading up to the eradication of all life and the first blow, they realized that, given their understandings of the situation, each would likely have done the same as the other, so they decided to wait.
Both brothers sat, pondering how to approach this new dilemma. The dragon seemed as eager for a rest as the brothers, for while they searched for fire, she kept it from them for the time being, waiting patiently to see if they would ask her outright (which never happened, by the way), so the brothers pondered some more. It occurred to them, on more than one occasion between the two, that if they wanted to save their creations, there should be some way to create something that would accomplish that goal, but they were at a loss. Without the dragon's fire, they simply did not have an easy way to make something to fix this issue.
The two decided that they should occupy their time with attempts while they waited for the dragon to return to her duties. Each took from their creation in an attempt to fuel new light-bearing creations, pulling water and soil to form new fish, branches and birds to create bats, and all sorts of strange combinations of elements to fashion the things which wake and roam during the night now, but try as they might, they could not figure out how to bring their original creations back to life.
Rostam, in his attempts, pulled metals from the mountains and placed them on the anvil for the time being, aware that he would find something to mix it with to make a life-bringing thing for their creation. Hakon, being of like mind to his brother, plunged into the mountains as well, also pulling forth bits of metal and stone. Being that, as previously mentioned, the two were of like mind, Hakon also tossed his retrievings onto the anvil, and as Hakon's stone and metal struck Rostam's, a Forge's Spark lit the night sky, cascading over their creation before dipping over the horizon. To both brothers' amazement, they watched as their creations, previously dead as doornails, roused and set about to their tasks, skittering about the surface of creation while the Spark hung overhead before falling dead once more as the Spark fell beyond view.
The two were elated, eagerly attempting to recreate the phenomenon. Brother held metal while brother struck it with first metal, then stone, then a different stone, then another before they finally found the proper combination of things to create another Forge's Spark. As they struck the fated combination and Spark flew over their creation, Rostam and Hakon noticed once again that their creations sprung back up from their slumber and resumed their lives before falling once again to sleep. The brothers, ecstatic at their findings, struck their metal and stone together over and over, attempting to keep enough Forge Sparks in the air to keep their creations alive, but they quickly grew tired at the efforts, so they fell into a methodical rhythm, sending Forge Sparks at a steady enough pace that at exactly the same time, both the dwarves and the goblins, understanding the rhythm of night and day, had a method to track the time and, by extension, log history (both brothers argued over whose creations truly tracked history first, but while neither would admit it, both were too invested in the creation of the Forge Sparks to watch their creations with any true diligence, so neither really knew which tracked history first).
* * *
The din of the trio's forge was earsplitting for the dragon Nyth. She had, over her eternal time firing the forge for her brothers, grown accustomed to the dull thud of heated materials, but this new rattling, clanging, impossibly loud smashing had shattered any possibility of her getting a good long rest. She was loathe to admit, though, the fact that while she could not sleep, she did appreciate the break this new discovery had granted her.
Nyth had witnessed the dawn of creation, same as her brothers, from the completion of the world to the formation of the creatures upon it. She had lived her life understanding that, while she was certainly working diligently to keep the Forge lit, her brothers truly broke their backs creating the things they saw as good. It wasn't until Rostam took her dragon fire that she acknowledged how truly tiring her job was. When she noted the affect her short break had on the creations she helped bring to being, Nyth did feel a sense of duty to spit fire back into the forge, waking the trio's creations, but she felt no guilt in taking a momentary reprieve.
During her comparatively miniscule break (compared to the eternity wherein she breathed her life's breath into all of creation, of course), Nyth was interested to see her brothers' response to this relatively minor problem. Rostam seemed focused on taking her fire again, something that, were she being honest with herself, appalled her, and Hakon struck his brother out of rage, which also appalled her. During the First Long Night, Nyth grew uncomfortably aware of the lack of input her brothers asked of her. In an instant, she could have lit the Forge once more, bringing creation back to balance. She almost considered doing so, but a stirring sense of jealousy told her to stay her hand, to wait for her brothers to come to her for help.
That call never came, and she watched her brothers brawl and plot and scheme to replace her. Nyth became quickly aware that what she felt was not jealousy, but anxiety. Insecurity. She had forged all of creation with her brothers, and now they seemed to forget they even had a sister, a third of their all-powerful triumvirate, one of the three creators, left in the void.
Nyth knew her role was important, and she wanted her brothers to remember that. She would leave them to toil, at least for a while. She knew that, once they tired of their hammering, they would come back to her and she would be part of it all again, the third third of creation.
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