Shortly after the sun has retreated behind the mountains to the west, two women sit cross-legged at a fire-pit inside a dwelling that was half constructed and half dug into the ground. As smoke rises through a purpose-built hole in the center of the roof, the two quietly help themselves to buckwheat porridge out of deep pottery bowls with embedded cord patterns. They both wear tunics and skirts composed mainly of rough hemp fiber, and they keep well-worn shawls of wool around their shoulders for added warmth.

The two women, though in many ways alike in appearance, come from quite different circumstances. The younger one is of marriageable age, but still has the energy and curiosity of youth. She is rather tall; her hands are rough from laboring in the fields and weaving at home, but otherwise her features do not suggest a life of great difficulty. The other woman is noticeably shorter, perhaps not just due to advanced age, and she bears all of the wrinkles, scars, and calloused skin of a life more fraught with danger and unpredictability.

Despite having a decent if plain meal, not to mention reasonably good shelter and clothing for their situation, the two women are silent for some time, hardly glancing at each other. The younger one finally speaks when their bowls are halfway emptied.

"Omma-alt," the young woman says, "do you still not think Serxe would be just as good a choice as Aleram? I know Serxe lives differently than we do, but he's well respected among his people and--"

"Yes," the older woman croaked, "among his people."

"But Aleram seems so... so ordinary."

"Ordinary? And that is a problem for you? You would prefer a life of wandering to an ordinary one? Serxe is a taepagar--"

"They're not all taepagar, Omma-alt. Serxe doesn't even have to watch his own animals. There are men with and without status among them. Why do you keep acting like they're all the same?"

"Because they all wander, Aone-pet. You know my parents wandered, too, and it was not a comfortable life. And besides, all of tent-dwellers have the same nature."

"The same nature? Every one of them?" The young woman scoffed.

"Yes, it's as I told you when you were much younger. Don't you remember the stories, Aone-pet? People like Serxe all have the same pride, the same arrogance."

"But Omm--"

The older woman straightened her posture and pointed a chastising finger. "Sit. Be still. Clearly you need to be reminded of the old story, one of the first I ever told you--and one of the first our ancestors ever told when we settled here."

The older woman stoked the fire and added more wood to it, motioning for the younger woman to help her tend to it. Her granddaughter sighed but consented, knowing she had earned a long stay in this dwelling as her grandmother recounted the distant and vaguely-remembered past.

Tsabann-slae, tsabann-slae parmataesotun. Many days, many days have passed.

In the first days, Hwanggae above was stern, a harsh teacher, while Tsengguo was warm, nurturing. Both shaped their Creation and its creatures. Hwanggae is embodied most in the eagles, whom he gave wings so that they might soar proudly above the other beasts and their failings. Tsengguo, meanwhile, made the grazing beasts in her vision: they are nurtured by her bounty alone, and they live in community with each other as she desires.

Humankind, however, was not merely of one nature. Some, motivated by Hwanggae's stern ways, were ambitious and restless. Others, much like our own kin today, preferred Tsengguo's ways, living in harmony with her and each other and enjoying her bounty in return. Having this wisdom, we bury our dead to return them to her loving embrace.

While many people chose to live this sensible and harmonious life, however, a few of our brothers and sisters were obsessed with exploration and *mastery of nature, continuing to wander rather than accept Tsengguo's graciousness. Rather than gain their sustenance in cooperation with Tsengguo, they insisted on taking it on their own terms, often by force. Those people in Tsengguo's company only hunted and fished during lean seasons, but Hwanggae's followers grew obsessed with their catches, their feats. They hunted horses when they could have hunted easier game; they ventured over rugged mountains when there were gentler paths; they entered deadly contests against ferocious beasts.*

When Hwanggae's followers, the Hwanggae-uun, learned of the docile nature of the grazing beasts, and saw that they live in ordered clans of their own, the Hwanggae-uun saw opportunity for themselves. They dominated the beasts, slaughtering the strong-willed bulls and rams and asserting themselves as masters in their stead. The cattle and sheep lived to only to serve their new masters, grazing ultimately to feed another.

"But Omma-alt," the young woman interrupted, "do we not live in the same manner? We raise and kill our own cattle and sheep, or else we exchange our grains and beans for their meat and wool."

"Yes, of course, dear, we have all learned those ways. The Hwanggae-uun, though..." She cleared her throat and continued.

It was not long before the Hwanggae-unn began to gorge themselves on meat and milk; Tsengguo's protests and ailing were no object. Herding animals seemed to simple compared to rummaging through dark forests, and their mastery felt so complete, that soon they hardly consumed anything else. Their clothes were all fur and hide. Their tools, their implements, their novelties were all bone and sinew save for their hunting bows. Their greed grew insatiable; deaf to yet more of Tsengguo's protests, they burned and cut forests to clear the way for more pasturelands. Their pride only inflated as they saw their work, as they further mastered Creation.

One day, a chief among the Hwanggae-uun, during an indulgent feast with enough aerag to go around, bragged that he, the head of the largest tribe of Hwanggae-unn and owner of the most livestock, was therefore above all Creation, that nothing under Hwanggae's eyes was grander. His fellows variously laughed good-naturedly and bolstered his ego, having had as much airag as he, but with the following morning came reality, and his men began to challenge his claim.

The chief--his name has long since been lost--refuted all of their challenges to his supremacy, speaking at length of his accomplishments and even how he learned from his purportedly few failures. The others could only nod along; the chief had won every one of his contests against man and woman, and he had slain at least one of every breed of beast that walked the earth. After refuting many challenges against his renown, the chief looked skyward, feeling affirmed and in Hwanggae's grace--and then he saw it.

A golden eagle, the most majestic he had ever seen, flew overhead just as he had finished bragging. Suddenly, a hot jealousy burned in the chief as he saw himself, with all of his achievements, below this creature that had been elevated above him from birth. Far from earning its status, he thought, this creature was poised to look down upon him--indeed, it could have defecated on him if it felt so inclined--and overshadow even the greatest of his achievements.

"No, none shall defy me!" He shouted skyward. "No man or beast has worked to earn its place as I have earned mine. None will dare to pretend otherwise--I will be sure of it!"

The nameless chief beckoned one of his followers to bring him his bow and arrows. The others balked, knowing what he was about to do, but none thought to challenge this man after hearing of his achievements and feats at such length. The chief took the bow but only one arrow, scattering the others to the ground. "If my worth is indeed above all others, man and beast alike, then my first shot will prove it." *He drew back his bow and knocked the arrow, his archer's muscles bulging as he took aim at the creature that dared to 'defy' him. When he loosed his arrow, nothing was heard but the twang of his bowstring.

Surely enough, his shot was true. While all of the other men and women assembled were solemn, the chief began to gloat even before the majestic creature, now falling from grace, hit the ground. He kneeled before his kill, taking a single splendid, golden feather from one of its wing, and stood proudly before his audience.

The sky and ground churned as Hwanggae above and Tsengguo below mourned the slaying of the eagle, but it was Tsengguo who raged more, for her pent-up grief for her abused creatures and her ravaged forests also found release. The chief and his company hardly heeded the storm overhead for the earth's tumult. Rivers roared with a fearsome volume, hills rolled, mountains buckled, and then Altaetsenat, the Great Mountain itself, split open. Through its ruin, Tsengguo shed tears of fluid fire, some flowing along the earth and scorching it, others spewing into the air, burning and scarring the men and women assembled. When all of this had transpired and Tsengguo's grief was still not relieved, she shed more terrible tears--great, black shards flaying hide and human skin alike, until the chieftain and all who were assembled were slain by one means or another. So great was Tsengguo's purge, in fact, that the chieftain's kin and rivals alike were driven from their homelands, wandering far away in search of shelter from her wrath. Even today, those seeking stones to work into tools and weapons still find one of her black, lustrous tears on occasion. And when one's skin turns hot and red in illness, it is her anger resurfacing, having never fully abated since that day.

Because of all of this, my daughter, all Qaraxae-kann live far-removed from their homelands. Because many of us remember the errors of our predecessors, you and I live according to Tsengguo's will, working for her bounty and taking no more than we need. Some among us, however, still have the strong-willed natures of the original Hwanggae-uun. Even as we grow ever more prosperous by the rivers, a few clans still wander, too willful to change their ways. The Hwanggae-unn are prideful, stubborn, and ambitious to a fault, daughter, and that herder you have eyes for is one of them.