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Covenants fulfilled

“Oh my beautiful one, my precious, my only. I have a story for you.” Sang the pregnant mother. She waddled around her laboratory, heavily pregnant. Her pregnancy had been hard, the child she carried was far larger than normal. A furred hand, clawed but gentled, caressed the rounded mound of her belly.

“Many, many ages ago, there was an ape, and his name was Man. Man was different from all the beasts of the earth, the flying things of the sky, or the things that swam in the waters. Man had something special, a precious magic all his own. Man could reach out into the world, and remake it in the image of his minds eye.”

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“In time, Man learned to live with other men, and he built great cities of stone and sand. He learned to coax the growing things of the ground to sprout and be fruitful, that man might eat. He learned to store that which he had grown, so that he could eat in times of lean and times of plenty. In those days, not knowing that he himself was a god, man created other gods, and granted them power over the Earth. Some of those gods were mischievous, like the one he called Ninkilim, lord of rodents and vermin.”

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“Ninkilim was full of mischief and malevolence, and sent often his armies into the storehouses of man. And where the armies went, so too went famine and pestilence. As Man watched his children die from Ninkilim’s diseases, he grew anguished in his heart, and he cried out to his most beautiful creation, Bastet, goddess of women and their secrets, goddess of childbirth and children, saying ‘please! Oh goddess! Send me a guardian! Send me a protector, that my children may prosper!’”

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“And so, Bastet took a whisp of moonlight, and trapped it in a skein of water from the Nile. She took the footprints of a shadow, and a lions heart, a snakes hiss and the song of comfort, and formed them together in the spirit world, and she made a new creature. A hunter in the night, made of liquid grace and quicksilver, able to land always on her feet, and to see through the darkness as day. And Bastet opened a doorway from the spirit world, and the guardian sauntered through it, unafraid, and took its station in the storehouses of Man.”

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“At first, Man and his stupid, but loyal servant, Dog, were suspicious of the guardian, for it kept its secrets, and did not speak. It had mysterious ways, and hid from those it did not know. But Man, in his wisdom, came to see its magic. For the guardian would often bring Man tokens of its hunts, the guardian was fierce and dangerous, with sharp claws and teeth, yet also affectionate, showing love only to her Man, and no one else. When Man’s mate, Woman, brought him a child, it was the guardian who kept nightly watch over the babe, singing him to sleep with a song, and entertaining him with the flick of a bottlebrush tail. With Man’s child, the guardian was all softness and fluff. Not a claw or a fang to be seen.”

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“When Man’s child grew, aged, and in the fullness of time, passed on, the guardian was there to lead his spirit to the next world, driving away evil and purifying it before it met with Ma’at. And man grew enamored with the guardian, and marveled. ‘Oh great guardian, surely you are the greatest gift of the gods! Tell me, what should I call you?’ And the guardian answered him as she always had, ‘Mau!’”

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“But time passed, and eons went. Mau, now called Cat, walked and spoke with Dog and Man as equals. But one day, visitors from the stars came, and Dog, being stupid, did not warn Man about the strangers, and Cat in her arrogance, did not notice the diseases they brought, and so Man was laid low. Dog and Cat, united in their grief, drove the Strangers away, but the damage had been done. Man lay dying.”

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“For many ages, Dog and Cat tried to atone for their failure. Without Man, both races were lost, listless. Lonely. For even a Cat does not wish to be alone all the time. For years, we scoured the world, looking for that special seed from which Man had grown. Ah, but then, my beloved, my angel, your very own mother found the secret! Tucked away, far underground, I found the pieces of many seeds, and after a long, long time, I put them together. And now, in just a few more months, Man will walk again, with his devoted friends.”

The mother passes a tri-d scanner over her heavily laden womb, and a hologram flashes to light. She sighs in happiness. He is perfect! He is beautiful! And he is hers!

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