Dagābariri

Huehue...

The Teacher
Dagābariri was only born when he was required. Before there were people, before there were lessons to be learned, there was no reason for one to teach them. But the Teacher, the Giver, the Taker, the Laugher, Dagābariri waited for Nunkonṭā ev Mulōkḇā on the black beach across the endless water. Waited with a torch in hand for the raft to run aground.

“Have you learned the first lesson, little prince?” And the Prince did not suspect but that Dagābariri was a god. The only others were the beasts that once he had been, hooting and hunting in the forests the People had not yet touched.

“Was it you that made my children kill each other?”

“No, little prince. That was their choice.”

“Was it you that made my queen demand rank above her station?”

“No, little prince. That was her pride.”

“Was it you that put me on this raft and set me adrift toward death?”

“No, little prince. That was your own stupidity.” And the laughter of Dagābariri was infectious. There was nothing to do in answer but to laugh with him. Even while he tossed his torch and set the ragged pitch and branch raft aflame Dagābariri laughed. “Little prince, you should have been their teacher and their guide. But you are just a child yourself and could have never hoped to compete with the Meyalēlīṯā.”

Aghast, the Prince watched his raft burn, confused and appalled at the idle destructive whims of Dagābariri. “I have known her as I know you, and even a prince cannot tame the wild, boiling chaos that is the heart of everything. You cannot chain it and to try invites misery. Contain it, perhaps. Feed it, of course. Feed it too much and it grows and consumes and escapes your control. Feed it too little and it gutters out and dies, leaves you with a useless pile of ash that cannot keep the night and the hungry dwellers in the dark at bay.”

The Taker spoke of fire, this much the Prince understood. But this was disconnected with his downfall, the reason for his escape from the beasts he had turned into people and the world they had made for themselves. When he voiced as much, the Teacher told him to take the flame and go into the forest. That one day he would learn the first lesson.

There the story of Nunkonṭā ev Mulōkḇā ends, for though the People sought him and he learned the first lesson eventually, his exile was to be eternal; or at least until his Queen wished for him again.

But there the story of Dagābariri only begins.