Tales to tell

And it came to pass the earth could not take the abuse any longer, her soil
was dry and dying, her flora, wilted and disappearing, her fauna, missing in action.

For fifty years, she toiled, to shape an emissary, one who would embody all the attributes
of the world, her magic was still strong, although each indignity man perpetrated upon her
diminished her a little more each day, she had gathered magic over the course of a billion
years and she wielded it now, in blazing trails of crimson fire, she gave the Scout as she called him, arms hewn from the sun, in surging tendrils of aquamarine, she gave him legs which danced like the tides, in alabaster delicately applied touches, she gave him the skin of the sky, white of cloud, white of eternity, white of no-more-tomorrows.

When she was done, she lay down naked beside him, and kiss-hushed her stories into the shallow curve of his ear, she told him all of her history, the time of fire, when volcanoes ruled and she spat fire and flame and lava miles into the sky, the glorious burning of youth raging through her, she set fire to the air and burst apart, bubbled and grew, receded and cooled.

She told him of the time of the reptiles, how they ravaged her with their endless hungers, and how they died in a single week of destruction when the sky sent a rock hurtling into her, hurting her deeply, slaying her for a time.

She told him of the rise of man, a slowly growing menace, who simply forgot who she was, and how much he needed her.

And when she was done, the Scout rose and slowly ascended to the surface.