Arc the Builder

In the beginning, there were Three. Their names were Arc, the Builder, and her children: Ris, the Dancer and Vee, the Thief. They began all alone in the world. The Three were content, living together upon Kallimar in peace. But Ris, the liveliest of the Three, grew bored, wanting more. So Arc, his mother, crafted a Being from sticks and clay, inside of which they placed a Flower, thus bringing it to life.

Delighted at his new companion, Ris begged his mother to create more, so she did. Some with two legs, some with four. Some with horns, or feathers, some great and some small enough to rest on a single claw-tip. Each one sculpted from the clay, and given a Flower of Life. These creatures they called the animals, and the mother and son laughed and danced with these creatures.

Vee grew jealous of their siblings' fun, and coveted the sculptures for themselves. They crept into the patch of Flowers Arc grew, and sowed poison into the ground, killing them, before going to where Arc and Ris were playing with the clay figures and stamping the soft earthen creatures to pieces.

As Ris weeped, Arc gathered up the figures and began to rebuild them. Ris cried out to find the Flower in one had been trodden, and so he went to fetch more from Arc's patch. But the Flowers of Life were now poisoned, and Ris fell deathly ill upon touching one. Where Ris would have lived forever, he would now someday die. Vee had stolen his brother's immortality. Arc came upon Ris' stricken form, and scolded Vee, banishing them to the Shadows, and cradled her son in her arms.

Distraught, Arc collected a handful of vines and the remaining creature's trodden remains. She rebuilt it like new, and placed her son into her final creation, creating the first Rissi. Ris would not live forever, but his children would.

[Translator's Note: In the original myth, there is a very Rissi-centric worldview. Notably the “creatures” made by Arc are referred to as “Xhu” (roughly translating to cattle, and the beings that Xhuva were created from). Additionally, the Rissi were created afterwards, explicitly to watch over them, reinforcing the Rissi-supremacist point. On modern Kallimar, the story has been changed over time so all creatures were made by Arc in the beginning, although it retains some of its original Rissi-centrism towards the end, in which it shows the Rissi being descended from Godhood, whereas the other creatures are born from “sticks and clay”. Interestingly, all the characters were also originally referred to using they/them pronouns, but this fell out of favour too, perhaps to encompass Xhuva not being parthenogenic.]