"Once Upon A Time..."

So guess what it's time to have a crossover post with TLN's Royalverse, which is now the Royal Verse. The distinction means something.

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There's lots of ways this post can begin. First, however, let us say you are familiar with TLN's Kings. If you aren't, come back when you have. ...Good.

The only way a post like this can start, for reasons that will become evident, is with a fairy tale.

Once Upon a Time, there lived a Little Girl, and her Father. The Little Girl was, in truth, neither little nor a girl, and her Father was neither a Father, nor a man. But between themselves, that is what they felt and what they knew, respectively. For once there was only the Father, and then there was the Little Girl. And the Little Girl declared that he was her Father and she was his Daughter and he agreed, having no reason to say otherwise.

They were always happy, and yet it was neither 'happy' nor 'always'. They did not suffer, they were not sad. And they had something we would consider love for each other, but time was so runny back in those days, before someone collected all the sands and laid them in a line forever, and the Daughter found that she was restless, and endlessly unsatisfied with the Nothing that surrounded them.

"Father, I would like you to make me Something," said the Daughter, to which he replied:
"Certainly, my Daughter, but first you would have to tell me what Something is." For while the Father was very capable, in fact capable of everything, he was not very creative. He saw the world as it was and wasn't, and not for it could be or might be. He could calculate anything, realize anything, invent anything, but he could not conceptualize or dream.

And the Daughter dreamed without limit, without restraint. So she told him exactly what Something was, as opposed to Nothing. And so there was Something. "Now, we just have to make more things! Father, could you make lots of colors?" And she described the various hues and shades and pastels she desired.

To create those colors his Daughter wished for, the Father realized, he would need to invent light. He would have to calculate wavelengths and photons and refraction and relativity. He tirelessly did all these things, to create the phenomena and processes that would give the world color. He did this as if it were as natural as breathing. As if it were his calling. In truth, he never had urge to do anything before his Daughter, but he took to this work with all his being. He took to this like it was his purpose. He took to this like he cherished his Daughter's smile. These were as true as anything could be said to be, which is not really much at all, but to him it was as true as anything he knew, and as true as anything he made, so to us, we would call it a deep Truth.

And so it was that every time the Father realized a wish of his Daughter's, she made him a Crown, and sat it upon his head, cheerfully declaring him the King of Light, the King of Colors, the King of Something, the King of Water, Air, Oxygen, Potassium, Life, Death, Sky, Plastic, Pink, Shrimp, Chocolate, Picture Books, Cough Medicine, Moth Holes in the Blanket, Bandaids and Boo-Boos, Salmonella, Broccoli, Coins, Counterfeit Coins, Magic, Sandwiches, Spiders!

The Daughter-Princess imagined everything, and the Father-King created them all, taking her Inspiration, her Wonder, her Meaning and pounding and forging it into solid Reality, the spirit of her intent manifest in the properties and processes of his Law.

Things were good, and they were happy. Or rather, the Princess was happy, and the Father was pleased that she was happy. Her bright passions were things he did not understand, and he knew his own only by looking for their shadow in the light of her own. She loved him, and if he felt anything for anything, he felt that she was the jewel of his life, the purpose of his work. Everything he had ever done, he had done for her, and giving her what she asked was his only desire, and so he never questioned the wisdom of her ideas. He had no faculty to deign something better, save for better ways to see them through.

And so it was that Time passed, for in truth Time was one of the last things the Princess requested. It was the last thing the King designed. When Time began, and all they created started to turn and live and die and breathe and change and melt and freeze and go and move and turn, she delighted, and he heaved in contentment, and she placed one more Crown on his head.

And the cruelty of Time is that causes have effects, and these can never turn back.

The One King was crushed under the weight of his One Crown, and he died. The Crown's fragments scattered and there was a King for every Thing, and the world was full.

This fullness came at the expense of the Daughter-Princess's. With no Father-King, she was neither a Daughter, nor a Princess. Everything she ever dreamed, she dreamed for him. Creating beauty for him to realize was her only desire, and she had never questioned the wisdom of her ideas. She had no patience to deign something better, save for brighter passion to see them through.

The Mourning Girl retreated from the world for a long... long time. A long, long, long, long time.

A very, very, long time.

For all that time, the world was incomplete, for the Daughter and her Father had never truly finished their work. And the world remains incomplete to this day, and yet...

And yet...

Eventually there were people. People were in the Plans, and they were Planned to come about at one point or another. The process to produce then had been designed, after all. But when People happened, they had a little spark of the Daughter-Princess. Her Wonder. Her Inspiration. Her Meaning and her Passion. That Something she had which was more than the mattter and the mud and the process and the plans and the solids and the stuff.

There are Kings, and they are not Gods, but they rule as such over the Things in the World, turning the gears of the engine. But that's only one half of the World. There is another, the Royals are the Royals, but there are those who sing the Verse.

There are those who tell Stories, they who perform for the Goddess who weeps for her father.

Without him, how can she finish the world?

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More at a later date, in a separate post. The world is unfinished, and so is this tale.