muses (creation class assignment).

the beginning and the end.

There were the three Muses - Hatter, Eden, and Valentine. They perched upon the shining moon and perused the idea of a new world. There were so many realms and threads of almost-worlds lingering around the galaxy, and yet they hardly differed from each other. So they worked, gathering the loveliest parts of every realm - from one, the love for one another, from another, the heavenly scents of food, from another, the candy-coloured sky that rose when the sun went down and disappeared between the ragged peaks. (They took the peaks as well.)

With ancient runes and quiet utterances of lore, a barren world was formed. Large but empty, pathetic, unused. Disappointed with this, Hatter cast out fires and demons to ravage the world and destroy it, so they might start anew. Instead - after the fires faded, redwoods sprouted from the tilled earth, and the demons diminished into smoke and pollutants. Inspired, Valentine spread the bits and pieces of love he had collected all over the battered but glistening world, although there were no inhabitants to savour it.

Eden frowned. The lack of life disappointed him. Taking a long look into Valentine's essence and aura, he began to shape a form - remotely tall, split with four limbs, prehensile thumbs because he enjoyed that feature so - and it took shape, blinking disorientedly at its creator. Gently, Eden sent it into the world, and let it grow, adding a few more until his power diminished.

Hatter became dissatisfied with his own incompetence, as he called it, and took it upon himself to quietly corrupt a few of the lone beings. They grew to be malicious, with only ill intent, and their offspring were corrupt as well, to his delight. Val and Eden were quite disappointed with their friend, but let it be. After all, these new creatures couldn't be that terrible to one another, could they? (Wrong.)

Taking inspiration from Eden, Valentine began to create creatures of his own - some to be companions for the initial creatures, some to be enemies, some to coexist peacefully, some to be food. They absorbed the love he had sent out, and the world began to thrive. Glistening waterfalls that Val had taken from a distant land now towered over scented evergreens. When the sun faded, the sky took on gorgeous hues that made Valentine's breath catch. Eden had no appreciation for these sunsets, for he couldn't see them, and did it really matter, anyway? He had created most of the creatures, after all, and he took pride in them. Hatter had no eyes to view the rise or fall of the sun, and simply let it be, while traipsing along the world, adding some minor details to the creatures and landscape.

He added different kinds of love, different kinds of hate, different combinations of plants and animals to consume, variations of plants and animals - and most importantly, differences in appearance and state of mind of the first creatures, happily dubbed 'humans' by Eden. They delighted in their newly-created world, with its near-monthly disasters and all, and cared for it the best they could. When they faded like dying stars into the universe, the world began to detoriate. It was still full of life, but the polluted demons remained, looming over the world, threatening to send it into chaos and disrepair. Hatter's corrupted souls grew, and did hateful, terrible things he would have never wished for them to do.

But there was still the love Val had spread. It was diminished, of course, after all there were trillions of inhabitants in the planet already, and it was used quite a bit. But it was still there. The humans made structures that grew more advanced with every year, they created societies (whether good or bad), and the love began to grow with the hate. Soon, there was balance. Not much - it would often tip to one side to another, but it was there. And the muses were incredibly pleased.