AcolyteLong ago, before the seas remembered their shores and before the sky had learned the names of stars, there lived a scarab beetle beneath the burning dunes of the ancient desert.
The beetle was small as a thumbprint, black as obsidian, and patient beyond measure. Each dawn it rolled a tiny sphere of strange shimmering dust the color of sunlight trapped in metal — monoatomic gold, scattered across the sands by forgotten gods.
The other creatures laughed.
“You will never finish,” hissed the desert snakes.
“It is only dust,” croaked the lizards.
But the scarab said nothing. Each day it rolled another layer upon the sphere. Across dunes. Across dry riverbeds. Across the skeletons of ancient forests buried beneath the sands.
Years became centuries.
The ball grew larger than a house.
Then larger than a mountain.
At last it shone so brightly that the night itself turned pale around it. Travelers crossing the desert thought a second sun had fallen to Earth.
Yet the world was changing.
The winds cooled.
The rains vanished.
A great frost crept down from the north like white fingers across the lands. The scarab, still pushing its golden sphere, climbed higher and higher into the freezing wastes until snow buried the deserts entirely.
There, beneath glaciers taller than kingdoms, the great ball slept.
The scarab curled beside it and entered a dreamless silence.
For thousands of years the Earth remained locked in ice.
Then came the thaw.
Fire returned to the mountains. Rivers awoke beneath the glaciers. The ancient golden sphere, warmed by the returning sun, began to hum with a sound too deep for human ears.
The monoatomic gold remembered the heavens from which it first came.
The frozen shell cracked.
Light spilled through the ice.
The scarab awakened.
Slowly, impossibly, the immense sphere rose from the Earth. Snow and stone fell away from it like crumbs. The oceans trembled. Forests bent toward the sky.
Higher and higher the sphere floated, carrying the scarab upon its glowing surface.
The creatures of the new world watched in silence as the golden orb ascended beyond the clouds and into the dark sea above.
There it cooled and silvered with age.
There it became the Moon.
And if you look carefully on certain nights, when the moon hangs low and golden on the horizon, some say you can still see the shadow of a tiny scarab endlessly rolling the world onward through the stars.
The beetle was small as a thumbprint, black as obsidian, and patient beyond measure. Each dawn it rolled a tiny sphere of strange shimmering dust the color of sunlight trapped in metal — monoatomic gold, scattered across the sands by forgotten gods.
The other creatures laughed.
“You will never finish,” hissed the desert snakes.
“It is only dust,” croaked the lizards.
But the scarab said nothing. Each day it rolled another layer upon the sphere. Across dunes. Across dry riverbeds. Across the skeletons of ancient forests buried beneath the sands.
Years became centuries.
The ball grew larger than a house.
Then larger than a mountain.
At last it shone so brightly that the night itself turned pale around it. Travelers crossing the desert thought a second sun had fallen to Earth.
Yet the world was changing.
The winds cooled.
The rains vanished.
A great frost crept down from the north like white fingers across the lands. The scarab, still pushing its golden sphere, climbed higher and higher into the freezing wastes until snow buried the deserts entirely.
There, beneath glaciers taller than kingdoms, the great ball slept.
The scarab curled beside it and entered a dreamless silence.
For thousands of years the Earth remained locked in ice.
Then came the thaw.
Fire returned to the mountains. Rivers awoke beneath the glaciers. The ancient golden sphere, warmed by the returning sun, began to hum with a sound too deep for human ears.
The monoatomic gold remembered the heavens from which it first came.
The frozen shell cracked.
Light spilled through the ice.
The scarab awakened.
Slowly, impossibly, the immense sphere rose from the Earth. Snow and stone fell away from it like crumbs. The oceans trembled. Forests bent toward the sky.
Higher and higher the sphere floated, carrying the scarab upon its glowing surface.
The creatures of the new world watched in silence as the golden orb ascended beyond the clouds and into the dark sea above.
There it cooled and silvered with age.
There it became the Moon.
And if you look carefully on certain nights, when the moon hangs low and golden on the horizon, some say you can still see the shadow of a tiny scarab endlessly rolling the world onward through the stars.
Myth Weaver
Auror
Sage
