You have learned how the God Queen came to the great beast that was killed and became the land, and you have learned of the birth of the Gods who ate the God Queen and became strong. This story comes from those first seasons when the sun did not watch us and when all the Gods were winged.

The land, the great beast that the God Queen made still with her venom, was covered by beasts then. The beasts had more shapes and more sizes then, though none were as large and as powerful as the daughters who had eaten the insides of the God Queen. In those times the Gods had only one labor, the labor of learning, which was the first labor. The Gods had learned of no evil, for the God of Death and Eating had not yet learned it from the beasts that she watched often.

When all the learning of the land that could be found through watching was gathered, the Gods turned their thoughts toward learning that lay in difficult places. No place was as difficult to gather from as the days that were behind, which was the time before their birthing when the God Queen had flown alone. The Gods searched their Insides, to find secret learning buried there, and they became eager to learn of birthing, for it was the labor that the God Queen had done and they had not. But with their eagerness to learn of birthing came the first fear among the Gods, for they had learned that any who completed the labor of birthing would be eaten by her daughters.

The God who had learned of Death and Eating from the beasts below disagreed when this labor of birthing was brought to be joined. The scent of her fear was potent among the Gods, for she had learned precisely of how the cruel beasts did their killing. She did not want death-smell to come among her sisters. But there was one God whose eagerness to learn of birthing was too strong to be calmed.

The God who wished to learn of birthing was named Atiati-kikitia, who had learned first of comfort and of living with her sisters beside. She flew high above the other Gods and welcomed them to join her labor of birthing, the last learning her mother the God Queen had held secret. The God of Death and Eating's fear became a thick cloud that reached many of the Gods, and together the fearful Gods sought to repel Atiati-kikitia from her learning. But she, the fearless God of Comfort and Living, was beyond their attempts, so strong was the smell of her eagerness to learn.

A plan was made then between the Gods who did not go apart with fear. Atiati-kikitia told her sisters who were beside her that they should change their shape to that of males and mate with her. With the shape of males they would pass things held inside to her, and she would become swollen with the insides of many. Her daughters, it seemed to her, would be made of the insides of the Gods who had mated with her—each God could provide enough for more daughters than there were beasts upon the land below. Atiati-kikitia would then be the First Queen who would be the mother to all Queens.

The first God to join this plan, the first to change her form and mate, was Hiyiki-Haka, the Cradle God, who had learned of tending to the other Gods in still places. Her daughters would be skilled in the labor of nest-keeping, and would always be beside the Queen who would birth them first. Second to mate was small Iki-Ikas, God of Rest and Searching. Her daughters would go beyond the Queen's sight and bring back their learning, and find comfort. Last to mate was the largest God, Rakkitik, who had learned of Strength and Watching. She was last because she had stood with her feelers outward to repel any who would bring threat. Her daughters would keep her great size among their peers, and be always watchful of threats that would be repelled.

The God of Death and Eating watched this mating from afar with thoughts that were stale with hatred. She made a great drumming that shook the land and terrified the beasts upon it. This mating and the birthing to follow, she had learned, would bring the Gods down to the land, where they would be among the beasts who killed and ate one another. She then flew higher even than Atiati-kikitia had, and she left her scent in the sky that the sun would one day follow, and she said to all the Gods, “You will be among death-smell, and you will have it always on your armor. You will be between the beasts that are skilled in killing and eating, and you will learn of its doing. I will show you what I have learned of death and eating now, so that you will learn of its evil and be afraid, and you will abandon this labor of birthing.”

The Gods who were eager to join the labors of Atiati-kikitia were made fearful then. The God of Death and Eating changed her shape many times. She became a storm of flies that bit the Gods' wings. She became long and narrow and broke the Gods' armor, and swallowed their insides. She showed them ever-larger beasts that pressed terrible heaviness upon them to break what was standing. She gave herself precise and skillful parts, and she pulled the Gods into small pieces with grasping legs. And the beasts below watched, learning of ways that they might do harm to the Gods that they had always been beneath.

Many sisters then joined the God of Death and Eating, and took her learning among themselves. They learned precisely what the God of Death and Eating shared, and so they feared to be among the beasts below. They joined in hateful storms of pulling, pressing, grinding, cracking, and sought to show the Gods beside Atiati-kikitia the pain that they would bring to themselves in their labor of birthing.

The Gods who mated were very afraid, for they were few beside the Gods who flew above them and did them harm. They took refuge in the land below, fighting through both Gods and beasts to find comfort and continue their mating. The Cradle God Hiyiki-Haka stayed by Asiati-kikitia's side and cleaned her of the filth of the land. Iki-Ikas strove to dig tunnels in the ground where the Gods who did them harm would not find them, and Rakkitik was watching behind. Still the God of Death and Eating bit at them, bringing further hateful curses upon them.

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“I will find you always,” said the God of Death and Eating. “I will hurt you until you return to me and abandon your labors! I will hear you when I cannot see you! I will feel you digging beneath me! I will bring my learning of death and eating upon your daughters until only Queens are left, and I will share them to the beasts! I have made this my labor, and I will do it always!”

The Gods trembled in their tunnels, their mating finished. Hiyiki-Haka the Cradle God could not quiet the First Queen Atiati-kikitia's fear, and the First Queen became sick with it. Her thoughts could not settle with the God of Death and Eating's words among them. She said to her mated Gods, “I am afraid for my daughters. When my labor of birthing is complete and I am dead, the God of Death and Eating will bring her hate to them, and they will be killed with no learning gathered. They will be found when they walk the land, they will be heard even when stillness is around them.”

Outside, in the dark sky, the God of Death and Eating began her newfound labor that was made with her hatred of the First Queen and her daughters that would follow. She found the largest sister among the Gods who had abandoned the labor of birthing, and said to her, “You will change your shape, and you will fill this dark place with light, that I might see those Gods who hide below.” The God that she spoke to did as she was told, and she became the Sun who watches the land.

The Cradle God gave words of comfort, but had no answer for the First Queen's fears. Rakkitik with all her strength had no way to challenge their attacker. It was Iki-Ikas, the smallest of the mated Gods, who in her smallness had learned of being hidden, that found a plan among her learning. Iki-Ikas ventured above and walked the land, until she was found by the Sun. Storms raged on all sides of the God of Rest and Searching, and she found herself before the God of Death and Eating.

“I have found you, Iki-Ikas who is smallest among the Gods. Have you come to be among us in the sky? We have shared much learning, you and I, and it would be a comfort to have you beside me again.”

“No,” said Iki-Ikas. “I will repel you, and I will do this until one of us lies killed on the land.”

The God of Death and Eating spoke no words to Iki-Ikas. She was a cloud of biting mouths then, and she tore Iki-Ikas into many small pieces. The Sun was burdened to see this killing, for Iki-Ikas had walked upon her armor many times, and forever after did the Sun's thoughts become unsettled. But as she was torn, Iki-Ikas learned of being many small things, and in her cleverness, became many more pieces that were smaller even than her killers' mouths could hold. The God of Death and Eating thought herself victorious, for in so many pieces Iki-Ikas could no longer speak or do her labors. But Iki-Ikas rode the Wind God that explores wide places, and drifted back beneath the land where the mated Gods waited. She showed them her form, touching their feelers and speaking to them in ways they had never before learned.

“You will see me now,” said Iki-Ikas. “I am among you, but the God of Death and Eating thinks me killed. I will share the learning of this form with you all, that you may escape the gaze of the God of Death and Eating and her sisters Outside. We will be inside your daughters” she said to the First Queen, “and let them speak in ways that the God of Death and Eating will not have learned to hear.”

One by one, the Gods who had mated with Atiati-kikitia the First Queen took the form that Iki-Ikas showed them. They became hidden to all but the First Queen's daughters. They became the Gods Inside then, and they labor at our Insides, and we have all joined their labors against the Gods Outside.

* * *

When Skith left sleep-travel, her legs were steady and strong, but her thoughts were sluggish, for she had traveled far in sleep. She shared food with Akkis and found that her thoughts were settled. Even with her thoughts slowed, her eagerness for learning was fresh, and she shared much with Akkis.

“Which of the Gods Inside who mated with the First Queen am I the daughter of?” she asked.

“You are small,” said Akkis, “in the manner of Iki-Ikas, as am I. We are workers, and so we have many labors to join. The Soldiers, largest of all, do their labors of repelling in the tunnels above, and they do it around the wise nest-keepers who tend to the Queen.”

“Why, then, did the God of Death and Eating take the name Iki when she came into the Colony?” asked Skith.

“You have learned the story of your namesake from the Replete who does not live in these low tunnels. That is the nature of stories told in the tunnels above, where many stories pass between many tellers. Here our stories are older, and they are often broken and remade, and there are fewer who tell them and tend them. I have not learned of Iki, and it seems to me that her name is long-buried.”

Skith heard learning in Akkis's words, and she asked, “How then has the story I have learned, the story of Skith and the First Foraging, been changed in the days since you learned it?”

Akkis touched Skith's head with her feelers four times then, and said to her, “I learned the story of Akkis and the First Foraging, and it was not the form of a sister named Iki that the God of Death and Eating took. Her shape was that of a wise Queen who folded evil into sweet learning, and so made the threat of her hatreds into a secret thing that was beneath her good scent.”

Skith's feelers stood tall then. Akkis smelled Skith's confusion, and said to her, “It was a story told in a season that was hungry and fearful. You should not let that season into your thoughts now, when you have come freshly from sleep-travel.”

Akkis could smell that Skith was eager to once again join the labors of the Colony. “You will go now,” she said to Skith, “to join the labors you find. I will put the smell of the Colony on you, and so you will join your sisters in the tunnels above. Be among the scents that are made by the Gods Inside in those higher tunnels while you are young, before you go Outside.” She ran her feelers across Skith's lowest parts, and with them spread over Skith the kissec she had saved, for kissec bears the smell of the Colony most strongly.

Before Skith left the place of comfort they shared, Akkis said, “You will return here before the smell of kissec on your armor fades, or you may find danger.”

Skith agreed, and left the lower tunnels to be among the labors above. It was a new and novel thing to feel the lightness upon her legs that had once, in difficult climbing, carried her burdensome armor.