In the beginning, there was chaos. A primordial abyss of churning matter and energy. Everything that ever was or will be, mixed into a boundless, discordant melting pot. And out of that pot, rose the world; a smooth, flat rock, sailing forever through the lonely dark. It was an eternity before anything even resembling life spawned on that barren stone. Only after countless millennia did the Memory of unchanging earth crystallize into something capable of thought: the first titans.

They were simple creatures, born of rock and stone, and nearly as unchanging. They were enormous, shaping the world around them with their very movements. They carved trenches through the earth, tunneling deep into the ground where both water and heat made their homes. They created oceans and volcanoes, purely by accident, their simple minds barely comprehending what they had accomplished. They were as immortal as the ground from which they were born, beings of Memory, who could conceive of neither beginning nor end. Within them, however, lay the spark of sentience, and through them, all else followed.

First, came the trees. Stone pillars, shaped by accident or passing whim, were imagined into something new. The world was not young, then, but it had remained the same for all eternity. Change was unheard of, and Memory responded almost instantly. Forests rose; evertrees that drew strength from the earth. Soil was next, imagined out of churned rock. Grass, bushes, wind and rain. The feeble spark of sentience that titans possessed was enough to change the very fabric of reality.

They dreamed life into existence.

"Then," Eurya told the boy with a fanged smile, "came the snakes."

They were frail things. Animals, with no consciousness worth mentioning, born from the simple minds of the titans. It was grass that had given them their shape, undulating like something alive from the force of some titan's passing. A moment of imagination, and Memory brought them into being. For the first time, the titans were not alone.

Things escalated rather quickly from there.

"The earliest sophonts worshiped those first titans," Eurya said, "but neither they nor the titans gained anything from it. Gods are born from the minds of mortals. Their domains are determined by their followers, their power limited by the perception of those who know of them." She paused, giving him a significant look. The boy paid close attention to her words. "A titan is nothing more nor less than the living manifestation of a location in Memory. They are born as a natural consequence of time; the purest expression of Memory within the world. Unlike gods, whose limits are shaped by the perception of others, a titan's strength comes from itself."

Nicos furrowed his brow. "They are unaffected by the Memory of others?"

Eurya shook her head. "Nothing truly escapes the influence of Memory; a titan's temperament is often influenced by the collective perception of their element. Titans born from the earth are cold, stubborn, and unyielding. Titans of the air are fickle and cruel, but playful. Rivers are headstrong and powerful, pushing through all obstacles. They cannot help but be so. But a titan's power is its own, drawn from the location of its birth."

"So to slay one..." Nicos paused.

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"How do you kill a mountain?" Eurya asked him. "How about a river, or an ocean?" She spread her arms, to encompass their surroundings. "If you burn down this forest, is it truly gone? Or is it simply waiting to regrow?"

Nicos could not answer.

"How can you end that which has no life?" Eurya continued. She swung a hand outwards, to the sky. "The Three Winds are titans, Nicos. Some of the oldest, and the most enduring. How do you still the wind, boy? How do you murder the air?"

"I don't know, teacher," the boy admitted. He knew of the Three Winds, though none he'd spoken to had ever named them titans. He had thought them gods. Athun was known to give offerings to the West Wind. North and South were likewise venerated by separate kingdoms, on far distant continents.

"How do you kill a titan?" Nicos asked.

"With great difficulty." his teacher replied simply.

Nicos, showing great restraint, did not roll his eyes. "How do you plan to kill the titan we will face?" he amended.

His teacher raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. "Kill it? Whenever did I say we would kill it?"

Nicos scowled at her playful mocking. "It was one of the first things you told me, teacher. You said you were hired—"

"To deal with it," the Keeper interceded smoothly, "and deal we shall. A negotiation, between the city of Cissus, and the titan of Mount Morag."

Nicos stared at them, bewildered. "You'd trust a being of such immense power to actually uphold its word? Why? What punishment could you possibly levy against it?" Compromise only worked when both parties were at risk, after all.

The Keeper wore an unusual expression on his face. After a few moments, Nicos realized that it was smugness.

"There are ways to force honesty, even from a titan," the blind man said, with a small grin on his face.

"And it will be willing to... negotiate with you?" Nicos asked with trepidation. The idea of stomping up to a living mountain and demanding it attend a peaceful meeting seemed laughably absurd.

Eurya shrugged, flicking a strand of hair away from her face. "Mountain titans tend to be stubborn, but not aggressive. Slow to anger, but, sudden and brutal once stirred. Much like an avalanche. I suspect it will hear us out, so long as we approach it with respect."

"What does a mountain even want to trade for?" Nicos asked in fascination. His mind quickly flicked through the common tributes offered to the All-King. Treasures, finely crafted arms and armor, livestock and grain.

What did a mountain crave?

"Rocks," Eurya replied simply. "It will likely demand that they begin to harvest the surrounding mountains."

"Rocks," Nicos repeated flatly.

Eurya snickered at the look on his face. "All things seek growth. Even gods and titans."

The boy nodded thoughtfully. It made sense, in his mind. If there was no limit to power, why would one ever stop gathering it? Even someone as ancient as Eurya still diligently worked to increase her own strength.

But if she could be called ancient, then what about those first titans? How strong they must be, by now. How indomitable. How had the boy not heard of them, before? He had to ask.

"They died," Eurya told him, much to the boy's shock.

"How!?" How was that even possible. They should have been immortal, unbeatable, as eternal as the world itself.

"They dreamed change into being," Eurya said, "and in doing so, killed themselves. They were stone and bare rock. That was their identity. But what, then, would they be when forests and oceans covered that stone? They altered the world, and through that act, brought about their own demise."

Nicos bit his lip in frustration. "Why would they do such a thing?"

His teacher sighed, rustling his hair. "You assume that they would care, Nicos."

"How could they not?"

"Does a stone care about its own existence?" Eurya posited philosophically. "You cannot know the minds of those creatures. They could not conceive of death; they did not even realize it was an option. But it found them anyway."

She turned to him, smiling fondly. "Things are different now. There are hundreds of millennia of Memory, of living creatures striving to exist. All beings suffer the same affliction, that same fear of death. We strive to exist, whether we want to or not. Gods, titans, and mortals. We are all same, in the end."