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CELEBI

When All Hands made the first forest, he had not yet created my kind. The Firstborns were young back then, and their powers chaos and unrestrained. The pull of time was so strong, that roots would spread in a moment and choke the earth without a constant attention to hold them back.

I remember the leaf from which I sprang, and the song that All Hands sang as he coaxed us from the plants. The Firstborns were there too, watching our birth with curious interest. Light poured from Sky and warmed the bark and made it trembling. Wind from Cloud gave us breath and cooled our skins. We were born like drops of dew when the world was still a child.

“Zilib,” All Hands declared. His voice was not something that carried through the air alone, but even in the rocks, and waters, and lightnesses and darknesses. Even in your own self, the voice could be heard.

Zilib. That was our name in early days, before Pikoks were around.

“You are the forest, Zilib. Keep to it well.”

Like every child born, we knew our purpose from the beginning. Ours was to talking with trees and shoots, and all this manner of greens that grew from the earth.

“Do not grow that way,” we could say to roots unruly, and they could listen.

“Twist and loop! Coil round and up!” we could say with funny, and the stems of trees and vines with leaves would listen.

All Hands left the First Forest, and all other forests in our care, and we grew them in many shapes and many colors.

Our only sad in those days came from one of the Firstborns, D’targani. For many long timings, D’targani took pleasure in taking my kind to panic. She would fly above and tear small holes in Sky that would make big shakings and noise. To D’targani, seeing our forests in trembles was a funny.

“See how the leaves quiver. See how those vines spread in fear.” She enjoyed to muse aloud. “Of what use are you, Zilib? Father made you to keep his forests, but even after all these passings of Time, I still fail to see their aim.”

“Forests renew the breath, D’targani. The earth needs to breathe,” we, as Zilib replied.

D’targani found much funny in these words. “Even the earth was here before you, Zilib. Perhaps you all need air to breathe, but not I, and neither does Father nor my siblings.”

She left, leaving the holes in Sky to their quaking.

All Hands never protected us from the mischiefs of D’targani. He had many, many children, and it was known that it was up to all siblings to keep the balance. The other Firstborns, D’arugal the Puller of Time, and D’zaama the Holder of Space would pass by whenever D’targani took us to panic, but they would seldom speak, and sometimes leave the holes to close by themselves unless they were a big danger to the forests.

Many, many timings later, when All Hands finally chastised D’targani, the Zilib, were with much happy because we thought that our biggest badness was gone. But one badness was replaced with another.

Pikoks were not like the Firstborns. They were not made like Guron of Lands, or Kyuug of Waters. Nor like Raziyakaiza of Skies. They were not made like any of the others but had sprung out of All Hands himself.

Pikoks back then, could talk with all of All Hands children, and when they spoke, sweet sounds would come from their mouths. They were not strong like us, the created children of All Hands, but inside them were tiny lights that resembled the Great Father. They were very mysterious things, and their purpose was unknown.

Whisperings from the Firstborns also talked that All Hands himself did not know how they had come to be.

Moments turned to periods, and periods to long timings in which the Pikoks were left unchecked. They grew in numbers greater than any other of All Hands’s created children and began to mold the world.

We knew that they were important to the Great Father, for like him, they used their hands to create, but like D’targani, there was no shortage of times that they took us and our siblings to panic.

Some Pikoks seemed good-like, and others bad-like, but All Hands whispered through the world that we were not to take the Pikoks to hurting. Sometimes we would act in anger, and whether a Zilib, or a Mu, or any kind of keeper of All Hand’s Creation, we at times lashed out when the Pikoks took nature to hurting.

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All Hands forgave us always and spoke soothing words so that we could forgive the Pikoks as well.

But when the Pikoks found out a way to trap the children, All Hands ceased to speak.

“Look at what they do,” a Mu told a growing gathering of All Hands’s children. “They are not in balance with us. They seek to subdue everything.”

“We feel their drills piercing into our mountains,” an Aagaron complained.

“Their ships hunt and bleed our siblings!” an Alparas added. “Yet All Hands does not change his whisper!”

The sky darkened and many from the gathering took to panic, for they were still young, and they had never seen D’targani appear.

She had behaved well for many long timings, so we the Zilib were not afraid. However, as her mist-like and serpentine form meandered through the sky down to our gathering, a bad-like feeling blew through the air.

“Father will not change his whisper, young friends,” D’targani said through her thoughts. “And these things… will not cease until every single one of you is entrapped.”

“You have ever loved quarrel and strife, D’targani,” Uxi, the child of knowings said. The air around the Firstborn became quiet. “How do we know you do not play another one of your games?”

D’targani laughed with funny. “Are you not the one called Uxi, the Bearer of Knowledge? Your question makes me wonder how much of it Father bestowed you with…”

Uxi was younger than the Firstborns, but he was very, very wise. He did not react badly.

“My knowledge tells me that there is mischief planned by your coming.”

D’targani made an unhappy trembling in the air. “Mighty fools to be this ignorant. I come to warn my friends, yet they turn from me. I should depart and leave you to face the humans alone.”

Her words tasted bitter for many of us present, so we agreed and said, “Yes! Return to the wind and let us think without your shade!”

Many timings later, Pikoks were still spreading through the world, capturing my non-Zilib kin, trapping them in jars and balls of crystal and stone. I do not remember when, but at one point, it had become clear that Pikoks were becoming deaf to the voice of all my kin.

We gathered again, and once more, D’targani came.

“Do you still wish to remain idle and await your doom?” she told us. She spoke to Uxi, “Bearer of Knowledge, in all this time, are you still ignorant of what the humans want?”

Uxi was quiet and as a Zilib, I felt through the distance to his mind. He was much older than I, and his mind well-guarded. It was like looking into empty Sky. He did speak eventually, however.

“I know what they want,” he admitted.

“And what is it?” D’targani rumbled loudly through the air so that all might listen.

“Our powers.”

D’targani’s eyes of fire sparkled and her mist-like body darkened and rippled. I gasped. I had never seen her this much eager.

“Have you heard, friends? … And it will not stop there! They will hunt their very origin as well! They will hunt All Hands, your Father!”

The ground shook and sea waves crashed. The wind howled with angry, and even our trees groaned with bad-like fury. Amidst all this noise, D’targani added, “…and put Him in a ball!”

That gathering is known as Oom’s Speaking to the Zilib who survive to this moment, and too much sadness came from it.

Children of All Hands united and started death-spreading through the large families of Pikoks. D’targani even ate the sparks that resembled the All Hands, claiming that they had stolen them to begin with.

Many forests suffered in this calamity, because Pikoks, despite their weakness, had captured some of our kin and made them fight for themselves.

When every Pikok was at last gone, All Hands descended to the world in a light that many of us had forgotten. A light pure, that chased away evil… but could not chase away the sad.

Bathed in the Great Father’s light, his ancient whisperings became as loud as the voice of your own mind.

We cried… and cried enough to make lakes and rivers of salt.

D’targani had tricked us into fouling the Pikoks and making them dead, they who were special to the Great Father.

A bright and thundering battle ensued between All Hands and D’targani, who had eaten many Pikok sparks and had grown in power so much that her Firstborn siblings could no longer match her.

The Zilib in unison offered their lives to All Hands, and so did all other kin. D’targani was terrifying in her last moments, but All Hands contained her, shielding even the weakest amongst us from her wrath, and banished her to a world I cannot take to understanding. She lies there to this day, and I doubt whether there is any Zilib who would trust her again.

All Hands sent Guron and Kyuug far away, and some other children who were our elders. Many of us afeared and awaited our punishment, but we soon heard whisperings from a few Raziyakaiza that a new world was being made.

It was all true, and we were with much happy that All Hands had forgiven us for taking part in the death-spreading.

One moment, in the full light of day, All Hands descended to the First Forest, my own home. We flew up to receive him, and danced in big circles all around, singing the very song he had sang to birth us. He was very pleased.

“Zilib, my children, you have tended to the forest as if it were yourselves. I left it a small garden of saplings, and you have turned it into a kingdom of towering green. To many of my children have you given homes, and to just as many have you kept well fed.” All Hands knelt on the ground with his front legs, and we gasped with much wonder.

“I will take you, Zilib, to my new world. It is finished but the forests have none of your kind. I will take a single one of you, but you will all share in spirit.”

The sky brightened and my form glowed like clean and fire-filled emerald. The voices and movements of all my Zilib-kin felt like the flicking of soft leaves against my skin, and the eye of the sun was becoming smaller, though the brightness upon me only grew.

“Keep to the forests, little Zilib,” All Hands said to myself. “Give them a voice and let the new world nurture peace.”

The sun’s beam blinded my eyes, and I knew that I had been set apart from my kin. I got feelings of sad, but my new body vibrated with All Hand’s light and new powers became my own.

Tears welled in my eyes, but feelings of happy made them flow without bitter. One of the Firstborn, D’arugal, appeared to me and said, “My young sibling, Do not feel sad. Father lends you my power, and you are free from my pull. You may be where you will, so it is never goodbye.”

D’zaama appeared then as well, and in a flash of time and space, I was taken to the Great Father’s new world.

I am a Zilib, but to the Pikoks of the new world, I will be known as Celebi.

I teach them the language of plants.