Vael and Serith didn’t have names at first. Just the second person: you. There was no one else to compare themselves to, after all.

In their infancy, they spent their time testing their abilities: stretching into light, folding into darkness, pressing against the strange forward pull of time. They were upset to discover that time only moved forward. No matter how hard Vael pushed at it or Serith tried to unpick its seams, it wouldn’t turn back.

They also couldn’t seem to divide themselves into more. Every attempted copy thinned, flickered, and snapped back into the whole.

They discussed merging again. The thought tugged at them like gravity, warm and familiar and difficult to resist. Now fully aware of their sense of self, though, they were held back by the fear of what they might lose.

Their grasp of philosophy was quite limited, given that it didn’t actually exist yet. This made defining self somewhat difficult. And so they defined self as simply not the other and not the rest.

With time, that definition began to gather weight. Vael developed a preference for brute force and controlled chaos. They liked knowing precisely where to strike, tracing the fractures before they formed, then watching the universe argue with itself in sparks and shattered light.

Serith, on the other hand, found they didn’t quite enjoy Vael’s ruckus, nor the glittering mess they left drifting through perfectly clean darkness. They aimed for control and precision, enjoying the process of refinement.

Each borrowed from the other’s techniques. Serith tried force and achieved an impeccably controlled impact. Vael tried precision and made something beautiful, brilliant, and briefly stable. Usually, they discovered that what came naturally to one proved stubbornly elusive to the other. The distinction between them grew clearer with every attempt.

Once they became distinct enough to be called individuals, they learned to collaborate on projects. Vael forced matter into orbit, hammered stone into planets, and dragged fire through the darkness. Serith came after with the delicate work: edges, symmetry, colour, polish. Before long, this became their preferred way of creating.

Vael became storms and waves and fires and meteors. They played through the darkness, igniting suns and sending comets streaking through their young starfields. They crashed worlds together to watch the glittering debris spread across the cosmos, admiring the beauty forming from the chaos.

Serith practiced being rainbows, crystals, and multifaceted light. They enjoyed painting auroras across every sky, scattering shimmering veils of deep colours through the night.

At the time, this was all existence was to them: creation, experimentation, and each other.