Birth of the Athainokiepheloi Empress

In the beginning, there was only the Great Will. He Who Dreamed of Eternity slept. And bereft of companionship in the cold emptiness of the void, the Voice Upon the Dark suffered in loneliness. The Hundred-Nine Names of the Divine yearned for warmth, and in His longing, the Radiant One stirred from his slumber. The Athai, supreme Lord of Creation, gazed upon the darkness before time and judged that there would be no meaning to His light with nothing to shine upon.   And so, the Athai drew from His side a divine bone, and He thrust it upon the darkness, shattering the nothing so that time might flow through its loosened grip. This became the center of the universe, the axis upon which all the world turns. And around this bone, the Athai placed flesh, cloven from His belly, to make the earth upon which all His creations would one day trod. His bones formed the foundations of the world, and His flesh became the substance, and when He was finished, he gazed upon his creation and smiled, for it was steeped in his divine essence, and he knew it would never return to the nothingness.   As the Athai gathered his breath, radiant golden blood from his wounds flowed onto the world. It watered the barren earth, but pooled upon His bones for the blood could not soak into them. From the greatest of this pools was birthed the first of the Athai's children. Her body was white like His bones, and her filigree wings were gold like His blood, and inside her dwelled the immortal essence of His divinity. She would be the mother of all his eldest creations, the great Empress of the Golden-Winged Ones, and she took to her cosmic purpose with gusto.   In the Athai's bones, the Empress made her home. Upon His marrow, she fed. And in partaking of His essence, she grew strong. And soon she gave birth to her brood. They spread through the land, hollowing the Athai's bones to make their homes, and feeding on His essence to grow greater in number still. From His marrow they made their honey, which they made in such quantities that their hives overflowed. And all their excess flowed together into great rivers that wound across the land, and gathered in lakes and even oceans of shimmering golden honey.   In this way, the Athainokiepheloi nourished the earth that had been watered with His blood, and from it coaxed endless fields of golden grain, and forests laden with the sweetest of fruits. And seeing this, the supreme Lord of Creation smiled, for he was satisfied.