In the beginning, there was only the forest—the endless green cathedral of featherleaf trees that stretched their limbs toward the orange sun, the whispering streams that sang their way down from the mountains, and the eternal dance of life and death that had played out beneath the canopy for countless turnings of the seasons. The forest was old, older than memory, and it held its secrets close.
Among those secrets lived the small ones, the forest folk whom the wind and the trees had always known. They were beings of golden fur and bright eyes, creatures who moved through the undergrowth like living sunbeams, who understood the language of the stream and the warnings of the rustling leaves. They had no grand name for themselves; they simply were, as much a part of the forest as the moss on the stones or the land-prawns that scuttled through the leaf litter.
These small folk lived by the ancient wisdom of the woods. They knew which roots were sweet and which would twist the belly. They knew that the sky-hunters with leathery wings—the harpies—were to be feared when the sun was high, and that the three-horned damn things that crashed through the brush were death on four legs. They knew to hide their scent, to move quietly, and to bury what needed burying, for the forest taught all its children the sacred dance of respect.
Each family group claimed its own territory among the trees, finding shelter in the hollow hearts of the great pool-ball trees or beneath overhanging rocks that kept the rain away. They crafted their tools from what the forest provided—shaped wood for digging and striking, sharp stones for cutting, bones for picking. In the cool of evening, they would gather in their little encampments, grooming each other's fur, playing with small treasures found in their wanderings, and speaking in voices that rode the edge of the wind, too high and quick for most ears to catch.
Then came the time when the Tall One entered their world.
He was unlike anything the forest had ever seen—a giant who walked on two legs like the small folk, but massive beyond imagining. His face was strange, pale beneath a thatch of white fur that grew only on his lower jaw. He came to the place where the streams called Cold Creek and Holloway's Run met, and there he made his dwelling—not a natural shelter of wood and stone, but a thing of straight lines and unnatural materials that seemed to defy the very laws of the forest.
The small folk watched from the shadows with fearful fascination. The Tall One brought with him great machines that floated in the air, that tore at the earth and cracked open the ancient stones. He made sounds that echoed through the valley—great crashes and bangs that sent the forest creatures fleeing. Smoke rose from his dwelling, and lights glowed within it when darkness fell, as if he had captured pieces of the sun itself.
For many turnings of the moon, the small folk observed but kept their distance. The old wisdom warned against approaching the unknown. Yet one among them—the smallest, the brightest, the most curious—felt the pull of something greater than fear. His name, in the high-singing language of his people, meant something like "Seeker of New Things," though later he would carry a different name entirely.