Cloud Ants and Deluge

Ants seldom admit defeat, and they never surrender to death. All other manner of Things That Crawl would be consumed by the rising river when the rains come; indeed, a falling gob of rain alone may crush a butterfly and doom her to drown.

Not so with the Ants. Clever as they are, they cling to one another, leg to leg, jaw to jaw, their little bodies locked in place, and they create something larger, greater than themselves. Alone, yes, an ant may drown; but together, the Ants float. They drift through the rising tide, carried by the current on a raft of their own hide until they find solid ground once more.

They say that once, in a time long since forgotten, the skies would buckle, heavy under their own weight. These skies were as much water as they were wind, and oceans dwelled above as they did below. There were no clouds then, only a watery sky that would ripple and shake from above.

The rain then was not the rain as we know it to be. The rain of the time before would fall from the sky to the earth, and from the earth to the sky, back and forth, ceaselessly. The creatures were miserable, but they did not know their misery; they were sodden, but they did not know that they were wet. The Feathered Ones flew and the Furry Ones swung between the few trees that stood rising from the sea, eating the waterlogged fruits and leaves and Ones That Crawl. The Crawling Ones clung to life long enough to bear forth new Crawling Ones; nevertheless, the water always came to claim them.

An Ant Queen, seeing this world in deluge, seeing the Ants of her colony die and die and die again, ululated and wailed and screamed and shook. She lamented her plight and that of her people. She grieved and wept and convulsed until the ravages of her grief overcame her, and she began to fall from her perch upon the branch of a bloodwood tree, tumbling toward the water below.

The Ants of her colony leapt from their own perches in panic, desperate to save their Queen. Seven Sisters met her in flight and encircled her body with their own; the others followed suit soon after, clinging to the Sisters surrounding their Queen, and then to the clingers-on, and so on until the entire colony merged into one mass as they fell, plummeting to what would surely be their doom.

Much to their surprise, then, the water splashed and bent with the weight of the crashing Ants, yet it did not overtake them. The Ants created the first land, wrought from the very husks that contained them; and in so doing, they cheated death. They cheated the Ocean Above.

In tremendous, hubristic fury, the Ocean-That-Was-Sky bellowed and howled into the world below, clamoring in disbelief at having been bested by the tiniest of adversaries, the unworthiest of foes. As the Queen had mourned the loss of her people, so the Sky-Ocean bewailed the obliteration of his pride.

The Sky-Ocean tore at his body and ripped apart the flesh within; and for days on end, the downpour came. Water not as drops, not as rain; but as flood, as jet, as cataract. The Feathered Ones and Furry Ones sought shelter among the trees, shivering together under the few leaves that remained. The Crawling Ones didn’t dare to shiver.

All manner of creatures trembled before the storm, save for the Ants. Together on their raft, they floated through the tumult of the falling sea, holding onto one another and onto their Queen. They alone weathered the storm untouched, and of all Those That Crawl, they alone mastered the waters below.

In his unchecked rage, the Ocean Above splintered his body into innumerable fragments, more pieces than could ever again be made whole. When the flood from above finally came to an end, the rippling, liquid sky fell away, fading into blue; and the Sun, mistress of fire and heat, free from her watery prison, came to reign over day. The remains of the Sky-Ocean’s body, mounds of entrails and flayed skin, hung and drifted through the air; and so clouds came to be.

The Ocean Below began to dry up, and the surface of the water sloughed off in the form of steam. The Feathered Ones and Furry Ones and Crawling Ones rushed to create homes in their quickly drying world, staking frenzied claims to this new land. The creatures of the forest no longer cowered in the canopy, but flourished and multiplied.

The Ants, meanwhile, heeded no call to land. They rode the rising waves of steam into the sky, where the clouds awaited them; and they drifted along on the slain tyrant, making their home upon his eviscerated corpse, feasting on the flesh that hovered above.

The Sun, relishing her liberation from the Ocean, presided over the world for an age, showering the land with warmth and light. In time, though, even a sun can tire of shining; and she retreated into the mountains beyond the hills.

The Moon took her place in the sky, shining cool and silver through the night. He, too, had been thwarted by the Sky-Ocean, who had wrested from him his dominion over water. Once again seated upon his throne, he gazed down upon the Cloud Ants, who still feasted on a carcass vast as the sky.

He called to the Ants, “Bring unto me she who bested the Ocean-That-Was-Sky; produce for me the Queen.”

The Queen came before the Moon. “I need not be produced; I come of my own accord.”

“That is well,” said the Moon, “for I wish to give a gift unto your people, a show of gratitude for a kindness offered and a freedom restored. Tell me, o Queen of the Ants, what is it you desire?”

The Queen pondered this for a time. “I tell you this, o Great Moon, a bounty and boon gives life unto my people. The Sky-Ocean’s tattered flesh will feed us for a time; but that time shall one day end. When that day comes, whither will my people go? I trust the Sun and Moon to shine o’er us in our newfound freedom; that much cannot be denied. Yet I ask you to what home we shall turn when the clouds fade.

“If this be what you truly ask of me,” spoke the tremulous Queen, “if you are to know that which I desire above all else, then know this, Lord Moon. I wish for my people to know a home. Not one which can be taken away, not one which can be drowned by deluge or burned by fire or scattered by wind. Give my people a home, a home which will be theirs. A home where they will be safe from calamity. A home where they will be free from bondage.

“These are my terms, o Great Moon. Grant this unto me, or else rescind your offer; for I’ll accept nothing less.”

The Moon breathed deep and looked up to the sky, void of light but for his own, void of water but for the clouds.

In a manner most solemn did the Moon reply, “This I can do for you, o Queen; and unto you I vow, your people shall be safe. Withal, I would have you know this, Queen of the Ants: whither I send you, thence you may never return. There you shall remain until the world shatters in twain, and for eons after. Will you go? Do you accept my offer?”

The queen looked about at the Seven Sisters who first leapt to her aid, and at her people, stalwart, numerous, and weary. She looked back at the Moon.

“We do.”

At that, the Moon besought aid of the somnolent Sun, and she conferred upon him mastery over light. Thus did he perform an ancient rite, practiced then and never again, turning the clouds to golden mist as water turns to steam. On this upswell of steam-within-steam, he sent the little ones into the blackness beyond the sky. There he watches over them still, shining his moonlight upon them. The Queen ferries them through the endless night, secure in the knowledge that her people have found solace at last.