"Niagara Falls forms a C shape overall." Pale fingers traced an arc through the air as he said, "In ancient Native American legends, they believed it was the mark left by a giant's heel."
"The information preserved in their murals and parchment scrolls once described such a story—a giant wielding lightning fought the Little People beneath his feet. The giant kept striking down with lightning, and the Little People scattered in panic, fleeing in all directions."
"The giant believed he had won the war, so he happily began stomping his feet, leaving a massive footprint in the earth. But unexpectedly, Little People warriors drifting downstream shot the giant in the heel with poisoned arrows, and the giant was defeated."
"The Little People warriors, having realized they had won, failed to notice the huge pit created by the giant's heel. Their rafts drifted downstream and plunged over the falls."
"A fascinating story, isn't it?"
Coulson caught a hint of amusement in Dr. Sohip's tone.
This was not a story that projected his own people onto the victors, though that would normally have been more typical. They would say that they defeated the giant through cunning, then celebrated their victory.
Yet the ending of this story was that the careless Little People warriors were wiped out simply because of the pool of water left by the giant's stomp.
Coulson truly sensed something strange about it. The story carried an eerie coldness and objectivity.
Although Coulson was no scholar, he vaguely sensed that the giant in the story represented the mighty forces of nature, while the Little People represented the lives living within nature.
Generally speaking, stories like this came in two styles. One was a complete praise of nature's might—powerful and indifferent, constantly punishing and whipping weaker lives, giving no one any