It was early morning.
Utu's sunlight spilled over the dew on the treetops, refracting into dazzling brilliance.
Yet there was nothing here that could appreciate such a sight.
This was a forest—a primeval forest that had existed since ancient times, one no one could ever reach.
For its master bore the name of the raging wind: Enlil.
Every tree here was thick enough to require dozens of people to encircle it, their leaves broad enough for infants to sleep upon. The animals were exceptionally lively, and huge fish leaped from the streams.
—It was beautiful.
But there were always things that did not quite belong.
Such as the two living balls of mud Enki had just sent here.
They fell from the sky, smashed into the ground, and became two utterly ordinary puddles of mud.
Yet even in their current form, it could not be denied that they possessed souls—that they had [Life].
The mud wriggled, drawing back in the parts scattered by the fall, and began to move through pure magical power.
The two puddles were not far apart. Seeming quite intimate, they drew close, merged into one, and then separated again.
Where there were souls, there would inevitably be thought.
What were the words Utu had conveyed to them through Enki?
What was that command?
They did not know, nor could they understand.
The mud wriggled and moved without any purpose.
They needed no sustenance and expended no energy. They were not [creatures] according to natural law, but merely rudimentary forms capable of surviving through magical power alone.
The other creatures in the forest noticed the two puddles of mud. Birds chirped as they circled above them, beasts roared at them warily, and even the trees rustled, unwilling to let them approach.
"Look, what are those?"
"They're just