Quintarianism/Beginning

In the beginning was the world, and the world was flame.

Time passed, and the flame cooled into matter—solid, enduring, and powerful. At the heart of the world burned still the flame, and out of the flame grew the World-Soul. It longed to perceive itself, but nothing can see itself, not even the World-Soul. So the World-Soul split into two: and these were the Father and the Mother. And when they looked upon each other, love came into the world. And that love was the first gift that the world of the spirit gave back to the world of matter.

Between them, the Father and the Mother began to order the world and all things in it. They did not desire that all might be once again consumed by the heat and chaos and destruction that had birthed it. Of their love for each other, they bore the Son and the Daughter, and between the four of them they divided all the seasons of the world: the Mother rules over Summer, the Father over Winter, the Daughter over Spring, and the Son over Autumn.

In the security that this order created, matter began to grow in complexity, and in boldness. Love had entered into its fiery heart, and it sought to give back to the realm of spirit that sheltered it. And as it strove to put forth beauty to that end, plants came forth, and animals, and men.

But there was still chaos in that fiery heart as well, and from it came demons, who sought to undo all the order that the Gods had wrought. The seasons were turned out of kilter, floods burned, fires froze, and all was in peril of destruction. Demons inhabited human bodies—for they could not directly affect the world of matter when they themselves were purely of spirit—and grew powerful and terrible.

One day, a mighty demon lord, a Prince of his kind, was seeking a new body, as he had nearly worn out the one he bore. He came upon a hermit living alone, and, thinking him easy prey, sought to toy with him as a cat does with a mouse before it devours it. His body was a beautiful one, and his face full of fire and power. The hermit offered the demon a bowl of wine, and the demon accepted it, and drank before leaping upon him to take his body.

But the hermit had tricked the demon. He was truly a saint of the Mother, and he had poured out his own soul into the wine. The soul and body, given freely and without reservation, were torment to the demon, and he was struck with the pain of birth—for, in truth, he was born in that moment into the world, which before he had only skimmed the surface of. And so he became the first demon to gain a soul, and learn regret, pity, mercy, and love—love given, and love received, undeserved. For in his last moments, the saint had called down the Mother's blessings upon the demon, to heal him of his sin. Only with a soul, and thus free will, does sin become possible—sin, and shame, and the guilt of sin.

Spurred on by the torment of his sin, and called by the grace and mercy of the Mother, the great-souled demon became Her champion, learning virtue and right from the soul of the saint. The Gods themselves could not reach into the world of matter and sweep the demons from it, nor fight them in any way save by the actions of their mortal servants. But the demon-saint became a mighty sorcerer-paladin, and turned his terrible power and virtuous resolve to cleansing the land of his soulless former brethren.

They feared him, for they knew that he and the holy armies he led would end their joyous chaos in the world of matter. But their very nature is chaos and disorder: they cannot rally around a common banner to fight a common threat. If they could have, they would surely have prevailed: as it was, they fought back with such ferocity against his advances that on the final battlefield, the demon-saint was slain at last.

The Mother of Summer so loved Her champion, however, that it is said that on the eve of the battle, She took him to Her own bower, and they bore a son, who could carry on his work after his death. Thus was born the fifth God, the Bastard, who has dominion over the demons who are His brethren, and over all things out of season.