Before the First Footstep

Jan 14

Before Ravienne had a name,
before its rivers cut their silver paths,
before its forests rose in their green cathedral hush,
the land hummed.

It hummed with anticipation.
With memory of what had not yet happened.
With the distant footfall of souls still on their way.

In those early ages,
there were no villages.
No hearth fires.
No story nights.
No hands weaving talismans.
No circle of five.

But there was presence.

There was breath in the mountains.
There was intention in the mist.
There was longing in the soil—
a longing for company,
for communion,
for the touch of beings who could care for its heart
as tenderly as it cared for their own.

The rivers glittered,
even though there was no one to watch them.
They whispered the first stories
into the hollows of stones,
knowing that one day
someone would come along
with ears attuned to what is easily missed.

The winds traveled in wide, looping arcs,
carrying tales from ridge to valley,
valley to glen,
glen to forest floor—
tales meant for listeners
who had not yet been born.

The trees swayed not just with seasons
but with prophecy.
They bent toward the sunrise
as if bowing to a circle of daughters
who were still only possibilities.

The earth waited.

It waited through ages of dawnlight and drifting stars.
Through the birth of mountains and the long, slow carving of rivers.
Through storms that sculpted the cliffs
into the shape of futures yet to unfold.

It waited with patience older than breath.
Older than fire.
Older than memory itself.

Because it knew—
in some deep, knowing marrow—
that a constellation of souls was coming.

Five sparks.
Five threads.
Five women born in different cradles,
on different mornings,
under different moons—
but destined to meet in the center of this humming land.

The Deep Listener,
whose heart would hear the stories in the roots.

The Awakener,
whose spirit would coax dawn from weary bones.

The Midwife of Story,
whose hands would guide truths into being.

The Truth Teller,
whose voice would cut through shadow like a blade of light.

And the Luminary,
whose flame would reflect the radiance of all things.

Before they ever walked upon the soil,
the land knew them.

Loved them.

Prepared itself for them.

Ravienne was not created by its people.
Ravienne called for them.

It hummed its welcome long before their first footsteps.
Long before their first breath.
Long before they knew themselves as anything at all.

The land whispered:
Come.
Come and be held.
Come and belong.
Come and remember what the world can be.

And in time—
in the way of all sacred things—
the five were born.