Leave this happy and dysfunctional scene. Leave this large metallic planet and this large metallic galaxy and move nearer to the outskirts of the universe. Admire an equally large galaxy, the multitude of planets and satellites glowing like multifaceted jewels. If planets were people, these planets would be incredibly beautiful, laughing, smiling, friendly, and drunk people. Who would probably take you out for a nice tour of the towns bars, knock you over the head with a rock on the way home, and steal everything that could be taken off you without hassle and a few things that might cause a bit of difficulties just for a malicious laugh. It was one of those galaxies and hadn’t seen anything resembling government or organization in several millennia. Move closer towards one of the satellites. A small, black satellite, dusky and dark like the remains of a bonfire. This is not one of those places that has a single biosphere over its entire circumference despite the laws of nature. Once it may have been full of lush, green vegetation, fierce and noble animals, and quaintly stupid ethnic people. Becoming one of the main homes of a species of flaming sentients tends to ruin such an appearance. Zip through the charred trees that have the faintest glimmer of newly born black leaves on them and observe a house in the middle of a city. It’s quite a nice looking house and looks very flame retardant. Go into the house through the door, if you wish, it’s probably unlocked. Peek into one of the rooms, push aside the dangling curtain of scarlet and non-flammable beads. Take in the man with hair as red as a forest fire. Admire the woman with a mane of coal black hair. Notice the way their bodies twine and glow together . . . and promptly lower the curtain and back away. There are some things that have no place in a proper narration. The two fiery beings entwined in the house have hundreds of years of happy, violent, and chaotic life ahead of them, because sometimes good things happen to bad people.

Exit the glowing jewel of a galaxy and move to the very edge of the universe. Not even ships that cause Einstein to spin in his grave go here. It’s a very small galaxy with a small, uninteresting orange sun. There are a handful of small, uninteresting planets, each circle by one of two small and uninteresting grey moons. Observe one of the larger planets. It’s rather brownish with spatters of blue and white. It has one single, uninteresting moon. The inhabitants of the brownish planet call it “Moon” because they are not very creative creatures. They also aren’t very bright. They have no idea of the universe around them. They haven’t even invented analogue watches. They consider fire and the wheel to be great and life changing inventions. Ironically enough, on any very eccentric star maps, the insignificant planet is called Gloria. No one really knows why, although it is suspected that the crew of the first space ship that came across it thought it would be a rather good joke and had a rather low brow sense of humour. The inhabitants don’t call it anything. Most of them have a hard enough time grasping the concept of neighbouring countries. Don’t think of asking them about people with skin of different hues than their own, their brains hurt rather easily. Don’t admire this small and uninteresting brown planet, it’s not really worth the effort. Do look at it more closely. Focus on a small and dull little green country called Florile by it’s inhabitants. Notice a woman of unknown species. A girl, really, with long pointed ears that would be called elfin by people who don’t realize that what the ears really are is simply long and pointed and rather odd looking. She’s sitting in a tree, swinging her legs. Her hair is long, wispy, and silvery blond, gathered in a long and disorderly pony tail on the top of her head. Her eyes are wide, slanted, and as blue as the sky. Her skin is milky white, not because she is of noble birth and rarely gets out, nor because she is of a race that is permanently fair and beautiful. It’s because she simply lacks the pigmentation to be anything but white. Think of her as part albino if it helps. She has a short, sleeveless dress on, and small shoes. She isn’t as much lost as misguided. Despite all this attributes, she is not buxom. Nor is she of immense beauty. There’s probably hundreds of women in the small and uninteresting country that are more beautiful than she is. But she is very special. Her name is Sakina and she’s a bastard. She’ll be dead in almost exactly nine months because of several universal invariant. One is that, despite what certain monotheistic religions would have you believe, Gods are only interested in free will when it provides thorough entertainment and brings about mass destruction or the apocalypse. They’re quite happy to ignore it if they have better entertainment in mind. Secondly, Gods really enjoy shoving their omnipresent noses in other Gods business, and many are ambitious or obnoxious enough to simply enjoy mucking up whatever the chief deity of the millennia’s ineffable plan is for a lark. Thirdly, in polytheistic worlds, there is no satanic corrupter of souls. There’s merely Gods who are more obvious bastards than the rest of the Gods. There are, however, nearly omnipotent beings who have the potential to become Gods, and They enjoy mucking about with ineffable plans as much as the next immortal being. While the Gods may have created humanity, They found it rather dull, and used every opportunity to tempt and seduce and steal away things that make humans what they are. They are the ones who mutated humans into more powerful, nearly immortal beings such as trolls, elves, centaurs, and other eldritch beings. They created dragons, unicorns, and krakens. They put madness into wild animals and caused werebeasts to form. They make worlds like dull, uninteresting, and brownish Gloria into magical places that are laughed at by those who travel from world to world through the stars, and rightly so, since places like Gloria shouldn’t exist in a proper and orderly society. But that’s what happens when you’re polytheistic and think a more human devine presence would be a good thing. The darker side of humanity, with powers equal to the Gods have to spring up in response in those sorts of worlds, and that’s what They are. Their bastard children roam the world like the humans, the many mutations of the humans that They created, and Their monsters. Their bastards are known as the fae, and they’re not as cute and harmless as people believe. The girl Sakina, inhabitant of a small, insignificant country on a small insignificant planet knows none of this, she is blissfully happy in her ignorance. These things and the lack of identifiable species in the girl are perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the Gods and Them. It makes their games all the more fun.

"Hey! You! Girl!"

Sakina peered down from between the huge, gnarled branches of a large oak tree, and giggled wildly. "What?"

"Ladies shouldn't climb trees!" a youthful voice laughed, leaning against the trunk of the tree, arms crossed casually over his chest.

Swinging about to hang upside-down from one of the tree branches, Sakina's pale face suddenly appeared, swaying gently, in front of the owner of the useful voice. She giggled again, not the stupid, mindless giggle of someone who believes that giggling will make them appear more attractive to members of whichever sex they desire to get into bed, but the giggle of pure and carefree innocence enjoying itself. She playfully stuck her tongue out at the owner of the voice, a tall youthful boy with slightly curly brown hair with golden-blond streaks in it and a pair of wide, mismatched eyes, one an unnaturally bright and vivid blue, the other one a deep hazel, full of wicked humour. She swung herself carefully forward a bit to poke him in his sharp, tanned nose. "I'm not a lady!!"

"So I've gathered." The youth gave a deep chuckle and shook his curly head ruefully. "A lady wouldn't be hanging upside down from a tree in the middle of a forest with her skirts hanging about her head." He gave Sakina a sly, roguish grin, "I can see your underwear, little not-lady." The comment caused a rather startled squeaking noise to be produced by the small girl and she was promptly up in the tree again, hidden from the site of the youth, for even the most unladylike female of any species has things she would rather any male sapient creature not see. "Are you going to stay hidden up there all day, little sprite?" When the leaves merely rustled and giggled wildly the youth heaved an over dramatic sigh of such proportions that it should not have been emitted by a creature as slight as he was. "What a shame . . . It's quite rare to such an arresting creature alone in the forest at this time of year. I had hoped to make it's acquaintance," he raised his voice hopefully and squinted into the leaves, waiting for a response. This time, the leaves merely rustled from wind and the small figure hidden within them, not from the tempting giggle. "Lots of fearsome wild beasties prowl around this area during the summer. I've heard that lots of them enjoy the taste of fresh maiden." The wind whistled through the trees, beautiful poetry brought to life, and a large, unripe acorn fell soundly onto his head with a decisive thonk. He swore colourfully, which caused uncontrollable giggles to break out again amongst the tree branches. Rubbing his head, the youth grumbled faintly and began to set out food for his lunch, which was odd because he had nothing to have carried the food to the spot under the tree with. He sat on the grass and made a face as he heard several Things go squish beneath him, but otherwise ignored them and continued with his task, cleaning an apple on his sleeve and biting into it, making sounds of great enjoyment and chewing with his mouth open. There was sudden, uncertain silence from the branches above, then a tiny, female figure at his side, smiling hopefully and hugging her knees. A mouthful of apple prevent the youth from grinning triumphantly and he merely put an innocently welcoming arm around Sakina's shoulders, swallowing loudly and giving her a dazzling grin. "Hello."

Sakina beamed up at him with waifish innocence and a swift, "Hello!!!" before settling down and attacking the food the youth had laid out with feverish hunger.

The youth released his grip on Sakina's shoulders and leaned back, seeking a more comfortable position with lazy grace, permitting himself a thin, sly, and self-satisfied smile once the girl's back was to him, ridiculously long lashes languidly veiling his mismatched eyes, settling into a half doze as he waited.

What happens next is really of interest to no one but Sakina and the young man, but it should be fairly obvious, even without the use of a large moving image on a screen slowly fading into blackness.

Cynics and the occasional philosopher who isn't an atheist often say that Gods play chess with the lives of men. They don't. Gods are in most ways very similar to the beings they created and very few of those have the patience or lack of imagination to play a game like chess. Besides, chess hasn't even been invented on Gloria yet. The Gods of Gloria play bizarre, twisted, and vengeful games against the Fae. Sometimes their creations get in the way and have to be swept out of wherever it is they wish the game to take place, and the Gods have often found a good thorough flood does the trick quite nicely. Sometimes they will use their creatures are playing pieces or as bets. But Gods never use humans. They've found that humans are boring and not very flame retardant. Which means that they have very little to use in contrast with the hordes that the Fae have under their control. Gods can be poor sports and they never realize that it's because of their own lack of creativity that the Fae have the upper hand in most of the games, which is why Alraine, King of the Gods, has been cheating for the past three millennium. He doesn't seem to realize that cheaters can never win when they don't know the rules in the first place and have been playing against someone who has been cheating at the game before it even started.