SO FAR FAVORITE CREATION in the Qîélá universe.

Anendê is the Dâmdkin goddess of strife, suffering, and punishment. In the pantheon of the gods she is arguably the most powerful, though many of the other gods control the elements all are subject to her will.

Her power ranges from controlling the world through natural disasters, earthquakes, severe storms, volcanoes, droughts, et c, to illnesses and even things as minuscule as pure bad luck. During the darkness between the second and third ages of light she put in the hearts of mortals a discomfort which causes them to fight and create their own suffering.

The other gods fear her still as they had in the first age when her power of suffering was uncontrollable and affected all things around her. All save Grenog the god of death, who is also the god of mercy in that he frees souls from the suffering of his wife, Anendê.

In the first age when the world was new and all things were everlasting the gods lived at the only speaking things. They needed neither food nor water and traveled the lands seeking to understand the world. As they traveled they discovered the true forms of their power in the world. Anendê had been separate from the start of the world, the other three goddesses feared her power and left her in the forest alone. She grew bitter of the other gods in her solitude, unable to control the pestilence that followed her and caused the plants and animals wither and linger on in pain.

The other gods traveled together in a group and found what spoke to their hearts, all but Grenog. In a world undying the god of death has nothing. Forlorn he left his fellows and wandered alone into the forest, where he eventually came upon the disease left by Anendê. It was there he found his power, freeing those from their suffering. Anendê tolerated him in her home, but otherwise did not want to associate with him.

The second age began when the gods had traveled the world entirely and had nothing new to discover. After the world darkened and the light return the gods had two forms, pure energy and, if they chose to travel on the physical world, a solid form, as they once had. This age saw the waking of mortals. Though Anendê could control her powers now fully, as all the gods could, she wanted a life apart from the other gods and mortals, who lived intermingled. The goddess of water built her a ship so she might sail the oceans, still spreading her suffering, but not having to mingle too long with mortals nor stay long with the gods, whom she still wasn’t fond of. Grenog shadowed her ship as energy at all times, spreading his mercy when she came ashore and spread her pestilence.

Because the mortals bred and loved the gods began to share in their emotions and married one another. Grenog had loved Anendê since the start of the second age but hadn’t known how to express it until the mortals had shown the gods how. He eventually asked Anendê to be his wife, but she refused him. Though she loved him she still worried that her suffering might affect him and still enjoyed her solitude enough, he accepted this but every year would ask again and every year Anendê would turn him away. After 1000 years she finally accepted the offer when he’d clearly spent enough time around her and suffered no ill effects. He then traveled with her on her ship and death and suffering came very little to mortals.

The end of the second age came when the mortals had grow too much for the land to carry, since they ate and bred and their lives were so long and they did not realize the world had limits. The gods worried and with their worry the world darkened again. During the darkness Anendê took her chance, desiring the gods to not only fear her but do her bidding as payment for their judgement in the other ages. In the darkness she planted hatred in the hearts of mortals and watched them descend into war with one another.

And in the darkness she convinced the other gods, using the wars and hate she had started in secret, as proof the mortals were undeserving of the gods’ presence and needed a stricter world to live in. She convinced the gods to let her rebuild the world, in which nearly all things would bring suffering and pain to the mortals that lived there. When the light returned the world was dangerous in all ways that pleased Anendê and all the powers of the gods were subject to her will. All but Grenog, who she loved and who could calm her so the world did not exist in complete turmoil.

Grenog also created, with the other gods, a paradise for the dead which Anendê could not touch, a world that was endless where all could live peacefully as in the first age of the gods.

But in life, Anendê is queen of all things.