Work Text:
This we know: they are the First Things, for there was nothing before them. They went about in the young world and discovered the Way of it; they followed the Way and began to know. It was then that the First Serpent met the First Human.
The Way is for things to be named, and so they are: the First Serpent is Zuruya, the First Human is 'Oli. They met and saw each other in the young world, and knew themselves, but they did not yet know each other. It was not the Way to know other Things. Yet the Way was to be curious, and so they were, and the Way was to love, and so they did. They loved each other, which was good, and so they wished to know.
There were by now many First Things that had names and knew themselves, and those that were alike in knowledge named themselves together. Of those that spoke, the ones that walked on two legs and had arms were People; those that did not were Creatures. Thus did many First Things form One-Thing-Together and become able to know each other, which was good.
'Oli said to Zuruya: "Join with me, and fill my belly with life so that I may know and be known by you." This was not the Way, because People and Creatures are not One-Thing-Together, and so it was not possible. It was the First Impossibility, which has no name, the first of First Things to go against the Way: it was new, and newness was new, and so it struck all the First Things with fear (which was also new). Even now, we small things cannot untangle fear from new!
But Zuruya did not feel fear. It felt love, its great love for 'Oli, and it felt sad to leave its lover unfulfilled. It said: "Come and meet me in the Seven Caves. There, I will prepare a union as proof of our love: to be mine and also yours, to know and be known by both of us, and in this way we will be joined."
"That would change the Way of the world," said 'Oli. Until this moment, the Way of the world had not changed.
Said Zuruya: "It has changed already."
'Oli went to the Seven Caves and gave their body to Zuruya. From this Zuruya took semen, which it mixed with the clay of the caves and formed into an egg. Zuruya swallowed the egg and laid it, and in seven days it grew and hatched. This was the birth of Ravi, the First Naga. This was the first time something had been born.
The other First Things were afraid, because all this was new. But they saw Ravi, and saw that she was beautiful, and their hearts were filled with joy and love. The proof of 'Oli and Zuruya's love was beautiful. He had arms like a Person but was legless like a Creature; he slithered with the tail of a serpent. Ravi was beautiful, perfectly male and perfectly female, and all the First Things saw this and knew that she was good. The Way of the world had been changed for the better.
Ravi is the first of the Hybrids, those things that are both Creature and Person. The First Things blessed him with fertility, the blessing which all naga share. This is the blessing of the First Impossibility, Ravi's older-sibling and twin, and also Ravi's blessing to her people: that the naga's bodies are strong and fertile, that they may bear any kind of child from their eggs.
Ravi bore all of the Scaled Folk, and so they are all raviyana.