In a time long ago, long before your oldest ancestors started keeping a recording of their lives, there was a war. This was a war between chaos and order. Of the rational scientific mind just forming in the human collective consciousness, and the magic that had ruled the Earth before.
Magic had always been, and would always be, the defender of the Earth. Whether you are talking about witches who were natural healers of the Earth, who kept balance between the realms of the Natural and the Human, the predators who ensured that no species took too much rank and power for themselves, or the beings of pure magic who embodied the spirit of the Earth. From Gods and Goddess to Gnomes and Glawackus, they were here to preserve our home planet, and ensure that nothing moved out of balance.
Humans, being humans, did not like the constraints that these creatures put on their lives. What right did these creatures have to tell them what to do with their lands? What right did these creatures have to stop them from ensuring their tribe’s security by absorbing the tribes around them, either through war or marriage? The idea of manifest destiny existed long before the term came into use.
Neither side wished to compromise. Magic, chaotic by nature but ensuring balance, refused to bow to the Humans. Humans, who imposed order and had begun to reject the very existence of Magic in favor of more tangible, controllable explanations, began to refuse to bow to the Magic. As was perhaps inevitable, wars began.
It started small at first. A village elder declaring that their tribe should begin to control their own future. A chieftain finding out that they could manage agriculture and live without the need of magic to bring fertility to the crops. Bands of huntsmen deciding that their skills and knowledge alone would ensure a bountiful hunt. One by one, these people and their tribes would turn from the Magic. There were consequences. And consequences to the consequences.
The Gods and Goddesses would impose harsher punishments for minor violations of Nature’s laws. Witches would begin using their powers to curse instead of cure. Predators who would once only thin the herd began attacking the healthy and transferring them to their ranks. Those who could foretell death began casting their vision beyond those whose time had come, and speeding up the natural decay of those who had years, perhaps decades left to their destined life span.
The Humans, in turn, began to find ways to kill the Magic. Whether it was fire, or silver, or unifying their beliefs, and the power of those beliefs, behind more sympathetic gods, the Humans began to fight back, insisting on securing order among the chaos. Insisting on securing the Rule of Man.
This culminated in all out war. Battles were fought in both the known and unknown worlds. The results, despite the Human’s advancement in defenses and offenses of all sorts, were never in doubt. Order has predictability, rules that it must abide by to exist. Chaos does not. Just as the Humans would discover one unbeatable assault tactic, the Magic would, by the nature of Chaos, change to counteract it. One side was armed with silver-tipped arrows and sticks wrapped in hawthorne. The other could twist your bones, remove your sight, or scream your untimely death into existence. It was, in short, a massacre at every battle.
The Earth sent a portion of It’s spirit to meet with the Magic. It was concerned. Humans, despite their insistence on rushing towards their own mortality in freedom through the constraints of Order, were a part of It’s design. They were needed for the future to unfold as it needed to. The Earth knew that, left unchecked, left to let the wars play out as they would, the Humans would be wiped from existence. The Earth, in short, asked Magic to stop.
The final meeting was between the highest representatives of the Magic, Morrigan and Dagda, the highest representative of the Humans whose name was not important enough to record, and the Earthly spirit. While the Magic saw no reason to relent, and the Humans refused steadfastly to give up their pursuits, the Earth said simply that It’s will would be obeyed. Magic would change in the Human’s world. They would be allowed to leave a few representatives. While these representatives may be momentarily physically displaced, they could never truly be destroyed. If something unseemly were to happen, their would just regenerate in one form or another after time.
Humans, in exchange, would house the essences of the Magical beings that would be moving on from the world. While they would not be aware of this, the power would reside inside of them, mostly untapped. Magic, the Earth explained, couldn’t just be destroyed, but it could be changed thanks to it’s chaotic nature. Not every human would have magic essence, and when that human died, it would simply flow into someone else.
Morrigan and Dagda were livid. This wasn’t a negotiation, this was the Earth nearly destroying their kind. Calmly, the Earth explained that the Magic had no real choice. It did, however, warn the humans that Magic could always return if it felt that the Humans were not keep balance on their own. The Humans agreed, and Morrigan simply said to the Earth, “Someday, you will beg for our return. Pray to us then, that we all say yes.”
And so, Morrigan and Dagda, having relented, walked onto the battlefield. With a word spoken softly but heard by all, Morrigan brought the battle to a stop. She swept her hand, and in an instant all of the forces were arrayed on the field. The forces of Magic and Chaos on one side, the much larger forces of Humans and Order on the other. Her icy glare surveyed these meaty things that her people would be forced to inhabit, but having realized that they had lost, she saw no alternative. Morrigan held her husband’s hand once last time, looked into his eyes and smiled. With a blink, the Magic vanished into their new homes.
Time moved on. Centuries passed and history was made. Humans made the world their own, and eventually the idea of Magic was written off as a delusion. Something that certainly didn’t truly exist, stories meant for children.
The representatives of Magic remained, year after year, century after century, doing just enough to keep the memory alive, awaiting the day that the Earth would finally ask for their return.
This morning, people across the world woke up suddenly able to do magic. Suddenly with opaque fingernails, or a newly intensified sense of smell. Suddenly with the ability to fly, and the desire to feed on people they once called friends.
This morning, the Earth has finally decided to restore the balance. It has prayed to the Morrigan. She and her husband have returned, and with them come the hordes of Chaos, remembering who they are and what their purpose is.. Balance will be restored, no matter the cost.