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The Fourth was the first deity outside the three Creators to set foot upon their proto-Earth. When the Fourth runs, its paws drum into the ground so quickly that it causes the earth to spin beneath its feet, giving all animals the instinctual urge to run as hunters and the hunted. It is a step down in power level from the three Creators, sharing the second tier with the Fifth. Its power allows it to manipulate and decree laws of nature outside of altering physics, which were locked in place through the Creator’s laws.
The Law of Predators and Prey
In many ways, it was the Fourth’s tendency to pester its fellow gods to play that led to the creation of life. Upon visiting the Earth for the first time, the Fourth quickly grew bored with nothing there but wind, water, and earth. The Fourth begged for companions, which gave the First a spark of inspiration, and it created beings in its own image to inhabit the planet. Intrigued by the concept, the Second and Third did the same, followed by the remaining five deities. Over time the Eight created more and more living things, a vast range of flora and fauna. The Fourth had great fun playing with its new Children, but after a few eons grew bored once more.
It came up with the idea for a game, the ultimate form of tag, creating a new law of nature that divided the creatures of the Earth into predators and prey. In the primordial era, prey animals caught by predators did not permanently perish; it was easy for the gods to reanimate a felled creature, scraping together a new flesh for a wayward soul to inhabit. The Fourth meticulously designed the rules of its game. The Creators’ Children were apex predators, while the second and thirds power tiers’ Children were both predators and prey as well; all except the Eighth, the most lowly of the gods, whose Children were exclusively deemed prey.
This insult enraged the Eighth, who confronted the Fourth, leading to a fight between the two deities that nearly ended with the destruction of the Fourth. Having greatly underestimated the Eighth’s power, the Fourth was cowed, and agreed to the Eighth’s proposed law of honour where direct descendants of the Eight made in their identical image would never hunt one another. To kill, eat, or wear the pelts or feathers of these species would be the ultimate taboo, seen as cannibalism. Additionally, creatures would be made to forget the pain of their death on revival, which the Fourth agreed to and upheld until the end of the primordial era.
The mortals of the Earth never grew wise to the concept of a true death until the day came that the Fifth stole the sun out of the sky and fed it to a living creature, severing the realm of the living from the gods. From then on the gods were unable to manipulate the flora and fauna of the living world, and creatures caught and killed could not be revived, though their spirits lived on as non-sentient ghosts until the Ninth gave them eternal spirits and a home back in So'raréyo.
"Come Along" - Cosmo Sheldrake
