There was no warm wallowmud then, no melons, no watersweet leaves to pick pluck stuff scatter. The sun lay sluggish-cold on the ground. The Great Mothers grew coats like bears and wandered the empty white places of the world Alone, each splintered to Herself, each bull-separate. There were no Stories to spine-spin the We together. A bull had found them all, in the dark and chill Before, and in the way of bulls he had hoarded them for himself.
