Long ago, when people didn’t destroy the Earth and people were the Earth, there were two. The water belonged to the Goddess, and the land belonged to the God. The Goddess and the God were in a relationship of sorts, as they worked together and around each other. But that was all they could do, because the land and the water were separate. They longed for each other. Every morning, the Goddess would bathe in the water and greet her aquatic friends. They looked up to her. Her, in her green, grassy-skinned glory. She was different from them, and powerful. The Goddess looked across the world to the land and to the God. The God, whose long beard reached his toes and beyond, met her gaze easily. His skin was different from hers. It was smoother and rosier. His beard was different from anything she had seen in the water, too. Cherries and fruits and leaves were growing from it, and the Goddess wanted nothing more than to reach out and be able to hold it in her hands. To pick the cherries and the fruits and the leaves and eat them, adorn her meals with them, cherish them. She wanted him. His smile was shy and tentative, but it was there, and the Goddess smiled back like she would with any of her friends in the water. The God turned around to talk to one of his own friends in the land, and the Goddess looked down, content with the interaction. She continued with her day, and he continued with his, and it went on like that for years. They would meet eye contact, smile, and then look away.

One day, the Goddess decided she wanted more. More than just seeing a smile, but instead holding the smile closer to her, in her hands. She called out to the God. He looked back, shocked. They had never dared to talk to each other. Nobody would dare to talk between worlds. But he responded.

“I want to meet you,” the Goddess said.

“We’ve already met.”

“I want to feel you.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t allowed. Not in this lifetime,” the God said after a pause, and he frowned.

“But why isn’t it allowed? What are we scared of?” the Goddess said, her voice liquid hope. Everyone was staring at them now. All of the Goddess’ aquatic friends, and all of the God’s woodland creatures. They all looked at the God and the Goddess as if they were insane. No one had ever even thought to break the unspoken rules, and no one had ever even thought that the leaders would think of doing so themselves. “We could be happy together.”
“We could get banished.” His eyes were skipping around her, looking everywhere except her.

The Goddess looked at him, hurt. She couldn’t believe her ears. After all this time — she thought that the God wanted her just as much as she wanted him. She would be willing to throw everything away for him, why didn’t he feel the same. The God looked up at her again, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes crowded by a cloud of confusion. The Goddess reached her arm out, across the world, trying to grab onto the God. There were gasps all around: that was never done before! The God didn’t move back, but he didn’t move closer either. The Goddess was getting closer to him, closer, closer, closer… Her arm was thin and cracking from the stretch, like elastic in freezing temperatures, and she knew she couldn’t go much further. But she was so close… Suddenly, the God stretched his arm out too and easily clutched onto the Goddess’s grass covered arm. Light beamed from the interlapse, and again, the crowd gasped. The God pulled at the Goddess, and the Goddess pulled at the God, bringing the two worlds closer. The light was growing in size and in power, until finally, the two worlds connected, and the God fell into the Goddess’s arms, and the Goddess fell into the God’s arms. The light between them grew and grew until it took over both of their visions, and all of the visions of the aquatic friends and woodland creatures. Abruptly, the light fizzled out, and the God and Goddess were one, as were the water and the land. The woodland creatures walked around and looked curiously at the aquatic friends, and the aquatic friends reciprocated those stares. The God and the Goddess were together from that point on, and they couldn’t be happier. The one catch was that now there wasn’t a God or Goddess to look over the aquatic friends or the woodland creatures. They were on their own, and the Goddess thought to herself that they’d be just fine. She knows them, and the God knows them, and they both know that none of their own beings could ever be cruel.

If only they could see what the world they created has become today.