The pup squirmed restlessly, trying to sleep was all but impossible tonight. She was hungry and sore from their failed hunting attempt, and wanted nothing more than to curl up and rest at least for a little while. But she was having bad dreams lately, and she didn’t want to have any more. “Makena?” she hissed in a whisper after a while, looking for her splotchy blue friend’s company. He could always cheer her up. But he didn’t reply. Asleep then? It wouldn’t be fair of her to wake him up. At least one of them could get some rest.

With a small whimper, the white and red youngster twisted around on herself and shut her eyes, before opening them and trying to curl the other way. She was just scared was all. She didn’t want to sleep and have bad dreams!

It was quiet tonight.

The young dog prowled forlornly through the brush, his nose quivering and his ears pricked in vain. Their hunt that day had been spectacularly unsuccessful, and he was struggling with a limp from a particularly ferocious kick from what he could only assume was the mother of the little gazelle they’d been trying to hunt. Tendaji would have felt sorry for the creature if his stomach weren’t churning so with hunger. His and those of the youngsters that had somehow fallen into depending upon him. But he was barely old enough to start looking like a young adult, how was he supposed to properly look after young ones?

He sighed, turning his eyes to the stars for a moment before loping back to where he’d left the two, within easy earshot, tucked beneath a clump of brush. “Sethunya?” he murmured softly upon his return, padding softly to where the young female was tossing and turning. Was she having a bad dream?

Sethunya stopped wriggling when she heard a familiar voice, instead cracking one dark auburn eye to peer up at her friend. “I can’t sleep Ten,” she whimpered, shifting to sit up and look at him petulantly. She was tired, it wasn’t fair. She was just too hungry to settle down properly, and the bad dreams made it scary to close her eyes. It was too hard to sleep, but she didn’t want to be awake either! What was she supposed to do about this now?

She couldn’t sleep?

The young dog’s ears lay back briefly, guilt that he was failing as a protector and provider gnawing more fiercely at his insides than his own hunger. “I am sorry, Sethunya,” he said softly, his use of her full name rather than a nickname simply his way and meaning nothing of the ‘you are in trouble now’ that most calling a full name meant. “Perhaps tomorrow we will have better luck. In the meantime, perhaps it would be best if you got some sleep?”

Sethunya shook her head slightly when he spoke. Ten didn’t seem to understand what the problem was. He knew one of them, she supposed he must be very hungry too. But she wasn’t too hungry to sleep. She was too afraid. “I had a bad dream,” she explained meekly, looking up at him with pleading eyes that even as a youngster she’d learned he simply could not resist. “Would you tell me a story?” Set begged, placing her slender paw upon his as she gazed at him hopefully.

Tendaji blinked down at her, then sighed softly again. His flank throbbed painfully and his empty stomach growled, but even more difficult to ignore was the pleading look in those soft sad eyes. “Alright then,” he agreed, unable to put up much of an argument at all. Shifting, he settled down to lay gingerly on his belly, curling up with his side aching like it was seemed to be an extremely poor idea. Now…what story to tell…

“Long ago, before there was anything else, there was Mkodi,” he began, choosing the easiest story, the first one he’d learned. He’d probably told it to them before, but that didn’t seem to matter much at all.

Sethunya smiled happily, waiting for Tendaji to settle down before curling herself up around his paws, tucked comfortably beneath his chin. She liked to be able to feel the way his throat vibrated as he spoke, and the soft rise and fall of his chest while he breathed. His scent was soothing, and even though a story was what she’d asked for, she wondered if she might not be able to fall asleep here like this.

“But how could there be nothing else?” Set asked curiously, interrupting the story as she always interrupted stories with questions. Ten never got mad, so he mustn’t mind, not really…

And the questions started, as usual. Well, he could hardly scold her for being inquisitive now could he. It was a good thing to ask questions, or so mother had told him and his brother. But that…that seemed so long ago now. Tendaji’s expression grew even more solemn, as it always did, when his mind wandered to memories. His family, his home…he had lost everything it seemed. Well…

The faintest of smiles rose on the stern young dog’s maw as he looked at the pup curled up on his paws. Maybe not quite everything. “Because Mkodi had not yet created everything else. It is from her, after all, that all things came to be.” Or so mother had said…but why ever would she have lied to any of them? No, this was a tale, and true or not, it was what Sethunya had asked him for. Just as she would ask for many, many other things… as always.

“But…” Sethunya frowned, though Ten probably could not see her expression from where she was burrowed in against the soft gray fur of his chest. “But if there was nothing else, then where did Mkodi come from? Didn’t she have a mommy and a daddy?” Because everyone had to have had one, right? Tendaji had said that she and Makena and even Ten had had mommies and daddies, different ones. Maybe even brothers and sisters, but he said he didn’t remember that much. He knew a lot of things, it was strange to think that he didn’t know everything. But he knew lots. That was what counted, right? Right. He knew lots and lots and lots and was the bested Tendaji ever.

Tendaji stiffened, he couldn’t help it, when Sethunya so casually insisted on a mother and a father. He wondered if it meant anything to her, those words. She had been so young when he’d found her, he’d thought she was dead like the others until those big eyes had blinked up at him. Younger still had been Makena, how the splotchy blue pup had survived without a mother at the age Tendaji had thought he was… but then, there was so much he didn’t know about how things worked. Maybe all pups could manage without a mother. But they missed out on oh so much… If only… no. If onlys never did anything for anyone.

“Well, Mkodi was different than you and I,” he explained, “Mkodi is the one who created everything, even mothers and fathers. She didn’t have any, because she didn’t create them for herself. I…I suppose she’s sort of everyone’s mother and father…in a way…” That was puzzling, and made almost as much sense as it didn’t. Hastily, hoping to forestall further questions with answers he couldn’t find, he pressed on.

“She created everything out of the nothing where she existed. She made the land we walk upon, and the rivers and lakes, and even the sky up above us where all the stars flash and shine in the dark of the night, like tonight.”

Why had Ten gone all stiff like that? Set’s frown deepened, had she upset him? She hadn’t meant to, she’d only asked a question! Was he mad at her now? Would he stop telling the story? She hoped not, she didn’t want to make Tendaji mad or sad, or make him stop the story either.

When he started to continue, the little white pup had resolved to keep quiet and just let him tell it. But before she even realized it, she was blurting out more questions. “Did she make the ‘o-sen’ too? And the sun? And all the trees and the grass and the flowers and rocks and pebbles and dirt and…” It was a quick and eager stream of questions as Sethunya listed off every inanimate object that she could possibly think of.

“…and the clouds and the wind and…”

“Yes,” Tendaji finally blurted out, interrupting her stream of questions. “Yes, Mkodi made the sun and the moon and the stars and the clouds and the dirt and the grass and the stones and the rivers and streams and flowers and…yes. She made everything we see out of the nothing.” The list was too long, he couldn’t name all the things that Sethunya had rattled off. But the answer was yes, he was certain. His mother had said everything, and that meant everything. “She made the lands and the waters first, and then she made the plants grow on it. So I suppose she made rocks and dirt before she made trees and grass, because plants need water and dirt to grow.” And sunlight, but Tendaji did not understand that part yet. “And when she made the plants, she made some of the little creatures…like bugs I suppose?” he suggested, hoping to stem the questions before they came now.

“But what about fishes?” Sethunya asked, she couldn’t help but ask. “Do you suppose she made the grass before she made the trees? I think trees are bigger, so they must have been harder to make. But flowers are lots of colors, did Mkodi make the colors too?” There were lots of pretty colors after all…but why weren’t there more? If this Mkodi could make anything, she could make new colors too!

Set’s tail wagged eagerly at the idea, but try as she might she simply couldn’t imagine an entirely new color. Everything that she could think of was just a variation on the colors she’d seen already… how could someone invent colors?

“I don’t know,” Tendaji sighed, “She made the land and water first, and then the plants, and then the little animals, and I suppose she made the colors too because she made everything else so I guess the grass was always green and dirt was always brown. And after she’d made all of these things, she looked at them as they all existed in perfect harmony…and she thought that it was boring.”

“And so,” he hastened to add, “She decided to make creatures who could think. Creatures who could choose for themselves.”

“Like us!” Set squealed, almost right on cue it seemed. “She made us too, right? Me and you and Mekena and everyone else?” That was a good story, she decided, shifting to find a way to lie on Tendaji’s paws more comfortably. It was fun to hear about someone making everyone so that she could watch them. If someone who could do anything was watching over her, maybe the bad dreams wouldn’t seem so very scary after all… Set yawned, she couldn’t help it. It was time for her to have been asleep after all. Past time even.

“Yes,” Tendaji said softly, nuzzling her as she yawned. So she was going to fall asleep after all. Good. He was too tired to stay up much later to tell all the other stories. “She created everyone too. And to help her look after everyone, she created the gods and goddesses out of everyone’s thoughts. And they are the caretakers of this world that Mkodi created out of nothing…” His voice dropped to a low soothing murmur as he spoke before finally trailing off gently. It was awkward to try to sleep in this position, but he finally got his head settled beside his paws with his cheek pressed against the dozy white pup’s side.

Finally, it was time for sleep. Morning would come soon enough, and with it more work for him to do. It was hard to watch over these two…how hard must it be, he wondered, for Mkodi to watch over everyone and every thing?