Korah awoke from his slumber in the West, and, along with Andora, began to roam the earth to see what had become of their once beloved fields. Things were much as they remembered them, broken and decrepit, but a sense of equilibrium had begun to establish itself. Korah was happy, most of all, to see his own creatures faring so well. It had been the subject of many of his thoughts to speculate upon how this or that creature might be holding its ground in combat with another. He saw their success as his own, and found himself amused that the gifts that his brothers had given to their creatures were proving to be insufficient.

Days passed as they strode across the land, with their heads high above the tops of the trees; their footfalls making no sound, and leaving no print. Suddenly, their gaze was caught by a pair of figures walking through the hills – men. They were not anything like any creature that he had made, nor ones that he remembered seeing any of the others create. They stood upright, and each held a long stick in one hand and a vessel in the other, as though they had used vines to make for themselves containers. They seemed to be collecting various sorts of berries into these vessels. Furthermore, and this seemed to be the strangest thing to Korah, these creatures lacked any natural means of defending themselves. There were no imposing teeth or spines, and their flesh seemed to be so soft that a demon’s claws would pass right through it.

The creatures had noticed them, and had turned white with horror. Surely these feeble things were the works of one of his brothers, and so he thought he would test them by trial against some of his own creations. Korah pressed toward them, causing them to run until they came to the face of a hill too steep to climb. He then called forth a small pack of fleet demons which ran with full force out of the wood and to his side. There were four in total. Korah released the demons upon them and watched as the men eyed them down. The fleet demons crouched and hissed at them, swaying their heads from side to side. The men did not seem afraid, however, and the more stout of the two companions flashed a hand signal to the more lean. They shouldered their sticks, and Korah noticed that they had been tipped with sharpened stones. The two held back against the hill. The first demon pounced toward the stouter one. He quickly dashed to the side and both men were able to drive their spears into the belly of the beast. Immediately, the other demons pounced at them. Korah looked on, as, in a fury of tooth, spear, and claw, the two men were able to best his demons in combat. All four lay dead or dying before him, while the men had only a few scratches. The lean man took some leaves and a salve from a pouch at his side, and then pulled a strip of leather that had been wrapped around his arm. He bound the leaves to his companions wound, and the two men huddled, still terrified, facing the giants before them.

Korah and Andora were shocked at the intelligence with which these creatures were able to make use of their environment and coordinate with each other. Andora made an attempt to reach out to them with her thoughts and ask them where their den was or if there were more like them, but no thoughts came back to her. Korah sought to lay hold on them, as he had done with the seed and the worm at previous times. He wanted to try to give them some gift so that they would be better able to defend themselves, but he found that he could not alter them in the slightest. Korah and Andora desired to follow them and see if there were any others, and so they let the two escape, hoping they would lead them to their home. They wondered with each other about whose creatures they could be. They did not seem colorful or extravagant enough to belong to Jasper. Their intellect made them seem to belong to Basil, but their minds seemed far more sophisticated than anything that any of them would have been able to create. Perhaps Basil had been awake the longest, and had been hard at work, perfecting his creatures. The thought made him yearn to see his brothers again. His hope was that, wherever these two men had gone, he would find at least one of his brothers there as well.

They waited a few hours, and then followed the trail to find the home of these strange creatures. Silently, they passed through the trees, eventually coming to a lonely valley in the hills. There seemed to be no living things there, save for seven wolves resting at the mouth of a cave. There were hewn trees, scraps of meat and refuse, and skins lain out in the sun, but no men. Something else caught Andora’s eye – there was a small patch of ground covered in soot and blackened branches. This reminded her of the fires that she and Korah had started ages ago, to provide new opportunity for life in dying, choked lands. This was much smaller, though, and barley smoking at present. The dogs began to stir, and when one opened its eyes and saw them, he began to bark, inciting the others to do the same.

Men came spewing from the mouth of the cave, spears in hand, shouting and wailing, as if to intimidate them to leave. Among these men, Korah and Andora could recognize the two they had seen before. They were all clad in hides of bears and demons, painted with hues of yellow and black. They hurled their spears and launched their arrows, all of which broke harmlessly against the bodies of the archetype and his wife. Others rushed to their ankles, trying to cut at them with sharpened stones, but they found that it was like trying to cut into the foot of a stone cliff. It did not take long for the men to understand that this being was unlike any that they had heretofore encountered. They retreated toward the mouth of their cave. Those who still had spears shouldered them, but the looks on their faces were of almost child-like fear. Slowly, they receded back into their den, the wolves following after them.

Korah and Andora spoke inwardly with each other of all that they could do to these poor creatures – all that they could do for them. After agreeing on how they would proceed, they decided to wait outside. A day passed, and the only thing that changed was that their smoldering pile had ceased to give off smoke, and the the wolves had poked their heads out now and again. A second day passed, and then a third. The waiting did not bother Korah, nor Andora in the least. They had become accustomed to waiting upon seeds to generate forests, and rivers to cut canyons through vast lands. Ten days passed, and then a second ten, with no sign of emergence. At times, Andora had searched around the grounds for alternate routs of escape, but she had found none.

Finally, at the close of the twenty-first day, two emaciated, corpse-like beings stepped forth, one male and one female. Had it not been for the fact that their bodies were completely bare of clothing, one would not have been able to determine their sex at all. They shuffled forward toward what they must have been certain would be their deaths. Just outside the mouth of the cave, the man stumbled and fell. He stayed down on hands and knees for a few moments, breathing heavily, before staggering to his feet with the help of the woman. Each agonizing step tore at their aching joints. The skeletal pair presented themselves before their judges, lifting their hands with their palms toward them, offering themselves to them as the price for their tribe’s deliverance.

Korah and his wife felt a new feeling, one of pity and a desire to nurture these creatures. Had they been hiding this whole time? Had they perceived themselves as the prey of monsters lurking outside? Had they been starving themselves for fear of coming out? Andora, particularly, felt awful, and hoped to think of some way in which to ameliorate the situation. Korah was confounded, primarily because he had been used to dealing with his own creatures, which he had conditioned with such aggression and tenacity that they would never have put themselves through this fearful suffering. Andora plucked a nearby cherry tree from the ground and laid it before them. The pair simply continued to look up at them, mouths agate and eyes glazed with equal parts confusion and dread. Korah took this as a sign that they were not the types of creatures to eat only plant matter. Certainly any being which could best even his demons were apex predators. Korah looked around the countryside for a suitable meal for them. Spotting a nearby family of herons, he snatched up the fledgling, casually wrung its neck, and set it in front of them.

Cautiously, the man stepped forward, reaching his hand into the foliage of the cherry tree. He plucked one, and held it to his lips. His eyes were fixed on Korah’s the whole time, and he began to weep softly. He bit in to the cherry, unsure of what kind of fate he was securing for himself by doing so. Korah and Andora both smiled at them, and the man and woman both began to eat and sob openly in relief. They held each other’s naked, bony bodies, as tears and juices streamed mixed down their faces. After eating only a handful of cherries a piece, they came to Korah’s foot, kissing it and embracing it. They then went back inside their cave, and only minutes later, more than a hundred other men and women began streaming out of the mouth of the cave, all with skin that clung to their bones, and few wearing any sort of covering. Korah recognized the two men that they had originally followed to the valley, but they were both so frail now – not like the healthy, able bodied specimens that had slain his demons all those days before.

Andora plucked up other fruit trees, dangling them above the people and shaking the ripe fruits from their branches. Korah watched in amazement as a pair of men went to their blackened patch of ground and began collecting handfuls of dry grass and striking stones together. Soon they had made a fire. Another was plucking the feathers off of the lone heron in their midst and soon began gutting it. He immediately recognized the genius behind what they were doing in preparing their meat, and left to find them a more suitable meal. Very soon, he returned with a dragon, which he had taken from a nearby river, snapped in half, and gutted. Amazingly, Korah and Andora got more joy from providing for these creatures than they had gotten from developing their own. The feast lasted late into the dark hours, and when the last of the people had kissed their feet and returned to their cave, Korah turned his mind to Andora. They had both been able to derive by now that these creatures were not the work of any of the archetypes or their wives. Certainly one would have come to the rescue if these had been their creatures. He suspected that they were the only ones awake.

Korah and Andora spent many more days with them, bringing them food to replenish their health and strength. The humans danced and played their drums in mirth. Unintelligible shouts of joy rose from the valley as celebrations lasted long into the night. No beasts came to trouble them, their bellies stayed full, and they were free of fear for the first time. As happy as they all were with this arrangement, Korah and Andora still had a longing to be reunited with their brothers and sisters. There was no way of communicating in any way with these creatures to let them know why they had to leave for a time, and so, with no warning, one night, they left the tribe alone in order to go find the others.