Mór-Ríoghain and Crann Beatha

(Irish) The Great Queen and the Tree of Life

Mór-Ríoghain stirred. Her body felt small, cramped even. She stretched out her ancient limbs, feeling them creak and groan as if rusted together from eons of disuse. With a great cat-like yawn, her eyes flickered open to gaze upon Ölütanrı for the first time.

"Mother? Father? Are you there?"

Only the echo of wavelets within the cave returned her words. Confused and mildly afraid Mór-Ríoghain's eyes explored her surroundings. She sat, naked, in a shallow pool of iridescent fluid that filled the all-encompassing cave with a multi-coloured glow. A single stream spiraled away from the shallows giving the slightest suggestion of a path to follow. Mór-Ríoghain rose slowly, head foggy with the fading remains of a dream.

"Where am I? Where are they?"

Reservedly she took her first steps, following the steam. After what felt like days of following, a final turn. Mór-Ríoghain gasped as she took in the sight. She gazed from the side of a cliff upon a vast sapphire ocean, a large black and white moon fixed high above her head. The birthing shouts of the cave filled her ears while her eyes traced the origin story of a milky stream to the deluge flowing between her feet before throwing itself to the valley floor below.

"Father? Is that you up there?"

Mór-Ríoghain sat in silence yearning for her parents as she waited for a reply that never came. From each eye she shed a singular tear, one for each of her absentee progeniators and joined the milky waters on their journey to the earth below. Two figures emerged from the salty mist of Mór-Ríoghain's crashin tears and craned their necks to the sky.

"Mother? Is that you?"

No trace of the woman remained as they scoured the cliffside above with their eyes. The only reply to their cry was the whush of wings and a caw of annoyance of a great crow fleeing its refuge in the mouth of a cave high above. There is noone for them here.