The Great Felines (Creation Myth)

From The Solemn Anthology of Little Stories by Jyutoku Kenshi and Jyotoku Takeshi.

First published in 293 PCE. Translated from Kittenese by Heather Breadfield.

A long time ago, before the Elders were littered and the land was formed, there were two great felines who lived in the oceans: Daichizu and Mizunin. Daichizu swam in the east, and liked building things. He would build machines to help the couple live, huge devices out of metals and the bones of dead fish, forged in the heat of volcanoes. His wife-mate Mizunin swam in the west, and enjoyed being with nature. She would swim with all the fishes and dolphins of the ocean, and treated them like family.
Mizunin bore Daichizu many litters, who became us, the catfolk. But we were new, and could not swim, so the great felines bore us on their backs.
Daichizu gave us tools and built machines to help us live better. When we learned to fish for food, he gave us cool boxes to keep the meat fresh, taught us how to cure and smoke and preserve food for the cold seasons. When we learned to build shelters upon his back, he taught us how to cut down the plants that grew on his back, as big as trees are to us, to support the houses that we lived in. When we learned to make boats so that we could sail the oceans with him, he taught us how to craft steam engines so that we would not be at the mercy of the winds.
Mizunin, on the other paw, taught us the ways of nature. She taught us about the fish we ate, and showed us which fish we could not eat. She showed us how the water moved, about the currents that brought new life to the shores, and which destroyed the pretty coral reefs. She taught us about the winds and the weather, and how the world was in a delicate balance of which we were a part.
Daichizu and Mizunin loved each other very much, so they would always try to swim closer to each other. However, they disagreed about how they were teaching us, their litter. To build his machines, Daichizu needed to use the bones of fish, the leather from dead dolphins, the skin of squid, and he was willing to kill the creatures in order to get them. Mizunin loved the ocean and its inhabitants, and admonished Daichizu for harming nature and killing what she felt was family. Daichizu said that his machines were necessary, to help us build and create better lives, so that we did not have to rely on nature. Mizunin disagreed with her husband-mate; she felt that us catfolk should live with nature, rather than in spite of it.
As the two great felines swam ever closer, their arguments grew ever heated. They shouted at each other, threw things at each other, and even started fighting, swiping at each other with their large paws. The Seven Heavenly Princesses, sitting in their star-thrones in the sky, heard the yowling and were displeased at the noise. They looked down and saw the two great felines biting and snarling at each other.
The Seven Heavenly Princesses knew that while love often brought together, it also drove apart, and the noise from the quarrel was disturbing their heavenly peace. So the Princesses combined their powers and tore apart the two fighting great felines. But they misjudged their power, and pulled too hard, breaking Daichizu into three pieces, and Mizunin into four. The Princesses despaired at what they had done, as they had not meant to kill the great felines. They sent the pieces back into the oceans and turned them into continents, so that their kittens, the catfolk, could live on them instead of having to swim all the time.
And this is why, while we build great machines and strive for the stars, we also pay our respects to nature and the world we live in.