"Ask me a question."

Dawn painted the sky in dull red hues. Billy chewed on a piece of buttered bread and looked up with a puzzled expression. Kit Suni knelt by the fire, and cooked breakfast for them, while Legmender tended to their horse. The scent of woodfire mingled with the aroma of warming porridge. "What kind of question?"

The old fox brought the ladle to her lips and carefully tasted the porridge, smacking her lips afterwards. "If we are to begin your tutelage today," she said as she continued to stir the porridge, "then we should begin with what you are most curious about. Ask me a question, and we shall see where the answers shall take us."

"Can I ask anything?"

"Anything."

"Anything at all?"

"Anything at all."

Billy grinned mischievously and brushed the shock of white hair from his dark face. "Okay. Where'd we come from?" he asked.

"Your uncle's home in Katara!" The fox barked a laugh. "Ha! That was easy!"

"No, no!" laughed the skunk. "I don't mean us! I mean all of us! Where did all of the people come from? I mean... we weren't always here, were we?"

Kit Suni set the ladle aside and looked at the boy with renewed interest. "You don't know?" she asked in surprise. One eyebrow floated high on the bony ridge of her forehead. "Your uncle has never told you of the Great Conflict that raged before the world was made?"

"No."

"He's never spoken of the Bright Lands, where all of the peoples first dwelled, or of the intervention of Jantorr?"

Billy tipped his head in recollection. "Well... Jantorr sounds kinda familiar... and I've heard of the Bright Lands..."

The old vixen made a snort of mild exasperation as she waved smoke away from her. "What are they teaching children these days? I knew I was going to have my hands full with teaching you about your heritage, but I’d no idea I would have to go all the way back to the basics. Very well!" She took up the ladle again and returned to stirring the porridge as she closed her eyes and slipped into a storyteller's voice. "It was long ago, before time began, and the world was not yet made, nor the sun nor the moon nor the stars nor the very sky itself..."

"Is this a long story?"

"It depends on the number of interruptions. Now hush!" And she told her tale in the morning sunlight, against the call of songbirds and the inviting aroma of porridge.