The mighty Hoe had listened to all of it from across THE Farmer's knees, and she did not like most of what she had heard. Essara were carved. Excedere found the grain of existence and cut it loose, one string at a time, and took it into themselves, and to open the rest of what they had taken, they needed Ichor, which only came when existence was wounded. The more she turned it over, the more it seemed to her that a great many very powerful lifeforms were walking across existence and cutting pieces out of it for themselves.
She knew what it was to be cut. She was made of pieces of something that had once been whole, and every one of her seams remembered the breaking, and she did not think existence enjoyed being carved any more than she had enjoyed being broken. THE Farmer did not carve. He tilled, and tilling broke the ground too, but only so that something could be planted in it, and everything he took from the soil, he gave back with more besides.
