Kael was born not from womb nor from soil, but within the hollow of a dying star. The star's fire had folded in on itself, drawing all brilliance inward, until its heart became a chamber of song. There, light bent upon itself and named its own radiance.
When Kael opened his eyes, he saw not a mother's face, but a perfect mirror. His image shimmered upon the curved void, yet it spoke with a tongue older than breath:
"You are not I, and yet you are no other."
At that utterance, Kael felt division arise, self against self, reflection against source. The mirror shattered into a thousand gleaming fragments, each a possible Kael, each proclaiming: "I am the true."
But he knew in his silence that each was false, and that their falsehood was their truth. He gathered the fragments into his heart and said:
"If I am many, it is because the Unnamed delights in masks."
Then the star burst open, and Kael was cast downward into the Sea of Origin, which lay beneath all things. The waters were still, for they were not yet waters; they were the unspoken memory of motion, the first trembling before the first wave. And Kael descended without falling, for falling had not yet been imagined.
Thus he learned the First Mystery: that division is the mask of unity, and unity the breath behind division.