Prologue

Dear Helianthus,

My name is Sunflower, and I am your mother. For a long time, or what other people would consider a long time, I did not want you to even know my name. However, with age comes wisdom, and insanity. I have decided to introduce you to not only myself, but to the source of your power.

I'll bet the little people that scurry around on your version of Earth believe you are a goddess, don't they? I suppose compared to them, you are. You can move mountains with a thought, control the weather in your sleep, and even create matter from nothing, to a limited degree. That might seem exceptional, but I promise you it is nothing compared to my power, and even I am not the God.

I am so near to being omnipotent that you would not be able to understand the few limitations that I do have. Only the most primeval laws of existence apply to me. These were established by God himself to keep the rest of us from blowing it all to Hell. I can do anything, go anywhere, and be anyone. I've been to Hell, Heaven, and almost everywhere in between. Heaven was alright, but Hell was a little dry for my taste.

Our power comes from one of those primeval laws I mentioned, which states that matter cannot be destroyed, but it can be converted into energy, and vice versa. There are hundreds of thousands of energy sources in the universe that humans will never discover. These are interstellar bodies and beings that even a scientific mind could only describe as gods. These sources draw energy from other multiverses and expel it into our own, but one universe can only manage so much of these types of energies. This is where we come in. We are, for lack of a funnier way to describe it, cosmic trash cans. Every bit of energy that exceeds the maximum capacity of the universe is dumped into us, and we are meant to convert it into something more manageable like kinetic energy or matter. I won the interstellar jackpot, because several thousand of those energy sources are dumped into my body, and they've been overflowing for thousands of years. You did alright, with almost two-hundred different sources spilling over into your body. Throughout the universe, there are people that receive the overflow from one or two, or maybe ten or fifteen, of these energy sources, but only a few like you, and none like me.

Shanti, the girl you're about to hear about, she knows how to have a good time. I'm going to tell you an entirely true story about her and her brother after I wrap up this letter. Keep in mind that I make an appearance in this story once or twice, and I am the real hero here. I was brave, generous, and selfless the whole time. I courageously defended the helpless peasants of this particular Earth, and they act like a bunch of ungrateful jerks.

I don't love you.

-Sunflower

The screen flickered to life after nearly thirty hours. The Yaad had watched it the whole time. His eyes were dry and his tired mind started to play tricks on him. He kept hearing someone call his name from the small latrine behind him.

No one was in there, he knew that.

As Yaad, it was his sacred duty to watch the Visvaren screen and record anything that he saw. It could show images from anywhere in the galaxy. The Yaad had watched wonders and terrors unfold. From the giant, lumbering Toke people on the planet Toke'Doke, to the spastic Puckwudgies on the moons of Graya Minor, he had seen life in all its glorious forms. He had personally observed and recorded the last twenty years of many different versions of Earth.

He was grateful for his position, and the things he witnessed had only served to reinforce his love for life. It was an exhausting duty that demanded extreme commitment. The long hours and constant vigilance was only part of it. The hardest part, the part he dreaded, was when the screen chose to show him horrible things as they happened. Death and destruction often played itself out on the screen. The Yaad could do nothing but watch it unfold, and write it down. No matter how much he wished he could help, he was only an observer. The screen never showed anything from his own world, Kumbai.

When the screen turned on, showing an image of bright yellow hair in a tight braid, the Yaad thought that he must have fallen asleep. This must be a dream. The Visvaren screen could show anything that it wished, but it rarely showed one individual person up close and personal like this. It wasn't unheard of, however, so he shook his head and slapped his face to make sure he wasn't sleeping, but nothing changed. This was real! He quickly grabbed his pen and paper, and leaned forward. He had to carefully record anything he saw.

The screen remained fixed on the bright yellow hair for so long that he started to doze again. He forced himself to wake up and write, recording even the smallest detail. Finally, the hair moved, and the image zoomed out enough to see a woman. At least, he thought it was a woman.

She was as small as a young child, and her face was round and flawless like a child's, but her hair was very long. Her hair was so long that it dragged on the floor for several feet behind her. She looked young, but she felt old. Although her eyes were set in the face of what might have been a strikingly beautiful sixteen year old girl, they made him think of the carved-stone eyes of the prehistoric statues in the Khaal desert. They were bright blue, but they just felt old.

The Yaad shook his head again to clear his thoughts.

She suddenly lifted into the air and hovered a few inches from the ground. The Yaad noticed that the yellow-haired woman had small translucent wings on her back. They reminded him of insect wings, except that they were lovely. The wings glittered slightly as they fluttered so fast that they looked like a shining blur. She wore a small yellow sundress, and no shoes, revealing the pale skin on her legs and feet.

For a moment, she appeared to be lost in thought. She stared at something off the screen. To the Yaad's astonishment, she turned and looked directly at him. He dropped his pen.

Never once had anyone shown the slightest awareness that he was watching them.

It's a coincidence. He thought. She couldn't possibly see me here. I'm just tired.

He knew that he was just trying to explain away the impossible. She was looking him right in the eyes. After a moment, she smiled. She was so beautiful, and so charming that he actually smiled back.

"Hello, pal." She said in a girlish voice. It was unusually high-pitched, but that wasn't what made the Yaad jump. What made him jump was that the screen did not transmit sound. Every image he had ever observed on the screen had been silent. Still, he heard her loud and clear.

She went on. "You know, it's rude to watch people without permission. Now…" She put up her hands as though to surrender. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not angry. Perhaps if you had caught me in the bathroom or watching an episode of Seventh Heaven, I might be a little peeved, but I'm actually excited. This is an opportunity for both of us."

She fluttered silently off the screen. A few seconds later her hand beckoned him to follow from one side of the image. The screen panned to the right and found her sitting on a simple wooden stool. As far as he could tell, she was in an empty room with just a dim light bulb hanging above her head. She had a small yellow backpack in her lap, and she was stuffing her braided hair into it.

"How did you know…" He started, but she held up a hand and shook her head.

"This is a learning opportunity for you, but how I know what I know is not what you'll be learning. What you will be learning is what happens when you spy on your god!" She held her hands up and curled her fingers like claws while she laughed maniacally. The light above her dimmed and the shadows around her grew heavy and threatening.

"My...god?" The Yaad asked stupidly.

She stopped laughing abruptly and dropped her hands. The light went back to normal. "Yep. I'm your god. My name is Sunflower. I was just kidding though, I'm a nice goddess."

He swallowed hard and spoke past his dry mouth. "S-Sunflower? Really?"

"You got a problem with that, pal? Huh? Do ya, punk?" She slid off the stool, but her wings fluttered and she did not touch the ground. "I'd turn you into a sunflower right now for being so rude, but I need you to do something for me."

"How do I know you're really a god?" The Yaad asked, feeling a little more confident after hearing that absurd name. "I don't even believe in gods, no one does."

"Absurd?" She practically shouted. "Did you just think that my name is absurd? You little jerk! I'll… I'll…"

Now the Yaad was convinced that this was some sort of trick. She would need godlike power to sense the Visvaren Screen and communicate through it, but gods did not stammer over their words like that. Gods, assuming they existed at all, did not give themselves silly names, or look like childish fairies.

He smiled and stood. "I'll have you know that I am the Yaad of Kumbai. That means I am the chief record-keeper of the entire galaxy." He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. "These hands have recorded thousands of…"

"Those hands? Really?" She said, mocking his comment about her name. She giggled and sat back down.

The Yaad felt the change before he saw it. He looked at his fingers, or where they should have been, but they weren't there. In place of his fingers were ten small sunflowers, which wiggled and swayed as though caught in an endless breeze.

He screamed and stumbled back. His legs hit his chair, and he collapsed into it. "I'm sorry! Please! Please! Forgive me and change them back?"

The strange little goddess shrugged. "I'll change them back to fingers on one hand, if you will do me a favor?"

"Yes, anything!" He was sobbing now.

"It's actually really simple. I want you to go to your government, your top officials, and inform them that I will be holding a tournament in your world. I'd like you to prepare a large arena for me, and locate a few of your best fighters. I'll be arriving in ten years, with a few competitors of my own. I'll bring two, you find six. Two plus six makes eight." She fluttered close to the screen. So close that the entire screen was filled with one bright blue eye. Her voice took on a menacing tone. "If I get there and find that you are unprepared, I'll be very upset. Don't let me down, pal." With that, the screen went black.

The Yaad looked down, staring at his hands through tear-filled eyes. His writing hand had been restored to normal, but the other still had small sunflowers where his fingers should have been. She really had been a goddess, and she was coming to Kumbai in ten years time.

"How am I going to make anyone believe this?"

The screen flickered back to life, and Sunflower's face filled it. She sighed loudly. "You ruined my dramatic exit! Why couldn't you ask that before I left? Idiot."

She waved her little hand, and a long staff appeared in the air and fell to the floor at his feet. He picked it up.

"Use that to perform some tricks for them. Become a king or something. I'll see you in ten years, m'kay? I'm leaving for real this time." She paused for a long moment. "Bye."

The Visvaren screen went black.