The story of Eden told from Eve’s point of view as a high fantasy epic that is told over the 930 years of Eve’s life.

Feel free to expand or use this outline and make it your own.

Eve and her husband are literally two halves of the same person. They rule as the nominal King and Queen of the whole known world. They serve in a garden on the mountain of Eden as immortal priests of their Creator, as His high priests. They arbitrate between their Creator and the other humans using the borrowed power of the Creator. They know only happiness sustained by a magical tree in the centre of the garden.

She gives birth to twin girls. They are raised to tend the garden and act as priestesses and holy maidens. Like their mother, they wield incredible power which is used strictly for the good of the common folk who petition at the gatehouse of the garden.

Life is good until The Whispering One suggests to her they can use the tree to gain all knowledge of both good and ill. For the first time, Eve takes something for herself and begins to see as the Creator sees.

For the first time in her life, she feels disconnected from her husband. Horrified, she runs to him, but rather than confess her mistake, she draws him into doing the same thing so they will be the same again.

The trick does not reunite them; it corrupts them. They swear vengeance on The Whispering One, but that is cut short by the Creator demanding to know what has changed on the mountain. They hide but know that the Creator’s question is only an offer for them to explain what He already knows.

The Creator can no longer allow their corrupted bloodline to remain in the garden of perfection and drives them out. There, at the base of the mountain, they continue to act as high priests but now also as farmers.

Farming and hunting is a harder life. Especially with the divine power slowly slipping away from them. They try to preserve what little power they have left while Eve struggles to maintain a good relationship with her husband. He spends entire days in a sad, contemplative silence. She feels unable to reach him like she once did. She too feels lost. With her husband distant and cold, she lacks anyone to confide in.

She feels it – the end slowly coming for her. In this section, we watch her struggle with what it means to be mortal suddenly. She must also learn to cope with being separated from her two children.

Eve does everything she can to maintain contact with her daughters, but it is difficult. They struggle with it because they must watch their mother age over hundreds of years, not as fast as true mortals but still a slow and relentless march towards death.

At some point, she has a son. Then another. They are popular with the common folk – one more than the other. Eve is proud of them both.

Eve watches as her two sons become estranged from each other. One, a humble man, brings prayers and offerings to the Creator on the mountain. The other loves the attention and praise, and his offerings are often rejected because of his pride.

One day, one of her sons goes missing. She begs the guardian of the gate for an audience with her daughters. All she is able to do is pass them a written message.

Then she learns the truth. In a fit of jealous rage, the proud brother killed the humble brother. The Creator has cast her remaining son from his service. To protect him from the wrath of the Creator’s most devout, Eve’s only living son is granted a magic rune of protection and flees into the west.

In this section, we see Eve, alone again, wrestling with deep and tragic loss.

Sixty years later, we witness her joy at the birth of another child, Seth.

We watch Seth grow and learn to arbitrate disputes. We see him grow in wisdom and cunning, solving crises, crimes, and problems for the people. He struggles with an overly protective mother, which feels to Eve a lot like rejection.

Later, she witnesses grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The simple office of preisthood has become a political web of alliances and public perception. Worse still, most of her family lack the requisite humility to make proper offerings. This sparks bitterness and infighting, as being favoured grants influence over people and access to mild divine powers.

Protective of her only surviving son, Eve navigates the factionism to keep the anger on her and not Seth. Her only two allies are her husband and a grandson named Enoch who is highly favoured by The Creator.

Interspersed through this period, Eve listens to Enoch’s tall tales of his visit to The Spirit World and his encounters with Angels.

While dealing with all this messy business, Eve must mediate between the nomadic groups who sometimes camp near the mountain and a camp made of stone with a wall around it – something called a “city”, whatever that is.

To her surprise, Eve learns that Enoch grew up in this city, which is named after him. To add tension to all this, the king of this city is her son running a replica of the permanence they know at the foot of the mountain. When the nomads find out, Eve struggles to keep their trust as she negotiates peace between the two groups.

Things only calm down when Enoch marries a nomad chief’s daughter. Eve is suspicious of her new daughter to begin with but warms to her over time.

The political machinations end for Eve when she and her husband abdicate, crowning Seth as the new king and high priest. This forces the city-state of Enoch to become an ally while his wife brings the nomads to the table.

Eve and her husband spend their remaining years in the garden they planted and grew. They agree it is not as they remember the first garden. They hope their Creator will welcome them back one day. With this hope in mind, at age 930, Eve and her husband fall asleep holding hands and pass away together, still two halves of the same whole.

Rob Bignell shared these five sci-fi what-if style prompts.

To: Admiral Zazizch;
By: Encrypted Proxy 92a-256;
Re: Your plan failed
The humans were not intimidated at all. Send reinforcements. Encounter log attached.

(first blogged here)

(first blogged here)