II. The Ocean of the Sky

With their legs finding the strength to walk, the young Datura carried their feet across the desert, step by step, into their naming day.

The young Datura wandered until they encountered a series of clay structures, each one unique in its way. One was wide and long, like the eating den at the creche but tall. Even more of the clay were creche-like huts, each radically smaller despite being grouped closely together. Most upsetting to the young one, however, was the emptiness that surrounded this place - not a Datura could be seen.

“You are a long way from the creche, little one.”

The young Datura spun quickly to see a wet, gray, dripping beast of a thing towering over them with a slimy mandible extended. The young one yelped, feet kicking back into the sand instinctively to push away from the threat. The Beast seemed also surprised at this, itself stepping back with a yell before producing another gloopy arm, whatever could amount for a head taking stock of its two gloopy limbs.

“Oh, no. I’m sorry, little loam.” The beast’s skin seemed to melt into the ground, flowing off of its “head”, leaving behind only the sight of a thin, fairly harmless Datura - a Clayclaw, covered from head to toe in sticky mud. “There’s a big crop on the way, and I’ve been asked to build out the trellis for our new vines. What brings you so far out, so alone?”

The young Datura’s mind focused on this new reality, their limbs no longer surging with survival. As the beast-that-wasn’t extended a hand, the young Datura took it, standing to their full height with confidence. It was with that confidence that they kept their face still through the entirely disgusting feeling of mud between the fur of their fingers.

“I...have been tasked...with understanding the sun and moon.” A gritty schlop moved between their thumb and forefinger, and they swallowed their stomach. “Where they go when not in the sky.’

“Ahhh!” The Clayclaw’s eyes lit up, the mouth opening into a wide grin. They threw their arms out and their head back towards the sun, still in its morning sky. “This is a truth known to all who sink their hands into the sands! You know it as you feel the ocean of the sky peel off your fur and feel reality move again from change to stasis.” Stopping their reverence, they looked down. “Do you know of Clay, child?”

The young one’s stomach bubbled as globs of clay agonizingly schlopped off of the Clayclaw’s outstretched arms.

“I know of it.”

With a flick of a wrist, one mass of mud moved off of the Datura’s arm and towards their outstretched palm.

“The earth is full of dirt and ground, from which we all spring. We have come from it, and we have been given the means to shape it. The sun and moon provide so much, but for us - for the people of clay and sand, of earth and dirt - they are the great kiln and the great provider. They manage the wet and the dry so that we might better express the earth to itself.”

Just like that, the mud formed into a flat plane, with two orbs rotating through it. As one orb passed, bits of the plane pulled up into the high orb, and as the other orb passed through the plane to replace the first, small bits were dropped down. The granular looseness of the mud had transformed suddenly into smooth, mixed clay, and the young one became briefly transfixed in the graceful dance of dirt.

“When the moon sits high, it sips off the great Ocean of the sky. It grows heavy and sinks into the ground, where it fills the eager soil with its bounty. The earth is full of the cosmos, which we shape - and during the day, the Great Kiln of the Sun warms the earth until it is still.”

The clay spectacle quickly morphed, the Clayclaw closing their hand around it and presenting it to the young one. Slowly opening it, they revealed a small sculpture of a lotus petal, hard as stone.

“Clayclaw thank the work of the moon and sun, and are honored to help things find their shape.”

Awed, the young datura needed another suggestion before realizing the lotus was a gift to be taken. They happily took it, feeling the warmth of its skin, so much nicer than the grittiness of the mud.

“Thank you, Clayclaw.”

“Thank you, little loam.” With a bow, the Clayclaw turned, the dirt and mud and clay and silt and loam bubbling at their base before crawling up the rest of the body and covering them in their bubbling canvas, and continued with their work.

Taking another moment to admire the work of the Clayclaw, the young datura tucked the stone lotus into the front pocket of their satchel before continuing their march across the Daturalands.

Wherever they might go next, it is only closer to themselves.