“Blessings, little muse.”

The wind of a soft voice rolled over the fields of little muses, rousing them like waving grain. Its glory and grace filled them with love. The same voice, the same being, spoke at once to all and to each. She introduced herself as the great elder muse, the first muse, there to greet all those who had been newly conceived. She was as beautiful as her presence was commanding. Her long, sparkling green hair flowed into the world itself, bleeding into the sky and ground beneath them.

Green skin, pointy ears, and big, golden eyes on a youthful face were the hallmarks of a muse. Each of them was born simple, like a rosebud, but like all things, that would change. The muses were all charged with a species and flew off to see whoever awaited them. The voice guided them to their worlds and their first task.

One young muse arrived at a sea of floating planets sprouting tall, coiling tree-like structures of light, wreathed by clouds and incandescent twinkling. Throughout the endless sea of worlds were amorphous flying beings, some more developed and solid than others.

“Those beings in the sky are ideas,” the elder muse explained, hearing the little muse’s questions before they could be asked. “And the planets, those are humans. We live to help intelligent beings and ideas coexist. Neither of them understands the nature of their relationship, but you will. Come with me.”

The elder muse led the little muse toward the base of a human. The world around them shimmered as if passing through an invisible oscillating tunnel. They arrived at a little floating shrub featuring rounded triangular foliage and blue flowers with orange coloring at the center, glowing brightly near two giant humans that intimidated the little muse. Humans were a world unto themselves, and as the muse dove into the human’s environment, the shrub’s twigs and branches became baby trees in a field of grass, the surface of the core.

With a hand on the little muse’s shoulder, the elder muse guided it to a nearby tree struggling to spawn then held an arm toward it. A curtain of blue smoke lifted from the shrub and became a being that resembled the muses, with four limbs and a head, but had no tail. The pudgy creature lacked coordination and fumbled to grab hold of a colored writing stick.

Once it had a grip, a cloud of sparkling pink and yellow joy erupted from the baby human. Right away, the little muse knew what the clouds around the humans were. Not only that but little ideas manifested from the cloud and were drawn toward the human. Two interlocking triangles fluttered around it like a butterfly. Grass sprouted from the ground and a wobbly sphere above shined a carousel of light rays around them.

The joy halted for a moment when the human tried to draw a car but stopped short. It drew the frame and the tires, then a box for the top of the body, but was confused about the doors, since the front and rear doors did not have the same shape. In the muse’s world, the little car drove around wildly as the young human’s frustrations grew, which turned the bright cloud red with agitation.

“Go, little muse, help it,” the elder muse nudged the little muse into action.

The little muse chased down the partially-drawn car and leaped on top of it. Hanging on with both clawed hands, the muse needed more, and its feet transformed into clawed hands to help it hang on. Pulling a hand free, it used its finger to draw a curved line around the rear tire. In an instant, the human’s agitation disappeared and in a moment of inspiration and recollection, it drew a curved line and the cloud around the muse turned happy again. The car settled down and the muse dismounted before it zipped off to jubilantly drive circles around the human.

A tingle swept through the Muse’s body, and it took in a deep breath. The little muse grew slightly and a sense of nourishment filled it from within. Before the little muse, the struggling tree in this little human shrub’s world sprouted to life.

“Continue your deeds, little one, and you shall grow strong and mighty one day. But beware, some ideas are dangerous. You should be prepared to defend yourself,” the elder muse said. She kissed the top of the little muse’s head and floated away, blending into the world and disappearing.

The little muse needed no more direction than that. That sense of nourishment was invigorating and it craved more. The muse returned to the little shrub and helped its ideas along, growing alongside it. Other muses came and went, but the little muse stayed until it came to know failure. One day, the muse was not able to help the little human express an idea. The human tore apart the paper, and the muse watched the idea shatter and fall to the ground like tattered rags, slowly burning at the edges.

Disillusioned, the muse found another human nearby having trouble with their work, so it drifted away to help that human instead. The muse traveled from human to human, realizing the vast menagerie of ideas and personalities in the world.