Chapter Text
In the Beginning, there was no 'civilization,' as people had yet to become civil. There were tribes and clans, and scarce resources within a growing population. Mammalkind had evolved enough to be intelligent and self-aware, and had developed what tools they could with stone, wood and fire-cured clay: there was architecture, there was agriculture, and there was art of a sort, and there were as many languages as there were species of people.
In this time, people knew where they stood in the greater 'society' centered around sources of fresh water. In times of plenty, the people descended from 'prey' species traded vegetables for durable goods with the people descended from 'predator' species. In times of scarce water, there was much less trade due to the ever-present tension between the two kinds of mammals; there were no laws preventing 'predators' from killing and eating 'prey.' Thus, the invention of civil engineering: the first public projects were fortified walls to defend the more vulnerable mammals from predation. The next public projects were related to water conservation and crop irrigation.
With all of this came the development of written language. With that invention, Civilization was born, regardless of whether people were ready to be civil with each other. At the very least, they were more able to communicate with each other across the river, across social and evolutionary divides.
Then there was the Difficult Time. No calendar recorded which year this was, but this was a very important Time in the history of mammalkind: many things would arise from this Difficulty, in response to natural disasters.
The first natural disaster to arise was the Swarm; a wave of locusts that threatened to consume all crops, even to destroy the grasses and tree leaves that some herbivores preferred. As this threatened the availability of food not only for 'prey' but also for 'predators,' the people on both sides of the rivers - and both sides of the evolutionary divide - worked cooperatively to address the Swarm.
It was discovered by accident that smoke from smoldering wood incapacitated insects: thus, the advent of smoke used as insect control. Also invented around this time was the fine mesh weave, used to make great nets to capture locusts.
It was entirely by accident that the deep-fried locust was invented when a locust, felled by smoke, landed in the pot of palm oil whence the smoke came. An adventurous and/or hungry lion was the first to smell the aroma of a cooking locust, and then the first to taste it. He declared it to be good: crunchy on the outside and not-as-crunchy on the inside, with a satisfying greasy finish.
The first cooperative operation between 'prey' and 'predator' had arisen. The 'prey' people captured locusts to defend their crops and also to trade with the 'predator' people: the more locusts the 'predators' had, the less likely the 'predators' were to consider eating 'prey.' The 'predator' people worked side-by-side in the lands of the 'prey' people, gathering and cooking locusts. And so had passed the first tribulation of the Difficult Time; a threat to the farms had become a solution for both kinds of people.
At the end of the Swarm, the chiefs and shamans of both clades met with each other and exchanged writings, most of them about philosophy and religion. Thus was Diplomacy invented, with the promise that the chiefs and shamans of each side would at least communicate with each other before doing anything drastic.
Then there was the Drought. That problem was as much an existential threat to both people as was the Swarm before, but there was no easy solution. As the river became more and more shallow, the peoples of both clades prepared for war.
In the desert hills that surrounded the lowlands by the river, was wilderness. In this wilderness was a hill with a considerably large cave. Nobody ever went very far into the cave, for fear of what might lurk in the darkness. Even though the people had mastered fire, they still had more important things to do than explore a cave and resolve an ancient fear of the unknown. This year, with the Drought, nobody really cared at all about the cave.
Both clades of civilization believed that someone - or possibly many people - lived in the cave. This person or people were rumored to be wild, feral unevolved creature(s) that knew nothing of civilization. That wasn't even remotely true, as it turned out: the person who lived in the cave was evolved, civilized, and fluent in languages of both clades. Upon hearing of the Drought, he went from the cave (which was inland, on the 'predator' side of the river) to the village, and sought out the chiefs of the various people.
When asked where he had come from, the cave-male said he had always been in the cave, but also in the village and the village of the 'prey' people on the other side of the river. When asked how old he was, he said he didn't keep count of the years. When he was asked his name, he said he was nameless.
When he was asked why he had come to the village, he said he had come to find an underground lake to relieve the drought. And that's when the chiefs thought he was crazy and advised the nameless hermit to go bother some shaman about such nonsense. With that dismissal, the nameless male left the chiefs.
That same day, a nameless female sought the counsel of the various shamans, and managed to convince a couple of them that there was an underground lake not too far from the village, and could show the shamans where this lake was if provided with a single freshly-cut forked branch from a yew tree. The shamans, being more open-minded to things that sounded weird but could still be plausible, gave the nameless female the forked yew branch as requested, and followed along as she walked out of the village, seemingly following the single tip of the forked branch as she gently held the forked ends in her hands.
When they had passed the village walls, and passed the withering village farms outside the walls, the tip of the branch dipped slightly downward, then suddenly plunged into the ground as if it were a small yew tree with two branches. "Dig here," said the nameless one, further instructing them to line the hole with stone as they went deeper.
In response to this, one of the shamans went to the chiefs and requested a few hands for some time. Thinking that the shaman meant to erect some sort of shrine or temple in the farming area, the chief recruited seven of the least intelligent able-bodied males and told them to follow the shaman's instructions.
Within two days, they had dug a well very deep, and soon found themselves standing in mud. They dug further, pressing stones against the muddy walls as hard as they could, until they were standing hip-deep in murky water. Declaring that her work here was done, the nameless female left the village.
Across the river, a guard atop the walls of the heavily fortified 'prey' village saw a male wading across the river. This male was of course stopped at the shore by the village guards and interrogated at length about who he was and why he was there, and the male only provided mysteries. "My name? You can name me," he said. The nameless one asked for an audience with the chiefs of the various people, explaining that he had mystical instructions for a water source. The head of the guard decided that it would best to bypass the chiefs on this matter, directing the nameless one directly to the shamans.
Two days later, the village of the 'prey' people had a well in the center of their village.
When the rains came, the river was filled again, and the chiefs and shamans of the villages on both sides of the river decided to do that 'diplomacy' thing again, there no longer being a reason for war. So a day and a time was set when all of the assorted leaders of the villages would meet in the 'prey' village.
The chief of the Leopards spoke of the hermit who allegedly lived in the caves far from the village, and how the hermit had come to talk about some nonsense about digging for water. The shamaness of the Lion people spoke of a nameless female lion who had found water in the fields outside the wall. The shaman of the Jackal clade said it was a jackal bitch who followed the split yew branch to the water source. The Wise One of the Hare warrens said it was a doe hare who led the 'prey' people to dig a well. No, it was a doe gazelle, corrected the shaman of the Gazelle clade.
All of the shamans and chiefs reported being visited by on solitary person, the hermit from the caves beyond civilization, although each chief and shaman reported that hermit as being one of their species.
This is when the shamans and their acolytes really started paying attention, and the presence of a written language was crucial to their recording of how the Nameless Hermit of Every People brought water to their villages.
A generation later, the villages had reduced their defense budgets and focused on inter-clade trade, there being an increased demand in fired ceramic pots and fried locusts. It was an era of common development between the clades, both sociologically and economically, and especially culturally.
All was well, until the next Drought. The chiefs and shamans anxiously awaited the return of the 'nameless, species-ambiguous one' to return to them to bring them water. Days and weeks passed with no miracles, and the clades once again prepared to fight for what meager water the drying river provided.
The chief of the Lion pride had visibly posted armed soldiers along the creek (formerly a river). The chief of the Gazelle herd was wishing he had spent more time on developing defense rather than cultural exchange. The chiefs of the Hare clans prepared to defend their farms, the anchor of their the village.
When the chief of the Buffalo herd was asked if he believed in miracles, he said that he not only believed in them, but depended on them. The shamans on either side, if asked the same question, would say that they not only depended upon miracles but were actively attempting to invoke them. And so the soldiers prepared for war, the chiefs prayed as hard as they could, the shamans worked their mysterious works, and the nameless gender-and-species-ambiguous hermit awoke yet again, rhetorically asking themself why those people in the villages couldn't keep the peace when the river got a bit low like it did some years ago. Time to each these people another lesson, they resolved and once again left the cave.
The hermit passed through the 'predator' side of what was becoming the same village undisturbed, because all who saw the hermit saw a person like themselves. Once the hermit reached the line of Lion soldiers at the riverfront, the nameless hermit walked through the creek, seeming to be a lion to the lions, a hare to the hares, and stood on an exposed stone in the creek, previously far under water in better days.
"Dig your wells deeper," the Hermit spake, at a conversational volume that nonetheless sounded as if it were next to the ears of all who were there. "Dig your wells deeper, and learn to live in peace."
"To heck with peace," said the highest ranking members of the guard on both sides, and the Hermit was felled by an arrow from one side of the river and a thrown spear from the other side. The Hermit fell from the stone, into the water, and was washed away.
As the Lion soldiers prepared to march across the river, and the Hares and Gazelles readied their weapons for defense, the sky turned dark as if the sun had suddenly run out of hydrogen eight minutes prior. In this darkness, only the stars lit the sky. Nervous soldiers held their ground on both sides, nervous chiefs consulted with nervous shamans, and nervous acolytes took copious notes of as much as they could.
Seconds passed like hours, as the soldiers awaited orders from their superiors, who were either awaiting orders from their superiors further up the chain of command or were just dumbstruck beyond the ability to command soldiers. Chiefs demanded answers from the shamans or outright questioned their credibility. Shamans, in turn, did what most wise people would have done in situations like this, which was to keep silent and wait.
The Sun reappeared as a faint crescent sliver, like a freshly waxing Moon. As the minutes passed, the Sun came back incrementally, like a Moon going from New to Full, only in a course of hours instead of weeks, and coming back full with a greater brightness than the Moon could ever have.
In the middle of the river, the Hermit stood once again, free of projectile weapons and their wounds. "Are you paying attention now?" they asked, again at a conversational voice right next to everyone's ears. "I said, dig your wells deeper and learn to live in peace. Promise to do this, because you now know what can happen if you disappoint not just me, but each other, all of Mammalkind."
"What if we don't promise?" shouted a particularly belligerent and apparently agnostic Lion spearman. "What then?" That spearman was taken aside for a moment by his supervisor, also a spearman but with one additional stripe on his shoulder. "Don't tempt fate," he ordered his subordinate, "or we'll never see the Sun again."
The chiefs and shamans of the various species of the two sides of the river ran down to meet this Hermit who apparently could cause solar eclipses on demand. As the assorted wise people rushed to meet the wisest person they could think of at the moment, that wise person, the once-slain and never-named Hermit, simply walked up the river, appearing to them all as a member of their own species.
"Don't bring your promises to me," the Hermit whispered into all ears at once; "bring your promises to each other." And so when the leaders of the various people met in the river, they only had each other to meet - again.
There are several legends and religions that mention that first Covenant, some of them mention only one source of water and no wells, some mention one particular lake or pond at which the Covenant was agreed upon, but all of them agree in two points: the Hermit or Messenger or Prophet or whatever was a person who could appear as any species and was thus relevant to all people, and that the Covenant forbade the killing of mammals for the purpose of food, even in the most dire of circumstances. (Other kinds of murder, such as warfare, executions and recreational non-nutritive mammal-cide weren't specifically forbidden by the Covenant; those were covered by local law and/or religion.)
In times of peace, many great cities across the world had erected monuments to that Covenant, many of them allegorical statues of the Hermit/etc. as a chimera representing all peoples, all of them involving a fountain or reflecting pool of some sort. Zootopia had one such monument, a fountain in Watering Hole Park in downtown Savanna Central. The designers decided to not include an allegorical figure of anyone, since such representation varied by culture, and Zootopia was designed to be a city for all mammals of all cultures. Still, the fountain served its purpose: everyone knew what it represented, as much as they adhered to the Covenant.