Long before Kyoshu was a town, it was just a small fishing village off the Sapphire Coast. Its name was Giaju, meaning ‘beloved of the sea’. That is where I was born.

My mother told me I was brought out so quietly into the world that she feared I was stillborn. My father feared I would grow up to be poor-spirited.

I calmed their worries by the age I could walk. I was told I had such vigor, that my father, Daiko, boarded off the house to stop me from running away. I climbed the wooden boards still and would always be carried by our concerned neighbours back to my mother, Yuli, while my father worked.

Once I reached boyhood, my father taught me to fish. It was a fishing village, and near nothing else. I was a curious boy, always wondering where the few hunters went into the woods, but my father scoffed at them. Why bother hunting when the Kaiyen provided for all and more?

I wondered what lay past the woods, what lay past the Coast, even past the Kaiyen. I asked these questions one day to my father, and he saw the curious gleam in my eyes. He was quick to stamp out my youthful ardor.

“You will be a fisherman in Giaju,” he had said firmly. “Empty your mind of these foolish thoughts.”

I did not know what he said was for my own protection. For the island of Shen-La was just an island at this time, not the nation it is today. Each kingdom in Shen-La was ruled by a Tsun, a warlord that kept their soldiers close by and never to protect their borders outside their cities.

***

“Grandpa,” Ryo interrupted. “You said you would tell a story, not a lesson!”

His grandfather’s brows arched with amusement. “Oh? Is my story too boring for you?”

The boy nodded. “You always start by saying your name,” he declared.

“Then let me retell this tale. Ah,” the old man tugged back his fishing line, pulling with alternating hands. Ryo noticed his grandfather’s hands now. They were swarthy and weathered, his knuckles so callused they looked like flat stones atop his thick fingers. The line ended with a small fish, gleaming silver with its wriggling.

He dropped his catch into another bucket filled with seawater and let out a contentful sigh.

"Now it is your turn, Ryo. Do you wish to turn back and show your aunt and uncle this fish?"

"No!" The boy shook his head. "I want to catch my own. Let’s stay."

The old man smiled. "Then we shall stay until you catch your fish. And meanwhile I can retell you my tale. As you said, I will start with my name…"

***

My parents named me Drinn, 'the twilight hour'; as that was when I was born. My line is of my father's, Jenpo. It holds no meaning, but perhaps is akin to the word Jinnto from our Haolan neighbours, meaning 'ruthless rogues'.

I know, no lessons. It is a habit grown these past years. My parents were anything but ruthless rogues, however. They lived off the Kaiyen, the endless water, and taught me how to live off it as well.

The village of Giaju was one of the many fishing villages that dotted the Coast and blended with the rest, of no interest to the warring Tsuns. I dreamt despite my father’s teachings to one day journey outside my village. Many a haul he would cuff my head for my daydreaming of adventure. Many a day we would wake before sunrise, ending in pink sunsets that signalled our journey back home.

Though my father, Daiko, wished me to be a fisherman, he did not want me to be ignorant of the ways of the world. He brought me to the sole village tavern and listen to Elder Lao tell one of his stories with the other children. He would sometimes tell a story every week’s span, and those he told always made us wonder of the world beyond our village. We waited with bated breath, our chattering now silent as the Elder sat upon his round stool, facing us. Beside was another stool where a steaming cup of tea spread its herbal fragrance into the small tavern, smothering the tang of salted fish fry and cloying rice wine.

The Elder was once a monk of the Shenshu, an order of monks originating in Haol. So I had heard from his past story in the Scattering of the Shenshu. His thinning beard was white, though he always kept his head shaven. There was a certain mischief in his dark eyes, as if there was always some joke discovered and he would not tell it. Now, however, his eyes simmered near black, mouth set in a somber line.

He spoke, his voice clear and powerful for one so old, yet honeyed and lilting as a soft lullaby.

“This is a story of the ones that were here before us on this island, Shen-La. The sylven Tribe of the Aqir. Their skin was blue as the Kaiyen, their bodies slender and tall, their ears long and pointed. Their hair was either bracken green or wooden brown, and their eyes were golden. This much is known. They lived here before our Haolan ancestors settled and formed their realm. The Aqir Tribe were a kind race, perhaps even a noble people once. They did not know war, only peace. That would all change when the Haolan people reached their shores.”

The Elder took a sip from the still steaming cup beside him. He continued his tale.

The Haolans. A people that lived to war, and perhaps warred to live. It is not known who made the first move. Only that it was soon found out that the blue skinned Aqir bled red just as us. The once many villages of the Aqir were burned to a mere handful in the span of days. Those villages that had survived had fought with spear, tooth and nail to defend their homeland, their loved ones, and their lives. These surviving sylven now knew the nature of mankind. They knew war.

They drove out the Haolans back to their ships, though they knew that the men would one day return. So they prepared. They gathered their remaining villages and united under one chieftain. His name is not known, but his daughter’s is. Her name was Zefali. She was a beauty among her kind, and the sylven were a beautiful people among humans. To the Aqir she was a princess.

Her eyes were radiant as the sun, marless skin turquoise as the Kaiyen’s clearest waters, and her voice. It was said her voice, clear as a bell's peal and soft as fresh tears, was what caught the ear of the Haolan man that did not escape with the others, left to perish forgotten on the island. For what reason only the Haolans know, and still curse his name to this day. His name was Feng.

He heard her melody while foraging in the woods for food and water. Her words he did not understand, yet it entranced Feng just the same. Her song brought all Haolan poems and songs to wither in shame, for such was its beauty.

Feng peeked past a tree and witnessed her then, singing by a pond so clear you could see its mossy floor. This pond is Waozhung (Lover’s Meeting), resting in the southern woods. The Haolan stepped out of hiding, planning to take the sylvan captive and know their ways. Except it was Zefali who would know Feng, as sylven magic was strong in those times. She touched Feng’s forehead with but a finger, making him still, and with just her touch she tapped into his mind, drawing out all his knowledge, experiences, and secrets.

The Aqir princess knew why the man’s people had reached their shores. A furious storm had taken their fleet off course into Shen-La. Fate seemed cruel then, and Zefali wept at the ill fortune of her people to have met our kind.

Feng awoke to find himself inside of a hollow tree, a web of vines lashed to his head. This was part of the sylven magic, the ways of the forest, the ways of their kind. When Feng tore away the vines encased over his head and left the tree through its open passage, he discovered that he was in a sylvan village. A village like no other in Shen-La however, for this was the last bastion of the Aqir.

The Aqir spoke to him. And he knew their words. Such was the sylven magic done to him, that he could also speak their tongue as well. They took him to the council of chieftains, Zefali’s father, their leader.

His voice echoed in the hall, “The only reason we have not killed you, human, is because of your nature. The seers have seen your life, and have judged you worthy to live. You will now tell us of your people, and if they will return.”

Feng nodded. “My people hail from the realm of Haol. They will return, and with greater numbers.”

Murmurs of dismay filled the hall.

The chieftain said, “You will tell us of your peoples’ tactics. You will tell us of their ways.”

Feng refused. The chieftain would have killed him then, were it not for his daughter Zefali’s lowered hand.

She murmured, “This ushabdi is our only hope to learn of his people. More death will not grow more life. The seers have seen that we are not so different. Let him see that for himself.”

Her father saw his daughter’s wisdom and said, “You shall show him the path.”

Feng was a map maker. He was given back his satchel filled with jars of ink, quills, and his journal. Zefali and Feng held the same distrust of the other, though the sylvan princess would go on to show Feng the ways of her people.

By day he studied the Aqir, and by night he would record their ways into his journal. He would come to know their way of being, the path.

He would learn that it was a shared connection between their people, a shared understanding. By sylven touch one could feel the other’s experiences, their very being. Through the path both sides would know the other wholly.

Feng would talk of his homeland, Haol. Of the Twilight Forest; trees of pink, yellow, and blue blossoms. He spoke of its beauty… and sylven blood needed to take it. He confessed to Zefali some of the things he had seen. Some of the things he had done. He never fully revealed his secrets, but she had already seen the depths of what haunted him.

Zefali spoke of times before the Aqir knew their kind, living one with the land, preserving its bounty and beauty.

One warm summer’s night Zefali took Feng to the same moss floored pond where they had first met and showed him the path, and in doing so they understood each other past words and meaning. Such a thing no human can comprehend, for it built a love between the two that could outlast empires. Many nights they would meet by the pond, Waozhung.

When the chieftain finally discovered their secret love, he became enraged. Feng was imprisoned, Zefali held away from him against her will. She pleaded with her father that they would need Feng, that he would freely reveal the ways of his people. But it was too late.

The Haolans arrived with a fleet worthy of conquering Arcadia itself. They had learned from their past defeat, and would encircle the palisades that would be the last sylven bastion. With pitch and torch they would burn their walls and gates. With murderous steel and arrow they would end the last remaining sylven in Shen-La. When they found Feng they would go on to free him. Then they discovered his journal, declaring him an abomination that would be purged alongside his lover’s people. So he was, and his texts would have been purged as well were it not for a keen minded general who saw such knowledge in its value.

He would go on to understand the sylven, so that the Haolans would use such knowledge in the Forest Crusades, but that is another story…

One of the boys began to bawl, wailing, “Why did they kill the Akweer princess?”

Elder Lao set his gaze upon the boy, growing silent under his unblinking scrutiny. "We are the descendants of the Haolans that settled here. This is the way of our world. Our hands are soiled in bloodshed since before our time, and we can only hope to atone for our ancestors’ deeds. Treat one another with kindness, so that Mother Sheia may forgive us all.”

The boy started crying once more, as did soon the other children. All except for me. I was baffled by the Elder’s tale, and when the children lined out I asked him, “Elder, are we evil people for living here?”

The old man gave a sad smile. “The grass is eaten by the deer, the deer is eaten by the wolf, and the wolf eaten by the tiger. We cannot change the ways of this world, little one, but we can change our ways. Live with decency, and you will honor the ones who came before us.”