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==The Albatross and the Storm ==
''by Celebras Eleran ''


It happened long ago, when Phelim's moons were still new in the skies, 
four wondrous orbs shining gleefully down upon Elanthia.  It was a time 
when the lands seemed full grown, and the races matured.  Great cities 
had been built, with gleaming towers rising up towards the heavens, and 
magnificent temples were reared in adoration of the gods.  Forests tall 
and thick stretched from ocean to ocean and fields of richest soil were 
carefully tilled.  The peoples were settled, toiling peacefully under 
the warm sun, celebrating happily under the beautiful harvest moons. 
Affliction and strife seemed absent for a time, as serenity reigned. 

Far above those tranquil realms, Xibar slowly rose in the skies, a 
striking, vibrant blue against the vast inky curtain of darkness behind. 
Its sweeping waters, endlessly churning to Elanthia's pull, seemed a 
smooth sapphire against a black velvet drape.  Yet in those waters, life 
teemed.  Fishes more dazzling than the brightest of Elanthia frolicked 
amid the caverned corals.  Turtles aged and immense floated through the 
sun-filled seas.  Dolphins and whales, massive scallops and starfish, 
all frolicked within the endless ocean. 

Eluned took delight in the vast expanse of Xibar's waters, which were 
now her favorite playground.  Drogor, her son, shared in her joy, for 
in the broad reaches of those seas without end, he was free to toss the 
waves in unbridled storm.  Typhoons he raised, more fierce than the 
wildest storms of Elanthia, larger than the entire province of Therengia. 
The skies would darken to the deepest pitch of night under his storm 
clouds filled with rain.  Below the surface, Drogor's sharks were 
unrivaled for ferocity, if not for size or speed.  Drogor also took 
pleasure in being at his mother's side, without competition for her 
affections or attention, and on Xibar's watery expanse, Eluned saw no 
reason to restrain him as upon Elanthia. 

Yet Eluned was not altogether happy.  The bond between her and her 
daughter Lemicus was as strong as between any mother and daughter, and 
so when Eluned took her pleasure in the seas of Xibar, the separation 
from Lemicus was not easy to bear.  Lemicus was tied to the lakes and 
streams of Elanthia, and took her joy in those meres and brooks that 
dotted the surface of lush Katamba.  The salt of Xibar's water was 
unpleasant to her, and so not often did she visit her mother there. 
Of this, Drogor only was pleased, for ever was he jealous of his mother's 
affections for any but him. 

Though Eluned knew that Lemicus would never abide the salt waters of Xibar, 
she thought long and hard for some way to ease the separation from her 
daughter.  One day Eluned and Lemicus walked together on Elanthia along 
the shores of a great estuary, where the salt waters of the deep mixed 
with the fresh running rivers descending from mountains far away.  It 
was a bright day in fall, with crisp leaves starting to drop onto the 
gently coursing waters, and a gentle breeze began to ripple the surface. 

"My daughter," began Eluned slowly, "I know you will never frequent the 
seas of Xibar at my side, as does Drogor.  But is there not some way, 
perhaps, that you can touch my world there, and ease your mother's sorrow?" 

"Good Mother, you know that it is not for want of love that I do not 
cleave to you there.  The clear springs and freshets that ease my soul, 
and that need my tending, are here on Elanthia, and above on fair Katamba. 
Xibar is wholly yours, Mother, and appeals to me not.  Its taste, its 
depths, and the beasts that swim there, are not of my design, nor do they 
have my love.  Here I have my joy," she said, turning her gaze upon the 
sparkling waters that welled inland from the barrier islands, which 
offered protection from the driving ocean currents.  "Here, and from each 
mouth that pours into these streams.  From the smallest mudhole, leagues 
upon leagues from here, where the tiniest tadpoles swim their lives, to 
the swift running rivers that crash over rocks and falls to reach this 
spot, the whole while pushing salmon to leap ever onward towards their 
breeding shoals.  This is why I will never spend long with you upon that 
moon.  I cannot bear the separation from these waters or from those 
beings that live in them." 

Eluned sighed softly, and was silent for some time, taking in the living world that called so strongly to her daughter.  "Your love for the high 
waters is as strong as my own for the deep.  Are we then doomed only to 
meet here, at the borders of our paradises?  Where the salt from my depths 
softly combines with your sweetness?" 

Lemicus looked about her once more, before answering her mother.  "If I 
cannot myself stay at your side there, then I shall send with you a 
reminder of me.  I shall give you a brace of my water birds, those I 
cherish above all else.  When you see them frolicking above the water, 
you shall think of me, you shall hear the calling of my heart in the 
calling from their throats, and you shall feel me at your side." 

Then Lemicus thought carefully on her gift, for prudent choosing was 
before her.  Many birds were her delight, all waterfowl from her lakes 
and riverbanks.  The kingfisher had its stout beak, the mallard its 
splendid emerald crown.  The egret had a most regal bearing, but the 
loon had its enchanting song.  In the end, though, Lemicus turned to 
the birds that most captured her heart, the swan and the albatross. 

The swan was the most bewitching, its graceful neck curving elegantly 
towards the demure head.  No wasteful sound issued from its throat. 
Without the slightest pretense or show, it commanded the attention and 
awe of any who should be near, yet the swan merely paddled on with its 
silent stroke beneath the surface, placid and content.  Where the swan's 
serenity mirrored the smooth lakes upon which it rested, the albatross 
was the very image of the rushing streams of the highlands it called 
home.  Like those torrents that dash against the granite stones as 
they tumble noisily downwards, pure, clear and bracing cold, the 
albatross was sheer strength against the blustery churning winds, and 
its clarion call carried across the tumult.  With its clean lines, 
smooth and muscular, the powerful bird was fashioned to brave the water's 
chill and the wind's bite.  Indeed, the albatross was the very first 
bird which Lemicus conceived, whereas the swan was the very last. 

Long she pondered those two beloved birds, but in the end it was the 
power of the albatross which tipped the scale.  The heaving swell of 
the open ocean, and the unchecked wrath of Drogor demanded the bravest 
of her fresh-water birds.  Lemicus knew as well that her choice would be 
tested by the birds of the sea which flocked to Xibar.  The raucous 
gulls would not lightly be challenged in their feeding grounds.  So 
Lemicus turned to her favorite bird of old, the hardy albatross, and 
she gave it even a portion of her own magic. With Eluned's aide, they 
carried a single mating pair to Xibar, nestled in the folds of their 
raiment, and once there they strengthened the two albatrosses and 
transformed them into true seabirds.  Mother and daughter nurtured 
the pair as they adjusted to the change in waters, the taste of new 
foods and the absence of land.  With the enchantment of both goddesses, 
the albatrosses hardened and grew stronger, hale enough to live and 
prosper without the care of Lemicus.  Finally, Lemicus withdrew from 
Xibar once more, with heavy heart at parting from her mother, but with 
eased pain in the gift she left behind.  As Eluned watched her daughter 
leave, a smile crossed her lips, for the laughing albatrosses were nearby, 
flying close to one another through the wind.  Sinking beneath the waves, 
Eluned was already contemplating how to provide the pair with a mating 
ground on the back of an aged sea-turtle. 

Thus the separation of mother and daughter passed a little easier now, 
and as time went by the first albatross egg arrived.  From it grew a 
strong, young male bird, larger than either of its parents.  Its sleek 
white body feathers gleamed in the flickering sunlight reflected off 
the ocean waves, while its wings were traced coal-grey.  A thick 
powerful neck would help it fly through the fiercest storms.  The magic 
of Eluned and Lemicus was truly realized in the offspring of that mating 
pair, for the young which they were to produce were truly seabirds, for 
whom land would be a foreign thought.  As the young bird passed its first 
year, more eggs arrived, the beginnings of future flocks. 

Not everyone took joy in the new seabirds, however.  As ever before, 
Drogor's jealousy began to rise.  Even on Xibar now, he though furiously, 
Eluned's care and devotion was somehow being turned towards Lemicus, 
not him.  The albatrosses became the focus of his anger.  First, he raised 
the storms of the sea against them.  Stronger than any storms he had ever 
raised on Elanthia, with winds whipping violently, rain and waves slashing 
through the air, Drogor sent these storms at the albatrosses.  To no avail 
he hurled his anger at them, for the magic that coursed through their 
blood now made them impervious to his stormy wrath, and the young male 
bird was too strong to be taken by those winds.  With his immense 
wingspan, he rode out the storm, flying before its terror. 

After the storms dwindled away, Drogor attacked from below.  If he could 
not beat them in the air, he thought, he would destroy their hatching 
grounds from the water.  The great sea turtles that Eluned bade rise and 
float, allowing their immense backs to be the solid nesting grounds 
for the albatross, drifted unaware through the warm seas.  Towards them 
Drogor sent his greatest sharks of the deep.  The placid turtles would 
not have survived, for even their protective shells were no match for 
the piercing teeth of the sharks.  Yet the course of the sharks was 
marked by other creatures of the deep, and before they could attack 
the sea turtles, the sharks were stopped by Eluned's dolphins.  Faster 
than any shark, the dolphins circled around them, darting in an out when 
an opening presented itself and smashing their stout noses into the 
sharks' sides, snapping and cracking the great beasts' ribs.  Before 
long, whales arrived to help.  Not even the most fearless shark chose to 
match tooth against tooth with the great orca, and so this second attack 
was beaten back, and the albatrosses remained the barb in Drogor's side. 

Drogor then contrived his most wicked plan to strike back at the birds 
that angered him so.  He thought to himself, if he could not harm the 
albatrosses of Xibar, strengthened as they were by the enchantments of 
Lemicus and Eluned, then perhaps he could take his revenge upon Elanthia's 
birds.  Smaller and weaker, they could never withstand the full force of 
Drogor's wrath unleashed.  So he waited, harboring his power and biding 
his time.  Finally a day came when Eluned was in the deepest depths 
of Xibar, carving out a vast sunken grotto, and Lemicus was busy dancing 
among waterfalls on the far side of Katamba beneath the starry skies. 
Drogor began his attack. 

Though not seabirds themselves, the albatrosses of Elanthia were never far 
from the sea, their windswept highland homes most often found on rugged, 
turf-covered lands within leagues of the sea cliffs.  So Drogor flung his 
whole might into the wind and rain of his ocean storms, sending tidal 
waves crashing over the cliffs, and hurricanes blowing inland.  Never 
before had Elanthia seen such dreadful destruction, for never before had 
Drogor been free to loose his tempests without Eluned or Lemicus striving 
against him.  The peoples of Elanthia huddled inside their strongest 
dwellings, unable to face the terrible storms, yet Drogor wasted not 
sending his force against their cities.  His one aim, for he knew he 
had but the one opportunity, was to rid Elanthia of Lemicus's precious 
albatross.  Seven hours his storms raged without ceasing.  Seven hours 
was daylight hidden from the world by Drogor's chaos.  When finally it 
was over, there was not an albatross to be found.  Their nests were 
destroyed, and each bird had been blown far out to sea to perish and 
sink into the ocean, there to be devoured by greedy sharks. 

When Lemicus finally heard the cries of her beloved birds she raced to 
Elanthia, but was too late.  All had been lost.  Drogor had fled, 
escaping to some unknown deep ocean cavern.  Though the storms had 
subsided, the races of Elanthia now feared the mournful keening that 
was Lemicus's lament.  Such a cry of anguish, it was heard as far away 
as Xibar, carried on the winds. 

There, aloft over the endless oceans, the pair of albatrosses wept, 
for they heard in the cry of Lemicus the death knell of their kind 
on Elanthia.  Nuzzling one another in comfort, they glanced upon the 
young chicks taking their first flights below them, and saw in the 
distance their first born, still youthful, rising high above the 
waves effortlessly.  They knew that they must make the attempt. 
They must return somehow to the place they had been born, and start 
again.  They would fly the empty space between the moon and Elanthia, 
trusting to the magical protection of Lemicus and Eluned, and hope 
beyond hope to bring life again to the empty breeding grounds.  Knowing 
they might never return alive, they took one last loving look at their 
children, whom they knew would survive without them now, and then beat 
their wings strongly, carrying themselves ever upwards.  Without 
looking back, they climbed above the clouds, the great vastness of 
Elanthia growing huge before them.  Had they looked back, they might 
have noted that their first born had espied their flight, and was 
following them close behind, his curiosity and love for them too strong 
to allow them to leave alone. 

Whether it was the magic that was within them, or merely the urgency of 
their mission carrying them onward, the three birds flew like the wind, 
crossing the great divide between moon and planet.  They descended 
towards Elanthia, towards the highlands that once was their home, but 
now was a wasteland of windtossed turf.  There they found Lemicus 
weeping, and they alit at her feet.  Through the tears she smiled at 
them, this devoted pair of birds and their first-born, that traversed 
space to ease her pain.  Lemicus spoke to them, and knew why they had 
come.  The love-joined couple would start life again on Elanthia, as 
they had already begun it on Xibar. 

After a time, the two birds turned from the scene of destruction and flew 
to the very edge of the sea cliffs, and there built their nest.  Their 
first-born journeyed far and wide across the oceans of Elanthia, but 
always came upon a distant shore, which confused him.  Gone was the 
endless ocean of his birth, replaced now by the broken, interrupted 
seas.  His heart saddened, but he would not leave his parents yet.  When 
his first siblings hatched in the nest, he returned to be at their side. 
His parents looked on proudly, but the new hatchlings were like the 
first-born, strong and large.  Like those hatched on Xibar, these were 
a new breed of Albatross, made to live on the open ocean, with long 
wings to withstand the buffeting sea winds.  Never more would an inland 
albatross be hatched.  Never more would the albatross of Lemicus live 
over the freshwater streams of the highlands.  Only rarely would any 
on land glimpse the seabirds at all. 

When the new hatchlings could fly, the first-born taught them the ways 
of the sea, and drew them far out over the oceans, where forever they 
would spend their lives.  Once his lessons were taught, though, the 
he became sad and restless, yearning for the unending oceans of 
Xibar.  Finally, taking leave of his mother and father, he soared 
higher and higher, until Elanthia grew dim below him.  Yet though he 
saw blue Xibar grow near, the first-born was suddenly struck by the 
immense expanse of space, black and empty, stretching forever.  He 
turned aside from Xibar, and instead flew deeper into the darkness. 
"Here is the most endless of all oceans", he thought.  "Perhaps I shall 
fly here for a time, before I return to the waters of my youth." 

Seeing his flight, Lemicus was saddened and wistful, for here was the 
greatest ever of her birds.  The most brave, the most powerful, the 
largest albatross was flying away from her, to explore the far reaches 
of the dark ocean of night.  The albatrosses of Elanthia were still 
hers, but rarely would she ever see them, flying as they do now far 
out to sea.  Only when they return to the rocky headlands for mating 
can she sit amongst them.  The mated pair that risked everything to 
bring albatrosses back to Elanthia, began to fly near Lemicus constantly, 
never straying from her side unless upon some mission for her.  Some say 
that Lemicus even poured more of her magic into those two birds, such 
that they still live today, gliding beside her, and have even learned 
to speak the tongues of the land.  Still, Lemicus's thoughts often 
stray to that one brave albatross, still soaring across the night sky. 
She asked good Phelim to provide a light to always guide it, and so 
Phelim cast twenty-one twinkling stars over its broad, outstretched 
wings, to help it always see its way, and so those below might 
sometimes glimpse its flight.  One can only wonder now, when the 
first-born will ever tire of the unending reaches, and return to the 
salted spray and the crashing of the waves.{{Cat|Books}}