Posted by Gobnait on January 7, 2000 at 20:002:55:
In Reply to: Stories for your enjoyment. posted by Gobnait on January 7, 2000 at 19:49:52:
The Red Sands, a tale of the desert (I originally wrote this for a previous character, but she wasn't very well-known. For the true history of Araile, you'll have to look in the Lyceum.) This is a tale the nomads of the desert tell each other on dark
nights. A long, long time ago, the desert had no color. The sand was
grey as far as the eye could see. And the sand was so light and the wind
so constant that the sky, too, was always grey. The desert was empty
of all but the smallest of life, tiny crawling lizards and beetles.
Then in their wanderings, the People of the First Tribe came into
the desert. The desert was harsh, but the People saw it as large and
wide with room enough for all of them.
And so they built a city in the eastern part of the desert with
great houses of stone to keep the sand out. But wherever the People of
the First Tribe went, their enemies always followed.
And from the south came the Thri-kreen...
And now the desert had color. The sands were stained red with
blood from the People. And stained yellow and tan with the blood of the
Thri-kreen.. The blood weighted down the once light sands, and the wind
could no longer throw the sand in the air. And so the blazing sun and
the azure sky finally looked down on the desert.
The People held a great meeting to decide what to do. They
could not reason or parley with the Thri-kreen, none speaking their
tongue. And the People were divided on what they should do. Some of
the People sickened of the fighting and built ships and sailed eastwards.
No one today knows where they returned to land, if they ever did.
Others of the People said: 'No, we will not leave our land again
and be ever wanderers!' But they could not stay in the big empty city,
with ghosts whispering in the streets. And so they moved west to the
edge of the Sands of Sorrow, where few have gone and fewer still returned.
But the last group, a small group, turned their eyes inwards..And
they called to the gods, and the gods brought a great wind that covered
all the city with sand. Only the entrance to the greatest building, their
temple, was not covered over,
They hid that entrance with their arts and with the sand. And they
decorated the temple with the colors of their war with the Thri-kreen:
red, yellow, and tan, that none of them would ever forget why they dwelt
there. And they dedicated this temple to the seeking of peace and
harmony, determined that there need not always be war.
Today the Temple of the Red Sands is an oasis of calm in a land
of strife. But who is to say if the goal of peace can ever be reached in the
desert?
That is the tale of how color came to the desert, but the future of
the Temple is a story which the sands of time have not yet told.