The Eala Origin

Three dolls made,
With love immense.
Gifts from the elder,
To three children dead.

The Eala origin is the history of the wolven, mustenel, and felinic races, and by extension is believed to be a part of foxen history (though they are not considered Eala races).

The tale is believed to have roots in the Eight Star religion, due to its heavy featuring of mustenel people. Alongside it’s ties to the Eight Star, some Animon believe the Great Darkness is the same one featured in the Darkness of Demrefor, when the felinic Higrunchi leapt into the sky and saved them from never-ending night. And others believe it is related to the world’s second beginning, from the Rendi Origin.

These views are not shared by all, however. Many believe the Great Darkness to be unrelated to the other origin tales.

It starts in the time before the Great Darkness, when three boys were given dolls from their grandmother, and details the aftermath of their deaths.

The Eala Origin

In ancient times, when the world was owned by nurlak and the first sun was still shining brightly, old woman Eala killed a small tree-dwelling dormaalocyon and turned its skin into three dolls for her three grandsons. Wolven, Felinic, and Mustenel.

But before the year was up, the sky turned against the planet. It killed the stars and sun and lit up green with murderous lightning that struck the planet and its inhabitants mercilessly.

The three boys died clutching their dolls for comfort as the sky began its attack. Struck by the powerful lightning that pulled them into the darkness above, the boys’ souls were forced from their bodies and took refuge in the nearest things to them; the dolls they had hugged close in their fear.

They came to life in a flash of blue and black, possessed by the souls of the lost children and fleeing into the dark that had overtaken taken the world.

With the sky gone, spirits had no afterlife to move on to and wandered the planet, trapped between the mortal realm and the afterlife. Powerless as the world they had loved was slowly destroyed.

Desperate to help the dead, Eala’s grandchildren found animals that had been killed by the sky’s attacks and stole their skin. Using skills learnt from their beloved Eala, they turned the animals into dolls like themselves; weaving them so carefully it was scarcely possible to tell they were nothing more than fabric and fur.

The Eala children gave these dolls to the wandering spirits, who possessed them and were finally able to fight back against the sky. They threw energy from their very souls upwards; creating great blue fire that burnt away the lightning and fought back the darkness.

So the war began.

The war lasted too long to remember, and more death than can be imagined filled the world. Animals became a scarcity, and their fur even scarcer.

Still, the siblings did their duty, sewing dolls from the skin of the once-mortal dead in their desperation to fight the sky.

They dared not to tell the spirits where their new bodies came from, and guilt plagued them worse than their memories of the green lightning’s pain.

This guilt caused a falling out among the Eala siblings and they separated, though they still continued to build their clans, even in different lands.

They fought for many years until the sky gave up the war and, in a flash of silver, began the horror of the Great Darkness.

The Mustenel clan had been there when the sky went silver.

The sky had sent a green moon to crush the planet, but being the most aggressive clan they had fought back with their blue fire until the moon had screamed a ripple of silver surrender which ceased the sky’s lightning.

Slowly, the ripple spread, repeating and repeating, killing the sky’s attacks until the sky itself died and the clouds turned hard and fell to the planet with a force so hard they cracked the ground.

Still the mustenel fought. They leapt into the sky to fight off the falling clouds and were hit with the silver blast. They filled with power so strong that their tails split into nine just to contain it.

Their bodies couldn’t handle the sudden rush of power and they grew sick with magic.

The Felinic clan had borne witness to the sudden sickness that befell their cousin clan of Mustenel, and in their fear they fled to the farthest parts of the world to hide from the falling sky.

But as the lights went out they found there was nowhere to hide from the Great Darkness. They were on the wrong side of the world; where even the stars didn’t dare follow.

In a desperate attempt to survive, the Felinic clan tied their tails together, stretching them to their limits to keep their clan from separating. And as the Great Darkness continued the Felinic clan found their senses adjusted to their new world; their eyes could see in the dark, and their ears grew sensitive.

They became comfortable in the dark— Some say even more-so than they had ever been in the light.

The Wolven clan, in the dim light of nothing but a piece of glowing horn stolen from the Island Mover Vale Nor, found shelter from the Great Darkness in the coldest lands of the world.

They travelled until the world got so chilled it hardened into snow and ice, and then continued until even the ocean began to freeze. It was here they settled, on the ice covering the sea that was thick enough to carry their weight.

They learnt to live in the cold climate; eating fish from the ocean and foraging what little grew in this icy expanse.

And most of all, they learnt to survive the giant beasts that were as desperate as themselves.

Separate the three clans lived in the Great Darkness. Until one day a bright light lit up the world’s rebirth and a new sun rose.

The sky, once green with death, became blue with life and the world basked in its beauty.

The call of the new sun drew the Eala children back to their home, where they made peace and were finally able to move into the afterlife they longed for, knowing that it was over:

That the world had won and balance had been restored.

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