Greetings. We are joyous to have you here. You´re late, but that´s quite alright.

This tale might seem at its end right now. It certainly looks like it by the amount of blood on the pristine marble floors. Any tortured artist with masochist tendencies would end it here, leave it all out to sea for the sake of suffering itself. Leave it to the imagination of the listeners, knowing full well the obscure nature of a person.  It forges a person, it gives character, they would think.

 I, however, am no artist. I simply tell the tales that are told to me. I have a duty to keep this story alive. In memories. In words, tales and songs. Times have always been like this. This is how we know where we come from, the days past we should never come back to, unless to learn.

My apologies, I´m losing the thread here. And we don´t want that. For you to truly understand how we got to this point, we have to go back. Way back. Times when neither you or I existed. Our parents were little and unaware of their surroundings. Our grandparents were the Young then, with destiny in the palms of their hands, and a world to make.

Back then our kingdom was barely forming. We were the same people, of the same land and blood, yet under different Houses.

You will meet them as we go, maybe even recognize where your grandparents came from. Recognizing them by the songs and lore will be easy, maybe even personalities. Not implying everyone is condemned to where they´re from. But some customs are nice to keep. Trust me, I would know.

Find a sit, get close to the fire, it´s a wild and unruly night out there. Creatures are roaming and looking for lost souls. Warm souls are safe, hidden bodies are protected in numbers. We will be alright.

I´ll start at the beginning, it´s been so long since I told it from the beginning, some of you might not even recall. This is great. You can hear it for the first time, and the others can have their memories refreshed. And by the time we come back to this point, you lot will have forgotten about this night. It will be a brand new ending. That´s the charm of it. Wait, did I say ending? No, no. We don´t know that yet. Don´t cause a rouse.

It all starts with the light of the New Moon over the Halen Peaks, it wasn´t cold like it is tonight. Winter was finally dying off, snow melting just in the right spots. Other than that, flowers were fighting to come to life and fill the plains with colors and bee songs.

These Peaks are known to be harsh to strangers, they were ever moving, ever changing at its base. Only those chosen were allowed into the paradise hidden in the middle of them. Plains that extended for kilometers, surrounded by the tall mountains that never let anyone in. The ones who had access were mostly healers and desperate children who needed herbs for their sick parents.

You see, these plains grew powerful flowers and herbs, capable to cure even the sickest person. There were legends of those powerful enough to bring some back from the sweet nest of death. And even those who would end your pain, and send you peacefully to the evergreen tree of souls.

That night was different, however, flames rushed and crashed against the cold rocks of Halen, fighting a losing battle. Animals ran and scattered into one of the five entrances to paradise.

Back then, when people first started to settle down and farm, they eventually found out about these peaks, and the powers within.  So naturally, each first tribe that found an entrance into the fortress, settled. As close to it and as close to any river near. And so, Houses came to be.

As soon as someone could accumulate more things to trade than others, power dynamics were born and with it… House Monarchs. With head of Houses to make hard decisions, collect knowledge and guide their villages… a prosperous time settled. Everyone knew one another and helped one another. But peaceful times bring babies, and too many babies spread the villages thin. Which forced these tribes to no longer act as tribes.

No longer were babies raised by everyone in it, no longer did babies meet everyone they lived with, no longer did they learn the communal rules and customs. And no longer did they learn of their ancestors, of their connection to the earth and water.

Babies grew to kids that segregated themselves into what they knew and others, because they didn´t know them. And kids grew to adults with no customs, no millenary knowledge of their land. They sought what once meant knowledge and prosperity, Monarchy, and twisted it into power over those they did not know. Consequently, treason came and so did vengeance. Villages grew with no control, settlements were allowed anywhere and everywhere as long as they generated goods for the Main House. Land died and water suffered, but these new people didn´t hear their tales, they didn´t grow seeing them as alive, so they didn’t make reparations. They only looked for more. More and more. Until eventually, they met with their neighbor Houses.

The trouble that had been contained within villages suddenly became full blown wars. They could not see they were once the same tribe, with the same stories and songs. They would see eye to eye and not realize it was themselves they were looking at.

Borders rose and military to protect them as well. Sickness came out of anguish, sadness, turmoil, and anger. Sickness recognized them as one, for it did not see boundaries or fell to swords. So the new people looked to the Halen entrances once again, but not with healer eyes, but with crude desire. Evil desire, that which grows not out of love, but that which spreads from possession. Of having what others could