The story of sun and moon

The writing style might need some getting used to its tied to a few styles found in fairytales and legends all over the world.

The Origin of the Sun and the Moon

(or The Tragedy of Chaurn and Malea)


In the ancient times, before they became the sun and the moon, the god of day and the goddess of night were simply mortal, and they were lovers. In those times, there was only the feud between the light and the darkness, wandering the world in pursuit of their own interests as they pleased...


Malea was singing, standing at the edge of a pond deep in the forests when Ancouriel, his cloak of darkness trailing behind him, passed by and heard the unfamiliar song. Bemused, he stopped and listened for a time. Then, deciding to follow the song, he found the pond and the singer standing by its edge, stunned for a moment at the beauty of the woman he had discovered. Malea, for he knew her name as he knew the names of all things that fell under his cloak of darkness, was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and he had seen many beauties amongst the other women and goddesses of the world to compare her to. For a moment, Malea did not notice Ancouriel's presence, but as his cloak of darkness settled across the world, her song stopped and she turned to find him watching her. Knowing who he was, as he could not be mistaken for any other, she made her courtesy to him and when told to bring him water from the pond so that he might refresh himself, Malea obeyed without question, dipping her cupped hands into the pond for him to drink from as she had no bowl or cup with her. It is said that, when the god's lips touched the pool of water in her hands, all water across the world became like a mirror, so that Malea might see and admire her own beauty reflected in the pond by which she sang though in fact she saw nothing as she was shrouded in darkness with only mortal eyes to see with.

Ancouriel, having satisfied his curiosity and feeling he had paid the most beautiful creature he had ever seen a proper tribute, continued his endless journey, Malea's image hung like a trophy in the recesses of his mind.

Despite himself, Ancouriel would find his thoughts returning to that trophy, almost haunted by his meeting with the beauty at the pond. Knowing his path would soon lead him near the pond again, he finally decided to stop and find her there again. As he approached the pond, his cloak of darkness trailing far and wide from his shoulders, he heard her singing once more and he hurried his steps until he arrived, only to stop at the edge of the forest clearing that held the pond, for Malea was not alone. A man named Chaurn, he knew the man's name as he knew the names of all who fell under this cloak of darkness, was laying beside Malea where she sat by the pond, his head resting in her lap while her hands lovingly caressed his face and combed through his hair. She was singing her beautiful song for this mortal man and him alone, gracing his eyes alone with the full attention of her beautiful face, and instead of regarding her own perfect beauty in the perfect mirror of the pond's surface, which had been the god's tribute to her, she only had eyes for this mortal man, Chaurn. Ancouriel's anger at this disrespect was terrible in its intensity, any other being would have rushed from hiding and killed the man then and there but Ancouriel did not. Unlike his brother, Ancouriel's anger was icy cold and calculating, his capacity for cruelty as deep and unknowable as his cloak of darkness. Instead of simply killing Chaurn, he devised a horrible plan with which to take his revenge, and cursed the mortal with an illness that would slowly consume him from within, destroying his handsome face and twisting his body until no woman could look upon him with anything but revulsion, and then alone he would die. Ancouriel knew nothing of mercy or pity, he would enjoy watching the young man suffer a slow, agonizingly painful and lonely death, in the same way a man might enjoy a great work of art.

Ancouriel, satisfied with his plan and feeling he had inflicted proper punishment on Malea for spurning his tribute, continued his endless journey, already hanging Chaurn's death like a trophy in the back of his mind.

The next time he went to the pond, he heard no song, instead hearing a sound not unfamiliar to him, that of a woman crying. Malea was there, alone, slumped down on her knees by the pond, the sheer volume of her tears causing the pond to ripple endlessly and become so overfilled that water splashed, dribbled and ran freely outwards from its edges. Ancouriel, enjoying her suffering without understanding it, watched from the forest's edge until he decide it was time to reveal himself. He stepped out into the clearing as he had before, his face as enraptured with the pain he had caused as it had been before with Malea's beauty, but he went unnoticed by the distraught woman. Finding himself angered that his presence could be ignored so completely, he loudly demanded that he be brought water with which to refresh himself, surprising Malea and frightening her not a little. She forced herself to rise and make her courtesy, although she could not for any amount of effort stop the fall of her tears, and again having no bowl or cup, she dipped her hands into the overflowing pond. As she carried the water cupped in her hands to the impatiently waiting god, more of her tears fell, until salted water dripped, then tumbled over her fingers. Ancouriel smiled as he drank from her hands, expecting the tears to taste like the finest of wines to him as he knew nothing of the concepts of mercy or pity, and took enjoyment in pain of all kinds. Instead the water stung his tongue, for the tears that had salted the water were born not of pain and misery, but of hope for her lover's recovery, a deep longing to cradle his ravaged form in her arms despite the awful work of the sickness, and unconditional love. His smile turned to a grimace, and he spat the water as far away from him as he could, which for a god was a long way indeed, and it is said that a single drop found its way into the sea, where it turned all of the water in the seas salty, and gave the sea its strange hold over men's hearts.

Not one to ever lay aside a grudge, or allow his pride to suffer any injury, imagine or otherwise, without exacting his vengeance, Ancouriel told Malea what he had done to Chaurn, telling her how she had been the cause of her lover's doom by spurning his own attentions. Malea did not become angry, as Ancouriel expected, but instead her melancholy deepened into depression as she felt the tiniest light of hope being swallowed by Ancouriel's darkness. Her love had caused her lover's inevitable death, and agony indescribable, and though she could not have known Ancouriel's intent, the guilt she felt then was as crushing and depthless as the cloak of darkness trailing from Ancouriel's shoulders. Seeing this, Ancouriel told her that all hope was not lost, not if she truly loved this mortal named Chaurn, for he could remove the curse at any time, allowing Chaurn to recover fully. The fevered need his words caused in Malea returned the smile to Ancouriel's lips, and it was a terrible smile to behold, a leer of the kind seen by women who ever had the unlucky chance to meet men who considered only their own wants and desires. Ancouriel explained from behind that terrible smile that the only way he could be convinced to spare Chaurn was if she would come to live with him, forever forsaking the mortal world and all in it, including her beloved. He thought that once she had experienced what it was to be a goddess that she would soon forget about her mortal lover and be grateful to him for raising her above the suffering of mortality. Malea, heart-sick for any way to save Chaurn, agreed to his proposal without hesitation, although the way Ancouriel smiled and looked at her filled her with loathing for him and herself. She told him to go heal Chaurn, and that she would wait at the pond for his return. Ancouriel heard no falsehoods in her words, and set about keeping his end of the bargain, for even a god can not break an oath once given without paying a heavy price.

Knowing that she would never hold her beloved again, Malea's tears redoubled their intensity, filled with all of her sorrow. They poured from her face into the pond until the pond had spread to fill the entire clearing and Malea stood ankle-deep in a lake of her own misery. When Ancouriel returned, his promise fulfilled, he wasted no time in preparing for their journey into the heavens while Malea stood and cried. She could not see the look of ecstatic pleasure upon Ancouriel's face for all her tears, for while he had healed the man as he had said he would, he had taken great pleasure in informing Chaurn what price his health had cost him, though he had not stayed to watch the man's suffering and only paused once to listen to his pathetic begging to suffer whatever fate Ancouriel wished so that Malea would not be taken by the god. Ancouriel had merely laughed and disappeared behind his cloak of darkness.

As Ancouriel chanted something in an unknown but strikingly familiar tongue, Malea bent to cup some water in her hands, vowing to bring it with her so as to never forget what the cost of love was, but as she was standing Ancouriel roughly gripped her arm, drawing her into and beyond the heavens, causing her to spill her prize into the sky where it stayed and formed the perfect silvery pool that would become the moon. Ancouriel had won his petty, spiteful victory and soon had lost interest in the charms of the goddess he had created, finding her to be too difficult to understand and too time consuming to fully master. Finally he commanded her to return to her silver pool in the sky, so that her beauty and sorrow would herald his comings and goings as he and his brother roamed their separate halves of the world below.

Chaurn had recovered from his illness but his suffering was as complete as ever, his love Malea unable to be found no matter how far and wide he searched. He had taken up a vigil beside her pond, living as a recluse, and he no longer could bring himself to eat or drink anything but the bitter water from his lover's pond. He had at first believed the vicious whispers in his ear on his sickbed to be nothing but fever dreams, instead choosing to believe that Malea had been murdered or found someone else while he had lain dying, but at times now he began to think otherwise. Chaurn suffered greatly at all times but especially so when the darkness came, as it amused Ancouriel to watch the man as he passed by, and would play tricks upon the grieving mortal.

Ghani, she who was the goddess of love and lovers, had not been blind to what had transpired, although she was unable to directly oppose Ancouriel. Neither could she bring Malea back to Chaurn, but she decided that he should know the truth of things. When Ancouriel's cloak no longer covered the world she went to the pond, finding Chaurn sitting listlessly by its edge, and she walked determinedly up to him. She wore a great veil, and was muffled in a heavy shawl, knowing that the sight of her radiance might unbalance Chaurn, but as she attempted to tell him of how Malea had been tricked into going with Ancouriel, she got no response at all. Throwing off the shawl and the veil, standing revealed in her sublime divinity, the physical manifestation of love and desire, she placed her delicate hands upon Chaurn's shoulders and shook him gently until his tear-blurred eyes focused upon her. Seeing her thus revealed nearly broke his already fragile sanity, but his love for Malea anchored him to himself and he listened as Ghani told him the truth of things. Finally knowing what had become of his love, his suffering turned into anger and he cried out for the chance of vengeance on the treacherous Ancouriel. Ghani was not a warrior, although wars have been and will continue to be fought in her name, and she could not help this man with his self-appointed quest except to nurse him back to health, cleaning him with the water from the pond and returning his strength to him.

As one last gift to Chaurn she approached Ancouriel's brother, Vanyriel, whose cloak of light lit the world wherever he went, and whose advances she did not spurn as she did those of Ancouriel, and asked the god to help the young man so that he might somehow see his beloved again and see Ancouriel's plot thwarted. Vanyriel, who had great respect for Ghani's wisdom, and whose feud with his brother would have been enough to send him to Chaurn's aid if he had known of the man's distress earlier, agreed to seek him out and see what could be done.

At Ghani's advice Chaurn had lit a great bonfire that he kept burning at all times to keep Ancouriel and his cruelties at bay and signal his location to Vanyriel. He found himself growing stronger and stronger as he cut down the trees of the forest to fuel the great blaze, soon able to fell a tree at a single stroke and carry two large oaks on his wide, muscled shoulders without trimming them. When Vanyriel came to him, impressed with the industry, strength and the determination shown by the young man, he told Chaurn that he had an idea how they might help each other. Malea was banished to the silver disk that had appeared in the sky, he told Chaurn, which she guided through the heavens as the herald of Ancouriel's coming. When Chaurn did not immediately understand, Vanyriel smiled warmly and explained that that meant once every time Ancouriel passed from the sky to the very end of the universe as she returned home before making her journey across the sky again with Ancouriel's next coming. It was there, at the end of the universe, the god said, that he made his heavenly home.

He offered the young man the choice to become his herald, to guide a symbol of the light Vanyriel brought to the world through the sky so that all might know that Vanyriel continued his hunt for his brother, and where, for an admittedly short time the two heralds would pass each other. In those few precious minutes in-between the light and the darkness, Malea could descend from her silver disk, and Chaurn could set down his great bonfire from his shoulders, and the two could be together before taking up their burdens again. While it might seem a scant time to be with the one you love, Vanyriel added, time flowed differently for gods and goddesses, and like his beloved already, Chaurn would have an eternity of those precious minutes to spend with Malea.

Chaurn, his decision needing no thought, agreed to becoming Vanyriel's herald and ascending to godhood, but he requested that when Vanyriel finally caught his brother, that he be allowed a place in the the vanguard, for he intended to have his vengeance upon Ancouriel, and was prepared to wait till the end of time if he must. Vanyriel promised that it would be so, and without any more talk lifted both Chaurn and his great bonfire into the sky.

Each year, Ghani and Vanyriel secretly take the places of Malea and Chaurn at the moment when the sun and moon meet and cross in the sky, carrying their burdens for one full day and night, so that Chaurn and Malea might spend the time in each other's arms at the end of the universe. It is rumored that Malea has given birth to a daughter, whom she hid away so well that no one knows what might have become of the child, if she exists. Chaurn still aches to take his vengeance on Ancouriel, but thus far he has found no chance to make good on his threats, knowing that if he failed he would only cause Malea harm, and neither has Vanyriel managed to catch his brother and make good on his promise to Chaurn, yet....