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Starting [[Statpack]]: Agile | Starting [[Statpack]]: Agile | ||
==The Origin of the Rajamala People== | |||
As told by Klaana: | |||
It was the time of the great unknowing when all was without intellect but | |||
guided by instinct and blood and hunger. The Itzatl was but an empty plain, | |||
home only to scuttling beetles and the birds that hunted them out of | |||
desperation. Some say it was a dark time, when we came to be. | |||
We looked to the other creatures to understand how to eat and behave. We looked | |||
to the creatures best suited to our interests. We looked to the lion and the | |||
panther and the lynx. The Pantheon looked upon our ignorance and our beastly | |||
ways, and most were displeased. Yet there was One that smiled and delighted. In | |||
the rhythm our blood, spoke the Divine, urging us towards hunt and flight, | |||
chase and kill, camouflage and survival. And we began to change. | |||
Shorter our fingers became, and between them grew curved claws for ripping and | |||
tearing. Powerful became our legs, and sharp our senses. The hiding became | |||
easier, as did the leaping and the devouring. With tail and eyes and paws | |||
granted by the Divine, we were every bit as much as cats as the lion, and we | |||
were greater! More cunning still were we, and less merciful. | |||
Our fur was the color of hunger, and from it did mortals learn the color | |||
orange. There were no stripes, nor other interruption in its glory; that | |||
tragedy would come later. From our pelts came the hues of the sunset and the | |||
summer blossoms, for our cunning inspired all the world. | |||
"You shall be called Tiger," said the Divine pulsing of our blood. | |||
So did we live for many years, in a pure state beyond happiness and knowledge. | |||
Then came the Other, whose roar was one of intellect. "These were once mortals | |||
and now prowl the lands as beasts? What are these misshapen creatures, and to | |||
what purposes do You pretend? They were to have wit, and clarity of mind! This | |||
was not how it was meant to be!" said this Other, and it has been forgotten if | |||
there was a reply in words, for the agony that followed swallowed all sound and | |||
sense. | |||
We were ripped apart, from the inside out. Divided in half, as surely as a | |||
blade through the stomach, were we cut, and the cut was jagged. We looked at | |||
our selves, and saw that we had become two. One retained the shape of Tiger and | |||
one had regained two legs and stood upright. The pure sunset orange that had | |||
blanketed us was haphazardly ripped, shared between our two bodies, the rest | |||
streaked with the black of loss. | |||
We have never found a way to reunite our divided halves. One half we still call | |||
tiger, though most forget to call them brother. The other half, retaining tail | |||
and fur yet lacking so much of what we were, endowed eventually instead with | |||
capacity for thought and speech, came to be called the people of the Curved | |||
Claw, or the Raja Mala in the Oldest Tongue. No longer do we approach the | |||
Divine with claws sheathed. Perhaps one day we may again discover our purity of | |||
color and purpose, and perhaps even repay the Other for Their tearing us in | |||
two. | |||
Until then, in roar and tooth, in stripe and stalk, we are Rajamala and we are | |||
proud. | |||