Koruna was a glorious country, full of riches and gold. We both were born there and yet we were not entirely happy. We kept hearing of all the lands beyond the desert, that have said to be destroyed. But a century has passed, so life must have returned.

My wife was a historian who had founded an association of others who wrote down the happenings and studied the past. I tended to the shop, which’s back room was used for meetings of her little gathering of like-minded people. Through it, we found others who shared our longing for the unknown things beyond the sands of the Korunian desert.

It took a few years of preparation, study and the gathering of enough people, but eventually we were ready to set out and do what no one has done since the foundation of Santugan. We left the city. Our group counted fifty-four curious souls, among those eleven children with their parents. We kept following the river Deris and it eventually lead us, after many weeks of wandering, to a green land. Except in gardens, we had never seen such fertility. But this was not the only wonder we encountered. The further we came, the higher we seemed to climb and before we knew, we were in the middle of the mountains.

This land was everything we had dreamed of and more, but my wife insisted to go further. So, we did. Eventually, when the mountains flattened out again, we all decided to have wandered far enough. The children needed a rest that lasted more than just a few days and my wife found out that she was pregnant. Under these circumstances, we called this valley our new home.

Never in our lives would we have imagined, that we had stepped right into the holy lands of people, who already lived here. We found out the next morning, when we exited our tents and were surrounded by hostile faces. They were horses, but their eyes were unlike any I had ever seen. Weirdly slitted and in a weird way also beautiful.

The reason for their hostility had been the assumption of us being demons that were trying to take their land away from them. Far from it! Never in my life had I been called a demon before. I didn’t know if I should be amused or feel insulted. After some negotiations, however, the natives offered us to stay in their home and to teach us their ways.

Some of us were sceptical since we only intended to find new lands, not to change our religion. I, for one, was open-minded, though. I welcomed to learn new things about this foreign land and culture and so did my wife.

 

A year went by in which both the natives and we taught each other new things. They taught us how dangerous the forests could be and about the demons and monsters that lurked there. In return we taught them how to build houses, which they very much appreciated, since this way they could find better protection from the monsters.

They taught us their prayers and showed us their temples, which they built for their gods. They had many. It seemed like there was a god for everything in existence. It was hard to memorize all of them, but luckily, my wife wrote a list, which was about to turn into a whole book. In return we taught them how to weave fabrics and how to make clothing out of them.

To everything we taught them, the natives added some of their own charm, adding much more detail than any architect or tailor would. The results were utter master pieces. In return we took our own religion and combined it with theirs, assigning the gods to the six ones we believed in. So, the god of the local river Kataari, would be an under-god of the god of water, or the god of the Oku shrine fire, would be an under-god of the god of fire, and so on.

 

My wife had given birth to a sweet little filly who we named Miya, after hearing that one of the old heroes of the natives’ stories was named that. They saw this as a great honour, which improved our relationship with them further.

 

While demons attacked and sometimes killed the animals we held for food, luckily none of us became a victim of their attacks. The houses and walls we built, were helping out a lot to secure the village. When working on the rice fields though, we were not protected by any construction and constantly had to be on the watch. Eventually it happened that one of us, a she-wolf, got attacked by one of the demons and dragged into the forest. A group of people were sent to find her, but all they could retrieve were her bones.

 

Life went on and we started to build walls around the fields too. We made the village as secure as possible and developed strategy after strategy to fend off the demons. A decade went by and the head priest of the natives died. A new priest was chosen, who would be the one in command. He was young and educated, just as expected from a leader. What threw not just me, but also the others of our group off, was, that he had the right to choose a wife freely from the village, no matter if she was already married or not. Of course, all married mares frowned upon this rule and dug out their Korunian veils again to hide from the priest. Also my wife did so, which I welcomed. They might have been friendly to us, but they would not take my wife! But he did not choose her. He chose Miya.

 

I was happy about that since the new priest was a decent guy. The rules were not his fault, since they have been made centuries ago already. Also, Miya seemed to be happy about it. She liked the priest and that made me happy. A denial of their marriage would have strained the relationship between us and the natives anyway, so it was good that things worked out this way.