Annals: Year 2
A story fragment and a codex entry from the Dustsong Cycle
From the Annals of the Vaporous Realms
Year 2. From her prison deep in the earth, Livyat sent forth minions of chaos to whisper lies wrapped in half-truths. Ghrem and Lae fell into doubt and rebelled against the Wright. To secure the heaven-bridge, a contingent of Scions expelled the first-folk from their sanctuary home and set watchers at its unseen gate, to protect it from earthly folk and Livyat's spawn. Lae gave birth to a son in the wilderness and called the young one Len. Their disgraced clan settled elsewhere in the Fangs and lived among the wild beasts, apart from other folk.
Codex: The Fangs of Livyat
The Fangs of Livyat, colloquially "the Fangs" or “the Teeth,” were an extensive mountain range in the heart of Elder World, betwixt the eastern wastes and the western sea. The Children of Dust and Children of the Garden believed these mountains, or the tallest peaks leastways, to be the monstrous teeth of the Mother of Serpents, whom the Wright encased in the crust of the earth at the dawn of days. The snow-capped Upper Fangs overlooked the valley of the Children of the Garden, while the Pehrite hill-folk settled the dusty Lower Fangs. Until the cataclysms of the late first epoch, the Fangs and the wandering wastes encircled the whole of the civilized world.
Author Note
I've told variants and bits of this recognizable story in a few different places over the past year. I'm glad for the chance to continue the history of the Vaporous Realms beyond this familiar beginning, in a continuous way. The trick will be keeping things unspoilery for the novellas to come. Thanks for reading, y'all!