 |
| Many hundreds of years ago, when the plains had yet no name and were still young to the world, there was a lovely and powerful young song-sorceress named Eadaoin who made her home in the grasslands of Fairgleam. In those days, the seasons and the weather were still subject to change there, and though she was alone, she found it beautiful, and loved her home dearly. The lady lived alone for many, many moons, but eventually a traveler came to the plains in the guise of a young merchant lad. He and the lady fell in love, and the lived together in her house, rearing a single girl-child who was beloved above all else by her mother. One evening when the merchant was out in the wide world peddling his wares, and Eadaoin was indoors, the sorceress suddenly realized that she could no longer hear her little child playing with the pups outside. She hurried outdoors and found that the dogs were hiding away in their shelter, so frighted they shook and whimpered and growled even at their mistress who was well known to them and who had a magick that normally let them understand each other, thus making them quite fond of her. On this day, she could not get the animals to say anything with even their words, and though Eadaoin searched all around the house and in all her daughter's favorite play spots, her little one was gone without a mark on the ground or even a single other clue to show her where. The lady, distressed, gathered her dagger, staff, herbs of healing, and a little food, then hurried out into the darkness to search for her daughter. This much only is known to history through her journal, long destroyed but once read, its knowledge passed on. Nothing else is for certain. Eadaoin's fair face was not seen, nor her magickal songs heard, ever again, and it is for her that the plains are now called Lostsinger. There is much speculation about the fate of the soceress. Some say she is immortal and searchs still for her babe, never to find her, or that in her grief and loss she took her knife and slew herself. Others say she was lost on the plains until death claimed her, searching always, although this is unlikely, as Eadaoin had lived in these lands throughout her young life, and furthermore was known to have the powers of divination, as well as a charm with animals, any of which should have allowed her to know her way back to her home. The most widely accepted theory is that the sorceress found her daughter murdered amongst the grass, and that it is her cries of grief that haunt the plains now, carried past death by the magick in her voice. It is agreed by all, however, that the day the mother and child disappeared was the last the plains have known, for the dawn has never come to the plains again, the full harvest moon never waxes nor wanes, and the plants never grow, but neither do they dry to the point of death despite the abscence of rain and normal weather conditions. The grasslands are captured forever in one moment of a balmy summer night. This eternal midnight is thought to be a curse she lay on the land in grief or madness, that it not age as her daughter would not, or perhaps instead of a curse, a result of the magick in Eadaoin reacting to a mother's longing for time to have stood still and not moved to the dawn of her child's last breath.... |