Stories from the Mountains

Here, I will posts short stories and legends that is shared amongst the Cala-Halflings of Calandor.


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“Once there was a Cala-boy named Jin-Hén. Jin-Hén was a mischievous Cala-boy, notorious amongst his village. He often robbed and stole, and made other Cala-boys and Cala-girls cry. He always got himself in a lot of trouble, and his father, Je-Hén, always had to save him from the village’s Baton Officer, before punishing him with a cane.”

“One time, on a full-moon night, he went to the Alabaster Tower in his village, and peeked into it. He saw the lights of the Moon shining on the stones of powers — the Chi-Rani — being imbued. In his heart, he became greedy, wanting for the powers of those stones when he himself hadn’t come of age. He had seen how his father defeated the Baton Officer with such stone, and how the Priests could lift great mounds and build towers with it.”

“So, when everyone left the tower, he sneaked behind the Priest and snatched for himself one of the stones that was gathered underneath the moonlight. He grabbed the stone, and ran away from the temple. With a toothy grin, he leapt triumphantly, and flailed his stone to all eight corners of the wind.”

“That was until when the stones were showered with the light of the moon, and shone brightly, so brightly in fact that the whole village was alight. The Priests ran outside, after him, and so did the Baton Officer, and so did his father. But the light was so bright it blinded anything else, and they had to cover their eyes.”

“When the Baton Officer reached Jin-Hén, he hit the Officer with the stone. The Officer remained though, and instead, Jin-Hén flung himself up with the motion. So hard he hit him, that he kept being flung, away, away, and farther, until they couldn’t see him no more. All they could see was a speck of light, high in the skies, with a long tail behind it, showing that Jin-Hén was still being flung away, joining the stars above.”

“Je-Hén wept for his Cala-boy, for days, and years, and vowed to reunite with him, and to punish him for being a mischievous child. Since then, he has travelled to the eight corners of the world and beyond, punishing bad Cala-boys and girls who talk back to their parents, and who played with Chi-Rani before they’re allowed. Sometimes, you will hear a man weeping in the woods on nights with full moons.”

“And that’s why you two should not come with us tonight,” Ia-Mala’s twin daughters shivered in their blankets as she ended her story.

She smiled mischievously towards her husband, Lie-Mala, who shook his head with a similarly mischievous smile. She fixed her daughters blankets and kissed them on the forehead before leaving with her husband out of their house, towards the village’s Alabaster Tower for a full moon Mass with the rest of the village, and to re-imbue their Chi-Rani, of course.

A fallen star passed by on the skies above, and a weeping voice of a man was heard from the woods a league away.


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