Many eons ago, in a land now lost to the sands of time, existed two spirits. Each had their own ideals and yielded to neither. No one knows of their true names, but their legacies have left their mark upon the stone of the land. “Clara Oculos”. A young spirit with a bright mind. Clara was a gentle soul. She could often be found mingling with the people of the land or in her workshop tinkering away at the various mechanisms that still function to this day. Indeed she had a great talent for the mechanical arts, often competing with two other spirits. “Lunis Musica”. A wise spirit with a talent for the musical arts. The people of the land often described her music to be the melodic singing of a moonlit lake. On many occasions you could find her atop the highest peak of the land, strumming her harp as she composed her next series of musical numbers.
As the story between Clara and Lunis goes, their rivalry and eventual friendship formed under the starry night sky as they were partaking in the delights of a certain human festival. Claris had been displaying her latest mechanized marvels to the children at the festival, and Lunis had been performing her latest musical number to the large crowd that had gathered. Naturally, both being spirits, they noticed each other immediately.
Lunis continued to play more and more sophisticated pieces as the stars passed overhead. Taking this as a challenge of sophistication, Clara herself began pulling out various contraptions. Bells, pipes, and other strange instruments. Thus their rivalry began. Clara herself understood that her creations were no substitute for the subtleties of a musical mind, they were still capable of producing fine and harmonic tunes. Music. Lunis, however, believed music to be an expression of the soul. Thus they competed endlessly into the night, even after the festival had ended. Soon, dawn approached as the sun peaked over the nearby mountain tops.
Even still, a sole person of the land remained to watch the sunrise–a traveler. Being the only other person around, the two spirits jumped at him and demanded he choose a victor. The young man placed his hand against his chin and closed his eyes as he thought deeply. “O great spirits. Both of your performances were of the highest caliber, yet I could not choose a victor if I wanted to,” he said whimsically, chuckling much to Clara and Lunis’s confusion. “Rather, I would be very intrigued about what musical marvel the both of you could come up with together!”
Thereafter, one could often find the two spirits convening in the mountains. They discussed music, mechanics, and all the other intrigues of the land. Yet good times are never meant to last. A great war broke out between the gods and spirits of the land. The once prosperous fields were reduced to cinders, the bountiful land reduced to barren waste, and the populated towns abandoned and left to crumble.
Clara was no fighter. Caught in a brawl between a god of fire and a spirit of the Earth, she stood no chance. Lunis hurried to the scene, she arrived at the battle field and whisked away her friend, only to see that her light had already been extinguished. Soon the war had passed and the Land of the People was no more.
In honor of her fallen companion, Lunis gathered up all that remained of Clara’s musical contraptions and sealed them in a shrine at the highest peak of the land, in hopes that the winds would once again make the bells chime and the pipes whistle. She picked up her aging Harp and departed the land for good. Now, only the lonely rays of starlight gaze upon these lands.
“We immortals often see the fragile mortal lives as nothing but a flickering flame. Lit one minute and smoldering the next, but are we truly that different? At the end of the day, as the sun sets, we still return to the land below.”
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