OOC:
First off, I just want to say how much I really enjoyed the event as well as the roleplay that followed it. It’s been a really long time since I experienced something like this in-game; so, I am grateful that this event made that possible. I did, however, forget to get screenshots 'cause I was just having too much fun. Go figure. Anyway, thank you to my people, the Kodohorn Tribe, and to everyone who came and sat around the fire and shared their stories and their presences.
IC:
“This is a story that was given to me by the spirits of our ancestors. May you hear, now, their words, and may their wisdom guide you.”
Ystas bows her head for a moment before she raises it once more. Her eyes gleam and her spirit shines strongly within the fire’s light. Her voice reaches far beyond it.
There was once a great herd of kodo that wandered all the land. At the head of the herd was the lead kodo. The lead kodo was not the fastest or the bravest kodo; the lead kodo was patient and slow, and they walked with a steady gait.
Day after day the herd moved throughout the lands, stopping when the lands were lush and the water was plentiful, then moving on when they were done. The lead kodo never let the herd despoil the land such that there was nothing for those who came after. Instead they would say, “The land has given us enough. Let us move on.”
And while it meant that sometimes they were not full, and that sometimes they left behind great swaths of grazing lands, still it was enough to carry them onward in their journey.
One day, however, they came to a vast plain full of lush grasses and a great lake. The herd thought that the lead kodo would stop and that they would be able to rest, but the lead kodo continued on. When asked why they were not stopping, the lead kodo said, “Are we not well-fed? Have we not taken our fill of Mother Earth?”
But the young kodo of the herd were tired of walking, and the dust, and the flies. One of them who had amassed a great following for their courage and bravery declared that they would stay while the rest of the herd moved on. They would catch up with them later after taking their fill of Earth Mother’s bounty. Many of the young kodo’s followers agreed, and so the herd was split.
“Shouldn’t we stay to watch over them?” one of the herd mothers asked the lead kodo. “Do you stop to stare at An’she in all his glory?” the lead kodo asked her.
“Is there some reason we are not staying?” asked another. “Your eyes are not so blind, your ears are not so deaf, and your nose is not so old yet that you should need for me to tell you,” the lead kodo replied.
But some who questioned saw only what lay before them and chose to remain behind.
That night as the rest of the herd took refuge on a nearby bluff, the cries of hyenas rose upward upon the air. And down below in the valley they had left behind, where the fields of plenty spread and the waters of the Earth Mother flowed, the sounds of the herd they’d left behind cried out in fear as they sought to escape the preying hyenas.
The next day, the young ones and the others who had stayed behind—those who had survived the night—caught up once more to the rest of the herd. The great, young kodo who had chosen to lead the herd in staying made their way to the lead kodo.
“Wise leader,” the young kodo said, “why didn’t you warn me about the hyenas that would come?”
“Would you have heard me?” the lead kodo asked.
The young kodo, filled with anger and regret, cried out, “Of course I would have listened if you’d told me!”
The lead kodo, never wavering in their gait, plodded onward in silence.
Emboldened the young kodo continued, “Is that all you have to say? Don’t we deserve an explanation for your silence?”
Sighing the lead kodo at last drew to a stop and turned their head to look back at the herd that followed behind them. “Once, long ago, I, too, chose to split the herd when our leader would not stop. Though I was well-fed and content, I believed that what I saw before me was a wealth that could not be passed by.”
The lead kodo looked to the young kodo then, “And like you, I was deceived by such bounty. I did not see the vultures that clouded the skies to the south. I did not realize the way the winds blew would mask the scent of predators from the east. And I did not hear that all the other sounds of nature were dimmed or not even there.”
“I bear the scars of that choice to this day.” And to be sure, there were old marks on the lead kodo’s hide—signs of their trials and the truth of what they spoke. “I, too, chose not to follow the herd, but I did so without thought. I thought I knew better than my elders, and I did not think about what might happen beyond the lush beauty that I saw before me.”
The lead kodo then turned and continued the migration. “It is wisdom to question those who lead you, but it is also wisdom to learn from them, too. Never forget the lessons you have learned here today, young kodo; for, one day, you may need to lead your People and teach them the hard lessons of the road.”
Ystas bows her head and brings her hands together before her, as though she were offering a prayer. She then offers the following benediction.
“Take care, then, as you go tonight—for your family and your People.”
I had to lead my own guild thing.