Endless Rain
Untold Stories
Divine Stories 1: The Coming of Afrain
© Acrocat

It was a long time ago. Our valley has not always been the Valley of Endless Rain. To us this place is full of misery. Long ago this was a place of hope. But let me start at the beginning.
When this beautiful world came into existence it was given to a handful of magical creatures: Fairies, Humans and Demons. They all lived and thrived in this world, and there was peace. There was one flaw however, as there were no illnesses, no poverty, no wars and no dying of old age. Generation after generation of new magical creatures were born, while none died. The land grew crowded and soon creatures left to search new land to live in, until there was no land left. The cheerful conversations were more often replaced by angry shouts, as corruption began to spread. Greed, arrogance, hatred, vanity and many other negative emotions spread as fast as a bunny can reproduce. Especially the Demons and the Humans were much affected by this spread. War was inevitable.
It started when a Human insulted a Demon for being in his way. The Demon insulted him back, but the Human was backed up by the other Humans. Grudgingly the Demon left to return home. There he told his family of what’d occurred, and they in turn decided to teach the Human a lesson in humility. As first it was merely an ugly fist-fight, but over time it grew to be more serious. Both sides gathered allies and soon two forces met each other on open ground. Nobody could even remember why they were there, but they still wanted to see the blood of their foe. Other fights over simple things broke out to add to this one struggle, and turned it into a war nobody bothered to resolve.
During the seemingly never-ending war a clash of powerful magics, used for purposes it was never to be used for, occurred and backfired, causing mortality among the ones hit. This mortality caused a serious diminishing of the world population. The Demons took most casualties, because the mortal ones were considered inferior to their immortal fellows. If the mortal ones weren’t killed in combat, their family surely would. The Humans fought most bravely and with cunning. When their magic failed, they devised new ways of fighting, and, even though there were many mortals, their numbers made it possible for them to win many battles. The Fairies were at times the ones to suffer the most. These small creatures were calm and wise, and were mostly able to resist negative emotions. Still their houses were destroyed when the other two met in combat.
After a while the skies became dark and covered with evil-looking clouds. The crops hardly saw any sun, and the rain coming from the dark clouds was sour. The land of this once beautiful world became inhabitable. But then a small ray of hope came forward. Hardly any Human was magical anymore, except for a few, and it was among them that a man stood up and said that he had enough of this foolishness. He took all who would follow him, Humans and Fairies, and searched for a bit of peaceful land. He also appealed to the Demons, but they merely laughed at him and chased him away.
The man was called Afrain, and he led the survivors to new lands. They travelled for months and lost many people along the way, but eventually found a valley, hardly touched by the devastation outside it, and named it the Valley of Hope. The survivors made new homes and lived together in peace, guided by the wisdom of Afrain.

To be continued...