The Lore of the Dakina Islands

The Lore of Dakina, Part 3: The Legend of the White Raven

For a time, things settled, each island a world unto itself. The gods became lazy and weak, refusing to acknowledge that unity among all the islands and peoples was their source of power, that in breaking the world into bits, they had fractured themselves, separating the Body from the Mind and Heart and Spirit. The people became faithless, and forgot to notice the Spiritworld all around them…except on the tiny island where lived Taijala, Guardian of the Spirit. There, there were some who professed to see magic, do magic; they became priests and priestesses, spiritual conduits for the people, practitioners of the lore. They were much admired by some, feared and vilified by others. Still, they dwindled until there were only two such practitioners left. One was a mage of the New People, the other a priestess of the First People.

One day a girl of the New People became lost in the Deep Woods of Taijala's island, Dakina Island. She was found by a boy from the First People. They fell in love and the boy took the girl to his village in the south. There was great upheaval. The elders of the village debated for many days. They sent a messenger to the north to tell them that the girl was safe. The elders from the north came south with the messenger. All these elders held a council. It was a long council. They would allow the marriage. They would build harmony and make the island whole again. Taijala stirred and watched.

It was agreed that the mage of the New People would perform the ceremony and the priestess of the First People would offer the blessing. But at the ceremony, when it came time for the priestess to offer the blessing, she instead harnessed her magic and threw it at the lovers. She screamed that the First People must stay pure. The mage used his magic of the beasts and turned the lovers into ravens and they flew away. But the priestess's blast hit the bride and she fell from the sky, dead.

In his shock and despair the groom-raven’s feathers bleached white and he flew into the Spiritworld. There he grieved and raged and flew to the door of the Spiritworld, demanding the release of his lover's spirit. He refused to let the door open until she was returned to him. This is how the people were seperated from the Spiritworld. For generations he flew there, keeping an ever-present guard, waiting, raging, grieving. He waits still.

Taijala closed her eyes and slept. Her brothers fell asleep, their backs turned away from each other, away from their mother, away from their people. Without Taijala, the Guardian of the Spirit, the Spiritworld became dense and sickened with the shades of the dead, unable to move on to their afterlife without guidance from the sleeping goddess, reliving their actions in life without hope of relief. The islands floated in the Endless Sea, like limbs amputated from a sickening body.

Eons passed. The history of the world became legend, then story, and then forgotten entirely. By most. There were a few, in the deepest dark of the woods, that remembered. They kept a vigil. Waiting for a sign that the wounded world would heal. That harmony and unity among the islands and the gods would be restored. They waited for the White Raven and the Black Raven to be reunited. For the door to the Spiritworld to open, at last.