Our histories tell us the Wood People were the first beings to inhabit these lands, in the Dalthwein Region, near the entrance to Dala’s heart core. Spirit threaded up through the ground, like the roots of our trees, created Dala’s guardians. The planet manifested slivers of itself into physicality. Bits of root and bark blended with tough, furred pelts, bones, eyes, and teeth. Dala molded legs from mud and moss, skullcaps from mushrooms, and fingers from the strongest twigs.

Some say the planet was lonely, others believe it wanted to experience itself, existence, from a new perspective. The truth goes back so many millennia, none of us truly know, anymore. If the fae remember these ancient secrets, they aren’t telling, and I don’t blame them.

Others came from the dirt. It is said we all come from the dirt—wolf, human, crow—and back to the dirt, our bodies will go. Dala recycles the spirit as she sees fit. Summerland is a way station for the souls. This is what our people are told.

Fae are sacred, elusive creatures. Most Dalthwein pay great respect to the Wood People, for their benevolent guidance, the teachings, gifts, and knowledge they’ve bestowed on us since we came to the Dalthwein Region. But, my ancestors have spat on their kindness since Corrigan McCleod first led them here.

He took their tribal names away from them, and he led my people away from their coastal homes, after King Collidor perished in the great floods. Where Collidor was a loyal and just leader, Corrigan was an oppressive tyrant. He infected my ancestors, my family, with a hatred, a curse, that refused to die. But, with me it ends.