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FOUNDING
Before the Great Migration, before the Dry Earth, there was a fertile land that our ancestors called home. My mother was born there. I was born there. This place was paradise and we called it Crescent Valley. All around the grasslands and forest we lived in, high mountains raised up and kept the harshest weather away, protecting us from droughts and storms that the outside world faced alone, almost every year. We learned to bless the rains that came down from these mountains and we flourished among the green sanctuary it provided us with.
That was before the Earth became dry. One year, in my mother's youth, the rains stopped coming. The plants died off. The herds moved on, escaping our valley and never returning. Hundreds of predators fled after them in what became known as the Great Migration. Our family, the only Honored in the valley, remained long after the herds had left. My grandmother, in her stubborn ways, refused to leave and in the end, this killed her. My mother became leader of our pack shortly after, but the stubborn attitude of our past had been driven into her since birth. She and her mate, my father, argued in their uneven way for years. In this time, the valley only became dryer and dryer until eventually, it became the Crescent Ruins. Just another Wasteland.
When my youngest siblings rotted in their eggs, my mother finally gave in and we moved out. The journey following the Migrating herds and hunters was hard. I remember it clearly, for I was old enough to hunt with my parents at that time. My little brother and sister were just earning their adult plumage. We were too young to travel so far, but fate forced us. In the end, it was fate who killed us all. My father was the first to go, then my brother. We'd found green on the horizon, recent dead and better still, thriving packs of smaller Clawed ones. We were almost there.
Then, on our final night of travel, my mother dropped cold. We'd lost our leader. My sister and I were the only ones left from our family, the only two Honored ones left from the Crescent Valley. The worst, though, had not yet come. We found paradise together and hope was our companion for a time. Then, on our third night in our new home, my sister fell ill. Starvation weakened her and local climate finally claimed her entirely. She died that night, leaving me the sole reminder of our heritage.
It took make trials for me to come to this point. It took many years to age and thrive, and now, here I am. This is our history. This is the story of how the Crescent Pack came to be here, to survive when fate had once torn us apart. My name is Mavros and I am the last Descendant of the original Crescent Valley Pack. Hear this story and learn from our mistakes, for it is now our turn to make history and change what it means to be truly alive, forever.
