The Mercy of Kindness

This is a story, from long ago. From before people sought fortunes from the bottom of sea. From before the land was scraped and carved into the scars of the roads and concrete lots of today. This is from when owning land and title was only beginning its fashion in the world. From when trees, and boulders, and sky, and oceans-blue; were respected and revered, as the powers they are. This is a story from when giants still walked the Earth.

***

The island had sank thrice before. Each time it rose from its salty and watery grave, it rose as a phoenix. The island was reborn each time it soared back above the sea, and was made stronger-than-ever for it.

Its age and mountains grew deeper roots, always promising itself that: this would be the last time it sank into the sea.

The humans of this ternary island of sea, mountain and arid arible land, survived each plunge. They hid for hundreds, if not a thousand years each time, in grottos deep in the mountains, and atop those peaks that peeped through the sea's hydrous barrier.

Some lucky few, of the unlucky few, who did not live in the mountains at those times of sinking, were saved by the gardens of the fairy witches, native to that land, from eons before time was known.

They worked hard for their hosts and for each other. They were loved and honoured by the fairy witches, who had guested them. The fairy witches gifted the people onyx beads to protect them from curses, and taught them potions and poultices.

And from the kindness of those fairy witches, who had saved and sheltered them, those people vowed on repaying the fairies with gifts of porridge and honeyed milk. They also vowed a welcoming home to any wary traveler who needed it. And, to this day, they still guard the stone-carved homes, until the return of the fairy witches from the nether world.

Those in the mountains had learnt similiar humbleness; knowing how hard it was to survive the sinkings, while living in caves and darkness. But instead of the fairy witches; they honoured the horned oxen gods and goddessed and their reaping stewards. These gods and goddesses taught the people the secrets of longevity and perpetual harvest. And, they fed and entertained them in the long nights of wintery darkness.

The duality of these peoples cultures that formed, mixed into a single one over time. They each learned to honour their patrons, but at different times of the year, and honoured each other with meals to spare. And while their languages shifted from one another, they always understood each other.

There was...a peace. They built cooling structure for one another, to survive the new suns heat. They made temples and shared all their knowledge, new and old. They bartered, but the price was always fair. It was a paradise to behold. There was a serenity to this lonely and forgotten island. Or rather, an island not yet known.

Then, the giants arrived.

***

The giants were foreign to the land. They were violent and stole and destroyed all that they could. The people of the island lived in fear. They prayed and called out to their patron fairies, goddesses and gods, but even they were outmatched by the wrath and fury of those giants, in those violent battles.

War raged on. Hope was begining to wain. So, the eldest daughter of King Bexa of Macomer, Princess Gavina of Macomer, donned on her warrior's uniform and her royal mind of diplomacy. She set off on her ship, with a small band of her finest warriors. She sailed through storms and rough seas, until she reached the archipelogo of the fiercest warriors and strongest minds, outside of her own people, within sailing distance.

But these were only men who ruled. Backwards men, who did not yet know the advancement equality would give. They may have had gods and goddesses, but, in their minds, a human woman was not seen to be as great as themselves.

Never mind that that princess was a mere five hundred years old. Never mind that she knew how to carve gold and silver from clay, or how she knew to heal any ailment sent her way.

They were men who did not see her authority as anything more than a bauble they wished for their own crown. The conference of men broke down. With no obvious help being offered--only empty platitudes and proposals of marriage--Princess Gavina was left by these men: spurned.

Dismayed, Princess Gavina was ready to sail home, and fight in the endless War of the Giants. Then, along came Platho, a man of philosophy and science.

Platho was a wealthy leader, and offered his army and his assistance in diplomacy against the giants. He wanted nothing of marriage or fortune in return. He didn't want her to teach him the secret and skills her people/ But, he wanted to see Princess Gavina's island, and a promise to teach him the way that her people think. It was a kindness of an offer, which Princess Gavina accepted.

***

Refreshed with troops, the war turned to the favour of the humans. Hope was returning.

Against the odds, it seemed victory was near. But Princess Gavina, who was leading her troops and the troops of Platho, were caught in a landslide. The giants had set a trap, and captured them all.

Princess Gavina was brought forth, to the ailing Queen of the Giants, Queen Prama. The queen was strong and wild in her eyes, but her body was failing.

Knowing her certain execution was near, as the heir to the last kingdom that was able to fight the giants, Princess Gavina's heart ached at the sight of Queen Prama's pain and sickness.

She reached into her pouch. She grabbed what she could, and mixed her magics and medicine into the only thing she could find on the ground--a shell of a scallop.

Princess Gavina offered Queen Prama the cure to her sickness.

"Why offer to save the dying queen of your enemy?" The queen asked.

"It is our way." Was all Princess Gavina could muster.

She knelt at the execution block and said her final prayers.

Before the axe could fall, cleaving her head from her neck, and earthquake roared. It was not like the earthquakes anyone had felt before. That is, not in living memory.

It was a sinking earthquake.

Princess Gavina wept.

"Why do you cry for an earthquake, princess?" the queen asked with curiosity, as her executioner regained his footing.

"Decimated, the surviving fairy witches had to leave this plane of existance. The horned oxen gods and goddess were killed in battles of before, with you, giants. There is no one left to save my people. This island will sink. We shall all perish. You have time, you live here, on the coast, and you have ships. Save yourself and your fellow giants. This island is no more." Replied Princess Gavina.

"You would wish my fellow giants to be saved, instead of keeping quiet and drowning us all?" Questioned the queen with a cocked eyebrow.

"If there is no mercy, no kindness, no hope, than what would be the point in living amongst all the other beings of this world?"

Moved, the queen released Princess Gavina from her death sentence, for her love of her people and her kindess towards her and the other giants, in Princess Gavina's hour of doom.

The queen ordered her fellow giants to decend below the island. They obeyed. They bore, and still hold, the weight of the island. They stopped it sinking, and the last magic of the island, in return, gifted eternity to the bodies and peace to the mind, of the giants.

The island and all its inhabitants were saved. But the throne room became blocked with stones collapsing during the long earthquake. It became a tomb for Princess Gavina and Queen Prama. They embraced in a hug, as old friends, and whispered solice to each other in their final moments, before the crushing stones fell from above their heads.

***

The captured soliders had escaped, before the throne room was entombed. They informed King Bexa and Platho of what had transpired.

"The giants weren't the enemies we thought they were..." Said the king, before wandering off in his grief, to find solitude.

"They hold up the island, as Atlas holds up the sky..." Platho remarked.

Saddened by the loss of the great Princess Gavina, and awed by the War of the Giants, on a magical and sinking island of paradise, he chose to tell the story: the story of Atlantis.