The Girl in the Diamond Chains

This is a fairy tale about a strange young woman that was often seen wandering in locked gardens and wearing a bracelet around each wrist, dainty and made of diamond and white gold. With a long chain of diamonds hanging from each, the commonfolk began to wonder if those were merely for decoration, or if the bracelets were really shackles.   The maiden's name is Anemone, a dainty little thing with thick and long auburn hair and porcelain skin and large green eyes. Her hair is held back her face by a thin, diamond hairband, and she is dressed in a long, flowing, almost shapeless white A-line dress trimmed with sky blue. She is beautiful and fair, but there is a forlornness to her that makes people who see her wonder.   Anemone was once a simple farm girl, the eldest child of her parents Elm and Maple. She had four other siblings: Oak, Cherry, Birch, and Aspen; each of whom she had a unique relationship. Their life on the farm was simple, blissful even, when it wasn't planting or harvest season. Her mother taught her, during the long winter months, how to read and write and do simple math, along with everything else a girl learned how to do while growing up. Her father taught her how to care for the animals and how to love them so that they would always know that people are friends.   While growing up, one of her good friends was a boy named Dill. When they were young, Dill was still in the mode of "girls have cooties" which is a concept that seems to transcend cultures and even worlds. But that didn't stop them from being friends, as Anemone was quite the tomboy until she was a teenager.   Their close relationship brought hope between the families, as the distance between their farms and the nearest town often meant that the children were isolated. It started as a joke when they were little, that Anemone and Dill would one day court and then marry.   When they were in their in early teenage years, Dill and his brothers were sent away to train in the ways of the sword at the nearest town's guardhouse. Anemone felt horribly alone when Dill was gone, as Dill's sisters weren't all that interested in being her friends. And her sisters Cherry and Aspen weren't the same. She tried to keep herself occupied with the daily tasks, taking on basket weaving and spinning as an outlet that would lead her to the opportunity to travel to town where she would hawk her wares at the market. She would take that opportunity to try and see if she would run into Dill.   Unfortunately, this would lead to the downfall of everything she knew and loved.   She managed to run into Dill only once. Then, while she was selling her wares, her presence attracted the attention of a travelling lord by the name of Myrmynat Räksabai. Unbeknownst to her, he was one of The Raiding Lords from the north, and he had come to the town in order to scout it and see how hard it would be to take it for his own.   When he finally invaded the town, he took Anemone as a prize and whisked her away to the city he had made the capital of his little empire. Anemone tried to resist, but all efforts she made to escape were thwarted in one way or another. She missed her family and her friends and that fueled every attempt for freedom.   She didn't let her hope die, not when she could see their faces in her memories. But then she tried to escape one last time and she almost escaped. She made it to the border of his kingdom before the Raiding Lord himself caught up to her and took her back to his city. This nearly crushed her spirit—she tried to keep her hopes up and even began to plan her next escape plan on the trip back to her prison—until she was locked back into her "room" and the Raiding Lord revealed his ultimate solution: The Diamond Chains of Räksabai.   From that day forward Anemone's spirit was thoroughly crushed, and she stopped trying to escape.   Unbenownst to her, Dill and one of her brothers had survived the attack on the town and the family farms (which had been swept up in the invasion). Together, they learned of "a forlorn maiden in diamond chains" who dwelled in the Raiding Lord's city. Learning more, they realized that this maiden had to be Anemone.   Through charisma and sheer determination, Dill and Oak rally the disgruntled and wronged farmers, townsfolk, and wanderers left in Myrmynat Räksabai's wake and formed a small gurella army. They infiltrated Räksabai's city and began to harrass the guards as they figured out and gathered intelligence on Anemone's location.   Finally, they figured out where she was and confirmed that she was the Girl in the Diamond Chains. Dill and Oak faced off against Myrmynat Räksabai in the courtyard before his castle and with great effort they defeated him when Anemone appeared and tried to shield Dill from a surprise blow. The blade crashed against the delicate diamond bracelets, shattering them as well as the blade in Räksabai's hand.   Dill defeated Räksabai and the cruel warlord spent the rest of his life deep within the dungeons he had so carefully crafted deep below his castle.   Anemone and Dill, from that point forward, lived happily ever after, taking their place on Räksabai's throne. And everyone in that horrible little kingdom lived happily ever after.  

There are few traces that can be found nowadays (as of the Epoch of Liberty). Having happened before the Epoch of Grief, much of the evidence towards the validity of this story was destroyed during the Sorcerer Queen's attempts to make what would become the queendom of Aktigar hers.   Räksabai's City — This is one of the more visible pieces of evidence. Located in the south-east of the continent of Aegéfaer, near the shores of Moonglow Gulf (west of Dragonspur Peninsula), the ruins of a city that is said to be Myrmynat Räksabai's can be found. And even though the walls have crumbled, a town has cropped up in the spaces between the decaying walls and those who live there include the story of the Girl in Diamond Chains in their town's history.   The Diamonds of the Diamond Chains — Once symbols of Anemone's captivity, square-cut diamonds only a couple millimeters across were said to be incorporated into a dainty belt that Anemone wore until the day she died. A symbol of Anemone overcoming her bonds, the belt signified her triumph and her gaining control of her destiny. Unfortunately, most of the belt was destroyed during the Sorcerer Queen reign and Dill and Anemone's supposed few descendants were only able to save a handful of the diamonds.   Mentions of a Small Fiefdom — In the depths of The Athenaeum , there are scattered scrolls and parchments that mention the story of a Chärchíé and Samer, and the downfall of Myrmynat Räksabai. The current Grand Curator of the Athenaeum has studied these scraps in great detail and fully believes that the folktale of the Girl in the Diamond Chains depicts true events, even though it has been dumbed down enough to be appropriate for children.    

This folktale is well-known to most on the continent of Aegéfaer , and has even spread to places like Bélar, Vedour , Coratan , and Beht'adur.   Coratan and Vedour have even encorperated this story into their own folklore, as both kingdoms believe that this story is an integral piece to the puzzle that is the history of their people's migration from the continent to their island home.  

In Bélar, the Girl in the Diamond Chains holds some similarities with their folktale The Forgotten Princess—a story of a Bélaran princess who discovered she had power over ice and snow, like a Cermentari in human form. Because of this, some people in the southern-most reaches of Bélar have the tendancy to mix parts of the two together, not taking into account that doing so might cause some important aspects of both stories to be lost.   In Beht'adur, the Girl in the Diamond Chains is said to take place in the desert, with the girl momentarily visiting the coastal capital city of Pearlcrest. It was a claim that was never stated in the story outright but was surmised by the storytellers whenever they were asked by curious children during storytime. Anemone is transformed into a young girl with golden brown skin, large brown eyes that glinted with flecks of gold, and long and thick black hair that was slightly wavy and was tousled by the wind. She was dressed in a long and flowing tunic woven by light pink thread and baggy genie pants of jewel-green hue. She was known by her penchance to wander barefoot everywhere, with nothing but the barefoot sandal chains she dressed her feet with.   Her name in this story is Plumera, and she was the daughter of Cyprus and Acacia. In the Beht'aduran telling, she only has two siblings: Palm and Juniper, and instead of being a farmer's daughter, she and her family cared for a vital oasis on one of the lesser-known trade routes that linked Pearlcrest to the Sand Dwarves' mines in the north of the desert. Dill is replaced by Myrrh, the son of a merchant that often passed by the oasis. Plumera and Myrrh were the best of friends, and like Anemone and Dill, would eventually garner feelings for each other. Myrrh would eventually become lost in the desert when they were teenagers and Plumera would disappear into the desert in search of him. And though she would only catch sight of him, she is captured by the King of the Djinn (Räksabai's counterpart) and taken back to his kingdom in the sands. Myrrh was found and rescued by the secretive order of heroes who had retreated into the desert in order to hone their skills, and they trained Myrrh in their ways.

In the cultures of Vedour and Coratan, this story is important. While some doubt that this was really a valid historic explanation for why some of their ancestors would happen to settle near the shores of Moonglow Gulf before taking to the ocean in search of a new home, most believe that this story explains the movement of the people:   They were brought there by the Raiding Lords. Their towns were destroyed and they were herded like cattle until they came to Räksabai's city and were forced to settle there.   This story would also grow to be extremely important to the downtrodden folk who were forced to live under the Sorcerer Queen's crushing thumb. The story always held a spark of hope for those who felt trapped by her tyrrany, and would one day help inspire the people to join the man named Rymhûl and help him overthrow the Sorcerer Queen and her regime.   The act of Anemone helping Dill and Oak to free herself and everyone helped the downcast to look ahead and picture a day when all could be free once again.  

This one of the many fairy tales (called "folklore" to adults, or "adventure tales" to the kids) that can be found in anthologies across the continent of Aegéfaer. It can also be found amongst the adventure tales of Vedour and Coratan, due to its historical basis. It's historical basis has been mostly forgotten to the average person outside of those who are a part of the Athenaeum or are of the elven kinds that live south of the latitudes where it snows.