Legend of The Alembra Orin

The Legend of Tareha – The Bijeli Sunce, The White Sun

  The Bernora Faction of Minotaurs is slightly unique in how they are culturally, they do not fight or engage in combat with the same zeal as their counterparts in the Fen, Dray and Zorn Factions. Long ago, an Alembra Orin saved their Faction from utter destruction. A Sordean came to their Faction in 800 AC as near as the Sordean historians can tell, to warn them that the Naga would wipe their Faction out if they didn’t allow Tareha to live.   Oracle Jaina traveled to find the Bernora Faction of Minotaurs, she had seen their need for her help. Many in the Lyceum of Starlight, the Sordean school of magic and philosophy in the land of Numis shunned Jaina for even admitting she had a non-Saharian prophecy. Jaina truly believed that by saving this Minotaur Faction it would link to some future help that Saharians would need, though she couldn’t see that part of the future; she knew that her foretelling was given to her for a reason. So, she abandoned her home in the land of Numis, the land of ice and night rainbows to venture south through the Amber Woods and Amber Plains where their most hated enemy the Amber Talon Giants lived to save these Minotaurs who lived south of the Giants in the Bernora Forest.   It took 20 years for Oracle Jaina to convince the Shamans of the Bernora Faction to believe her, finally an old and greatly aged Shaman named Orikan came to visit Jaina where she had been hiding in the Ska-Umbra Range of mountains, the two women came to an understanding. Orikan had had a dream of Tareha and finally believed Jaina, before Orikan died (because she knew her death day was coming soon) she traveled with Jaina back to her Faction and convinced the elders, chiefs and Shamans of the validity of Jaina’s foretelling. Orikan had dreamed of a Bijeli Sunce, a White Sun in the form of a Centicore, so bright was this Centicore it outshone everything. Centicore's are highly revered because of an even more ancient legend of a Bijeli Centicore, a White Centicore and The White Sun is always associated with a female Minotaur. Orikan believed Tareha was this White Sun and conveyed as much to her Faction.   Taken together, The White Sun and White Centicore, the elders, shamans and warriors of the Faction finally believed.  

In 840 AC, Jaina died alone in the mountain range of Ska-Umbra.

  Her foretelling did not have a date attached to it, Shaman Orikan had told her Faction members that one day, an Alembra Orin would be born and the Shamans would know her on sight and that she needed to live. They came up with unique ways of trying to figure out how they would know, Tareha was a female name in Minotaur society so that was one criterion they used, though it was too broad and over the generations, they narrowed how they could find this child.   Since it is so harshly ingrained in their society to be outcast, few if any Alembra Orins were born. Slowly over the generations, they were allowed to live; still outcast but few if any of the Bernora Minotaurs would outright kill them.  

Then in 1598 AC she was finally born.

  Minotaurs have fur and hide the color of cows but little white, the white fur and hide is only on their chest, spotted a bit on their face but mostly their fur is dark brown, black and light brown on rare occasions. Never in Minotaur history has a fully white albino Minotaur ever been born. Tareha was pure white; white eyes, white fur, even crystal white horns. The only color Tareha had was her hooves and claws were solid black. She was also blind. No Minotaur in the Bernora Faction nor even Oracle Jaina had any idea that the Alembra Orin born would be this distinguishable.     Anything Tareha said, they believed. She was not a loquacious Minotaur as she rarely spoke. When she did, every word was remembered. Tareha lived a short life, Minotaurs on average live 130 years and sadly Tareha lived only 25 years. What little is known about her, the Bernora Faction guards very closely and the little the other Factions did know they have forgotten over the generations; all they do remember is that she existed.  

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  Tareha knew precisely how to save her Faction from being wiped out by the Naga as two Naga Broods would attack at the same time, simple coincidence? No one knows, as Naga almost never work together. The attack would be so brutal that it would wipe out the Bernora Faction. Tareha gave the warriors precise instructions on how to identify when the attack would occur and what to do. They must retreat and hide but not until the right time.  

In 1633 AC, one decade after Tareha’s death the signs and indications came; the warriors of the Bernora Faction gathered their people and with a crudely drawn map (Minotaurs are terrible artists) they followed the path laid out by Tareha.

  They went to a cave no Minotaur knew of in the Lucent Mountains to the east of Bernora Forest, this cave was actually an entrance to an incredibly complex cave network that spanned the Lucent Mountains all the way to the eastern edge of the Tamfall Mountains. How Tareha could know how to navigate this cave system, no one knows but navigate it they did; every member of the Faction of Bernora. For one year they were to live in these caves and they had preparations for that. Once the year was up, the Faction returned to their lands to find the carcasses of dead Naga littered everywhere.   Burning their hated enemy in pyres, they would later learn that Taloreans and Giants had been grievously affected by the Naga attack since the Minotaurs were not in their forest they normally inhabit. From 1634 AC and on, the Bernora would send gifts to the Giants and ignore the Taloreans. They feared the Giants and not the weak humans. They knew that is was Tareha that saved them but who had killed their hated enemy was the Giants, so they send gifts of thanks to the Amber Talon Giants, bewildered, the Giants accept and have no idea to this day why they receive these gifts.