Legend of the First Windwalker

Before kingdoms had borders and roads bore names, there was a land so vast and lush that its skies seemed to stretch forever. In that place—now lost to fire, stone, or time—lived a people who watched the clouds like scripture, who sang to the stars for guidance, and who followed the whispers of the wind as if it were prophecy. These were the Zherani, though they were not yet called that. They were sky-readers, caravan singers, and omen-watchers, living close to the rhythm of the world.   In the final days of that homeland—when the rivers dried too soon and birds flew in wrong directions—a child was born beneath a breathless sky. Her name was Zhera, and she was unlike any before her. She wandered far from the hearths of her people, chasing strange currents that no one else could feel. One dusk, she came upon a hollow in the world—a place where silence held its breath—and there, she met the wind.   But this was no ordinary wind. It was the First Wind, older than gods, punished for its wildness, banished to the edges of being. It had no memory, no form, no name. Yet Zhera heard its sorrow, and in answer, she sang—not a lullaby, but a telling. She gave the wind a name, a history, a voice.   The wind wrapped itself around her like a cloak, and from that day on, she walked lighter than shadow and spoke with the breath of storms. She returned to her people with songs they’d never heard and eyes that had seen farther than any horizon. And when their homeland fell—lost to whatever calamity the omens once warned—they did not despair. For Zhera had shown them that home was not earth, but memory; not walls, but song; not roots, but wind.   The people scattered, but they were not lost. They followed the wind, just as it now followed them. They took the name Zherani in her honor: not just wanderers, but those who remember the wind’s first story.   To this day, the Zherani believe that when a child is born, the wind stirs and listens. And when one dies, it does not weep—but sings.