Tales of the Guna

For the sake of context, it is advised to read to article about this religion first: Nalsaien Paganism.

1 Origins

In the beginning, there was only Surrah, a single realm of all-encompassing presence, and within it, the Aether, an all-powerful energy and force of life. But this duality would not last forever, for the Surrah eventually split into different realms, and the Aether gave rise to many creatures, gods and beasts alike, who would inhabit these realms.

The Gods were the chiefest of these beings, and thus, they took the greatest realm for themselves, naming it Nahdrusha.
Soon, there were other beings wishing to take their world from them, the Oknai, foul creatures of lesser power and lesser intelligence. These first battles were fought between mere individuals, as this was too early for armies, and the Oknai were driven to another realm, which was from then on known as Oknai'ia.

Lesser beasts still, those with no mind of their own, other than what instinct can direct, flocked to Kesmu, the land of the dead. None settled there, for it was a place of death, where all souls went after their bodies had been destroyed.

In Nahdrusha, the gods split into two groups: four of the gods, called the Guna, and a larger group, called the Munae.
The Guna were fewer in number, but greater in power, and they split Nahdrusha evenly in two.

The Guna were Iluan, Manuan, Valuan, and their leader, Giruan.

2 Giruan and Iluan

Giruan was a great hunter, and he had played a major role in banishing the Oknai from Nahdrusha. His valor and strength earned him the love of Iluan, the beauty, who was the only woman among the Guna.
They married and built a grand home in their lands, called Guna's Hold, where the four of them lived together.
This made Manuan jealous, for he too had desired to marry Iluan and had made many advances towards her, all in vain.

The hold was split into three large sections, so each may have their privacy, one being shared by Giruan and Iluan.
It wasn't long before they shared it with two more souls, their sons Onakka and Gurak, who had been born twins. Onakka was the older and more powerful and had a love for creation, but Gurak took more after his father and took an interest in hunting and fighting.

Next, Iluan gave birth to two girls, only a few years apart from each other.
The first was Aisuk, who was fair, much like her mother in appearance, and more beautiful still, and the second was Ailu, while born healthy and strong, quickly became frail and sickly, and was much plainer in appearance.

3 The War for Nahdrusha

It wasn't long before war broke out at last. Giruan had four more under his command, but only two who would fight, and only one who truly wanted too, for Onakka often lamented being dragged to war, and stating her preference to work on his art and his crafts.
Each time, Giruan chided him for his frivolity.
"No child of mine shall play with dirt and paint, while our enemies crowd around us, hold up your sword, or are you no son of mine?"
So, Onakka fought on.
Gurak, on the other hand, took great delight in combat, and he quickly mastered the art. He, together with his father, Vuluan, and Manuan, killed dozens of Munae, who had been more plentiful to begin with, and had been more fruitful than Giruan. Manuan lamented that it was because they had many more women to choose from, but Giruan strictly forbade any of them from touching so much as looking at the Munae women, if for any other purpose than to kill them.
Valuan did so dutifully and solemnly, but Manuan was not pleased, he, too, wished to multiply and spread his seed, and if Iluan had been kept from him, he would want to have one of these Munae women, of which there were so many.

Once, Giruan caught him eyeing one of them, and killed the woman in front of him.

It was because of this that Manuan and Onakka, too, lost their taste for combat, they saw no purpose in going on fighting, and they left Giruan to fight with only Gurak and Valuan to support him.
The three of them were strong, though, and they saw many victories, but still, numbers can overwhelm, and in one fateful battle, Valuan was killed.

The death of Valuan forced a stalemate, for they were too tired to go on.

4 Onakka's Mistake

It was during this brief period of peace that Onakka found himself wandering by the borders of Gunaheim, looking for inspiration in the landscape, the animals, and the plants, when he saw something he had not expected: a woman.
The woman was filling a jug of water across the river that marked the border between he realms of Gunaheim and Munaeheim, and Onakka knew she was off limits, but still, he was drawn to her.

He saw her again and again, and he found himself going to the river just to see her, until one day he could stand it no more, and he crossed the waters to meet her.
Her name was Aethl, he soon found out, and she shared in his love for art, for creation, for creativity, and they worked together on a masterpiece of craftsmanship, made from a union between rock and wood, they constructed a bidge over the river, to easy their meetings, and one day soon, they married in secred, on that same bridge, which had been the labour of their love.

Even when Giruan decided to continue his wars, they hid away together in the distant corners of the land, and they focused on each other.
Together, they created many beings at once, and they became known as the Ynue. They were strong, and they were eager to teach them to ways of creation and of peace, but the Ynue soon betrayed them. They took Aethl when Onakka wasn't looking and killed her, before escaping to Arda, where they scattered her soul across the land.

Distrought, Onakka went to his father and begged him for aid, but Giruan was deaf to his words.
"You slept with one of them!" he shouted. "The enemy! You should be glad I don't send you to join your wench in the grave." Giruan said.
"Calm now, my husband," Iluan said, "can you not see that your son has suffered enough, should we not forgive him, and help him to recover?"
Giruan nodded and calmed down, realising that his wife was right.

And this it was that Giruan helped Onakka to confine all the Ynue to Oknai'ia, where they remain to this day.

The death of Aethl and the marriage that had existed between her and Onakka forced Giruan to reconsider his war, and Onakka begged him to cease the meaningless suffering.
"First, you sleep with the enemy, and now you wish to guard them from me?" Giruan asked of his son.
"Yes, Father. Please, I beg of you, no others need to die, let not happen again what has happened to me!"
"Very well," Giruan said, "I shall let the Munae live in their half of Nadhrusha undisturbed by me, underder one condition."
"Anything, Father? What is it you would ask of me?"

And so it was that Onakka became the lord of Kesme, for Giruan wanted to see him no more. He became the king of an entire realm, albeit the realm of the dead, and he never returned to Nahdrusha again.

5 Giruan's Fears

Giruan kept his word, never again setting foot in Munaeheim, and instead, he took his anger out on the Oknai of Oknai'ia, where he spent much time.
Still, he grew restless, he saw the Munae multiplying, and he saw Gurak look at their women, hungry for the needs of the flesh.
Too, he saw his daughters look to the Munae, and in his dreams, he saw all his children leave to marry Munae, leaving him alone with his wife, and a brother who would steal his wife from him the moment he closed his eyes.
And so it was that he decided to find a wife for Gurak, and it would be one of the Guna, if he had any say about it.

First, he went to Ailu, and he asked it of her. "Please marry Gurak, for if you do not, he will turn to the Munae, that cursed lot, and I cannot lose another son."
"Father. I hear you, you are right to be concerned, I have seen the way he looks at them, but I am not worthy of him, I am too plain, too simple for a man such as him. He deserves one much fairer, such as my sister Aisuk, if it please you."
Giruan agreed, though he had not often looked to his daughters as such, but he supposed his daughter was right, and he visited Aisuk next. What he did not know was that Ailu had ulterior motives, wanting to marry Manuan instead.
"Aisuk," Giruan said, approaching her in her living quarters. "Please hear me, my daughter fair, please marry Gurak, or he will turn to the Munae, those demons they, I know it, for I see it in his gaze."
"No, my father dear, I wish not to marry him, he is a brute and a violent one. I wish a man of heart, and of gentle soul, not such as him."
"But please, my daughter Aisuk dear, please marry him, for I cannot lose another son. If he seeks the bosem of the Munae, he will surely be lost to me, I beg you, please marry him, for he deserves one so pure and beautiful as you."

Eventually, Aisuk gave in to her father's pleas, and she agreed to marry Gurak.
Gurak was happy that his father allowed him to marry at all, but he assured him he would have been happy without a woman to warm his bed.
Giruan dismissed him and told him he would marry, and so it was.

6 Ailu's Deceit

Manuan never got over Giruan's marriage to Iluan, for her still desired her, and whenever Giruan was away on hunting trips, often taking Gurak with him, he went to her always in vain. Most didn't notice, being too busy with their own lives, but one who always watched on was Ailu.
Watching Manuan speak flowered words to her mother filled her with a fierce burning desire, and jealousy, and one day, she formed a plot to finally get the man of her dreams to notice her instead.
She had sent her mother away, telling her to go check on Onakka, for he surely desired to see his mother once in a while, and while she was gone, she dressed up as her mother, using paint and magic to make her as beautiful as her, and when all were away, she waited for Manuan to come again.
When he did, she pretended to be swayed by his charms, and she slept with him, to his utter delight, and to her satisfaction.

When her mother returned, she took off her disguise and pretended all was normal, but Manuan was none the wiser.
He went to Iluan and confessed his undying love for her, and beseeched her to leave with him, far away from Nahdrusha, where they could be together. Iluan, utterly confused, told him to be gone and to leave alone forever, or she would send Giruan after him.

This left Manuna in utter defeat and despair, but Ailu, who had once been frail and plain, was glowing and shining like never before.
Next, she disguised herself once more, but this time, she went to Manuan's quarters and seduced him.

"I thought you didn't love me," he said, almost weeping.
"I do love you, but we cannot be seen together, we can only acknowledge our love when I come to you. Do you understand, my love?" Ailu said to him, imitating her mother's voice.
Manuan only nodded, and they made love.

Over time, Ailu grew from frail to well-built, and eventually, she became fat.
"What has happened to you, my daughter dear?" Giruan asked of her when he returned from his hunt.
"I don't know what you mean, Father. I am myself, as I was always meant to be."
"No, you are not, you are pregnant?" Giruan said, pointing at her enlarged belly.
"Whom was it that spilled his seed inside you? Was it the Munae, that cursed lot?"
"N-no," Ailu stammered, not knowing what to do, "It wasn't, I swear!"
"Then who, my daughter, for if another of my children betrays me, by sleeping with one of them, without my consent, I am not sure what I'll do!"
"It was Manuan, that handsome man, we have fallen in love, I swear, we were going to tell you."

Giruan believed her and confronted Manuan. Manuan denied ever having slept with Ailu, but he soon realised what had happened. Not having the heart to tell Giruan that he was under the impression that he had been sleeping with Iluan, he admitted that he had seduced Ailu, and Giruan commanded him to marry her at once.

7 The Marriage of Gurak and Aisuk

In the first years of their marriage, Aisuk was determined to do her father proud and to be a good wife, and she bore Gurak a son, whom she named Auni.
But Gurak spent much time away, hunting beasts in Kesmu, or fighting wars against the Oknai with their father, and she felt her thoughts wander away from him.
Gurak did not notice this, for whenever he was in Nahdrusha, he would drink his fill of Khuums, lie with her, and go to sleep, only to do the same the next day.
She felt herself craving more, and she approached the only other man in the hold, Manuan.
Manuan was now married to her sister Ailu, something he was very unhappy about, so when Aisuk came to seek his company, he was delighted.
He was a gentler soul, a man of poems and philosophy, his wing of the hold was filled with trees and gardens and fountains, and she would seek him there.
In turn, Aisuk was honest to Manuan, something Ailu had failed to do, and it wasn't long before they embraced each other's flesh.

Aisuk fell pregnant from one of their encounters, and was still so when Gurak returned from his hunts in Kesmu. At first, she claimed it was his child, but he was not deceived, and when the child ws born, it looked so much like Manuan that he need not ask who the real father was.
Aisuk named the child Gaor.

Ailu, who had already been shriveling back to her frail self in her loveless marriage with Manuan, became filled with rage when she found out. She destroyed his gardens, threw black point in his fountains, and left him, taking their daughter Ilak with her, back to her parents' wing of Guna hold.

Gurak took the infedelity as he took all hardships in life, with stoic, repressed anger. He drank himself into a stupor and left before the sun rose, going to Oknai'ia to slay monsters.

8 The Fall of Aisuk

One day, a few years later, Gurak had not yet returned, and Ailu had been fully integrated back into her parents' household, now consisting of her parents, Giruan and Iluan, her daughter Ilak, her sister Aisuk, and her two children, Auni and Gaor, and herself.
Ailu waited until things had settled down. She feigned indifference now that she had left Manuan and took up the responsibility to cook for the family.
And then, she poisoned Aisuk's plate with the skin of a frog.
Aisuks' death was quick, but nonetheless painful, and before she died, she writhed on the floor, spitting foam from her mouth, and her sons, her parents, and even Ilak, who had not known of her mother's plans, looked on in horror as she died.

Gaor Weeped for months on end, as he was still a small child at the time, Ailu kept his tears in private and instead found solace in comforting his younger brother. And Ailu was banished from Gunaheim. Giruan had wanted to send her to Kesmu, or Oknai'ia, or away from Surrah entirely, but Iluan had encouraged him to calm down and begged him to let her stay in Nahdrusha at least.
And so it was that Ailu took up residence in a distant corner of Nahdrusha, between the realms of Gunaheim and Munaeheim, where she lived at peace with her daughter Ilak.

Gurak, when he returned nearly a decade later, wept when he found his wife in her grave, but he sought no revenge, seeking to let the past stay in the past.

9 The Fate of Manuan

After his many rejections by Iluan, and after his failed marriage with Ailu, and the death of his lover, Aisuk, Manuan felt empty. His gardens withered, and his soul wept, for he had never felt so alone.
Manuan, when Ailu had been sent away from Gunaheim, had offered to come with her, promising to be a better husband this time, if not for her, for their child Ilak, whom he missed dearly. But Ailu told him to be gone, and to leave her in peace.
And so it was that he found that there was nothing left in Gunaheim keeping him there.

Manuan decided to leave for Arda, the lesser of the realms, where mortals lived, but the only one where a god such as himself might live in peace, and he did.
He eventually fathered a son, Mundua, to a mother unknown to the world, likely of Mortal origins, and he stayed there, drifting away, never to be seen or heard from again.
It is said he lingers in Arda still, a spirit of the forest, the soul of the seas, the god of nature.

Mundua was said to have raised the mountains, for he is the god of rock and earth, and his descendants became the Baskth, who live in the mountains still.

10 The Return of Ilak

Ailu was content to live away from all the others, she became a successful herder of livestock, and her herds became so large and fruitful that she became the chiefest supplyer of meat of all Nahdrusha, she grew not frail, nor fat, but strong, and though she wasn't the most beautiful, she quickly became one of the wealthiest individuals in all of Surrah.

For her, this life was perfect, but her daughter Ilak sought to return to the other gods. She became lonely, but when she told her mother of this desire, she told her that she would struggle to get anyone other than the munae to accept her back, and the munae would only want her for her power, so they may defeat the Guna.

Still, Ilak was not discouraged, and she wrote many letters, one to her grandparents, who had always cared for her, one to Gurak, who might see her innocence and accept her return, and one to Auni, who had been her childhood friend.

Her grandparents opened the letter, but Giruan refused, saying she was poisoned by Ailu's words, and couldn't be trusted, and in the letter he sent back, he told her he would just as soon let the Munae into his hold.
Gurak never opened the letter and tossed it aside as soon as he read her name on it, but Auni, Auni was more positive.

He tried to convince the others to accept her back, saying she was not at fault for the actions of her mother, but all fell on deaf ears.
Still, he sent a letter back, asking to see her at a halfway point between their two homes, and so they did.

Their meeting went well, they talked of recent events and of life in general, they talked of war and of peace, and they agreed to meet again soon.
They started meeting every week, and it wasn't long before they fell in love.
After half a year, Ilak fell pregnant, and when she did, Auni decided to bring her home to Guna Hold and announced that they were to be wed.
Giruan expressed his displeasure, but, since she wasn't a real Munae, and since she was already pregnant, he let it be, and he allowed them to take up in Manuan's old wing of the hold, where he didn't have to look at them constantly.

11 Gaor's Despair

Gaor never truly got over the trauma of losing his mother so violently, and at such a young age, and he grew up a somber child. Gurak tried to teach him to find joy in hunting and fighting, but it was in vain, Iluan tried to mother him where Aisuk couldn't, but still, she couldn't replace her.
Gaor could often be seen at Aisuk's grave, weeping and begging her to return.
"Where did you go?" he would ask, not expecting her to answer.
When he got older, he learned of his uncle, the king of Kesma, and decided to visit him.

"Have you seen my mother?" He asked Onakka.
"Yes, I see her every day, for I am the king of the dead, and the dead are all mine to observe."
"Can you send her to me?" Gaor asked, hopeful to see his mother once more.
"I can only send you to her if it is your desire. Just know, you will not be able to leave here once you enter." Onakka said solemnly.
"Please, uncle Onakka, I beg of you, please release my mother, I miss her so." Gaor pleaded.
"It is the duty and privilege of the dead to be missed and remembered, it means they lived well, and it means your reunion will be pleasurable, once you enter here yourself."
"But can you not make it, so she no longer has to be missed? Is it not more valuable for you to return her, so she may live better and more fully, before ending up in your domain?"
"It is not for me to say who lives well, and who dies sooner or late," Onakka countered, "For die you must, and then you shall come here, for me to look after, that is all I do."
"Is there anything I can do to make it worth your while, please master king, Uncle of mine, I beg of you, I will do what I must to see my mother live again." Gaor pleaded and begged, getting to his knees in front of his uncle.
"There is one thing, nephew of mine, if you would dare, there is one task you could do for me, although it will take you the rest of your life, if you do this for me, I can see that your mother lives again."
"What is it, Uncle Onakka? Anything, say it, and I will do it, even if it takes me the rest of my life!"
"There are many dead from the world of Mortals, Arda is its name, that escape me. Those wretched Ynue seek to corrupt the souls of the mortals who die there, and I would have you bring them to me. You would be their shepherd and their guardian, guiding them to Kesma, where they belong. Do this for me, and your mother shall live again."

And so it was that Garo became the god of death, the shepherd of the fallen souls of Arda, a job that he would perform for the rest of his eternal life. Only once every ten years would he get a day off, a day on which he could see his mother again.

12 Gurak and Iluan

Aisuk, when she returned, was welcomed back by her parents, and even by Gurak.
"Will you forgive, o husband of mine, for my sins, for my faithlessness, for the wrongs I have done?"
"I would have forgiven you, even had you not died before my return, for I know I was not the husband you deserved. I only hope we can move forward now, and treasure each other, for what we are worth."

13 Children of Gods

Auni and Ilak gave birth to many children, all of whom left for Arda, and became the ancestors of the Nalsai, and they themselves lived happily forever i Guna hold, watching over their progeny from afar.