Windy Tales: A Beginning


Far out on the Aryth Ocean, a wind rose. It was not the first wind to blow there. Or so at least, the Seafolk in that area disdainfully told it. They've weathered far fiercer winds with their ships, aye, and compared to them, she was merely a breeze.

The flying fish that rode in her bosom didn't find room to disagree. Though they were too young to remember more than a few other winds, everyone knew that all that flies, be it bird, wind or fish, in the end must fall back down into the sea. Only the sea, they all agreed, was eternal.

The waves did think she was the beginning. Wy they called her. Wy liked the waves best. She might not be the beginning, but she liked to think she was a beginning.

Wy did not remember much of her own beginning. There had been heat from the sun, and moisture and coldness from the fathomless sea. There seemed to have been other winds around meeting at the time, or maybe not. It was hard to remember. And there had been a faint smell of sulfur.

Wy had tried to ask other winds. Few cared to answer. Woss, a travelling wind from some distant land he called the Land of SANEMEN! said a sulfurous odor was a sure mark of a servant of the Dark One. That was a low point in Wy's short life. As soon as her friends, three gay breezes by the names of Wee, Whee and Whi heard his crackling dread message they fled in terror to avoid contamination from the dreaded sulfurous stench. Even her troupe of flying fish all chose to continue with Wee or with Whee or even with Whi instead of her. They had no loyal airs in them. Well, except for old Fly-Like-a-Drunk-Duck-of-the-Muck. Wy suspected he was just too old to pick a new wind to fly in and probably quite deaf as well.

Wy chose not to believe Woss' dreadful message. She was a light wind, she told herself, though certainly not a pushover like Wee or Whee or Whi. Therefore, she inquired circumspectly from other winds whether what Woss of the Land of the SANEMEN! said was true and while some did, other suggested that she was the natural daughter of a natural volcano or possibly a school of rotten fish.

Unfortunately, old Fly-Like-a-Drunk-Duck-of-the-Muck did hear that one and declared huffily that he could no longer be associated with a stinking cadaverous wind like herself and became an ordinary non flying fish.

And so, only Wy's twenty four faithful waves remained as her companions. Wy tended her little troop ever so faithfully and lovingly and they would whistle "Wy... Wy… Wy…" back at her. Things were good, even if a tad lonely and booooring but this could not last forever for one day, quite unexpectedly. they collided with an Ebou Dar and Wy's twenty four were all smashed into drops.

Wy thought this was the end but she soon learned that there are neither beginnings nor endings in the Wheel of Time. It was not the Ending but it was an ending.