Twin brothers, born into danger.
Spirits of the plains watched a party of six people walk out of the Western Ocean and cross the Snowcloud Mountains into the green season. Many of those spirits had journeyed through the land of flesh and returned home to the deep sky. Others were yet to feel the rush of blood. Some would never leave the blue above the high plains. All were one with the Spirit and the Earth. They watched the walking people and discussed their urgency.
The spirits knew the woman. She was Micca, daughter of their neighbour spirits in the north. She had walked the Snowcloud Mountains before and they remembered her respect for the Earth. She had journeyed with children of the spirits and earned their respect. Now she carried two sons of her own, low in her belly, yet still she ran hard beside her companions.
The spirits looked into the man’s heart and saw that he was Jaun, half-human son of Boii and half-daemon son of Air. The spirits saw fearful courage in his heart and observed that he carried a dangerous secret and wore trouble like a shadow.
The final two in the party were nameless to the spirits. They ran as humans under the sun, and at night they circled as black cats.
They ran until the brothers were ready to breathe air, and Micca squatted on warm rock to bear them into the land of flesh. She held them to her breasts and slept while Jaun and the shape-shifters scanned every horizon.
The party descended to the high plains and walked east. They reached Bear Mountain at dusk on the third day, when a dust cloud in the distant south heralded pursuit.
The spirits saw demons from the world of Fire racing north, and watched Micca select a narrow canyon in which to stand. They watched her entrust her sons to the shape-shifters, and they sighed with bittersweet understanding as she and Jaun held each other hard. Then Jaun and the shape-shifters took the infant brothers and ran northeast while Micca prepared to do battle.
She held the Fire demons down with deadly arrows for four days. Then she stood tall with her blades, and screamed defiance, and took many demons with her to the deep sky. The spirits of the plains saw that she had given her family time to melt into the Earth, and they honoured her name.
Jaun, knowing the demons would seek twin brothers, left them to live their lives apart.
The spirits watched him, with a grieving heart, trying to melt back into the Earth alone, for it was the secret he carried that was the treasure sought by a demon master of Fire. They grieved with him. When he fell they grieved for him, and honoured his name.