Legends of Belariath

Callie Volopa

Akinza, Yasha and the Jankeen

In ancient times, before the vulpine people were divided into tribes the way they are today, the high priest of the vulpine temple in the village of Jayarta returned home one day to discover that his wife had received a vision from the spirits of their future children, finally granting them the ability to conceive.  And as the high priest and his wife were each over 500 years old, and the average age of first conception at that time was about 140, needless to say, they were overjoyed that their long wait was over.

The priest, Wansheen, made love to his wife multiple times a night for three months, and indeed she became pregnant, giving birth to four sons and one daughter.  The daughter, Yasha, grew quickly in grace, wisdom and beauty, and everyone in the village was quite taken with her—but perhaps no one more so than a youth born the same year as Yasha.  His name was Akinza, and he spent his days taking care of the horses at the vulpine temple.  It was simple and fulfilling work, but when he daydreamed, it was always about Yasha.

As for Yasha, her interactions with Akinza were limited, but she came to think of him as a thoughtful, polite boy who took very good care of the horses.

On Yasha’s 16th birthday, Wansheen called all the eligible bachelors of the village into the square, where he announced that he would give his daughter’s hand in marriage to a man who could present him with something of worth that no one had ever seen before.  Immediately, many people ran out of the village in search of something, anything, they could give to Wansheen in exchange for permission to marry his daughter.

Akinza, on the other hand, was distraught.  He had led such a simple life, how could he possibly hope to live up to this expectation?  But then he thought back to all the conversations he’d had with Yasha, the way she smiled, and the way she ran her fingers through her head-fur when she got bashful—and he knew he *had* to think of something.

Then, looking out at the nearby river, he pondered.  “There must be <i>many</i> wonderful things at the bottom of the sea, things no one has ever seen before.”  But the only way to get to the bottom of the sea would be to become a water mage—which no vulpine had ever done before.

Staying at the stables for two months—long enough to train a successor—Akinza rode a horse to the distant eastern ocean, where he came upon a village dominated by elves.  There, under the great elven water mage Tuvalu Kiriso, Akinza began to follow the path of the water, becoming the first vulpine ever to successfully complete training as a water mage.  Akinza had had no prior experience with magic whatsoever, and in these early days of magic it therefore took him about ten years to finish his training.

When he woke up one day to find that his copper fur had transformed into a brilliant icy white, Akinza went to his master, who verified that the vulpine had indeed completed all that was necessary for him to learn.  With a grin of delight, Akinza took to the ocean immediately, diving deep beneath its depths, all the way to the very bottom.  Using his Dawn’s Early Light spell to see, at first he couldn’t find anything that he hadn’t seen before.

Then, he watched as two deep-sea fish, one male and one female, began a courting dance.  The hormones generated by the male fish were so intense that they pooled up through his skin, and poured out of his body, coagulating together in a small, glowing green ball the size of a marble.  As the fish mated, the green marble sank to the very bottom of the ocean, and nestled in a small group of bioluminescent seaweed.

Blinking in surprise, Akinza took hold of the ball—which, despite being the size of a marble, was far greater in weight than he expected.  He took it all the way to the surface with him, and brought it to the village library, where he thoroughly looked through biological records for references to what he discovered.

Finding none, Akinza—mindful that if he allowed anyone else to see his discovery before Wansheen did, that he would technically be in violation of his statute—packed the marble safely away with his belongings, said goodbye to Tuvalu, and returned to his village.  As it turned out, though ten years had passed, Yasha was still single.  All the attempts thus far of potential suitors to give Wansheen a valuable item that no one had seen before had been for naught.

Going to the temple, Akinza bowed respectfully before Wansheen, and presented the marble, telling him exactly how he’d gotten it, and asking for Yasha’s hand in marriage.  Wansheen—who didn’t recognize Akinza at first with his white fur—was thunderstruck, for he had never seen such a thing before.

“What do you call it?” Wansheen asked him.  Thinking quickly, Akinza replied, “A jankeen, Your Eminence.”  Jankeen, in Vulpani, is literally translated as “jewel of love”.

Wansheen took it to the elders of the village, who confirmed that to their knowledge, the jankeen was a completely new discovery.  Having verified it, the high priest was only too happy to grant Akinza permission to marry Yasha.

Yasha was astonished that Akinza would go through ten years of hard work to become the first vulpine water mage just to earn the right to marry her, and so when Akinza came to her and asked her to marry him, Yasha—remembering the sweet, hardworking boy of ten years ago—delightedly accepted.

Akinza and Yasha grew old together and had many children, whose descendants—along with the descendants of the students Akinza took under his wing—would eventually form the Vulpine Water Tribe.

BACK