Legends of Belariath
Callie Volopa
The Story of Molisha and Zyharta
A Legend of the Verlosi Vulpine Tribe
As Told by Callie Volopa
Twenty-nine hundred years ago, a girl named Molisha was born in Verlosi’ka. It became clear from a very early age that the orange-furred vixen had the soul of a poet, as she composed mind-bogglingly passionate minkayni (poems) that she read aloud in public when she was as young as eight years old.
When Molisha was eleven years old, a thirteen-year-old golden-furred vulpine male from the Lingorian tribe named Zyharta moved into Verlosi’ka with his family. Molisha fell hard for him right from the very start, but it seemed like Zyharta barely knew she existed. A year after moving into Verlosi’ka, Zyharta had his first real conversation with Molisha, and the two became close friends—but Molisha longed for something more, even as Zyharta flitted around from girlfriend to girlfriend.
When Zyharta turned eighteen, he was expected to begin his sex training, but that year Verlosi’ka was attacked by the wolven village of Kitani. More than a hundred people were killed, but Zyharta and many of the other civilians in Verlosi’ka picked up weapons and fought off the Kitani. Zyharta and Molisha, both carrying mithril swords, fought with twelve other young people to successfully defend the Verlosi’ka Council Chambers against wolven incursion.
After Verlosi’ka’s defenders forced Kitani’s forces to retreat from the city, the Verlosi’ka Army drafted four hundred new soldiers into service to supplement the existing defense force as they launched a counterattack. Zyharta was among those called to serve; Molisha, however, being under the age of eighteen, was ineligible for conscription.
What had been planned as a mere counterattack against the Kitani turned into an all-out war that lasted two years, finally ending with a Verlosi’ka victory at the Battle of Romani Hill. Under the terms of the peace treaty ending the war, the Kitani were ordered to hand over some 20 square miles of territory to the Verlosi, disband its army except for a limited defensive force, and hand over the general that had led the Kitani troops in the Battle of Verlosi’ka. (He was later put to death.)
Zyharta returned home just in time for Molisha’s eighteenth birthday, and because of the timing of the war’s outbreak, he was still a virgin. Knocking on Molisha’s door in the middle of the night, Zyharta was greeted with a hug, and he told the young poet that he’d saved himself just for her.
That night, Molisha and Zyharta gave their virginity to each other under the clear starry sky of the Ulma Valley, with Molisha slowly lowering herself on top of him and riding her lover for nearly half an hour. Going back inside, they continued their lovemaking for a further three hours, in every position they could think of—as if, having finally admitted their love for one another, the two couldn’t wait to destroy all their inhibitions.
Within three months Molisha and Zyharta were married, but two weeks after the wedding, war broke out once more in the Ulma Valley. This time the wolven village of Folax was marching into the territory of the vulpine village of Kumaqri, and because Kumaqri and Verlosi’ka had a mutual defense pact, the Verlosi’ka Army was called to action. Although Zyharta had served his time as a draftee, he and the other reservists were called back to action. He had to leave his village, and the person he loved, once more.
This war stretched out to six years, in part because of a coup d’état in Kitani, leaving it with an entirely new Ruling Pack that decided to renounce the peace treaty signed with the Verlosi and enter the war on the side of its Folax brethren. With the human and elven villages of the valley looking on as neutral observers, the combined vulpine and wolven armies nearly annihilated each other.
Zyharta earned a field commission as an officer, being granted the rank of lieutenant after taking command of his unit when its captain was killed and leading them to a rout of the Kitani/Folax alliance at the Battle of Makala. Within another six months, Zyharta was a captain and had earned command of his own unit. He gained a key victory at the Battle of Runshaia that enabled the Vulpine Incorporated Army to control nearly three hundred square miles of territory in between Kitani and Folax, forcing the enemy to widen their supply lines.
Back home in Verlosi’ka, Molisha, fearing for her husband’s safety, wrote three books’ worth of minkayni that, to many, expressed perfectly the anxiety people felt at knowing their loved ones were out in dangerous combat. But Zyharta continued to distinguish himself; three months after the Battle of Runshaia, Zyharta led the invasion of Folax that led to the capture of their Ruling Pack, forcing the wolven city to surrender. Kitani, left without an ally and facing the overwhelming force of the Vulpine Incorporated Army, which had laid siege to the city, surrendered within a week, ending the Second War of the Ulma Valley.
As the war reached its conclusion, the souls of Molisha’s future children came to her in a dream, asking her to bring them into the world. Zyharta returned home a few days later, having retired from the army as one of its great heroes, and when Molisha told him of the dream, the couple went into the Temple of The Lady, where they prayed, chanted and made love for the next five hours.
Molisha gave birth to six children a few months later; their youngest daughter, Qupala, would later become grandmother to one of the Verlosi tribe’s most legendary heroes, Gashan—as well as a formidable water mage and war hero in her own right.