 | Name | The Tale of Shiruyeh and Shirin (I) |
| Type (Ingame) | Quest Item | |
| Family | Book, The Tale of Shiruyeh and Shirin | |
| Rarity |  | |
| Description | A Jinni tells a tale on the night wind, a story about itself and a shepherd. It's a story of unknown origin and is full of absurdities. |
Item Story
| "The next story I'll tell comes from the age of Shiruyeh, the Lord of Pestilence, though at this time, that vassal ruler had not yet gained notoriety for Shiruyeh's Plague, nor had his subjects been scattered amidst a world of darkness, left to become wild creatures who had lost their language and faces..." The fairy of the moon maiden's city paused for a moment, then stretched out lazily. The moonlit silver coins jangled on her wrists and ankles as if displeased with the jouncing of the Sumpter Beast. "Anyway, little raven, do you know the meaning of the name "Shiruyeh"?" "Uh... 'One who is ridiculous and despicable'?" The youth whom she had rather one-sidedly named "Raven" answered casually. Suffering the heat of the sun and the threat of quicksand, he had little interest in his travel companion's stories. "In our tribe, 'Shiruyeh' is a disgraceful name branded only onto the foreheads of exiled chiefs and spoken only in curses and mockery. It's a tradition of ours... But I'm sure that the traditions of other tribes are not so different." "Haha! Mortal awareness is just like quicksand, shifting with the winds of time. How bizarre!" "Raven" replied perfunctorily, drawing an unexpectedly enthusiastic taunt from the fairy, "Now, actually... in the lost language, 'Shiruyeh' means 'unweaned lion cub'. His father Parvezravan gave this name to his newborn son, oblivious that he, the vassal king who referred to himself as the 'Spirit of Unceasing Victory,' would be torn apart by his own beloved 'lion cub'..." The fairy paused, seemingly afraid that her audience was getting bored, and exchanged glances with the youth before continuing her tale: "As for this Parvezravan, legend has it that in the days when mortals ruled as vassal kings, he was one of the mightiest among them..." "Parvezravan was not, in fact, the original name of this vassal king. As the spirits tell it, he was an orphan who was raised in the nest of the giant bird Ghoghnus and given the name 'Kisra,' or 'one who has been bestowed a good name.' Later, his aspiration to greatness and the aid of this divine bird saw him adopted by the vassal king Ormazd Shah, and he would eventually rise to become a sage and hero among mortals. In the songs of the now-vanished desert people, Kisra plundered the four corners of the land in the name of his king, Ormazd Shah. By his hand, the bronze and mortar towers of ninety-nine cities were destroyed or abandoned. By his hand, the leaders of ninety-nine nomadic tribes were defeated. And by his hand, ninety-nine sages with knowledge of the order of the stars were bound in golden chains, then led back to the towering royal city of Gurabad to be imprisoned. At that time, the promised land of "Valivija" was engulfed by wild, gilded sands, and one of the three living gods had fallen. Amidst a century of chaos and confusion, the scattered mortals ensconced themselves in vassal states until my lord Al-Ahmar and the Sage-King of the Greenwood gathered their subjects. Once the oasis paradise was reconstructed, the age of the vassal kings, the age of division, finally came to a close. Returning to our preceding tale, Ormazd's crown grew all the more valuable on the back of Kisra's exploits, until finally his own neck could no longer bear its weight, forcing him to leave it ever suspended from chains of pure gold in the center of the main hall. The vassal king Ormazd Shah rewarded young Kisra's unrivaled achievements amply: He bestowed the name "Parvez" upon his adopted son and offered his daughter Shirin's hand to him in marriage. In the ethereal songs of the spirits, as the heir of both the mortal vassal king and the foremother Liloufar, she possessed superior wisdom and was blessed with an infinite lifespan and, like the original sages, could foresee the fortunes and misfortunes of the present moment. If Kisra Parvez had stopped there, his reputation as a hero would have continued unblemished. But one cursed day, Ormazd and all 300 of his offspring suddenly died in one night in the city of Gurabad. Following such an unthinkable event, the throne naturally fell to Kisra, who added "Ravan" to his title and became the most powerful vassal king among mortals. "..." The fairy abruptly stopped her tale and looked up at the red sun that was now sinking behind the sand dunes. She then whistled sharply, signaling to the youth to halt the Sumpter Beast and prepare to make camp for the night under the crumbling stone pillars. "Some people say..." The fairy lithely leaped down from the Sumpter Beast and circled across the sands in a manner not unlike the long-lost dancers of Setaria, letting the moon's first light evenly coat her translucent skin in its silvery sheen. The scent of myrrh swirled around her myriad braids as the golden bells rang out into the distance. Then, the fairy leaned over slightly, balancing on the tips of her toes as she laughed softly. Some people say that the tragedy that befell the city of Gurabad was the handiwork of the hero Kisra. Some people say that the night the tragedy took place, an evil, clawless bird flew out from the redoubt and wailed throughout the night without stopping to eat or drink. The castle was then struck by a plague of rats with human faces, which gnawed at the gold chains from which the crown hung, causing the cumbersome thing to crash heavily to the ground, broken and bent. People say that the crown made such an earth-shaking noise when it fell that even the Fellahin servants, who had settled and toiled far from the redoubt, trembled with fear at this tyrant they had never met. Later still, it is said that an adventurer found the ancient crypts of the city of Gurabad beneath the gilded sands, in which were hidden the withered, massive remains of Ormazd and his offspring, An ancient, inscrutable inscription was left on each of the shriveled bodies... "I hope this story frightened you." The fairy watched keenly as the mortal boy before her drank from the waterskin. The tribes of the desert regard water with an instinctive restraint and prudence. Spirits, however, are born of pure elemental energy and know neither thirst nor the satisfaction of the pleasure of luxury, just like the ancient princess Shirin in this lament. "As for the daughter of the foremother Liloufar I mentioned, Shirin — why, our story has only just begun..." The fairy smiled slyly again, her eyes like an amalgam of amber and gold, her smiling face like the princess of her ancient homeland. |
Bro really said Kokomi was bad at the beginning. No, Kokomi was always good, people were just being...