Under the golden eye of the sun, somewhere in the Red Desert of the Southern Isle once lived two children: a girl and a boy named Dim and Mian. They were beautiful in form and endowed with a wondrous gift that no other member of their tribe shared.
Like every living thing and every dead thing, they cast a shadow that merged with the night at sunset to cool the heat of hot hours. Seen in the light of day, however, green stalks and small shoots sprouted where the girl’s shadow fell. In the boy’s shadow, in turn, a small spring gurgled and bubbled. If their shadows moved on with them, however, the green withered and the wet dried up as soon as the stern gaze of the Sun Queen met them.
Now it was so that the two argued without ceasing and irreconcilably about whose gift was the most excellent. Finally their fellow men could not bear the dispute any longer and asked the tribal leader to put an end to it with a judgment. But even he could not settle the dispute, whereupon he sent Dim and Mian away to find either wisdom or death in the desert.
So they went on, arguing incessantly about the right way and everything in the world. Finally, they parted and wandered for many days and nights, with hunger gnawing at Mian and thirst tormenting Dim.
But since everything in life is a cycle, the two met again. Weak and tired from hardships, they equally sank to their knees so that their shadows fell together. Immediately it began to grow and sprout and everything thrived and endured even in the blaze of the day.
Then the girl said, “You may eat from my garden!”
“And you may drink from my water,” replied the boy.
Thereupon the two returned home … Their shadows and their hearts entwined. The path they took was henceforth called the Green Path, where no wanderer should ever again suffer hunger and thirst.
Credits
Dim: the dress is selfmade. Dagger from Ebay.com
Mian: selfmade clothes, chainmail from an medieval market, sword from Ebay.com