It may seem far-fetched, but many of cling on to hope. After all, if the desert could swallow our land what’s to say that the reverse can’t happen. Nature works in mysterious ways and all we can do is hope for better days. Our centuries of pain will be awarded with a just prize.— Rahigi storyteller
Return of the Rain is a well-known tale among the
Rahigi that is told to create a sense of hope for the future. It speaks of a time in the future when great clouds from the east will cross the gulf and unleash weeks of rainfall. The sands of the
Rahigina would recede southwards, returning the land to its ancient glory when it was once filled with life. While in reality the land has been turning less habitable with each passing year, some still hold out hope that the tale’s version of the future will come true.
Optimistic Prediction
A day will come, when with the rising of a great red sun an enormous cloud of grey and brown dust will rise from the distance. Tribes will be swallowed, the ground before it shall be covered in dust, and the last of the habitable regions will fall. What few
sapblood trees remain will suffocate under the weight of the relentless mass. All that lives in the Rahigina will lie dead, all save for the Rahigi themselves.
Though countless lives will be lost, whole families devoured in the swarm, tribes destroyed in the chaos, the people will endure. Many more will perish once the storm has ended. With nothing to eat or drink, the darkest hour will descend upon the proud survivors of the wasteland.
Darkest Night
Only the hardiest will soon be left, but those few men and women will be broken from all they’ve witnessed. As they await their fates, expecting to join their friends and family in whatever comes after death,
Vol, the smallest of the moons, will burst in the night sky. Darkness will cover the land and the shards of the celestial body shall rain shattered upon the desert.
Ravenous beasts and monstrous aberrations shall be drawn to the dark like beetles to a pond. Ripping apart flesh and bone, these forces of darkness will wage a relentless war on all who’ve survived, driving the surviving humans to the last beacon of light, a burning shard of Vol.
A United Tribe
The light of Vol’s burning piece will protect the survivors. These men and women will have come from far corners of the Rahigina, all from diffeirng tribes. When once their people may have been at odds with one another, the past not made no difference. They were united as one. Vol had brought them together to be the creators of a new Rahigi civilisation, one which would endure, and in the end, prosper.
With the arrival of dawn, the battered and bruised survivors looked to the east. Panic struck once more, as they saw yet another cloud approach, but something was different. Instead of covering the land, this eastern cloud was high above, but it was darker and more imposing than the Rahigi had ever seen.
Rainfall
Fears turn to unbridled joy when the first drops of water descend upon the people’s skin. The dark clouds shall plot out the sun and moon for close to a week, pouring rain and shooting bolts of lightning down from the heavens. When the clouds dissipate and the ground begins to dry, greenery will reemerge from beneath the ground, restoring life to the resurrected Rahigina.
Centuries of harsh condition will fade into memory, and those few survivors shall build up a new Rahigi civilisation. Great cities will be built on rivers and a network of roads shall enable trade to flow through the land, bringing prosperity to its natives. As a united force, the Rahigi will defeat all who threaten them.
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