The shining goose chick
During this time, there was only ever night. Only the moon was in the sky, shedding what little light the world had. This was before the time, Shomdon and Luxea were together and also long before Leobard was born.
At this time, a poor hunter was nearly starving. He had been hunting in the woods for weeks, but his prey always eluded him. His eyesight had been getting worse lately and with the darkness of the night, it was hard for him to spot any animals. He kept himself alive by eating the berries and mushrooms he could find, but he had not found any for at least a few days. Stumbling through the forest, he came across a pond. He was glad that he at least found something to drink and after he had quelled his thirst, he looked at the pond, where the dim light of the moon was reflected.
After drinking, he set up his camp, thanked the moon and prayed to Luxea, the daughter of the moon, to guide him through the darkness and help him find something to eat. As he was praying, he realized a ruffle on the pond and he heard a loud noise nearby. As he checked, he saw a fox fighting a goose. The goose had the whitest of feathers and the brightest of beaks. When the fox saw the hunter, he got scared and ran, but the goose remained. It was wounded badly though, and since it would have died anyways, he killed the goose, thanking Luxea for the meal she sent him.
As he was just about to return to his camp, he saw a light gleaming through the leafs of a nearby bush. He looked through the leafs and could not believe his eyes, when he saw a goose egg that was just about to hatch. The light was shining through the cracks that the little chick made in this egg and after it hatched, he saw, that the little goose was shining brighter than anything he had ever seen. Brighter than the moon itself. He took the chick with him and returned to his camp. It followed him around and he grew very fond of it.
Starting from this day, the hunter never had to go hungry. It was as if the animals were waiting for him to shoot him. The little chick was always by his side. Soon he went back to his village with everything he had hunted. The other villagers were astounded by the goose chick. They had never seen a light quite like this before. Soon voices arose, that the chick should be offered as a sacrifice to the moon, because clearly it was meant as a gift from Luxea to her mother and not as a pet for a mere man.
The hunter did not approve this and protected the chick, but the voices got louder and louder. When the moon didn't rise in the sky at all at one time, the head priest demanded of the hunter that he would surrender the chick, so a sacrifice could be made because the absence of a moon was surely her disapproval of them keeping it instead of giving it to her.
Restrained by the strongest village warriors, the hunter watched helplessly, as they took the chick away to the ritual site. "At least let me attend the ritual!" he pleaded. "It would only be right, that the chick can look into my eyes so it's not too scared when they take it's life." The head priest could not deny this, and so the hunter attended the ritual, right at the chicks side. But when the priest raised his dagger, the hunter took all his strength and freed himself of his captors and stepped in the dagger's path to protect the chick. As he fell over, bleeding from a fatal wound, with his last strenth, he untied the poor chick. "Fly away! Stay safe in the skies, where noone can catch you!", he whispered to it while his last breath escaped him. And the chick flew away.
t flew up into the sky, and the further it flew, the brighter it got, until everything was brightly lit. And to this day, the shining goose is still flying in the sky, trying to escape from the moon. It has grown up now and it's light is bright enough to be seen from down here.
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