A long, long time ago before oquiesas barked and before there were seasons, there was always winter everywhere. It was cold. The land was constantly covered in snow, and the first Samanayrs would huddle together, shivvering miserably and wishing desperately that someone would find a way to get warm.
They tried wearing snow, but the snow was cold and would melt upon them and make them even colder. They tried sitting inside piles of tree branches, but the branches were prickly and they were just cold
and uncomfortable. They even tried digging burrows into rocks, but the rocks were hard and would just hurt the hooves of the Samanayrs that tried.
There was
one Samanayr in all the world who wasn't cold, though. Anger of the Raging Volcano lived inside a vast caldera. He was massive, far larger than even the largest Enkeyn today, and his scaly skin was impervious to the lava that surged up through the cracks of the hardened lava he slept on. He was covered in ignis, had wicked horns, and a terrible temper. No one was allowed near his home.
No one.
Fortunately, in those days there was a wonderful, smart, and handsome spirit that watched over the first Samanayrs named Guile. There were other spirits of course, and elementals, but Guile was the craftiest of them and the only one that had a plan to help the first Samanayrs.
The first step was to find the fastest Sa'grisayr in the world. It had to be a Sa'grisayr and not a Lamanayr because back then Sa'grisayrs had fine long beaks. Guile needed someone with a very long beak for his plan to work and he was not a little bit jealous of their beaks anyway, so he convinced the fastest Sa'grisayr to follow his plan and settled back with glee to watch his clever plan in action.
You see, Guile's plan was for the Sa'grisayr to sneak up on Anger while he was sleeping and pluck a fiery feather from the giant beast's wing. Then, the Sa'grisayr would keep the feather at the far end of his beak so the feather wouldn't burn him as he flew back to Guile and the waiting Samanayrs.
The Sa'grisayr practiced the flight from Anger's volcano to the place where the Samanayrs lived several times until he was sure he could fly fast enough to get away from Anger. When everything was finally ready, Guile told the Sa'grisayr to fly to the volcano just after the sun was at it's highest point. Anger would be resting after having his noon meal, and the Sa'grisayr could pluck the feather in safety.
Carefully, carefully, the Sa'grisayr drifted down from the rim of the caldera. It was almost to hot for him, and he was about to turn back when he noticed one of Anger's feathers was most of the way out already. Anger had been too sleepy to preen and the feather was ripe for the taking, so the Sa'grisayr pulled it out and made to fly swiftly away.
With the feather in his beak, the Sa'grisayr was just starting to feel elated when an inarticulate roar shook the air around him and Anger boiled up out of the volcano, giving chase to the little Sa'grisayr.
Anger was terrifying and the Sa'grisayr didn't have a lot of options, he tried to fly up into clouds, make loop-de-loops, and all manner of evasive maneuvers, but Anger kept coming and the flight was beginning to take too long. As the feather burned in the Sa'grisayr's beak, it slowly began to burn into the beak itself, making it shorter and shorter. If the Sa'grisayr took too much longer, he wouldn't have a beak left to hold the feather with!
Just as the Sa'grisayr was about to give up hope, he spotted two mountain crags that were very close together. Tucking his wings in and closing his eyes,
WHOOSH! he went right through the crack and Anger slammed into the side of the mountains, yelping and getting very bruised. Free of the terrible pursuit, the Sa'grisayr was still not safe, because the feather clutched so tightly in his beak had just about burned through the whole thing.
At the last moment before the Sa'grisayr had to drop the feather, Guile swooped in and grabbed the feather from him. To this day Sa'grisayrs have short, hooked beaks because of the sacrifice of carrying the feather.
Guile, stealing the glory, flew the very short distance left to the home of the Samanayrs. Knowing that Anger might one day look for his missing feather, Guile knew exactly what to do; he hid the feather in a small lake where the Samanayrs drank and played.
Immediately, the water got very warm and steam started to rise from it. The heat moved into the land and melted the snow, creating the first summer and all the Samanayrs were happy.
