Back when civilization had not yet hardened in its mold,

Back when the summer days were truly made of gold,

When the magic of the world had not yet been harnessed,

When the purity of nature had not yet been tarnished,

There were guardians of the realms,

Eight numbered were they,

Majestic rulers of the earth,

Over which their palace lay.

Two to watch the dancing flame,

Two more for the sighing seas,

Two for the nurturing earth,

The last pair for the murmuring breeze,

In peace they reigned,

Through night and through day,

Where each powerful elemental,

Always had their say.

But, oh, for human weakness,

This harmony could last not long,

For every elemental was slowly convinced,

That they were right; the others, wrong.

So a struggle for the throne began,

So absorbed and busy were they,

They noticed not the shadows lurking near,

Dimming the sun, ray by golden ray.

For as the titanic battle

Raged high above,

Death and despair had flourished below,

As pushes came to brutal shoves.

Finally the eternal father,

Of the quarreling eight,

Could ignore the fighting no longer,

And descended to make the fighting abate.

For he, the supreme power,

Lord and master of them all,

Chose how power was granted;

He alone could make one rise or fall.

The last remaining Ancient,

He alighted in the black,

Brought on by the ferocious battling,

All evils had come quietly creeping back.

Eyes flashing with fury,

He swept towards the field,

Where the eight were engaged in combat,

Still none willing to yield.

With one hand he stopped fire and water,

The momentous clash shaking to be released,

The other stopped both earth and wind,

And for a moment, all the violence had ceased.

The elemental children of the Ancient,

All knelt and reverently bowed down,

To this man who had stopped them all,

Who wore his magnificence like a crown.

Do you not love your brothers?

He asked of the silent eight,

Do you not love your sisters,

Through all this fighting of late?

And the elementals realized,

That yes, he was right,

For even as the battle had been raging,

It had never truly been a whole-hearted fight.

So they laid their quarrel down,

And picked up their weapons of light,

To banish away the darkness,

That had come lurking in night after night.

Yet now that the lingering dark

Had broken through the enchanted walls,

The elementals were yet needed,

Generations continued to call.

So at last, the nine,

The elementals and the Ancient,

Chose to pass on their powers,

To those who were most complacent.

That divine bloodline,

Treasured, but for many millennia lost,

Is where our fateful fable begins,

Who had it, and at what cost.