Note: This is by no means canon anything. It is more "inspired by" than properly following the characters and plots of a particular fandom. More than anything, it is a retelling of a familiar story through the language and lens of a different mythological sandbox, incorporating elements of other folktales. I own nothing from Twilight or the MCU (though you probably won't recognize much of either here) and I mean only to honor the mythological frameworks I reference and let the beauty of other types of storytelling shine through.

The Star's Son: A Quileute Tale

"Animals were on earth first. From the union of some of these with a star which fell from heaven came the first people."

The First People, Tales from the Hoh and Quileute

oooooooo

Back in the days when people were animals and animals were people, before the Arrow Road to the Sky was broken, the Chief of the Stars grew angry with his son. The Star's Son was a warrior, both brave and strong, but he was ungenerous in spirit and he failed to remember to honor the other chieftains or heed the teachings of his elders. When he broke a truce with the People of the Ice, the People of the Sky were forced to go to war again. The Chief of the Stars, who held great spirit power, stripped his son of all spirit power and cast him out of the longhouses of his people. The warrior fell down the Arrow Ladder in the Sky, until he fell far below, where the Peoples of Land dwelt.

When the Star's Son woke, he found himself drifting in a place he had never before seen. He had no canoe to cross the many waters. He had no warrior's weapon to defend himself against his enemies. His spirit power was gone and he could no longer sing the songs of the Stars. He lifted his once proud head to the heavens, cried out to his father, and wept.

At this time, K'wati, the Transformer, still wandered amongst the Peoples, sowing change like wildflower seeds. It was K'wati who freed the sun so it would shine on all peoples and not be hoarded by only one. It was K'wati who killed the Chieftain of the Wolves who took all the salmon and berries for themselves. It was K'wati who killed the Cannibal Woman and the Elder Thunderbird and it was K'wati who wandered the lands, creating the Peoples and teaching them how to live, what to eat, and how they should behave.

Now, K'wati had a daughter. She knew how to sing the songs of all the Animals. When she wished to cross the wild waters, she sang Whale's deep, watery ballad. When she wished to cross the peaks of Thunderbird's mountains, she sang Eagle's song. When she wished to fight, she sang Wolf's howling rallying cry. She knew the songs of all the People of the Animals, as well as the songs of her father, K'wati, which brought change to the earth beneath her feet. Thus, she travelled the lands in the footsteps of her father, back in the days when people were animals and animals were people.

K'wati's Daughter did not fear any of the Peoples: not the People of the Animals nor the People of Fire nor the People of Land nor the People of Ice. For many winters, she dwelt with the People of the Animals. She spun with Spider and ran with Deer and hunted with Orca and flew with Raven, but a time came when she wished to dwell amongst the People of Land.

One day, while she dwelt as a People of the Land, she paddled her canoe past Destruction Island. There, she found a man in the shallows, clinging to a log. She did not see him at first and nearly forced him under the water with the bow of her canoe. He was near death, so cold and weak was he. She tried to pull him from the water, but he was too large for her human hands. So, she sang Eagle's song and grasped him in her talons. She flew him onshore with her great wings and she lay him on the beach.

When she took the form of a Daughter of the Land Dwellers again, she built a bonfire. Then she forged a shelter of cedar bark and covered him in a bear fur blanket. She brought him water in a cedar basket and tried to feed him fern tubers. Slowly, he warmed and gained his strength, but when he woke, he was as angry as a bear and he lashed out with such strength that he toppled the shelter upon himself. Then he fled into the forest.

When next she found the man, she ran as Deer in the forest and she stumbled into him, knocking him unconscious on the forest floor. He was covered in mud and forest moss and his body wore injuries from his days alone.

She tried to tend to his wounds again. This time, when he revived, he did not rage or squall but he sat subdued by the bosom of the fire, his face drained of its many storm clouds and his fists clinging to the edges of the bear skin blanket.

"What are you called and who are your people?" she asked him, when she brought him salmon and berries to eat.

"It matters not," he answered. "I was cast out from my people and have no longhouse to welcome my return. My old name stays with my people and the songs I can no longer sing."

"Then you will need a new name. I will call you Wanderer, for that is what you are."

"And you? Woman who has pulled me from the water and rescued me from the forest, what is it that you are called?"

"I am known as Transformer's Daughter and now I dwell with the People of the Land, though I have stayed in the longhouses of many others before now."

Thus, the Son of a Star and the Daughter of K'wati met by the light of the matchmaker moon. The Son of Star could not remember his songs or find the rungs of the Arrow Bridge to climb back into the longhouses of the People of the Sky. Spider refused to spin him a web and his father sent no canoe to bring him home. Thus, he determined to live by his new name and learn the songs of the land in which he found himself.

Now, the Daughter of K'wati had seen that the Son of the Star was both handsome and brave. She decided to keep him as husband.

"How will you, a Son of a Star, keep a Daughter of K'wati?" her father asked the young man. "Have you learned to catch whale or seals? Can you shoot a bow or throw a knife? Which Guardian Spirits have taught you to sing their songs or breathe power into your hands?"

The young man shook his head sorrowfully, for he knew he had nothing to give for his bride.

"If you can prove yourself brave and strong and generous, then I will not declare war against you for marrying my daughter. You must do as I say," K'wati told the Wanderer.

Thus, the Son of the Star was challenged by K'wati. Each challenge K'wati gave him, the Wanderer accomplished. Thunderbird taught him to catch whales and Orca taught him to catch seals. He traveled to the longhouses on each of the rivers until he knew how to shoot a bow and throw a knife. He travelled amongst all the Peoples to learn their songs and bring back gifts for K'wati in a large canoe. When he returned to the beach at LaPush, he called for a great potlatch. He gave many gifts to all who came and he carried K'wati's daughter across the beach in a canoe he built himself. K'wati was pleased.

Now, it has been told that in long days past, long before the great flood washed the Peoples of the Land to the many rivers, in those days, the People of the Stars fought a great battle against the People of the Ice. During one raid on the longhouses of the People of the Ice, one of their chief's sons was captured and brought to the longhouses of in the Sky. Thus, it happened that the Son of the Chief of the Ice People became the slave to the Chieftain of the Star People. The Son of Ice possessed great spirit power and was skilled both as a healer and as a warrior. So great were his skills that he grew in prominence amongst the People of the Stars, until he was no longer a captured slave, but he became nearly as wealthy and respected as the chief's own family.

When the Son of the Ice saw that the Son of a Star was banished by his father, his heart grew light within his chest. The Son of the Ice wished to make sure the Son of the Star would never return to his home in the Sky and so he travelled, by the Arrow Road, to the People of the Land. There he found the Wanderer, living in a longhouse with K'wati's daughter.

When the Wanderer saw the Son of the Ice, he felt great joy. He ran to greet him and he cried out in a loud voice, "My Brother from the Sky, has my father called to summon me home?"

"Your father has crossed the River into the Land of Shadows and lives no longer," the Son of Ice said. "I have come to tell you that you may never return to the People of the Sky."

The sorrow of the Wanderer was so great that his cries shook the very roots of the cedar trees. He knew he would not look upon the face of his father or mother until he joined them himself in the Land of Shadows, in that sacred place where his ancestors built their longhouses and waited for him along the River.

Now, the Son of Ice was as wily and crafty as Raven, the Trickster, who brought death into the world and caused the tides to flow for all People. When the Son of Ice returned to the People of the Sky, he tried to make himself as great as the Chieftain of the Sky and he organized his own war party to fight against the People of the Ice. In this raid, the Chieftain of the Ice was killed, but the Son of Ice fell from the Arrow Road. He did not fall all the way to land. Instead, he fell and was trapped as a star in the sky. There he was found by the Moon himself and plucked out of the darkness where he had fallen.

"Go to the People of the Land and declare war against them," the Moon told the Son of Ice. The Son of Ice obeyed. He filled more war canoes than there were stars in the sky and soon the shores of the People of the Land were teeming with the bows and arrows of the Moon's Warriors.

All the warriors of the People of Land and the warriors of the People of the Animals gathered together to fight against the People of the Moon. It was a battle both bloody and fierce and the mountains shook with the sound of their fury, louder even than when Thunderbird beats his wings. The Wanderer looked upon the battle and he said, "The Moon's Warriors will overwhelm us, unless we break the Arrow Road." So, he used a great axe to cut through the Arrow Ladder between the Sky and Land. The Road was destroyed and the People of the Sky could no longer travel to the People of the Land. When the Moon saw the Arrow Road was broken and his warriors fallen, he grew very angry and he slay the Son of Ice. Then the Moon's warriors were taken captive by their victorious enemies and a great potlatch was held to distribute the captive warriors amongst all the Peoples. During this potlatch, Raven flew between the Sky and the Land to tell the Wanderer that his father still lived.

"The Arrow Road is broken. You cannot return to the People of the Sky, but you have proved yourself generous, brave, and strong and your father is well-pleased," Raven told him. "You learned the lessons he cast you out of your longhouse to learn."

Immediately, the Wanderer could once again sing the songs of the People of the Sky and he was filled with the spirit power of Thunderbird again. Thus, he lived with K'wati's daughter and became a great chief among the People of the Land. His potlatches were very generous and he shared freely of all his wealth. He feared no one and he was both brave and strong.

Now it came to be that K'wati's daughter bore two children: a son and a daughter. These were born in the form of wolves and they could not learn all the songs their mother could sing. One day, K'wati came to them at Quileute. He took away their wolf skins so they took the form of the People of the Land. Then K'wati commanded them, in all things, to be brave and strong, because they first came from wolves. To this day, they live there still.

That is all I have to say about that.

It is ended.

ooooo

Author's Note: When I first started studying up on the Quileute and read about their social structure, religious structure, symbolism, etc., my first reaction was, "Oh, they were like the Vikings."

Later, I came across a story from about an anthropologist who studied a people (the Haida) from a similar geographic/culture grouping who had the exact same reaction. The Haida responded, very aptly, with, "No, the Vikings are like us."

Touché, Haida, touché.

Anyhow, obviously there are plenty of differences, but the similarities were enough to send me down a rabbit trail of combining Norse mythology with Quileute mythology and Twilight with the MCU. After writing my Leah/Loki story, I started wondering what it would have been like if Leah met Thor after he was banished instead.

This is what happened.

"Wait, this doesn't seem like Thor and Leah at all?" Ok, maybe it's a far cry from where we started, but it was fun to write and I love using myths and folktales as the paintbox to make something new. There is always something so compelling and magical in mythologies that resonates with the human soul and I can never get enough of reading them. After writing stories based on Norse mythology and East African mythology, it's fun to do one based on Quileute mythology too. Hope you enjoy!

Note, I am referencing a variety of Quileute myths and tales throughout this story. Nothing here is canon anything, but more "inspired by" various tales. Mostly, I pull ideas from "The Star Husbands," though there is a bit on the "Origin of the Tribes" and many, many others.

These can be found from the following sources:

Reagan, Albert B., and L. V. W. Walters. "Tales from the Hoh and Quileute." The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 46, no. 182, 1933, pp. 297–346. JSTOR.

Quileute Texts by Manuel J. Andrade, 1931, Columbia University Press.

(Though "matchmaker moon" comes from a legend which I have not seen in any Quileute tales but shows up in some other peoples of this region, and it's a sweet story. Basically, Raven and friend create the moon so that by it's a light, a man and woman can meet and fall in love.)