The Edene Cycle

An Endless Cycle of Rebirth; An Endless Cycle of Love

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And it's my choice.

I will live through hundreds of lifetimes. I will meet thousands of people. I will have millions of experiences and make billions of memories.
And at the end of it all I will still find you.

I will grow old, I will die young, I will go on adventures, live in peace, and perish in battle.
It's all the same to me, for you will always be what gives it meaning.

I will laugh, I will cry, I will suffer, and I will thrive;
and every moment of it will be by your side.

Because in every life I will find you, in every life I will know you, in every life I will choose you, and in every life I will love you.
And I will get to love you for the first time; again, and again, and again.

And that's my choice.

— "I Will, With You" (Excerpt)

A

rguably one of the most iconic stories and/or beliefs among the Elves of Yasurun, and by proxy Oniran itself, is centered completely around the fate of the first Elf. Despite how impossible it may sound, it's a tale that has persisted this long for no other reason than how consistently it seems to prove itself true.

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All except for one, at her own request no less. It's said that Edene loved her people so strongly she had wished to be with them until the very end, this love manifesting into a cycle of rebirth. Whether it's her blood, soul, or spark, Edene is believed to reincarnate again and again until she is the last of the Elves, in which she'll finally reunite with her family.

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After her Rekindling, Rabenda was given the name "Gaia";
a name representing a love for the earth.

Archivist's Supplemental

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Archivist's Supplemental

It's rare that I insert myself into these so blatantly, aside from the occasional splash of first person here and there, but I've deemed this subject important enough to do so:

To address the skeptics directly, of which I used to be one; I, Lore, hereby swear as a proud, official, bona fide, certified, and dare I say legit member of the Archmage Guild, that I have put maximum effort into ensuring that all of the info in this document is as verifiable as I could possibly attain. The shit I put in here is ironclad, at worst just a little ^{(read: a miniscule amount)} up to interpretation.

While a great deal of this still relies on factors such as belief, accounts and sources that consist of primary, secondary, tertiary, and whatever the fourth one is, and the inherent difficulty, damn near impossibility, of definitively proving this, I urge you to hear me out with an open and charitable mind. I will admit that as a result of my findings I have indeed flipped from complete skepticism to almost complete belief and acceptance.

I have no control over your takeaway from this, and Imma be real with you chief I wouldn't want that anyway; I'm only making an oath that despite this subject being fundamentally unprovable, I wouldn't have archived this the way you see here if I wasn't confident in my own conclusions.

Preliminary Observations

So according to some of the oldest Elven lore I could get my hands on, some time either during or after the Dragons faded away Edene made the conscious decision and request to stay with the Elves, and it can be confirmed that Ethleone herself granted her wish; that much is all absolutely certain.

This information, in my opinion, suggests several key points of interest:

Edene was in some way intended to be included in the fading, and she was aware of this, though it is unknown why

Either she lived an extremely long time relative to Elves or the Dragons only stuck around for like 2 generations MAX, my personal theory is that time worked differently for her.

Somehow this not only manifested itself into a cycle of rebirth, but did so in a way that lends some compelling evidence; as well as potential leads for other subjects I've been looking into for quite some time now

That last bit is simply too out there to just be made up, at least in its entirety; especially when you take into account how highly the Elves of Yasurun treat this specific subject matter.

The most interesting development has been the realization that to many of them the question was never if it happens, but how it happens and how it should've been treated moving forward. Suggesting that at some point there might have been moments of conflict in what is otherwise an extremely wholesome belief.

This concludes my supplemental.

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The First Flame

As a brief Primer, it is without a doubt that Edene is the first of the Elves. The story goes that she exists as a gift from Ethleone to her daughter Ushkazir, representing a symbol of the unity between Ushkazir and her lover, and was created as a fusion of dragon and fae. While Ushkazir's task was already to bestow a Spark of Life into the creations of her family, for Edene she decided to gift a shard of her own; cementing Elves as Ushkazir's magnum opus and, in a way, finalizing the birth of Oniran.

It's because of this Spark, which the Elves dubbed as "The First Flame", that Edene was believed to have the soul of a dragon, the body of a faeborn, and the suspicion that she too might've joined The Elders in their last goodbye. But to Yasurun's surprise Edene eventually returned to them, but she wasn't quite the Edene they remembered.

As generations passed more and more pieces started to fit together, there was either some kind of reincarnation truly happening or there was just a trend for someone to claim they were Edene every 100 or so years. One Edene is random, two is a coincidence, three is a correlation, four is a trend, and five is the sign to start backtracking and reviewing info; but even as early as the first occurrence many regarded her with more or less a skeptical optimism as long as she could prove it in some way.

And thus began "The Cycle of Edene".

A Rekindling of Love Itself

The specifics of how the cycle functions is, for the most part, unknown. It's pretty rare that any single incarnation remembers anything concrete aside from either vibes or the knowledge that they are, in fact, Edene. The vision I've gathered is that she reincarnates as an Elf with no knowledge of who she truly is unless something occurs in her life to spark a memory. Her Rekindling.

Obviously there's no specifics on what that something may be, it could be anything really. Maybe she stumbles into a person or place that was particularly important to her in a past life, or perhaps she experiences an igniting of her spark, mayhaps even just the sight of the Shrine of Yasurun or a retelling of Edene's story proves to be enough.

What she does with this information is up to her. Some choose to embrace it, others to reject it, and some trying to unite the two. An Elf who discovers that she is Edene is still herself, first and foremost, and the idea of a singular Edene who comes back exactly the same each time is only that, an idea. And, if true, a rather disappointing one at that.

It's been noted that this rebirth isn't immediately after each life, sometimes even skipping multiple generations, and an Elf may go their entire life never learning they were Edene. It's actually somewhat rare that they do learn this, meaning more often than not she really just gets to live a normal life. But that doesn't mean there isn't a sign for when it has happened. To start, it's important to have an understanding of Ethleone's Grace.

Reblooming Grace

Ethleone's Grace is regarded as a divine flower. It's not terribly uncommon, adventurers especially might know them as both a sign of purity (for example, if you stumble on a forest grove with a pond surrounded by them, the water is guaranteed to be safe to drink) and a key ingredient in effective magic-based health potions. They can't necessarily be cultivated through traditional means, but that's not to say they only exist in the wild, like many magical flowers Ethleone's Grace can be described as a flower that exists only on its own terms.

There are three states of bloom that Ethelone's Grace can be found in. The one you will almost always see is rose-like, albeit a more cupped shape with pure white petals tipped in a runic blue. The second is unfurled ever so gently, almost resembling that of a lotus. And in the damn near mythical event that you see it in full bloom, which happens only briefly, its radiance is fully revealed: six distinct petals giving off an ethereal glow, large and tapered to a point, that swirl and beat like the dragon's wings in a breeze. The blooming of Ethleone's Grace is what signals the world to Edene's return.

The belief is the first bloom meaning Edene is gone, the second bloom meaning she is somewhere out there, and the third bloom meaning she has rediscovered herself; but from that moment onwards the third bloom will only reveal itself in her presence.

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Misplaced Divinity

As you might expect, the initial takeaway from this development was that Edene is clearly a god or some god-like being. If not that then she was someone with a divine right to rule, or some sort of prophecy or grander purpose to fulfill. Those in Yasurun would go to great lengths to seek out the next Edene and, if found, immediately grant her the life of luxury and privilege.

But what was strange, to them at least, was the realization that Edene revealed herself less and less as time passed; not that she stopped reincarnating, the flowers still showed their signs after all, no, that she seemingly began to withdraw from them on her own volition. It would be many generations before an understanding was had, before an Edene both remembered why she felt this way and was willing open up.

At the heart of it all was a fundamental misunderstanding of what she wanted. There's no denying that she was a magical being, divine, even, but she was not a god and had absolutely no desire to be treated like one. They had it all wrong. It wasn't the same Edene from the very beginning, it never was; it was simply people, each one completely and utterly unique, who realized every now and then that their stories happened to be slightly more interesting than they were before.

Every incarnation may have been a different person with their own experiences, desires, and the personalities that come with them, but this adversity towards special treatment was always set in stone. All she wanted was the ability to continue experiencing life for the first time in a world she loved more than anything.

Naturally, the reception and reaction to this was not without friction. But eventually, through time, effort, and the willingness to change, the broader culture of Yasurun finally understood and respected her wishes. It's from this event that The Festival of Rekindling, as we would recognize it today, really began to gain traction.

A Heartfelt Apology; A Celebration of Renewal

The Festival of Rekindling represents both a genuine understanding, and a sincere apology. Even outside of this context the event as a whole is regarded as a time for fresh perspectives, new beginnings, and making amends. In the beginning it would only be held in the event of a third bloom but, as most things in relation to Yasurun, eventually this tradition changed entirely; nowadays the gap has narrowed to 5 or so odd years as the emotional benefit and enjoyment began to outweigh the need for reverence.

That's not to say it has lost its meaning (I would argue this only strengthens the meaning). When it first started, the vision was that the festival served as an invitation, nothing more and nothing less. If and when a third bloom ever happened the festival would become a beacon guiding her home, but if she chose not to then they would celebrate regardless. And to those who do, it's a beloved tradition to grant them a second name; one that wasn't Edene, but instead, a name that represented a love they held most dear.

And in my opinion, it's what she would've wanted anyway.

Oniran    Ancestries      Elves      The Edene Cycle

Cycle of Edene OST

Komorebi no Uta

"Song of Filtered Sunlight"

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Elves Primer

Elves were the first to call this world home and the last to call dragons their peers, the memory of whom they're devoted to keeping alive. They're a love story brought to life with a unique connection to the elements that shaped the world.
Wild, chaotic, and full of love to share, Elves wear their hearts on their sleeves.

Oniran was crafted through the love and devotion between Ethleone and Grysudan, the Elder Dragons of Life and Death respectively, as well as their three children: Goldrakun for Nature, Olzathun for Water, and Ushkazir for Fire. The Elder Dragons were not gods, but they were able to use the magic saturating the world to its absolute fullest potential; all dragons could, in a way, but never to the same extent.

The idea of Love is sacred to Elves, but not in the way most would expect. Love to them could mean anything, romance or friendship, passion or wanderlust, an appreciation for the world or the burning feud between enemies. The Elven language is full of words for describing niche interpretations of the idea. In addition to being the first Elf, the name "Edene" eventually grew into a title of its own. To call someone your Edene is to declare your love for them as a rival to that of Ethleone and Grysudan. The love that shaped the world itself.

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Bonus Lore

Komorebi no Uta

"The song of Edene is the song of filtered sunlight. An idea so powerful, divine, even, yet filtered into something tangible but fleeting. Nothing more than spots of light scattered across the grass. But in its brief moment it's nothing short of perfect beauty."

Edene for an Edene

There's an overwhelmingly popular belief among those outside of Yasurun that kind of goes against the original narrative but still follows the spirit of what it represents.

This idea is that Edene has someone of her own. Someone who reincarnates alongside her so she won't have to go through it alone; so they can continue to fall in love over and over for the rest of time.

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