Vistellus wept.

She peered from the heavens and wept as she watched them. As they danced and kissed and prayed. As they sang to their babes with melodies so sweet. Her tears slaked the barrens and wet their skin. Her tears carved rivers for canoes and channels for fish.

She loved them, and they loved her.
They reached for the heavens, hands spread like leaves of palm, exalting her name.

One warm day, she reached her hand in return. She reached so far to the terra below, she stumbled. Falling, falling, down through the mist, down onto the red earth, so bare. Falling, falling  until she hit the ground.

A great misfortune, indeed.

They would certainly forget her, she thought, as she could not nourish them from below. She beseeched the Crow, pleading for him to take her above. She could not bear for the mortals to suffer in dearth and ache, for she loved them.

He did not answer. And so, like a babe with none to sing her melodies, she wept and wept, vowing to starve, to still, to wither, until she could be carried to the heavens once more.

She wept for ages.
Her eyes sealed shut, holding true to her word.

They danced and kissed and prayed. They sang to their babes with melodies so sweet. But she did not see them, she did not hear them as they passed. As their babes, too, grew and aged and turned to dust, swept by the four winds. Progeny after progeny, she knew them no longer, and Vistellus wept.

After ages still and ages more, the ground below her feet, now mead and blossoms, wetted. Her hair grew long, her skin tough. Her tresses hung low and twined into vines, snaking round and over the dirt and into the earth. She wept and wept, and her tears fed them. And they sprouted. Seedlings into saplings. Buds into blooms.

The Southerly Wind, third of the four guardians of the four winds, happened upon her cries. What greenery to have blessed the earth, said she, where the land is arid and burnt. The Southerly Wind beckoned for the Northerly Wind, the Easterly Wind, and the Westerly Wind, and they paid heed. They gathered round, and they rejoiced. They gathered seeds with their winds, and they scattered them across the lands.

Vistellus wept.
And the Crow did not answer, still.

But the sea crone, Ya’Haen, pitied her so. Moved by her tears, she tipped her great vessel onto the earth and nourished the seeds. When the crone’s waters washed over her skin, Vistellus blinked her eyes, delighted at what had become of her. Her feet anchored deep into the ground, her hair, vines with blooms of every color.

But Vistellus wept, for she was alone.

The mortals, having long regarded her as a goddess of olde, followed the gales, curious of the winds-carried blossoms. Their mothers and their mothers before them, forebearer before forebearer, sang tales of her mercy, and they knew it was she who brought them harvest. They gathered round, and they rejoiced. They danced and kissed and prayed. They sang to her melodies so sweet. They exalted her name.

She saw their joy and relished in their laughter. Trees of palm sprouted high, bearing fruits plentiful and soaked with her tears. She grew taller, taller. Taller than any tree to ever stand. She stretched so tall, she reached the heavens.

Vistellus wept, delighted.
I understand, Crow, she said to him. I see.

Vistellus wept and wept and brought them rain and warmth through every season in the southern lands where it remained forever warm and her love for them was never forgotten.

Please note that this tale is subject to change.