Chapter 03: Manil Elendral

There was a time when exploration gave hope to the ishvalians. The first Elendral that wanted to transform this hope into reality was Manil Elendral, son of Rohir Elendral. Rohir died from a hunting accident when Manil was just a child. A death like this one, futile and without a cause might explain why Manil wanted to leave and explore the wilderness to find water.

However, he would not be allowed to just leave and risk his life without giving an heir to the Elendral. That’s why, he had to wait a few years till he was old enough to choose a concubine and then a few more years for his daughter to be born. Therefore it did not surprise anyone that a few months after she was born, he left.

After long years of relentless expeditions, he finally reached the end of the wilderness and the beginning of the desert we today call « the deserted land ». He still could not find any external water but identified a lot of plants and beasts.

He theorized that an external water source would incur a change in the beasts' appearance. Every beast he had met since today needed very little water to survive. This fact resulted in their appearance being quite similar to eachothers.

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They had a hard skin and no visible sensory and reproductive organs. He deducted that if he happened to meet beasts with soft skin as well as visible sensory and reproductive organs that will probably mean they had access to water. After this realization, he now had a clearer objective in mind : Find this new type of beasts.

Today, we have to admit that most of our knowledge on plants and animals are thanks to him. However, to his daughter and the ishvalians at the time, this did not make any difference. After 30 years he had found nothing. His daughter he had barely seen hated him and the ishvalians now beleived they needed to have more realistic objectives that could give them short term benefit or at least some benefits in their life time.

However, this outrage did not change anything for Manil who did not listen. He gathered his last loyal subjets and took the direction of …»

The door opened before baba could end her sentence and Rahn almost fell from his seat. He had been lost in the story as if space and time had stopped existing altogether. Tannyl Kelralei stepped into the room, took Rahn under his arm and said « Manil took the direction of the deserted land and never came back. Nobody knows what happened to him or his men. The moral of the story is that there is nothing more important than your people and your family. That’s why you need to train early in the morning so you don’t disappoint your mother and the ishvalians that expect a good performance from you in the ceremony tomorrow. »

Then, with Rahn, making a half amused and half disappointed face waving Baba goodbye, still under his arm, he left the hut.