The skies above us flow like oceans. And in these waters there were creatures that slithered and glided; their long, scaly bodies rippled like waves: The Aydo.

But the current of the cosmos was not due to the Aydo’s thrashings and movements. Rather, the heavenly waters ebbed and flowed with their breath.

With long, inward draws they pulled the waters to their bodies and exhaled roaring floods of inky black. The water was not within them. Fire was within them. The cosmic waters outside of their bodies seemed eager to rush in after their draws of breath, dying to quench the furnace in their bellies. Then when the heat exploded from their nostrils the waters retreated with fearful haste.

‘Just a bit of heavy breathing,’ people would say when the rains poured down in torrents. Though now they say it less and less.

The Aydo flitted through the sky, finding their rest on the silver beaches of the land called Luna. We can see Luna from our home, her white face freckled gray, offering her light to us in the night. Some mornings she stays nearby, allowing us to give a little of our light and color back to her. Keeping a coy schedule, she occasionally hides her face from us. But she always returns in due time, peeking as though from behind a curtain, shimmering full-faced for a short while, only to return to her shadows once more.

When the Aydo circumnavigated her surface, Luna flushed with forests and rivers that put our greatest to shame. Trees towered into the mist: clouds that formed from steam rising through the Aydo’s nostrils. The rivers mimicked the Aydo's swaying movements across Luna's face. But their waterfalls did not descend as ours do. At the cliff's edge, the rivers would rise through the trees, reaching upward through the mist, across the cosmic seas, and would touch our world.

It was by means of these waterways that the people of Bulwark explored the cosmic seas.

A city of thousands, tens of thousands, Bulwark lay atop a rocky cliff, which had at its base a great, blue ocean. Mariners all, the people of Bulwark would spend their days in masterfully crafted vessels of wood, felled and harvested from the Retreating Forest.

The weavers of the city crafted nets. The jewelers worked with shells and seaglass. The children shucked clams from dawn to dusk.

When skilled sailors ventured far beyond the shores of Bulwark, they found the rivers of water drawn up in storms on the ocean. A towering column of water would swirl across the ocean surface, piercing the sky through looming black clouds.

Bulwark thrived for decades without anyone daring to approach the Ocean Ladders, as they called them. For upon sighting one at dawn or dusk, a sailor might be able to see rungs of color striping the watery column. And on the surface of Luna, to which the Ocean Ladders climbed, The Aydo knew nothing of the people of Bulwark.

Within the forests of Luna dwelt the Aydin. Little is known about the way the people lived, we only know that they did. Some of their children have had children of their own. And many of them still live. In Bulwark, Aydin is a second name for these descendants. But on Luna, no name of any Aydin has been spoken since the Collapse of the Aydo.

We know that under the warm, misty breath of the Aydo, a people lived. We know that through the inhale and exhale of cosmic ocean currents, the Aydin had sustenance. We know this because when the Aydo fires dwindled, Luna grew cold. When the Aydo breathing slowed, the cosmic currents ceased. With the Collapse of the Aydo, Luna fell barren.

This we know, since the naked face she shows us nightly is one with scars and pocks. Her adornment has been stripped from her. And it is in the city of Bulwark that, when one causes irreparable damage, as when an apology says too little, they say, “But Baywind can't return her jewels.”

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For it was a man, Captain Baywind, who first climbed the Ocean Ladders and initiated the Collapse of the Aydo.

Dauntless, Baywind surveyed the ocean waves and studied their currents. He learned when to strike. Thus, that fateful day, with a bellow of wind he threw up nets made to catch the wind. Baywind’s vessel launched up the stalk of water, sailed through its plume of clouds, drifted out of our skies and into the cosmic waters.

Baywind never met the Aydin people. But the Aydo met him time and time again. They say to the children in Bulwark, “Come twice to trouble and leave it.” For it was not on his first, or even his second voyage that Baywind began to hunt the Aydo, but on his third.

His first catch was feasted upon by his shipmates on the night of their triumph. The body of the slain Aydo spanned beyond the length of the vessel and they harvested a meager portion of the kill. But upon tasting it, the sailors spat out the sour meat on the ship deck, and they tossed the remnants overboard for spite.

They returned home with scales, sinew, and bone which the people of Bulwark prized for a time. But the scales lost their color. The sinews snapped and the bones became brittle.

Captain Baywind, however, did not stop.

A student of the ocean currents, Baywind found that when pursued, as the Aydo roared and thrashed, the currents beneath them tossed and turned the vessel. With a strong command, Baywind barked sharp orders to his crew. Tasks changed in an instant and required deft precision. Baywind triumphed in merely outliving the Aydo.

He returned to Bulwark with stories for the sailors. He challenged any who passed to press their vessel to climb the Ocean Ladders and face the monstrous beasts in a battle to the death. Before long, the sky filled with the ships from Bulwark, and the Aydo dwindled.

When Luna shines brightly on cloudless nights, the people of Bulwark will say, “The ships prevail.”

On nights when Luna glows red, they say, “Baywind’s challenged another.”

When her face appears large and golden on the horizon, the people of Bulwark say, “Hide the nets!” or, “She sees what you’re doing.”

Many chose to stay near the shores of Bulwark, unenticed by the deadly challenge of facing the Aydo. Family members and friends were lost to the endeavor. Men would be thrown overboard as the Aydo’s breath drew in vessels to smash against its armored body. Hulls were torn asunder by swinging tails. Some crews would become disoriented in the foggy mist, only to spot the Aydo when it was too late. No one knows which was the final fate of Captain Baywind.

Still, the sport outlived him. There were those for whom the challenge was too beguiling to refuse. Over time, word spread far beyond Bulwark. Hunters who had never sailed a day in their life boarded vessels to hunt the Aydo. The waning population had grown more fierce, more wild. And the rivers which lifted from the surface of Luna, led many to land on her shores, seeking out the Aydo who retreated to her forests.

The challenge grew stale over time. All cosmic currents settled and became stagnant. Mist dissipated and the expanse of the cosmos sent fearful sailors back to the shores of Bulwark, nervous and melancholy. The forests of Luna shrank. The rivers flowed weakly.

The Aydin people, one by one, negotiated passage on the very vessels that caused their demise. For what choice did they have? Their home world disappeared beneath their feet. Many fled the surface of Luna and made port in Bulwark.

Thrill seekers who had traversed an unfathomable distance found themselves utterly disillusioned when they docked on the retreating shores of a barren, gray wasteland. They would send hunting parties as far as they could in search of a battle. But when there was no war to wage, or worse, when the Aydo were discovered sickly and emaciated, the crewmen resolved to retreat empty-handed vowing never to return. These were the vessels on which the Aydin people secured safe passage.

To this day, when the people of Bulwark see a crew return to port, long-faced with no catch in tow, they say, “The Aydin weep beside you.”

The pain of the events clung to the shores of Bulwark like a new fog. The living Aydin experienced kindness and hospitality among the locals, fueled by their remorse and shame. Few would admit to having sailed the cosmos; all the glory it once afforded began to garner contempt. Those who had traveled from distant lands returned home with the challenge of explaining to their people why Luna’s verdant luster had turned bone white.

No one knows precisely when the last vessel climbed the Ocean Ladders. But many in Bulwark still chastise a fool’s errand by saying, “Go climb a ladder!” For there has not been a sighting of an Ocean Ladder since the Collapse of the Aydo. Even the most braggadocious who gloat and swagger will go silent when another dismisses them moaning, “Not again, Baywind!” Humble fishermen will defend a sparse haul by sighing, “At least I’m not on Luna.”