[b]The Cindorayi, Population: 86, Year 5 IL (Inland), Age of the New Moon[/b]

[b][u]Music Under The Moon[/u][/b]

As the fire crackled in the shadow of the green canopy that covered the sky, one of the Cindorayi foraging parties made camp in preparation to explore more the following day. Sylvya, one of the females that chose to accompany the foraging party, took a carved piece of wood with twine strings drawn across it off of her back.

"What is that thing you have there, Sylvya?" one of the males asked curiously.

"It makes beautiful sounds," she replied. "Here, let me show you." She took her fingers and began to pluck the strings. The tension of the string caused it to vibrate melodically, and it appeared that having different lengths of string caused it to produce different sounds.

At this point, she had acquired the attention of everyone nearby, and she said, "Here, yesterday I put the Song of the Ancient Empire to the different sounds." She began strumming the small instrument and sang,

"Their fame will never die,
So grieve but do not cry,
Their fame will never die,
Their spirits are in the sky."

At this point the others who knew it broke in, and the chorus grew to pierce the silent black veil of the night.

"From the dark ages they rose,
They knew what no one now knows,
They conquered all their foes,
Their armies marched in rows."

A second chorus arrived, as the Cindorayi repeated the same melody again, this time without words, before proceeding to the final stanza.

"Their great empire is now done,
Of it many songs are sung,
This little song is but one,
It will be sung in every tongue."

"That was beautiful!" exclaimed Natalya, the other female present. "We should make more of them, and we can have many people play at once!" The others snapped their fingers in approval.

Sylvya beamed. "Thank you very much." "I would like to see if I can come up with another idea for a soundmaker as well, if I have time. I'm sure you could make deeper or higher sounds if you changed the way the strings were tied."

"That would be amazing." Natalya nodded in agreement.

---

Back in the village, Ekatyrina was examining a crude map of the area as described by the foraging parties. She looked out the small opening of the wood-framed cave she used as her home, out at the several new trees that were growing in front of it. As the Zemlyarodians had suggested, she had placed a few types of fruit in the fertile soil close to the beach and already small trees had sprouted out of the ground with branches she was sure would bear the same types of fruit in a few years' time. However good the fruit was, she knew that no matter how many trees she planted it was unlikely that they could feed the entire village with them. She had asked the foraging parties to keep a lookout for a different type of plant that provided a lot of food and grew compactly, but there was no such luck yet.

Ekatyrina had come to the conclusion that with the addition of the new village of Zemlyarod to their growing civilization, she needed to have a few people to assist her in organizing things. Shylia, a skilled builder, was put in charge of construction and planning out new huts. Andrei, with some dissent from the other females, was put in charge of managing the foraging teams and food. Ekatyrina felt that the person in charge of something should have experience in it, regardless of gender. Finally, Viktorya, a deft thinker and the chief of the other village, was in charge of figuring out new tools to help in their day to day work. Already the simple coral tools they had been using were quickly breaking when used to try to cut down trees or break rocks, so Viktorya was trying to figure out what they could use instead. These three made up what would be considered the first Cindorayi Council.