The Persephone Wall
In the far away Mogomihoto Mountains, there is a village called Tersowan Mo’Gomi. The town is like many in the Mogomihoto Region. Red and dark ochre clay brick buildings tuck themselves into the cracks and along the ledges of the cliff faces above the valleys.
Long ago a simple mason dropped a single brick while carrying a load from their shop to a worksite. Long after that a young man tripped on it and bumped into a young lady and they fell in love.
After a time the story of the Love Stone spread through Tersowan Mo’Gomi and young men made it a tradition to be tripped over the stone in hopes of finding their own true love. After generations of this there began to accumulate a line and a crowd as all the young men of the village and now young men from surrounding villages came to find their love.
A line of bricks was laid next to the original Love Stone. The tradition changed that the young men would process along the road to the Lovestone Wall, looking straight ahead at the young women assembled before them. Each walked on until they stumbled across the ancient brick line and into the arms of their new love.
As the years progressed an economy built up around the Lovestone Wall and hotels and shops opened up along the route. Soon enough after that, the journey became too expensive for even the locals to make.
The Maharaja Poplo Ibn’Poplo arrived at the Lovestone Wall in the closing days of the Poplopoplo Dynasty with the hopes of securing his own bride. The route was cleared and the young women of the area were piled up on the other side of the short wall, waiting for the Maharaja to tumble in their arms and make them a queen.
Like so many before them, the Maharaja fell into the arms of a young maiden who became his young queen, Queen Sooria Al’Tersowan.
When the young queen died in childbirth the distraught Maharaja made the trek again. Stumbled along the Lovestone Wall again and married again.
When his second queen died, the Maharaja completed the process again.
When his third queen died, the Maharaja made the trek one last time, falling over the Lovestone Wall into the arms of a young woman known to history as “Persephone.”
The Maharaja ordered that the Lovestone Wall be bricked all the way up, entombing them in the corner of the caves and cliffs where the first brick fell so long ago.
Now, here we stand, however many centuries later, at the Persephone Wall. In an abandoned corner of an abandoned land is a tomb whose first brick was laid by accident, and each brick thereafter was laid in the quest for love.
