origin story (local myth)

 We never had the need for clothes or shoes. 

We roamed our keepers, the earth and the sea. jungle, soil, and streams; with bare feet cycling their bodies with rich auras from the connection into the earth. We could feel the textures of emotions as Nature would tell us stories of anger and pain with its sick aura rising up our skin. And we, as stewards and offspring of water and earth, would set about and heal the trouble that has poisoned the aura, because it was and is our creator and keeper.

Of course, as we grew in number, the sky got jealous. One day, it demanded to be worshipped as well. It gave wings to one of us, and made him its disciple. For days, the sky cleared its curtain of clouds and refused to rain, and had the sun dry up the earth with its rays. Our people turned into our keepers, pressing into the cool insides of the sea and soil to stay alive. When the sky saw no trace of us, it stopped its torment. It now knew that its actions only made us draw in closer to our keeper.

The disciple was given instructions to give gifts to our leaders, and he brought sparkling skins that shine from the clouds and stars, to clad us from top to toe with sky as his token of apology. Our people were ecstatic. The sky had surrendered, and split its body into pieces to be scattered amongst the earth. We wore the sky, and showed off our new colours, brilliant in splashes of pinks and reds, from sunrise to sunset; to blues, purples, and midnight black from the night. The sparkling joy of novelty outshone our brown and earth toned bodies, and that was what caused our downfall. The sky was never for us at all. As we wore its clothes, our skin was barred against contact with the earth. We had no clue as the soil slowly soured, or when the land cried for help. We did not want to walk into the streams and seas, as not to soil our brilliant shine from the sky. As we only saw ourselves, clad in brilliance, the waters soon became foreign to us.

 Some of the traditionalists tried to reclaim the trust of our keepers. They shed themselves of the sky, and walked again, Naked, barefoot into the soil and sea. Most of them failed. The soil scorched them, as the sky was dead without the curtains to protect us. They were immediately overwhelmed with the fog and numbness sizzling within the pains of our keepers. The seas consumed the others, poisoning them with the same ferocity of neglect we served it—as we have ourselves forgotten its ways. A few of us succeeded, though. We pushed through the pain, and gained the empathy to grow and adapt. Through the hypersensory overdrive, we crushed our veneer and returned to our roots. 

But others, the skyclad ones, did not return to us. They trampled more on our keepers as they began to conquer the sky. The brightness of their clothing shone less, and they discarded it for colours stripped from the earth.

Now we are restrained to our tiny patch of pure land. Everywhere else is in too much anguish to live in sanity. Our skin, pressed to the remains of our keepers, slowly return into the dark, as the skyclad ones are coming.

We roamed the earth,
barefoot, unadorned,
feeling the pulse of soil and stream.
Nature's stories whispered through our skin,
and we healed the wounds of our world,
stewards of water and earth.

But the sky grew jealous.
It denied us rain,
dried the earth,
until we pressed into the cool depths of sea and soil.

Then, in false repentance,
the sky gifted us its brilliance—
clothes of shining light,
draped in hues of dawn and dusk.
We wore them,
and forgot the earth.

Our skin, once in tune with the land,
now barred from its touch,
lost the sense of sorrow,
the cries of the soil.
We became strangers to the streams,
blinded by our own gleam.

A few shed the sky,
returned to the earth,
naked, barefoot,
pushing through pain to reclaim our roots.
But many stayed skyclad,
trampling on what they once revered.

Now, we dwell in a tiny patch,
clinging to the last pure land,
as the skyclad ones conquer,
and the earth darkens beneath their tread.