The triarch legends and the first partners (Notated by Tanya)

In my research of why the Joy clan exhibits the peculiar physiological behaviors and the origin of their function to devote themselves to the medical field, I have found frustratingly few credible sources. According to the historical record, by all accounts the Joy family has always been here, simply walking out of the mists of history fully formed, practically identical to the Joys of today.

Obviously this seems like nonsense, but I do not reject facts just because I find them improbable.

If nothing else, the almost sacred position they hold in society proves how much of a constant they are.

However, it makes understanding why they’re like this… frustrating.

Genetically they are humans, they carry equal DNA from mother and father, obviously their own offspring are viable, but for reasons science cannot explain the ‘Joy’ gene expression takes over completely.

Unless they’re not a nurse for some reason, which just doesn't make any

Regardless. The total lack of contemporary, or even ancient, sources has forced me to look for data of a far less useful caliber.

In fact the only source I could find on the origin of the Joy family is a legend from their own history.

Like any legend there’s a few million variations of the story, but I have copied the one in the nursery library, which is a copy of the legend stored within the Joy clan’s Hoenn archive.

I will note any common variations I have found alongside the text. I will also give some brief comments, but my larger analysis will be saved for the end.

—--

Hear it, you who sit by the fire.

Hear it, daughter of Elin, daughter of Mair,

daughter of Nest, daughter of Ulme,

and so back a hundred mothers,

to the hearth of clan, the herbalist, (herbalist is unique to this telling as far as I can tell)

who walked into the story as woman

and walked out of it as name.

Her blood is in my blood.

Her blood so as yours.

So I tell it to you as one with the right.

In the days before the days we count,

and the days before them again,

there were three great spirits in the world.

There was Graear, the spirit of the Land. (Loads of names, Greadar, Graune, Groudon, Grolon)

Not mere stone, but the holding,

to take into earth and never return.

He lay under every hearth and every hoard,

rumbling with his eternal hunger,

his great sleeping breaths a streak of black on sky.

There was Kiyoe, the spirit of the Sea. (Just assume any name has like 1000 variants)

Not mere water, but the sorrow.

The grief that has no floor,

the tide that returns at night to the one who lost,

the draw of the emptiness,

beckoning those now incomplete to join them.

There was Rawa, the spirit of the Sky.

He who was drawn from the sky, and with him the stars,

falling in their endless steaks, but held at bay,

like a stone upon a pond.

Long they slept,

beneath the kindness of ordinary days.

Then three woke together,

and woke in the world, for in those days

the world and the folk were not yet parted. (What, are you telling me this world was MORE magical?)

Graear did his great heaving to rouse from the earth,

in so his stirring tore the ground and blackened the skies.

His sweat in the effort flung about to make a thousand islands.

Kiyoe chased with the tide,

rising from the sea he swallowed the land,

and in this he turned the water black with sorrow.

Rawa descended and the sky was swallowed by night.

Great storms descended with him, as so the stars,

falling with great thuds that enraged both land and sea.

Then the three turned on one another,

and the sound of it was the sound of ending.

Mountains fell to nothing, then rose again in a day,

rivers ran backward in their beds,

The author's chapter is posted on the NovelPhoenix site; this page copied it without approval, and reading the source supports the writer.

and the sky was empty of stars in a night that did not end.

In this great ending, all the spirits and beasts of the world raged.

The people raged with them as the world took its due,

and in that time the people, the spirits, and the beasts,

became the same.

There was a herbalist then, mother of my mother.

Mother of yours.

She had held, and lost.

She had grieved, and gone on grieving.

She had raged, and the rage had burnt out. (It seems the sky spirit is rage? I dont see a link.)

Each of the three had passed through her,

and so she knew their faces.

She wandered, lost of purpose and kin.

Until she found her other. (‘Other’ is weirdly vague here.)

Other of mine.

Other of yours.

In each they saw completeness.

In each they saw themselves.

In each they saw a reflection upon still water.

She came and stood before her other,

and in that touch the two were joined.

So my mother’s mother told it, and hers before,

the first mending of the world

was first the union of like halves.

As one they walked toward the thunder.

Her other went first, for she did not fear it.

The herbalist following behind,

for as much as she feared the thunder,

she feared losing her other more.

In that thunder the three spirits raged,

each enough to conclude the ending,

but held against the other.

So is the balance as it should be,

yet it was not.

For the spirits are the land, the sea, and the sky.

Their rage against the other had injured each,

and each injury conjured rage,

and each wound unwound the world.

It was then that the herbalist and her other set upon to heal all.

They came first to Graear.

They sang together, one song of two souls, (This implies the human is contributing? Odd.)

sending the land to stillness.

Next to Kiyoe,

They conjured a shield about all the lands,

holding them from the sea,

and a sea without water is nothing at all.

Then Rawa, who saw this work and accepted willingly.

The sky settling upon them, and was made whole.

In so doing all was set to right, but all was not the same.

For the people, the spirits, and the beasts had become the same,

and in this, each emptiness from the ending could now be filled with a like pair.

Mother of my mother lived many years.

So when she died and lay down in her grave,

she left children, and they left children,

and I am one of the many that are left.

That is why I stand here and tell it,

for the telling is the song.

For when the herbalist lay to earth,

the world cried out in need.

For the world forever needs her,

to stem a fever,

to hold a wound,

to walk into the thundering and make it right.

And in that great need, her children swore,

they took on her face so the world may know it.

So as a hundred mothers following,

each face a mark of purpose.

Face of my mother.

Face of yours.

This was the story of who built our hearth,

and why our other stands beside us alone.

For it was them that taught the first of us,

how to sit beside a great thing and not be afraid.

—--

Ok, let’s cut out the more metaphorical stuff

Big disaster in the past, first ‘Joy’ met the ‘Other’ and became partners.

We DO have historical evidence of some pretty cataclysmic disasters around 15000 years ago. Somewhere to start at least, but that’s stretching believability to its breaking point for ANY oral history to last that long.

There’s a few smaller volcanic incidents 5000 years ago, no meteor impacts as suggested, but that could be any number of things, or just completely made up.

In fact, several stories remove the third spirit altogether, they just have the spirit of the water and land.

Which makes sense because all the things it does could be easily split between the other two.

Also this telling is MUCH more personal, obviously, the rest talk about the cataclysm, and most don't involve Joy involvement at all. They instead let the sky spirit quell the other two, though sometimes a Joy is somehow able to call down the spirit.

I find it amusing that those legends seem to assume that Joy’s were there, even back then.

Regardless, looking at this I’ve found several avenues to search from. I’ll add them as an addendum in the main list.