As told by Archdruid Ilyes.
A tree fell in the forest, and all the animals of the Systres came to see it.
It was the result of a beaver and his mate! Still dripping with seawater, they wasted no time in coming ashore and chewing down a tree next to the river. Beavers are well-known swimmers, to be sure, but the native creatures of Galen had always thought there was little in the Systres to tempt them all they way across the Abecean.
"Must you make such noise?" chirped the birds.
"Must you cut down these trees?" chittered the squirrels.
"Must you dam the river?" yapped the fox, who had fled her flooding den with kits in tow.
The beavers were taken aback. "We have just as much right to make a home here as anyone else!" they said. "How else are we to provide for our children?"
The other animals could not argue with that. Though they had been on the islands first and lived in harmony with the land, they had kind hearts, and they knew it would be cruel to drive the beavers away after they had swum so far. The fox supposed she and her kits could find a new den, and the birds and squirrels supposed there were plenty of other trees on the islands to nest in.
"We will just have to make room for our new neighbors," the animals said.
Time passed. The native creatures of the Systres made room for their neighbors, but the same could not be said of the beavers themselves. When their young grew up, they left the dam in search of rivers where they might tear down trees and build dens of their own.
Soon, other beavers arrived, curious at what had happened to the two who had left so long ago. They too razed the forests, building bigger and bigger dams, and the creatures of the Systres began to worry that they would be driven off the isles completely.
And then, one day, the earth began to tremble. Mount Firesong sang, and the sky rained down fire and ash. Even the beavers' mighty dams could not withstand the shaking. When one dam broke, it sent a powerful wave of water to the next, and the next, and the next. Rivers of lava ran where fresh water once did, burning some dams with the beavers still inside, or chasing them out into the boiling sea.
The few beavers that survived lived out their remaining days on the pitying kindness of the other animals of the Systres. But they were the last of their kind in the archipelago.
One may think that because something can be built, it should be, but nature always has a differing opinion. It is only a matter of time before it decides to voice it.
