That afternoon Aifa and the Twins were out on the daffodil meadow, which Ama and Jal seemed to be particularly fond of, when all of the sudden the sky grew dark and shook with rumblings. Any other children would have run for the hills, screaming their lungs out, but not the Twins, who looked mesmerized towards the horizon, as if they have been waiting for this particular event their entire existence. Covering the horizon, gigantic and proud, their wingspan the width of a mountain, their feathers and scales the color of fire, their mighty cries a deafening rumble, the thunderbirds had returned.
Their first rumble, like a slow rolling thunder, had brought everybody out of the city, running to welcome the return of the glorious birds, which flew, majestically, over the city, like they did every year, to cheers of joy and waves of ribbons in every color of the rainbow. The thunderbirds had returned!
According to the old legend, the mighty birds, whose powerful talons could easily carry a castle, arrived each spring to bring people the thunder, and the first true downpour of summer. When they flapped their wings, large sparks ignited the clouds, releasing their charge to the thirsty ground in thunderbolts as thick as ropes. Their arrival signaled to all the birds and animals that it was safe to return and populate the hills and valleys, and rebuild their burrows and nests in the forest.
They were powerful and dangerous, the Birds of Thunder, with the power to give life and the power to take it away, but fiercely protective of the city of Cré and its inhabitants; this doting had secured them a prominent place on the city’s crest, and turned them into a symbol.
