Off the coast of the Zephyr Isles congregate thousands of green-winged terns, their dark feathers blackening the water. The fishermen and sailors consider them bad luck and shoot them if they get a chance, although it's bad luck to eat their flesh, which tastes foul enough at any rate. The locals say the birds cluster around near whenever somebody's about to die, waiting to steal their soul. Sometimes they fly about silent as the grave, and that means that their prey's escaped. Sometimes they make a deafening din of jubilation, and fly off back to the island where they nest. No one speaks that island's name, nor approaches it neither, for its ringed about by sheer crags and surrounded by fierce whirlpools that will drag a ship into the rocks.
I've heard tell of a small, wooded island that moves around, so no one may find it twice; I've heard many names for it but most call it the Wanderer. At the center of the island is a pool of water so still and clear you'd think you could reach out and scrape the bottom with your fingers, but the best divers of the Bay of Emeralds have tried in vain to reach its depths. Still, they say the water is good to drink- but don't harm a single living thing on that island, beast or bird or tree. One mad old drunk in a bar in Balig told my uncle of how he alone refused out of fear to eat from a wild pig they'd caught. He woke up the next morning alone. Their clothes and gear were all still there, but his shipmates had vanished. Swore he saw a lot more pigs running about, though.
