Legend+From+Atravita

Long ago, when the world was first young, it is said that the Sea of Tears was made up of sweet, crystal clear water. It was as pure and fresh as any mountain stream that you would care to drink from. No one knows why this is. Perhaps Great Ynariss caused it to be this way. In any case, fisher-folk plied their trade on the Sea of Tears, which was then called the Sweetwater Sea. They went to and fro, catching many kinds of fish and they soon learned how to make their boats larger and sturdier so that they could go further out, exploring.

One day, it came to pass that a great storm rose up and destroyed the fleet of boats that had set out to catch fish and explore. The ships were tossed about like toys, and then pulled down to the bottom of the Sweetwater Sea, and all who worked on them were lost. The spouses of those sailors were heartbroken when the ships did not come home, so they set out in smaller boats, hoping to find answers. After many days of sailing, they found their way to the site of the wreckage. Because the Sweetwater Sea was so clear, they could see the ships, wrecked and resting on the sea floor. They saw the pale hands and faces of their loved ones, now lost to them forever. The cold currents of the sea moved the dead pallid hands and stirred the hair of the lost souls, as if they were summoning their living loves to come into the sea and join with them in death's embrace.

It was too much for some of them to bear, and they jumped overboard to join with their lost loves in the embrace of the cold sea currents. Others saw this, and tears began to stream from their eyes. They called on the Lady of Joy and the Dragon Lord. The Dragon Lord was aloof from such things, for his attention was on the grander scale of the universe, but the Lady of Joy saw Her people suffering and, for the first time, understood sorrow. Looking down on Her people, Her beautiful eyes filled with tears for the very first time and they flowed down Her cheeks and into the Sweetwater Sea. To the people on the boats, it seemed like rain, but a rain that somehow cleansed and comforted them. They slowly made their way back home and then performed the funeral rites for the ones lost to them forever.

But the Lady did not stop crying until they were all solaced, and the sweet, clear water of the sea turned brackish and salty, for it was made up of the Lady's first tears. From that day on, She was known as the Lady of Joy and Sorrow and the Sweetwater Sea was called the Sea of Tears.