Welcome to Gaia! ::

Many eons ago, when the world was still young, the first true love story was woven.

Tentei, the almighty Sky King, ruler of the universe itself, lived with his only daughter. As beautiful as the sun is bright, as wise as the moon is pale, and as talented as the sakura is lovely, she was the apple of his eye. He called her Orihime, Weaving Princess, due to her amazingly beautiful clothes she wove by the banks of the Amanogawa River, the Milky Way.

He loved the beauty she was able to capture in her cloth and never wore clothes made by anyone else. Orihime loved her father dearly and worked very hard each day to create more and more beautiful clothes for him.

A long time later, Tentei noticed that his daughter’s weaving was becoming bland. Her newer works were not as lovely as her older ones. Concerned for the well-being of his beloved daughter, Tentei came to her one evening and begged her to share her thoughts.

Orihime confessed that she had been sorrowful of late. When her father demanded a reason, Orihime explained that while she loved weaving, she wished to see more of the world as other women did. She wished to fall in love.

Tentei heard his daughter’s distress and immediately hatched a plan in his mind. He crossed the Amanogawa River and found a young man of his daughter’s age named Hikoboshi, the cow herder.

With the best of intentions, Tentei set his daughter and Hikoboshi on a date the following eve. Orihime and the young man fell madly in love with each other and were married shortly after. Tentei believed he had found the perfect solution to his daughter’s problems.

However, if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Orihime and Hikoboshi were too much in love with each other to do their jobs, so the Sky King received no new clothing, and cows strayed all across the universe.

In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers on opposite sides of the mighty Amanogawa. Devastated, Orihime collapsed into tears and begged her father to reconsider. Moved by his daughter’s immense sadness, he ruled that if she could finish her weaving on time, he would allow the two to cross the river on the seventh day of the seventh month.

However, when the time came for the lovers to meet, they found they could not. The river had no bridge!

This situation repeated itself every following year and Orihime grew tired of her endless loneliness.

She began to weave small creatures, plush toys, to keep her company, but they brought her no joy. With each creation, she grew even more sad, for it is better to be alone than lonely with others.

Finally, unable to bear her sorrow any longer, Tentei took the little creatures and breathed life into them, willing them to act as messengers between the two separated lovers.

Grateful for the compassion the mighty Sky King had shown, Orihime and Hikoboshi used the creatures to send messages to one another each day. Despite the hard work, the creatures were not bothered by this. They believed themselves to be blessed to be helping such beautiful souls. They could swim the Amanogawa River with ease and some could even fly upon the winds.

Years later, through the sheer power of their love, Orihime grew pregnant and brought a strong baby boy into the world. Filled with love for his grandchild, Tentei raised a mighty bridge across the waters so that Hikoboshi might see his first-born son.

Orihime and Hikoboshi were finally reunited and raised their son with love and care. Years later, Hikoboshi, as a gift to the messenger creatures for being so loyal throughout the ages, led them all to a newly-discovered world he had found. He spread his arms out wide and told the creatures that it was their world now.

The world was empty and the former messengers took great pleasure in making it their own.

As legend has it, they still inhabit that world to this day.