Since we're in the Festival of the Four Winds again I wanted to mention one of the coolest things (to me) about it. Because I think it exemplifies how gw2 is crammed full of interesting lore but for the most parts, waits for you to put in a bit of effort to find it.
This festival is the only time you can visit Labyrinthine Cliffs, where the Zephyrites - a solitary group of humans who live on airships - come to moor once a year and trade with mainlanders, one of the few stops around the world they ever make.
They play into the history of the plot a large degree. They stewarded the last of Glint's eggs after her death, ensuring its safety while it was in stasis. They were the first direct victims of Mordremoth. They're staunch pacifists who accept all converts, revere their own Glint-specific type of magic, and have a specific naming convention.
While you're in Labyrinthine Cliffs, this music plays:
It's got a very slow build, and it's very airy, it's like a folk tune these nomadic people might play to themselves and you overhear it as you investigate the bazaar.
This song actually has lyrics. The only way to find out what they are is to happen to overhear the Zephyrite NPCs singing the words when you're nearby.
I didn't realise this for years of playing. It really is a folk tune that has words being passed around by word of mouth. You're not even very likely to hear any of the words being sung, or even realise it maps onto the background music.
This person did the work of grabbing all the snippets from the Zephyrites on the tethered ship - a ship which doesn't exist any more.
Alas, her magic strewn in sand. Alas, her soul undone.
The clouds shed tears upon the land for the loss of our crystal sun.
No more to tame the wind and rain, the skies to swallow whole.
She flies no more in glinting beam and leaves a hollow hole.
When you piece it together, the whole song is about Glint. The importance she had to them and their grief at her loss. Integrated into the world so you know what it meant to them - intrinsic enough to their society that they idly hum a song in rememberence that every one of them memorised.
blakekathryn
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