May 5 - The Bridge

Although the cliff top villages of Mijiland and Xeronovia were practically adjacent, it would have been impossible for someone to walk from one of the villages to the other. At their closest point, they were about 200 feet apart, and there was no bridge connecting them.
Several hundred feet below the villages, a raging sea surged and crashed on a strip of rocks and boulders that formed a sort of land bridge between the cliffs upon which the villages were built; however, the land bridge was inaccessible from both villages. The cliffs were too high and sheer to climb down, and even if you survived the descent, it would have been impossible to climb back up.
Although Mijiland and Xeronovia were literally a stone's throw away from each other, they didn't interact at all. Hundreds of years ago, the peoples of the two villages had traded with each other by throwing goods across the divide, but those trades had long since collapsed over mutual allegations of violating the other tribe's trust. Since then, there had been no contact between the two villages. They may have been right next to each other, but they may as well have been worlds apart.
One day, upon reaching his 20th birthday, brave and stoic Mijilander Altus Begenchovatt went through the series of coming of age rituals that all Mijilanders went through when they reached the Mijilander age of adulthood. He completed--and aced--the oral exam given by the Mijilander elders. He performed the Mijilander Hot Foot, a ceremonial dance performed on hot coals. And he hunted, killed, butchered, and cooked a wild boar.
One task remained: to drink a flagon of fermented kamonichaida juice and ritualistically connect himself with the sea below by urinating into it from the highest cliff in Mijiland without getting so much as a drop on the rocks below. Every bit of it had to land in the ocean.
He drank the juice, climbed to his spot, and readied himself. This was it.
But just before he began, a huge gust of wind knocked him off the cliff and he plummeted into the angry waters below.
Miraculously, he survived the fall and swam to the land bridge that connected the cliffs upon which Mijilander and Xeronovia were built. He was safe but stuck. There was no way for him to climb back up, so he survived on food thrown to him by the Mijilanders, and at night he slept on pillows and cushions they dropped to him.
At about the same time in Xeronovia, wise and resourceful Mergendaya Shinihatoot also reached her 20th birthday and set about completing the rituals that marked Xeronovians' coming of age. She passed the oral exam of her tribe's history and culture administered by the Xeronovian Senior Council. She harvested the fruit of an entire jombwala tree. And she domesticated a full-sized razor toad using only her bare hands.
One task remained: to pick a Xeronovian Iris from the cliff side and transplant it in front of her chosen new home.
She spotted the one she wanted, took a deep breath, and stretched out to pick it up; however, just as she was stretched out as far as she could go, the rock she was holding onto crumbled and she plummeted to the sea.
Incredibly, she survived and swam to the land bridge where she was helped out of the water by Altus. It was the first time a Xeronovian and a Mijilander had ever met face to face.
As they couldn't understand each other's language, getting properly acquainted took some time; however, time was the one thing they had plenty of. Neither tribe had the technology or know how to attempt a rescue, and everyone involved--Altus and Mergendaya and everyone in their respective tribes--resigned themselves to the fact that the two young adults were stuck on the land bridge and would likely spend the rest of their lives there together.
The days turned into weeks and then months, and Altus and Mergendaya developed their own pidgin language, a hybrid of Mijilander and Xeronovian. They survived on the foods and drinks their tribes dropped to them, and combined them together in ways that were sometimes inedible and sometimes transcendent.
They also got to know each other, and their respective tribes, better. They counted on each other, developed a mutual trust, and quickly found that they enjoyed each other's company immensely.
Because of daily food and supply drops from both sides of the divide, the Xeronovians and Mijilanders on top of the cliffs got used to seeing each other, and as time went on both tribes began following the cooperative lead of Altus and Mergendaya. Trade resumed between the Xeronovians and Mijilanders, tentatively at first, but soon more robustly. Commerce and other relations between the two tribes were helped along by a sign language involving colored flags that Altus and Mergendaya had created so that they could communicate with their families above.
Months passed.
Altus and Mergendaya had their first child almost exactly two years after their falls. Their second came just 18 months later.
Relations between the tribes continued apace. Work soon began on a suspension bridge connecting the two villages, and it was completed by the time Altus and Mergendaya had their third child. The bridge brought the two villages together not only physically, but also socially and culturally.
Meanwhile, as their children grew older, Altus and Mergendaya decided that they wanted them to have a life beyond that which was afforded by their land bridge. It was decided that the same technology that led to the suspension bridge would be adapted to create a pulley ladder for transporting people up and down the cliffs.
And so several months later, the five of them went up the cliffs, Altus and Mergendaya for the first time in several years, their children for the first time ever. While it was a tremendous change for all of them, it wasn't completely and shockingly new. There had been communication among all of them since their falls--so much so that Altus and Mergendaya both felt that they already knew their in-laws. They integrated into life on the cliff tops very smoothly, as did their children.
They split their time between Xeronovia and Mijiland, and founded a language school where they taught Xeronovian, Mijilander, and Mijinovian, the hybrid language they'd created at the base of the cliffs. And when their children were old enough to run it on their own, Altus and Mergendaya retired from teaching.
Although they still spent a lot of time in Xeronovia and Mijiland, they spent most of their golden years together on the land bridge they'd made their home all those years ago.