Many years ago my friend Stephanie and I saw a stand of swords for sale at Carnival Supply. They were all metal, all highly decorative, and all the size of cocktail toothpicks. Neither of us had enough money to buy the stand, so we pooled our money so that we could co-own it.
Every year we exchange the swords. One person gets the stand with all the swords save one. The other person keeps that one sword. Then the next year we switch.
Over the years we (mostly I) have lost swords and replaced the metal ones with plastic ones that are gold-painted. And then last year our friend Ali gave me a stand of swords she found at an antique shop somewhere. It's not exactly the same as the original, but it provided a nice set of "backup" swords.
We exchange the swords at New Day, which is the New Year's celebration of the countries-we-made-up, Krohn and Ravenay. And each year one of us writes a story, a legend explaining why these two countries, who have always been at peace, make presents to each other of these symbols of warfare.
Your challenge is to write such a fantasy legend.
Some hopefully helpful bits of background:
The king of Krohn is currently a lion named Kahn. In the past a unicorn has been ruler, and one will be so again.
The queen of Ravenay is a unicorn named Iris. In the past there have been human rulers of this country.
Animals talk in both countries. There are magical creatures like unicorns, dragons, mermaids, dryads, centaurs, etc. but also the common sort of woodland creatures like deer, foxes, wolves, hawks etc. The story could involve humans or animals or both, magic or nonmagical creatures or both.
The enemy of both countries is Daymya, a land to the east (Ravenay is north of Krohn and Daymya touches both borders). Daymya has not threatened Krohn in a long time, but has engaged in many border skirmishes with Ravenay.
There are no magical creatures of any sort in Daymya and the animals do not talk. The people there are taught there's no such thing as magic, and only those who fight on their enemy's territory know otherwise.
Krohn and Ravenay have always been at peace, but of course there are always going to be people who want to stir up trouble for their own profit.
Ravenayan names tend to sound vaguely Welsh or Latin ("Adellen," "Benor"). Krohnian names will only use these letters and letter combinations:
b d f g h k l m n p r s t v y
ah ay eh ee oh oo
e.g. Sahnah, Lahrohn
But don't worry. You won't be judged for accuracy--just how good a legend you can make to account for a set of swords traded between the countries every New Day.