Beginnings


Authors
Siduri
Published
1 year, 2 months ago
Stats
841

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Long ago, when the Olympians still ruled, Demeter roamed the idyllic wilds of Arcadia. One day, she transformed herself into a doe and ran through the forest. During her run, she spotted a beautiful stag, and was immediately enamored with him. The two raced through the forest, sometimes the stag chased the doe, sometimes the doe chased the stag. As they ran, the forest swelled with life. Trees grew strong, flowers blossomed, and fruit tasted twice as sweet.

When all was said and done, Demeter returned to her true form. As she did, the stag burst out laughing at her. Angered, she tried to strike the insolent creature down...only for the attack to glance off of him. The stag revealed himself to be Pan, and he laughed as he darted back into the wilderness.

Some time later, as these sort of things go, Demeter gave birth to a fawn. His coat was Tyrian purple. When he opened his eyes they glowed gold, and the forest grew lush all around him. As thanks to Helios for his help when she searched for Persephone, Demeter named the newly born fawn Ilióloustos, sun-drenched.

Much like his father and mother, Ilióloustos roamed the wilderness. He was summer personified. He was June's gentle warmth, but he was also August's harsh drought. Fireflies lazily hovered around him, lighting his way at night. Many revered and respected Summer's Hart, seeing him as the force of nature he was and worshipping him accordingly.

Man's folly is strong. There were countless more that sought to conquer summer, who saw him as the ultimate trophy, and even wished to take his power for themselves. But no matter how much they tried, Ilióloustos was always out of reach.


Eons passed. The Olympians' influenced waned. Many brushed off Ilióloustos's legend as pagan nonsense, his worshippers heathens. Yet still he ran free, and his worshippers found small pockets of the world and continued to live by his ways. One such holdout was a small dukedom so secluded that the old ways continued on without protest.

But worshipping the old gods meant following the old gods' rules. So when the duchess defended herself a spirit that had sought her, he took his revenge out on all the land. The plants of the dukedom ceased to grow. The harvests all failed. The cattle died. The people, too, died. And after the duke and duchess died, the only survivors left were their twin children, a brother and sister.

Left with no other choice, the twins left their home. They walked past miles of barren wasteland. But just before starvation and exhaustion overtook them, a group of hunters from a neighboring dukedom spotted the two and rescued them.

Once the twins were nursed back to health, they decided to stay with their rescuers and join the hunters' guild. They caught on to the trade quickly, and by the time they were of age, they were already the leaders of the guild.

The guild often spoke of an old legend, of a hart no man had ever managed to catch. It was said that it could control the forest itself, growing and wilting plants so that any hunter that pursued it would be unable to follow.

The twins convinced themselves that this must have been the demon that had destroyed their dukedom.

The twins wanted revenge.


Concentrating the guild's resources, the twins worked tirelessly to track down Summer's Hart. And after years of work, they succeeded.

On one fateful day, the twins embarked on their final hunting trip. They followed Ilióloustos for days, until finally they managed to corner him. The brother took aim from a distance, while the sister approached on foot.

Tragedy struck. Ilióloustos spotted the sister, and mortally wounded her. Screaming in rage, the brother volleyed every last arrow he had into Ilióloustos's hide. The brother rushed to his sister's side, and tried in vain to save her. But she was already gone.

The brother begged the dying Ilióloustos to bring his sister back to life, telling him of their story and promising to abandon their quest for revenge. While Ilióloustos lacked the ability to revive her, he made a deal with the brother that would bind their three souls. The twins would be reborn as themselves for eternity, and Ilióloustos's powers would be theirs. The brother agreed without hesitation.

With that, both Ilióloustos's body and the sister's body dissolved into a tangle of vines. As the brother dug through the vines, he found a wooden mask in the shape of a deer's head.


Eric skimmed over the rest of the story. Either his grandmother had a long unpublished novel idea that she never got to write, or she had gone insane in her final months. Either way, his only inheritance from her was this weird mask. He'd hang onto it. Maybe he'd put it up in his room. And he would definitely not think too hard about how it was whispering his name.