The gods created our world many, many years ago with one question in mind. What does it mean to be mortal? After the question was answered the Gods were amazed and granted the mortal race on the planet to continue to live there in peace on one condition. They had to prove their mortality once every 50 years. One child every 50 years unknowingly becomes the focus of the Gods, this child is put through 3 tests and if he fails any of them, the world will perish; throughout the trials the world will become increasingly cold, warm and violent. Once they are finished the world will go back into a state of peace and calm. The first recorded Legend of the Warming was written approx. 1500 B.C.
The world was in turmoil, the seas had become fevered with Hurricanes, and the skies fraught with lightning. The air grew warmer every summer, and colder every winter. The winds continued to grow stronger, and the lakes continued to dry up. The trees and the animals continued to grow weaker, and disease scoured the earth. These strange weather occurrences began on Servius’s 12th birthday when he went walking by the dark woods and heard some screaming coming from the dark forest. His father had told him spirits dwelled in this forest and he should never enter it himself, but he summoned up all his courage and ran in to aid whoever belonged to the voice. Soon he encountered one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Servius confident because of his new age, decided to approach the women. The closer he got to the woman the uglier and more hunched over she became. When he was right in front of her, he asked the old lady what was wrong. She told him she had become lost and he must help her return home. Servius had always been taught respect for elders so he complied and walked her out of the forest and to her house. Once at the old woman’s house, Servius noticed she looked a little younger, and stood a little taller. The woman asked Servius to return to her house every day on his birthday until she died, she was such a lonely old woman.
One year later Servius returned to her house, and noticed she looked even younger and stood more upright than the year before she even had less wrinkles. They spent the entire day together until the sun went down. Servius told the woman that his father needed him home before dark, but he promised he would come back again. Servius returned unannounced to her house a few months later, and to his surprise she had become younger again, even gaining physical aspects of a younger woman with her more pronounced bosom. Servius’s Appearances became more and more frequent until his 16th birthday, when she had the figure of a 16 year old girl. When she opened the door, it was obvious they were in love, and when he realized that if he left her, the next time he would see her she might become younger still. So he decided to never leave her, and with that final thought he kissed her. For 3 years they never left each others sights, when he finally did leave even for a moment she had not gotten any younger, she just seemed more beautiful to him. Servius had passed the first task, he had fallen in love.
For many years Servius and his wife had lived together but they had never conceived any children. When she suddenly became pregnant he became suspicious, one day he decided to follow his spouse to the local town, in town she had walked to a house and knocked at the door, a man answered and let her in. Servius knew she must be sleeping with this man, and in his fury broke down the door and stormed into the bedroom; there he saw this man and his wife making love. Servius pulled a dagger from his blade and approached the frightened couple. He turned to his wife and asked why she had done this to him? She replied she didn’t mean to it just happened. Servius turned to the man and asked how he could involve himself with a married woman. The man asked Servius if he loved his wife. Servius replied “Of course I do!” the man then said to Servius “Then you know how I feel about her.” Servius thought about it and re-sheathed his dagger and wished them both a happy life. Servius had passed the second task; he has understood and has forgiven.
Years passed and all Servius could think of was his lost wife, he did not go out with other girls, and hardly talked to anyone. When one day the man he had caught in bed with his wife appeared at the door. Servius asked him what he was doing here. The man replied that the gods had taken his wife and are going to kill her; they said only the man who truly loves her can rescue her. The man explained that if he were in Servius’s situation he would have killed him, but since Servius had loved his wife enough to let her go, he decided Servius should be the one to rescue her. Servius set out for the mountain range the man had told him about. He walked for days until he reached the summit, at the top of the mountain were 2 women, one old hunched over woman who has been tied to a tree, and a beautiful young women holding a silver sword at the neck of the old lady. Servius instantly recognized the old lady as his wife when he had first met her years ago. The second woman was the Goddess of choice. He approached the goddess and demanded that she return his wife. The Goddess asked Servius if he would rather have this old wrinkled lady or her, a young beautiful Goddess. Without hesitation Servius had said the name of his wife. Outraged the Goddess then asked him if he understood death. Servius replied that he did. The Goddess asked him what death meant. Servius replied
“Death is the end of a journey, be it a finished or interrupted journey.”
The goddess asked Servius if he had the choice of taking his own life in order to let his wife return to he new lover, and her younger form, or taking the life of this old lady in exchange for his immortality and marriage to the Goddess. Servius turned to his wife and asked her only one question “Were you happy with him?”
She replied with a nod.
Servius turned to the Goddess and told her. “Take this life, im right here, stay awhile and breath me in.”
The Goddess was confused about his meaning at first then realized; he understood his journey was to be interrupted. The Goddess swung her sword and cut off the head of Servius.
Servius had passed the third task, he had understood his own mortality.
The second his head left his shoulders, the seas of the world calmed, the winds died, the livestock multiplied and prospered the sky was no longer lit with lightning. Order had been restored
1 comment:
nicee./ we didnt have to do this in class
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