1 Festival of Agapi
Fate. Destiny. Something so intangible and abstract, yet it controls your life and drives your decisions. The question consistently remains. How does one conquer something that they cannot change? Something that cannot be understood, something that can't be seen or touched. How does one change Fate itself?
What would you do to change yours? How would you feel if your every move toward changing your Fate was instead revealed to be the reason for your fate in the first place? Isn't it a joke? You spend so much effort to thwart it only to realise that you've been playing right into the palm of their hands in the first place. As if the already designed your every move leading you toward the eventual goal decreed.
Ç'est la vie, d'accord? Quis erit, erit.
That's why you shouldn't bother to fight it. Simply embrace it as it comes and let it take you wherever it may. For just as a fish does not swim upstream, only fools struggle against fate.
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In the beginning, there was only the sky and the earth. They fell in love, and that love breathed life into the world in the form of the myriad of stars we see today. Unfortunately, although they were in love, there was no way for them to be together as the sky did not truly touch the earth, even though it seemed like that from the horizon. The sky plotted and schemed until he came up with the idea of extending himself, bit by bit, to reach his love. It took him eons of work, even though it could only be maintained for seven days. However, to him, it was worth the effort.
He had finally reached his love. For those seven days, the earth was overjoyed. Forests grew overnight, plants thrived, and a variety of plants were created. It was a celebration of their finally being together. She then gave birth to seven children, one for each day; Eos, the dawn, Nyx, the night, Chronus, manifestation of Time, Chaos, the gap between the sky, Aether, the Sun and Air, Selene, the Moon and Hemera, the Dawn.
Their daughter Chaos, being the Goddess of the gap between the sky and the earth, would be able to become a bridge for them, so they would be able to see each other once a year. However, the Sky had exhausted himself trying to reach her. Heart broken and in despair, the Earth gave birth to many cruel beasts which later plagued the land.
She then put herself into a deep sleep where she wouldn't have to remember her pain. Eventually, she too wasted away, leaving behind her children behind.
From her death, the Creation Goddess, Nuwa, was born. In honor of her "mother", she created humans. To commemorate their union, all of the materials for their bodies and lives came from the earth, which nourished them from birth to death. The very air they breathed, the moisture and light necessary to energize them, came from the sky. They were the perfect union of both the sky and the earth, an ingenious symbol of the love they shared. An eternal symbol that would stand the test of time.
Several millenia passed, and the Gods begat children themselves. The Goddess Nyx gave birth to Stygian, the God of the Underworld, and Styxx, the God of Death. Hemera gave birth to Lagneia, the Goddess of Lust, and Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest. Chaos gave birth to Aranor, the Dragon God as well as a myriad of creatures, including the wyvern and the hydra and the four winds came from Eos and so mankind learned to worship them as they were responsible for every facet of their lives.
Selene and her brother, Aether however, fell in love with mortals and had children with them, unknowing to each other.
As all stories go, once upon a time, the Sun God's son, Nephelai and Moon Goddess' Daughter, Thalassa met and they fell in love. It was said that not knowing each other's identity, they decided to themselves to live normal lives. Thalassa gave up her godhood to live a mortal life with Nephelai and for several years, they were indeed very happy together.
However, as one may guess, good things never seem to last long. Nephelai found a heavily injured man and decided to bring him back to their home at the edge of the forest. Of course the problem was not that he brought someone back, but who was brought back.
While helping him recover, he fell in love with Thalassa. He revealed himself to her as the Demon King but she remained unswayed. As a result, he left without another word. As the months went by, they gradually forgot about him until one day someone claiming to be his lieutenant appeared in front of them demanding that Thalassa come with her by order of the Demon King. When she refused the lieutenant, Sabyla, trapped them using Lagneia, the Goddess of Lust, who hoped to possess them both in her quest for beautiful people.
In the chaos that ensued, it was unsure whom exactly was aimed at but Nephelai died attempting to protect his love. Upon realizing that he was truly dead, the Thalassa used her essence to create a binding between them so that they would eventually meet each other when the time was right, no matter how many reincarnations it took them. It was unfortunately yet another love that was not sustainable.
As a repercussion to the incident, the Moon and Sun Gods together, enforced that the Gods could not intervene in mortal affairs. In particular, they could not use underhanded methods to obtain a person. Any God found in violation of this would be sentenced to the Chasm of Nothingness.
Generally, this would be a hard rule to enforce, however due to the nomological power they had from their positions as well as the worship they enjoyed from the world due to what they were represented as, it was uncontested.
With Nuwa, the Creation Goddess and the only one who could truly challenge them as united as they were, in full support of this law, particularly as the victims of the God's capricious nature would be the human race she created, the rule was enforced and found binding by the universe.
No one wanted to follow Lagneia into the Chasm where she would remain for 5000 years. The years may not matter when one was immortal, but the Chasm was known to be full of horrors even to the Gods. As such the Gods, for the most part withdrew from the world.
Some time later, the Moon Goddess, heart heavy with sorrow, decided to create her own race and blessed the humans who dedicated themselves to her. They were called many names such as Lycanthropes, shapeshifters, wolfmen, beasts or more commonly werewolves.
In addition to this blessing, the high priestess obtained a part of the Moon goddess' power. From then on, her line bore the rulers of the werewolves. Their power was a matriarchal inheritance and as such there was no male born from them.
The Sun God, however blessed humans who worshipped him with elemental power which offered them not just mastery over their innate elemental power but as a by-product, also strengthened their bodies. Toward the High priest as with the Moon Goddess, he blessed him with mastery over all elements including dimensional elements that the others would not have. Additionally, the moon Goddess blessed half of his followers with the ability to shapeshift as a gesture of goodwill which was reciprocated with his blessing of the elements onto her high priestess along with other select members. This was done to further compound the fact that their solidarity was not short lived.
The story of their love and subsequent demise, along with the retaliation from their parents which allowed the people of this world to live without the fear of the Gods toying with them, has been celebrated since then and used as an example of eternal love. Both the love of parents to their children as well as the love between two people. The day they are celebrated is called the Festival of Agapi. It was called Agapi(1) instead of Eros since both types of love are celebrated, parent and child as well as lovers. During this day, many offer thanks to the Gods for their love as well as prayers that Thalassa and Nephelai would truly be reunited.
[1]Agapi comes from the root greek word Agape which is used to describe universal love.
