Janus was a bastard. Figuratively as well as literally. A mixture of high and grey elf blood. The product of a torrid love affair. His parents were rivals in the courts of Lollen’del. His father, Bala’drin Galo’ron, was the High Mage of the king while his mother, Lana Sylfarian, was the high priestess of Loriana the Fair. Publicly they loathed each other. Their political stances as well as courtly interests conflicted at every single turn. Yet, behind closed doors their passion was a fire hotter than the fires of the seven hells.
When Lana became pregnant, she played it off as a pilgrimage to commune with the goddess. Many years later, she returned to Lollen’del and presented the prodigy to his father. Janus was talented in every aspect of spellcasting. He juggled the powers of the arcane and the divine with ease and almost apathy. Proud yet ashamed, Bala’drin enrolled Janus in the academy of magery under a false name of some far away elvish lord.
Janus, insulted by the secrecy, found absolutely no interest in his studies purely out of spite. It also didn’t help that the classes went too slow for him. One day while skipping classes in a secluded vale in the depths of the forest, Janus found himself in the company of the oldest elf he’d ever seen. The old man looks as if he was carved from the lightest birch tree with hair as green as the grass. The man’s power had a pressure that made his ears pop when he walked towards him.
“Are you scared, youngling?”
“More intrigued than scared.”
“That is a dangerous sentiment, but your thirst for knowledge is great indeed.”
The Arcane Hierophant was named Silvanus and was the Speaker for the Circle that operated out of Lollen’del. The Circle’s existence was only knowledge to the ruling council. Janus had never heard of the Arcane Hierophant order and spent almost every waking hour in Silvanus’ presence. He promptly quit the academy and took lessons from the ancient elf himself and progressed faster than anyone would have guessed. His parents disapproved, yet they also understood that there was no other way to utilize both torrents of power their son possessed. They both knew that he would surpass them both.
Upon reaching the day of his adulthood, Silvanus sent him into the world to learn and grow like the sapling he was. Silvanus had heard word of a mercenary company doing small jobs for the elvish court in Lollen’del, and sent Janus off with instructions to join them for the time being. With sturdy gear, a few wands, and dreams of greatness, Magus of Lollen’del headed off into the world.
And the rest.. is history..
Awakening the Beast
The voices howl in his head, yet he denied them.
He made the decision to make sure his slender frame would be protected. He needed to be quick and nimble. He needed to live. The training he received from monks in a monastery outside of the forest conflicted with the natural ways, but his Arcane abilities also conflicted so a little more modification to his abilities wouldn’t hurt, right?
Wrong.
The dreams started the closer he got to achieving the abilities of his druidic path. His body would twist and deform. Claws and feathers were the most common. He assumed it was because of his bond with Taka, but soon it drifted in the form of bears and wolves from his homeland forests.
What in the hells is happening to me?
There was a particular dream where he was between several different forms when a rabbit hopped towards him. His canine eyes look up to the rabbit and inside of his mind he felt flashes of hunger and need for the hunt, but another voice spoke into his mind.
“Come.”
And the rabbit hopped off. After blinking a few times, he realized he had also assumed the form of a rabbit and began to awkwardly follow. It was slow going, but the rabbit was very patient with his lack of ability.
Seeing the forest from this form was an entirely different experience. Eventually the rabbit became a fox and his own form matched it as well.
They continued this dance of form jumping several times before reaching a cave in the side of the mountain they were skirting. The further into the cave they went, the darker it became. Eventually they reached a cavern with a soft green glowing light coming from the moss on the cave walls. His eyes seemed to become his own again and he saw that the one he had followed had finally taken shape.
She was beautiful. Every feature of her naked body a testament to the beauty of nature and the variations of every single race and creature. Her amber eyes were fixed on him as she stepped close. A hand reached out for his face and cupped it as she drew him into her embrace. Every single cell of his body rejoiced in her touch and he began to close his eyes and listen to her heartbeat.
“Loriena can no longer have you, you are mine. The minute you met with my servant Silvanus I knew that you would find me here…”
He could only breathe her in and nod slowly. Realization had come to him that he was in the embrace of the primal side of his nature, Fauna, but he let the logical side of his brain stay muddled in the pleasure of being in the embrace of his goddess.
“You have suppressed me, my child, but the unnatural ways of man cannot fight my influence for long. You felt the freedom of slipping out of your skin and now you will not be able to resist it. You cannot resist being a part of me.”
He realized she had pulled his face close to hers, their foreheads touching. A wolfish grin on her face, she kisses him.
With a flash and a jolt of pain that races through his entire body, he wakes sitting with his back to a tree. He is covered in sweat and his lips burned where he barely remembered her kissing him.
“What is this? What is this feeling?”
The beasts within him have awakened again and no amount of discipline would suppress them again. He blinks a few times, his eyes flickering between a cat’s and his own, and he gets back up to watch the sunrise.
The Arcane Hierophant
It happened around the time Taka was given to the earth. He had to summon another to take his place, as was the way, but something was nagging at him in the back of his head. The arcane side of him, its influence so long ignored, was aching to be utilized. He never felt the need for a familiar with Taka around, but with his friend gone he felt the emptiness twice as heavy and unbearable as before.
He recalled the stories his master had told him about when it was time to become part of the order. He said something similar about not only harnessing both arcane and divine power but also about merging the capabilities of his animal companion with that of a familiar. His master didn’t have his Dire Bear with him much, saying that it was time for him to rest after all the years they spent together.
The realization hit him at that moment, “Had it happened? Is it time to step into the role I’ve been trained for?” He didn’t feel any different, but when he closed his eyes and let his mind wrap itself around the magics he was capable of he noticed it.
His view had broadened. More of the spectrum was visible. He had been awakened.
A feral grin spread onto his features as he headed into the woods behind the Den. It was dark and dangerous, but he knew the Goddesses walked with him and had no fear. He felt like he could manage a more powerful creature this time around, but he wanted to gauge what was possible. The ritual required quite a bit of preparation as well as a full day worth of meditation, but his excitement helped him through it all.
Once it was all ready he disrobed and sat within the center of the circle he had drawn into the clearing. He felt the plants reach up from the ground to commune with him. He felt the worms and squirrels and the deer shudder with the powers he was communing with. A fox came up and curled into his lap and slept while he meditated.
He pictured the animal he meant to bond with in his mind. He had touched with sky with Taka, but now it was time to know the earth beneath paws and know battle with fangs. He was not ready to go the path of the ursus like his master, but instead the path of the lupus. He needed speed and cunning rather than stubbornness and strength. The time would come when he required it, but a bear of such power required much more of his energy than he was willing to give up at this time.
Inside his mind he howled in longing. Seconds later he heard a howl in return. He could smell her approaching and when he opened his eyes she sat on her haunches before him. Her head tilted to the side in thought. Her fur was black as charcoal with white markings on her chest and paws. The most remarkable thing about her were the eyes. They blazed yellow with intelligence and cunning.
He was used to feeling Taka’s emotions but with the wolf there was something more. She whined and he knew what she was saying to him. His eyes narrowed and he attempted to speak to her in the common tongue but she snorted in reply, not getting the meaning of his words. He let instinct take over and make a grunting noise at her and she barked back excitedly, making it clear she understood what he had said.
This went on throughout the night and into the next day until he emerged from the woods with his new companion at his side.
Her name was Nymeria.
The Reality of the World
He never had issue with putting down creatures of nature before this whole incident. It was all part of nature.
Then he saw the bodies. After the “wolves” began to attack the small village of Holmfirth, the locals began to kill every single wolf and fox that came within a mile of their village. They would skin them and let the corpses pile up right outside the village.
This wasn’t nature. This was humanity’s ignorance pushing itself onto nature. Humans were deplorable creatures to begin with, but this was an atrocity.
He vowed at that moment that he would never harm another animal unless the need was dire. He swore to the Goddess that he would make the best effort in his power to defend those who could not defend themselves against the more “advanced” races of the realms.
Saying it and following it through were two entirely different things. When the demonic dire beasts attacked, he tried as hard as he could to resist harming them. Once his comrades began to fall around him, though, he had reached the limit of his strength and let loose a bolt of electricity at the dire bear. Its magical resistance allowed it to shrug off the bolt and Magus’s resolve was shattered then and there.
He lost his cool. He lost his composure. He snapped.
After trying to revive his friends and protect them and Nymeria to the best of his abilities, the madman who deformed and tortured the once magnificent dire creatures showed himself. He could only see red and his vision began to tunnel. He only saw the man called Edward talking. He saw him smiling and laughing. How could such a monster be allowed to do whatever he liked? Before he could stop himself, he had summoned a sphere of pure electricity and launched it at the evil warlock.
After the spell left his hands he saw there was someone else with Edward. Another Black Wolf. Ash.
While Ash wasn’t exactly dependable or favored in his eyes, he had never willfully harmed someone who hadn’t wished him harm in return. When the sphere hit Ash he was rocked badly and let out a scream. Trying to redeem himself somehow, he manipulated the magics to form mighty jaws of force to attack Edward. His brain would not process how the man named Edward wasn’t even being harmed by the force unleashed upon him, Magus only wanted to destroy him.
When Edward faded, it was all over and that had been nothing he could do. The animals were still deformed and dead. Ash had still been hit with his spell. He didn’t even get the revenge he craved so deeply.
He had failed in so many ways he could not even comprehend it all. He let himself go. Wandering into the forest, he fell to his knees at the edge of a pool of water fed by a small waterfall. After slipping off his clothes he swam out under the torrent from above, hoping that somehow the Goddesses would wash away the stench his betrayals had caused.
He fell back into himself, letting go of all emotional attachments to ease his mind. The Arcane Hierophant was not supposed to let emotion get in the way. He was supposed to be logical and neutral in all things. He only needed the love of one, two aspects of one goddess, the rest did not matter.
A bit of darkness in his soul blossomed that day, but he pushed it back. Good or evil, both are the crutches of the weak. Logic was all that mattered now.
