The Enmity of Scolrys, Part XVIII: The Coming of the Bull
Gereghond – the Bull, Lord of Fertility, Protector of the Herd, Accordant Earth – thundered forth from the eastern seaboard.
With a deafening blast of His colossal trunk, the rugged primordial trampled forth upon a naturalising tide of deific energy. Each roar of Gereghond’s mighty trumpet sent spurts of oceanic water to the skies, blessing all of Sapience with the lifegiving rains of His glorious sojourn. Rainstorms manifested across the realm in defiance of weather patterns, nourishing the land with the essentials of life.
Drawn to the call of a herd never heard, Gereghond’s charge took Him through Sapience – towards the Mamashi Grassland. Inexorably attracted to a memory never before memorised, the Lord of Fertility’s massive tusks cleaved through the destitute soil of a once glorious place in a frenzied search for followers never glimpsed. Blessed by a parade never celebrated, Accordant Earth harrowed the elementally starved reaches of the Mamashi with every booming step and fecund blast of His trunk.
As once He did upon the islet of Tcanna and the wide world of Aetolia in ancient times, Gereghond surged forward to share His gifts of freedom, fertility, and virility. Where the brutish claws of the Hunter might grasp the world and exert His brawn like an apex predator, the Elephant God simply existed upon the cosmic stage. Unconcerned with any animal aspect aside from one essentially elephantine, the Albedi deity evoked no guardians, no Dia’ruian power – merely that of pure earth, His power and potential bound to the land’s yearning heart. The Bull raced a course defined by sanguine lines, the blood of mortals serving as a pungent guide upon the air. Life swelled and sang rapturously with every colossal completion of His circuit, and the sowing of Divine power flooded the land with the flushed influence of the fertile god.
Verdant beauty sprang forth from the vital seed the primal deity planted, rendering freshly sown fields of mid-spring into lush, bountiful sprawls burgeoning with the fruit of labour yet to pass and soil yet to be truly nurtured by mortal hand. Sodden with the fructuous potential of the Bull’s endless essence, the Mamashi Grassland’s once-lifeless visage sloughed away in a tide of primordial providence. Swollen now with the gift of new life, the land yielded to Him, allowing lush growth to breach its no longer scoured surface like a carpet unfurled for primitive royalty. Made into a stage for agrestal wonder, the Mamashi trembled with each booming burst of Accordant Earth’s prodigious trunk. The wordless, soundless ecstasy of the land bid the Grassland to twist and writhe in the throes of rapid regeneration, its modest hills and curving bends once more rife with nature’s wonders.
Dazzles of zebras, prides of lions, packs of coyotes, and clouds of buzzing insects converged upon a home taken by the horrors of mortal folly. Set to frolic now, the animals leapt and bounded through a domain once picked clean by the tumultuous travails of Fundamental violence, staking their claims for new dens, hives, and burrows. Given a second chance to bear fruit, to nurture life, the Mamashi drank deep of Gereghond’s potent power. Shadowrot’s scouring crumbled away from its final reaches, leaving the environment stronger than it ever was throughout the Midnight Age. Lush, thriving growth flourished at its borders, nurtured by the blood of rutting ritualists and the rampant virility of an ancient being. The animal kingdom cried out in primal loyalty to the Accordant King of Birth and Green Growth, showering Him with the respect and praise He so deserved. Mammals settled upon their haunches and bowed their heads, birds alighted upon branches and chirped serenades of honour, and reptiles slithered royal tapestries in the soft soil, clearing the way for the trampling procession of the potent Bull.
Drawn to a rite born of devout honour and carnal interpretation, Dejaani’s Childe of Earth paused before an empty network of caves and dens once held by the Grassland’s apex predators – the same one Enorian currently occupied.
As the Elephant God peered into the cavernous den, a lone lioness padded forward to stand at His side. The Lord of Plentiful Earth turned His majestic head to regard the sleek cat, His tusks steaming prolific mists. A shower of turquoise sparks scattered away from the billowing cloud of His latent essence, gifting the graceful huntress with the kiss of vitality and plenty. Subsumed in the spumy gyre of the Bull’s generative favour, the lioness let loose a roar laden with life’s stubborn primacy. As profound metamorphosis took hold of her mundane frame, her silhouette elongated, her stature unfurling to achieve gigantic proportions. The raw energy of Accordant Earth burned as ochre fire in the eyes of this prideful animal, her fangs extending downward as scythes to reap the flesh of prey. Her claws became as sabres, her noble pelt dappled with complex tribal tattoos that mark her as an ascendant of Gereghond’s plentiful domain.
The Bull, His eyes burning with the need to protect, to propagate, to proliferate, looked upon the lioness. Some unspoken force passed between them before the tremendous deity began to turn away, His attention drawn away from this place of nascent faith.
A final, savage serenade rose from the Mamashi – equal parts gratitude, fealty, and carnal recognition, the cries heralding a return to the natural order. An elephant herd lifted their lengthy proboscises in solemn homage, their untamed music – a pale echo of Gereghond Himself, but an echo nonetheless – acting as glorious trumpets to see their Immortal counterpart off. With one final blast of His gigantic trunk, Gereghond reared His head back towards the east. The land parted as if gates to His primal palace, the grasses giving way to a path unseen that He thundered along into the distant reaches of the Albedi ether.
Unseen by any others in departure’s din, Enorian sensed the lioness bound away to await the moment of ambush against an enemy wrought by pride and hubris – their third beast of war for an assault yet to occur.
Even as they celebrated the return of the Mamashi’s wild lifeforce, the Heartwood knew there was work yet to be done…
Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 22nd of Slyphian, in the year 3 AC.
