Theus

Lanterns cascaded above every street; hung from house to house. They were lit with dyed paper of every color. The lights strung across all of Havenrun. The entire city was lit.

The Willowood survivors walked in a group together down the streets. Vendors were handing out steaming sweet pies that enticed the nose. Kids ran with ribbons in the streets. Music was playing on every corner. The drums echoed inside each person’s body.

Russel: “My my. Haven’t a harvest festival like this before”. Russel was currently stuffing his face with a meat kebob glazed with honey. “Spose we never had much to harvest in the first place”.

The group laughed. It was truly a magical sight to behold. The night was enchanting. Even the cold weather let up for the harvest festival. The tradition was to throw the festival on the last new moon of Autumn. When the night is darkest, the city lights its brightest.

It was the most people Theus had ever seen in his life. They were happy. They were a community. Theus had never felt like this before. Part of something bigger than him. Part of a whole. He had only ever felt apart. Away from those who pitied and looked down upon him.

The days of begging for scraps were over. People handed away food in Havenrun like it was worthless. He hated easy it was to get fed here. It made his struggling in Willowood seem like a choice. He never chose to be alone, to be hungry. It made him angry.

The crowd seemed to gravitate towards a large market square. “Autumn is here!”, “She’s back!”, came from the crowds.

Practically the entire city was packed into the center of the city. There, a large collection of vegetables were presented on tables. They were huge, the gourds were the size of pigs. The carrots were the length of a horse’s leg. All sorts of huge unnatural-sized plants were laid out to see.

Theus had never seen that much food before in his life. It was too much food. Too much. Even if every person was fed, most of go to waste.

Around the table of food were four robed figures. Their robes were brown, detailed with designs of gold and orange. Most held staves that were so intricately carved they each told their own story.

One of the four was touched. Her robes were exposed at the arm. She had arms that seemed to be covered in tattoos. They were weaving designs of vines and plants. Some of the vines seemed to leave her skin and coil around her body.

Crowd: “Autumn’s Children,” the crowd whispered.

The crowd began to hush.

Touched: “Welcome all, we have yet again brought prosperity to our city. This year we have successfully grown enough crop to thrive through winter three times over!”. She raised her arms as she spoke to the audience.

Three times over!? That was insane. Not even all the kingdom could use that much food. Theus’s jaw dropped. He could still remember the way the survivors looked at the free turnips they were given last week. It might as well have been golden coins.

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The entire crowd cheered. She continued to speak, but Theus was distracted by a sudden tugging on his tunic.

He looked down to see the girl. She pointed up.

Theus: “I can try,” he said with a half laugh. Ever since he got back from his brief stay imprisoned the girl didn’t spend a second away from him. It was starting to get quite annoying.

He hunched down on the ground. She slipped over his shoulders. With both arms firmly pressed on his crutch, he lifted her. Her eyes glowed as she looked at the Autumn’s Children. Theus struggled to keep her up. The crutch could just barely handle his weight, let alone another human entirely.

He wished he could enjoy the spectacle. He constantly looked around the crowd. Where were they?

The crowd clapped. It looks like the Touched was growing vines from her arms that weaved into patterns in the air. She was using them to move lanterns above the crowd.

Touched: “Now for what we’ve all been waiting for”.

All four of the Autumns Children spoke in unison. “Oh great god of Autumn, we gift you the offering of our harvest’s best bounty. We hope you witness our gift and except our love and warmth as a unified people”.

Theus chuckled when she said, ‘love and warmth.’ He has felt nothing but hate and pain since he got here. But I guess it wasn’t much different from Willowood.

With another command, the Children had the entire crowd light lanterns. Except these ones drifted off into the sky, unlike the ones found strung across the city. Hundreds of citizens lit the lanterns. They all began to float into the sky above. Theus had to admit it was a beautiful sight. Rus grabbed a lantern for the girl and handed it up to her. Her face glowed as she lifted it into the air.

The lights began to drift up and up. Hundreds of lanterns. They then began to clump together. They began to flow in the same pattern and direction. Soon they formed a large diagonal circle in the sky.

The crowd started to go insane.

Crowd: “Autumn!”.

The Willowood survivors all looked at each other in confusion.

A wave of sweet apple smell crashed over the city. A large figure appeared inside the swirling bandoleer of lanterns. It had large intricate vine arms that had lots of geometric angles rather than organic ones. Its body was made of bound wheat and barley. Its head was that of a large carved pumpkin. The head alone dwarfed the castle that looked over Havenrun. The god was competing in size with Harkenfoot Mountain in the distance.

The mountain-sized god’s pumpkin mouth flew open and it bellowed into the sky. It was an ancient and primal roar of gratitude.

Most citizens were on their knees. Theus instinctually wanted to prostate with the crowd. His knee started to bend, but soon he stopped. The girl would surely fall. He could see her arms stretched out to the sky grabbing towards the god.

Crowd: “Pick me, please!”, they all yelled.

Russel: “What is happening?!”.

People prostrated in their pleading with the god. It stood over the city. Its body clearly was over the now empty fields to the west of the city walls.

The god’s arms creaked in the sky. They both moved to point towards the city. Its woven vine arms then began to unweave themselves. Four large shooting vines came down onto the population.

All four moved and turned in the air aiming for specific directions. They approached closer and closer. The crowd didn’t move, they just waited for the approach.

The four vines crashed into the crowd. The creaking vines covered the entire crowd. It looked like the crowd was about to be covered with a large woven basket.

Then like that, the towering Autumn god was gone. The lanterns and large vegetables were gone too.

Four members of the crowd had been touched that night. The three Autumns children that were not already touched stood tall with their new respective gifts from their god. Citizens came up to congratulate them. Other citizens ran through the crowd to find the last touched.

He raked his eyes across them. Where were they?

The fourth person was the happiest of them all. She sat atop her new protector’s shoulders. Her tiny child arms now were covered in geometric vine tattoos. The crowd gasped as they stared at the little girl who sat on the cripple murderer’s shoulders. Her smile was lost to them.

The crowd began to come closer to Theus and the girl.

Theus and Russel: “Uh oh”.