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I’m telling this story as a tale of caution. I am in no way blaming anyone for what happened. I would just like to help prevent something like this from happening again. You may ask who I am in this instance. Let us just call me the impartial observer. I have been around as long as the gods but they don’t know of my existence. But enough about me, let us tell the tale of Damien and the tragedy he and his lover Sawyer faced.
We start our story in the sacred meadow of Gaia. Gaia has resided in this meadow for as long as there was nature on Earth. This meadow was a glorious site. Any plant that you can imagine is in this meadow. There are even some that haven’t been seen by any mortal eye. The most captivating of them all is the sacred flower. By the Gods above, that flower was something to behold. It glimmered bright like a gemstone, the colors were radiant, and the smell could put you at ease in seconds. It was Gaia’s most precious creation. Well, not as precious as her son, Damien.
Damien is the only son of Gaia. Many don’t know of his existence because of how tightly tucked away his mother has kept him. Damien takes some of his appearance from his mother. He’s tall like his mother, standing 8’6, with shaggy curled hair, almost like the vines that grow off of trees. He prefers looser clothing rather than the flattering clothes his mother likes to wear. By that definition, you would think that Damien didn’t care much for what he and his mom do for the world. Well, that would be a lie. Damien by no means hates the job he and his mom do. If you let him, he’ll talk your ear off for as long as his attention is on the subject of any aspect of nature. He is always running around the meadow, finding trivial things that make him love the world that he and his mom helped create. If only he could’ve stayed this happy in the meadow forever.
Now, let’s get back to the present. Looking in the distance, you can see Damien sitting under an oak tree. Situated under a blanket, headphones on, you would never suspect that this person in front of you is the son of Gaia. While Gaia is depicted as this gorgeous woman, don’t let Aphrodite know I said that Damien now looks like the complete opposite. The once adventurous and happy Damien is now a recluse that no longer resembles his mother. He doesn’t really see the whole beauty that comes with perfection. He’s changed his name and his style over the millennia to hide that he is a God. By changing his appearance, he has seen that the world is too cruel of a place for him to care about the mediocre things like appearance. One day, he will tell the world that it’s not a beautiful place if you don’t genuinely care about it. That’s why he stays away from mostly everyone and everything, reading mortal book after mortal book to pass the days of mind-numbing loneliness in tranquility.
Damien has his own idea of a tranquil place then what we believe. Instead of sitting in the meadow, where he and his mom live, he prefers to find one of the oldest and biggest trees near where he currently is and just sit there. He’s a nature god and he still can’t find the words to describe how much he loves these magnificent trees. This particular tree has hundreds of sturdy branches with beautiful pink, blue, and purple flowers. Birds and other animals have made their homes in this tree. No matter how many times he witnesses it, he never gets tired of the harmony of trees. Out of everything he and his mom have created, trees are his favorite. They always remind him of the days before he knew the truth of the world. Before he saw what happened outside of the meadow. What he would give to still be that innocent little kid that loved how mortals treated him and his mother’s work. Then, he wouldn’t be as sad and lonely as he was now. He wouldn’t have fallen in love with a mortal. Just maybe, he would still be happy.
Now, how did a happy child turn into the closed off adult we see now? I think it’s time I tell you the story of the fated pair. It was prophesied by the Fates that a young god would fall in love with a mortal and one would die. The other that lives will cause strife and chaos for the rest of the mortal realm. This was prophesied hundreds of years before Damien was born, so Gaia and the other gods didn’t think anything of the prophecy. Even after Damien was born, no one brought up the prophecy. The Fates never lie and we will see that play out.
Around 1000 years ago, Damien decided to leave the sacred meadow for the first time. His mother always told him stories about how wonderful mortals are so he wanted to experience it for himself. Grabbing some essentials and switching to his mortal form, his god form is too heavenly for mortals to see, he started his venture. He crossed the border of the meadow and walked but a few feet from the meadow, he caught sight of a person that captivated him. Never in all his millennium of living had he seen someone as beautiful as that. He mustered up some courage and went to go talk to this person.
“Hi, I’m Damien. I’m new around here. Do you think you can help me?”
“Oh, nice to meet you, I’m Sawyer. I live near to here, so I can help you out.”
“Thank you so much.”
The two walked towards Sawyer's village and he couldn’t believe what he saw. There really was interesting life outside of the meadow. They walked around the village and Sawyer was just letting Damien bask in awe. They continued through the village until they reached what Damien assumed was Sawyer’s house. Sawyer started,
“Since you’re new, you can crash here until we find you a place to stay. I’ll take the couch and you can have the bed.”
“No, I don’t want to be an inconvenience, I’ll take the couch. It is your house.”
They went back and forth until they agreed to just share the bed for the night. They settled into the bed and sat in an awkward silence until Sawyer spoke up.
“So, I don’t want to be that kind of person but do you believe in fate?”
“Actually, I do. Why do you ask?”
“For some reason, I feel like we were meant to meet. Something about you just captivates me and I sort of don’t want you to leave my house.”
Damien looked at Sawyer in awe. He didn’t know how to feel. He couldn’t even form words at that moment. It felt too good to be true. The boy he just met just told him that he wants to be with him. Without either of them realizing it, they moved closer to each other. They just basked in each other’s presence and drifted to sleep.
Over the two years of their relationship, they built a life with each other. They made a bigger house for themselves and they started a little business in the village. They couldn’t be happier. Damien did sneak out some nights so he could visit his mother. She was fully accepting of his relationship and even gave him advice. She even helped planned a special night. Gaia helped Damien get everything together for the evening before heading back inside the meadow. However, what she didn’t realize was that Damien took the sacred flower from its spot. This flower, unbeknownst to Damien, is unbelievably valuable. More valuable than a billion diamonds. It has a combined worth of what the wealthiest king is worth times 100. The only people that knew the true value of this flower were Gaia and Zeus.
Back in the village, Damien was anxiously waiting for Sawyer to get ready. As Sawyer walked down the stairs, he knew that whatever happened tonight, he would be happier than ever. They walked to this fancy restaurant on the border of the village and had their lovely evening. They ate and laughed and just relished in each other’s presence. As the night was ending, Damien pulled Sawyer outside to this beautifully decorated gazebo. It was decorated with all of Sawyer’s favorite flowers and in colors that Sawyer didn’t know flowers could be in. After they get under it, Damien turns to Sawyer.
“Sawyer, since the day I met you, I knew my life was going to be amazing. The way your kind smile just made me feel like I have a place in this world made me think of the future. A future with you in it. These past two years have been some of the best years of my life. And there is no one else I’d rather spend it with so”
Damien pulls out the flower from his jacket and gets on one knee.
“Sawyer, would you make me the luckiest man in the world and marry me?”
Sawyer was so lost for words that all he could do was smile and shake his head yes. Damien got up and put the ring on his finger and they had one of the best kisses they have ever shared. All the onlookers cheered them on. It seemed like nothing could go wrong.
Yet, in the woods lining the restaurant were a couple of thugs that saw that flower the ring was on. They could see from afar that that flower had to be worth a pretty penny. These thugs followed the young couple back towards their house and waited for them to fall asleep before they enacted their plan.
They waited about two hours before they made their way inside. They were careful not to make any sound so they did not accidentally wake up the couple. The thugs searched all downstairs for the flower with no avail. They quietly made their way upstairs and looked through the rooms up there. They did not find it in those rooms either. The only room left was the room where the newly betrothed couple were currently sleeping. The thugs knew that if they went in there, they were likely to wake up the couple but they would risk it to fill their pockets with money for lifetimes to come. They silently opened the door and as soon as they did, they saw the flower on the nightstand by Sawyer. They tiptoed to the nightstand and grabbed the flower. They then turned to walk back out the door when one of them stepped on a creaky floorboard. This startled just Sawyer awake, an inconvenient time for Damien to be a heavy sleeper, and he saw them with his engagement flower.
“What are you guys doing in our house and why do you have my flower?”
“Your flower? Ha, it ain’t yours anymore. It’s ours now and we are going to get rich.”
“No, you aren’t” Sawyer said before he lunged at the thugs.
He’s grateful that his fiancé taught him some self defense moves but it wasn’t enough. They had Sawyer pinned to the ground and they knew they couldn’t just leave now. The thugs concocted a plan and decided that killing Sawyer was the only way they were going to get out of there. One thug pulled out a knife and plunged it into Sawyer’s stomach multiple times. They left the room with the flower in head, leaving Sawyer to bleed out on the bedroom floor. With all the strength he had left, he crawled to Damien side and shook him awake. Upon opening his eyes and seeing the state his lover was in, he tried to comfort him.
“It’s alright Sawyer, we’ll get you some help just hold on baby. Don’t close your eyes, you’re going to be okay.”
“Honey, we both know that I’m not going to make it until help gets here. Just promise me something, don’t be sad. Live the rest of your life for me and be happy, okay” Sawyer said weakly as he breathed his last breath.
“NOOOOOOOOOO” Damien screamed as he held his dead lover in his arms.
It was like something inside him broke and before he realized it, his appearance was drastically changing. Before he stood 8’6, now he grew to be a hulking 13’5 and his lovely complexion now is dark, almost like a rotting tree. He felt nothing but pure rage and hatred. He saw the onlookers and all he could see was the race that murdered his lover. He went on a rampage, destroying everything and everyone in his path. No person was spared from the carnage and Damien used powers he didn’t even know he had. He massacred the village until no person or thing was left alive.
In the chaos of everything, Gaia and all the other gods felt the bloodlust coming from the village. They all frantically raced to see what in the cosmos was happening. The gods were shocked to see the lovable dork they knew causing havoc in the village. Gaia didn’t know how this could happen and as she wracked her brain to figure it out, it struck her, the prophecy. It had been so many millennia since the gods were told the prophecy that it never occurred to her that it would happen to her son. She frantically grew to her monstrous size (she was as tall as Damien in his god form before this) and ran to her son.
“Damien, you have to stop this. They have done nothing to you.”
“THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR LETTING THE ONES THAT KILLED SAWYER INTO THE VILLAGE. THEY. MUST. PAY.”
“Not like this Damien, there are other ways just stop please” Gaia said breaking down.
Gaia’s words were starting to get through to him and he started to shrink back down to his normal size. The strain of the rampage took all the energy from his body. The moment he went back to normal size, he collapsed into his mother’s arms, sobbing his eyes out. He cried and cried until he fell into an uneasy slumber.
Gaia asked this once that the gods look the other way. Because they knew how Damien normally was, they didn’t press the issue further. Gaia brought Damien back to the meadow and set him in his “room.” She had the forest nymphs guard him and make sure that no one except for her entered or exited that room.
Damien was in modern-day terms, catatonic. He wasn’t speaking to anyone and he hasn’t left his room. Every time Gaia would come in to check on him, he had the same blank expression on his face. It took months to get him out of his room, but he never truly recovered. The slightest mention of Sawyer or anything that reminded him of Sawyer sent him into a frenzy. He would lash out at anyone that touched him whenever he was spiraling and they just learned to leave him be. Once he was stable enough, he left the meadow for good. The meadow reminded him too much of Sawyer and he couldn’t handle that anymore. Damien would never move on from Sawyer and Sawyer’s memory will forever haunt all the gods’ minds. They will learn that whenever love is in play, people will do whatever it takes for love to win. Damien would become a recluse that causes natural disasters to people that take advantage of love.
Damien and Sawyer’s tale will be one told throughout history. They will be the lovers that never be. They were the fated pair and what happened to them truly was a tragedy.