Less than three hundred years ago, the Sun God walked among men. He came not in splendor, not in light, not with thunder on his heels or wings that split the sky. He came quietly, clothed in rough traveler's linen, feet bare, and eyes heavy with centuries. He wandered through cities smothered in soot and through kingdoms built on conquest and coin. He watched how the world had changed.
In those days, selfishness had become the law of the land. Kindness was mocked. Hunger was common, but generosity even rarer. In the markets, people spat at the poor. In the temples, gold outweighed faith. The people had forgotten the old pacts, the sacred balances, the warmth that once lived in the spaces between hearts.
And so, the God wandered. Through bitter winds and sun-cracked earth, he walked. Through salt-worn coastlines and ancient mountains, through ruined temples and overgrown shrines. No one recognized him. No one bowed. But that was as he wished.
Until, one day, in a dried-out field where even the weeds had given up, the God came upon a child. The boy was crouched in the dirt, knees drawn up under thin arms. His skin was caked with earth, his clothes torn rags more suited for scarecrows than sons. Wounds dotted his skin like constellations—some fresh, some old. The air was heavy with stillness.
The boy didn't weep. He didn't speak. He was eating. Mouthfuls of earth. The God stopped, silent as a shadow. There were corn stalks not far off, and hanging fruits ripening on wild vines. But the boy didn't reach for them. He shaped the dirt into messy discs—mud pies—and bit into them slowly, methodically. Not in play. Not in defiance. Simply because there was nothing else.
When the God finally spoke, his voice was gentle. "Why do you eat earth, child? There is fruit nearby. Corn in the stalk." The boy looked up with hollow eyes, a smear of soil on his chin. He considered the stranger for a long time, then extended one of the half-formed mud pies in offering. It crumbled in his hand.
The God did not take it. But he smiled. Among all the selfish, cruel, desperate people he had met, here was a soul that still remembered how to share. A child who had nothing, yet still offered what little he had to a stranger. A flicker of warmth in a world gone cold.
The God sat beside him. For days, the God followed the boy—never revealing who he was. The child wandered from place to place, beaten by older children, cursed by merchants, ignored by travelers. He never struck back. He never took more than he needed. He watched the sky like it held answers. The God watched him in turn. Quietly. Patiently.
In time, the divine heart stirred with resolve. If the world had forgotten how to be kind, then let this boy be the start of its remembering. The God blessed him. Not with riches. Not with power. But with light. Quiet, steady light that would live in his bones and blood. And with that light, the child became the first Emperor of Eirhardt.
Not all at once. Not with parades or thunder. But over time, change grew like a root through stone. Ten generations passed. And now, a kingdom stands—The Eirhardt Empire—its roots in the gesture of a starving boy who once offered a stranger a piece of dirt with both hands.
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It was well past midnight, and the snowstorm had no name. It howled like something ancient, something sent to erase footprints before they were even made.
In the slums of the capital, where the stone buildings sagged with old age and older secrets, one crooked structure leaned against the wind like a drunkard—the Orphanage. It had once been a chapel, long before the Empire even had a name. Now, it housed the forgotten.
Inside, Matron Lynelle dozed in a velvet chair older than her bones. The fire in the hearth had turned to embers. Her shawl had slipped down to her elbows, and her head lolled to one side like a cracked doll.
Then—tap. A soft knock. Almost shy. If not for the wind falling still in that exact moment, she would have missed it entirely.
She blinked awake, eyes bleary and limbs stiff. For a moment, she thought the silence had simply played a trick on her. But the knock had sounded again—quieter than before, like it regretted the interruption.
Grumbling, she lit the lantern and shuffled down the hallway, the boards groaning in protest beneath her feet. The front door creaked as she pulled it open—and was immediately slapped by the wind.
Nothing. Just snow. The kind that swallowed sound, devoured footprints, and blanketed everything in hush. She would have closed it again. But then—light. Faint, like the last glow of a candle wick, pulsing through a bundle at the doorstep.
Squinting, she leaned out. There, nestled in an old straw basket, was a baby. The steps of whoever had left him were already gone—erased by the storm. No note. No cloth tag. No sign of life, only the faint shimmer of light curling like mist around the edges of the basket, keeping the snow from touching him.
Lynelle gasped despite herself. The wind bit at her ankles, but she stepped forward. The baby wasn't crying. In fact, he wasn't making any noise at all. He just lay there, wide-eyed, looking up at her with storm-gray eyes that didn't blink.
His skin was pale—too pale, like porcelain steeped in milk. His hair, peeking from beneath a curtain-turned-swaddle, was silver-white, almost translucent. It caught the lantern light and reflected it like starlight.
He looked... wrong. Wrong in the way holy things often do.
Lynelle hesitated. She'd taken in children left in worse states. Infants with bruises. Toddlers with curses scribbled on scraps of parchment. But something about this child—She bent and touched the edge of the swaddle. Warm. Unnaturally warm. The glow seemed to curl against her fingers.
With a sigh, she picked up the basket. He was light. Far too light. A bundle of fabric and silence, barely heavier than the lantern in her other hand. He didn't flinch. Didn't coo. Didn't cry. Just stared up at her like he already knew her, or had been waiting a long time for someone to come.
The door slammed shut behind her as the wind rose again. And just like that, he was inside. That winter, the orphanage's walls grew thinner. The food ran low. Several children fell ill. But the snow never came near the boy's corner.
The blankets near him stayed dry. The air around him stayed just warm enough. And sometimes, when Lynelle passed by his cradle at night, she swore she saw something shimmering above his chest—like sunlight caught in breath, flickering just for a moment.
She named him Elarion. And the world, for the second time in three hundred years, forgot how to explain a miracle.