Fate & Destiny

In the province of Scuvorya there exists a prevailing belief in both fate and destiny. A strong enough belief that two of their most revered gods are the Dual Lovers of the Pre-Ordained. When texts were translated and the tenants of Scuvoryan ideology were introduced to the provinces that would one day make up the northern counties of the Merandin Empire, the Lovers were turned into a male/female pair, their names altered to ones more acceptable to older Meranish sensibilities.

However, the original Scuvoryan texts indicate the gods of the pre-ordained, Ahcton and Dvid, were sons of two warring goddesses—Vlerica and Lialornca.

 

Ahcton

The god of fate. Immovable, stubborn and strong. The son of Vlerica, the goddess of the tide of battle. He is often depicted with the wild hair of his mother and references are made by the Scuvoryans themselves that his hair serves as blinders to everything but that which is right before him. A trait many say he inherited from his mother.

It is in Ahcton we see the inevitable, but he is not so much the god of all fate, but of the revered frascvods—those fateful moments that will come no matter the circumstances of life. Scuvoryans believe there are a handful of frascvods in every person’s timeline—more in those people who are born under Ahcton’s star and are thus seen as favored by him, his eyes focused on their lives more so than others.

He wields a sword of the immovable cosmos, stars twinkling in the metal. When people pray to him that their frascvods be merciful, they will cut off locks of their hair and burn them as gifts to the god. In doing so, they hope he might add the hair to his own wild mane, thus giving him more incentive and single-minded focus to watch those who pray.

 

Dvid

On the other side of those frascvods sits the god Dvid. He is the keeper of destinies, watching over all possibilities, every path each mortal can take in life. In his hand is a key said to be made of the will of Bvorf the demi-god, he who chose many destinies for himself and is doomed to be lost between them for eternity.

Dvid is represented by a multifaceted doorway. The most skilled artisans can create three-dimensional representations of Dvid’s doorway so that depending upon where one stands determines what path one will see before him. This is the other facet of the frascvod. For while those fated moments are inevitable under Ahcton—determined before birth—each one will give a choice that will lead a mortal along one of the paths of destiny Dvid opens.

As the son of the goddess of internal reflection—Lialornca, represented by her layered mirrors—Dvid is the calm to Ahcton’s fierceness, the choice to his fated inflexibility.

 

Lovers of the Pre-Ordained

The two—Ahcton and Dvid—can not interact but for those inevitable moments—the frascvods of a mortal’s life. Ahcton is too focused, blind to possibility, while Dvid remains before the doorway to destiny as its protector, unable to focus on any one path at all. Only during the frascvod can Ahcton’s focus turn toward Dvid and only during the frascvod can Dvid unlock and step away from the myriads of paths in order to see Ahcton clearly. While a mortal lingers in that all-important moment, facing down the destinies he might choose, the lovers join.

In the frascvod, Dvid and Ahcton meet in a glorious explosion of pent-up lust and need. They cling to one another, moving in ways that shake the earth, upset the sea and send the stars sailing across the sky. Whenever the world shifts, Scuvoryans will say that somewhere someone has undergone one of their pre-ordained frascvods and is set on their destined course.

Statues of Dvid and Ahcton are of two kinds. The first is the two of them facing away from one another, Ahcton’s eyes focused in front of him. While Dvid’s eyes are fractured and faceted, unable to see any one thing solely. Between them will lie the doorway to destinies.

The second, and the one far more common, is the two of them locked together in their moment of emotional exposure, their limbs a tangled mess of stone or paint or metal. Scuvoryan history speaks of Dvid and Ahcton’s love as timeless and fated and it is not unheard of to hear romantic youths claim to “come together as if pre-ordained” or that “their love is a frascvod.” Over time, this idea has spread from Scuvorya as “a fated love” which has diluted the original idea of destiny.