The Promised Return

“The Promised Return” is an Edenian prophecy which describes the eventual return of the Bekiskapan people to the shores of this post-apocalyptic paradise. Though most Edenians have given up hope of the prediction ever coming true, there are still some who believe that their ancient champions will return one day to save the world a final time.

Background

In the year 77 CE, The Seven Voices sang a new iteration of reality into existence. In that moment, the souls of nearly all of Eden’s sapient beings were sent out into the new universe to take another stab at peaceful co-existence. Only the halflings, along with mixers of halfling blood, were allowed to stay—and only then if they promised to look after the place.

After all, it was probably only a matter of time before someone would break the universe again. So, the sister goddesses figured, why not keep the place tidy for the refugees of the next failed reality?

The Prophecy

One day, near the end of the year 79 CE, a wanderer appeared before the Council of Five and proclaimed that he had been visited by Mira and Phina during a pilgrimage to the The Sisters’ Gate. The weary councilors, exhausted after more than two years of trying to manage the upkeep of Eden, were anxious to hear what the goddesses had to say.

The wanderer cleared his throat and spoke:

When the world’s dire end is at last in sight,
and all that you love consigned to decay
your stalwart friends shall once again arise,
and push back forever the tide's cruel sway.

The councilors were heartened by this news and thanked the wanderer for it, then sent him on his way with food, drink, and coin. And for a time, the burden of taking care of Eden seemed less daunting to the diminutive halflings. But then the winds shifted. Then they shifted again. And after thirty-seven years of just barely holding it together, in the year 114, the universe outside of Eden failed again and the halflings were no longer alone.

Prophecy as Hoax

When the halflings saw human beings again, for the first time in nearly forty years, they were overjoyed and certain that the prophecy had been fulfilled. This left them vulnerable to manipulation and sadly they were manipulated time and again before they realized what was happening.

They had ceded the lands of Roktké (Wonderland) to the group which would come to be known as the False Kings. They were coerced into fighting amongst themselves, leading to an belief amongst the new refugees that halflings couldn’t be trusted. And then, a final act of humiliation, they had the whole world turned against them by the charlatan Oscar Diggs.

Is it any wonder then that the halflings, confined to the westernmost corner of the world they’d once been the sole inhabitants of, began to believe the whole prophecy had been a hoax?

The most popular theory is that Stagnekad the Defiler was responsible. Stagnekad, a shape-shifting kíndallan interloper who had used a gruesome loophole to remain in Eden after the Exile of 77, is believed to have disguised himself as the wanderer and invented the whole prophecy. His supposed motive? To sow discord in his ongoing quest to find and kill the sister goddesses.

Prophecy Fulfilled?

Warning: Here there be spoilers!

In the year 1553, long after the tales told in The Blood of Seven Queens, the Clarkwoods Literary Universe suffered what the halflings called a “Quasi Calamity.” Out in the universe beyond Eden, a time traveler by the name of Ada Coffin triggered what should have been a Calamity (see The Dance of Dreams for details). Simultaneously, in Eden, the aforementioned Stagnekad launched an all-out attack.

While The Silver Family cleaned up Ada Coffin’s mess out in Earth-669, the halflings of Eden—together with the sister goddesses themselves—fought against Stagnekad and his army of the undead. But then, after Stagnekad struck down the first of the goddesses and all hope seemed lost, the prophecy of “The Promised Return” finally came true. Out of nowhere, all around the battlefield, the Bekiskapan returned and helped the halflings to win the day.