Chapter 28: Jelen
Johan rubbed his eyes as he slowly opened the door to his room, holding a small stuffed deer in his hand as he peaked into the living room. He had woken to the sound of screaming, and broken glass. The six-year-old silently walked across the carpet, his onesie picking up static electricity as he dragged his feet. Once again he could do little more than peak around a corner as he saw the source of the yelling.
His mother was on her side on the kitchen tiles, propped up on one arm, while the other was covering her eye, a shattered vase on the ground next to her. And standing over her was his father, hands balled into fists. The man turned towards Johan, rage, and hatred in his eyes before he turned towards the kitchen door, slammed it open, and walked into the darkness.
Then there was the crack of lightning as everything changed in a flash.
"Jelen." A voice said with disgust, causing the kneeling stag to turn his gaze upwards. His gaze first drifted to the two deer guards standing over him, lightning coursing between their antlers. Then it dragged around the room they were standing in.
They were standing in a rich throneroom. Silver statues sat in alcoves along the room, depicting his crowned ancestors staring down at him with their blank stares. Branching, antler-like, decorations of lead danced along the galena walls of the room, as see-through blue-white curtains hung from the ceiling. A balcony overlooking the palace courtyard stood on the righthand side of the room, even now he could hear the jeering of a crowd below.
Then finally, his eyes fell on the one who had called out to him. An aged deer, brown in fur but with notable white and grey highlights, fitted with his tall silver crown and blue-white robes. The deer was lounging in a rounded throne of the signature metal, his massive knobbled and knotted antlers pressed against it, causing lightning to dance across its surface. A massive winged wolf sat behind the throne, almost the size of a full-grown bear. Its eyes locked onto Jelen with a murderous glare, gnashing its teeth, only for its master to calm it with a stroke of its chin.
"Father..." Jelen hissed, his eyes narrowing up at him. A smug smile spread across his face. "Finally, dragged me out of the dungeon eh? Does that mean I'm forgiven?"
The aged deer let out a laugh as he stood up and approached his son. "No. You are most certainly not. The embarrassment you have caused our dynasty with your little stunt is still rippling through the nation. If the alicorns of Epona, the centaurs, or Aramazd forgive the Platinum Empire find out about this..."
"Heh, sorry to say but I doubt anything will come of this, lest you forget those nations at least have the common decency to not burn people like me at the-" Jelen started, only to receive a slap across the face from his father, the hoof strike almost breaking the deer's jaw.
"Every day you give me nothing but disappointment and disrespect! I tire of your attitude boy!" The king roared, turning around with a snarl and stomping a hoof, which prompted the Aralez behind his throne to let out a bark, almost springing forwards.
Jelen flinched when he raised his hoof again, prompting his father's glare to soften, for a second. Slowly he lowered his hoof down, stroking where he had previously struck his son. Hesitantly, Jelen opened his eyes, locking them with his father.
The king sighed, shaking his head, tsking as he did. "Your mother's death means I cannot replace or disinherit you, and Theispas needs a king when I die, though your heretical rejection of the fairer sex puts a damper on those prospects..." He said, turning to walk towards the balcony, the two guards hoisting up the much smaller Jelen and forcing him to follow after his father.
"As such, I think I have no other choice but to find ways to fix you. Starting by showing you what you've done to him." The King said as one of the guards grabbed Jelen by the back of the head and slammed his chin on the balcony railing, forcing him to turn his gaze to the center of the palace courtyard.
Kneeling on a raised stone pedestal, surrounded by a jeering crowd was a young buck, he couldn't have been older than sixteen, the same age as Jelen. The two locked eyes as another deer walked onto the pedestal, a curved yataghan sword resembling a khopesh raised above his head, wrapped in electricity.
Instantly, Jelen's eyes widened, tears pouring from them as the blade was raised. "No! No! Father, please! Don't hurt him! Stop!" He cried, but his pleading fell on deaf ears. The executioner turned his head to the king, who nodded down at him.
And in an instant, the blade fell.
The guard pinning Jelen to the railing let go and took a step back as Jelen collapsed to the ground, his breathing light and his eyes hollow.
"Send a letter to King Aeternum of Epona and ask him to take my son under his wing as his ward for the next four years, if you would." The king said as he emotionlessly turned his gaze away from the courtyard to the other guard, who nodded. Then the two of them turned and marched out of the room.
Jelen's breathing suddenly intensified as he stood up. He let out a roar of rage as he turned, lowering his head and charging towards his father's back, antlers first. In a single movement, the king whipped around, and a wave of lightning shot from his own antlers, slamming into the younger deer and sending him to the ground. He could only writhe as electricity coursed up and down his body, ripping through his muscles and veins like knives.
Finally, after an unbearable moment of torture, the king straightened his back and let the energy dissipate, smirking slightly. "Better make that five years." And then he turned around and returned to his throne, leaving his son to merely sob on the stone floor.
Johan gasped as he sat up, a cold sweat covering his body. Wherever he was, it was dark, and it was outside. He could tell from the whipping wind around him. He was alone in the night for a moment, before the distant flash of lightning illuminated his surroundings. He was back on the mountain top, the one he had hallucinated last night. The other deer standing away from him, with his back turned.
Johan panted for a second before he grunted at sat up, his legs shaking in the wind. It was weird, the other deer was still as a statue.
"You-" Johan started, his voice was high pitched and shakey. He took a second before composing himself, straightening his back.
"You must be Jelen, right?" He said as he fought against the wind to approach.
"Yes," Jelen said, turning back to the deer, a grimace on his face. "I... apologize you had to see that. It appears those two memories are linked in our head... for obvious reasons."
"So... shitty fathers eh?" Johan said, chuckling slightly. "I guess we have that in common as well, you know... besides sharing a head."
Jelen said nothing, merely staring ahead into the darkness surrounding them.
Johan stayed silent for a sec. "W-well... yours seemed much worse." he chuckled for a second. "I mean, the worst mine ever did was hit my mom once and then go to get cigarettes for fourteen years. Yours did... all that."
"There are no tiers for bad fathers. You are either supportive and love your son, or you don't." Jelen said, turning back to him. "I didn't intend for you to see that, again, I apologize, now stay silent until this dream ends and you wake up. Then I can go back to my solitude."
Johan grimaced. "Can't you at least tell me who you are? How did you get in my head? And why did you just not talk to me for a month, and then now you're suddenly taking over my mind to get me struck by lightning!"
Jelen's brow furrowed slightly. "Fine, I'll humor you."
The other deer turned around, marching past him and sitting down on a rock near the peak of the mountain. He narrowed his eyes for a second, prompting Johan to quickly join him.
"You are a smart stag Johan, obviously you have already deduced that I am the one living in your head. Like how Derek has Auream." Jelen said, turning his gaze to the sky. "As for how we got in your heads... We've always been there. From the moment your eyes first opened on... Earth I believe you called it."
"Wait... you mean..." Johan started, blinking.
"The two of us died. Fifteen hundred years ago it seems." Jelen said, his eyes growing dim for a second, his voice shaking. "There was so much magic flying about when we did, that our souls were lost to limbo, sent spiraling between dimensions for centuries... until we ended up being reincarnated into you and Derek. We are the same person Johan. And when you died, things must have been corrected and you were sent here."
Johan was silent for a moment. "So, if you're a reincarnation of me, then why are you..."
"So different? Nature vs Nurture." Jelen spoke, simply, eyes softening as he did. "You at least still had a mother who loved you and raised you. I didn't."
Johan shrunk slightly. "I'm sorry about that then..."
"Don't be," Jelen said, shaking his head, chuckling slightly. "But, you must understand that spending twenty years in the body of an alien creature, forced to watch as a body that was not my own lived a life better than mine... it was rather traumatic."
"So... what made you go this long without interacting with me?" Johan said, leaning forwards.
"Magic," Jelen said, standing up. "We Deer... our magic is different than most other races on the planet. Most of them produce their own magic internally, such as the Ponies. We, however, symbiotically siphon it off from sources of natural magic. It's complex, and we can only do it with certain things, but it works out well enough for us."
"So, that's why you got struck by lightning, to get a bunch of magic in me in a short span of time," Johan said, smirking slightly. "I mean, I kinda figured that that's how that happened."
"Actually no. We didn't get our magic from the lightning." Jelen said, smiling slightly.
"What?" Johan asked, blinking slightly. "Then why did my antlers suddenly get all sparky? And, come to think of it, where did it even come from in the first place so I could do it at all?"
"There were two sources you came across in the past couple of days," Jelen said, his smile widening. "For instance, when you touched my father's crown."
Johan's eyes widened. "You mean..."
"Yes. For some reason, Celestia owns the Crown of Theispas." Jelen said leaning forwards. "But that only had a minor effect on us. The real power came from the other source."
Jelen stood up, pacing back towards the cliff face.
"As you should know, electricity conducts. The blue unicorn explained that after all, but if you didn't already know that... well... you might be a bit of a lost cause." Jelen said. Johan only stared at him blankly as he did. "Now then, who was I touching when I was struck by lightning?"
"How should I... wait... wait!" Johan quickly stood up. The dog! "Aralez!?"
"Precisely," Jelen said, turning back to him with a smile. "Though that is his species, not his name. We will have to come up with something more clever at some point."
"Of course... that explains why I didn't start to hear you until after I met him for the first time. But... but how does that even work?" Johan asked, looking up at him.
"Simple," Jelen said, walking towards him. "Aralez are a naturally magic creature. They live in the high peaks of the storm-wracked Temple Mountains where they absorb lightning that strikes them, though on occasion they can absorb other types of magic. Then, that lightning magic is passed on to us through osmosis, simply from being in the presence of them."
"I knew he was important!" Johan cried, standing up quickly. "And you know what this also means!?"
"What?" Jelen asked, smirking. He already knew the answer, but it wouldn't hurt to humor his other half.
"It means that I am actually important!" Johan said, almost bouncing in place. "I thought that the only way I could have any magic was to get shocked by lightning, which is probably never gonna happen again! Now, I am always going to have it! I won't be useless ever again!"
Jelen sat back on his haunches, clapping his hooves. "Bravo Johan, bravo. Though you have to keep this in mind. That dog out there is the reason for that magic. It's the reason we can talk, and the reason you can cast any magic at all. You must keep that thing safe at all costs. Otherwise..."
"Yeah, totally," Johan laughed. "Nothing's going to touch that mutt so long as I am around... although..."
Jelen knew what he was going to say before even he did. "Where did it come from?"
Johan nodded.
"I will be honest, I have no idea. It would have had to cross thousands of miles and even an ocean to reach us..." Jelen explained. "Most likely, he felt our presence and came to us. It's probably why he didn't show up until after a month."
"Do... do you think he's the last one?" Johan asked, dread in his eyes.
"Last aralez?" Jelen said, his face growing grim.
The other deer nodded.
There was a pause before finally, Jelen spoke again. "Listen to me, Johan. Fifteen hundred years ago... the world was a savage place. The kingdoms of the world collapsed into violence, everything rapidly unraveled around us all... and I was partially to blame. Theispas burned... but you already knew that didn't you?"
Johan nodded slightly, his throat going dry.
Jelen looked to the sky. "My people... are likely extinct in this day and age. I... I wouldn't be surprised if that dog is the last of his kind. Just like us."
"What happened?" Johan asked. "W... why did all of that happen?"
Jelen went silent again, turning back to the darkness. "I cannot say yet... but I played a large role in it."
"A large role? What kind of role?" Johan asked, but Jelen didn't respond. Then the mountain top started to brighten. The storm ended, and the sun rose in the distance. Everything started to shake, and then it all disappeared as Johan's eyes opened.
He was laying in his bed in the crystal castle... alone.
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Is there a reason why this new guy is named 'Jelen' specifically? Asking because 'jelen' is literally the word for deer/stag in my language and I was wondering if it's a coincidence or a deliberate choice
11326507
It's a deliberate choice :3
Ok wow, so if johan was to get that crown from celestia it would be sort of like a battery for johan right? or like a small power up to help him summon more lightning and better control it.
11326507
i mean we just was how bad his dad was. Also proberbly why he wants to give the dog a good name
Aww, now isn't that sweet. Some reincarnation shenanigans and bonding over similar trauma.
11326507
11326521
Well not exactly the same word, it's like if foreign, English-speaking people would say words from our language. without symbols in them, like some cities for example
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11329717
I don't think we speak the same language. (That's Polish in the pictures, right?)
11329822
Yeah
Jelen is close to jeleń in Polish , with is a deer in English
What other language uses jelen for deer?
I mean ,in polish the literal difference is in a symbol, to look the same
11329863
Most western and southern Slavic languages refer to deer as Jelen or something similar.
For instance, Deer in Croatian is Jelena
11329946
11329863
Croatian here. The Croatian word for deer is jelen, exactly as it's written in the chapter (without the ń). Jelena, since you mentioned it, is a woman's name (also a genitive and accusative form of 'jelen', so you're not completely wrong there, except you wouldn't find it listed like that in the dictionary)
11330011
I am not the sharpest tool in the shed XD
11352406
At least you made an effort to include a word from some random language that I'm guessing not many people here speak and would likely miss the meaning of when you could have just invented something random, and I appreciate it