“Memories...lighter than a feather, yet heavier than a mountain.”
Context: The lifetimes of Eren Demir Mentions: Nettelia, Octavian, Andreas, August Timeframe: ancient times to present day Notes: Eren has a lot of issues Content Warning: death, conquest, torture, the usual
Erišum – around 2,000 BC – died age 476
“Do you want to know a secret?” Nettelia’s smile was bright, as it always was. Erišum was on the edge of his seat, the bustle of the Assyrian capital fading around them. It was their corner, their hideaway that had always been a safe place for the song of a king and the woman that had come to be his best friend. There were always expectations of a prince, to lead the Assur once more into greatness.
Nettelia had changed, that much was obvious. There was much she hadn’t told him, but this? This was new. Erišum took a breath as she pressed her hand against his chest, “I can’t do this alone,” she whispered, like that was the one thing she couldn’t admit to anyone. Like that would make her choice better. All at once, Erišum was gasping, magic flooding his chest, his senses heightening as he began to feel the magic flowing from the archdruid before him.
“What did you do?” He felt strange, looking down at his palms as Nettelia laughed, the melodious tune making him feel warm inside.
“We’ll never have to be apart, Eri.” Her smile was giddy, and Erišum felt, well, at peace. Whatever it was she’d done, he’d be able to do more. There was always a catch, wasn’t there? But they had love between them, and it was the archdruid who was behind him as her lion grew into his abilities. How Otzalun had smiled when he’d seen him, how the clouds had parted for The First, how Erišum had bowed to no one but them. And that’s how it was meant to be, Nettelia would say from behind his throne. As the centuries passed, she would visit, remind him that time was now at their fingertips. Remind him that she had a purpose, and so did he.
Enemies were crushed beneath the Assyrians, but it would be after his lifetime that they would become a power to be reckoned with. Instead, Nettelia had taught him more about magic. About life and rebirth, about the creatures that they could now inherit the abilities of, of the chaos they could create.
Erišum was pulled from his city that he’d left to those who’d come after, the Assyrian king list growing, until death was met at the hands of another war – another blade, another bloody timeline. With the promise from Nettelia that she would find him in his next life, no matter where he was. But she’d changed, her ramblings were confusing even to the Lion, the man who’d done so much – only to have to succumb to the end of a druidic lifetime.
“I’ll see you again, Lion.”
Achilles – around 1230 BC – died age 29
He was born to Thetis, a powerful druid who knew that mortal men would be his downfall. That as she raised her boy, sharp witted with hair that was unruly, with a nature as fierce as the animal he represented, that she would one day lose him. The priestess of Zeus had looked down at Thetis’ baby boy, her words an echo of lives yet to come.
“He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
Thetis sheltered him, however, until one day she could not.
Achilles grew, with Patroclus by his side, into a man that wanted glory and nothing more. They said he could be happy, if he wanted it. His mother had reminded him that if he just chose life, that he would not be a flame that burned out too quick. But that wasn’t his lot in life, and Patroclus had still decided that he would stay.
And as the memory’s of his prior lifetime came back, slowly as he reached adulthood, there were questions constantly spilling from his lips.
Where is Nettelia? He’d ask, and Thetis would tell him that there were some questions that did not need answers, that her fate was decided by The First centuries ago, and it was no longer any of Achilles’ concern. Yet it was – and who was Thetis to tell him what to do?
When he was summoned by Agamemnon, a man that even Achilles despised, there was little choice but to go forward and into the world that awaited him.
“Will you come with me?” Achilles was earnest, eyes as deep as the earth as they looked at the man beside him. It was the never ending ache of love and sorrow, and Patroclus would never say no. Perhaps in some lifetime he would have refused, torn his hair and screamed, but he wouldn’t. Not in this one. Achilles would sail to Troy and Patroclus would follow, even into death. Achilles would pull Patroclus to his chest as a whispered yes resounded between them. He would hold his lover close, where nothing would ever fit between them.
Yet when death separated them, when it came at the hands of Hector, Prince of Troy, Achilles would understand what Nettelia had told him once before: “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Don’t you think?”
It had only taken a few decades for Achilles to understand that, and as Hector stood before him, asking for mercy, Achilles laughed – but it was broken and brittle, “There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.”
And as Achilles dragged Hector’s broken and mangled body around the walls of Troy, as he lauded his victory over those that would soon burn, he knew that there would be no separation of he and Patroclus – not even death could contain them.
Thetis had taken her revenge on Patroclus’ spirit, as Achilles lay dying, arrows embedded into his body, she blamed the mortal witch for consuming her son’s soul – cursed to forever find one another, cursed to reincarnate and to end in blood.
Alexander III of Macedon - 356 BC to 323 BC – died age 32
Alexander, how much land do you need? When all you really occupy is the land between your two feet. And even that, is fleeting.
There was a period of time where Alexander had never stopped to question who he was. What his lineage would entail – what Olympus would say as snakes wound around his bed as a child, as they whispered to the druid who’d been kept in a cage for far too long. Her animal was a cobra, as poisonous as the woman had become, who initiated the fall of her husband, Alexander’s father, placing the mantle of kingship on a boy that was always meant to have it.
His soul was always doomed from the start, and Alexander held little remorse about it. Patroclus had found him again – Hephaestion, he’d whispered, as their souls met and bodies collided in another story, another lifetime. Yet another for the poets to write about, for the scholars to discuss – Alexander would always be remembered.
There was much that Alexander had to remember, Hephaestion’s magic mixing with his wherever they went. But there were violent streaks that were never fixed, and as Alexander stood before the Pythia of Apollo at Delphi, who claimed that she would tell him nothing, he simply dragged her by the hair through the temple, until she was outside for all to see, where she screamed and told him that he would conquer the world. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?” The golden lion sat upon Alexander’s armor, glittering jade eyes that promised respite if everyone just...agreed.
This was the same man that decimated armies, that tried to play nice as the island of Tyre rejected his terms of surrender – so he forced his army to build a bridge and turn the once proud city into one that was landlocked to the same place that Alexander had already conquered. Nettelia’s voice would remind him of his purpose, that death could not stop a lion – the proudest creature that even the kings of old hunted. So he hunted them in return.
As a servant kneeled before him, Alexander’s eyes glittering, he pressed a torch to the man’s chest, watching as he burst into flame. As skin melted off, as the screams stopped when the nerves finally burned away, the druid had laughed. “I just wanted to see what would happen,” he’d admitted to Hephaestion as they laid in one another’s arms the same night, as his kiss burned as fiercely as the flames had consumed the poor soul in front of them.
His empire was the largest the known world had ever seen, stripped away inch by inch until Alexander held nothing but blood between his fingertips. An army that demanded to return home to Macedon, a lover that died in his arms – Hephaestion, taken from him once more. The outrage had been imminent, the doctor that couldn’t save the general being strung up outside the hanging gardens, an example for those that would dare fail him.
His end was quick – six months after Hephaestion had been buried as a divine hero, Alexander met his fate among the gardens of Babylon. Sent into another reincarnation, with little life lived.
Nasir – 103 BC to 71 BC – died age 32
“It’s a rebellion,” Agron told him, pushing a sword into his hand as they stood within the barracks of Batiatus. Capua was a bustling city, one that flourished under the trade of gladiatorial slaves for the Romans who used it as a crippling point in their wars. How Nasir had come to this, however? It was a story that forever burned a hatred within his chest. The druid had been muted, branded a slave before he’d been given the chance to act with his own powers – the mark suffocated his magic, as it did the witch’s before him, but they didn’t need that to survive this time.
For too long had they been shoved into Colosseums, at the mercy of the crowd and the Roman leaders who wanted to earn money off of them. Nasir remembered fighting a lion, how the creature was proud until its death; how the kill had hurt the druid’s soul irreparably.
Agron was his soulmate, one that Nasir had instantly known when he’d seen him. When the ludus had been yet again filled with men who would fight and die, it was Nasir and Agron who had each other.
They’d laid together, the night prior, whispering of an escape and the blood they would spill. If they would die, they’d find each other again. In the next life, they promised.
“You’d battle a god for me?” Nasir had grinned, like he knew the answer before it was spoken.
“I would slay all who would lay attempt to wrest you from my arms,” Agron had promised, a smile shared between the two as they joined the fight for their freedom.
Their escape was brutal, but a promise of better things to come. The war against the Romans was never one that was supposed to be won. It was the principal, however, as the legions of Rome answered. As Octavian could not even fix the brands placed upon his skin, Nasir knew what it was like to be chained, and never again would he wish to sit idly by as they continued to be oppressed. The Etruscan druids could not help them, not while the Romans were after them.
The chains were broken, but he and Agron were never really free. The witch’s dark magic was enough to keep them going, but it was also enough to bring attention to them. As Roman soldiers died before them, as blood was manipulated time and time again, more were sent their way. A coven of witches that had known where to find them, as slaves escaped over the borders and into the land of the Gauls, of the Celts, Nasir and Agron found themselves once more separated.
Druidic magic was powerful, but it was not enough to save them this time. The last thing Nasir remembered was Agron screaming. There were witches all around them, and Nasir was forced to watch as Agron was put in magical chains once more, the cross that Nasir was pinned against becoming his doom. Nails were slammed into his wrists, his legs were broken, and he was lifted to sit along the road to Rome, beside the other slaves that were unable to escape – an example. And as Nasir suffocated on a cross, Agron being dragged away by the coven that wished to control him, the druid was once more thrown into a reincarnation cycle.
Heraclius – 575 AD to 741 AD – died age 165
“Do you know what I say to those who beg for mercy?” The emperor beneath him was crying, blood staining his clothes as it dripped from Heraclius’ armor. The guards were dead, well – almost everyone was dead. Except for Phocas, who was now an emperor of ashes, and Heraclius was going to take his crown. “There are no bargains between lions and men.”
The druids behind him were many, scattered within the rebellion that Heraclius had designed to support him. They’d risen from the ashes; they had decided that this emperor would not be their fate. Constantinople was suffering under these Byzantine emperors, but Heraclius would place a crown of blood upon his own head – and he would rule once more.
His lifetimes had been coming in fractures, and his mother had tried to use little things to remind him of his past. Nothing had worked short of a spell, but she had been adamant that Heraclius’ memories would tell them who he was. They were waiting for others to show themselves, for Aren to appear once more – but it was not him, yet again they were faced with a druid who felt more comfortable in war than politics, despite the kingship that would sit upon his shoulders later in life.
And as Heraclius executed Phocas with his own knife, he stood yet again a ruler. Another empire placed upon his shoulders, and he led them into greatness.
There was no greater general than he at the time, some of his conquests coming at the height of his campaign against the invaders of the Byzantine empire. One of his greatest victories sent him onto a path of memories, the same place that Alexander had beaten Darius. Lifetimes began to flood his head, and the hatred that burned once more for the coven of witches that had taken his soulmate from him sent him into a spiral of hate and violence.
Too soon he had turned away from the druids in Constantinople to the witches that roamed the streets. The Lion was on the hunt once more, and he would not stop until he got what he wanted. Until what was his was returned to him.
Even a druid could not take on multiple covens and believe to win, but Heraclius tried. Time and time again he would be bathed in the blood of witches who knew nothing, until eventually, an arrow found his heart as a witch looked on, standing from the bones of their deceased coven, and Heraclius knew no more.
Emre – 1365 AD to 1703 AD – died at 338
Rome was still the epicenter of life for druids. It was yet another lifetime where Emre was wrapped up in the fate of the druids. He had known nothing but the Senate, where his parents had come to the pyramid of Cestius when they had known they were expecting a child. A druid, they’d whispered, who would they be? It was a story that Emre was too familiar with, as he stood behind their senator as they spoke, the vampires yet again making a point about one thing or another. It wasn’t his job to listen and analyze, it was hit position to listen. To defend. To protect.
His memories were hardly there at times, but when he’d spoken of blood, of chaos, his parents had looked at each other and whispered protector. If that’s what he was, then he would embrace it.
But the memories still never came, not like Emre wished they would. It was all haze and blood, a piece of Emre’s soul that felt like it was missing. He’d tell this to his father, who would remind him that his duty was to protect the druids at all costs. From anyone and everything that would hurt them.
So, Emre embraced this. He was The Lion, the one that would remind any enemy that a druid was not to be harmed. Rome was full of death, full of secrets, and Emre knew none. He did, however, understand how to become a weapon. That when Octavian began to become out of hand, it was his job to help stop him. The Senate meeting turned into chaos, the archdruid losing his grip on sanity.
A voice nagged at the back of Emre’s skull, despite how he shifted into a golden lion, how he’d torn apart an archdruid –
“I’ll see you again, Lion.”
Eren – Present day
The vampire was trapped – sunken half into the ground in front of the druid. Their teeth were pulled from their skull, fangs and molars shoved backwards into their eyes, stuck in a way that not even their healing could push from their skulls.
There had been no memories at the beginning of this life. His parents had told him that they knew who he was, based on a single name from his dream. Iskandar, he’d echoed one day, and his parents had packed up and sent him to Rome to live among the druids within the pyramids.
Though everything he’d been told had been some shambled story meant to change his mind. Pieces given here and there, like it would placate him once more. You killed the chimera! They’d told him, time and time again, only to have Octavian in his apartment, giving off the same rambles that his beloved Nettelia had once upon a time.
That information had come far later, however. He knew what happened to Nettelia, how she’d died for the book that August now defended. Eren wouldn’t let the past repeat itself like that, not again. The book and the Pythia were things he could not touch, but he could defend. If someone had been there to defend Nettelia, if he had not died and been in between cycles, he could’ve done it.
Maybe she would’ve been there besides her siblings, and Eren would’ve never been separated from August. There wouldn’t have been a need to lie to him for years, to ensure that the Senate once again had a valuable protector. The time for kings and rulers had passed for the druids, following after lost archdruids, lost Senators, where a council attempted to lead them all. Eren’s time had passed – he was a king without a kingdom, reduced to a man made blunt instrament. But he was still young – this lifetime was too new to give up on, wasn’t it? They’d broken Thetis’ curse, August would never die, and they would never be separated.
The vampire in front of him made a noise of pain, Eren’s attention brought back to his victim. A match was in the druid’s hand, and he bent down now, releasing the earth around the vampire. It screamed as the fangs were pushed from their eyes, and Eren lit the match. “It’s nothing personal,” he murmured quietly, tossing the match onto the ground in front of the vampire. With a small bit of magic, the flames erupted and leapt onto the vampire.
The druid stood up now, feeling a bit more relaxed than he had been that morning. Sifting through his memories was difficult enough, and he wasn’t sure if it was him or Alexander who spoke next, though maybe they were always one in the same.
“I just wanted to see what would happen.”
