Fresca

## Demigod of the Rivers

### Overview

Fresca, Demigod of the Rivers, later the Queen of the Underworld, was the daughter of Sho'risdal the Goddess of Life and Vyinsul, the former God of Death. She is described as a compassionate and beautiful demigod.

### The Abduction of Fresca

Fresca was also called *Kore*, which means "maiden" and grew up to be a lovely girl attracting the attention of many gods. However, Vyinsul had an obsessive love for his only daughter and kept all men away from her. The most persisting suitor of Fresca was Balith, the God of the Underworld. He was a hard man, living in the dark, among the shadows of the Dead. But his heart softened when he saw Fresca and was amazed by her youth, beauty and freshness. When he asked Vyinsul to marry her daughter, Vyinsul got furious and said there wasn't the slightest chance for that to happen. Balith was heart-broken and decided to get Fresca no matter what.

One day, while the young girl was playing and picking flowers along with her friends in the Eternal Garden of Menione, she beheld the most enchanting **red lotus** she had ever seen. As she stooped down to pick the flower, the earth beneath her feet suddenly cleaved open and through the gap Balith himself came out on his chariot with black horses. Balith grabbed the lovely maiden before she could scream for help and descended into his underworld kingdom while the gap in the earth closed after them. Desperately looking for Fresca, the other girls had not seen anything because everything happened very quickly. The whole incident, however, had been witnessed by Hari, Lord of the Sun, who wisely thought it better not to get involved in anything that didn't concern him. In the Underworld, Balith secretly married the distraught and reluctant Fresca, despite her objection.

Vyinsul was so devastated he fell into a deep despair in the Void where he reigned. A distraught and heartbroken Sho'risdal wandered the heavens looking for her daughter until her good friend Buru, Lord of the Hunt, advised her to seek for the help of Hari, the all-seeing Sun demigod, in order to find her daughter. Hari felt sorry for Sho'risdal, who was crying and pleading him to help her. Thus he revealed her that Fresca had been kidnapped by Balith. When she heard that, Sho'risdal got angry and wanted to take revenge but Hari suggested that it was not such a bad thing for Fresca to be the wife of Balith and queen of the underworld, for despie his cruel reputation, he was known as a just ruler. Trying to find a solution Sho'risdal, however, could not let it be. Vyinsul too was furious at this insult, and deeply believed that Balith, who after all had only dead people for company, was not the right husband for her sweet daughter.

In her grief, the High Deity decided to take a long and indefinite leave from her duties as the goddess of harvest and fertility, with devastating consequences. The earth on Aeglion began to dry up,harvests failed, plants lost their fruitfulness, animals were dying for lack of food and famine spread to the whole earth, resulting in untold misery. The cries of the people who were suffering reached the Void and ears of Vyinsul, where more souls were accumulating after dying from famine. The mighty god finally realized that if he wouldn't do something about his wife's wrath, all humanity would disappear. Thus he tried to find another solution to resolve the situation.

He promised Sho'risdal to restore Fresca to her if it can be proved that the maiden stayed with Balith against her will. Otherwise, Fresca should belong with her husband. The crafty Balith learned this agreement and tricked his reluctant bride, who was crying all day and night from despair, to eat a few seeds of the pomegranate fruit. This was the food of the Underworld and every time someone ate even a few seeds of this, it would make them long for life in the Underworld. When the gathering in front of Vyinsul took place and Fresca was asked where she would like to live, she answered she wanted to live with her new husband.

When Sho'risdal heard that, she got infuriated and accused Balith that somehow he had tricked her daughter. A great fight followed and Sho'risdal threatened that she would never again make the earth fertile and everyone on Aeglion would die. To put an end on this quarrel, Vyinsul suggested that Fresca would spend half the year with her husband in the Underworld and half the year with her mother in Menione. This compromise was agreed upon, and so it came to pass that the maiden Fresca spent her time alternating between the two planes.

After some time, Fresca saw that her husband Balith was indeed a just ruler, and not as cruel as his former life suggested. He fell in love with him, and it was thus how the lovely maiden Fresca became the rightful wife of Balith and Queen of the Underworld. During the six months that Fresca spent in the Underworld, her mother was sad and not in the mood to deal with harvest. Thus Aeglion would be neglected and declined during this period. According to Aeglionism, these were the months of Autumn and Winter, when the land is not fertile and does not give crops. Whenever Fresca went to Menione to live with her mother, Sho'risdal would shine from happiness and the land would become fertile again and fruitful. These were the months of Spring and Summer. This explains the change of the seasons, the eternal cycle of the Nature's death and rebirth.

### Other Feats

* Fresca raised Ingorf, the Lord of the Forge, as her own son after he was discarded from Menione by his actual mother Fae the Lady of Magic. She was kind and caring to him, and Ingorf forever viewed Fresca as his mother, choosing to live with her in the Underworld
* The cunning King Hortaconn took advantage of her compassionate nature by tricking her into sending his damned soul back into Aeglion in spirit form under the pretense of admonishing his wife, when he had no actual intention of returning to the Underworld