many years ago king regis's son nearly died he was grievously hurt and no healer could assure his recovery.
filled with fear he called out to any god that would
one by one they all turned away and refused to help him.
he pleaded that they needed his boy and thus should help him.
but nothing came of his desperation, finally he felt like all hope was lost.
in a final effort he called out one more time. not to a god. not to anything you'd expect.
he called to a small spirit he had heard of in his childhood, he called out to carbuncle. the protector of dreams. and finally...finally he was answered.
when he returned home with his son though weak, very much alive.
he went to his people and asked of them a most peculiar thing. he asked them not to abandon their belief and religion, but to simply also give thanks to a spirit.
he funded the building of a shrine and set aside a day for people to visit it and give offerings and thanks the offerings were also unusual.
they were not the gleaming pearls and shells they were not piles of gold or weapons or heirlooms of past generations. they were soft blankets and things that gave them warmth and hope. things they cherished.
and so each and every year on this day people would give something that comforted them.
and some claimed to have seen a strange bluish grey fox sleeping in the piles of soft things within the shrine, and for years to come not a single nightmare plagued the people of the city.
everyone was happy and well rested and the troubles of outside the wall were near forgotten. but one day. a strangely gloomy day. they all awoke the a terrible fear. like an omen had visited them all in their sleep.
they all had the same feeling of foreboding and dreams of crashing buildings and fire. a warning to the city. and the very next day, the chancellor of their foreign enemy came with promises of 'peace'.