I blame my girlfriend for suggesting a Deity AU for Joxter and Snufkin so that's what i wrote

This chapter: a story on the origin of the seaons

It is said there has been a time when the world was not bound to the seasons. When there had only been life, wild and unrelenting. When trees blossomed all year around and fruit grew plentiful.

There had been warmth and comfort in every nook and cranny of the land. And there had been The Joxter, who walked the earth with decay in his wake.

Where he went, the air grew chilly. His gaze was enough to make the leaves whiter, turn yellow and red and brown, falling from the trees in heaps. He brought clouds, trailing after him with storms brewing in them and rains like a flood. He brought encroaching darkness and wind that could fell mountains.

He brought death.

His wanderings took him every which way and he lingered until the water froze over and the flowers had wilted and the days had grown to be incredibly short. Until the place he visited had become quite unenjoyable and inhospitable. And when the first specks of snow fell from the sky, he moved on to some other direction, leaving the lands he went to barren and dismal forever.

As such, the people of the world spoke his name in contempt. Not his real one, but the ones he was given. Autumn or Syksy or Herfst or one of the many others depending on who you asked. They feared his coming, for it meant the end of abundance.

Out loud they might wonder what his purpose was, his reason for smothering nature in its prime like a helpless infant getting smothered in their cot and had Joxter been the kind of creature to care about the whims of mortals, he might have told them they were wrong.

For there was neither purpose nor reason. Only compulsion. The inherent need ingrained into every single one of his bones, to seek out warmth and food. Afternoon naps in the sun and fruit hanging plump from every branch. To enjoy the forests and the rivers and hills to his heart's content, until his curse caught up with him or until boredom seized him once more.

He marred the land for he was as old as time, birthed with the world, existing in the same breath and likely to be there still when it faltered.

But Joxter did not explain such complexities, either because he didn't care to or because he didn't know how. His heart was full of other things and he was not in the tendency to harbor much attachment to anything or anyone, with very little exceptions.

Yet there came a time where he traveled further and wider than any other had ever done before, and found himself in a flowering country greener than those which he had visited up until then. The water in the rivers ran quicker here, smoother too, and the vegetation was lush and colorful, with berries growing on every bush and too many animals to name.

And so he found a remarkable woman, unlike any others, a Goddess in every sense of the word. She had kind eyes and a patient smile and children on her lap, and she was the most beautiful person Joxter had ever laid eyes on during all his travels.

The Mymble, a deity of virility who had many daughters, tiny things wild at heart and lively. And The Joxter, who was much like the weather he harbored - beautiful and bitter.

She amused him, and he amused her, and for some time they were content in mutual merriment. His touch did not have any hold on her, for she shone as brightly as the moon and stars, brightly like the sun. Her land unaffected by his scourge.

(Joxter told her that he loved her. As close to loving as he'd ever come. "Oh, my dear." She would answer softly, while her eyes alighted with glee. "I do not doubt so.")

But after some time together, which was certainly agreeable for both of them, he felt the need to roam pull sharply on his feet once more. The inexplicable wanderlust that drove him forwards and which never let him alone. Settling would be against his nature.

Mymble understood, as she had understood everything before that. The sky was clear when he left, and she stood at the edge of the woods with bare feet and flowing skirt, knowing he would return. Because that was also in his nature after all.

And when he did she greeted him full of mirth and anticipation and with their child in her arms.

A son who looked every little bit like the Joxter, with unruly hair, freckles on his cheeks and traces of sunlight in his brown eyes.

The boy was peculiar in many ways. Untamed and fidgety, uncomfortable when constricted to the house and always in desperate need of solitude and often he would flee into the woods for days at a time.

(Indeed, the Joxter had come down once to find the boy sitting on the floor of the living room, for his mother had forbidden him from going out. "Oh?" He had said, feigning surprise. "I wasn't aware you still lived here." and his son had glared at him something fierce.)

But most peculiar of all was how the sun shone brighter when the boy walked among the trees, or how where he would roam, flowers bloomed behind him, growing wherever he put down his feet. When he got upset there would be sudden hail and when he got flustered the air would grow inexplicably warmer.

For you see, this child had been gifted with a blessing which undid The Joxter's curse, returning life to what his father had so tragically undone. And where he went, growth would follow, blossoming and filling the air with fresh scents and petals. Even the daylight seemed to favor him, lengthening the days so that the boy could enjoy them more.

So it was that the child came to be known as Spring, Kevät, Lente to the people, though his parents had named him Snufkin.

He grew up to be much like his father, with a compulsion to see the world and wander it aimlessly, looking for something nobody could fantom. Something that was most likely never able to be found, but merely existed to facilitate their obligation to the world, as dictated by their creation, destined to travel it endlessly and herald the seasons wherever they went.

Unable to meet anymore, for they were two sides of the same coin, and autumn and spring rarely visit the same place concurrently. The world would surely tremble if they ever should, though that might be a story for another time.

Moominpappa closed his book with a soft thud, taking a moment to let the tale sink in. His son was thinking it over carefully, the blanket held in small clenched fists as he seemed to consider whether his next question was deemed too blunt.

"It's beautiful." He said eventually. "But did it really happen, Pappa?"

"Of course it did-" Pappa responded with some annoyance, miffed that his son would even think as such. "The best tales are always found in the real world after all."

Moomin seemed to consider this too, then nodded. "I think so as well." He agreed. "But how do you know?"

"Well," It was raining outside, rhythmic tapping of droplets against the window. "You would need to read my memoirs to find out. Which you will, of course, once they're finished. But it might suffice to say that I've met some peculiar people in my youth."

He tucked the blankets closer around his son, who had followed his gaze towards the window and the cold wetness that lay beyond.

"I hope spring will come to the valley soon." Moomin said sincerely. "I hope I get to meet him."

Pappa hummed, mind elsewhere. Far away, on a little boat drifting at the mercy of a dangerous sea perhaps. Simply saying. "I'm sure you will someday."

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