Hello everyone, hope you had a nice christmas. This is something I made off the top of my head at 1 am made up all around the last two lines of this "poem". It just stuck with me and I thought about this. So I was supposed to post this yesterday for Christmas but right after I posted it to r/teslore something came up. So Ill have to settle with wishing you all well and a premature happy new year. They seemed to like it, so I'm hoping you guys will enjoy it too. I'm not spoiling what its about but youll probably guess early enough. Happy holidays everyone.

(Sorry if there are a few punctuation mistakes, I copy pasted the first version from a notepad which I edited on reddit after it came out different then had to edit it here as the copy-paste made it different again.)


A boy and his dog

Many an end and beginning ago,
There once was a boy and his dog,
one day strolling by a log far from the village and through the fog.

Shortly acquainted, swiftly friends, the two had saved each other from many ends,
but from what came next, of no vigil nor valiance had they been blest
for a thing not quite man and not quite wolf leapt forth, eyes wild, fangs bared, to grip the dog.
And in bloody strife, their mirth and bond did it engulf.
But for the sun, the victim would not have been relinquished.

Wrapped in interim of far night and early day,
the boy weeped, not an inkling of once-joy within his bones.
At this bitter misfortune he mourned and lamented as the dog ebbed to his final dusk.
He cried and begged for any and all gods unravel this callous end.
No peace came from beyond the stars, no salvation, no voice.
Save one.

"Forsooth terrible was the misfortune that coerced you here.
Your agony I know, yet I could put it in a throe, for nothing but a single condition, shall the wound go"


The boy knew of the voice, daedroth was its kin.
Old and mischevious and dispassionate. Save for its lust of mischief.
Betwixt pain and grief, the boy could no longer reason.
"From dusk to dawn shall he be?"
"And more, but never again shall he bring you the comfort he once did, hindrance and vexation to your every doing."

First by pain and grief,
and soon by powers beyond belief,
shall the boy's judgement ever be veiled.

Readily he agreed,
so ruination thus curtailed,
heart brimming with joy,
he did not yet know, his soul defiled to the very crux.

With every heart-beat didst the dog grow warmer, and the boy, colder.
For none too soon were they home,
that the boy developped a taste for devilry.
So much so that he relished it with great gusto.
Yet as the word of daedroth haunted the dog always attempted to halt what the boy plotted.

So did it go, one schemed, the other foiled.
And for many years did this persist
Early was it that the fisherman cursed the bear for his interfering
so it was his door unlocked and honey trailed up to his bed
Fortune or mis was it that the tax-collector's bag bled?
Or that the lumber-jacks before tree-wives had fled?

Keener didst the boy's mind grow,
ears athirst for knowledge,
eyes hungering for happenstance,
and many gardens of misery did he tend, with the dog as his sole torment.

Wily and insidious was now the boy.
So saturated and enraptured by his work,
that the dog's rescuer had come with an offer.
Delighted and engrossed with the boy, the daedroth offered him a place by his side,
to do as he does, here, there, and by all the five corners.

The boy pondered but knew, what terms must now be struck?
the voice cackled and seemed to grin behind its star-void veil;
"trifle and trivial, paltry and slight, all you must do, is take the dog too, forever to be a part of you".

Flustered and rattled, the boy considered.
But soon with a frown-cloaked-smile, joined the prince in oblivion,
and so stood he then, at the foundation of apotheosis.

Not for a day did he linger, and swiftly he came to every prayer.
Whether cursed or praised, he left by giving his name, replacing and usurping his master's fame

But also higher now than normal man,
the dog enjoyed a new consciousness, and weaving reason into his own canvas,
he knew to not now trouble the boy,
for he knew his ambition and better was he for that which was his intention. All the dog could bring was admonition

The boy toiled diligently, and skillfully,
weaving lies of his power wedded to promises of rewards,
but for loyalty and the dissemination of his name

And soon, the boy's rubric, and not the daedroth's was the one recognized as lord of wishes.
Too late did the prince realize, the boy's power exceeded his own.

So it is said that the boy tore out the face of the quondam prince,
and claimed it and plane and power as his own.

Prince unto void,
Boy unto prince.

Vile was never his name,
but it became his game.