Ikselam/Evandais
Evandais the Fair
Once, after the fall of the Solar Exalted but many centuries before the Great Contagion, there lived a man named Evandais. Even as a child, his beauty was such that grown men would weep to behold him, and as he grew, he only became more lovely. It was said that he must surely be the child of some god, for no mortal could hope to be so beautiful. Whether or not this was true, he was so comely that gods did, indeed, compete for his favor. Two in particular were even more enamoured of him than the rest: Venus, the Maiden of Serenity, and Ganymedes, the Lover of Men.
The two gods wooed Evandais, presenting him with lavish and wondrous gifts in hopes of winning his affection. The young man was flattered and awed by their attentions, but also feared that if he chose between them, he would tempt the wrath of the other, and for months he refused to admit to loving one god over the other. However, he could not continue in this way forever, and eventually confessed his love for the Maiden of Serenity. Venus infused him with godly Essence, raising him to godhood, and spirited him off to her house in Yu-Shan.
When Ganymedes learned of this, he flew into a great rage. He was less angered by the rejection than he was by the fact that Evandais had not only taken all of Ganymedes' gifts with him into Heaven, but had also neglected to tell him that he had finally made his choice. He had not even left behind a letter for the god to find. In his anger, Ganymedes spoke a curse against Evandais, making him unable to see the beauty in any who were not as flawless as he.
In Venus' pavilion, Evandais suddenly noticed that the goddess' perfect form was marred by a tiny scar on her ankle, inflicted by the death-throes of a Primordial's soul. Immediately, she became repugnant to him, and he fled her presence, weeping and retching as his eyes were assaulted by the sight of the hideous gods squatting repulsively in their majestic jade palaces. Finally, he flew from Yu-Shan and hid in the deepest, darkest cave he could find.
After several years languishing in his pitch-black hole, Evandais fashioned himself a blindfold woven from darkness and his own tears, and came back into the world. He did not return to Yu-Shan, because he could not bear to confront the Maiden of Serenity, whom he had hurt terribly with his rejection. Instead, he wandered the land, but could never find the happiness he had once felt. Dejected, he ceased his travels and built a sanctum for himself in the city of Hollow. There, he lived alone for many years. Occasionally, people would visit him, seeking his blessing or his riches, but since none of them were as beautiful as he, he turned them away. In his loneliness, Evandais sculpted beings out of pure Essence, but these houris, while flawlessly lovely and charming, were not sufficient to mend the wound in his heart. Even though he could look upon them without recoiling, their beauty could never fully erase his love for Venus, or his memory of his cruel abandonment of her.
Centuries passed, and the world changed. The Great Contagion came and went; Hollow fell and was rebuilt as Nexus. Through it all, Evandais the Fair stayed in his marble tower, crafting sculptures and automata of heartbreaking beauty. Only occasionally did he don his blindfold and venture forth. Sometimes he would meet people he thought beautiful from their voices and thoughts, but when he dared to look on them with his eyes, he would invariably find them to be hideous. Each time this happened, he lost a little more hope, and today, he spends almost all of his time in his sanctum.
Ganymedes regretted his curse almost as soon as it was uttered, but cannot withdraw it and cannot face Evandais, for the same reason that Evandais cannot face the Maiden of Serenity. He often visits Nexus and spends long hours standing in front of Evandais' tower, but always turns away without entering. In Yu-Shan, Venus drowns her memories of him in the Games of Divinity. And in his tower, Evandais sits surrounded by silk and marble, his every need seen to by his houris, his heart filled with despair.
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