"I'm just trying to get you to see that you can't believe everything fed to you so easily!"
"Just because you have no faith, and are lost, does not mean that I should."
Like most fantasy stories, Ilmarinen involves a prophecy:
"One of the stolen women realized that the child she carried would kill her, and decided that since she was to die, she would kill her captor first. She tore a branch from a tree and tied twisted strands of her hair to each end so that she had a crude bow. At the top of the bow she affixed her most prized possession.
She climbed up the highest hill and watched her captor as he hunted with his dogs. She notched an arrow, raised her bow, and aimed. After saying a prayer to the god of her former home, she let go. The bow did not break. The arrow soared through the air and struck her captor. Although wounded, he did not die.
The captor ordered his dogs after her. The dogs grabbed her, tearing into her skin with their sharp teeth. Her captor called off the dogs. He took up her bow, notched an arrow, and aimed it at her still beating heart. Before he could kill her, one of the dogs, a pure blood wolf, turned on him. With fierce anger, the wolf tore the man's heart out of his chest. He breathed no more.
The woman reached for the wolf and it rested beside her frail body. She made a silent vow that she would come back and save the rest of her kind and rescue all the children born from the seeds of her world. Then, she died, and the wolf willed itself to die beside her."
She climbed up the highest hill and watched her captor as he hunted with his dogs. She notched an arrow, raised her bow, and aimed. After saying a prayer to the god of her former home, she let go. The bow did not break. The arrow soared through the air and struck her captor. Although wounded, he did not die.
The captor ordered his dogs after her. The dogs grabbed her, tearing into her skin with their sharp teeth. Her captor called off the dogs. He took up her bow, notched an arrow, and aimed it at her still beating heart. Before he could kill her, one of the dogs, a pure blood wolf, turned on him. With fierce anger, the wolf tore the man's heart out of his chest. He breathed no more.
The woman reached for the wolf and it rested beside her frail body. She made a silent vow that she would come back and save the rest of her kind and rescue all the children born from the seeds of her world. Then, she died, and the wolf willed itself to die beside her."
The prophecy is the heart of the story. A young girl is believed to be the woman of the prophecy come back to save the people of Ilmarinen. Does she believe it? Will she fulfill the prophecy or make her own decisions? More importantly, will she fight because of a prophecy or because of the people and place she loves?