At last, kneeling before Oisín's memorial cairn, Fuiseog wept. The heavy wash of his grief burst forth all at once, its outlet finally known. In front of his soldiers, his people, his subjects, he had saved face. Even as he felt his soul grow heavier than it had been in a long while, and they brought the body already breaking down and flowering into camp, he had kept his composure. It was simply the way it was meant to be.

He cupped a yellow rose that sprang up around the stones and released his half of Oisín's soul. As much as he yearned to hold on, to feel its hollow warmth beating in his arms, his lover would never meet Cernunnos without a complete being. In that moment, Fuiseog wished for little else than to go to Cernunnos himself, but the lord of wild things had no patience for those who sought him before their time. Yellow roses, he thought bitterly. Yes, that was appropriate. As rare and handsome in death as life. Fuiseog hoped his death would be so beautiful and tragic. Lavender, he thought. He would turn to lavender.

His mother, Queen Fódla, four years prior, had turned to a single great yew tree. Predictable, if nothing else. Yew had always been her favorite, and it had been under the roots of the yew he had first slipped into this realm. And it was the yew again that led him back after his years among the humans. He still felt the presence of Oisín beside him at that mourning, his quiet presence the only thing that had held Fuiseog’s broken pieces together.

The last visage slipped from his bosom, and he rose, mithril clinking lightly like bells in the wind. Grief quickly turned to determination and rage. Those responsible for this crime would pay. That day, that hour, that moment. He had played these war games as they were meant to be for years. This was different. He knew, still, his people would expect him to lean onto their traditions. As lord after his mother, he was held to the highest degree of scrutiny against true born fae-kind. But this time, his second coming, he had all the memories of being human. He shifted his being halfway across the ever-green countryside to the outside of his uncle's pavilion.

A handful of attendants stepped back in alarm. They too, of course, could move at will where they pleased, though it was considered bad manners. Fuiseog took two strides across the mossy cobblestone until he stood above his distant relation. Another bit of magic brought his mother's spear to his hand, hurtling through the air from where it had sat gathering dust in his tent, and he planted the wooden end into the mortar with force enough to create a shower of dust.

"Nephew. A nasty bit of business that last attack. A pity for your loss."

His uncle, Duke Cailey of the Golden Hills, all rolls of rolling fat, his small silver throne buckling under the sheer weight it bore, licked more grease from his fingers. Slob, Fusieog had always thought. The duke’s yellowed teeth showed in a wide grin.

"I suppose you want vengeance?"

"Name the cur, and they will meet my spear when the sun is high," Fuiseog growled.

Cailey motioned with fat fingers, and a knight in midnight armor strode forth from the shadows, the metal all but whistling against itself as they walked. A long blade made of the same dark material sat propped on one shoulder, and the knight placed a gauntlet on their hip in a gesture much like, And what are you going to do?

"Ser Keir, at your service. A cur, not, but a fine knight in my employ certainly.”

“At my service? Choose your words lightly, uncle.”

“For this purpose, yes. At your service. You will meet, as you wish, and end this.”

By this, the wide grin said that could mean the matter of Oisín’s death, or the war were that sword to find Fuiseog’s neck. It would not. Fuiseog retreated from the pavilion and conjured a rune in the dirt to mark the field of battle. The sun inched closer to its zenith, and he squatted down using the spear as a balance point. Soon.

The attendants returned to their liege at a frantic snap of the duke’s fingers, and began to flap feathers as big as their bodies to fan him. Still he dined, a habit Fuiseog had noted was almost constant for the duke, and all the while Ser Keir remained still. Finally, as the tepid humidity reached a peak, and the sun stood straight in the sky, the knight approached silently. An odd choice, armor that made no noise. Odd, at least, for the fae. A people of pomp and circumstance, the jingle of armor was as iconic and customary as the weapon each warrior chose. Keir’s feet crossed the ring, and Fuiseog spoke.

“Let it be laid bare. This ring allows only death. Two enter, and one may leave.”

Keir remained silent, and Fuiseog shrugged. All the better, for he had no desire to hear whatever pity the knight would spit. He rose from the ground, and planted his spear once again in the ground. Keir drew their sword, again perfectly silent, and assumed a low stance. The clouds moved overhead, a wind picking up and blowing Fuiseog’s cloak to the side. At the wave of a hand, an attendant came to stand just outside the circle. Another formality. To start the battle at a count. Oisín, he knew, was given no such courtesy.

It was tiring, the whole charade. The fae were a complicated people, weighed down by tradition and aesthetic. There were times, even after his mother’s intense education in etiquette, that Fuiseog wished he could do away with it all. The greatest human nations, he knew, were born from revolution. But he had a kingdom to manage, and the people didn’t want change, not yet. This, though was where he drew the line.

The attendant made the grand announcement of their rank, their achievements, their motives. Fuiseog tuned all of it out, listening only for the signal to begin, as he glared at Keir. The knight remained passive, unmoved by wind or fear or ambition. Like a machine waiting only for the press of its switch. The signal came, and the spear was a blur as it aimed straight for Keir’s chestplate. Slow. Keir’s sword parried just in time to avoid total annihilation, but the spear still carried through and pierced their shoulder. Dislodging it, Fuisoeg lunged again, aiming for their leg. Keir was now in motion, jumping the strike and the following swipe up towards their groin, and they moved towards Fuiseog with a blinding speed. Though to Fuiseog, the sword swam through the air in slow motion. He stepped around the strike, and with practiced precision aimed his spearpoint up through the bottom of Keir’s helmet. The knight, adjusting their speed once again, redirected the blow to the side, instead knocking the helmet clean from their head. The face underneath was young, no more than nineteen in human years, and utterly genderless.

Keir moved faster, beads of sweat forming on their forehead as they lunged with a right feint that quickly turned to swing upwards towards Fuiseog’s other side. His spear met the blade once again, and he leveled a quick slice that cut into the space in Keir’s armor between the greaves and chestpiece. Kier stumbled back, placing a hand on their thigh to stabilize themselves. Then they were in motion again, bringing a wide strike down towards Fuiseog’s head. He sidestepped again, and the sword changed direction faster than he’d anticipated, drawing a shallow cut on his shoulder before he spun away. He needed to end this. He watched Keir ready themselves, bringing their sword up in a defensive stance across their body, and watch him as well. The knight’s eyes were lifeless, and he noticed suddenly that despite the two wounds he’d already delivered to Keir, there was no blood except his own. He watched for another moment, the near-stillness of Keir’s form as they waited for him to make his move, like a robot trained for this exact purpose.

Fuiseog knew immediately how this duel was meant to end. Keir, he now realized, was probably nothing more than a husk filled with the duke’s magic. He was meant to let his rage control him, never noticing Keir didn’t tire or weaken with injury, until that sword would meet his neck. The rumors were true, then. There had been no honorable combat for Oisín. There was no way his lover, a man very much his equal in combat, would have even come close to losing in a head-on fight against a living fae knight. But alas, death was death. A blade in the back killed just as easily as a spear through the skull.

This duel would have to end soon. He whispered a blessing under his breath, one usually reserved for sending a soul on to the afterlife, and gripped his spear tighter. In one motion, he thrust the spear towards Keir’s exposed side, and when the blade turned to intercept it, Fuiseog let his body drop slightly and shift so the spear drove with all his might through the center of Keir’s armor. The knight stumbled back, the spear going with them, and tried to ready themselves for the counterstrike. Instead, the spear glowed faintly as Fuiseog’s blessing took hold, and the whole of Keir shuddered violently as their spirit shook itself free from the corpse. The wind picked up again, suddenly chilly, and as Fuiseog shivered he swore he heard a soft, thank you, pass by.

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The runic circle sprang suddenly into green flames and shrank, passing harmlessly through Fuiseog and consuming Keir’s body in less than a breath. There would be no flowers, no tomb, nothing. Cernunnos would be final judge and jury.

Fuiseog stepped away, taking a cloth from the officiating attendant to wipe his spear clean. The only sound was that of distant songbirds chirping and the wind in the grass. Even the duke had ceased his endless feast, eyes wide and a dribble of spit dangling from one corner of his mouth. No doubt he thought the tales of the ruthless king only a clever exaggeration.

“You hear them, uncle?” He placed a hand emphatically to his ear. “Larks. They call for my victory.”

“Or your death,” the duke said, trying to regain some composure. “We shall see, nephew. Back to your people now, and celebrate this small victory.”

It was Fuiseog’s turn to grin wildly, rising to his full height as he came to stand towering over Duke Cailey on his throne. He saw a tremble in the fat man’s face, a terror he knew was rare for high-born fae.

“True,” Fuiseog hissed, “I could return to them. Or, I could end the war here and now.”

“A blemish, then, on your honor? You would besmirch yourself for this pettiness?” Cailey’s voice quivered with his jowls.

The king’s hand shot out and closed in an iron grip around the duke’s throat. He watched as his uncle’s face went from pallor to red, deeper and deeper until it was a blue-purple. Only then did he throw the man back, toppling the throne and leaving the duke in a fit of coughing in the dirt.

“I don’t think so. I think I want to make you suffer a little longer. We shall see what those loyal to you reap.” Fuiseog waved his hand, and the throne and duke both returned themselves magically to their places. Cailey was breathing heavily, unsure what he was meant to do now. Fuiseog chuckled lowly. “Look at you. All ready to piss yourself. You were never fit to be king. My mother would have found another to take your place either way.”

“That’s not—” the Duke started, but Fuiseog was already gone, his only remanant the sound of the birds edging closer. Before any attendants could run, the army of larks swarmed in, beaks and talons ripping most of them to bloody shreds around Duke Cailey. And they sang the whole while, a lilting song that heralded the dawn despite by then being after midday. It was Fuiseog’s calling card, that song, played everytime his armies marched. His namesake, for it was that same song that had welcomed him the first time among these people when he’d stepped through the thorn-covered door as a child. It was that song that had played when he and Oisín had exchanged portions of their souls, upon being wed. As the birds once again took to the air, leaving no survivors save the Duke himself—still unscathed beyond a growing bruise around his throat—the song was heard for the last time.

Halfway across the land, Fuiseog once again stood before the tomb. He waited and listened, trying to hear what nature dictated. Eventually, a single bird flew close and perched on the tower of stones. Fuiseog sat on the grass, waiting, and after a thorough grooming under one wing, the bird sang a sour dirge. The king committed it to memory, and whistled it to himself as he made the slow climb back up to the castle and his citizens. Let them fear this, he thought, the sound of their death on the wind.

Elsewhere—and nowhere, really—Oisín found himself falling. For a while, after he had felt cold steel slide between his ribs, he had been floating above the world. He had seen his body fall to the ground, the knight in silent armor slinking away as Fuiseog’s soldiers filed in around his corpse and carried him to camp. He had seen the pain in his king’s face as he gazed down at Oisín’s body, already turning to flowers. Yellow roses. Hah. If his spirit could laugh, it would, but instead he felt no mirth, no sadness, only the empty void around him. He followed his corpse on its journey back to the castle, as it was placed on the ground and given rites to finish its transformation. He watched as Fuiseog strode along the shoreline and picked rocks for the cairn, carrying them up in his cloak and stacking them carefully. He watched as all composure left his husband’s face, and he broke down, and when he saw the silver glow as the other half of his soul left Fuiseog’s body, he had only a second to shed a tear before he was ripped away.

Instead of hard ground, a nest of soft moss came up to meet him, and the void became a dense forest. The nest pulsed with energy, like one giant heartbeat beneath him. Oisín grabbed a handful, tearing it up roughly, and it instantly withered as it left the ground. The small clearing itself, three strides by three, was softly lit by a sunshine that didn’t originate from the dense canopy above. It simply was. The sound of flint striking steel rung behind out him, startling Oisín to attention, and another gentle light began to filter through his vision. He turned to find a line of torches advancing down a narrow path, their long bodies gnarled and woody as if hewn from the trees themselves bark and all. Rising, he tentatively reached out, yet felt no heat. He plunged his hand fully into the flame, and still there was no sensation. Turning again, he found the trees on the other sides of him so dense as to be impassable. Forwards, then.

After four torches, the path fell away into darkness before him, though more torches sprung up as Oisín drew closer. He took another look behind him, and found the path he’d already walked had been swallowed in that ever-present darkness. It wasn’t the gentle retreat of the sun in place of the moon, but a pure black through which nothing could be seen. He continued forwards. Another four, then more lit, another four, so on. He lost count at some point and began sprinting forwards, but still the pattern repeated. Is this the afterlife, he wondered, a hell where I follow torches for all eternity? No sooner had he stopped sprinting, instead deciding to plop down onto the ground, then he was no longer on the path. As before, he found himself prone on a bed of soft moss, sunlight now visibly creeping through a different set of branches. When he sat up this time, he was surrounded. Two great shaggy wolfhounds, seven feet at the shoulder, sat perched by his feet, and he noted two more farther away beside a throne of living wood. A handful of trees had grown close, twining around each other, before straightening along the back and climbing to join the others in the canopy. In the space of a blink, the throne went from dark and empty to lit in the same sunbeam and occupied. The creature—the man, as Oisín corrected himself on further staring—was simultaneously foreign and familiar to his mind. A dark brown goatee hid his mouth in shadow, and a mess of auburn curls topped a head punctuated by two grand antlers emerging from either temple. The man was bare from the waist-up, tanned-skin almost like leather, except for a bear-skin cloak, and below the waist he wore a tight loincloth that left nothing to the imagination over thickly-muscled ram legs. And beyond, even from the distance between them, Oisín knew the man to be almost twice his own size. Oisín was taken aback. He’d long envisioned Cernunnos, lord of all wild things, to be strange - but surely normal-sized.

“So,” Oisín said, “I’m dead.”

“Not exactly,” the god replied, “Call it more of an…in-between state.”

Cernunnos’s voice registered on two different levels. It began soft and voiceless, the sound of wind through the trees and the crackling of a warm fire, but after a second it picked up over-top as a deep rumble in a language Oisín understood.

“I failed. I didn’t return triumphant to Fuiseog. And now he is without his other half.”

“Again, not exactly. There is a way.”

“Then plague me no more, Cernunnos, and tell me.”

“I don’t have the power you seek. It is beyond my forest.”

“Where, then? Tell me and I’m on my way.”

“You seek Aengus, in the highlands, far from these woods.”

“Set me only on the path, dear lord, if I can once again see Fuiseog.”

“In due time, but you should know the rules:

“This is an opportunity rare indeed, for I have plucked your soul from the stream. This in itself is an affront to the other Tuath Dé. You cannot leave these woods without my blessing, and my curse. This alone will save you their wrath. I would bestow upon you a torc, a symbol of my power, to be fused around your neck. Thirteen days, you have, to reach your destination and convince Aengus of your love, pure and true. He alone can restore your sole to the living realm. This is not a task easily done, nor a path easily walked. I control only these woods. Each land you step into is the domain of my brothers and sisters, and each will try to harry you from your task with their demands for passage. Your wisdom and wit are your only weapons against the other gods. I know you have a tongue as sharp as your mind, and I have faith that with patience you will prevail.”

“Then, the curse?” Oisín asked, voice feeling so small next to that of his lord.

“The torc. It is protection, a charm against meddling, but it comes with the thirteen day price. All those who take my sigil become one with the forest. Each day you spend with it around you, you will begin to change form. A stag, I think, for one of your nature. First the antlers, then the legs. On, until the end of the thirteenth day when it will take your voice, and you will no longer be able to speak to Aengus.”

“Oh.” It was simple statement, but the only thing he could muster.

“It is not a boonless curse. Even should you fail and become a stag, you have been chosen. The torc will return you to me, and you will enjoy endless peace in my woods until such time as Fuiseog comes here naturally, as his mother did before him.”

“Then I see no choice.”

“There is always a choice. Even if it is an impossible one. Should you refuse the torc, I would simply guide you on to the fields where you can enjoy the afterlife as you have earned.”

“Impossible, yes. But a choice I see no options against. I will take the torc.”

Cernunnos waved a hand through the air, causing a shimmer like an illusion being cast, and the air became suddenly hot sucking Oisín’s breath away. The superheated gas coalesced into the shape of an open ring, and resolved into a beautiful golden torc, engraved with leaves and small intricate scenes of fawn playing. The god motioned Oisín closer, and when he was standing level with the god’s knees, Cernunnos reached down and placed the torc around his neck. The gold heated enough only to bend the ring into its final closed shape, a perfect collar that would be impossible to remove without the god’s intervention again.

“What happens if I succeed, lord?”

Cernunnos chuckled. “You know, I have no idea. I’ve never seen anyone actually convince Aengus before. Good luck, Oisín.”

And with that, the god was gone, once again leaving the empty throne in shadow. A single wolfhound remained, and yipped once to Oisín’s right. There was once again a long path lined by torches. He sighed. Gods, this would be a long journey.