At first Danu saw and felt nothing. She felt she was still within the guard station with everyone staring at her with hopeful desperate looks. Why do they have to look at me so? I hate being looked at like that. If only I could become a fly and hide away. I can feel their eyes on me still! She shifted her position trying to shake of the imagined eyes boring into her. She let out a long sigh, exasperated and weary. This journey hadn’t been anything she thought it would be. She thought back to her home in the Faerendal Woods to the far north-east. Few ever went into those woods and fewer still ever left them. The people there guarded it with illusory magics and the woods themselves proved a defence. The creatures of the woods were even stranger, and poachers and hunters could often be spotted on the outer rim of the woods searching for their quarry. If they managed to survive, they would carry back beasts with multiple heads, furred coats of glimmering silver patterns, unusually large insect carapaces, and many more oddities besides. All so that they could boast to their glory in their halls and taverns. Danu remembered having seen some of the hunters brought to the Mistveil Citadel after straying too far. He mother had expressly forbade her from attending their trial in front of Queen Mab’Ailsling. She always terrified Danu with her cold hard stare. When she looked at you, she looked so hard it felt as if she saw all of you to the very flows of The Torrent that birthed you. She constantly felt naked around her, stripped of all external presentations, thoughts, ideas, and desires. Danu had hidden herself, her curiosity and desire for knowledge winning out against her fear of the scolding she would receive if caught. After much pleading from the hunters and swearing to never venture into the woods again the Queen wove the flows of charms and illusions about their heads. They would forget everything of course, and more so, they would forever be compelled to walk away from the wood. Nothing would make them enter, not even hordes of raiders could chase them back within. Once they had been sent away there came the cold hard voice of the Queen.

‘I know you are there fledgewing. Hiding amongst the shadows. Come forth,’ she never looked in Danu’s direction however she felt compelled to walk forward. Her body would not obey her as she willed it to stay still, and instead she stepped from the shadows. Whispers from the court carried from one member to another. Only the representatives from the nine great houses were allowed to attend the court and as her mother had not yet relinquished the seat, Danu was forbidden from attendance. She looked to her mother, the wrathful scowl across her face spoke of the tongue lashings she was to receive. Danu wished she could walk away from the entire scene and hide in the woods where she felt most at home. All the eyes and looks of disapproval made her shrink within.

‘You are Citrone’s fledgewing yes?’ asked the Queen with a face so still and serene it was almost as if she had not spoken at all. Danu stood before her and nodded meekly.

‘I am most terribly sorry for intruding my Queen… I… you see…’ she stammered and was silenced by a raised hand. It was long and elegant, adorned with jewels and spider lace from her dress.

‘There is no need. I see within you and there is much that is untamed. You have not yet learned the way of controlling oneself. I see this clearly as I see you have not taken your vows,’ each word was spoken with elegance and ice that sent shivers through her core.

‘Citrone why has your fledgewing not taken her oaths?’ asked the Queen, her face unmoving though her voice resounded with accusation.

‘My Queen… I…,’ said Citrone with defence jarring the words. ‘As you can see my daughter is not ready. I assure you she will be punished for entering the Hall,’ her mother spoke with such conviction in Danu’s punishment she was sure she would never run barefoot through the woods again. The Queen stared at Danu, and she lowered her head down fearing to look directly at the fearsome beauty. Her mother went on, ‘I have done my level best to ensure she has had the proper education; however, she is not ready to relinquish the wilds and cage them.’

‘Is that not the way of youth?’ asked the Queen. ‘They do so fight against the ways of their forebears, so much so that it brings not but suffering.’ The Queen circled Danu like a leopard circles its prey. Danu swallowed hard.

‘Please my Queen…’ Danu’s mother went to speak but was silenced. The words chocked in her throat and unable to come forth.

‘Is it true fledgewing? Have you had lessons and tutors in the history of the world?’ the Queen asked Danu. She whimpered lightly to herself and prayed none had heard. She searched within and found her voice, it was broken, but it held something of her training in eloquence.

‘Yes… I… I have studied the many ages that have passed including, Vindel’s Chronicles and Raylan’s Annals, I’ve learned of the ways of charms and illusions from Tatiannal’s Grasp, Volumes One through Four, though I am not yet strong enough to use them, and know all the herbs of healing and harming within the woods and in the eight kingdoms, as is the way,’ she said listing off her lessons hoping it would spare her any further embarrassment. Whilst it was true that these had been her studies, and she had many great tutors, it was rare that Danu ever actually attended. She would skim over the old tomes and daydream during lengthy lectures. Indeed, the only thing she had ever really paid much attention to where the herbs, and the wilds of the world. The Faeren were fey beings, small and slight, born with wings of wild creatures, some feathered, some scaled, and some like the elaborate symmetrical beauty of a butterfly.

‘I seen that you can name the titles of books, but it is the pages that follow that matter,’ said the Queen coldly hinting that she did not believe Danu had learned such things. ‘Tell me fledgewing of our own histories and the vows,’ she added standing before Danu again waiting like a statue for a response.

‘Yes, my Queen,’ Danu’s heart pounded in her chest, and she longed for this moment to be over. ‘When the wars of the Numinia raged, and the kingdoms sought dominion, we the Faeren were active in the world. We took part in events and wars that were not of this land or our people. When the blighted lands of Ishtarik fell, a darkness spread threatening to take the Faeren too. Those of us already lost were cut from us and abandoned to the corruption. It was a necessary sin for which we will ever bare. On our eighteenth name-day we vow to forsake the world beyond the woods and the woods themselves. We vow to serve order under the love and guidance of the Queen. We vow to never again honour ourselves with the wings of our youth. We cut our wings off so that we may never be touched by corruption and the wilds.’ Danu recited the story as she had heard many times in her life. It was something all fledgewings were taught and must learn, especially those that so loved the wilds as Danu did.

The Queen was the only adult in the realm that kept hers. They were sprawling white silver wings of a swan. Children of Faerendal were allowed to wander freely through the woods, although many sections were barred from them for being too dangerous. Despite this they were free to explore and let the woods themselves teach them all they needed to learn. Once they were ready to join the adults of their kin, they were expected to give up the woods and wild things therein. They must forsake the wilderness and take up their studies elsewhere and contribute to the community and protect its peoples. This held an even greater expectation for the children of the Nine Seats of the Citadel. Danu had dreaded her approaching vows and eighteenth name-day and indeed her own mother was far too furious and ashamed of her behaviour to draw so much attention to it. Though she knew she would not be able to avoid it. It was coming up soon, but a week away in fact. Then she would be cut and stripped of a part of herself, a part that she loved more than anything. Danu had the wings of a seagull as did all in her line. Danu refused to take her vows and be stripped of them; she would not give up the wilds for anything.

‘And what of He that must be feared above all else?’ spoke the Queen. There was something of a warning to Danu specifically in that.

‘The Wild Lord spurned us and named us transgressors for our dutiful sin. He tempts the fledgewings from the order of Faerendal to make us one of his Green Kin. He would punish us and leave us open to the corruption. He would see us abandon order and balance. He would see us become beasts and forget ourselves. We must never venture to his side for his retribution for the abandonment of our brethren will be mighty,’ she said finishing.

‘I see that you have had many gifts fledgewing,’ said the Queen eyeing her closely. ‘Are you not ready to join your kin amongst the Citadel?’ she mused.

‘Of course, my Queen. I wish for nothing else,’ she lied. The lie showed plain as the wavering in her voice.

‘Do you know what happens to those that delay their vows too long fledgewing?’ she said cooly. It was true that some tried to stall their vows beyond their name-day, never one of the children belonging to the Nine Seats, but it did happen.

‘Yes… my Queen,’ Danu responded hiding her face.

‘Say it so all may hear and be reminded,’ the Queen commanded, not threateningly or with any malice. She spoke as though she were serenely bored by it all.

‘They… they are taken by the Wild Lord and lose themselves to The Green Calling. They become beasts and unable to change back or risk being touched by the blightlings and lose themselves to corruption,’ she said thinking of the nightmares she had been told as a girl. Their wings were an expression of their soul and lineage, it was far too easy for the corruption to touch them and twist them into blightlings themselves. It was the fear basis of their entire society, without it why would anyone surrender a piece of their soul? Danu had wondered this often, more than once aloud to her tutors and mother. She had been rewarded many time with a bottom so sore she could not sit comfortably for days.

‘That is right. They all are monstrous beings, outcasts, foul filth of the dirt, a vile stain upon our countenance and history,’ for the first time the Queen spoke with any indication of emotion. Each word was expunged from her plump beautiful blue painted lips as she spoke. She regained herself quickly and spoke to Danu’s mother within the crowd. Whatever spell had held her voice was released.

‘Citrone your daughter will take her vows tomorrow under the light of The Pale One, you understand,’ the Queen said, it was not a question.

‘Your majesty please forgive me, but she is not ready. Her nameday is still a week away and…,’ Citrone was cut off sharpy again at the Queen raise a hand drawing all air from her lungs. Citrone clutched at her throat horrified, desperate for breath. The Queen released her and spoke, ‘You daughter will take her vows tomorrow. I’ll now give her willfullness any more time to flourish and poison the other fledgewings. It is up to you if she takes your seat now or when expire as time intended.’

‘Certainly, my Queen… I will see to her preparations,’ her mother said quickly and with a croak in her voice. Danu was dismissed and forced to walk through the crowd of people and worst of all her mother. Where she expected to see visceral fury in her mother’s countenance, she instead found something stranger. Her mother looked to her, eyes quivering and lips twisted. She looked down on her with pity. Those eyes begged her to obey and make no further shame of the family. It was too much to bear.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Danu ran from the Citadel and all the faces that cast her out. Her mother’s face haunting her mind as she ran. I hate her! She didn’t do a thing to stop that awful woman. I hate her! I hate them all of them. Why must I be like them? Why must I give up my wings?

‘I pity the lot of those toad spawn, acting like high lords and ladies. I hate them all,’ she said holding back tears as she slowed to a walk. Danu returned to her home and began grabbing her things. She would leave, she would run far away, beyond the woods if she had to. But then… they kill us out there in the world. The Faeren had not left the woods in a thousand years, not since the war and beginning of The Corruption. The peoples of the world had hunted them to near extinction, they had plucked their wings and had odd beliefs about what power it may grant them. They enslaved her people in ancient times, caged them, made them sing for them, or forced them to grant wishes, though it was not within their power to do so. The world had been most violent and cruel to those of Faerendal; or at least that was what they were taught to believe. How were they to really know if no one ever left and returned to tell of it?

‘No… that can’t be true. People wouldn’t do that to us. Besides I’ll… I’ll hide from them. That’s what I’ll do,’ she said encouraging her resolve, and she packed all that she could carry and would need in the world.

‘Maybe I could just be in the woods. Would it really be so bad to become an animal of the wilds forever? Others had done it too hadn’t they?’ she sat down on the edge of her bed. It felt as if all the choices before her were fraught with uncertainty and danger. The Wild Lord had been the monster of her nightmares as a child, of all children of the Faerendal. A boogy-man to threaten naughty children with and make them behave as they wanted them to.

‘I suppose I could hide from him too. No one knows the woods as well as me,’ she said, trying to convince herself to move from the bed. Whatever her decision she knew she did not wish to be like her mother, stripped of her wings in service to a cold-hearted Queen such as that. There was ever a sadness in her mother and the other adults. She had seen it even in her childhood friends that had since taken their own vows. They were changed, something of their truth was taken from them.

‘I won’t let that happen to me. To the woods it is then… but wait. what if she kills Mother?’ Danu said to herself. Since their father died Citrone, her mother, was the only adult in her line to be able to hold the Seawing Seat. Her brothers and sister were much too young to take their oaths. Never in the centuries past had a seat remained empty, surely, they would not start now. The Queen could not harm her mother. Despite her hurt and betrayal Citrone was still her mother.

‘No. Everything will be fine. Mother will be better off without me here and one day my brothers can fight over the seat. It is better this way,’ she said solemnly and left with not but her green silken dress, a fur cloak to keep her warm, and a satchel of food and herbs.

Danu spent the months that followed living in the woods, she hunted, gathered fruit and berries, she even managed to find a small cave to sleep in out of the rain. For her name-day she had gathered all the wild-berried she could find and made a feast of them all to herself. She had soared that day and night, lilting between the trees and gazing at the stars make pictures of them in her mind. It was all she wanted and did not need to share it with anyone. Lease of all her siblings. Oh how they would have teased her and made the whole affair about themselves. She was glad to be away from them. She didn’t miss them at all. No one bit. At least these were words she told herself.

All her time in the woods as a child had taught Danu many lessons about the dangers and gifts of this world, there was no other teacher she needed. At first, she had been afraid that her mother or the Queen would send scouts to search for her and bring her back, yet none ever came. Her once golden curls, perfectly tended to and fussed over by her mother were now matted locks. She had taken to weaving feathers and even fashioned beads from the woods about her. Her dress had long since been torn and she had had to make do with repairing the fabric or using furs and skins from the animals she hunted. Her mother would do summersaults if she even saw the way she looked now. It felt glorious to be free of the constant drone of order and perfection.

The moon in the sky was reaching its fullness for the third time since leaving when she came across them. She had ventured farther than usual through the woods and in the dense darkness of the night she found what first appeared to be animals of all kin dancing and playing around a great burning figure in the middle. As she drew closer, keeping as quiet as she could she realised the figure in the centre was made of dried branches and grasses and tied into the shape of a man. The frolickers themselves were much the same as her now that she could see them better, only they wore glorious masks of bore heads, fish, elaborately feathered birds, bears, and much more besides. What startled her the most was that each of them had a set of wings all their own.

‘The Green Kin,’ she whispered to herself. These were the very people she had been warned about for all her days. They left the confines of Faerendal and forsook their vows. They were said to wander the woods as beasts never to return to their true forms. But clear as the silver moon above these people, was the fact they had not changed at all. Has she lied to us? Maybe she has but even then… I don’t know these people. Danu conceded with herself to remain apart from them. She was one slight figure in these woods, and it would not do to be outnumbered by those she knew nothing about. Despite this her gnawing curiosity nagged and jibbed at her. Her mother had always told her that it was curiosity that cost the fowl her feathers, though she never really understood it. How could being curious and having that curiosity sated be so bad really?

Danu returned to the dancers twice more whilst the fullness of The Pale One was in the sky. She never spoke to them or made herself known, but she watched. For now that was enough. Upon returning from her third trip the see them dance and drink themselves into a stupor or frivolity she was met with the sense she was being followed. Was it the Green Kin? Have they known I was there every time? Danu moved much faster, after all she knew the woods closer to her cave better than any other. She thought that if she just made them trip up and show themselves, she could decide what to do about them then. She moved lithely across stones and around the wide tress, never misplacing a step until she heard their call.

‘Danu Wilver of the Seawing Seat, Eighth Great House of the Fearen. Halt where you are!’ the voice was commanding and gruff. She turned mid step to look behind her. Standing there was one of her mother’s guards. She had, had little to do with the guards but she recognised the voice.

‘I won’t return. So, you best just leave and go back. Tell her I’m dead if you must!’ she even stomped her feet slightly in protest. She immediately wished she hadn’t.

‘Your mother has commanded it as has the Queen Mab’Ailsling. You must return,’ he said as if it were as simple as that. In truth it was that simple, yet there were none in the Faeren that Danu had ever met that seemed to understand how she felt. How could they not remember the joys of the wood or the smell of the wet dew in the early morning. What had they lost?

‘There is nothing in this realm that could make me return or give up my wings for some silly vow to forsake all this,’ she said the word vow with such distain it was like decayed fruit in her mouth.

‘Very well. Then we have been ordered to return you by force,’ he said. Danu immediately reeled, he said we. Where are they? She turned to find two other men behind her. They brandished rapier swords and armour. They grabbed at her and held her arms and wings against her side and back. She tried to fight back with all her might, kicking, and biting, she had seen how the rabbits frantically struggled against her traps, and she was going to fight the same way. No matter her struggle they eventually bound her. Danu felt lost and hopeless. She would be stripped of her wings, the forest, the animals, and worst still she would never again see the Green Kin dance beneath the stars and moonlight.

‘Stop. Child,’ came a deep resounding voice in her mind. Danu turned her head around to see where it had come from. She was sitting up with her hands tied in front of her. The men that had been sent to find her were suspended in time, unmoving. They appeared as fleshy statues frozen in place.

‘Who are you?’ she said searching.

‘Cernunnos,’ came the booming voice. A creature Danu had merely heard about stepped from the trees. He was as tall as one of the great trees of the forest and yet as he spoke his size shifted and shrank to being twice as tall as Danu. Cernunnos had the legs of a long woollen goat, at the waist he held the form of a man, wide chested and hairy, his face resembled that of a deer with antlers growing from atop his head. He had the most silken curled brown hair streaming down his head that Danu had ever seen. If he hadn’t been so terrifying in his stature, sudden appearance, and the figure of horrible tales, Danu would have found him most beautiful.

‘The Wild Lord,’ Danu whispered wide-eyed and staring.

‘Cernunnos,’ he said cocking his head to the side. ‘Watched. You. Child,’ he continued speaking in single words. His mouth never moved, and the words formed in Danu’s mind. Great booming words like trees falling to the forest floor.

‘Are you going to… hurt… me?’ asked Danu the words barely audible as they stammered out. Cernunnos drew back from her in shock and offense. He regraded her a moment and with a finger to his snouted deer face nodded as if remembering.

‘Hurt. Not. Protect. Woods,’ he said attempting to reassure Danu. ‘Queen. Hate. Lies,’ he added staring at her with those big dark-brown pools. Cernunnos seemed lost in far distant memories. Danu struggled against her bindings whilst he was distracted but they would not budge. He looked at her and against gave that dark glassy-eyed cock of the head.

‘You. Same. Maiden. Spring,’ he said at last. Danu stopped her struggles with the rope and stared at him quizzically. ‘Freedom,’ he said and waved a hand and the bindings untied themselves. Danu stood and flexed her wrists. She then saw images in her mind of the Green Kin as they danced around the fire, singing, drinking, and she was filled with a sense of euphoria and joy. She looked at Cernunnos knowing that somehow, he had shown her this in her mind.

‘Join. Kin?’ he asked. Absent-mindedly she nodded without realising she had done so.

‘Help,’ he said.

‘Help who? Help you?’ she said finding it strange that the Wild Lord could need any help she might offer.

‘Help,’ he repeated, and it seemed there was a struggle behind those large eyes as he searched for a way to explain.

‘Can you show me?’ Danu asked. Cernunnos reached out to her and touched her lightly on the head with an enormous sharp nailed finger. Immediately, she felt as though she were a bird flying high over the woods of her home. Then faster, faster than anything she had ever known she moved across the woods to an open field, past villages of people until she reached the ocean, a wide expanse of water beyond anything she could have imagined possible. The movement did not stop there, it continued into the horizon past islands and ships, oh how wonderful the ships were, and then on further still until she came to a city of white stone. At the centre of the gleaming city was a spire with a small sun perched at its zenith. She watched as the city darkened, the small suns around it went out, and before her eyes it burned and crumbled. It was then that she saw the shadow spread farther blackening the ocean until it reached the woods, she called home. It withered and rotted away until there was nothing left, no trees, no animals, no light, only death and nothingness. The image changed again to show Danu standing at the base of the spire wielding a twisted staff that glowed with life. It banished the darkness and the city returned to gleaming brilliance.

When she awoke from the images she gasped for breath. It had been so exhilarating soaring through the sky but to see the desolation that followed filled her with dread.

‘Help,’ said Cernunnos again.

‘You want me to leave the woods and stop that,’ she said incredulously.

‘Maiden. Help,’ he said. Danu was not sure who this Maiden was, but she was certain he could not mean her. How could he think that Danu would be enough to stop such destruction? He only started at her with those large eyes waiting for her response.

To leave the woods? Me? He wants me to save them all. What could I do against the corruption? These questions and more raced through her mind. It all was happening so quickly, and from what Danu could tell little of it made any sense at all. As her mind searched for an answer, a way to say no, a method to escape, anything, she found that her heart took over for her.

‘I will do this for you Wild Lord,’ she said, disbelievingly. Cernunnos nodded, his great antlers swishing in the air as he did so. He went to a nearby tree and held out his hand to it. Sprouting from it grew a twisted staff. He handed it to her and said, ‘Heart. Beloved. Mate. Protect.’ Finally, he reached out and his great hand upon her head. A tattoo of the moon’s phases appeared on her forehead. ‘Rejoyce. Kin. Druid. Animancer,’ he said and exploded into a thousand fireflies that dispersed, dancing through the woods.