The forest had always been alive at night, but that night, it had been watching him.
Donnor Moorwood, young then, broad, and angry with the world, had left the village tavern in a drunken haze, stumbling down deer trails he barely remembered. The moon was full, and the air held the taste of iron and woodsmoke. Crickets had stopped singing. The leaves whispered with a hush like held breath.
He remembered falling.
Tripping over a root, sprawling into a ring of mushrooms that glowed faintly under the moonlight, Donnor cursed, rolling onto his back.
That was when he saw her.
She stood under the silver light, barefoot in the moss, hair like moonlight rippling over her shoulders. Her skin was pale as starlight, and her eyes…gods, her eyes; they were green like deep forest pools, and they glowed softly, reflecting the moon.
“You should not have come here, Mortal,” she said, her voice like wind through leaves, like the hush before dawn.
“I didn’t mean to,” he croaked, breath caught in his chest, shame and fear and wonder warring inside him.
“And yet you have.” She tilted her head, studying him, a faint, sad smile touching her lips. “It is dangerous for your kind to step into the Shining Lands unbidden.”
He tried to rise, but found his body heavy, as if the air itself pressed him down.
“You are heavy with sorrow,” she whispered, kneeling beside him. “You carry anger like a shield. It will kill you long before your enemies do.”
“What do you know of it?” Donnor spat, but his voice was weak.
“I know you are lost.”
She leaned over him, hair falling around his face like a veil of moonlight. She smelled of cedar, of cold water, of earth after rain.
“And I know you will find your way again.”
She kissed him then, and in that moment, the forest sighed around them. Light pulsed from the mushrooms, and for an instant, the world felt whole.
He woke the next morning in the ring of mushrooms, dew on his face, the moon gone, the dawn cold and gray. But her scent was on his skin, and in the wind that rustled the leaves, he swore he heard her laughter.
Years later, when the infant was left on the edge of his forge in a basket woven of living vines, Donnor recognized the glow in the child’s green eyes.
He named him Gryffin, and raised him as his own.
Now, in the smoke darkened forge, Donnor pressed a hand to the edge of the workbench, trembling.
“Just too much of his mother in him,” he whispered again, the memory of moonlight and the soft hush of the Shining Lands lingering in the shadows.
Outside, the forest waited, and somewhere, a hawk screamed in the dawn.
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author