My bones were fraught with marcescence. The dying leaves of later summer persisted with me into deep fall. No matter what wind, rain, or other weather terror, the itching accoutrements remained amidst all the mistletoe which prevailed greenly, and fervent in the chill of early winter. A shake of the mighty head sent early birds asunder into the dewy hedges of the surrounding. The great tree awakened at last and what a wake it was after a cold and frostbitten night. Papery skin sloughed off in heeps with leaves which had fallen the night afore.
The sun cut into the deep and dark woods, neon and shining, it poured over the storm sodden soil and made it glitter. Cernunnos, ancient and new, whuffed quietly when the light reached out and touched him at long last. Frost thawed, the land warmed, and the yarrows turned to gold as morning greeted them. Even the bare patches of the forest filled with a rare and unusual green life for this time of season, Cern’s honeyed eyes could not help but look upon the beauty of sunrise, could not help but shiver silently over its good graces to him and to his family.
Two birch atop his head swung back as he tipped his long, broad nose towards the sky. Partly-cloudy. The trees would thirst no more for sunlight, even in the partial exposure. Naturally the horned forest spirit rose to his feet and began his journey towards the dell where he often drank in the gold of the day and the silver at night. Three birds of varying sizes, all grey, white, and black, came to him, they too could afford to celebrate the day - all the while nitpicking through the piles of woolen hair in search of mistletoe berries. Cernunnos did not mind them.
.. .. ..
Here in the deep, it is rare to be found, and it had happens so seldomly that Cernunnos has grown accustomed to never checking his surroundings. Deep within the grove he is one of many - of hundreds - black and white brindled, laden with evergreen and birds, and so silent and so still that moths settle against his papery flesh. Even the insects think nothing more of him than as a tree, for Cernunnos does not only look like one, but smells and feels like one as well. His magic is strange and distinctly his, he can be no prouder than this very moment, when he is -yet again - identified as a part of the grove.
In a way, the child is right.
“Oh. Um hi.”
Roots grow over bone in the silence that follow, leaves and birds twitter in his hair, Cern moves at last when the unicorn speaks to him and lowers his head to her in quiet acknowledgment. like a surreal dream, two trees atop his head, dip down with him, moths flutter off - and away, birds move from the lower limbs of his horns towards the upper branches warily. The ancient soul blinks slowly and exhales a silvery breath into the cold. Mornings are his favorite. Children are not.
“Welcome to the grove. Now,” Cern says at last, “..be quiet.” He does not mean to scold the little girl, and he is not unkind with his words either - just firm. His reasons are not so obvious but when he gestures with his amber eyes, across the way from them, it becomes clear for her that if she is to witness the harem of deer moving into the wood, she will do as he says, and promptly.
“Here they come.” Cern’s voice is but a whisper to the youth, he does not care to know her name or the reasons why she has come, and maybe that is what makes him selfish for wanting this moment. A group of six deer, a mixed group between the ages of Aspara and Cernunnos, begin grazing amongst the yarrow. One of the older few keep an eye out for danger, but when they meet Cern’s eyes an understanding occurs. They know him, they have known him their whole lives, and Cern is delighted to see them again.
The deer are no ordinary animals by any means. Tall, willowy like the birch trees (like Cern!) with horns that look to be made out of opals with coats that are sable and spotted white. The sun traces them out in golds and prisms, they are as quiet as the coming of winter. Against the greens and browns, nothing quite compares to them and instantly they become mystical in their own Rite.
“Generations upon generations, I have watched this family grow. The one looking at us right now, with the white face - I know her - her name is Myrtle.” He is consumed by the vision of them. They bring him great joy. These deer here are his friends, his family, his Viride. They are everything to him, just as the finches that make homes in his branches, just as the moths that cling to him, just like the trees which keep him as their own. Cernunnos, like the forest, is his own ecosystem, and little Aspara will be the first to know of it - of Him.
“Tell me, little sapling, what brings you here? Where have you come from? — certainly not the soil like the rest of us.” He laughs quietly, enough to shake the birds off of him into surrounding trees but not enough to startle the wandering deer (who appear to be creeping closer, and closer yet). Cernunnos sees this and considers it a good omen, “ -- they trust you - you must have a heart of wood.”
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