There is a silence in the marshlands that swallows time.
It lies thick over the water, coiled like mist among the reeds. Soundless. Watching. Waiting. The trees bow not to wind but to memory. Beneath their branches, something moves not quite woman, not only wolf.
Her name is Morrigan, though no one dares whisper it aloud anymore.
She runs low across the damp ground, white fur streaked with ash, paws soaking in the moon reflected puddles. Her breath rises in short, sharp bursts. Red eyes flicker in the dark, not with anger but with ache. Older than rage. Older than words.
Once, she had hands. Fingers that braided herbs and soothed fevered brows. Once, she sang lullabies to babes with eyes like river glass.
But that was before the curse.
The Curse of the Moon-Mother
She remembers the moment it fell upon her the oath she broke. The vengeance she vowed. She remembers fire and blood. The cries of her dying cubs. The sickle moon high above, silent as ever.
“You protect them,” the goddess had whispered, cold and cruel. “But never again shall a human see you in human skin.”
And so, she is wolf now. Always.
Except in dreams. Except in the lonely corners of the woods where magic still lives. Except when Boldolph her mate, her shadow. Her equal appears in her memory not as wolf, but as the man she once loved.
But even in dreams, they do not touch.
🐺 A Shadow in the Marshes
She walks with her last remaining cub. Ash tiny, limping, a remnant of fire. His coat has not yet thickened. He does not yet know how to hunt. But he follows her. And he watches.
Somewhere in the Shropshire hills, Boldolph lifts his nose to the wind. He feels it too. The pull of the past. The whisper of change.
For the first time in an age, Morrigan feels it stir: hope. Not for herself that is too dangerous but for something else. Something old waking up in the soil. Something waiting.
⚡ A Boy in the Distance
In her visions, she sees him. A child exiled from his people. Alone in the woods, carrying wounds deeper than the bone. Grey eyes, like thunder behind mist. A storm within him.
He is too young to lead. Too wild to tame.
But he sees. He does not run from wolves. He does not scream when the trees whisper.
Morrigan felt it deep in her bones the presence of the young boy.
A Promise Made of Teeth and Fire
She pauses at the edge of the marsh. Ash nuzzles her side. She looks up and for a moment, the stars seem closer.
She carves a spiral into the mud with one claw. The shape of cycles. Of beginnings.
Not far now. Staffordshire, they call the place now though in Morrigan’s memory, it had a different name. A name older than stone.
That is where she will go.
To the forest where the boy waits.
To the place where storms are born.
And there, she will decide whether this child is worth the breaking of old vows. or whether the curse will claim him too.
© StormborneLore. Written by Emma for StormborneLore. Not for reproduction. All rights reserved.
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