Tag: curse and redemption

Myths of Morrigan and the Wild.

(Cyfrinachau Cymru: Mythau Morrigan a’r Gwyllt)

Prologue: When the Wind Remembers

The moon hung low over the marshlands of Cymru, a pale and silent witness to all that stirred beneath. Mist curled along the ground like ghost-breath. Threading through reeds and thorns, cloaking the land in a hush that even time dared not break.

Morrigan stood at the water’s edge, her white fur shimmering with silver dew. The red pentagram upon her brow pulsed faintly with memory not magic, not prophecy, but something older still loss.

She remembered the laughter of her children, once. Their small feet dancing on stone, their breath warm against her skin when she had a face and a name.

That was long before the curse had sealed her fate. A punishment for defying death, for choosing the path of protector instead of prey.

She had not been seen in her human form by another soul in centuries.

The wind carried the scent of heather, salt, and far off fire. It shifted, and she turned her head sharply. From the west, a presence stirred. Not prey. Not predator. Something… remembered.

Her mate, Boldolph, emerged from the shadows. A black wolf with eyes like fire and a gold sigil carved into the fur of his brow. The mark of the king of wolves. He towered beside her, but even he did not speak.

They not speak.

They had not touched in human form since the binding.

And still, their silence said more than words ever.

A sudden cry pierced the stillness not a howl, but the breathless whimper of cubs. Morrigan turned. Nestled in the hollow of a fallen tree, her children stirred, sensing the shift in the wind. She padded over, nose to fur, and breathed them back into slumber.

Her heart, once burned hollow by grief, beat now for them.

But the forest would not rest.

Tonight, something ancient woke.

Chapter 1

The Scent of a Storm.

The first rain came softly a warning more than a downpour. Tapping gently against the heather and bracken as dusk bled into the marshes. Morrigan crouched low on a rise of dry stone, her pale red eyes scanning the windswept valley below.

Somewhere to the north, a herd of deer was shifting. Their hooves left trembles in the ground. Their scent curled up through the fog.

But Morrigan wasn’t hunting tonight.

She was waiting.

Beneath her, in the hollowed belly of a mossy yew, three wolf cubs whimpered and stirred. Her children not the kind born of curse or storm, but of blood and memory. The youngest one, all white save for a copper ear, squeaked for her warmth. Morrigan tucked her body closer, curling like a shield around them.

Above her, the clouds began to crackle with unnatural colour. A shade of light not seen since…

Not since the last time the veil split.

The Shape of the Wind
A sudden gust brought a foreign scent.

Not prey.

Not predator.

Something old.

Something… broken.

Her hackles rose.

Across the ridge. Boldolph stood, silhouetted against the sky like a god of the old wilds. His black fur glistening with rain, red eyes aflame with alertness. He hadn’t seen her in human form for hundreds of years. Neither had she seen him. The curse did not allow it.

But she felt him now that familiar gravity, that fierce ache of loyalty and loss.

“Do you feel it?” her voice stirred the wind, though no one else hear it.

He gave no answer, only turned his head westward toward the forests. Vasts woodlands of what would one day be called Cannock Chase.

Chapter 2

The boy in the trees

They saw him before he saw them.

A shadow moving through the trees. Too small to be a warrior. Too slow to be a deer.

He was staggering. Starving. But the flame in his eyes refused to die.

Morrigan stepped ahead, paws silent on the stone. The cubs whimpered behind her. Boldolph moved to block her path, lips curled, teeth bared but not at her.

At fate.

At what it meant.

At what it would cost.

Another child. Another risk. Another ache that never leave.

She looked again.

Not a warrior. Not yet.

Just a boy.

But storms followed him.

She turned back to her cubs. Nestled, safe for now. She licked each one gently, then closed the hollow with fallen bark. The marsh would protect them. She whispered an old name into the soil to guard them a name she hadn’t used in centuries.

Then, she stepped into the mist.

Boldolph growled low, a warning.

She brushed against him as she passed her head beneath her head beneath his muzzle, a gesture older than language. Boldolph did not move, but the tension in his shoulders eased. Just for a moment. Enough.

The storm scent was growing stronger.

Morrigan slipped into the trees, her paws silent against the mulch of leaf and root. Branches clawed at her fur like hands from a forgotten dream, but she did not flinch. She knew these woods. She had bled in them. Breathed in them. Hidden in them.

The boy was not far.

She found him collapsed beside a fallen trunk. his arms wrapped around his ribs as though trying to hold himself together. Dirt and blood streaked his face. His feet were bare, blistered, and blue with cold. He had a stick in one hand sharpened crudely, but not recently used.

Even in sleep, his jaw was clenched. Even in pain, his spirit did not bend.

Morrigan circled him in the shadows, one silent loop, then two. She tilted her head. A vision stirred fleeting and broken of a campfire once lit in the hollows of men’s hearts. A voice crying in a tongue lost to fire and flood.

A name.

Taranis.

It did not belong to this boy yet.

But it would.

She drew closer.

The Unseen Form had she still worn her human face, she have wept. But wolves did not weep. They watched. They endured.

Still, some griefs slipped through the fur.

She lowered herself beside the boy, her body a wall against the wind. Carefully, she placed her muzzle against his shoulder. His skin was fever-hot, but beneath it pulsed a stubborn rhythm.

He lived.

From the trees behind, Boldolph appeared, silent as the dusk. He said nothing, but his stare asked everything.

“What are you doing?”

She answered without words.

What we once promised what the old ways demand.

Another life. Another orphan. Another soul cast out by fear and ignorance.

The forest whispered around them voices of old gods and buried secrets. Morrigan raised her head and howled, low and haunting, a call only the wild would understand. It wasn’t a summoning.

It was a vow.

For three days, they watched over the boy.

She hunted while Boldolph guarded. He fetched water from the shallows, carried in his great jaws. She chewed softened bark and nettle, placing it near the boy’s lips. He drank in his fever-dreams, whispering names not yet earned, warnings not yet understood.

On the second night, he opened his eyes.

Just a sliver.

And saw her.

Not as a wolf. Not as a monster.

But as something else.

He reached a hand out. Weak. Trembling.

She did not pull away.

On the third morning, he stood.

Not steady. Not tall. But standing, nonetheless.

And behind him, the sky split with light.

Stormborne

He walked between them then between Boldolph and Morrigan as though he had always belonged.

The name passed once more through Morrigan’s mind like a wind returning home:

Taranis.

Storm-born. Marked. A child of prophecy and exile.

She didn’t yet know the shape of his story. Only that it would be vast. Only that it had begun.

And that somewhere in its ending, her curse would find its purpose.

© StormborneLore. Written and created by ELHewitt

Diolch am ddarllen.
Os gwnaeth y stori hon eich cyffwrdd, eich ysbrydoli, neu aros fel sibrwd yn y coed ystyriwch hoffi, rhannu, neu danysgrifio i ddilyn y daith.

💬 Got thoughts, theories, or echoes of your own? Drop a comment and join the legend.

🌩️ The storm remembers every soul who listens.

Authors note: Unfortunately I needed to use Google Translate for the Welsh so appologise if I got any of it wrong.