The fire crackled low, licking the belly of a fresh kill. A young deer brought down by patience and precision. Its scent mingled with pine resin, wood smoke, and the dry musk of wolf-fur.
Taranis sat cross-legged near the embers, his gray eyes fixed on nothing.
He had not spoken aloud in days. The wolves Boldolph, silent and alert. Morrigan, fierce-eyed and restless watched him as they always did, as if tethered not by duty, but by knowing.
He tore the meat with his fingers, chewing slowly, not tasting. Hunger had long become a ghost he ignored, like the grief that gnawed behind his ribs.
Then came the rustle. Too light for bear. Too soft for storm.
He didn’t move. But the wolves did.
A man emerged from the trees, thin, mud-streaked, crouching low not with confidence, but desperation. He made for the meat as if pulled by instinct stronger than fear. But the moment his hand reached toward the platter of bark and stone…
A low growl stopped him.
Morrigan’s teeth shone like bone in firelight. Boldolph blocked his retreat. And Taranis finally looked up.
Their eyes met. One pair hollowed by loss, the other by starvation.
“I thought you would kill me,” the stranger whispered.
“I have,” Taranis replied, “for less.”
He stood slowly, towering over the man a figure carved by exile, his face painted with ash and time. But there was no rage in him now. Only silence. And a slow understanding.
He broke the meat in half. Handed the larger piece to the thief.
The man hesitated, then took it with shaking hands.
“What’s your name?” Taranis asked.
The man blinked. “Rhonan.”
“No longer a thief,” Taranis said, sitting again. “Tonight, you eat with me. Tomorrow, you hunt beside me. And if you run…” He glanced to Morrigan. “You’ll not outrun the black one.”
Rhonan gave a breath that was a laugh, or a sob.
And for the first time in many moons, Taranis chewed his meat and tasted it.
From the author:
This story bridges two truths: that hunger drives desperation, and that mercy can be stronger than fear. Taranis’s decision not to punish the man reflects a deeper shift. one from raw survival to the beginnings of community, yet small.
If you’ve ever chosen kindness when the world expected cruelty this story is for you.
A vibrant, stylized tree under a dark sky, adorned with colorful leaves and a glowing moon, symbolizing the intertwining of nature and mysticism.
Taranis had wandered for three days since his exile. Taranis wore no furs now., just the old stag-hide wrap and the necklace his mother had pressed into his palm with shaking fingers.
He ate roots and river water,. Asheand slept like a fox with one ear open and his back to a tree.
That night, a full moon watched the world from behind broken cloud. The forest lit with silver veins. Taranis crouched low near a hollow oak, flint blade across his lap. He had not lit a fire. Fire betrayed you. Fire drew eyes.
But still eyes found him.
Two pairs.
One black, one white.
Both wolves. Both silent. Both watching from the mist beyond the briar.
He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.
The white one larger, its coat matted with burrs stepped ahead. A long scar dragged across its eye, but the eye still burned red. Not the red of rage, but of knowing. Of memory.
The smaller wolf circled left. Her coat was black as smoke and moved like shadow even under moonlight.
Still, Taranis did not move. This was not a hunt. Not a threat. This was a test.
When the white wolf sat, the black one joined him.
They stared.
And then they spoke.
Not aloud not in the way people do but in the marrow of his bones. In the beat of his pulse. In the dreams he hadn’t yet had.
“You carry the storm. Not all storms destroy.”
He blinked. He gripped the flint tighter.
“We are not what we seem. Nor are you.”
A striking depiction of a black wolf howling at the moon, surrounded by vibrant blues and purples, evoking a sense of mystery and wilderness.
Then, the black wolf Boldolph moved first. He stepped to the base of the hollow tree and pawed at the ground. When he pulled back, there was something in the soil. A ring of old stones. A feather. A scrap of iron, ancient before iron had names.
The white wolf Morrigan touched it with her snout.
And in a moment that split the world like thunder, they changed.
Two wolves became two people. Not naked, not fully human, but forms caught between part smoke, part bone, part memory. She bore a crow’s wing in her braid. He had a jaw shaped not by age, but by sorrow.
Taranis did not flinch. The storm inside him had seen worse. Had survived worse.
Morrigan reached ahead and laid the feather at his feet.
“Blood forgets. But stone remembers. You are carved already.”
Boldolph raised his hand, three fingers missing. Still, he gestured not in threat, but in oath.
“This forest sees you. You are not alone.”
And just like that, they were wolves again.
Gone into the mist.
Only the feather remained.
And the storm inside Taranis? It no longer howled alone.
A painted stone representing fire hitting the earth near standing stones – abstract art.
The Fire That Ran from the Sky.
Long before the clans gathered,
beneath the Roaches ridge, before the stones were marked with names, the sky itself betrayed the earth.
It began as a night without stars. A quiet so deep the wind dared not breathe.
Then flames tore across the heavens.
The elders called it the Fire That Ran from the Sky. A burning serpent of light and death that raced faster than the eyes follow.
From the hills near what the future would call Staffordshire,. the clans watched in horror as the blazing serpent descended, striking the land with a terrible force. Trees exploded into firestorms; rivers steamed and boiled.
Smoke curled upward, blotting out the moon.
When the fire touched the great wood, the earth shook and cracked. A great chasm opened, swallowing whole herds and warriors alike.
In the days that followed, the sky rained ash. The air was thick with the scent of burning flesh and ancient sorrow.
But from the ruins, life stirred anew.
The clans, scattered and broken, gathered under a new oath to honor the fire that had destroyed and forged them.
They built great stone altars on the hills. Each year they held a vigil, lighting fires that mirrored the serpent’s dance across the sky.
It was said that those who dared to look into the flames see the fire’s spirit a fierce. ever-burning heart that chose the worthy and cursed the false.
And so, the Fire That Ran from the Sky became legend, a warning, and a blessing.
A story whispered by those who survived the night. Those who vowed never to forget the power of the storm that shapes all things.
When the fire’s fury faded, the world was silent and broken.
The great wood once thick with ancient oaks and whispering leaves lay scorched and blackened, its heart beaten by flame.
Smoke still curled from the ground, and the air tasted of ash and sorrow.
The clans that survived wandered through the ruin, their footsteps heavy on the brittle earth.
Marak Storm Eye, then a young warrior, knelt beside a fallen tree stump. Its bark cracked and bleeding resin like tears.
“We must live,” he said, voice raw but fierce. “This fire has taken much, but it has not taken our will.” he said looking to his people.
Those around gathered roots and herbs. As they began learning which plants heal scorched flesh and which cleanse the bitter smoke from their lungs.
Around him, others nodded, their faces grim. From the ashes, they hunted the beasts that had fled or died.
At night, they huddled close to small, careful fires. The warmth giving comfort. While their new altars whispering prayers to the sky and earth, asking for mercy and strength.
It was in this time of hardship that the first whispers of the Thunder Child were born. For some said the fire had marked the land, and the clans, with destiny.
And so, from ruin, the storm-wrapped promise of a new age began to stir.
Symbols of protection and exile, reflecting Taranis’s journey into the mysterious woods.
The trees no longer knew his name.
Taranis sat beneath the twisted yew roots where the earth sloped sharply into shadow. His hands, still small though scarred, trembled not from cold, but from the silence. He had not spoken since sunrise not when his father handed him the satchel, not when the last brother refused to meet his eye, not even when his mother whispered
“Run.” Her voice had broken, but not for him for the children who had not survived the sickness.
For the village, he was now a curse. A child touched by strange spirits. One who brought death and unnatural things. One who raised a bird from stillness, and soon after, watched the village rot from within.
So he ran until his breath failed, deeper into the old woods. The Wending Hollow.
He knew the stories: spirits with antlers, beasts with no eyes, witches who wore the skins of deer. He knew, too, that children were not meant to survive here. But he wasn’t a child anymore.
He was eight. Alone. Exiled.
And hungry.
By dusk, Taranis had found a shallow stream and a fallen log riddled with mushrooms. He sniffed each cap like his uncle had taught him. Then he took only the pale gilled ones that didn’t smell of metal or death.
He dug roots near the waterline — bulbous, bitter, but full of strength. Nettle leaves, stripped with care and boiled in his small clay pot over a weak ember-fire. Then made a tea that smoked green into the mist. It tasted sharp, like the sting of his mother’s goodbye.
His first exile meal was crude: 🌿 A bitter root mash warmed on a flat stone. 🌰 Wild hazelnuts cracked with care. 🍵 A handful of mushrooms, seared by flame. 🌿 Nettle tea, sipped from his cupped palms.
It filled his belly but not the hollow in his chest.
The howl came just after nightfall.
Low. Wide. As if dragged from the pit of a creature that had forgotten how to live.
Taranis froze. The fire dimmed, not from wind, but from presence.
Another howl. Closer. Then bones not breaking, but rattling. Like antlers knocking together. Like something with no voice calling for company.
He rose slowly. The wind twisted his fire out.
From the trees stepped a figure that wasn’t quite wolf.
It was tall as a stag, gaunt as famine. Its limbs stretched too long and wrapped in skin the color of ash. Bone jutted from its snout and spine. Its eyes were hollow. And it carried no scent only silence.
The Bone Wolf.
Taranis stood firm, chest rising and falling. He did not cry. He did not scream. Something inside him, something older than fear, whispered:
Face it. Or be followed forever.
He reached for a stick and held it like a spear. The creature stepped closer… then paused.
Its skull tilted. It sniffed the steam of his cooked meal, then… turned.
It vanished into the dark, leaving no prints. Only breath warm, inhuman on the back of his neck.
He did not sleep that night.
But when the dawn came, the trees whispered again. Not in welcome, but in recognition.
Exiled at Eight tells the story of Taranis Stormborne.
A flicker of life enters a world that is both brutal and beautiful. From the moment chieftain Connor held the little boy wrapped in wolf fur, he knew his son was different.
The baby’s bright grey eyes sparkled with curiosity and wonder, hinting at future heartache, nightmares, and beauty.Five Years Later
“He’s alone again, I see, Drax,” Knox said to his best friend and the chieftain’s son.
“World of his own, father says. He’s different from us,” Drax replied, glancing at his little brother before shielding a strike.
“Nice try,” Drax smirked.The chieftain and his wife watched Taranis, worry and stress etched on their faces. Neither knew how to handle their youngest son, who paled in comparison to his brothers.
Taranis was a tall child, standing almost five feet, muscular from birth a blessing many remarked on. His striking grey eyes were like a stormy night. In contrast, his brothers were broad-shouldered and hardened by years of hunting and battle, already warriors in training.
One cool morning, as the damp scent of earth and pine filled the air, Taranis wandered near the edge of the forest. “Everything you see is ours, my son the woods, the green fields,” he recalled his father’s voice in his mind.
The more he walked, the louder the birds sang and the more he heard the roar of Pendragon, the king of dragons.
The howl of Boldolph whistled through the trees as he picked up a stone and threw it in the air. Suddenly, the stone flew from his hand and struck a small black bird.
It fell silent, wings broken, heart still. Taranis ran to the young bird, tears streaming down his face. Kneeling beside it, he pressed his hands gently on its broken wings, willing them to heal.
As time seemed to slow; the forest quieted. Miraculously, the bird shuddered and breathed, gradually returning to life. With a flutter, it soared free again.
The chieftain raised an eyebrow as he looked to his people, then back to his son.
“What is dead should stay dead,” one man stated.Soon, the entire community murmured in hushed tones.“ENOUGH,” the chieftain said, addressing the council of elders.
“Sir, we will call a meeting,” Janus stated. A woman with clouded eyes and a trembling voice approached quietly. She gazed deeply at the boy and spoke a chilling prophecy.
“The boy who mends what death has touched shall walk a path both blessed and cursed, a flame born of feather and storm.”Taranis looked at the old woman with a defiant smirk and his deep grey eyes, as if he wielded a storm at any moment.
He didn’t understand it, nor did he care.
“He’s old enough to train as a guide with the spirits,” another man said. “He’s five; he’s a man now.”
“No, he’s a man who can work, but he must follow his brothers and me as warriors and hunters,” Chieftain Connor stated.
The year passed quickly, and everyone focused on the warring neighbors while crops failed, turning life upside down. At six years old, the harshness of life hit hard.
When men and women charged the camp, and the clash of spears echoed.
Within minutes, the noise stopped abruptly on both sides. With uncanny fierceness, Taranis moved like a whirlwind of rage and grace. His strikes were swift and precise, as if guided by a primal force beyond his age.
“It’s like he’s a god,” Lore said, while his brothers watched in awe and fear, uncertain of what this meant for their youngest brother.
Beneath the warrior’s fire, though, was a boy barely understanding the cost of blood and death.
“I helped protect us, right, father? I’m good?” Taranis asked, but he stopped when Drax pulled him away, aware of how fear could lead people to do stupid things.
“I’m a warrior, not a seer!” Taranis cried as he was taken away.“Shh, little brother. You’ve seen too much for one day.”
“From today, my son Taranis will train with his brothers. Should another fight arise, he will be ready,” Chieftain Connor said. Another war came, but this time it was one they wouldn’t win.
As the years went by, he trained and grew into a skilled fighter. At eight years old, he stood on the hills as his friends developed coughs and fevers like never seen before, while the village was struck by a shadow darker than any blade.
A sickness crept through the children like a silent predator.Mothers wept, fathers raged, and the once vibrant laughter of youth faded into silence and sorrow. Soon, the people began to whisper, like cold wind slipping through cracks.
Was this the curse Janus spoke of? Was Taranis’s strange power a blight upon them?
“Exile Taranis!” one voice boomed. “Execute him!” another shouted. “Sacrifice him to appease the gods!”As time passed, more voices joined in as fear turned to blame, and blame hardened into calls for exile.
“We find, for the sake of the clan, we must exile Taranis,” Janus said.
Taranis stepped beyond the only home he had ever known. As he looked back at his brothers and father.
“I didn’t do it. Please, this isn’t because of me,” Taranis pleaded. But the forest that once whispered secrets now felt endless and cold.
Alone, he battled with the cruel balance between lost innocence and a destiny forced upon him.Yet beneath the storm of doubt, a fierce flame burned a hope to find meaning, reclaim his place, and someday heal what had been broken.
StormborneLore 