Whisper not his name too loud, Lest storms descend and fire shroud. The child who walks ‘twixt wolf and flame, Was never born to live the same.
His cradle rocked in winds that roared, His breath was thunder, wild, untoward. At one moon old, he called the stars At two, he broke his brother’s bars.
The elders spoke with furrowed brows, “This one will break our sacred vows.” But in his hands, a light did grow, Too pure to burn, too fierce to slow.
He healed the sick with dragon’s grace, And sorrow fled his glowing face. Yet fear, like roots, took hold and spread “He brings both blessing… and the dead.”
Some say his eyes hold forest lore, The wolves’ old grief, the fae-folk’s war. Some say his blood recalls the flame Of gods who walked with no true name.
What tribe can hold a storm so wide? What fire endures when fear must hide? So mark these words on bark and bone, The Stormborne never walks alone.
For when the wind begins to wail, And branches sing a deathless tale, Look not for mercy, shield, or guide. The fire within the child will rise.
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My uncles and father stood within the sacred ring of fire. The smoke curling into the twilight sky as the elders sat in silence. Each wore the furs of their lineage, feathers braided with bone and bark, their eyes sharpened by decades of judgement. The fire crackled with unease not just heat, but the energy of something unseen, something stirring.
Father stood tall, one hand resting on the haft of his ceremonial spear. He was prepared not just as a warrior, or chief, but as a father. A father standing between his blood and the storm.
“Your son broke the sacred law,” spat Elder Bran, his voice like dry bark in winter. “He entered the hut of an ostracised man without escort. That law is older than your title, Chief Conan.”
“He must be punished,” added Elder Tarn, slamming his staff into the scorched earth. “Compassion does not absolve disobedience. Rules are not bent for favoured blood.”
A silence fell taut as a bowstring before Drax stepped ahead. Gaunt, but no longer wild, his words rang with clarity.
“He saved my life.”
Gasps and murmurs broke across the council. Even those who had long abandoned hope for Drax looked at him now with flickers of wonder, or wariness.
“I would be dead if not for him,” Drax continued. “I felt it something leave me. A darkness burned away. I am… clear.”
Lore moved to stand beside our father. “He is barely one year old,” he said. “Yet he speaks in tongues, walks like a hunter, and heals the broken with words no one taught him.”
“This is what troubles us!” snapped Elder Ysra, rising in her many-layered cloak of ash and iron charms. “Power like this does not come without price. The last child marked by the storm brought famine, flood, and war.”
“We do not know what mark he carries,” my father replied, eyes level. “But I will not see my son punished for compassion.”
Ysra stepped ahead, face drawn like flint. “It was not just compassion. It was prophecy in motion. And prophecy unguarded is wildfire in a dry forest.”
Behind them, Morrigan and Boldolph stood watch just beyond the fire’s reach. The black wolf growled low, a rumble of warning. while Morrigan’s gaze stayed fixed on the chief’s hut where Taranis slept, gripped by fever.
The fire hissed and popped. Somewhere nearby, a nightbird called.
Elder Bran raised his staff. “The child shall remain under close watch, isolated from others but housed within the chief’s care. He will be marked not as cursed, but as unknown. No more unsanctioned visits. If he breaches this again”
“We will not exile a babe,” my father growled.
“No,” said Ysra coldly. “But we may exile what grows inside him.”
The flames danced higher, wind tugging at the circle as if the fire spirits themselves had stirred.
Lore bowed his head slowly. “Then we shall walk the knife’s edge between reverence and fear. But mark my words if you turn on him too soon, you lose more than trust. You lose the only light left.”
As the council slowly dispersed, dusk settled like a shroud. The camp held its breath. Only the crackle of fire and the quiet steps of retreating warriors broke the silence.
Later, beneath the stars, young Nyx turned to our father. “So what happens now, Father?”
“Isolation. No one speaks to him unless permitted. He’ll be watched not as punishment, but out of fear. They don’t understand what he is. And people fear what they do not understand.”
“If we don’t talk to him… won’t that break him?”
Conan’s voice was low. “That is what I fear most.”
Just then, the elders returned with the boy. His fever had broken. Taranis walked unaided into the firelight, eyes drowsy but glowing faintly.
“What is going on?” Conan asked, rising quickly.
“He entered the eternal sleep,” Elder Ysra whispered. “But then… he came back.”
Even the fire seemed to pause.
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Taranis lay silent in his cradle, just moments after birth. He didn’t cry, didn’t scream only watched with wide, storm-coloured eyes. I sat by his side, listening to the rising argument between our father and eldest brother, Drax.
“No one will hurt you, baby brother,” I whispered, “not while I and the others still draw breath.”
“Lore,” came our mother’s voice, tired but clear, “you’ll be good to him, won’t you? He’s weak…”
I turned to her and gave a gentle nod. “Yes, Mother. And so will you. You’ll teach him to gather berries and cook. And Father will teach him to hunt. He has eleven older brothers, we’ll teach him everything. But… what is Father going to do about Drax?”
I cradled Taranis in my arms, gently rocking him the way I’d done with the others. Even then, he felt… different. Lighter and heavier at the same time.
“We’ll protect him,” Mother whispered. “But if Drax doesn’t stay quiet, your father may have him silenced.”
There was pain in her voice, thick with grief.
“Drax is being ostracised,” Father said later that day.
“He’s moved to the empty hut. My men are watching him. But Lore my boy you are to be chief when I enter the eternal sleep. Drax has forfeited his claim.”
“Yes, Father,” I replied, handing the baby to him before leaving for council training.
Many moons passed.
Drax had become more unstable touched by something dark. He talked to shadows. He thrashed like a wild animal when approached. Still, Father refused to have him killed.
But Drax had never been allowed near Taranis unbound not since the moment of his birth.
One afternoon, I sat carving a storm sigil into a flat stone when a scream echoed across the camp. It was Stone, a tribal woman and healer. I dropped my tools and ran.
Inside the birthing hut, Taranis barely four months old was standing unaided.
“L… Lore?” the baby said softly.
I froze. My heart thundered in my chest. “Yes… I’m Lore. You’re Taranis the stormborne one.”
No child had ever spoken or walked at that age. He was already taller than most children twice his age. His voice was clear. His steps were steady.
Our parents rushed in.
“Conan, he’s doing it,” Mother said, her voice laced with awe and fear. “But it’s far too early.”
Father’s eyes scanned the room. He bent down and lifted Taranis, pride and dread wrestling in his expression.
“Stone,” he said quietly, “you saw nothing. And neither did you, Lore.”
“Drax is here for visitation today,” I reminded him, uneasy.
“The shaman has blessed him. He’s… clear enough,” Father replied. “But I will not kill my own blood.”
“Dadda?” Taranis said with a toothless grin. “Momma. Daddy. Lore.”
“That’s right, my charmed one,” Father said softly. “And you are?”
“Tabaris,” he chirped, mispronouncing his own name.
“Close. It’s Taranis,” Father corrected gently.
“Taranis,” he said again, tapping his chest. “Me Tanaris. You Daddy. That Mommy Sweet Voice. That Lore.”
I chuckled. “That’s right, little one. I’m your brother Lore. That’s Stone. And these are your other brothers. Do you know their names?”
“Lore… Oak, Willow… River, Sky… Star…”
He paused, hiding his face bashfully.
“You did brilliantly,” I reassured him. “You’re only three moons old and already speaking better than most of us at one year!”
Time flew.
Taranis walked and talked far too early. At one year old, he was disappearing from sight vanishing, even. He was growing rapidly, faster than any child the tribe had ever seen.
One morning, he wandered toward the hut where Drax now lived, under guard by two warriors.
“What you doing, little brother?” Rain asked, trailing behind him.
“Why Drax in there alone?” Taranis asked, blinking up at the warriors.
“He’s touched,” Rain said. “They say a vengeful spirit cursed him.”
Taranis tilted his head. “I heal him,” he said matter-of-factly.
Before I stop him, he dashed toward the door.
“TARANIS! NO! STOP RIGHT NOW!” I shouted.
“I heal!” he giggled.
Rain and I exchanged looks. “Get Father!” I barked.
We followed him inside. Drax sat cross-legged, staring at the wall. He didn’t move, didn’t speak.
Taranis approached him with no fear and touched his hand. A strange, gentle glow pulsed from his palm.
“I call on my sacred friends,” he whispered, “to heal my brother Drax.”
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.
Boldolph, the king of wolves, with glowing red eyes and a mystical sigil on his brow.
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.
The bond between Taranis and Morrigan, symbolizing the awakening of ancient legacies in ‘StormborneLore’.
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.
A moment of connection between Tanaris and two mystical wolves under a full moon, symbolizing a bond forged by destiny.
Authors note: Unfortunately I needed to use Google Translate for the Welsh so appologise if I got any of it wrong.
StormborneLore 