StormborneLore

Tag: Story art

  • The Secrets of the Haunted Chase

    The Secrets of the Haunted Chase

    A Ghostly Encounter

    A round, hand-painted stone depicting a landscape with trees and a sun, resting on a dark fabric surface.
    A hand-painted circular stone depicting a serene landscape, featuring trees and a bright sun, symbolizing a connection to nature.

    They always said the Chase held secrets. Over the years rumors of ghost sightings, lost children, lights that danced just out of reach.

    But Private Callum Hargreaves had grown up nearby. He’d run through these woods with scraped knees and muddy boots, long before he wore the army’s green.

    He used to love the quiet, the peacefulness that the woods brought.

    Tonight, it felt wrong.

    The mist had rolled in fast, blanketing the forest floor. Dusk bled into night like ink in water. Callum’s breath fogged in front of him not from cold, but from the weight in the air.

    His squad had finished training hours ago, but he hadn’t gone back. He couldn’t. Not yet. His thoughts were loud again memories knocking like fists on the inside of his skull.

    “Just walk it off,” he muttered, his voice low. “Like always.” he told himself.

    He followed an old deer track or maybe just instinct into the dense pines. The kind that made their own darkness even before sunset. The ground was soft, smelling of wet leaves and something older.

    He paused.

    There at the base of a gnarled tree was a stone. Half buried, bone coloured. Not shaped by nature. Carved. Faint, but deliberate.

    Callum crouched. A breeze touched his neck, oddly warm.

    “Someone put this here.”

    A round painted stone with abstract designs in purple and yellow on a gray background, encircled by a green rim, resting on a dark fabric surface.
    A mysterious token featuring a swirl design, symbolizing the secrets of the woods.

    He brushed aside the moss. A symbol. A swirl or a horn. Beside it a feather. White. Slightly scorched at the edge. When he reached out to touch it.

    The air twisted.

    Like the world held its breath.

    He blinked. Once.
    The trees around him… changed.

    Taller. Closer. Ancient.

    No wrappers underfoot. No footprints. No signal bars. The forest felt closer, like it was listening.

    Then came the whisper.

    Not from behind him.
    Not from the side.

    From below.

    “He’s returned…”

    The voice wasn’t human but it wasn’t wind either. It filled his ears like rising water. Callum staggered back, instinct flaring.

    The stone was gone.
    The trail behind him, vanished.
    Even the smell was different no exhaust, no cordite, just wood smoke and something sharp: iron? sweat? blood?

    “No. No, no what is this?”

    He turned toward where the training grounds should’ve been.

    Nothing.

    Just trees.
    And silence.
    And the whispering louder now. Familiar. Calling him by name without speaking it.

    And then… a howl.

    Low. Echoing.

    Not quite wolf. Not quite human.

    Callum’s breath caught. He gripped the feather tight in his palm.

    To be continued…

    © written and created by ELHewitt

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  • Taranis and the Wolves: A Tale of Mysticism

    Taranis and the Wolves: A Tale of Mysticism

    Tale of Storms and Shadows

    A stylized tree with multicolored leaves, depicted against a dark background with a yellow moon. The trunk is textured and twisted, and the artwork features vibrant hues like purple, red, and white.
    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 stylized painting of a black wolf howling against a backdrop of a crescent moon and vibrant blue sky, with hints of purple and pink. The wolf features a decorative symbol around its neck.
    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.

    © written and created by ElHewitt

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    Futher Reading

    The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded
    Taranis Stormborne: The Ultimate Guide to the Storm