Book one of "Kitten's Edge"
Charles has been ostracized from the village because of the colour of his fur. The young kitten has been hated and feared by even his own family ever since he can remember.
After a brutal raid on his small home village th...
Author's Note - the video above is to be watched at the end if you want a historically accurate explanation of druids.
Part of the misfortune of being a black cat was that no one wanted to see Charles. It did also cone with the unusual perk though that if he didn't want to be seen himself, then his dark pelt was able to hide him in the shadows.
Being unwanted did however mean that here was no one around to play with. The only game that the children wanted to play was "dodge the rock" – which got tiring very quickly – and the majority of the village's other animals were so terrified of being shunned by the humans the way he was that they would actually go out of their way to avoid him.
The old tom would only see him if he brought food and he only existed to the robed man on the days the village bell was rung in the morning. The horses didn't seem to mind him, but they were also so big that he couldn't play with them.
Most of the time, it was a lonely existence.
So, in order to keep himself occupied, the curious kitten had taken to following humans around. Which ever adult caught his attention and looked like they might be doing something interesting – so long as they were one of the ones that was prone to ignoring him rather than chasing him. He wasn't into getting hurt if he messed up and they saw him by accident.
Today, that was the robed man.
His limp looked a little more pronounced than usual as he made his way towards the outskirts of the village. It had peaked Charles' interest as the kitten had never seen this particular human walk away from the cluster of buildings before. His job seemed to be, from what Charles had observed, about the rest of the people. And in order to do it, he had to stay surrounded by the other villagers and closer to their homes.
Every time two people would start shouting at each other, or even begin hitting one another, he would step between them and talk to them both. If they were grown adults then they would often have to give the man something or would spend the rest of the week doing extra work.
His other job seemed to be about the village children. The younger, betweeners and older children were all gathered together and sat down in the small field of green grass at the village's centre if the weather was fine, or along the cushions in the tall building where everyone gathered when the bell was rung if it was wet.
The man would read a prayer or song chant from his tomb that no one else was allowed to look at. Then the children would recite it back to him line by line. This would continue for hours until he was satisfied that they had it memorized.
But everything he did was in the middle of the village, and to see him walking towards the tall oaks of the forest with a leather sack over one shoulder had the kitten scampering after him.
Away from the dirt pats that had been trodden smooth by thousands of footsteps, Charles kept waiting for the man to stumble and fall with his lame leg. But the man was as sure footed as the deer whose rough trails he was traversing. The loose stones, raised roots and small holes didn't seem to bother him out here in nature the way they did in the village.
Suddenly the man stopped and put down the bag. He was looking above him and Charles followed his gaze to a shrub that was somehow growing in the oak's high branches. The leaves were thin with round ends, and hidden throughout them were many small white blossoms and berries. They look quite pretty, thought Charles, but how was there a bush inside a tree?
He got his answer soon when the man began mumbling to himself as her lifted his outer robes over his head. Presumably to the kitten so that he could more easily climb the sturdy oak trunk and reach the bush.
"Mistletoe. Thank Aether that I found some so quickly this holy evening. It grows within this tree and off of its life force the way a child in a womb would. It is the herb of fertility and with it I will be able to help Ciri gain her own babe. Now to begin."
The man shifted his weight and spread his stance. Suddenly Charles could see deep scarring along the outer side of his upper left leg. A foreign symbol that sent shivers down his spine and lifted his fur. It was a grotesque alignment of sharp lines that formed as a spiralling square that had been slashed through as if to halt the spiral:
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No wonder the man could not walk properly if his flesh had been so purposely shredded. An ache began to form behind Charles' violet eyes the longer he stared at the raised white lines. But he was not able to tear his eyes away until there was an unexpected white flash in front of the man and lightning appeared from thin air.
Magic. Charles had just witnessed it for the first time in his life. With such control that only the clustered ends of the mistletoe branches broken by this energy were smoking as they fell towards the forest floor. But before they could reach the browning leaves, an invisible wind picked the herb up and blew it into the opening of the leather bag.
Magic. The nature defying mastery of the elements. It was terrifying, and it was too much for the small black kitten to handle.
He began to slowly back away, his tail still raised and his pelt still puffed up from fear. Only when he had backed up so much that he could barely distinguish his paws from the shadows he was hiding in, did her turn around and run.
His pupils were thin slits of horror, leaving him seeing so little in the forest's darkness and rising sliver of moon – just beginning to wax and only five days old. He stumbled over ancient roots and slid over rotting foliage as he raced as far as he could from... this.
Author's Note:
So I've put a little fact into this chapter, both about mistletoe and druids (what the robed man is)
Mistletoe does look how I've described it. It doesn't always have broad spiky leaves, and it was used by the druids as both a cure for poison (despite being a poison itself) and as a rudimentary fertility treatment. It also grows off other large trees such as redwoods, oaks and beeches as a parasite in their branches, feeding off the tree for nutrition.
Also, I tried to keep my druid mostly true to history. They were scholars, law keepers, teachers, healers as well as religious and cultural leaders in Celtic society. They often lived in forests and caves and considered the fifth day of the moon to be a holy day.
The biggest difference with my druid is that he can perform magic, and that he keeps everything in a written giant book. Druids considered oral knowledge and teachings to be sacred and forbid the writing of anything down, but my druids are also a form of wizard and as such they have grimoires (a personal magical journal that only a wizard and their apprentice can read).
Also, that my book is written roughly towards the end of the bronze age, a couple of hundred years before druids first showed up in the iron age. So there is the historical time difference as well. I've linked a YouTube video that explains more about druids than I can to this chapter. The book
Feel free to ask questions and leave comments, I love hearing from you guys.
