Hung the Moon

Kissed By The Wild And Loved By Lightning

Wensley had taken point since his silver bough's shine illuminated their path. And besides, this was his realm now, Adam thought as he followed behind. A weird and unfamiliar feeling made his chest tighten and his eyes sting. Jealousy. He was jealous of Wensley and Pepper. Would he be given a chance to be a champion, to put things right?

He emerged at his friend's backs into a land that was so wholly Other it blinded him for a moment. He stumbled into the sunlight. Further thoughts left his head like scattered seeds.

"Doesn't time get all wonky here?" Brian asked, his voice hushed as it usually was when he was feeling true hesitance. "Like we stay here a day but back on earth it's five hundred years?"

"I can keep that from happening," Wensley said, firm. Adam studied his friend and had to admit he believed that. Wensley was different and not because of anything superficial like clothes. It went deeper than that, an aura that made Adam believe Wensley could do just as he said.

Adam blinked, his vision adjusting. A vast meadow lay before them, filled with riotous flowers (not all of which he could name). Huge white hares dotted the surface like snowfalls, gorging themselves on all the bounty the land had to offer. The forest to the right, made of ash, oak, and hawthorn, housed wolves; Adam could see them in flashes of silver as they padded by. The branches were thick with ravens and crows, staring down at them with impassive stiched-button eyes.

And people. People everywhere, and every one of them engaged in joyful activity. Here, a hunter fletched a new batch of arrows, his plaited red hair a fitting crown. He sat on the porch of his house, wrapped in furs, and everything about how he held himself communicated relaxation. The house itself was made entirely of feathers, thatched together like straw but resplendent like the sky. The woman he was talking to wore an elaborately embroidered gown in midnight-blue, and she was smiling as if she hadn't a care in all the world.

He wandered without rhyme or reason, responding to the dreamy atmosphere. He knew Wensley would look out for him, and he was so enchanted he couldn't have stood still a moment longer. As he walked, a massive oak tree became more apparent. Red-barred birds warbled and cried from their perches there, something he couldn't define as music so unusual it was.

"The souls of the dead," an unknown voice said. He turned to see a massive man dressed in bear and wolf furs over boiled leather armor. A pig that came up to the man's waist trundled along beside him, and a cured ham hock peeked out from the pack on the man's hip. "Some choose to take these forms and bring joy through their songs, or to tell our many stories."

"An Dagda," Adam breathed. He didn't know where the name had come from, except to say that it was all but written on the man's face. "Why the oak?"

"Why, we are the People of the Oak," Dagda said, turning to look at the tree in question. The pressure of his gaze shifting made Adam gasp at how heavy it had truly been. "We come from the sacred trees. Every new child is a leaf on those boughs."

They fell into a strange silence. Adam, aware he was in the presence of a god, felt a keen tension he'd never quite felt before. Eventually, though, the words had stewed long enough: "Dagda, why not me? Will anyone come for me?"

"Will you get someone or another's patronage? I don't see why you wouldn't, young king. The real question is, do you want to take the offer?"

At one time Adam wouldn't have hesitated to answer in the affirmative. But now, the faces of his terrified friends swam before his eyes like a nauseating heatwave.

"I don't know," he said, toeing at the ground. "I...had a lot of power once. And I did really bad things with it. I don't know if it's a good idea to do it all over again."