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Prologue

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Our story begins, as many do, at the beginning. Not the beginning of the tale, though, a particular snapshot of a protagonist's life, briefly contextualised and neatly packaged. No. Our story begins at the beginning. Of it all. Of the myriad cycles of life, death and rebirth. At the source of the Mana Stream, that ethereal current of spiritual magic which carries upon it souls destined for birth, for death, or for the great grey vastness of the Void 'twixt both.

No soul, not mortal nor demimortal nor immortal, the Gods themselves, have ever been aloof of the Mana Stream. Like so many other scalar properties of nature, the Mana Stream was a complex fractal, a web binding together all souls. And it was upon the Mana Stream, which at certain points in the world flowed closer to the surface than at others, that the Old Gods made their presence known to the nebulous civilisations of mortal beings. The Gods, and their cohorts of other beings. Leprechauns, faeries, dryads, nymphs, sirens, mermaids and the like were in abundance in the great forests, inextricably woven into the fabric of the natural and spiritual world. And the mortal people, slowly dragging themselves upwards from a fearful, survivalist past to a prosperous and curious future, built temples and stone circles and great stepped pyramids to these mystical creatures, these spirits of the stone and the wood and the water and the land. For it was from the Earth that people came, and upon it which they depended, and a lack of reverence would inevitably lead to hardship.

The heathen Gods were well pleased with their position, riding the tumultuous currents of the Mana Stream and occasionally making their presences known to the ant-like mortals so far beneath, just often enough that they would continue to be worshipped - for they had discovered that through being worshipped, they could prolong their already incredible lives. And while the Gods were worshipped in abject reverence, the mystical creatures of the forests and the land and the rivers and oceans were worshipped too, although on a different level. Demigods, spirits and the like were consulted directly by mystics, witch doctors, shamans, priests and druids, mortal people who exhibited an unusual closeness and affinity for Mana. Smaller temples, subtler stone circles, and hidden, secret pyramids were built in the depths of the great forests, at the confluence of streams and at desert oases, at the points where the Mana Stream rose to the surface of the world and spilled forth over the land, those rare and mystical places where the hair on the back of one's neck stood on end; where there was a presence not quite of the living world, but nor distinct from it. Those places, the magical clearings, faerie glens, bubbling streams and within the canopies of the most ancient trees, those were the places where the spirits could be felt most keenly, where the right words and incantations could make them corporeal.

Sometimes they appeared of their own volition.

Such spirits were fickle. They appeared either to cause mischief or to guide mortal folk. It was always difficult to tell which was their ambition. But the moral arc of the universe has always been long, and balance has always been their ultimate, and collective imperative. The Gods kept their own agendas, mostly, just as everyday mortals kept theirs; the conduit between the two were the spirits. Among many, just one of these demimortal spirits would become our protagonist. Her name was Nahia. She had another name, but as with many of her ilk, it came with such power that even she had all but lost it to the passage of time. Nahia, in the language of those who dwelt in the great deserts, meant desire. Those who followed her, summoned her, left offerings at her temple and wore tiny carved likenesses of her around their necks revered Nahia as a protector, just as they revered her as a symbol of fertility and hedonistic sexuality. Hers was a dual purpose. A faerie dragon whose spiritual realm was the water of the streams that nourished the great forests, she was blessed with the power to float and soar amongst the clouds far above, or to flow between and within the trees, as well as physically walking amongst them.

Wings, and roots, although ethereal both.

Part 1

1078AD

For many centuries - Nahia barely counted how many. What do the ravages of time matter to one whose natural life will span millennia? - Nahia's followers came and went, just as she herself came and went from them. On rare occasions the fae spirit found herself summoned, only to appear before a single, ragged individual; still rarer, throngs of worshippers gathered in her glade, lavishing her with gifts and offerings. And Nahia herself flitted effortlessly between the ages upon the eddies and currents of the Mana Stream, watching great cities rise in the far east even as those local to her glade built ever more impressive monuments of stone. She often spent days at a time in mortal guise, walking in the grit and muck of ever-larger settlements, in a way the Gods never would. She grew to know the ways and lives of the mortal races, those who followed her and those who didn't. Occasionally she would cast favour upon her own flock, leaving gifts of gold or amber found in the forest streams on the doorsteps of her followers. She became known for it, although she made absolutely sure her followers knew that her gifts were made randomly, and came without conditions or biases.

And always, the forest remained. Nahia often reflected upon this, and she came to the belief that between herself and perhaps half a dozen other forest spirits, the vast swathe of verdant green they inhabited enjoyed a particular protection. The oak and elm and alder and birch grew strong, their roots deep and entwined beneath the mossy loam, their trunks dense with glowing fungi and glistening moss, home to countless millions of tiny, glowing sprites. And the people thrived. People of all races and creeds; the majestic cervine and equine races, stalwart bovine and caprinae. All were protected by the spirits of the forest, and offered reverence in return.

The Nohrmanes came so fast that Nahia, in the languid comfort of routine and her fascination with her own flock, barely noticed their arrival until they were at her figurative doorstep. Figures cloaked in steel and reeking of smoke and sweat, blood drenching their mailcoats and dripping from the tips of gleaming swords. These aggressive newcomers were a threat on a scale none of the spirits of the forest had ever seen before - and they came with their very own religion, and a single god. Nahia was unsure if this was a new god, or perhaps a new bid for power by one of the old pantheon - Loki perhaps, or even Dionysus. Whatever the nature of the god, though, the Nohrmanes were deadly in the extreme. Wolves in both name and nature, they swept across the land virtually overnight, leaving brutal order, servitude and death in their wake.

Nahia did not know precisely when her people's spirituality was suppressed by the new religion of the Nohrmane wolves, nor why. But after an unusual period of silence, the faerie dragon was overjoyed to feel once more the pull of being summoned to flesh; overjoyed enough not to notice the angular and harsh quality of the ritual as compared to normal. Lost for a moment in the joy of feeling blood coursing through her veins, the taste of the cool air and the weight of gravity settling on her shoulders like a cloak, Nahia failed to notice at first that these were not her usual summoners. Fire danced at the periphery of her vision; It was night. That alone was not unusual. But the iron chains binding the cervine druid at the feet of a dozen or more Nohrmane soldiers jarred Nahia to reality. His antlers, usually gilded in gold leaf and blue dye, had been sawn from his head, and he sobbed, just once, as the presence he considered a goddess appeared in corporeal form before him. Behind that group stood a hooded Nohrmane priest, and behind him, several dozen people Nahia recognised as her followers, her devout few who wore her symbol and guided those needing her particular qualities to her eyrie deep in the forest. Their hands were bound, and their faces wore expressions of sorrow and fear.

Nahia's long, expressive tail tightened around her diminutive physical form, and a small cloud of glittering sprites quickened their flight around her head. She steeled her nerves and leapt lightly down from the low branch of the ancient oak she had appeared on, to face her summoners. The leader of the Nohrmane wolves snarled something in his native tongue which Nahia could not understand, though his intent was clear. With his sword held to the druid's throat, little could be done to prevent what happened next. Nahia had no violence in her heart, although anger flashed in her eyes as she advanced on the threatening group of wolves. A few swatted and dodged as her sprites swarmed at them, although they quickly realised the tiny firefly-like creatures were no threat.

Shakily, reluctantly, prompted by the sword at his throat drawing blood, the kneeling stag began murmuring a dark incantation, sorrowful tears in his eyes as he gazed at his idol. Nahia's followers trembled behind, rocking from foot to foot in near unison while Nahia herself, captivated by the words of the incantation, glanced this way and that, as if seeking escape. It couldn't be...could it? Her feet felt leaden. Unable to move, she glared fierily at the Nohrmane priest, whose lips could just be seen moving beneath his hood.

"Nowhere to run, heathen," snarled the Nohrmane captain in gruff, broken Common. "Burn for eternity in the fires of hell!"

Vivid red spilled forth from the edge of his sword, a deft flick of the wolf's wrist opening the druid's throat as the stag completed the incantation. Blood soaked his tunic and the fur beneath, and the stag crumpled forward over a flat stone placed before him, upon which sat an idol carved in Nahia's likeness. A strangled cry left Nahia's throat as the druid's blood splattered across the idol, and pain lanced through her body, forcing her to her knees, her naked body trembling in the flickering light of torches. A pain unlike any she had ever felt before, it felt as if she were physically torn in twain. But as quickly as it came, the pain passed, and she gasped deeply, filling her lungs with air just as the druid's last breath left his body. She was bound. Trapped in her flesh with chains of gravity and oxygen. A blood ritual.

She was mortal.

"May your taint never again corrupt the sinful souls of your people," came the raspy, thin voice of the Nohrmane priest, the hooded figure, his voice carrying an odd, heavy accent. Turning to Nahia's horrified followers, he raised his voice. "The heathen gods become mortal! Now you must see, that the only truth, the only light and the only salvation is ours. Kneel, my brothers and sisters, and repent!"

More than half of the gathered followers sank to their knees, and those who didn't quickly found themselves with steel at their throats. Nahia forced herself to look upward. Forced air into her lungs, and forced the words from her throat. "Kneel. Kneel, my brethren. Submit t'this bastard's paltry whim, and his false faith, but hold me forever in ye hearts. It be not worth the blood spilt in defiance. I be mortal. I cannae help ye."

And Nahia wept, her claws digging deep into the blood-soaked moss beneath her even as she felt the incomparable agony of her loss, her connection to the spirit world severed, torn from her very soul. Throwing back her head she keened to the canopy above, as the Nohrmanes bullied and whipped her chained followers out of her presence, leaving her alone with the body of the cervine druid.

***

She did not know for how long she remained there, frozen in place exactly where she had fallen. Daylight filtered through the bright green canopy of the ancient oak behind her, and gave way once again to darkness, and still she remained, until her mortal body began to give her a new kind of pain, one she had never experienced before. A deep, gnawing emptiness within her that was so similar to the pain in her soul that at first she didn't recognise the difference. Slowly, shakily, she rose to her feet, steadying herself against the trunk of the great oak. Her breath lingered in the cool night air, and her skin rose in gooseflesh. Bombarded with new sensations as if newborn, Nahia began to walk. She knew there was a settlement nearby, but exactly how far, or how long it would take to reach, she had no idea. All she could do was keep moving.

Cadeyrn jolted awake with a snort. Rolling onto his back, he flared his equine nostrils and filled his lungs with cold air, before throwing his blanket aside and rising to his hooves. The young donkey wasn't sure what had woken him, until he stepped outside to relieve himself, and came face to face with... with her.

He supposed he must've looked a proper dolt, his long ears pricked sharply forward, mouth open, and his tunic hiked up around his hips. Instinctively his hand moved to the tiny pewter pendant - all he could afford - that hung from a leather thong around his neck. He'd never seen her in person, but this... this could be no one else. She seemed so small, so frail, outside of her woodland eyrie, as scruffy and smeared with mud and soil as she was. Long minutes passed, with the faerie dragon and the donkey simply staring at each other, until Cadeyrn finally broke the silence with her name, whispered on nervous lips.

"Nahia?"

She trembled, and her eyes fell upon the tiny pendant around the donkey's neck. Stepping forward, close to him, she cupped it in a filthy hand, and looked up into his face as she recognised her likeness, seeking words she never thought she'd use.

"Help me..."

Cadeyrn's ears flagged, and, dumbfounded, he ushered Nahia inside his tiny cottage. It was but a single room, with a low thatched roof and a rough, packed-earth floor, but it was warmer than outside and cosy enough.

"I... forgive me, m'lady, I thought... I thought the Nohrmanes..." Cadeyrn stammered, his muzzle burning with shame at his assumption of the worst.

"Had done what? Killed me?" she murmured, her eyes flashing in the darkness. "Nay, t'would be too kind a punishment. I...I has been blind, so blind... I watched th'bastards come and did nothing..."

"And what would ye have done? Ye be not a goddess o'war, Nahia."

"I be no goddess at all any longer. I be mortal, aye. This is so alien t'me, ye ken? I cannae tell what tae think or do or... or anything," Nahia spoke slowly, her voice husky and dry, as yet lacking the presence of mind or self-consciousness to care about her nudity, or its effect on her unexpected host.

Cadeyrn, for his part, did his best to keep his gaze and his thoughts pure - but it was difficult. Nahia was, after all, a spirit of fertility and sexuality, and as such his thoughts of her were often less than pure. Finally, as Nahia shivered, Cadeyrn came to his senses and moved forward, placing a warm cloak around her shoulders. Her eyes lifted to meet his, and the donkey's heart fluttered in his chest. She was impossibly beautiful, even dirty and bereft as she was, and his muzzle and ears flushed a deep pink once again as he felt her tail gently curl around his fetlocks. His was the first gesture of kindness anyone had shown Nahia since she was bound in her flesh, and she would never forget.

"H-how long has it been since... since it happened?" Cadeyrn murmured, standing mere inches from the demigoddess whose likeness he worshipped. He could feel her body heat.

Nahia paused, visibly thinking. Finally, she gestured to the east, moving her arm in an arc to the west, then again, and halfway again. Another shiver wracked her body, even within the cloak, and her knees threatened to give out beneath her. Cadeyrn was there in a heartbeat, his strong arms surrounding her and gently guiding her to a wooden chair beside the tiny brazier in the centre of his cottage. "Ye gods, it's been that long, and you've had naught to eat or drink?"

"I... I have ne'er needed to, before..." she whispered faintly.

Cadeyrn grunted, and lit a candle from the brazier, from which he then lit several more, illuminating his home and Nahia within it. Her hair gleamed coppery-auburn by the flickering light, and her skin, although gaunt and streaked with dirt, shone like gold in the sunshine to Cadeyrn's gaze. Each time his eyes fell upon her, it seemed as if time stopped, and he had to physically wrench himself away to focus on even the simplest of tasks - finding her bread and water, for starters.

Nahia accepted the food he offered her graciously, and for the first time in her existence, she ate for sustenance, drank for hydration, and felt full and satisfied in ways she never had before. As she ate, Cadeyrn fetched a bucket of water from the well outside and boiled it, bit by bit, in an iron kettle inside his brazier. He repeated this several more times, and by the time he was done, he'd arranged a large cauldron of water that was at least warm, for Nahia to wash herself with.

She simply stared, though, at her reflection in the surface of the water, and finally, the floodgates opened. Nahia wept for her loss, for her pain, for the loss of her followers and for all the hardships brought upon them by the arrival of the Nohrmanes. This town had been lucky. It was of military significance, and so the way of life of most of the locals had been preserved, until now. Cadeyrn did his best to console her, but what does one say to a fallen goddess? So instead he washed her, lifting her like a child into the cauldron and tenderly scrubbing at her skin and hair with a handful of rags, until the water was murky and brown, and Nahia was clean.

As the night wore on, the candles guttered one by one, and the cottage gradually slipped into darkness once again. Barely a word more was exchanged between Nahia and Cadeyrn, each of them humbled and awed by the presence of the other. Cadeyrn, having been raised to be a gentleman above all else, offered Nahia his bed and began arranging a blanket on the floor beside it for himself. She simply watched him at first, the vague outline of his body in the darkness, and just as Cadeyrn closed his eyes to at least attempt another hour or two of sleep before the dawn, he felt a soft brush of a tail against his leg once again, and a small, effeminate hand on his chest, beckoning him upward. Surely, this must be a dream, he caught himself thinking. No man could be this fortuitous, nor deserve such a gift from a goddess. But take her gifts he did, the tenderness and adoration he poured upon her in the flesh just the same as when he worshipped her in the deep forest.

The dawn found them still entwined in each other's arms, with Nahia's head pillowed upon her benefactor's chest, the cloak he had offered her in the depths of the night draped haphazardly across them both, along with Cadeyrn's blanket. And she had never felt warmer, nor more protected than in that first moment of wakefulness. She moved in his arms, and felt his grip tighten momentarily before releasing as he rose to consciousness.

"Hello," she murmured, a little smile on her lips.

*****

In the days, months that followed, Nahia remained with Cadeyrn, although the donkey was an awkward host at best and downright self-deprecating at worst. He came into his own during their frequent love-making, the darkness and raw physicality of such endeavours proving to be a far more comfortable means of communication for him. It was, at its basest level, a language they both spoke equally fluently; one of very few things about this world of flesh and food that Nahia truly understood. She felt for all the world like a leaf in a storm, buffeted and beaten by the fury of the wind instead of coasting upon it effortlessly like an eagle, as she was more used to doing. And there was so much missing... there was so much she didn't know, but as a full-grown adult she could hardly walk out into the world with such naivete and not expect to be taken advantage of. If nothing else, Nohrmane soldiers still routinely patrolled the towns and villages all along this coastline, and while she saw them as no threat to her now, she was unsure how they might react to seeing her strutting around, bold as brass.

So it was in the pursuit of understanding that Nahia took to the woods during her days, while Cadeyrn worked the fields on the outskirts of a town she soon learned was named Stillwater. Nahia felt a sense of intense peace and relief amongst the tall trees that carpeted the rolling hills east and north of the town, a peace that was never more prominent than when she sank into the fast, cold water of the numerous streams and brooks that danced between the moss-covered rocks and trees of the verdant glades between the hills. This was her element. But it troubled her that what had seemed like unequivocal truth only a short time previous, now felt like nothing more than a distant memory - a memory of a memory, even. Nahia tried her hardest, but couldn't remember what it felt like to soar. She could clearly remember seeing the angular, stone edifices of Babylon and Aegypt from far above, but they were fleeting memories - a snapshot, where one would rather recall the whole experience. Such things stood out in her memory for their oddity, above all else. The chains of flesh that bound her were becoming lighter - or she was becoming accustomed to them.

Nahia was close to accepting her fate when he came to her.

On one of her regular sojourns into the forest, after walking into town to trade Cadeyrn's vegetables and pottery for coin, blankets, bread and clothing, she happened to catch a glimpse of a stag through the trees. Pure white and glowing with an ethereal light that did not come from the sun, she felt her chest tighten, her breath frozen in her throat momentarily. The images she was seeing frantically sought a memory to attach themselves to, without immediate success. So she followed him. The stag's form was fluid - one moment he was walking on all four hooves, cropping grass and chewing with the mindless gaze of an animal; the next he walked upright, like her, and seemed to gesture to her to follow him deeper into the forest.

And follow she did, until finally, as the sun was sinking into the treeline behind her, the last flash of rich golden light played momentarily upon Caernunnos, the white, three-eyed stag, beneath the soul-touching beauty of an oak ancient beyond the ken of any mortal - a child of Yggdrasil, the tree of life. Nahia sank to her knees, for she could react in no other way to such a thing. She had only witnessed one other such tree in her long years of ethereal life, a direct descendant of the soul who had struck the first chord of the Great Song countless millennia hence. The tree was vast, and constantly shifting. It defied focus, one's eye would simply slip right by it if one was unaware of what to look for. But to Nahia, it represented a gateway; a conduit between the physical and ethereal. Memories came flooding back into her mind like a barrage of arrows, their deadly song in the air heralding their arrival doing little to soften the blows.

Caernunnos, her male counterpart for so many years and a demigod in his own right, stepped forward and rested a huge, glowing hand on her shoulder. "Nahia. We have missed you. Come back," his voice reverberated through her body.

"I cannae return, ye ken this. Ye saw what they did," she replied, turning her head up to him.

"I long to ride the Mana with you again, little one. Come, we shall go. Nothing these Nohrmanes have done could stop us," he said with an arrogant snort, a cloud of sprites briefly scattering from their lazy circles around his antlers. He lowered his hand and lifted her to her feet, and led her step by step towards the mighty bole of the oak.

As she drew closer to it, a buzz began in her ears, a discordant hum that grew louder and harsher until, barely six inches from the tree's bark, Nahia cried out and pulled away from Caernunnos. He paused, his body melding and morphing with that of the child of Yggdrasil such that their outlines were indistinct. He was hovering on the threshold of physicality, one hoof either side of the doorway between the mortal and the Mana. But a field of impenetrable force stopped Nahia in her tracks, as if she suddenly was wading through treacle. She could not touch the oak, let alone pass through it into the Mana Stream.

"Something is wrong," he stated, flatly.

"Aye, ye great dolt, it be as I told ye! Th'bastard Nohrmanes cursed me, I ken not how!"

Caernunnos stepped back into the physical, and laid a hand on Nahia's breast, the other on her forehead, and closed his eyes - his two physical eyes, at least. She could feel the gaze of his spirit on hers just as strongly as ever, shining like a beacon from the third eye set into his forehead. In those brief moments, she basked in the warmth of the Mana flowing around her, her fingers grasping at it fruitlessly as if seeking to draw it around her like Cadeyrn's cloak. But after a few moments, even the great stag withdrew from her, confusion and sorrow radiating from him. The sprites around his antlers descended, their haphazard flight slow and melancholy.

"You are not whole, Nahia. Your soul... never have I seen such a thing. Your soul has been torn asunder, you possess barely half of it. That is why you cannot pass the gateway."

Nahia stared, dumbfounded.

"Half a soul!? How? How do I yet live?"

"I cannot tell, little one. But I underestimated the ritual. It is alien to us, and strong indeed. Without the other half of your soul, you will remain bound to mortal cycles. That is its purpose," Caernunnos explained; his voice remained flat and emotionless, but there was pain in his eyes as they reopened, an acute look of loss and sorrow.

"Ye cannae help?"

"I know not where to find the rest of you, little one. But I shall wait. I believe you shall find it. Someday."

And with that, Caernunnos was gone, his sprites lingering in the physical for a few brief moments, settling around Nahia's shoulders before they too, departed. The great oak's light dimmed with the setting sun, until Nahia knelt in mossy loam beneath an oak that looked just the same as any other around it, save for a subtle crackle of energy that sent a tingle up her spine.

Rising to her feet, Nahia turned, angrily cuffing tears from her cheeks as she began her long, lonely trek back to the town she supposed she would call home for the foreseeable future.

Half a soul.

***

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The years passed with frightening swiftness. Following her encounter with Caernunnos, Nahia had rallied somewhat, seeking her flock of followers and defiantly leading them into the deep forest to the great oak. Each of the forest spirits had a gateway they preferred to travel through, and while her own was nothing more than a mundane tree these days, that of Caernunnos retained some of its power, even to her mortal senses. Nahia styled herself as a priestess, a devoted disciple of the great stag, although most of their gatherings involved her spinning greatly elaborated tales of her former life. She became a talented storyteller, an entertainer as much as a keeper of the faith. Caernunnos appeared to her on occasion, and laughed uproariously upon hearing of her new direction in life. He gifted her a set of glowing antlers, shed from his own physical form and blessed by a minor cross-section of gods. They were magnets for the tiny, glittering sprites that illuminated the darkest corners of the great forest, so that whenever she wore them, the sprites would come and swarm around her head. They brought Nahia such joy, and such gazes of longing and adoration from those to whom she spoke, that she almost felt as though the binding ritual had not occurred, at times.

The children among her flock often accosted her in the streets of Stillwater, demanding she re-tell her epics of gods and spirits, of glittering, impossibly distant cities filled with strange wonders and vast, baking deserts cut through with ribbons of green. It all seemed so fantastical, so embellished, that even when the occasional Nohrmane patrol caught wind of her activity, they dismissed it as simple entertainment. But Nahia was guided by her heart - often her tales were the sharing of memories long past, rediscovered through the very process of telling them. And thus, memories kept alive and burned into what remained of her soul.

Nahia and Cadeyrn remained lovers for several years after the binding ritual. But a relationship between a goddess - even a fallen one - and a mere mortal was never bound to last. Fickle and fey Nahia remained, true to her nature, and she was prone to long disappearances. At one point she returned to Cadeyrn's cottage to find it occupied not only by the donkey, but a young jenny as well. Nahia had been a little taken aback at first, until Cadeyrn cornered her and explained that she'd been gone almost a whole year, and he'd assumed she was never to return. That Nahia had appeared in the midst of Cadeyrn demonstrating his sexual prowess only made it the more embarrassing for the donkey. As for what the young jenny - whom she learned was named Catlinne - had thought, Nahia could only chuckle in hindsight, imagining the awkwardness of Cadeyrn's explanation of her reappearance. Nahia had departed briefly, ostensibly to allow Cadeyrn and Catlinne the privacy she'd interrupted, but she returned the following morning with a fresh loaf of bread, some wild onions and mushrooms she'd found and a flagon of ale.

Catlinne's name was Nohrmane in origin, unlike Cadeyrn's. Such was the depth and penetration of the Nohrmane occupation that after barely fifteen years, the people were even abandoning the names of their forebears. Nahia had to admit it suited her though - Catlinne told the faerie dragon that her name meant 'purity.' She was young, thirteen or fourteen summers, although the love she had for Cadeyrn was as strong and as genuine as any Nahia had ever seen in her long life. And after all, Cadeyrn himself was barely twenty - only just old enough himself to remember the Nohrmane's first arrival.

Nahia broke the bread as Cadeyrn cooked an impromptu breakfast, adding in some eggs from his hens and a few cloves of garlic. Before long the cottage smelt less like himself and Catlinne, and more like breakfast, for which Catlinne in particular was silently grateful. Throughout Nahia's brief stay, Catlinne's expressive ears never stopped moving, and every time Nahia glanced across at her, the jenny would hurriedly look away and blush beneath her almost pure-white pelt.

"If ye be int'rested t'know, ye need only ask, Catlinne. Be not shy. Ye most assuredly aren't, wi'Cadeyrn..." Nahia murmured to her with a cheeky grin in one of the few moments they were alone together.

Catlinne snorted quietly and stared at her hooves for a moment, her hands grasping at the hem of her linen tunic and tugging it downward habitually to straighten it. "Aye, it be nothin, truly. H-he merely talks about ye a lot... and ye be so pretty, I know not if I can be... enough for him."

"About me?" Nahia gave a throaty chuckle, and took one of Catlinne's hands in her own. "Sweetheart, he be lucky tae have ye, truly. He be a good bit gentler'n most men, an' he'll listen t'ye, too. I seen th'way he makes eyes at ye, he loves ye truer than ye know."

Catlinne perked her ears sharply forward as Nahia spoke, in a way that melted the fae dragon's heart with how adorably innocent it seemed. And truly, given the kinds of men that were around, Catlinne had done very well for herself to find and fall in love with Cadeyrn.

In the days that followed, Nahia invited both Cadeyrn and his new lover into the deep forest, alone. The trio walked for some hours into the deepest tracts of the verdant green, until the path all but petered out. By that time, night was falling, and Cadeyrn was beginning to cast worried glances back to Nahia, wondering what she was up to, and where she was taking them. Cadeyrn himself had never been present at any of Nahia's storytelling sessions beneath Caernunnos' oak.

Instead of assuring him, Nahia gave the donkey a slightly unnerving grin, and reached into the grain sack she'd been carrying slung across her shoulder. The glow of Caernunnos' antlers cast a dim, eerie light across Nahia's face as she lifted them free. Almost immediately, a cloud of greenish, flickering sprites swarmed around her head, flying lazy, haphazard circles around the antler headpiece like moths around a flame. Catlinne took several steps backward and tripped over, falling to her rump in the mossy loam, and Cadeyrn gasped and instinctively fell to his knees.

"Nahia! Be ye... back? Ascended?" he murmured.

Nahia snorted, and reached for Catlinne's hand, hoisting the girl to her feet and nudging her forward through the trees. "Nay, ye dolt! On yer hooves, Cadeyrn, look. We arrive!"

Nahia stepped forward, and parted a dense screen of undergrowth, to reveal something that without her, Cadeyrn and Catlinne would likely have walked right past without noticing. The two donkeys stepped forward, and Catlinne instinctively pressed up against Cadeyrn's side. He took her hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly, although he was as dumbfounded as she at the sight before them. A vast oak, greater than any they'd ever seen, towered in a clearing of its own creation. Its massive, gnarled trunk split into a multitude of branches, which arced overhead so far that they formed a protective dome, within which the air was crisp, sweet and earthy. The ground was thick with a carpet of mosses, lichens and tiny wildflowers, and as Nahia skipped around beneath the oak, Cadeyrn was certain he was seeing something supernatural.

"Come, come, be not afraid!" Nahia paused, standing beneath the oak with sprites trailing behind and around her. In the dim twilight, she looked as much the goddess as she had ever been, in Cadeyrn's eyes.

"T-to what end are we here, Nahia?" Cadeyrn stammered, clearing his throat as his voice hitched.

Nahia perched on a flat rock that moments before, Cadeyrn could've sworn was not there. It was as though his vision was swimming, blurring at the edges... the lines between reality and dreaming were indistinct and vague. And the closer he and Catlinne drew to the mighty oak, the stronger the sensation became, until it felt for all the world like they were in a dream. Nahia maintained eye contact with Catlinne as she and Cadeyrn approached, seemingly reassuring the girl. And then she was on her feet, standing before them with one each of their hands in either of her own.

The sprites, so very many of them, surrounded all three of them, and Cadeyrn and Catlinne's mouths hung open in wonder and awe.

"Be this... be this real? Nahia?" Catlinne finally managed to whisper, her voice barely audible even in the stillness of the forest.

"Aye, lass, it be real. This be the Mana portal o'Caernunnos, the white stag. It be his magic, nay mine own, ye can feel. I be as mortal as ye, but my soul retains but a sliver o'power still. Enough tae marry ye, bind ye t'gether by th'old ways. If ye be wantin' it, that is."

Cadeyrn and Catlinne exchanged a glance. They both knew that in society's eyes they should have married already, but this... this! This was something altogether rarer, stronger, more potent than the staid ceremony and exchange of vows held in a chapel in town. Cadeyrn's heart raced.

"Please, me love... let us be wed, here and now! There be power in this, I can feel it!" Cadeyrn whispered excitedly, gazing deeply into Catlinne's eyes.

"Aye, power indeed. It be your decision tae make, Catlinne, as per th'old ways," Nahia murmured, her voice quiet but authoritative.

Catlinne faltered, but both Cadeyrn's and Nahia's hands tightened to her own, and Nahia smiled reassuringly at the young jenny, mouthing the words 'he's a good'un' to her. Catlinne's eyes lifted again to Cadeyrn's, and she nodded, just once, which elicited an excited bray from Cadeyrn, and a whoop of joy from Nahia. Letting go of their hands, Nahia furnished each of them with a staff fashioned from the very oak beneath which they stood. Catlinne gasped as her hand surrounded the oak staff, tiny crackles of power tingling her palm. Nahia instructed the pair to hold their staves together, hands clasped around one another's, and to never let their gaze be broken as they held eye contact, while she began an elaborate ritual of dance and prayer that wove the magic of the Mana Stream, through Caernunnos' antlers and the sprites of the forest, around Cadeyrn and Catlinne. Binding their souls together, in a union that would echo throughout the ages. An echo of the Great Song.

***

Cadeyrn awoke with a start, sitting bolt-upright in his bed. Beside him, Catlinne slept still, although the sudden movement had caused her to surface briefly. It wasn't quite dawn yet; the very earliest of the birds were beginning their morning chorus, and the sky was just the faintest of blues on the eastern horizon. The dream had been so _real._She'd really been there. The donkey stretched, and, naked as a babe, stepped out the back of his cottage to relieve himself. His mind struggled to bring back the details of his dream...the forest. A great oak. Sprites, magic, a marriage... Cadeyrn gasped.

He rushed back inside, to see Catlinne sitting up on the edge of their bed, the young jenny combing out her mane and forelock. She stifled a chuckle at Cadeyrn's shocked appearance, his nudity and his typical lack of grace.

"Catlinne! Oh me love, I had such a dream! T'was the pair of us, an' Nahia, in th'deep forest! She married us, Catlinne! Made us one!" he stammered excitably, skittering forward and dropping to his knees before her, his hands on her hips.

Catlinne gave him a soft, knowing little smile, and turned her head to the corner of the cottage.

There, in the corner, stood two oaken staves, entwined and twisted impossibly tight together, until they looked for all the world like one single staff.

"T'was no dream, husband."

Cadeyrn and Catlinne never saw Nahia again. But she saw them. Kept watch over them from a respectful distance, and saw them grow old together, raise children, and then grandchildren. Nahia herself had barely aged by the time Cadeyrn had passed on, and she began to wonder just how long a mortal life for her would be. Had the Nohrmanes also cursed her with unnaturally long life, such that she could never love another and not know that heartbreak would surely follow?

And always she searched, though she knew not what for. Her soul, of course - but never did she have any clue where it might be found.