{"sf1_id":579234,"sf2_id":"WelQlJ5m","title":"The Guide","author":"firefox_b","words":1038,"posted_at":"2013-08-21T02:07:00.000Z","tags":["Hybrid","Male","Mythological Creature","Stag"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/579234-the-guide","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/WelQlJ5m","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/d7/c4/d7c42d97-7a7e-4751-8387-8fd7f22f6e0b","description":"A hiker lost in the woods encounters a mythological hybrid celebrated in Celtic, pagan, and wiccan traditions...","content":"While hiking in the forest in Maine one day, remembering the words of Robert Frost, I took the road less traveled, and it did indeed make all the difference...for I became hopelessly lost! I plodded along mile after mile, cursing the beloved New England poet, and searching for familiar landmarks, only to find none.\u0026nbsp; Slapping at mosquitoes and nursing a painful blister on my heel, I whipped.out my cell phone to call for help only to find that I had no reception that deep in the woods, the tall trees around me blocking the signal; my GPS app wasn't working either; just peachy!  \n  \nFatigued and growing desperate, I was straining my eyes trying to find a clearing or path to a higher elevation when something appeared to be taking form out of the jumble of greens and browns some distance off to the side of me.\u0026nbsp; I blinked my eyes hard, thinking it some trick of the light, but the sensation of a form moving slightly stayed with me.   \n  \n\"Great!,\" I muttered to myself, \"Things just keep getting better and better!\"\u0026nbsp; I retreated a bit and sought cover, for I had no weapon with me other than a Swiss army knife.\u0026nbsp; I thought myself unlikely to fend off much of anything with its small blade, but still sought its reassuring if impotent presence in my pocket as I withdrew from whatever it was ahead.\n\n\u0026nbsp;My pulse pounding in my head, I tried as I retreated to keep a watchful eye on whatever it was that I had dimly seen a few hundred yards away, but found that I could no longer see whatever animal or thing had drawn my attention and raised my alarm.\u0026nbsp; Somehow, my inability to fix its location increased my level of fear even more, for some kind of primal inner sense alerted me to the feeling that what I had seen was not gone, but was actually...  \n  \n..._with me!\u0026nbsp;_ I gasped as I beheld the form of the creature which had easily and silently appeared just slightly behind me off to one side.\u0026nbsp; The being had the appearance of a well-muscled man naked to the waist, around which he was clothed with some kind of rough garment which appeared to be made of animal hide; his legs, like the rest of him, were bare and deeply tanned.\u0026nbsp; The strange man-thing regarded me with black eyes so wide and dark that I could see no white in them at all; they seemed full of intelligence, and somehow despite the extraordinary circumstances he exerted a calming influence on me.\u0026nbsp; Most remarkable, however, was the fact that the stranger's head was crowned with antlers!\u0026nbsp; They poked through his abundant hair, and amplified the smallest movement of his head.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp;In spite of the strangeness of his appearance, I perceived no menace from my visitor, but only an overwhelming sense of curiosity.  \n  \nI could contain myself no longer,\u0026nbsp; \"Who...what are you?,\"\u0026nbsp; I asked with a sense of wonder and astonishment.  \n\nThe man-thing regarded me silently for a moment, the faintest trace of a recognizable smile passing briefly over his human features.\u0026nbsp; \"I am known by many names, but prefer to be called Cernunnos,\" replied the being at last.\u0026nbsp; \"As for what I am, \" he continued, \"I am the God of the forest, I am the lord of animals. \"  \n  \nThe remarkable being then paused, his thoughts interrupted.\u0026nbsp; A look of displeasure crossed his features; he perceived something which I did not.\u0026nbsp; \"An outsider is nearby,\" he declared solemnly.\u0026nbsp; \"He brings chaos and destruction!\"\u0026nbsp; Moments later, a round from a hunter's rifle struck the stag man in the back, the bullet exiting through his chest in a bloody spray. Appearing more annoyed than wounded,\u0026nbsp; Cernunnos wheeled about and stepped in the direction from which the hunter had fired several hundred yards away.\n\n\u0026nbsp;Incredulous that his prey was moving towards him, the hunter again shouldered his rifle.\u0026nbsp; \"I don't know what you are,\" the hunter declared, \"but some newspaper is gonna pay a lot of money for you,\" he announced to the approaching hybrid, squeezing his trigger finger and sending another round through the stag-man's chest, this one exploding through his back.\u0026nbsp; The antlered man roared, although whether in pain or anger I could not tell; in either case, he quickened his advance.\u0026nbsp; With the gap between the two narrowing, the hunter raised his rifle again, but Cernunnos was upon him.\u0026nbsp; He snatched the rifle away from the hunter, and flung it a great distance away.  \n  \n\u0026nbsp; \"I...have had...enough...of _you!_,\" Cernunnos declared to the hunter before lowering his head, and running the man through with his antlers.\u0026nbsp; The hunter crumpled to the ground, succumbing almost immediately to multiple penetrating injuries.\u0026nbsp; The tips of his antlers now red with blood, the great stag-man walked back to my presence.\u0026nbsp; I feared for his survival, however, as his body bore massive gunshot injuries from the hunter.\u0026nbsp; Cernunnos must have seen the horror in my eyes, for he looked at me, and reassured me:  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp;\"Fear not!\u0026nbsp; For I am the Lord of the hunt, and of the hunted!,\" he said.\u0026nbsp; With that, the antlered one placed both of his palms upon the trunk of a tree, and I could see his wounds, though mortal, begin to heal themselves at an accelerated pace right before my eyes!  \n  \n\"Who are you, _Wolverine?_,\" I marveled.   \n  \n\"I know not him of whom you speak, although truly wolverines are well known to me,\" answered Cernunnos.\u0026nbsp; \"But to answer your unspoken questions, I am the receiver of the dead, and the giver of rest.\u0026nbsp; I am also the God of cleansing, and of rebirth.\u0026nbsp; This hunter will return, although in a revised and improved edition.\u0026nbsp; Trouble yourself not with him.\u0026nbsp; But I believe that you have needs, young traveler...are you lost, and seeking directions out of this good forest?\"   \n  \nStrangely, I had no further desire to leave the woods, for sometimes it is in the journey itself that we find our destination.\u0026nbsp; I found myself strangely drawn to this stag man, and it was later that same day that I would begin to understand why Cernunnos was also considered the God of male sexuality, and the celebration of it...  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp;  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n\n"}