Sigrun Forrester d7 -fin-

s i g r u n .


"Fight the weakness, your heart's still beating
We are, we are, we are savages"

I am a child of the forest, cloaked in gossamer spiderweb and the dusk before the dawn. I am the chirp of crickets on a cool summers night. The emerald hue of dandelion leaf gleams in my eyes and the sting of the nettle dances on my fingertips. There is peppermint on my breath, can you taste it on my tongue? Elderberry juice runs through my veins, my sweat bitter as lemon balm.

We are one and one are we. We are the hands and feet and gnashing teeth. We are the voices crying out in dead languages to a living pantheon. Falling prostrate at the feet of divinity. We are the sacred markings and ancient traditions, the potions of bark and leaf and stem burning our throats as we beg for more, gasping in ecstasy.

We are the arrows carved in secret, the essence of the hare and the doe and ewe baptizing our blades. These are my hunting grounds, guarded by the trees. They speak, for they have witnessed much. But the unfaithful have forgotten how to hear their voices. I hear them as I flit from trunk to bush and back I am a shadow, living in the shadow of—

The old ones.

Listen.

Can you hear them? They are the wind rustling the leaves of grandfather oak. The whisper of a stream as it burbles over rock and root. They are reflected in the dewdrops that cling to the forest in the morning, they shine in the spaces between the stars at night. They hunger, they crave. We feed them. They have been here long before us and they will persist long after civilization is returned to the dust from whence it sprung.

Honor them.

Or suffer the consequences.

        Listen.

Hear the baying of the hounds. It begins. Can you see him? The spirit of the hunt, his head crowned with the antlers of the mighty stag. And so I make offerings of blood and bone and fur. I pray he passes us by but I rejoice in his presence. Sound the horns my brothers and sisters, join the hunt. There is a stranger in the forest who has wandered beyond the eyes of mortal men.

                            Listen

As I walk barefoot through the sodden, moss-covered ground in the heart of the old land I am part of it. Shrouded by mist, surrounded by the green. The trees know. They reject those not born of our blood and bile. A path followed in is not so easily followed out. The forest moves. It protects its own. I see you, stranger. You do not belong here. My blade will drink deep tonight and the forest will claim you.

Nourish the roots, as only meat can do.

                            LISTEN.

We are the wolves, agile and fleet footed. A pack that moves on two legs instead of four. We are the foxes, wily and scheming, dragging the unsuspecting out their burrows and into the night. We are the bears, protective and fierce, our strength in our backs, in our faith, in each other. We are the ravens, watching the world with eldritch eyes of blood-red, gliding silently on ebony wings. We are the Forresters and that means freedom.

listenlistenlistenlistenlistenlistenlistenlistenlistenlisten

l i s t e n                                         l i s t e n 

Lo, a pale moon rises this night.

Are you hunter or hunted?

Sing for me, stranger, sing a song of ending.