Chapter 5: Herne

"What's my name?"

The boy's tone was light, full of both hope and joy. Its volume and message remained clear. It bounced around the empty plane without a chance of diminishing. He looked at the beauty that stood before him, not with thankfulness or blind reverence, nor did he instantly fall for her myriad charms but with abundant curiosity, not just for her person, but for himself. He no longer shook nor wore the facade of a defiant hero from the folktales of old, he had dropped that act, or instead, he had already moved on. The big bad wolf and its crimson fangs no longer occupied the forefront of his mind. Only the current moment mattered to him. He was too occupied with the human woman who he stood before, his first sight of kin in this dreary infinite forest.

At the boy's word, Rowena could do little more than appear stunned. Her mind, which could be likened to a sharpened razor, felt blunt. She couldn't comprehend the child who stood gallantly in front of her; a broad smile stretched upon his overwhelmingly average face. Was he not thankful, not scared? His life had been in mortal danger not even seconds earlier, and yet, he appeared utterly unbothered. He was weird, strange, he projected an aura of overwhelming joy, yet something felt alien about it, about him. Though this distant aura soon removed itself from its presence, leaving him to be a true human.

He was barely clothed, with little more than what appeared to be a drenched piece of cloth stretched upon his waist. Its once beige colour stained a sickly green from the murky depths that had once attempted to embrace him. He must be cold. The fresh dawn air was chilly even to the stern woman. It nipped at her ivory skin in a futile attempt to stain it an abhorrent blue. Passing through her thick dress and eagle-feathered scarf, nature was an unforgiving mother. It did not care for its children. It was ruthless to all.

Immediately Rowena's hand that, once remained complacent by her side, began to move. Holding the weird acacia stick, she waved the object with a grace the boy could only wish to possess. He had seen what the item had done before. He had half expected another plume of fire to be expelled from its rounded tip, though he didn't know who the target of such an attack would be. He prayed it wouldn't be him. His body was ready to move at even the slightest hint of flame. Perhaps there were more creatures nearby, lurking in the underbrush, stalking him and waiting for his guard to drop. Maybe she was helping him like she had already done once before.

Yet what ejected from the acacia wand's tip was not bright orange sparks nor an unbearable sweltering heat, but rather a little twinkle of blue, like stars in the sky. The weird particles congregated in the air between him and the woman, fluttering with their ephemeral presence before they, too, began to move. With speed rivalling the furious fireball, they headed towards the still sizzling corpse of the assumed dead creature, whereupon they latched themselves onto its silver coat. For a second, their blue light dimmed, and the boy thought the weird spectral glimmer to be extinguished, though, within moments, it returned with a surge. The creature's corpse began to glow in the ominous, enchanting light of the countless stars that infested its body, as though its pelt itself had become little more than a lantern to shelter the weird aurora. It was bright, almost blindingly so, to the point where the boy had to squint to observe the strange phenomenon, though a smile still remained ever plastered upon his jubilant face.

The child observed the scene with bated breaths, as though he too was enchanted by the woman's miraculous feat of spellcraft for his body to even function. His hollow brown eyes reflected the enchanting spectral blue of the wolf's silver pelt, as though the moon reflected by a beautiful blue lake. It was then that something miraculous happened, for the luminous silver pelt of the wolf began to separate itself from its host, fur was peeled from flesh. Though the scene was not bloody nor grotesque even in the slightest, it was simply magical. The wolf's coat, now skinned from its body, hovered daintily in the air, still infested by the ominous blue light of the countless twinkling stars, where it began to change, cuts of the long fur fell gracefully against the ground, as though carved by an invisible knife, pieces kept falling, until all that remained was a small, silver furred coat and trousers, attire unbefitting of a woman her stature yet one that would perfectly drape the small child.

"Put this on. You must be cold?" Rowena sternly demanded as the two-piece set began to slowly hover towards the frozen child whose skin had taken on an odd shade of blue. The boy's shivering arms quickly reached towards the fur clothes and promptly pulled them into his embrace. They felt warm, heated even, a completely different sensation he had never felt before, spare for the sweltering, uncomfortable heat that radiated without care from the brilliant orange fireball. This felt strangely nice. The boy didn't want the heat to leave, yet he had to obey the woman's demand, so, without hesitation, he quickly pulled on the silver garments.

His movements were oddly clumsy, untrained even. It took him minutes to simply put his hands through the correct place in the silver coat. Still, in time he managed to figure it out, though his strange difficulty with the garment affirmed one idea that permeated in the mind of the observant mother, that being that the child who stood before her was genuinely dissociated from society, he was like a toddler. Still, he possessed both the body and maturity of a ten-year-old. Though his worldly knowledge correlated to that of an infant. Yet something still felt odd, that being the fact that he knew how to speak in perfect English, as though trained and acclimated to the world as a whole, he did not stutter earlier when he made his former demand that Rowena had so easily avoided, nor did he sound like a child stumbling over his words, his requests were clear and without question.

'This boy is strange….' Rowena inwardly commented upon seeing the boy's now draped appearance. He wore what Rowena would deem as clothes that could even accentuate the ruggedness from a rock. They exuded an aura of the wilderness, of bloodthirst and vengeance, yet on the boy, they appeared completely and utterly average. It was as though his common appearance weighed down the clothes and whatever he wore, cursing them to share the same fate he bore. His hollow brown eyes stared at the garments that shrouded his pale blue figure with wonder and bemusement. He wanted to dance, to run around, to do something to rid himself of the unabashed excitement that plagued his mortal form. He was just so happy to have received clothes. Yet what spilt forth from his lips were not words of thanks nor questions as to who the woman was or how she got here, or even what she did to create such silver drapes but rather the same question he posed earlier.

"What's my name?" The boy asked, his voice carrying with it all the excitement that plagued his smiling body. And once again, Rowena was stunned, she had performed magic, real magic, in front of the child, and he didn't care. He wasn't interested, or maybe he was, but he was just so dead set on this goal, this one unobtainable request that the woman tried to deny. He wanted a name, and what could Rowena do but relent. Her mind, which could be referred to as an infinite expanse of wisdom and curiosity, was at a loss as to what to call the boy, names held power, they attached someone to this realm, gave them something to lean against in trying times, an identity, and she was forced to label this child.

She had always had difficulty with names, it took her over a week to even ascertain an idea as to what to call her own beloved daughter, and at that time, it had been the sole thing she could think about, her entire world. Her eyes perused the infinite expanse of monochrome trees and repetitive shrubbery in hopes of coming up with an idea. She had met the boy here. This was where they had first heard tell of the unnamed child from their enchanted parchment. He had a connection with this forest, so his name should correlate with that.

Minutes passed in calm silence as the overly excited child continued to stare down the deliberating woman, that was until she began to stir. Her sharp, deep black eyes rose from their place amongst the shrubbery to stare down the boy who oozed an aura of unabashed childish innocence, though this time they held purpose. She had come up with an answer to the boy's plea.

"Herne, your name will be Herne. It means Descendant of the Horse Lord, a guardian of the forest, and from this moment forth, you too will hold that name, though whether you wish to carry with it that meaning is something up to you to decide."