LYKO: Under the Birch

Chapter 1: Celtic Godess of Horses

Hello my dear friends.
Before entering the world of antique gods and magic, I want to say that English is not my first language. I apologize for my grammatical mistakes.
I promise you will enjoy the story.

The wind blew strongly. This was the last one of anything close to divine. After this moment of tree-ripping from the ground, scattering fears to the creatures; the god Odin abandoned the forest. But he placed his soul in a palace as a symbol of his pre-existence. A Palace of Odin.

On the day Odin disappeared, creatures felt lost. Some of them gathered in front of the Palace of Odin, crying. The sky started to get dark early that summer night. The children who were playing games and singing summer songs stopped. They were hugging their parents who were begging for mercy from Odin. The animals were crying. Except for the wolves, they were nowhere to be seen.

At that very moment of the blowing of the wind, Macha gave birth to her twins: Mare and Maryina. She died shortly after. Cerridwen took the babies on her lap. The wind blew for goodbye again: She met with the last touch of the gods. Cerridwen whispered in one of the babies' ear:

"You are our only chance. A chance Odin left to us with his great mercy." 

She watched their mother, Macha, disappearing from where she laid. Bran ap Llyr came crackling branches on the ground to that secret place of dead trees. He looked at the brown soil with crushed dead thorns.

"She's gone."

"Yes, she is."

Bran came closer to the babies.

"Which one?"

"You mean..."

"Which one to kill?" He said, with his stormy eyes, staring directly at the witch's. His curly brown hair was more intermingled than ever, almost like a wookie. His mouth was ajar and he was breathing fast through that opening. The fierce on his body felt like revenge. 

The truth is, it was actually a sacrifice.

Bran ap Llyr was known as Bendigeidfran too, which means Holy Raven. He was one of the gods cursed by Odin thousands of years ago. He was the god of prophecy and sovereignty. But after painful years and humiliation, he turned into someone callous. He was still, ready for fighting for the salvation of the forest. Cerridwen gave one of the babies to the big arms of Bran. She stood up. She left the area of dead trees. She heard Bran's voice for the last time. 

"Be careful." 

He was saying. Then, she heard the rustling of the sea. Maryina was floating on the sea, with a knife on her chest. Maryina didn't even cry when the knife entered her body. Noticing this, a teardrop fell from Cerridwen's eyes. She, as an old goddess of prophecy, decided something again. 

"Maryina, you didn't die in vain. When I save the forest... I will save the sea, the trees, and your teardrops. And I will save your mother, Goddess of Horses. Goodbye, friend of the sea."

The witch couldn't dare to look at her again. She went into the forest. A nymph helped the baby to disappear by pushing the baby to the horizon and loked at Bran with meaningful eyes. The sun was going down slowly on that evening of July- the month of the wolves. There was such tension from the birches with red ribbons which survive the winter. Other trees, were still in a deep sleep. 

What happens inside the forest, must have remained a secret. Cerridwen was walking in the silent part of the forest. 

"Summers and springs never to come to this part." She was saying silently. "Dark creatures to curse the sun every day. And they are to open paths for no one but for the wolves."

Cerridwen, with an invisible baby in her arms, didn't want to use her broom with the fear of the dark birds which are known to be very curious and gossipper. She didn't want them to notice. She would use the broom when she arrived at the area of dead trees several kilometers later. She would drop the baby into the lap of the huge pigeon, Froterix which would carry the baby to another realm. The rest of it was up to fate. 

If things went wrong, the forest would be full of dead trees. As a result, all the creatures would live the rest of their lives in a nightmare.

She saw a pitch-black dwarf. Because she knew dwarves were gossippers too, she turned herself into an animal form. What was he doing? He didn't belong here. She didn't even remember when was the last time she saw a dwarf. As she went closer, she began to hear the dwarf speak. She hid behind a tree. She heard the dwarf saying: 

"Yes, I am sure it was a nymph."

"The baby was silent, probably dead. Otherwise, why do you think that nymph would carry it from the shore?"

She bonded her hairy coyote ear to the tree, in shock. She tried to look at who he was talking to. And there it was, she saw the shining eyes of the raven, loyal friend of the wolves. The last creatures who should find out about the baby. Suddenly she felt anxious, the plan went wrong in the beginning. It was going to be such a shame.

Then, something extraordinary happened. Another raven came bawling, it attacked the other raven which was talking to the dwarf. It pecked the raven to death. Then, it attacked the dwarf who was watching them laughing. It pecked his eyes and then bit him from his carotid. It started to bleed very hard. Dwarf fell onto the ground with cries. Raven stopped at that moment and turned to the tree that Cerridwen was hiding behind. She stopped looking at it but she knew the raven saw her. But it didn't come closer to her, it bawled one more time, it took the dead raven to his beak and left for the south.

Cerridwen turned into her human form, took the baby in her arms, and continued to walk. She knew the raven, for a long time.