Hooked [Complete]

69. The Dark Divine

Author's Note: Here it is, folks, the conclusion of Cernunnos and Cerridwen's love story. I really tried to do them justice. I felt they deserved to have their love expressed in every aspect they can experience. I hope you enjoy.

Song for this Chapter: Better Love by Hozier. Perfect.

Nothing was like he thought it would be, when Cernunnos finally came to. The place where he existed was dark, and though some godly instinct he possessed told him the place was vast, he felt...confined, like in a small space. Worst of all, there was no scent. No scent at all, but himself and Cerridwen's mortal form.

At some point he realized the feeling of confinement was from Cerridwen's body. She lay across his chest, lifeless and heavy. The horror filled him freshly, and Cernunnos found himself swearing and wriggling madly from underneath her, and then swearing loudly at himself for his own cowardice. Cerridwen's form was nothing to fear. Her body was precious to him and he must somehow protect it while he searched for her soul...

And in that moment when he found himself wishing, above anything else, for a way to seek her in this dark vast place where he was nearly blind, a glow appeared before him in the distance, that was not unlike moonlight, but somehow hazier, more diffuse. He sat still—for he found he was sitting now, having pulled Cerridwen's body to him—and at first he only looked down upon her. She was shadowed and still in the dim light. He thought perhaps her soul might find him and suddenly fill her body with life again. He waited.

This did not happen, though he waited a very long time. A day? A week? A year? A very long time. Long enough for his own immortal body to suffer thirst and hunger and fatigue. He simply ignored the needs of his mortal form, because he could. He could not say how long it took to give up this hope that finding Cerridwen would be so simple. But if there was no scent at all of her soul, if he could not hunt her, he was indifferent to all other things, even his own suffering. In all this time he waited, the distant light did not waver or move. It was the only thing that seemed to exist here, in this place, other than him and his goddess' remains. He began to study the light, more for a distraction from his physical discomfort than anything else.

The light glimmered pale and white in the distance; it did not appear to be growing larger or closer. He reached out with his instinct and knew it was not the magic his heir and his priestess had made. Their Divine Rites must be long over now, and they had left this dark heaven and returned their mortal plane. He sensed no malice from the glow in the distance. On the contrary, the more he studied it, the more it became ...interesting. And finally, he began to feel an allure to study it more closely. Slowly, he rose with Cerridwen's body in his arms, and he walked toward the pale shine.

After a few steps, he faltered, tripping over something that felt, unbelievably, like a tree root. A few more steps and he felt the resistance of branches against his legs. It was then he realized, this place was a forest. No—that wasn't right—this place was becoming a forest. Each step he took towards that light was building the landscape around him. The smells of green and dew and earth were rising into his consciousness, and they had not been there before.

But now, with each step, the scents grew stronger and more familiar. These were not the smells of the forest he had come to love—not the Appalachians with their pine and mountain laurel and skunk smells. No, this was forest as he had not smelled it in thousands of years—the old stands of Europe that no longer existed. He could smell the ancient hemlock and beech trees, and the pungent stink of lichen and molds and even creatures that had disappeared long ago.

There was something else strange about this forest. He knew it. He knew every tree, every bush, every dip in the terrain, every fallen log. He knew this forest because he was this forest. It was the ancient forest from which he had been engendered.