The moonlight cut silver lines through endlessly thickened fog, only to create a bleak grey glow on the surface of the pond’s unbroken, glassy surface. The ghostly wisps of unseasonal fog that entrenched the landscape that night muted out nearly all color from the forest, and rendered visibility into a functional minimum. Even the astute nocturnal creatures of the forest were resigned to their dens and nests, lest the imagined threats and beasts of the fog manifest their selves from nightmares into reality. It was the right conditions needed for just a bit of magic.

Three bulls stood just beyond the pond’s shore, speaking among one another quietly to avoid gaining the attention of any nearby denizens of the forest. Two of the three were of particularly large build, with massive horns, and extra sets of domineering crimson eyes, while the third was of medium build and seemed to somehow attract the moon’s pale light to himself by simply standing there, resembling a blue ghost in the fog.

“I doubt we’ll have another chance like this any time soon. If any of the ingredients are wrong, or if our timing is wrong we’ll need to wait until next autumn for another chance for nature’s events to align properly again.”
“Now is not the time to start concerning yourself about ingredients. You divined their need yourself, and your experience is unquestionable. Have a little more confidence in yourself, necromancer.”
”Right, right. Call it caster’s jitters.”

As the more vocal, monotonous duo spoke among one another, they had begun a process in using a special collection of herbs and crushed runes, intermixed with dried potentially hallucinogenic substances the pale blue bull opted out of identifying, to carefully construct a series of symbols across the ground; a Veve, depicting the voodoo lwa ‘Gran Bwa’, at the center of the Celtic tree of life. As the two made quick work of creating the final groundwork for their evident spell, the third of their party stood on guard, scarcely minding the conversation and occasionally casting a vague glare in the general direction of the twin gods’ statues uphill from the pond. The hot crimson glow of his eyes burned particularly bright that night, as though several hundred decades had been shed from the elder bull’s life in recent days.

In what felt like an eternity, few moments passed. The pressure to remain unseen by the populace yet swift in action might have been intense for most deer, but in this particular instance at least one of the workers in question didn’t exactly boast the widest emotional range, if any, to express anxiety with, while the other genuinely did have experience working under pressure to lean on. Soon enough, the symbols were completed, and the necromancer made quick work of illuminating a series of previously cloaked candles scattered across the hillside and cascading down to the pond’s bank.

“How are we for time?”

“On track. Have your father wait in the circle. Things are going to start getting loud, but I doubt anyone will interfere once everything begins. ”

The blue bull looks up at the sky, squinting against the thick fog to perceive the exact positioning of the moon. He sighs slowly, pinning his ears back. All they needed now was the right breath of wind, and the right light of the moon to cut across the hillside to activate the necromancer’s spell. He couldn’t count on nature’s timing, but his own strength would more than suffice. The silver light across the fog seemed to brighten for just a moment as a faint breeze rustles the budding leaves of nearby trees. All the while, the necromancer redirects the elder bull’s attention away from the twin gods’ statues in the distance to the completed symbols across the ground and leads him to his place in the center. With every step, the chains on the elder bull’s forelocks rattle, and thin drops of blood seep off his forelocks and drip into the ground. Where blood touches iconography, the symbol begins to preemptively glow and take on a deep red hue which gradually begins to shift into a vibrant green.

“Begin your incantation. This will work.”

The necromancer nods once, somewhat hesitating at first. He steps out of the veve and closes each set of eyes, tossing his head back before speaking boldly.

“Et ego invocabo Gran Bwa, spiritus silvam, spiritus terrae, agnita in mundo-“


As the necromancer began to speak, the blue bull distanced himself from the larger duo by several meters. He stood in complete silence and tranquility for a moment before suddenly going through an abrupt physical transformation. The thin x shaped scar along his muzzle became wider and much more jagged, like a fresh wound. His eyes, previously so cold and unemotional, became lost behind a violent yellow glow, his teeth became sharpened and wolf-like, and the previously absent horns from his head instantly formed through hostile blue bursts of light, having a white base leading into six distinct branches ending with circular crowns with seven-pointed star shaped tines. Blue flames began to climb up the bull’s limbs and along his back, and in a moment of defiant power he rose on his hind legs and let out a domineering roar.

”MOON SHINE DOWN."

With a sudden slamming down on his forelegs and swinging of his massive horns, a powerful force of wind cut through the fog, allowing the moonlight to fall across the hillside as needed. The veve began to glow in its entirety as the light cut through the fog proper, and spread green light further out into the symbol of the Celtic tree of life. As the hillside began to fill with vivid green light, the substance used to create the symbol began to lift off the ground and float in the air, intermixed with the dew of the fog and the light of triggered spiritual magic.

”-ad conteram cum execratione maledicta congessit et vox est nee inops dicendi restituet."


The glow had begun to capture the attention of those within some form of eyeshot within the premises, but no-one yet dared to approach. The light did not create a sense of dread in particular, though it wasn’t a peaceful sense that was created either. At best, it felt like it should be watched, like a firework, not engaged with without some prior insight. Soon the light began to fade, a little at a time.
Green orbs of magical light had begun to settle in the elder bulls’ thick neck fur, and more importantly find its way into the exposed flesh of his rotted throat and exposed vocal chords. The green light began to pulsate as it slowly faded in vividness. The rotten, endlessly decaying flesh of the old bulls throat had been consumed entirely by light, and in its place, new flesh and fur, muscle and vocal chords alike, were constructed by the light upon its final darkening.

The light of the candles immediately died after the magic’s light, as if snuffed out by an unnoticed wind. Tentatively, the blue stag returned to the larger bulls, flashing a sharp toothed grin up to them.

”I trust this is not where this ride ends. I shall remain close at hand, Archelius.”

At that, the nobody took a short yet dramatic bow before seeming to disappear completely into the darkness around the trio, presumably to tend to another concern, or perhaps to simply run off some berserker energy. Archelius breathes a sign of relief before looking to his father.

”How are you feeling, father?”

For a moment, the elder bull seems unsure on what to say. For the past several months, he had been almost entirely mute due to his vocal decay. Now, for the first time in perhaps centuries, he didn’t feel blood and mucus trapped in what remained in his throat, nor the discomfort of air constantly keeping his vocal chords dry. He wasn’t even sure how his own voice would sound if he chose to speak again, and yet…

“I feel… like we need to hunt down some dinner for the family before heading home.”

A powerful laugh escapes the old demon’s throat, deep and worthy of the ancient creature. With a grin, father and son stride into the fog to hunt. As they walk away, unnerved onlookers glance at one another from behind the twin god statues.