Past, Present and Future

Lucius opened the cooler that was next to his chair, pulled a bottle of beer, opened it and took a long and slow sip. He wasn’t usually much of a drinker, but today was different. Every year, on December 5th, memories of days long gone came rushing and the weight of his past threatened his sanity and sometimes, he thought, his very existence.

For some, that day was Krampusnacht, for other it was Sinterklaas, for most it didn’t mean much. In this land, it was the day the Foresters came into the woods and made their offering to the spirits of the forest, to give thanks for the previous year harvest and healthy cattle and ask for protection over their territory, New Forest, for the coming year.

Despite the cold air, he only wore a thin t-shirt, an old faded pair of jeans, and was barefoot. The bottle of beer loosely held in one hand, he settled on his wooden chair, pulled his head back and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. The fire he sat by emphasized his muscular and lean body, the features of his face, all sharp angles. A man seemingly in his late thirties or early forties with sandy hair, he bore a skin the testament of a life mostly spent outdoors. As one of the seasonal rangers working in New Forest and a nature photographer, he spent part of the year living here and the rest travelling whatever wilderness was left in the world.

He had built his cabin, his home, at the turn of the 20th century. Made pretty much exclusively of woods, he had used ancient techniques, avoiding screws or nails, using trees he had cut himself, after making an offering to the earth and planting a new tree for every one cut, like he was taught when he was just a boy. His home was located far from any road and populated area, in the middle of the meadow he had lived in for almost two thousand years.

His first bottle empty, he placed it in a bucket on the other side of his chair, and pulled another one from the cooler, taking several gulps.

He had been born by a forest on the hills of Rome, some 3,000 years ago, give or take a century or two, one of the first of his father’s children, one of the spirits to carry on his name and his powers. Faunus had been one of the old gods, the protector of the forest, of the plains and the fields as well as a trickster. As the Roman empire grew, his father’s territory expanded, his worshippers spread and more of his children were needed to accompany them during their travels, provide protection or punishment as the need might be. His kingdom had been vast once upon a time, covering 5 million square kilometres at its largest, and spreading from Britain, all around the Mediterranean Sea and as far as modern-day Russia, Iran, Egypt and even part of Saudi Arabia.

As one of the first born, Lucius had stayed close to his father for centuries, until the Roman headed west, and he asked to go and wander the world. He had celebrated his father one last time, on February 13th of the year 41 of this era, on the island in the Tiber before leaving with Aulus Plautius to conquer Britain.

Some of his father’s people had settled in what is now New Forest, and he had stayed in the area ever since, this land becoming the centre of his territory and his power. What were now called the Foresters had been worshipping his father for thousands of years, under one name or another, merging Greek, Roman, Celtic, Anglo-Saxons, Viking beliefs, even wiccans for the past hundred year or so. Throughout the centuries, their prayers and magic had become the source of Lucius own power, independent from his father, ensuring his own survival when the old gods faded away.

He wasn’t quite immortal, in that he was aging albeit at a much slower pace than humans, and one day he would die. He had been Lucius, Luc, Luke, Lucian. He had been a farmer, a soldier, a teacher, a blacksmith and so many more lives. He had seen empires rise and fall, had seen war and peace, love and hate, persecution and enlightenment. Above everything else, he had loved and lost so many people in the past three millennia, wives, children, lovers, friends and countless enemies.

He remembered so vividly his brother Agapetus, the most rambunctious of them all. He had fallen asleep by a small lake a couple of centuries before the common era, after a rowdy celebration with humans, a passing artist had seen him, and sat to sketch him over and over, fascinated. He then proceeded to turn his drawing into a marble statue. The Barberini Faun had survived through the ages, and it was now in display in the Glyptothek in Munich, Germany. He had gone and visited in 1830, when the museum opened. It had been a bittersweet day, where he remembered his friend and their adventures as youth in antique Rome, but also got crushed by the weight of all he had lost, his world long gone. Lucius was one of the last fauns in the world. He only knew of one other like him, living deep in the Amazonian Forest, even though he had no idea how his brother had ended up down there!

He heard Agapetus had been executed shortly after the emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the religion of the empire resulting in a systematic annihilation of the old gods and spirits.

His father had been a god and he knew in his heart he wasn’t dead. Gods didn’t die, at least not in the way human conceive death anyway. Faunus existed somewhere else, in a different plane of existence, where he had slowly faded away as his worshippers dwindled starting in the 4th century AD. He didn’t know whether he will ever see his father again, or any of his siblings. His youth was directly related to the number of worshippers, and those were slowly disappearing. One day there will be none left, and he would vanish, like his father and brethren before him.

He opened his eyes and stared at the fire in front of him, pulling his third bottle of beer from the cooler. He felt tears coming down his cheeks.

The problem with near immortality is that humans, with their short lives, became smaller in a way. Through the centuries, he had watched men and women he had loved die in the blink of an eye, every death breaking his heart further. There had been many days where he had considered dying, but there had always been something holding him here. That thread was getting thinner and thinner though.

He had been married five times, each so special, each holding a piece of his heart, and yet, all their faces had slowly faded away, lost to time. His last wife died in 1687, and he had sworn on her grave he would never marry again.

His kind struggled to father children and despite his long life he only had three offsprings, all of them with his third wife, Margaret, a white witch. He didn’t know why he couldn’t have children with humans, he guessed that his own magic wasn’t enough for procreation, and that he needed another magical being to create life, or at least this was the best explanation he could come up with. His beloved daughter Agnes, his first born, had died at the age of 20 of pneumonia, his son Geoffrey had passed shortly after, at barely 19, fighting alongside Harold Godwinson at the battle of Hasting in 1066. His youngest child, Benedict, died few years later, when the new King took ownership of New Forest in 1079 to make it his own hunting ground, enforcing a forest law, preventing the use of the forest by the local community, whether it be to graze their livestock, hunt and forage for food or even build fences. Benedict had inherited some powers from his parents and had grown into a protector of the land and its people. He was killed trying to oppose the King’s men, shot with a dozen arrows. Lucius had been driven mad with grief for so long after his son’s death, killing or punishing any stranger daring to set foot on his land. He had used the magic inherited from his father to wreak havoc amongst invaders, inflicting terrible nightmares on them night after night. The ones who didn’t die of fear were driven to madness, until his part of the forest was said to be haunted, and stayed that way for over a century.

Following the cholera outbreak, he watched, powerless, his last lover die after two agonising days, back in 1853. Thomas had been the gentlest soul he had ever met, a man of such wisdom, inner peace and such love. He had been wise beyond his years. If he had lived when Lucius was young, he would have been called a philosopher. He loved nature and had never hated anybody or anything in his life. Lucius had almost followed him to the grave.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, he hadn’t been able to let his grief stand in the way of protecting his people. He had worked endlessly trying to find herbs and remedies to sooth suffering and purify water, burning the bodies to avoid further infection. The outbreak claimed the life of 23,000 people in Great Britain alone, and casualties north of a million worldwide between 1846 and 1860. It had been a dreadful period, following which he had sworn that he would never, ever, again get mixed up with the lives of humans.

He had held his promise for close to two hundred years, living in the midst of people, without getting involved with their lives. It was a lonely existence in a way, but he was at least able to survive.  

That was until the day he had run into Moira Mackenzie, a woman with hair the colour of fire and a temper to go with it.

She had moved from Scotland barely six months ago, and despite her petite and delicate frame, the face of an angel dotted with thousands of freckles, a skin so pale it reminded him of milk, she was the most infuriating, maddening woman he had ever met, and pig headed with that!

She managed to do what very few people had succeeded in a thousand years: rile him up! All she had to do was look at him and start talking with this matter-of-fact tone, disagreeing with him on anything and everything, and his temper ignited like a wildfire.

Despite all his best efforts, she had gotten under his skin. She inhabited his dreams, he could smell her perfume in the places she had been to, all over the village, in parts of the woods and meadows. He was a faun after all, and while not as sexually minded as his cousins the satyrs, waking up from vivid dreams did not help with his vow of celibacy and distancing.

He had spent six months trying to stay away, and working damn hard at avoiding her, which only made things worse of course. He was craving that woman in a way he hadn’t felt in centuries, not since he was a young faun in Rome.

He finally lost the battle last night, when he met her in the woods, a couple of miles from his house, while she was out gathering herbs by the moonlight. Their polite conversation turned into an argument in under a minute. She had pushed his buttons, he had lost his temper, and without knowing quite how that happened, had found himself pressed against her, her back to a tree, kissing her wildly. She had returned his kiss just as passionately. They had barely avoided going at it on the forest floor here and there, but he had managed to gather just enough sense to stop and step away, leaving them both breathing heavily and looking bewildered. That also got him a rather phenomenal slap that left him seeing stars and swaying on his feet, while she stomped away and disappeared into the night.

After the events he had decided that after tonight’s celebration, he needed to leave the forest for few months, go roam the world and forget about her.

He had spent the day cutting wood and meditating, trying to work out his frustration and his hunger with only moderate success. He had finally managed to calm his mind enough, to prepare his fire, bury his own offering to the Earth in the four cardinal points around his property, and get ready to harvest the power he needed to survive.

He discarded his empty bottle, opened his cooler and pulled another one. Alcohol, dance, music, were all part of the night celebrations and giving was as important as receiving in this ceremony.

He could feel the people gathering in the woodlands all around New Forest, all the fires were lit, some had started playing music, eating and drinking, the rest would follow soon. He could feel the humming through the earth, his bare feet firmly set in the ground now so that he could feed on power. Both his body and his property would absorb the magic and store it for the coming year. It looked like this year would be a great harvest for him.

Suddenly, his nostrils flared. He sat straight on his chair as his eyes shot open and stared ahead at the old path that led back to the village, one that not many people knew about. Here she was, staring back at him and he wasn’t sure whether she was going to approach and punch him, or turn around and leave. She sure had that stubborn and angry look on right now, he thought as he watched her take a deep breath and marched in his direction, stopping on the other side of the fire, just few feet away.

He stayed where he was but put the bottle down by the side of his chair. No need to give her a weapon to hit him with he thought. He suddenly noticed that power was gathering around her. She was not fully human he suddenly realised, a descendant of some magical creatures or other. How had he missed that?

He couldn’t stop staring at her, she was magnificent, and realised he was fresh out of willpower. He stood up and slowly walked around the fire until he stood in front of her.

“Hello, Moira,” he said all but purring.

“You,” she said between her teeth.

He tilted his head just a little, he could feel her magic around him, sinking in the ground of his property, merging with his own. Now, this was unexpected he thought, not only had he missed the fact she was carrying magic, but that said power was akin to his. This was all quite extraordinary.

“Yes,” he answered with a nonchalant smile.

She actually growled at him, which only made him laugh.

“You are,” she started poking his chest with a finger, “the most annoying, irritating, infuriating man I have ever met!”

He took a step forward, standing toe to toe with her, cupped her face and slowly bent his head down, the kiss gentle, asking permission as he breathed her in. She slowly relaxed, putting her hands on his waist.

“You are still annoying,” she says in a raspy voice when he stopped, but she was the one initiating the next kiss, slipping her hands under his t-shirt and flattening them on his belly.

As magic danced all around them, saturating the air, he slowly took them down to the blankets and the cushions he had set up by the fire.

Maybe he had just enough heart left for one more love after all.