The Boy in the Woods

It was the chilliest night of the year when the lady of the woods, Queen Raviah, was summoned to the thorny clearing of her woods by the wolves’ pack leader and by a rising, persistent wailing. Though wolves had no names for themselves as humans did, the fae queen, recognized the Alpha by his ash-grey fur. She had come with her familiar, Maev, a fox sprite. Maev addressed the Alpha, who was quite displeased. It growled in the direction of the source of the wailing. A bundle of red blankets and a nearly equally red-faced infant. Three other wolves circled the child, but they distanced themselves when the fae queen arrived. 

Someone had left a human baby in the Briar Thorn Woods. It was bad enough that the kingdom had constructed its iron gates to keep the fae folks out. Raviah was still in her youth, a child when the Iron Gates had been erected and had personally seen the relationship between Briar Thorn and the Kingdom deteriorate, but this was truly insulting. Hardly the tolerance she expected.  

“Oh, Great Seasons,” Maev exhaled, sounding aggrieved, “My lady, quick, we must soothe it.”

“You may, if it pleases you,” Raviah replied, grimacing, “That child is not ours.”

The fox walked over to the baby, letting his fur brush his body. He brushed his face with his tail.

The Alpha growled again, conversing with the Queen and her familiar. It did not want the child in its den, if not for sustenance, but feared the violation of the treaty between the Kingdom and the Woods, between the humans and the fae. 

“Fear not.” Raviah said, decisively, “If anyone’s violated the treaty, it is one of them. The Thorns are not a place to abandon their undesired offspring. Maev, could you get that child to stop wailing?”

“I’m afraid I cannot, my lady.” Maev replied, “It is a ‘he’ by my inspection. He must be used to human comfort.”

“I find that lacking.” Raviah watched the child. His cries had lessened with Maev’s touch. It hiccupped.  

“No, my lady, you see, human males have-” 

“He was left to die, Maev. How much human comfort could he know?” 

“Mammals comfort their young, your ladyship. You are the best suited to soothe him.” Maev perked up, like he’d given a compliment. Raviah sighed. She did most closely resemble a human, a tall human woman, which wasn’t precisely the norm for their kind. She had faun horns, dark green vines for hair. Her skin was tree bark brown and at night, her green eyes glowed. 

“Very well.” Raviah said with tightening lips. Maev growled in Wolf, dismissing the Alpha. She knelt to pick up the baby boy in his red cloth. He did wear a white lacey fabric underneath it. The cloth unexpectedly had a slight weighted feel. “These look costly.” Raviah observed, “Not a peasant, perhaps. Oh, wait- Maev,”

She had unfolded the blanket to better inspect the baby, but that had exposed a dirty yellow insignia embroidered into the blanket.

“do you see that yellow patch-”

“I do, your Grace. It is the royal crest.” Maev answered.

“You are someone’s royal bastard, then,” Raviah concluded.

The boy curled himself to her chest, like a flower to a sun. He was reasonably clothed, but not for the cold. He let out a hiccup every now and then, seemingly tired of crying. 

“How peculiar and yet predictable from your kind,” Raviah said, before begrudgingly patting his back. 

“But, what to do with him, your Majesty,” Maev intercepted, “You cannot give him to the Wolves Pack.”

“Can’t I, Maev? I am the Word of Briar Thorn,” Raviah said, 

“He is an innocent child,”

“I am aware, you fox. If I decreed it, the Wolves would raise him as their own and then eat him when I say the word.”

“And would you? It’s not in the Wolf’s nature to turn on its pack or to raise humans for that matter.”

“What I will do is not allow for Briar Thorn to be used as a disposal method for inconvenient bastard children. He shall not perish tonight.” 

“You are most gracious, your ladyship.”

“I am most wise.” Raviah asserted, looking down at the child. He was falling asleep in her arms. Raviah was used to all manner of frightened children, but not one that did the opposite of shrinking away from her. “You are right about the wolves, of course.”

“Then, we shall take him in the Mother Tree for the night.” Maev said happily, walking in the direction to their home.

“Only out of necessity,” Raviah said dryly.

The Mother Tree was the heart of the Woods, where two trees had been intertwined as saplings long ago. It had the appearance of a significantly large tree cut in half, but the crevice in the middle was the entrance to the Mother Tree, where the ruling lady or lord of Briar Thorn resided in. When Raviah and Maev brought the royal bastard home, Din, a knight of the Queen, had been standing guard. 

Like Raviah, Din was descended from tree nymphs, but his line had been connected to cherry blossoms, a foreign tree, making him spry where other knights were of hardier built. He grew blossoms instead of green leaves on his body. 

“My Lady, and her Fox Sprite,” Din greeted them, with a fist to his heart and titled his head down. It was customary to bow to the Queen, but Raviah excused Din from such a requirement. He’d come to the forest with a limp because a human attacked him with an iron axe. Since then, he’d been granted asylum and knighthood. A more faithful knight could not be found in Raviah’s Guard. 

“What brought you to the Wolf’s Den?” Din asked carefully, as if he did not expect an answer. Then his gaze narrowed when he recognized his Queen held a human infant. 

“Humans.” Raviah exhaled, and Din nodded,

“We found this human cub. He was left to the wolves like an offering. Our Queen has given him mercy.” Maev explained,

“I have only pardoned him from dying tonight.” Raviah replied, looking at the infant. “We shall see what we do with him, but at best, his survival spites the humans that left him.”

“I know the best spot in the Mother Tree for him to sleep.” Maev offered, 

“Very well.” Raviah addressed her fox and then her knight, “Din, I need you and the others to search the perimeter of the Wolf Den for evidence of the human’s interference.”

“Certainly, my Queen.” Din did his version of the bow. 

Maev’s napping spot was a bundle of roots inside the Mother Tree that could serve as a crib for the baby boy. He slept all night but once dawn broke, so did his cries. Raviah tried to soothe him to little avail. Maev found flowers that produced milk for the boy to drink, which calmed him down. An hour or two later, Maev smelled that his blankets had been soiled. Fortunately, Raviah knew a charm to replenish them and sent Maev to find leaves to be fashioned into diapers. Weeks went by, and when Maev finally grew tired of being sent out on errands, Raviah exclaimed, “It was your idea to take him home. You cannot complain that it isn’t to your liking.”

“Pardon me, my lady,” Maev replied with a knowing glint in his eye to his queen. Raviah wouldn’t say she was fond of the boy, but wasn’t he a creature in his care, albeit a human one? Like so many things in the forest, he was her responsibility. 

Din and his knights found a few footprints that belonged to a human, whomever had left the baby to die. Shortly thereafter, they got intel about the upcoming coronation of soon to be king, Prince Darwin, who’d recently taken a new bride, Princess Monique. 

“He must be the baby’s true father.” Din informed his queen. “Shall I arrange for the boy to be delivered at his doorstep, my lady?”

“An honorable proposal, Din, but isn’t it more likely that Darwin would still take his would-be son’s life?”

“You are the most merciful of all, your Grace.”

“Din, I know you don’t care for him, and I understand-”

“I’d never harm him, your Grace,” 

“But you have thought about it. I’ve seen the way you look at him in his crib.”

“Yes, but I would not wish to harm him until he can properly defend himself. I will not break my honor to satisfy my weary heart.”

“Good, because I want you to teach him, Din,” Raviah said.

“Pardon me, have you decided the boy’s fate already?” Din’s face loomed with surprise. 

“Yes, if he is in fact, the first-born son of our soon to be king, he could be king one day as well, and a king raised by the fae could finally broker peace between my Woods and the Kingdom.” 

That was, in fact, her deepest wish. Raviah had once played with human children when she was a faeling and had seen too much bloodshed and sorrow in her years. Din, himself, was an example. It was a wise plan, she knew, but it still weighed on her, because of the boy. Even now as she conversed with her knight out by the Mother Tree, she kept feeling the pull to check on him as he slept in his root-made crib. Maev was curled up nearby. 

“I shall teach him to be the best knight among us, for you, my Queen.”

“I don’t want him to be the best, Din.” Raviah said. That growing wave of emotion over the boy pulling at her, like he will one day as a toddler. She sighed. “I want him to be one of us.”