Prompt: "Narnia has a different god/gods/pantheon"
Pairings: Gen
Content warnings: N/A
Chapter 45: The Hunt is On
The Narnia they entered was all ice and snow, but now they feel the world awaken with each unfurling leaf and each flower exploding into bloom, the trees so thick in places they have to climb up through the massive, entangled branches like bridges.
The camp is up here, in the boughs-high up, the squirrel husband and wife tell them, because The Hunter does not need the steady earth to wage his war.
"Who is he?" they ask, but the squirrels only call him "The Hunter, The Horned One, The Green Man, but you Sons and Daughters may call him Cernunnos" and when they ask "is he good?" they are quiet a long time before saying "He is Everything-he is beyond such things."
And the Pevensies know now what they meant when they see him at last-they see nothing at first, but then a face emerges from the leaves, made of them until his face is brown as tree bark, and he steps out as tall as a giant. He walks out looking like a man, but they will later see him with the hind end of a centaur or sometimes a satyr. He is crowned with antlers as numerous as branches and in the shadowy depths of his sockets, stars twinkle out while he wears this man face, but later he will have the head of a bull, a stag, even sometimes a ram.
"The Witch seeks to smother my land in a blanket of snow," he tells them, placing one hand against a dead tree. Beneath his palm, the tree cracks and splits and a new tree shot up from the rich corpse, rising up and spreading into a sky. A moment later, The Green Man reaches into the cracks of the tree and pulls out a dryad who falls to her knees and swears fealty. "She thinks that she can choke my land like a farmer throttles a chicken. But she will learn; she will learn that to plunder and encroach on my lands has consequences and I will not suffer a poacher in my woods. And you shall help me in this-yes, even your brother. You, Susan, let me see your stance with your bow. Yes, good-you two, bring your sword and dagger. Tonight, we hunt the Witch. Tonight, we rescue your brother."
