The Hollow King and the Stag

The first crown was not gold but bone,

not forged but softly grown—

a weight of branch and velvet bloom

where no head but his own

_________________________

could bear the prick and promise

of that living, breathing throne.

They say he walked as men do now,

before the pact was known.

_________________________

It started with a starving child

left freezing in the wheat,

her fingers clutching empty stalks,

her breath too weak for heat.

_________________________

The stag knelt down beside her,

his antlers dipped like moons,

and whispered through the winter wind

a bargain wrapped in runes:

_________________________

"Bring me your king of hollow eyes,

your ruler clad in dread,

and I shall teach his hands to grow

more than blood and bread."

_________________________

The girl (who should have perished)

walked straight through castle doors,

her cheeks now flushed with forest light,

her palms scabbed o'er with spores.

_________________________

The king (who should have scorned her)

laid down his rusted sword,

and followed where her small footprints

led beyond the ford.

_________________________

What passed between them in the glade

no chronicle can tell—

but when he returned at twilight,

his brow wore something fell

_________________________

and beautiful and terrible:

twelve points of living shade

that bled sweet sap when he wept,

and grew when he obeyed.

_________________________

Nine years the kingdom flourished,

nine years the wells ran clear,

until the tenth year's harvest moon

when distant horns they'd hear

_________________________

not from the royal huntsmen,

but from the antlered crown

now splitting through his fragile skin

as roots split thirsty ground.

_________________________

They say he walks the orchard still

where first the pact was made,

his fingers trailing vine and moss,

his voice the wind's own trade.

_________________________

And deep within the blackthorn thick,

where no man dares to tread,

a child with mushroom-laden hair

and the first crown on her head

_________________________

sings to something older

than kings or golden lore—

while just beyond the firelight,

a stag kneels at her door.

From the Moss-Gilded Archives of: The Lost Books - "Libri Perditi" - where every throne is just a seed waiting for its season.