They say he comes barefoot, leaving footprints of moss in frost-bitten soil. Not summoned, not born but thawed from beneath the world when the first crocus dares to dream.

His name is unpronounceable by clean mouths, but the crows call him Gorün. To speak it is to spit roots. To hear it is to grow fangs in your sleep.

When Gorün wakes, the trees bleed syrup, and the rivers hum in a minor key. He wears antlers full of nesting robins, a robe of discarded snakeskins, and a necklace of lamb hearts still beating. His breath smells of mushrooms and sour milk.

Villages forget they ever feared him until he returns, always with a sly grin, always holding something behind his back. One year, it was a newborn calf with wings. Another, a copper key that opened every door except the one it came from.

Children are drawn to him instinctively, dancing in barefoot spirals around the scarecrow effigies the elders hang to distract his gaze. Their parents watch, jaws clenched, hoping no one steps into the wrong shadow. You see, Gorün doesn’t demand worship, he just collects. A toe here, a name there. A dream, left on a pillow and never retrieved.

It is said that when he appears, time shifts. Go to bed during his procession and you might wake in a body two decades younger, or older, or with a beak. One farmer once sowed wheat during his passing and reaped fields of golden wolves, howling for forgotten moons.

Still, the land needs him.

He stirs the worms and speaks to the buried seeds. He unseals the earth with a kiss and lets the dead things speak. Spring is not gentle. It is resurrection with claws.

And so, every year, when the wind smells of wet bark and melted sky, the people leave a bowl of honey and a bone flute at the edge of the woods. Not to please Gorün, but to remind him they still remember the price of forgetting.

And always, the honey is gone by morning. But the flute sometimes plays itself.

The End