local dispensary for bleeding out on a beach vibes
@pilgrimageaesthetic
pilgrimage fanblog ・celtic/medieval/pagan/catholic aesthetic・sometimes fic and other fan works too・founder, president, and sole member of the rua fan club
replying to this here instead of my main--thanks for the ask!! @hollow-dweller
i ended up infodumping, oops, so i’ll put everything under the cut.
aubade (the symphony) is my most recent Pilgrimage WIP, having worked on it up until earlier this month. It’s extremely indulgent and leans shamelessly into melodrama territory, but I’m writing it for me, okay? Themes of loss, grief, recovery, the thin horizon line between life and death, and love, love, love. All kinds of love. Every kind of love. Also my cheesy adoration for writing a bunch of seemingly-unrelated characters and tying them all together in the end.
The basic premise is that Diarmuid is a young king, whose parents passed when he was even younger. He meets a man who fascinates him, and to bring him closer he requests this man become his combat instructor. Strangers to lovers, David and Diarmuid have three years of blissful marriage. Then war comes to the kingdom, and the unthinkable happens--for Diarmuid, it’s happening again.
Sick and tired of the universe’s shit, Diarmuid sets out for a remote island that is said to have the power to give him what he seeks, accompanied only by a practitioner of forbidden magic--Geraldus--the prince of the enemy kingdom--Raymond--and a shadowy, faceless angel of death who is always standing by his side--the Mute.
//
Maybe it’s borrowed time, Diarmuid says to Ciaran at daybreak.
They’re sitting on the hillside--the same one Diarmuid had sat with his parents, with Rua and Cathal, with Máire, with David, to watch the sun rise—again and again and again.
Maybe it’s not, Ciaran replies.
A golden apple falls from the branches overhead, lands in the soft grass between them with a gentle thud, and Ciaran reaches for it. Diarmuid takes his hand instead; it’s softer these days, and thinner, with dark, arching veins that remind him of the first time he saw the horizon line of The Mountainland, before light had crested its peaks.
Maybe all of it is, Diarmuid relents.
Ciaran clasps his hand around Diarmuid’s. His grip is strong.
Maybe there’s no such thing.
The sun rises.
//
who ever said angels had to be white? is a short(-ish) story I wrote in a high school creative writing class. An elderly woman named Millicent lives alone in an old farmhouse, until a hot demon boy with the personality of a feral angsty teengager, only ever referred to as “the creature,” falls out of a lightning bolt and crash-lands in her front yard. Slice of life hijinks ensue, and as they bond, Millicent’s loneliness is relieved and the creature learns to behave... or something along those lines. Also, after re-reading the story, they definitely fall in love. What kind of love is pretty ambiguous, but the subtext is there.
The story is complete but still in my WIPs folder, because while high school-me’s writing was severely lacking in pretty much every regard, and my approach to Millicent’s various problems is clumsy and naive, I do genuinely like the core of the story. It just needs to be... completely rewritten, with some major changes. And probably given a completely different ending, because I wasn’t even satisfied with it in 2014. Also, the title--god, that title. It’s a quote from the story and I’m embarrassed just thinking about it.
//
There was an apple orchard on the property, past a few hills behind the house. Millicent hadn’t tended to it in over a decade, but it still managed to produce fruit every year. When the trees came into season, the creature began to spend his days among them, and Millicent could watch him from the kitchen window as he ascended to the sky and dove into the branches. She soon learned to leave windows open, as the creature seemed content to perch on the sills like a four-legged bird, a captured apple trapped between his teeth. He didn’t seem to mind hunching his shoulders and twisting his neck to fit into the smaller spaces, and it was always a pleasant surprise to find him balanced under the pane of a window as she went through the house about her business.
“Millicent,” he said one day, still chewing the last bite of an apple and twirling the core by the stem, “come down to the apple trees.”
Millicent looked over at him, where he was perched in the broad window at the end of the upstairs hall. She was replacing the lightbulbs of several sconces that had gone out - she had been putting off the job long enough, and with the days getting shorter, the house needed all the light it could get.
“I’m afraid I’m too old,” she told him, turning back to her work. “It’s too far a walk for me.”
“I’ll carry you,” he said immediately. His toes were curled around the edge of the windowsill; despite the effort Millicent had put into fashioning shirts just for him, he still seemed pensive of anything that covered his back. Today he was wearing a pair of baggy open-backed overalls, and nothing else.
“I’m not a fan of flying,” Millicent said evenly. “I’d prefer to go by foot.”
“But you just said you won’t walk,” the creature protested.
Millicent smiled softly at the sconce. “Then I suppose I’ll have to stay here.”
//
thanks for the ask, friend!! it was an interesting trip down memory lane--one of my oldest pieces of writing and one of my newest.
replying to this here instead of my main--thanks for the ask! @emkayoh
hiding my embarrassing infodumps behind a read more, please do not perceive me thanks <3
Ráth Abhainn is a pre-canon Maelrua fic based on the premise that Maelseachlain and Rua knew each other long before the translation of the relic, and in fact grew up together. The meat of the story lies in flashbacks of their child-to-young adulthood from Rua’s POV, but these are interwoven with moments from the present as Rua and Maelseachlain meet again for the first time in years, only a few months or so before the events of the movie. I mean, at least... that’s the plan, anyway.
Their relationship is definitely romantic (among other things), but where Maelseachlain is unbothered by what’s going on between them and all the potential complications it brings, Rua feels eternally stuck in limbo between his feelings for Mael versus what is expected of him, as well as a constant religious crisis (indigenous faith versus Christianity), and is trapped by frustration and grief over chronic health problems--a youthful but inexplicably deteriorating body.
His ultimate solution is to screw off to a distant monastery and try to figure himself out, and eventually, the flashbacks catch up to the present reunion.
//
Rua sees him in the valley, sitting at the river’s edge.
From the back, and with the distance, he looks the same as the day Rua last saw him some twenty-odd years ago. Broad shoulders, an oaklike frame, a crown completely shaved. For the first time in a long time Rua runs a conscious hand over his own head, traces the outline of the tonsure, tries to imagine it framing features he hardly remembers. He had never been one for seeking his own reflection, even before monkhood—not like Brother Diarmuid, who was always crouching by rain puddles to mess with his curls, asking Brother Ciaran to sketch him every few months to see how he had grown. Rua remembers when the young one would seek out his opinion, for some reason. “What do you think, Brother Rua?”
Though he never complained or pressed too hard, Rua knew Diarmuid had never been satisfied with his short, deflective non-answers.
As he descends the hill into the river valley, Rua wonders how long he’s been waiting. Part of him hopes he hasn’t been sitting alone for too long—then part of him, selfishly, thinks maybe it’s good if he was left to anticipate. He never had been very patient, and though some part of Rua knows that could have changed after all this time—an idea that does not settle well with him, that this man may have become nothing more than a stranger he recognizes—
All Rua had known was his impatience. And if Rua had spent two decades in near-isolation to wrestle his own, then this man could bear a short afternoon with his.
//
white trash, usa
I’m a sucker for road trip fics, so this was me indulging that. Diarmuid lives with Unnamed Shitty Father in a trailer park somewhere in the southern US. He mostly keeps to himself, but one day his equally-shitty neighbor Raymond brings home a pitbull. His treatment of his new pet is subpar on the best days--chained up outside all day in the sweltering heat with not nearly enough to drink and the use of corporal punishment being the worst of it. When Diarmuid catches wind that Raymond intends to use the dog in fights, he acts on impulse: he takes the dog and he runs.
Running won’t get him very far, though. He needs a ride. That’s where David comes in--a random stranger who just so happens to be in his front yard tending to his garden when Diarmuid stops in front of his house, barefoot and breathless and carrying a thirty-pound dog in his arms.
I have no idea where this idea came from or where it’s going after that. Also, it felt more natural in the planning phase that Diarmute’s relationship developed into something more brotherly, rather than romantic, but I was open to that changing as I wrote.
Very short snippet from this one, because I haven’t written nearly as much for it.
(The dog’s name is Roxie btw)
//
Diarmuid was reading on his front porch the afternoon his neighbor brought her home.
First he saw the chain slither down, hit the concrete of the driveway when his neighbor opened the back door of his pickup. Then he heard the low, anxious whine. His neighbor shouted once, twice, to get out of the car, leaning heavily on the doorframe. Then he jerked the chain, and a cola-gray pitbull tumbled from the backseat with a broken yelp.
//
thanks so much for asking! it’s fun going through my old wips. i was so ambitious...
belated, but thanks @ambivalentmarvel for the tag!!
i've been working on this [redacted] au on and off for the last few days. pilgrimage mutuals, this sounds scary out of context but i assure you in the fic it's worse. 🥰
The facade crumbles under Diarmuid's fists, skin splitting like overripe fruit, bruises blooming over his sides and hip, blood pouring from his mouth and gut, dripping onto the floor.
tagging (no pressure♡) @gooddaygalaxy @toastandlaundry @saltwaterpanda @emkayoh @grazygardener @123-its-just-me @hermanborealis and anyone else who wants to do it!
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