433 CE - The Fall of Damhain (Pronounced "Dah-win")
For a land so steeped in her traditions, her cultures, and her ways, it was about to come to an end, for the greed of one faith would not stop at neighboring shorelines. No, they sought domination over all that was unlike them.
And Eire? She was no different. It started small with modest envoys of missionaries from the Roman Catholic Church seeking to undo the wickedness of the heathen and Pagan lifestyles. Others came as prisoners of raids, while some lords converted while traveling to Gaul and the like. They sought to smother the flames of a people steeped in centuries of oral stories and customs.
Shame on Saint Patrick for claiming his conversion was without conflict. A warrior culture simply does not lay down arms and convert to a new belief system.
Aodhán, Chieftain of Clan Damhain, was no exception to this rule. Though a druid, he also fought with the tactfulness of a great wolf. His daughter, Caitrin, also took up arms and, in the process of fighting back Irish lords who had already forsaken all they knew to be true to them, had fallen. Her defeat didn’t come right away, but the fever set in from the infection. Despite all of his knowledge of herbs and medicines, he could not save his sweet child.
This was a hill he was bound to die on, but first things first. The Christians would take one look at his granddaughter and demand that she kneel or die for the demon blood they would accuse her of carrying. She was all he had left of his sweet Caitrin.
He did his damnest to hide Maeve. He did all he could to shield her from the fights to come, but now it was pushing into their home. It threatened to uproot their entire way of life. And with her having the blood of a Fae in her veins, they would either convert her or kill her trying. Either way, she would be a trophy to many. The sweet child, with eyes that held the freedom of the skies above in her right and the grounding of the forest in her left. She had to leave.
Aside from the varying colors of her eyes, she was a fair-skinned reflection of her mother, but…well…the Fae blood made her all the more alluring as some had commented in their village. But tradition demanded that she remain unwed until she chose a path. A Damhain or a Fae.
He found her at the shoreline, her eyes fixed on the ocean that rolled in from the East. He waited a moment before he could speak with his dark eyes upon the only legacy his bloodline had left.
It was as if she had known. As if she had been aware of what was coming in the moments when she sobbed as her mother drew her final breath. He could see her rage through her silence as her shoulders shuddered with each breath she drew into her lungs. There was a storm stirring within his granddaughter- a great hurricane, and in that moment, he realized that it wasn’t just the prestige she inherited from the Sidhe who sired her. It was a power in her that his people did not know. And dangerous was she who could not control such, and he was not capable of training her, especially with the forces bearing down on them.
“He’ll be here at twilight.” Those words did not come in any tongue but the one he was born to. The one that rolled off the tongue and did not remotely sound like anything the rest of the world had known, save for their Scottish cousins to the East. “You must be ready.”
“No.” It was the only word she spoke, and as it came from her lips, he could feel the weight of them-even with her back to him- dressed in the same off white she’d always worn. She who rules. His granddaughter was bound and determined to rule her destiny. He could hear the breath she exhaled- an attempt to calm her nerves. “We did nothing to earn this. We exist and they-”
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