#oakcaller

[sir-tara-harkon]

"Has he been seen?" Bananach's voice was quiet, full of a tender care that many found to be uncharacteristic of her. The Bright Lady only shook her head. "Not since..." Bananach nodded slowly. "I'm going to speak with Mother. Will you come with me?" "Of course!"

Dagda did not sleep. He did not eat. He did nothing but sit at the base of Her tree in his grove. He wished many times in those long days that he was not a Fae, that he was falliable and could join her. He could sense her spirit stirring in the tree, but she was not ready to speak, not ready to move on, not ready to heal. Days blurred into each other, an endless dance of sun and moon and darkness. Then, he heard it. "Dagda, love, what are you doing?" "Sadb?" His voice was hoarse and choked. "My poor love...I fell, didn't I?" "You...you did." He could almost feel her arms around him from behind, could feel her warmth and her smile. "I never did listen to you enough." Phantom lips brushed his cheek. "I...Sadb...I...I'm sorry." "For what?" "For Death." That set her back and she went silent for a moment. Then she surged back, just as strong as ever. "Don't you dare. You and I both know what the world would be like without death. You showed me. You showed me so many things." Her tone went from admonishing to tender again. "Dagda, promise me you'll take care of yourself. Promise me you'll keep living?" He was quiet for a long time. "I'll try." "And that's all I can ask."

“Mother.” The Dark Queen of Arcadia bowed low, but she didn’t smile in the presence of her mother this time. The Bright Queen stood beside her, one of Bananach’s hands held tightly in her own. “Greetings, Mother.” “My dear girls. This is about young Dagda…isn’t it?” Sorkha started to speak, but Bananach cut her twin off. “He’s lost and alone, even with his twin. Give him something, Mother, before we lose them both.” Kaila nodded slowly. “What do you propose, daughters?”

He was seen then, once or twice, but never for long. No one pushed him too hard, knowing he was still mourning. Only Herne tried to pull him, one twin needing the other. Then, one day, Dagda stepped out of the grove with a smile on his face and went straight to his brother's pack. "I don't know how she did it, Herne. I don't know how...but..." He shifted the blanket slightly on the bundle swaddled in his arms and Herne's eyes widened in surprise. A sweet baby girl slept there, with curly brown hair and the beginnings of tiny antlers just barely starting to grow. "Brother! That's amazing! That's wonderful!" Dagda smiled with a paternal pride and then for just a moment, his eyes flickered to sadness. "She has her mother's eyes." And then, after a moment. "Sadb has named her Brighid."

[sir-tara-harkon]

The Dagda walked the forests of Eire often enough that noone considered seeing him moving through the brush to be an unusual sight. He paused to examine one of the trees, noting a touch of something off about it. Before he could truly examine it, though, a childish voice spoke from within the upper branches. "It's got a blight. I'm working on it. But if you can help, that'd be be real nice." The small elven girl dropped from the branches to the ground with grace and the skill of long practice and Dagda smiled at her. "Is that so? I could most certainly help you, young one. What is your name?" "Sadb. Sadb Oakcaller."

Sadb stretched, easing the muscles in her back and took another sip from the waterskin that hung on a cord over her shoulders. From what the trees were saying, she was nearly to the grove where they needed her to have a look at an ancient stand of pines and determine if they could be helped. As she stepped into the clearing just before the stand, a smile crossed her lightly tanned face. He had come after all. Standing just ahead of her, looking intently at the trees, was the Lord of Life, her dearest friend and teacher. It only too a few strides for her to reach him, long legs making it easy. He turned as she came up and smiled the scant inches down. "Do you need to rest or are you ready to check them?" "I'm ready." He took her hand in his and smiled. "Then let us see what we can do."

He constantly marveled at the vivacious woman his young student had grown to be, nearly as much as the Dagda marveled at the fact that this beautiful, brilliant, lively woman was happiest with him. He had thought she would find his Place, his Grove, to be dark or depressing. Instead, she had amazed him by picking through it just as she did any other forest. And still, she spoke to the trees. But these trees did more than just speak back about simple things. Here she conversed with elves who were gone, who were resting to heal before they moved on. It was here that they discovered a new talent within her: the power to help him heal the dead.

It was far from the first time that Sadb greeted the dawn under an open sky, but it was the first time she did so in his arms. His skin was delightfully warm against hers and she murmured happily, nuzzling her nose into his collarbone. "Love, is everything alright?" His deep voice was crackily first thing in the morning, unsure with sleep still mostly upon him. "Perfectly wonderful," she whispered, lips brushing his skin gently. "Only one thing could make it more wonderful." "And what is that, sweet Sadb?" She looked up at him, wrapping an arm around his waist. "A repeat of last night."

Sadb was leaning against one of the trees, her eyes closed and a smile on her face. "Talking to someone interesting, sweet Sadb?" Her smiled widened as she opened her eyes to look up at him standing before her. He held out one hand to help her up and she let him, letting him pull her into his arms as well. She nuzzled against his chest, sighing contentedly. "Silly man, you know as well as I do that that tree is just a tree. The spirit moved on moons ago." He chuckled and kissed her forehead. "So she did. So she did."

The damage was near to the top, the result of a particularly cold night of rain that came as ice. She had heavy boots on and a thick woolen jumper over her tunic and pants as she climbed upwards through the branches. She could hear her lover murmuring to the tree on the ground, keeping it calm while she sought out the half-broken branches to separate them the rest of the way so this old one could heal properly. "Sadb?" "Still doing fine, love!" She shouted the reply, needing to to be heard over the wind that was coming up. Looking above her, she smiled with relief. Almost there. She knew better than to look down. Even as experienced a climber as she was could be hit with terror from a height like this. She hoisted herself up onto as thick a branch as she could find and started in on her careful work.

Two hours. She had been up there for two long hours and Dagda was starting to get anxious. They were only another hour from nightfall and he wanted her firmly back on the ground long before the sun was gone. Every crack that sounded high in the branches set his hackles up, and wasn't that an oddly Herne metaphor for him to be using? He chuckled quietly and stretched, hands on the back of his head as he looked up into the branches. "Almost done?" "Almost! I'll be headed down in a minute. There's one last bit I want to get and this old man will be just right as rain." He heard the crack...and then a second. And then the scream.

It takes far less time to fall, even through thick branches, than it does to climb. Terror was all she felt and a scream ripped itself from her throat. "Dagda!"

There was no mistaking the sound he heard, no mistaking the form in the grass. But he tried to convinced himself it wasn't as bad as he thought, that the smears of blue on her were from scratches and bruises. That she would sit up and laugh, or cry and need him to hold her until she was less shaken. She had fallen from trees before, even broken her leg once. Any moment now. But there was no mistaking the feeling echoing through his core, his essence, the seat of his power. He knew Death.